fototazo: 09.11

9.30.2011

The Image: Thomas Bangsted, "Lobster Study"

I made this photograph some years ago while contemplating what an interior maritime picture would look like. Several attempts at photographing the lobster industry in Maine and Massachusetts preceded this picture, but that environment just seemed impossibly quaint and unsuited for a deadpan depiction.

I went home to Denmark for Christmas that year. While browsing through old boxes in the attic I found some unfinished childhood drawings I had once made of a red lobster. Later upon my return to Connecticut I purchased a dead specimen from a local seafood store and resumed this study of crustaceans.

I would keep the thing in the freezer and only take it out for an hour or so, leaving enough time to complete a new sketch. The freezer block served as a pedestal for the model. After a few months of repeating this ritual, I set up the camera one day and made the picture.

I have made few of these still lifes since, but once in a while the occasion presents itself. These pictures always come as an utter surprise to me.

- Thomas Bangsted

9.28.2011

27: Irina Rozovksy

Irina Rozovsky
Untitled, from the series "One to Nothing"
2010

9.26.2011

The Image: Lydia Panas, "Hibiscus"

My photographs are a search to understand love, which is fragile and filled with joy and sorrow.

The image called Hibiscus was taken the day our twelve-year-old son took his long-board on the road for the first time. He maneuvered the gentle descent without difficulty as my husband and I followed in our car. After a mile or so we reached our drive, but he decided he would continue down the next hill. With confidence he swerved the board, but he hit a patch of loose stones and the board skidded under his feet.

We stopped the car as he went flying, landing a somersault across the road. His helmet protected his head; he was bruised, but proud of his accomplishment.

The camera came out afterward.

Hibiscus has a tender kind of beauty. Both the bloom and the wound will eventually fade, but in this moment they are side by side. Fragile and tentative.

- Lydia Panas

9.24.2011

26: Jess T. Dugan

Jess T. Dugan
Mom, Chris, and Abby, Watertown, Massachusetts
2009

9.23.2011

Project Release: Gregory Halpern's "A"

fototazo continues posting new photography projects, providing a first look at work from select artists. Today's Project Release is Gregory Halpern's A which is soon to be released by J&L Books.

Gregory Halpern grew up in Buffalo, New York. He makes most of his photographs there. He has a BA in History and Literature from Harvard University and an MFA from California College of the Arts. He currently lives in Rochester, New York where he teaches Photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

______________________________

Statement
My interest in photographing often begins with a curiosity about a particular place. I enjoy getting to know a city by wandering through it. I like to explore in a slow, somewhat intuitive way. I am particularly drawn to spaces that are public or shared (officially or unofficially), and spaces that have been altered or reclaimed.

In this case, I was loosely interested in a handful of cities—Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Detroit and Buffalo. On the one hand, I am interested in the specific histories of these places. I grew up in Buffalo and live an hour away now, and have always felt a kinship with other post-industrial cities. On the other hand, I don't see these photographs as being about the cities in which they were made, or about the American Rust Belt in general. They do feel very much from the Rust Belt however. For me, the location of the images is usually less important than the feeling of the thing pictured.

For me, in getting to know a place, there is pleasure in the alertness generated by not knowing what is coming next. I am not interested in creating a tight "project" where unpredictability is lost or sacrificed for visual consistency. Life, and cities—especially old neighborhoods in old cities—are unpredictable, idiosyncratic and chaotic. Cultures and histories coexist; the beautiful sits next to the ugly, the hopeful and redemptive next to the despairing. That's what I find inspiring.

9.22.2011

f100: Laura Boushnak and Gianluca Tamorri

fototazo has asked a group of 50 curators, gallery owners, blog writers, photographers, academics and others actively engaged in photography to pick two photographers that deserve (more) recognition - the underknown, the under-respected as well as not-appreciated-enough favorites. A little more information on the project is available in the first post in the series here.

