Kerry Mansfield was a healthy 31-year-old when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She documents her treatment in self-portraits, from before treatment through chemotherapy, mastectomy surgery and post-reconstructive surgery.

In New York City exist places where nature has not been rearranged by man, places where the freshest air is under a shady maple. Not ostensibly visible, but these untouched oases exist – giving Earth its air, in all five boroughs, sought out and photographed by Mitch Epstein in his new book “New York Arbor.”

Not dissimilar to young girls playing dress up in their mothers’ clothes, Kyoko Hamada's self-portrait project evolved from a desire to dress the part of her older self, decades into the future. Unafraid to trade in her high heels for some oversized grandma gowns, the 40-year-old photographer started the series in May 2011.

Even during treatments for lymphoma, when he was too weak to leave the house, photographer Jeff Jacobson simply discovered a new world inside with his camera. But as his treatments subsided, Jacobson faced a new challenge: In 2009, Kodak announced that it was discontinuing production of his favorite film, Kodachrome.

“What happens to lovers while they are sleeping?” photographer Paul Schneggenburger asked as he began his project “The sleep of the beloved.” Using the second room of his two-bedroom Vienna apartment as a studio, he exposed the film of his 4×5 camera for six hours.

When Wendy Sacks is taking a portrait of a child for her series “Immersed in Living Water,” the water is her paint. As a child she painted with her mother, who was an artist, and when she’s working today, she can feel the palette knife in her hands.

Photographer Anne Berry created fine-art photographs of primates behind glass, capturing the nostalgia of the animals living in captivity and illustrating human’s purposeful separation from the natural world. “I want people to feel some melancholy and empathy” when looking at the images, she said.

For his project exploring the small mountain towns and mining communities in the American West, Bryan Schutmaat tried to emanate the beauty and sorrow of Richard Hugo’s poetry. The poet’s work focusing on the Northwest during the Depression often directed Schutmaat to certain towns.