All photos © Sarina Finkelstein.  Moraine, OH, 2008.  (Across the street from the newly-closed General Motors plant.)

Since 2004, New York–based photographer Sarina Finkelstein has been working on Christmas Spirit, a series of photographs of the winter season surrounding Christmas which captures aspects of the quaint, the quirky and the extreme.  With a theme so general, it allows her to return to the project annually and be able to add images to it no matter where her travels lead that time of year—from a brownstone in Park Slope to rural Missouri or Ohio and back again to Coney Island.

Over the last few years, Finkelstein has been shooting a more consistent project which she hopes to turn into a book. The New 49ers documents communities of gold prospectors in California, 150+ years since the original gold rush, during The Great Recession.  These photos examine the irony of their hardship amidst legislation passed to limit mining activity, alongside images of gold souvenirs, monuments and businesses celebrating gold mining history in the state. To see more of Finkelstein’s work click here.

Emmanuel at his Christmas tree stand, Flatbush and 7th Avenues, Brooklyn, NY, 2010

Coney Island Polar Bear Club, Coney Island, New York, NY 2005.

Coney Island Polar Bear Club, Coney Island, New York, NY 2005.

Coney Island palm tree (after the blizzard), NY, 2005.

Floyd at his house (just after Oswego County’s record snowfall), Oswego County, NY, 2007

Santa on West Highway BB, Rocheport, MO.