The Eighties­—the decade that celebrated punk culture as an antidote to Reganism in the US, and Thatcherism in the UK—provides the imagery for three new books being released this spring. And it’s nice that the photographers have clearly embraced their youthful endeavors with a clear eye disdainful of nostalgia.

Charles H. Traub, Chair of the MFA Photography, Video and Related Media department at school of Visual Arts, will be signing copies of Dolce Via (Damiani 2014) next week at Dashwood Books.

Traub, a product of the Chicago photography scene, which was headed by Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan at the Institute of Design at IIT, was among the first wave of university-educated photographers who began teaching and founding college and university photo departments. He virtually built the photo department at Columbia College, Chicago from the ground up, and chaired it until moving to New York in the 1970s. Here, he became the director of Light Gallery and soon took his rightful place at the center of the rising New York photography scene, which was centered on MoMA and Light Gallery.

Traub left Light Gallery in 1980 to freelance and teach at SVA, where he later built the MFA program, which he has chaired since its inception in 1987.  Somewhere in between he began traveling in Italy, with his friend, the eminent Italian photographer Luigi Ghirri as his guide. Ghirri (1943-1992), whose mantra might be “It’s beautiful here, isn’t it,” took his colleague on a road trip from Milan to Marsala. The result is Traub’s distinctly American view of the streets and byways of Italy, shot in brilliant color. Dolce Via captures a candid intimacy in sun-drenched images of strangers who become fondly observed archetypical caricatures, a time capsule of an Italy that has all but vanished.

Save the date: Wednesday, April 2, 6-8 pm, book signing Charles H. Traub | Dolce Via, at Dashwood Books, 33 Bond Street, NY, NY. Information. Preview. Read the Brooklyn Rail interview, from which this article was developed, here. Photo above © Charles H. Traub

Karen Knorr is largely known for over-the-top scenes of heritage site interiors digitally repopulated by wild creatures from the series Fables. These images were first seen here at AIPAD 2012; an exhibition is opening tonight at Danziger Gallery. Last year Knorr revisited her archive to rediscover her early years in photography. In 1976 and ’77, known as the cultural “Year Zero” of the Sex Pistols and The Clash, when punk's nihilistic swagger was the most thrilling thing in England, she and her classmate Olivier Richon inhabited London’s punk scene. Their graphic black-and-white shots of glamorous and scruffy youth with artful hair, clothes and piercings, were shot in a couple of Covent Garden and Charing Cross clubs.

Punks (Gost 2014). Essay and photographs by Karen Knorr and Olivier Richon. Information.

March 27, 6-8 pm: Opening reception, Karen Knorr | Fables and India Song. Danziger Gallery, 527 West 23^rdStreet, NY, NY. Photo above © Karen Korr and © Olivier Richon

British photographer Derek Ridgers has been photographing the avant-garde of London's street fashion and nightclub scene for over thirty years. In the ten year span of 78-87 London Youth (Damiani 2014) he captures the extremities of Punk, New Romantic, the birth of Acid House and everything in-between—a generation whose influence on art, fashion, music and design can still be felt today. People dressing up and going out has always been central to Ridger's work. The pictures serve not only as a fascinating document of UK style and culture but as testament to the spirit of youth, lauding the subjects and their individuality. Information. Photo above © Derek Ridgers