Kai Wiedenhöfer photographed the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Over the last seven years, he has documented barriers that continue to divide people around the world. An exhibit of his panoramic images is now on display along a surviving stretch of the Iron Curtain.

It is no coincidence that Doug DuBois’ portraits of Irish teens and Aaron Blum’s portraits of family, friends and the countryside of West Virginia share a quiet, intimate quality. DuBois was Blum’s professor and mentor at Syracuse University during Blum’s years as a graduate student.

Takayuki Maekawa has stalked and shot wild animals, but he’s not a hunter. The photographer has traveled to Asia, India, Africa and North America to capture the human side of his subjects in his images. He waits, sometimes 10 hours a day for as long as a month, for the animal and the picture.

During its 60 years of producing film and cameras for instant photography, Polaroid encouraged artists to experiment. “The Polaroid Years” looks at the history of a medium that, for the most part, no longer exists.

After the Japanese government put a muzzle on Kansuke Yamamoto’s writings, the surreal artist expressed himself through his art. His anti-government ideals peak through his photocompositions, which range from straightforward gelatin prints to combination prints with multiple negatives to multimedia pieces.

Bert Hardy had the one quality that makes a great documentary photographer: He was able to get close to people. It was the ease with which he approached people that turned this beloved British photographer into a star. His photos offer a rare insight into the everyday lives of ordinary people in postwar Britain.

Toshio Shibata takes photographs of structures that normally only a civil engineer would pause to appreciate. Dams and buoys and dirty water are not what anyone would envision while thinking of Japan’s most eye-catching landscapes. But when captured by Shibata, they take on a simple, stark beauty.

Claire Aho worked as a photographer during an age when the advertising and photography world was dominated by men, as depicted in the popular television show, “Man Men.” “In the 1950s I never thought I did pioneering work. I just worked hard,” she says. “The expression ‘pioneer’ was affixed to me later.”