Hey, the economy is hard for everyone, and if anyone knows anything about making career switches, it’s Barbie. Her latest gig is as a dominatrix, or at least it is according to photographer Nancy Farmer, who created these set-ups with the dolls. We always knew Ken had to be into bondage. Click through to see some more hilarious pics after the jump! [Trend de la Creme]

Finally, someone looks beyond the superficial value of manicures. Photographer Molly Sorno focuses her work on nail art, salons, and manicure culture. Her pictures make you realize that your nails say a lot about you—concentrate solely on them, and you start imagining the person neon airbrushed tips belong to. Sorno’s work is now on display at the Brooklyn, NY gallery Nefer/NFR along with other artists’ works that explore the concept of adornment. If you’re in the area, check it out! Otherwise, look to Sorno’s vision as proof that what you wear on the outside resonates culturally. (Just don’t go so far as to call yourself an artist when you’re getting dressed in the morning.) [Time Out NY and Nylonmag.com]

I came across this amazing photo series, “Sunday Drive,” on PDN’s Photo of the Day blog. It was shot by Luke Smalley, a photographer who died unexpectedly earlier this year. The photo story features three young women who are taking a weekend trip to meet their boyfriends who are in prison. It was Smalley’s last project. Check out the full set here. [PDN]

If you think you’re the next Steven Klein or Mert and Marcus, then W magazine is ready to give you a chance. Starting tomorrow, the fashion magazine will accept submissions on their website for their first ever photography contest, “W: The Art Project.” The theme is obsession, so be prepared to fully consume your life with that one fixation you so love in order to submit the perfect picture.

From what we imagine will be a countless number of submissions, a panel of judges will pick only twenty, but the public is going to have the final say of just which photographer’s talent is high fashion magazine worthy. (AKA, beg and plead every person you’ve ever met to vote for you.) The prize for that one lucky winner not only includes a published moment in the glossy, but also a brand new camera and a three-month mentorship from art consultant Blair Voltz Clarke. Go quickly tell all your aspiring photographer friends. [NYMag.com]

Will recreating classic fairy tales and children’s stories in photo shoots ever get old? Probably not. Photographer Elena Kalis took this amazing series of underwater photos in which her 10-year-old daughter plays out scenes from Alice in Wonderland in the clear, blue ocean surrounding the Bahamas, where they live. We’d like to take a trip down this saltwater-filled rabbit hole. [Elena Kalis via NOTCOT]

The models in this Giulio Sciorio shoot are fully clothed (at least from the neck up), but the title of the spread, “Faces of Ecstasy,” makes an otherwise pretty PG editorial far more risqué. What do you think of these open-mouthed, closed-eyed strangers? Sexy or creepy? [via Trendhunter]

I posed nude once. The photographer was a professional and a friend, and the scene was a sound stage. The photos were black and white, and you couldn’t really see anything, as I covered up my naughty bits. It was pretty fun actually, and kind of freeing. If you’ve been wondering what it would be like to be shot in the nude, but you’ll only drop trou for a top-notch photog, this is your lucky day. Rankin has shot everyone from Britney Spears to Kate Moss to Queen Elizabeth II, and his high-gloss images have become iconic. For Rankin Live, he’ll be shooting aspiring nudes on August 29. If you are “feeling frisky” all you have to do is send him an email entitled: “Shoot Me Nude.” The catch? You have to be in the UK to do it.

No, that’s not the slang term for a hoarder, although it would totally fit. Junk monsters are the strange suits London-based photographer Danny Treacy crafts from items he finds in “lonely places,” like the woods, parking lots, and landfills. Once the junk monster suit is completed to Treacy’s satisfaction, he wears it in his life-size self-portraits for his ongoing series Them. The suits and series are described on his website as “nightmares of the catwalk, prowling around the outskirts of style’s dumb extravagance.” Although these found items morph into one collective piece, each garment has a story to tell on its own—“It seems that something that happened to its former owner emanates from each piece of fabric,” wrote photography blogger Isabelle on Cyana Trend Land.

