Wordpress - How to get posts published between a date and today?

UPDATE December 23 2014

There is a better method using date_query property of WP_Query class:

$args = array(
    'post_type' => 'post', 
    'tax_query' => array(
        array( 
            'taxonomy'  => 'post_format',
            'field'     => 'slug',
            'terms'     => array( 'post-format-image' )
        )
    ),
    'cat'           => '-173',
    'post_status'   => 'publish',
    'date_query'    => array(
        'column'  => 'post_date',
        'after'   => '- 30 days'
    )
);
$query = new WP_Query( $args );

OLD ANSWER

Use the Time Parameters in WP_Query()

Quoting example from the Codex:

Return posts from the last 30 days:

// This takes your current query, that will have the filtering part added to.
$query_string = array(
    'post_type' => 'post', 
    'tax_query' => array(
        array(
            'taxonomy'  => 'post_format',
            'field'     => 'slug',
            'terms'     => array( 'post-format-image' )
        )
    ),
    'cat'           => '-173',
    'post_status'   => 'publish'
);

// Create a new filtering function that will add our where clause to the query
function filter_where( $where = '' ) {
    // posts in the last 30 days
    $where .= " AND post_date > '" . date( 'Y-m-d', strtotime( '-30 days' ) ) . "'";
    return $where;
}

add_filter( 'posts_where', 'filter_where' );
$query = new WP_Query( $query_string );
remove_filter( 'posts_where', 'filter_where' );

---

Edit (in response to the OP's updated question).

Avoid using query_posts. You can use the above technique to alter your main query (subject to some extra conditionals - is home page, is a page called 'foobar' etc. ):

function wpse52070_filter_where( $where = '' , $query ) {
   if( $query->is_main_query() && is_page( 'foobar' ) ){
      // posts in the last 30 days
      $where .= " AND post_date > '" . date( 'Y-m-d', strtotime( '-30 days' ) ) . "'";
   }

    return $where;
}
add_filter( 'posts_where', 'wpse52070_filter_where' );

If you wish to get posts between two dates, then use the before and after parameters in the date_query parameter,

$query_string = array(
  'post_type' => 'post', 
  'date_query' => array(
    'column' => 'post_date',
    'after' => '2012-04-01',
    'before' => '2012-04-30' 
  ),
  'tax_query' => array(
      array( 
         'taxonomy' => 'post_format',
         'field' => 'slug',
         'terms' => array('post-format-image')
      )
  ),
  'cat' => '-173',
  'post_status' => 'publish'
);

As of 3.7 you can use date_query http://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query#Date_Parameters

So the args passed would look like:

$query_string = array(
      'post_type' => 'post', 
      'date_query' => array(
        'after' => '2012-04-01' 
      ),
      'tax_query' => array(
          array( 
             'taxonomy' => 'post_format',
             'field' => 'slug',
             'terms' => array('post-format-image')
          )
      ),
      'cat' => '-173',
      'post_status' => 'publish'
);