Viewfinder: the most inspiring and surprising images you’ll see this week

DEATH BY HAMBURGER (2001) BY DAVID LACHAPELLE

Richard Avedon called him photography's answer to René Magritte, and certainly David LaChapelle's hyperkitsch images reveal more than a touch of the surreal. Here a monstrous, billowing piece of junkfood threatens to engulf the skinny individual beneath.

Before he became a photographer in the 1950s, shooting fashion for Life, Look, Harper's Bazaar and Elle, Saul Leiter was a painter. The talent never left him, and, as a new exhibition reveals, he continued to paint in private, adding layers of coloured gouache and watercolour to his old black and white photographs. They were found only after Leiter's death in 2009, hidden beneath a heap of items in his New York studio.

Photographer Rania Matar moved to America from Beirut as a child, during Lebanon's civil war. Since 2009 her series L'Enfant-Femme — soon to be published as a book — has captured girls around the world as they negotiate the road to adulthood. Each girl was allowed to select her own pose and outfit. Though regional and economic distinctions are visible, it is the similarities between the girls — by turns awkard, defiant, wary and hopeful — that ultimately shine through.

Florisuga mellivora (2012) by Todd R Forsgren

Before a bird can be weighed, measured and given the tiny aluminium anklet that will allow its movements to be monitored in the wild, it must first be captured in a socalled 'mist net' with a mesh as fine as a spider's web. Photographer Todd R Forsgren, whose father inspired his lifelong love of birds, has spent years making portraits of the moment of their capture. His images are collected in a new book, Ornithological Photographs.

Xenon dancefloor (1979) by Bill Bernstein

Manhattan was the epicentre of Disco during the late Seventies, and photographer Bill Bernstein was there to capture the action, flitting from Studio 54 to Paradise Garage, Hurrah, the Mudd Club and — as pictured here — Xenon. His rarely-seen images go on show at Serena Morton gallery in London this week and are gathered in a new book, Disco.

Merthyr Rising (2015) by Tom Johnson and Charlotte James

Once a thriving Welsh mining town, Merthyr Tydfil became a symbol of decline and hardship following the pit closures of the Eighties. Working with photographer Tom Johnson, Merthyr native Charlotte James set out to revive her home town's image by styling the locals in haute couture. Her subjects included local sisters Evie and Kyra, pictured here with the family chicken.

Agra, Uttar Pradesh (1999) by Steve McCurry

Photographer Steve McCurry has returned to India more than 80 times since his first visit in 1978, devoted to capturing its vivid colours and culture. Here, a man scoops water from the Yamuna, one of the country's most sacred rivers, which flows by the Taj Mahal. The image features in a new book of McCurry's photographs, India.

The Amy Marshall Dance Company (2007) by Lois Greenfield

Greenfield began her career as a photojournalist but was soon drawn to the exuberant graphic beauty of dance. Her images of performers in mid-air capture moments which are usually invisible to the naked eye. A new book, Moving Still, presents 40 years of her work.

British photographer Tim Walker created this image as a tribute to Cecil Beaton, whose 1948 portrait of a group of debutantes in Charles James couture gowns has become a classic of fashion photography. The original dresses were brightly coloured but Walker, ever the visionary, recreated the entire thing in paper. This image is being shown by Michael Hoppen Gallery at the PAD art fair 2015.

HAREM #2 (2009) BY LALLA ESSAYDI

Lalla Essaydi's lifesize photographs, based on 19th century Orientalist paintings, explore the role of women in Arab culture. Each takes weeks to create, using custom-built backdrops, fabrics that have been dyed to match and traditional henna calligraphy. This photograph is up for auction in New York next week, where it is expected to fetch $30,000-50,000.

SISTER ANN VERENA, RIPON COLLEGE (2013) BY JOANNA VESTEY

Sister Ann Verena contemplates the new Bishop Edward King Chapel at Ripon College. This picture appears in Custodians, a new book of photographs by Joanna Vestey, who captured the conservators, guards and managers of Oxford's most prestigious buildings within the spaces for which they care. Custodians by Joanna Vestey, Ashmolean Museum and Wigwam Press

MARAS ROAD, PERU (2014) BY JUAN MANUEL CASTRO PRIETO

In 1990, Juan Manuel Castro Prieto was one of two Spanish photographers chosen to make prints from the original glass plate negatives of Peruvian master photographer Martín Chambi (1891-1973). Twenty years later Castro Prieto returned to Peru to produce images revealing the differences between Chambi's time and his own. The series is showing at this year's Visa pour l'image photography festival in Perpignan, France.

NEW YORK (1955) BY HARRY CALLAHAN

American photographer Harry Callahan comes into focus this week with a new display at Tate Modern. The images chosen from his restless, 60-year career offer a broad window on his landscapes, nature studies, family portraits – and a life-long fascination with the store-fronts of downtown Chicago and New York. From Monday;

PLATON (2012) BY RICHARD MOSSE

In 2012, the photographer Richard Mosse infiltrated armed rebel groups in a war zone in the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Shooting on infrared film designed to detect camouflage during the Second World War, his startling, bubblegum-toned pictures explode the stereotype of war photography. Details: foam.org

AFRICA FASHION (2012) by Per Anders Pettersson 

Per–Anders Pettersson began documenting the emerging middle and upper class of Africa in 2009, prompted by the turbulent transition of South Africa. His book, Rainbow Transit, was published earlier this year. Pictured above are models waiting in the wings during Cape Town fashion week.

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