Exhibit This: The Summer’s Must-See Photo Shows and Releases

A poster from the #LoveTravels ad campaign for Marriott International. Photo © Braden Summers

Marriott’s New #LoveTravels Campaign
Coinciding with the Capital Pride Celebration in Washington, D.C., is a new multicultural traveling ad campaign photographed by Braden Summers for Marriott International called #LoveTravels. The series features family portraits of well-known gay rights advocates—such as pro basketball player Jason Collins and model Geena Rocero—as well as everyday LGBT couples and people.

Braden Summers (right) poses with pro basketball player Jason Collins in a behind-the-scenes shot. Photo © Larry French

Summers’ warm and inviting portraits were a natural fit with the hotel’s message of acceptance. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am to be a part of it,” Summers says, “for someone to say, ‘I see your vision, I see you and what you’re capable of, and I want you to extend that by partnering with us.’”

Large portraits from the campaign were displayed as building wraps at five hotels in D.C. in June, and they’ll continue to be seen in cities around the U.S. during the summer.

Photo © Ari Seth Cohen/powerHouse Books

Ari Seth Cohen’s Advanced Style Hits the Big Screen
Created as an homage to the men and women of a certain age who never skimp on style, confidence and beauty, street photographer Ari Seth Cohen’s ongoing “Advanced Style” project has been turned into a documentary directed by Lina Plioplyte. Released this past May after three years of filming, the film follows the daily lives of seven New York fashionistas between ages 62 and 95.

Inspired by his own grandmother’s notable fashion sense, Cohen started “Advanced Style” first as a blog, a site he updates continuously with new subjects he comes across during his walks around New York City. The blog became a mainstay for documenting the fabulous outfits of the over-60-somethings and eventually inspired the “best of” Advanced Style book (powerHouse Books, 2012), which was packed with compelling portraits and words of wisdom straight from the stylish seniors.

After a successful campaign on Kickstarter this Spring, the full-feature Advanced Style film opened at The Hot Docs Film Festival in Canada, New Jersey’s Montclair Film Festival and the Curzon Mayfair in London.

Book price: $35

Diana Miller (left) and Jessie Watkins pose with Miller’s first Little Blessings portrait of Jessie’s sister, Elizabeth Watkins. Photo © Steven Chea

Diana Miller’s Little Blessings
Working as a neonatal nurse at the UC Davis Medical Center back in the mid-1990s, Diana Miller’s full-time focus changed when she offered to take a portrait of one of her patients, a baby named Elizabeth Watkins who was born prematurely at 27 weeks. The black-and-white portrait of Elizabeth being held in her father’s hands became a keepsake for the Watkins family, especially after the baby passed away a few months later.

Since then Miller—who has been photographing babies, families and weddings since 1993—left nursing and started the non-profit photography group Little Blessings in 2004. Established in memory of baby Elizabeth, Little Blessings offers families free portraits of chronic and terminally ill children. Miller works with volunteer photographer and photo assistant Jessie Watkins, who met Miller after attending a photo seminar of hers. The coincidence of this encounter was profound: Jessie realized Miller was the photographer who took the only photos she has of her little sister, baby Elizabeth.

Coordinating with local hospitals in the Sacramento area, Miller teams up with volunteer photographers and Lynn Greene of the San Francisco Bay area’s Moment by Moment, another photography non-profit of the same nature.

“Martha Graham, 1948.” Photo © Estate of Yousuf Karsh/Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institute

Yousuf Karsh’s Powerful Portfolio
Famously expressing that “the heart and mind are the true lens of the camera,” notable international portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh certainly followed the wisdom in his words. His elegantly lit black-and-white portraits of some of the most influential people of the last century are evidence enough, including a stoic Ernest Hemingway, a nearly growling Winston Churchill, a tired-looking Albert Einstein and a pensive Edward R. Murrow characteristically holding a cigarette, among many, many others.

Estrellita Karsh, Yousuf’s wife, donated 100 such portraits to the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, many of which comprise the Gallery’s current exhibit “Yousuf Karsh: American Portraits.”

“[Karsh] not only had the uncanny ability to amplify a person’s character, but also offered everyday people the opportunity to glimpse into the private lives of the men and women who shaped the 20th century in a way that feels both personal and real,” says gallery director Kim Sajet in a statement. “I am thrilled to have his important work play an integral part in building the nation’s collectionof portraits.”

The exhibit is on display through November 2, 2014.