Noted architectural photographer Julius Shulman, someone whose images helped to build the reputations of so many modernist architects, showed little interest in slowing down. Pictured at age 91 in the 2002 photograph above, the photographer may have been gripping a cane, but he was consumed with the picture at hand at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

The Julius Shulman Institute at Woodbury University will honor his legacy this weekend with events celebrating what would have been Shulman's 100th birthday had he not passed away at 98. On Saturday, Frances Anderton will moderate a panel of architects, photographers and critics led by architect Neil Denari and historian Kazys Varnelis. They will discuss the relationship between architecture and photography from 3 to 6 p.m.  Admission is $15, and seating is limited.

An opening reception for the exhibition “Image. Architecture. Now” will follow from 6 to 9 p.m. The show features architectural  photographs by Shulman, Catherine Opie and James Welling, among others. Admission is free. Woodbury University is at 7500 Glenoaks Blvd. in Burbank.

As part of the anniversary celebration, the symposium and exhibition will be followed by 10-10-10, a Celebration of Julius Shulman on Sunday, when the first Julius Shulman Photography Award will be given to Iwan Baan. Actress Diane Keaton, a longtime preservationist, will be honored with the 10th Julius Shulman Communication Award.  The party starts at 6 p.m. at Union Station, 800 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles. A dinner and live auction hosted by Benedikt Taschen will follow.  Tickets begin at $250. Information: (818) 767-0888.

An auction of prints by Luisa Lambri, Baan, Chris Mottalini and others will be held on EBay from Saturday to Oct. 19. All proceeds will go to support the Julius Shulman Institute's programming and educational outreach.

Finally, and fittingly, on Sunday the MAK Architecture Tour of modern residences photographed by Shulman has sold out. In an effort to accommodate more fans, however, the MAK Center for Architecture is offering an abbreviated version of the tour -- including Shulman's house and the Lovell Health House pictured at right -- for $40. Call (323) 651-1510 to reserve a spot.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credits, from top: Los Angeles Times; Iwan Baan; James Welling; Julius Shulman Photography Archive; Research Library at the Getty Research Institute, used with permission

In Rose-Lynn Fisher's new book "Bee," the artist offers a close look at the common honey bee. A very, very close look.

Using a friend's electron microscope, Fisher explores the bee in a variety of magnifications. At 10x or 30x resolution the images mostly look insect-like, but when she magnifies a pollen press 85x or an antenna 1700x crazy things start happening:The images take on an otherworldly feel that has nothing to do with the buzzing pollinator we alternately greet with joy and fear. Instead we might be looking at an underwater landscape, or some kind of alien worm. 

Many of us have encountered electron microscope images before whether in high school science textbooks, or on the Discovery Channel, but very rarely is it an artist who is sitting behind the lens. It's the beauty of the images in Fisher's book, and not just the amazing reality that they show us, that makes Bee special.

"Bee" will be available in stores April 28th. On April 27th the artist will have a book signing at Space 15 Twenty (1520 N. Cahuenga Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90028) as part of MOPLA (Month of Photography Los Angeles).

In the meantime, we've got more images from Bee after the jump.

The new Los Angeles photography gallery Art & Artifact celebrates its grand opening Thursday evening with a show devoted to Frank Worth's classic movie star black-and-whites. Worth, the original photographer of the late 1950s L.A. Dodgers, was better known for his rarely seen candid photos of actors, such as this exuberant shot of Sammy Davis Jr., above, jumping for joy but barely impressing Marilyn Monroe. 

 According to Norman Solomon, owner of Art & Artifact, these historic photographs have previously been mostly sold privately through dealers and collectors. This show, which runs through May, marks the first time the public will be able to see and purchase prints by Worth, left, with his rumored love, Monroe, in a shot snapped by Davis. 

In the days of studio-managed publicity and before the rise of paparazzi, Worth gained unusually close access to the film stars of the day and did not release his photographs for publication. 

The three dozen plus photos on display demonstrate how well Worth captured his Hollywood buddies -- Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Rita Hayworth, Jayne Mansfield and James Dean -- showing off cars, playing roulette or just hanging out in restaurants, on movie sets and at home. 

The gallery is selling these portraits, printed from the original negatives on silver gelatin paper, in limited editions. Sizes range from 11 by 14 inches, and some are as large as 4-by-5 feet murals; prices start at $1,400. For those with less cash, printed lithographs of select images can be ordered for $85 and up.

During the opening night reception, two Worth photographs and a 1946 Monroe nude by Earl Moran will be offered in a silent auction. The 20-by-24 inch photo of smokin' hot Robert Wagner and his adoring wife, Natalie Wood, right, is autographed by Wagner. Starting bid: $4,000.

The event begins at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Art & Artifact, 410 N. La Cienaga Blvd. Guests will receive a complimentary lithograph of one of Worth's six most iconic images. RSVPs required at (310) 652-6131 or linda@art-artifact.com.