Today we continue the series with responses from Stefano Bianchi.

We began the series with responses from Nicholas Nixon, Matt Johnston, Blake Andrews, John Edwin Mason, Aline Smithson, Colin Pantall, Michael Werner, Liza Fetissova, Laurence Salzmann, Bryan Formhals, Richard Mosse, Shane Lavalette, Amy Stein, Amani Willett, Wayne Ford, S. Billie Mandle, Leslie K. Brown, Gordon Stettinius, Marc Feustel, Hin Chua, Adriana Rios Monsalve, Daniel Augschoell, Larissa Leclair, Elinor Carucci, Pieter Wisse, Daniel Echevarría, Natalie Minik, Qiana Mestrich, Jason Landry, Rona Chang, Stella Kramer, Joanne Lukitsh, Yumi Goto, Gwen Lafage, Heidi Romano, and Julie Grahame.

Respondent: Stefano Bianchi is Founder, CEO and Art Director of Crowdbooks, the first online crowdfunding platform for art and photo book publishing in the world. His passion for photography, quality design and craftsmanship, and an appreciation for the arts, led to the creation of the site. Stefano is an established graphic designer and communications consultant. He has worked with companies such as Magnumphotos Agency, Louis Vuitton, Relais & Châteaux, Dior, Fabrica (the Benetton group communications research center) and Diesel Jeans. From his current home base in Paris, France, Stefano acts as CEO of N2o Studio, a creative consulting agency.

Selections: Laura Boushnak and Gianluca Tamorri

Laura Boushnak
Laura is a sensitive and delicate woman, whose photography reflects true and deep personals experiences. Although she works mainly around very strong social issues and themes of conflict, her talent allows her to tell these stories in a way which is unique either for the chosen subjects or their aesthetic. She revisits the ancient Middle Eastern cultures/roots which for the last few years have been changing very fast and offers an extremely fresh and positive vision.

Gianluca Tamorri
Gianluca's pictures are incredibly powerful and incisive. His permanent search for essence and beauty is part of all his shots. Photography is a medium for him to express the reality and truth around him. I particularly enjoy his latest project "75003" about the Le Marais district in Paris which he has made into an outstanding self-published, quality book. There are so many aesthetically beautiful and deep images in this book, a very, very personal approach to illustrating one of the richest and most popular districts in Paris.

9.21.2011

25: Ayala Gazit

Ayala Gazit
Diving Board
Kibbutz Ein Dor, Israel, 2010

9.20.2011

The Image: Jen Davis, "Purity"

I was 23-years-old, searching for my identity and for an understanding of my body through the camera. It was my last semester in college and I had just started this series of self-portraits. I found myself at Columbia College's bookstore looking through the photo books between classes. I came to a book that had a women's naked back on the cover. In this picture there was a mirror in front of her, reflecting her body as she held up a black dress. She was looking at herself in this mirror, as her lover, who was lying in bed, was looking at her from below. There was so much psychological drama unfolding within the gaze of this one image. I was intrigued and picked up the book. Laura Letinsky, I hadn't seen this photographer's work before. I went page by page, looking as couples embraced one another, held each other in both sexual and silent moments. I was shocked by this form of exhibitionism and amount of detail.

As I stood in this bookstore, I realized what intimacy was and that it was something missing in my life. I remember suddenly feeling shame, like what I was looking at was pornographic, at least to my innocent eyes it was. These pictures transcended what I knew about sex, love and desire. I became embarrassed, however this did not stop me from looking. Rather it propelled my curiosity.