Some, including myself until I took a second look, may argue that this isn’t art. But I’d advise them to look a little closer. Don’t you want to know the stories behind each piece of fabric? It’s a good thing Treacy doesn’t tell us what he knows because then our imaginations would be stunted. Plus, we can also try to figure out what his message is. I think the above junk monster is trying to warn us against the dangers of global warming. It’s saying no amount of protective clothing will ward off the inevitable body bag.

After the jump, two other junk monster photos.

We heart Rodney Smith. If you don’t recognize the name, don’t worry, you’ll certainly recognize his pictures. One of our faves is this pic shot for New York mag of a couple smooching on top of a sea of taxis beneath a bridge. Now that you’re up to speed, go check out his freshly launched blog because it’s, um, amazing. Plus, he breaks down the stories behind all of his iconic pictures. He’s also taking pre-orders for his new book, The End, which will hit bookstores this fall for the whopping price of $650. (Hey, it will totally go up in value!) And according to his book site, “despite the vehement objections of Mr. S,” they’re offering an early bird special of $600, which includes a gift card and personally signed poster along with the book one month before its release. [Editor: Because that’s so much more reasonable!] After the jump, more classic photos…

Photographer and artist Laurel Nakadate is showcasing a pretty strange set of pictures in her new “Fever Dreams at the Crystal Motel” exhibition. Posing on trucks and in skeezy motel rooms in barely there bikinis and underwear was confusing enough, but then she decided to enlist middle aged men she found on Craigslist to smear their inky fingerprints all over the photos. She’s a Yale educated photographer, so I assume she must have had something, um, brilliant in mind when she launched this project, but I just can’t figure out what. Her work is all about the private moments, usually playing peeping Tom and snapping pics of shirtless middle aged men and topless rollerskating teens. I’m not sure why this series of random exorcism videos and bikini clad pictures comes together in exhibition form, but she definitely has people buzzing. What do you think, sexy or stupid? [Laurel Nakadate]

Mmm…shoes. Parsons graduate Jamie Chung’s work embodies how we sometimes feel upon seeing an unattainable pair of expensive shoes, of wanting something so perfect, that the desire makes you ravenous. Her ring with a piece of gum for a rock, however, elicits the opposite reaction, making us imagine how we’d feel if someone proposed with a lame ring. Chew on that, sweetie. [Jamiechung.com, Trendhunter]

There reaches a turning point, around the age of 16, where you realize princesses aren’t real. It’s usually at this point, and when teenage angst sets in, that you take a look around and see that not all ends “happily ever after,” and that Cinderella is a skinny bitch. In a payback attempt, photographer Dina Goldstein imagined what would happen if princesses lived in the real world. The result is a series of photographs that read like the deleted scenes of Disney movies, showing the iconic female characters in real and unhappy scenarios. “I began to imagine Disney’s perfect Princesses juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around me, such as illness, addiction and self-image issues,” says Goldstein. The result: Snow White staring angrily at the camera as she balances two children on her hips, a Rapunzel getting a dose of chemotherapy, and an obese Little Red Riding Hood. The one dilemma is that the scenes are beautifully shot, and striking to look at—sort of like falling into a fairy tale world all over again. Click to see more, after the jump… [JPG Mag]

Fashion is addictive, and oftentimes insatiable. For those who need to satisfy their hunger, there are these fashion-inspired cupcakes created by photographer Therese Aldgard and food stylist Lisa Edsalv. Working with colors and themes from high-end designers, the team created sweets to suit the brands: Chanel features black frosting and white pearl adornments, Louis Vuitton is chocolate frosting with red roses, and Louboutin, is an appropriate red cake to mirror the soles of the shoes. The Frisky’s favorite is naturally the Agent Provocateur-style, with vanilla frosting adorned with a pink tip to resemble nipples. You may not be able to find these treats for purchase, but looking at them is enough eye candy.  [High Snobiety]

You’ve seen “Cribs,” right? Each week, cameras capture a celeb’s master bedroom, backyard pool, and refrigerator full of perfectly organized rows of Fiji water or Diet Coke cans. Well, think of Mark Menjivar’s collection of photographs, entitled “You are what you eat,” the high-brow version of the peeping-tom show.

