What We Loved This Week, Jun. 5 – 11

Published June 10, 2016
Updated June 9, 2016

Vintage New York photos from the 1970s and 1980s, 21 truly bizarre sex facts, a photographer shoots his own eye, what American Muslims actually look like, and the life of 21st century cowboys.

Robert Herman NYC Photos 2

Vintage Everyday

Photographer Captures Life In New York In The 1970s and 1980s

Robert Herman NYC Photos

Vintage Everyday

Photographer Robert Herman has been capturing everyday life on New York City’s streets since the late 1970s. It was then that he began cruising the city with a camera in tow and shooting people in the Lower East Side, Soho, Greenwich Village, and other neighborhoods across Manhattan.

“Through the lens of my camera,” Herman once said, “my vulnerability met theirs at the moment of exposure: a photograph of someone whose heart is open to a stranger’s camera says more about a New Yorker than I ever can in say in words.”

His astounding color photography reveals the charm of this city that was both wondrous and gritty.

View more photos at Vintage Everyday.

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Vintage Everyday

Capturing A Photographer’s Eye

Eyes Slide Full

Nicholas Nixon/The New York Times

There is something powerful about a photographer’s eye. A photographer’s eye finds inspiration and interprets images other people don’t see.

For the past eight months, photographer Nicholas Nixon has been working on a personal project in which he turned his camera around and started photographing his own eyes.

“It’s the thing you focus on when you are photographing people, it’s the thing you look at with people instinctively to see if you trust them or not,” Nixon said. “There is a power there that is present in all of our dealings with each other and yet we don’t often name it.”

Find more images at The New York Times’ Lens Blog

Eye Close Up

Nicholas Nixon/The New York Times

Photographer Eye

Nicholas Nixon/The New York Times

Photographer Highlights Islamic Diversity In New Series

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Claire Beckett/Slate Imam Suhaib Webb, 2012.

Practiced across multiple continents and interpreted in at least as many ways, Islam is strikingly diverse — though you wouldn’t necessarily know it by watching the news. While radicals, and media coverage of them, paint a singular vision of what Islam is and looks like, that vision does not reflect reality.

In order to cast doubt on those oft-proffered (and prejudiced) visions in the United States, photographer Claire Beckett took portraits of converted Muslims in America in a new series called “The Converts.”

As she told Slate, “I intend for my photographs to open up questions for the viewer, to allow someone seeing this work to think through the issues on their own. It could be that the work allows a viewer access to think about the Muslim community in a way that they had not been able to previously. But it’s also possible that the work can give viewers insight into their own thoughts, to the assumptions and prejudices that they carry inside.”

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Claire Beckett/Slate Left: Anne, 2014. Right: Imam Taalib Mahdee, 2013.

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Claire Beckett/Slate Left: April and her daughter, Sarah, 2013. Right: Robby, 2013.

author
All That's Interesting
author
Established in 2010, All That's Interesting brings together a dedicated staff of digital publishing veterans and subject-level experts in history, true crime, and science. From the lesser-known byways of human history to the uncharted corners of the world, we seek out stories that bring our past, present, and future to life. Privately-owned since its founding, All That's Interesting maintains a commitment to unbiased reporting while taking great care in fact-checking and research to ensure that we meet the highest standards of accuracy.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.