Later that week with the images still fixed in my mind, I contemplated intimacy and what this meant...I thought a lot about touch, the softness of skin, finger tips slowly rubbing up and down one's body - how could I communicate this? I wanted to make a photograph that spoke to this feeling though I was faced with a challenge of how to convey this visually. The next morning I looked at myself in the mirror after a shower and saw water drops that were left on my skin and felt the sensation of them running down the surface of my body. I thought that this could possibly make for an interesting photograph. There was something so sensual about the water. That night when I got home I set up my camera and lights, then started to bathe. The water had to be fresh on my skin when the picture was made. If I waited too long the drops would be gone. I took four sheets of film. In between each exposure I went in for more, to soak up as much water as possible on my skin and in my hair, hoping that one of the sheets of film would be successful.

- Jen Davis

9.18.2011

f100: Brian David Stevens and Michael Putland

fototazo has asked a group of 50 curators, gallery owners, blog writers, photographers, academics and others actively engaged in photography to pick two photographers that deserve (more) recognition - the underknown, the under-respected as well as not-appreciated-enough favorites. A little more information on the project is available in the first post in the series here.

Today we continue the series with responses from Julie Grahame.

We began the series with responses from Nicholas Nixon, Matt Johnston, Blake Andrews, John Edwin Mason, Aline Smithson, Colin Pantall, Michael Werner, Liza Fetissova, Laurence Salzmann, Bryan Formhals, Richard Mosse, Shane Lavalette, Amy Stein, Amani Willett, Wayne Ford, S. Billie Mandle, Leslie K. Brown, Gordon Stettinius, Marc Feustel, Hin Chua, Adriana Rios Monsalve, Daniel Augschoell, Larissa Leclair, Elinor Carucci, Pieter Wisse, Daniel Echevarría, Natalie Minik, Qiana Mestrich, Jason Landry, Rona Chang, Stella Kramer, Joanne Lukitsh, Yumi Goto, Gwen Lafage and Heidi Romano.

Julie Grahame is editor-in-chief of aCurator, a full-screen photo magazine that launched in early 2010. Born in London, Grahame emigrated to New York in 1992 to manage the photo syndication agency Retna, and later she became the production manager and an editor for the online fashion magazine ZOOZOOM.com. Grahame also writes a photo blog, works for the estate of Yousuf Karsh and advises photographers in the arena of social media. She is a member of American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP) and American Photography Archive Group (APAG), a portfolio reviewer for American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) and American Photographic Artists (APA), and a contributing writer for PDN's Emerging Photographer magazine.

Selections: Brian David Stevens and Michael Putland

Brian David Stevens is a photojournalist, or a social documentarian, out of London, England. We "met" through social media and we hit it off, sharing politics and humor. His ongoing series of b/w portraits of WWII veterans on Remembrance Day are stark yet gentle, moving and necessary. BDS opened my eyes, introducing me not least of all to an intimate project he executed on reclusive poet and artist Billy Childish. I feel that the strength of his conviction is apparent in every frame he shoots; his work is non-judgmental and you can sense his interest in his subjects.

Michael Putland has been shooting music since the day he almost quit… As he was about to lock up the studio because he had no work, his phone rang. Could he go shoot Mick Jagger? The rest, cheesily enough, is history. Michael became the Stones tour photographer for a spell in the 70s, and beyond that he shot thousands of bands in the 70s, 80s and 90s for the UK press, record companies and more. Because he was always just grateful for the access, Michael has never over-exploited his archives. In the late 70s he started a photo resale agency and elevated other photographers. Just so quietly talented, Michael is working on new ways to show his work, especially a new series of triptychs.

9.17.2011

24: Gregory Halpern

Gregory Halpern
Untitled
2006

9.16.2011

Of Interest: Mark Powell in "Fotonautas"

This past Wednesday night was the first episode of Fotonautas on the History Channel America Latina featuring Mark Powell. The reality television-style program follows Mark on a photographic journey through Latin America; the first season will feature 10 episodes.

An interview with Mark Powell on fototazo can be found here and his contribution to our series "12 on Portraiture" can be found here.

