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A lot of New Orleans-based photographer Virginia Hanusik’s work over the last decade has focused on the architecture, infrastructure and landscapes of South Louisiana.

Striking photos of single-story homes atop tall stilts, powerlines stretching across Lake Pontchartrain or a Plaquemines fruit stand juxtaposed with a distant refinery all illustrate the ways South Louisianans have learned to live in a region defined by its relationship with water, the oil and gas industry and, increasingly, the climate crisis.

“Part of focusing so much on architecture and the infrastructure of this place is because those are the things I look at to really symbolize how we’ve engineered our way into this crisis and into living in this landscape,” Hanusik says.

Her new book “Into the Quiet and the Light: Water, Life and Land Loss in South Louisiana” collects many of her photos taken since 2014. The photos are paired with essays, pieces of poetry, a history or even a recipe from a host of collaborators, including delta guide Richie Blink, artist and activist Imani Jacqueline Brown, The Water Collaborative Executive Director Jessica Dandridge, historian Andy Horowitz and musician Louis Michot.

“There are so many people who are committed to making Louisiana not just exist but be a place where more communities can thrive and exist more in harmony with our natural environment,” Hanusik says. “I’m grateful so many folks were able to write these pieces because I think it demonstrates there are many people who are doing good work, ranging from advocacy and policy work to cultural preservation.”

Hanusik’s goal was to de-center herself and allow people who have impacted her career and work to “frame the book in a way that really opens it up to interpretation,” she says.

“It could be hopeful. It could be really sad. It can be a mix of those things,” Hanusik says, “and that’s intentional because that’s how I feel … not just [as] a resident of Louisiana but as someone who lives in the compounding environmental crises we’re dealing with.”

Garden District Books will host a release event at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 11, for “Into the Quiet and the Light,” which is published by Columbia Books on Architecture and the City.

Hanusik will moderate a panel discussion with Dandridge, chef Nini Nguyen, former United Houma Nation vice-principal chief Mike “T. Mayheart” Dardar and author Nathaniel Rich. There also will be a release party on June 20 at Courtyard Brewery.

Hanusik moved to New Orleans in 2014 after college. With a background in architecture and a fan of photographers like William Eggleston and Bernd and Hilla Becher, her work naturally gravitated to the area’s human-built environment and landscapes.

“You ask questions around architecture itself and you get to … thinking about the social and economic aspects that influenced the structural components,” Hanusik explains of her fascination with these areas.

In South Louisiana, water has uniquely informed the ways people build and live. It affects how we eat, we work, where and how we build our houses and our music. It even has a say in when we need to run for safety.

Likewise, the fossil fuel industry and the climate crisis have had a similar hand in shaping not only the natural environment but how residents interact with it.

Hanusik opens “Into the Quiet and the Light” with a long essay dissecting how artistic representations of Louisiana have informed wider perceptions of the state, including the 1948 Academy Award-nominated “Louisiana Story,” which was backed by the Standard Oil Company.

“It is one of many works reminding us that landscape representation is not neutral,” Hanusik writes. “It is both an inherently subjective and affective medium — connecting with and influencing our relationships, associations and attitudes toward particular places.”

As a result, the book’s written pieces are in conversation with Hanusik’s black and white photos. Landscape architect Kate Orff writes about the lasting, inadvertent impacts of the levee system. Mike “T. Mayheart” Dardar reflects on the Houma way of life — and the threats presented by coastal erosion.

Nini Nguyen includes a recipe for chao tôm and writes about the Vietnamese influence on the region, and Louis Michot closes the book with a bittersweet lyric poem in both Louisiana French and English.

“There are moments where things are a bit more light-hearted, and there are times where it’s almost in a place of despair,” Hanusik says. “But that’s the reality of just living here in this moment in time.”

The June 11 book release event is free to attend but RSVP is requested via gardendistrictbookshop.com. Find more about Hanusik at virginiahanusik.com.

Princess Diana became the subject of many pictures during her lifetime but even she had her favorites. According to a longtime photographer whose snaps of the late royal are being showcased in a new exhibition, Diana loved one of their images of her in particular. Not the memorable “revenge dress,” which they also snapped her in, or her royal wedding dress. Rather, an image that put the spotlight on her “humanitarian side.” 

Diana’s ‘favorite’ picture of herself is from a 1996 trip to Pakistan

Speaking to CNN about his new Diana photo exhibition, royal photographer Anwar Hussein, who began taking the royal’s picture when she was just 19, shared which snapshot she enjoyed most. 

“This was Diana’s favorite,” he said, looking at an image of Diana holding a young cancer patient at a Lahore, Pakistan, hospital in 1996. 

“The boy was blind. He smelled of all these chemicals they had been using,” Hussein recalled. “But she didn’t care and she cuddled him. Later on, he died, and she was very sad about that. It shows her humanitarian side.”

A year after Hussein took the photo, Diana described herself as a “humanitarian figure” in an interview, saying: “The fact is I’m a humanitarian figure. Always have been and always will be.”

Hussein, whose two sons Samir and Zak are now royal photographers, is displaying a curated selection of his Diana photos at Dockside Vaults in London, England, from May 25-Sept. 2, 2024. 

Diana cherished another photo taken by a royal photographer

Jayne Fincher is another longtime royal photographer to have captured a picture Diana loved. It happened in October 1991 when Diana and King Charles III, who wouldn’t announce their separation for another year, made an official visit to Canada. 

Along for the visit were their sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, who were 9 and 7 at the time. While most other royal photographers put their cameras down, Fincher kept hers trained on Diana as she boarded a yacht in Toronto to be reunited with the now-Prince of Wales and now-Duke of Sussex. 

