Karen Knorr has built a career out of examining our most opulent places: châteax, English gentlemen’s clubs, grand museums, and her own lavish childhood home. Knorr details the beauty of the finest architecture and ornament, but luxuriating in the grandeur isn’t the point. Knorr fills her rooms with occupants that belie the established respectability and dominance of such seats of power. Tweed-clad men representing the English landed gentry stand idle on their rolling grounds, at a loss amidst so much wilderness. A naked woman lounges on a museum floor, daring tourists to find her naked body obscene among its million painted counterparts. Lately, Knorr has been using animals as the unlikely inhabitants of castles and academies. Using a time-consuming digital process she calls “photoweaving,” Knorr slips giraffes and leopards into the elite’s most carefully molded, supposedly controlled interiors, rendering centuries-old monuments to human hierarchy instantly ephemeral. Though her work was initially grounded in her European roots, she carries her concerns overseas in her latest series, India Song. Knorr spoke with us from outside of Hampi, in southwest India.

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Rick Lew placed third in the general category of our 3rd annual Global Travel Photo Contest. Rick is an editorial and advertising photographer based in New York City. As a contributing Photographer for Condé Nast Traveler, Lew has photographed over thirty feature stories in over twenty five countries, not including the dozens of other countries he has traveled and photographed on his own. Italy (where his wining photograph was taken) is a country he always finds himself returning to, especially for assignments. “I feel most comfortable there, especially Sicily and the Aeolian Islands where the food is simple and delicious, the people extremely welcoming, and the water the most beautiful deep blue I’ve ever seen.”

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Drawing on Brazil’s Portuguese heritage, the holiday “Three Kings Day” is held annually on the sixth of January. Signifying the end of Christmas festivities, it is celebrated to commemorate the day when the three wise men are said to have delivered their gifts to the baby Jesus. The holiday includes a religious feast colorfully known as “the Mass of the Rooster,” as well as customary dance, jester and vocal performances that warmly embrace Brazil’s diverse culture and community. Native to the country, photographer Gui Christ was inspirited by the tradition and took advantage of the opportunity to shoot local individuals enjoying the festivities. Giant Jester masks and nativity scenes, each picture is a personal vignette, a window into Brazil’s rich cultural and religious customs. Gui Christ’s photographs exhibited at the Sugar Factory Amsterdam last fall, however his work is infused with a timeless quality; capturing the moment and the history of Brazil’s unique legacy.

Now that the holidays are a distant memory, the “charm” of winter has long worn off, and you just can’t stomach the idea of a late-season snowstorm, tis the season to head south for a winter vacation. One of my favorite places to get away is the natural wonderland that is Central America, with its Pacific and Caribbean coasts in close proximity, lush rainforests, and crisp, clear mountain highlands. On a recent trip to Costa Rica and Nicaragua, I came across a few choice spots worth mentioning. The region, like nearly everywhere, has obviously undergone dramatic change and growth in recent years and it’s become harder to find places that exude a tasteful charm (instead of a developer’s fantasy). But that’s what I keep an eye out for.