-- David A. Keeps

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Photos: Frank Worth Collection

  

Susanna Salk, author of the new book "Room for Children," is a former special projects editor at House & Garden and author of "A Privileged Life: Celebrating WASP Culture." So it should come as no surprise that her sensibility veers refreshingly away from all the cutesy, bright, modernist stuff permeating child decor and instead leans firmly toward good old-fashioned design opulence. The book suggests that just because a room is designed for a kid, that's no reason the design can't be all grown up.

There is nothing DIY about "Room for Children," and no sense of trying to do more with less. Two-dozen-plus rooms in the book differ in style, but few could be described as "cute."

"Over the past five to 10 years, children's design has been moving away from either it has to be blue or Babar or choo-choo trains for a boy, and pink and Raggedy Ann for girls," Salk said. "People started realizing they could put an antique chandelier over a crib and it would look fabulous."

Many of the rooms are in houses that have appeared in shelter magazines, but because editors often skip the children's rooms, few in the book have been seen before. After the jump I've included pictures of a few of my favorites.

Apropos of nothing -- OK, of maybe of spring -- we give you Acacia rigens, photographed for a 2008 spring garden package. You can read the accompanying story on a Cheviot Hills home planted with low-water Australian plants, or you can simply admire Times photographer Robert Gauthier's work pictured here. Click on the image to get a high-resolution version for your desktop or iPhone.

-- Craig Nakano

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Don't be deceived by the charming watercolor illustrations or the childlike handwritten questionnaires sprinkled throughout Todd Selby's new book, “The Selby Is in Your Place.“ When it comes to photographing interiors, Selby has standards. He's not specifically interested in expensive decor or clean architectural lines (although you'll find both in his book). He's looking for people who outfit their homes with a point of view. When Selby is in your place, your record collection is noted, the books on your shelves are documented, and the artful way you arrange your flea-market treasures is celebrated.

“It's very specific what I'm looking for, and it's nothing formulaic,” the photographer said. “It's really about style.”

Keeping reading for the rest of the story and more photos from "The Selby Is in Your Place" ...

In the title of his forthcoming monograph, artist Roy McMakin poses a question: “When Is a Chair Not a Chair?” Over a 25-plus-year career (including a stint operating Domestic Furniture on Beverly Boulevard from 1987 to 1994), McMakin has proved that furniture can be more than furniture. It can be art.

L.A. at Home writer David A. Keeps caught up with him in the days leading up to the Tuesday release of the book. McMakin, true to his title, managed to raise as many questions as he has answered.

People who see your work, which is often furniture in a gallery setting, probably wonder what makes it art. How would you describe what you do?
I am essentially an artist who has crossed over into the applied arts in a serious way, from the position of being an artist. When you call something functional a piece of art, it changes the perception and meaning of that object. I said I want to do a chair and I am an artist. Maybe it is just a chair, but it is still a product of an artist, so is it a sculpture or is it a chair? It’s kind of a riddle. There really isn’t an answer. The point is to ask the question.

How did this all begin?
The first furniture I did was pieces that I needed for installations and performance art pieces. I couldn’t find what I wanted, so I thought, why don’t I make it?

Were you a handy kid?
I was interested in making things, a building-a-magazine-table kind of kid. It was pretty early on when I figured out that making it was not as interesting as thinking about it.

Doesn’t that make you a furniture designer?
There is, at times, a component of design in that endeavor. But designers tend see things as problems to get solved, and I am clearly not that interested in problem-solving. The whole thrust isn’t how to make a better chair. When I had the store, I was on the precipice of being a furniture designer and I worked hard to be a person who is about a series of ideas, and that matters more to me. It’s partly about the intention to make the chair like a sculptor has an intention to make a sculpture. What people may like and see in my work is that it isn’t just a chair. It is something I am obsessing over.

Why obsess over a chair?
I find a chair a ponderous object. All I am doing is trying to show my fascination and curiosity about a chair. I got focused on the most minimal way you can put a chair together and still make it feel charming. I learned that chairs could be charming from years of going to flea markets. I was never looking for the pedigreed object. I was always looking for the anonymous piece, the one that rose above all the other objects — the thing that had heart and soul because someone had tried to make it a beloved object.

Keep reading for more questions, answers and photos from McMakin's new book ...

Like John James Audubon's famous double-elephant folio "Birds of America," the original edition of "Botanica Magnifica: Portraits of the World's Most Extraordinary Flowers and Plants" featured large-scale images of rare and exotic plants and flowers. It consisted of five hand-bound volumes and was limited to just 10 copies. Those 10 sets cost between $500,000 and $800,000 to produce.

The collection of Jonathan Singer's remarkable flower photography is now available in a slip-cased baby-elephant version. More than a coffee table book, "Botanica Magnifica" is an homage to Audubon, a celebration of biodiversity and an eloquent plea for conservation.

Singer, a podiatrist in New Jersey, began his remarkable catalog years ago. He shot the photos with a Hasselblad in very low light to capture every subtlety. As he told CBS "Sunday Morning" last year, "I'm trying to show you a glimpse into creation."

Learn more about the book and botany when Singer and his writer/collaborators W. John Kress (curator of botany at the Smithsonian Institution and author of "The Weeping Goldsmith: Discoveries in the Secret Land of Myanmar") and Marc Hachadourian (curator of Glasshouse Collections at the New York Botanical Garden) come to the Huntington Library for a lecture and book signing.