​​”The boys burst out of the doors, and Diana spotted them,” Fincher told Today. “And she ran the length of the yacht going, ‘Ooooh!’ Like, ‘My boys!’” 

“I think she had that in a frame above her dressing room,” she added. “It was lovely to see them together because she was very joyous. They were obviously absolutely the apples of her eyes, and there was a lot of laughter.”

Prince William and Prince Harry have different pictures of Diana on display at home 

Although estranged, Diana’s sons have at least one thing in common these days: they both have photos of their late mother on display at home. 

In a scene from his 2021 The Me You Can’t See AppleTV+ docuseries, Harry shared that he and Meghan Markle, 42, hung a photo of Diana in their now-5-year-old son Prince Archie’s bedroom. 

“I got a photo of her in his nursery, and it was one of the first words that he said—apart from ‘mama,’ ‘papa,’ it was then ‘grandma.’ Grandma Diana,” Harry said (via People). “It’s the sweetest thing. But at the same time, it makes me really sad because she should be here.” 

Later, in the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s 2022 Harry & Meghan Netflix docuseries, cameras revealed which picture of Diana is in Archie’s room. In a scene from the first installment, Meghan held Archie and looked at a black-and-white portrait of Diana wearing a white strapless gown.

“Who’s that?” Meghan asked as Archie touched the image of the late royal taken by Patrick Demarchelier before adding, “Hey, grandma. That’s grandma Diana.” 

As for the Prince of Wales, he has at least one family photo featuring Diana in his Kensington Palace home. (Apartment 1A is the Wales family’s official London, England, property. Their primary residence is Adelaide Cottage in Windsor, England.)

Fans spotted a black-and-white image of William, Harry, and Diana in the Prince and Princess of Wales’s behind-the-scenes 2023 coronation video (via Newsweek). It sat among a collection of other family photos on a piano in one of the reception rooms. 

Believed to be a favorite of the late royal, Diana used the same snapshot for her official 1995 Christmas card and kept a framed copy on her desk. 

Former NASA astronaut Bill Anders, who was the first to photograph the Earth in color from space while serving as the lunar module pilot for NASA’s Apollo 8 mission, died June 7 in a plane crash in the waters off the San Juan Islands near Seattle.

Anders, 90, was alone aboard the Beechcraft T-34 Mentor he was piloting.

Educated at the U.S. Naval Academy and Air Force Institute of Technology, Anders was a nuclear engineer and Air Force fighter pilot when he was selected by NASA for astronaut training in 1964.

He served as the pilot aboard the three-man December 1968 Apollo 8 mission, the first to orbit the Moon with astronauts and a precursor to Apollo 11, which delivered the first human explorers to the surface of the Moon in July 1969.

While orbiting the Moon 10 times over their six-day mission, Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman, command module pilot James Lovell and Anders became the first humans to observe the far side of the Moon and witness the Earth rise from its horizon.

The history-making mission has remained etched in the memory of many thanks to Anders’ photography of the Earth as it rose from behind the Moon, the first to display the Earth in color suspended against the vast darkness of space, an iconic moment since memorialized as “Earthrise.”

“We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth,” Anders remarked at the end of the mission.

“That is what Bill embodied, the notion that we go to space to learn the secrets of the universe, yet in the process learn about something else: ourselves. He embodied the lessons and the purpose of exploration,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson noted in a June 8 statement paying tribute to Anders.

“When America returns astronauts to the Moon under the Artemis campaign, and ultimately ventures onward to Mars, we will carry the memory and legacy of Bill with us,” Nelson said.

Anders served as a backup for NASA’s Gemini 8 prior to his only spaceflight and later as an Apollo 11 backup.

He later served as executive secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, the Atomic Energy Commission and become the first to chair the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Anders retired from the federal government after 26 years of service to serve in executive positions at General Electric, Textron and General Dynamics, according to his NASA biography. He retired in 1994.

Silver Lining Studio, the developer of Behind The Frame, has revealed its next game, The Star Named EOS, will launch next month. More specifically, the narrative-driven photography-based puzzle game will launch on July 23 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC. 

Silver Lining revealed this during today’s Wholesome Direct, during which it also showcased some new gameplay from The Star Named EOS. In the gameplay trailer, we see more of this game’s beautiful hand-drawn world, unique puzzles solved through photography, and more. 

Check it out for yourself in The Star Named EOS release date trailer below: 

You might recognize someone in the trailer, too, as the main character’s mother is voiced by Suzie Yeung, who voices Yuffie in Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. The Japanese dub features the voice of Aoi Yūki, who has voiced characters in Persona 5, Genshin Impact, and more, and the Chinese voice-over is performed by Shandy Ma, who has appeared in more than 20,000 commercials and TV shows. 

“The Star Named EOS is a story-driven puzzle game centered on a love for photography and the pursuit of memory,” a press release reads. “As a child, Dei regularly received letters from his mother when she was traveling, each of which came enclosed with a memorable snapshot of the location she was visiting. But one day, Dei notices something peculiar about one of the photographs she left behind, putting everything he believes to the test. Now, guided by his mother’s voice deep within himself, it’s time for Dei to set out on his own to learn the truth about his family and confront the echoes of the past.” 

Here are some additional screenshots from The Star Named EOS: 

The Star Named EOS hits PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC on July 23. If you’re curious about the game, you can download its Steam demo right now. 

Are you going to check out The Star Named EOS next month? Let us know in the comments below!

This week we speak with French-Moroccan creative director, entrepreneur and publisher Ramdane Touhami about his new magazine ‘Useless Fighters’ on the cultural and political importance of mountains. Plus: photographer François Prost on his new photo book ‘After Party’, which captures images from French discotheques in broad daylight.