Menjivar sees an open fridge as the perfect staging ground for a discussion of consumption and consequence. If the saying holds true—that is, if we really are what we eat—Menjivar thinks refrigerators are windows into our souls—or, at least into our stomachs. Whether it’s a bartender’s fridge full of take-out cartons, a family’s refrigerator a week after deciding to eat locally grown produce (it’s totally gung-ho-leafy-green veggies), a short order cook’s frozen tortillas alongside a frozen snake corpse, or a spare but organized fridge belonging to a blind person who lives alone, the contents adroitly tell the story of each individual life. 

Photographer Phillip Toledano has captured portraits of people who are usually heard and not seen. In his coffee table book “Phone Sex”, the people behind the dirty talk pose for their audience. And it’s stunning! Toledano shot them in their own homes and clothes—it’s these everyday women and yes, MEN, naturally sexy in their natural habitat. From a 60-year-old Ivy League grad to a ladies man who loves his chihuahua, it’s not what you’d expect from people who get others off for hours on end.  Plus they also dish their professional secrets, from the saucy to the scary. It’s a real look at the smooth talkers behind all those jobs! [Trend Hunter]

Salon’s Tracy Clark-Flory has a really interesting piece up this week: “Porn in a Flash.” It’s about “upskirting,” the unsuspecting women who star in it, and how there’s not always a lot the law can do to stop it. What’s upskirting? Basically, it’s an “up the skirt” photo or video, taken by a digital Peeping Tom, who shoots surreptitiously. Cellphones enabled the genre, and websites are dedicated to upskirt shots. For the women, it’s like starring in a soft-core shoot—without their knowledge. In the past, women turned to state “Peeping Tom laws,” but, in a unique twist, because the act takes place in public, women don’t have a “right to a reasonable expectation of privacy,” spawning “a frontier of rogue pornographers from all over the world.” Clark-Flory writes: “It’s such a craze in Japan that cellphone cameras now come with a shutter sound that alerts bystanders that a photo is being taken; in that country, even the iPhone 3G features an extra-loud anti-upskirt alarm.” While Britney helped popularized the upskirt phenomenon when she flashed her, um, Britney for the paps, for other women, upskirting is digital overexposure. [Salon]

The Sartorialist, a.k.a. Scott Schuman, is one of my favorite photographer bloggers, with his candid, beautiful shots of cool fashionistas and slick stylists, who he finds on streets around the world. Now, Fashionista is reporting a rumor that Sart, whose own image appeared in a recent GAP campaign, has scored a book deal, possibly with Harper Collins, for a coffee table book of his iconic images. After the jump, my top ten favorite Sartorialist photos so far in 2008.

Erotic pictures from the 1800s were very different from the ones guys gaze at these days. The women didn’t have fake tans or have silicone boobs; there was not such thing as a women’s razor, and they definitely didn’t wax; and men were often photographed with their socks on (just like Eliot Spitzer!).

I’m sure there are many moments during an engagement when you wonder (never out loud, of course), “Why am I marrying him?” Photographer Kate Hutchinson explores this thought by taking pictures of her fiancé, who seems like a really good sport. Kate, if you come to the conclusion that marrying him is not a good idea, I think he’s pretty cute. [Kate Hutchinson Photography (click on Why am I marrying him?) via A Cup of Jo]

San Francisco film crew staffer, Brian Benson, was sick of being teased by co-workers that he was playing gay to get chicks—which, btw, one of the funniest pop songs by The Blood Hound Gang. So to get back at the men who were jealous of all the female attention he was getting, Benson decided to rub-a-dub-dub it in their faces by showering with his girlfriends and then taking Polaroids to prove it. By the end of the year, he had reached his goal of 100! Best of all, you can see these cheeky photos that are cleverly nudity free-ish on his website, but we’re waiting for the coffee table version! [Ploomy]