The event will be March 20 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free, and no reservations are required. "Botanica Magnifica" will be available in the Huntington's bookstore for $135. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens is located at 1151 Oxford Road in San Marino. For further information, call (626) 405-2100.

-- Lisa Boone

Photos from left: Costus lateriflorus (closely related to the ginger family); Cynara scolymus (globe artichoke); Curcuma longa (turmeric spice); Musa laterita, (wild banana). Credit: Jonathan Singer

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The Big Lots store where Philippe Starck took me Christmas shopping in December 2008 has undergone its own stark transformation. After closing, the Hollywood store spent months behind plywood -- but through Sunday, it will be reopened as the Manifest Equality Gallery. The exhibit includes politically themed artworks by more than 150 artists -- including Los Angeles residents Shepard Fairey (of Obama "Hope" poster fame) and L.A. Times Home subject Aaron Rose -- addressing topics such as same-sex marriage, racial tolerance and personal liberty. 

The show was designed by the Los Angeles firm Commune, which erected housing crisis-inspired shacks, above, inside the fluorescent-lit space. Using donated supplies and salvaged lumber from ReUse People of America in Pacoima, the exhibition space cost about 40 cents a square foot, says Commune co-founder and co-owner Roman Alonso. 

The original artwork on display ranges in price from $40 to $40,000, with proceeds benefiting Courage Campaign. An on-site gift shop offers T-shirts, felt critters, $26 ceramic cups by Katsuo Design and $20 posters by Sister Corita, the noted printmaker and art teacher.

Design fans won't want to miss the work of Mike Murphy, who transformed two household items into stop-you-in-your-tracks installations. His "Flawed," below left, re-creates a shattered mirror as it might be caught in a single frame of a 3-D film, exploding outward at the viewer. In "It's Complicated," below right, Murphy conceals a sound system in the base of a heart-shaped table with a mirrored top covered in a shallow pool of water. A spotlight trained on the mirror casts a reflection on a nearby wall that gently pulsates as the sound vibrations ripple the water. After watching it visualize music by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, all I can say is if I had $18,000, this would be the first thing visitors would see when they stepped in my front door. 

Manifest Equality Gallery, 1341 Vine St., Hollywood. Open Wednesday and Thursday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m to 6 p.m. The artworks are also posted online.

-- David A. Keeps

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Photos: David A. Keeps

Frances Anderton will moderate a panel discussion Thursday at the Getty Center examining how photographers and illustrators capture architecture in two-dimensional media. The talk is conjunction with "Building the Medieval World: Architecture in Illuminated Manuscripts", "A Record of Emotion: The Photographs of Frederick H. Evans" and "Urban Panoramas: Opie, Liao, Kim", all currently on view.

Joining Anderton, host of KCRW's "DnA: Design & Architecture," will be Mario Violich, an architect and landscape architect from the Santa Monica firm Moore Ruble Yudell, who creates watercolors when designing an environment; Stephen Murray, professor of art history at Columbia University, who uses 3-D simulations to study Gothic cathedrals; and Peter Hales, professor of art history at the University of Illinois in Chicago and author of "Silver Cities: Photographing American Urbanization, 1839-1939."

7 p.m. Thursday at the Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles. Admission and parking are free. (310) 440-7300. To reserve your free seat, click here.

-- Lisa Boone

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Image: "The Construction of the Tower of Babel (detail)," artist unknown German, about 1400–1410, tempera colors on parchment. Credit: Getty Center

The Hipstamatic application puts a filter on iPhone photos to make them look as though they were taken with an unreliable plastic camera from the 1960s, rather than this complex mobile smart phone. The interface, pictured above, is designed to look like one of those cheap cameras, which adds to the fun.

The Hipstamatic effect gives an instant haze of memory to the photos, as though you are seeing whatever is before you through the filter of a dream. The functionality however, is completely 2010: You can instantly upload photos to Facebook or Flickr. The two photos below are from my first shoot at the Descanso Gardens on Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday, I braved the Valentine's Day crowds at the Huntington Gardens, to try out the app in the brighter sun. The pictures are brighter and more crisp, but still completely retro. I love how it connects me to fellow garden photographers from decades past. Plants, after all, look timeless.

The hipstamatic app is $1.99 at the iTunes App Store. Once you have the app, you can also purchase additional "film," "flashes" and "lenses" (technically each a different digital filter) for 99 cents each.

-- Deborah Netburn

Photos: (top) Hipstamatic iPhone interface. Credit: Hipstamatic

All other photos taken by Deborah Netburn.

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Matt Logue's self-published photography book "Empty L.A." leaves an Angeleno light-headed. Others might think post-apocalypse, but for residents of this traffic-choked city, his pictures of the freeways and city streets sans cars can evoke a blissful solitude -- one perhaps unequaled since Henry David Thoreau gazed out on Walden Pond.

One wants to believe that somehow Logue magically caught the city during that elusive car-less moment. But such moments don't exist, Logue says. And so, as expected, these pictures are digitally crafted.

More images and how he created them after the jump.