www.alixsmith.com and www.statesofunion.com and the project’s blog.

“States of Union is a series of color portrait photographs of gay and lesbian couples and families. The photographs that make up States of Union are loosely based on classical paintings. By drawing upon classical images, the tropes used to promote heterosexual family units can be re-appropriated and reinvented to serve a more expanded view of family. In so doing, the viewer may recognize something familiar about the image and may feel a kinship with these families who might otherwise look and feel unrecognizable. Thus, the aim of this project is twofold. First, to present images that defy popular awareness by showing gay and lesbian couples and families in familiar and “normative” settings. Second, by presenting a collection of images that call into question preconceived notions of gay and lesbian families, the project both challenges those who continue to malign the notion of gay and lesbian families, and creates positive role models for the gay and lesbian community.”

www.richardbarnes.net and his recent book Animal Logic with “murmurs” on covers.

“(…) A consortium of ornithologists, physicists and biologists in Italy and other European countries has begun studying the birds with the aim of learning not only about the relationship of individual birds to the surrounding flock but about human behavior as well. The project, named StarFLAG, entertains hopes of using the birds to illuminate herding responses in human beings with a particular eye on stock-market panics.
(…)
More and more, as surrounding habitat is flattened, we may find fragments of the wild world coming home, literally, to roost. The abundance of starlings in Rome is partly the result of climate change â� they used to go farther south before Roman winters warmed up. Bird-watching thrives on the recognition that the urban and the wild must be understood together. We are, after all, urban and wild ourselves, and still figuring out how to make the multiple aspects of our nature mesh without disaster. (…)”

www.braddececco.com and some words about the series on featureshoot.com.