Promotional ad:

and a longer trailer:

9.15.2011

f100: Lauren Henkin and Awoiska van der Molen

Respondent: Heidi Romano is a fine art photographer and founder of UNLESS YOU WILL - a bimonthly international photography journal that showcases a vision within photo-based art. Her own work challenges the perceptions and expectations we have of our surroundings. Presented in an abstract and minimalist style, her photographs play with ambiguity, while conveying a sense of stillness and isolation.

Selections: Lauren Henkin and Awoiska van der Molen

Lauren Henkin
I adore landscapes and was immediately drawn to the work by Lauren Henkin. Her work is examining the structure, loneliness and beauty of her eternal landscapes. Her vantage point allows us to glimpse a charming new view, a shimmering terrain from afar - I never seem to tire of.

She is currently showing her work at the Newspace Centre of Photography

Awoiska van der Molen
I came across Awoiska van der Molen's work through a collaboration with Fabio Severo for UYW. I discovered that Awoiska van der Molen prefers to work mostly at night, when the senses are not distracted by daily influences. Her remote locations add a mysterious blend of truth and fiction that move me.

9.14.2011

23: Daria Tuminas

Daria Tuminas
From the series "Ivan and the Moon"
2010

9.13.2011

The Image: Timothy Archibald, "Jessy at Steve's House, 2004"

I was always interested in things that were almost human. Stand-in's for humanity, copycats of the human form. Early projects I wrapped myself up in were focused on ventriloquists' and their dummies, then another small project on robots that looked like people. When my project focusing on inventors of home-made sex machines started to come together, I realized it had everything I had always hoped for in a project: folksy people telling real stories, and then this sensational subject matter that was kind of human, kind of not…to be the enticement to draw people in.

Jessy at Steve’s House, 2004 is a photograph that came from that project. At the time, I had been a big fan of the work of photographer Dan Winters. His photographs were filled with small details, every one of them intentional, that the viewer would discover and feel rewarded by as they put time into his images. In my own clunky fashion, I felt this image showed his influence. We have this four legged sex machine in the corner, like a pet waiting for food to drop. We have this poster riffing on Marilyn Monroe's playboy magazine spread hanging above, flattened by perspective but vaguely recognizable. This ambiguous female shape on the wall above the couch, looking like a mudflap girl silhouette, but not quite complete. Oh, and then we have this un-easy looking subject and a disembodied set of legs, bright against the shiny leather. I thought it all added up to a story set in a sexual setting, with the star of the photograph a four-legged anthropomorphic machine with a human penis for a head.

At the time I was wrapped up in the project a lot of my contemporaries questioned my intentions of getting so wrapped up in this sexual subject matter, wondering if the project was pornography, or if it reflected my life in some way. And really, once the conversation goes in that direction, you can't really talk your way out of it. But it seemed that the people who knew my work over the years, with this interest in subjects just not quite human, had come to understand this as the obvious next thing.

- Timothy Archibald

9.12.2011

Of Interest 9.12.11: Karl Baden's "Every Day" Two-Minute Time-Lapse

Karl Baden has a video collapsing his epic Every Day project into a two-minute time-lapse on his blog site. This on-going project consists of "a reasonably detailed visual record" of his own face in the form of a black and white photograph taken every day since February 23, 1987. The video contains images through March 2011.

The video can be watched here.

9.10.2011

f100: Pierfrancesco Celada and Flore Aël Surun

Respondent: Gwen Lafage is the founder of Carte Blanche, a project dedicated to emerging photography from around the world. The project will be first launched this fall online and then in San Francisco as a photography gallery and bookstore.

She also blogs regularly about the photography that questions and inspires her life. Originally from Brittany, France, she now lives in San Francisco.

Selections: Pierfrancesco Celada and Flore Aël Surun. Both are talented young European photographers who have succeeded in creating powerful emotional and question-raising bodies of work.

Pierfrancesco Celada explores solitude in the modern Megalopolis. His long-term project in Japan shows isolation and loneliness in crowded environments. His images depict the complex emergence of individualization that is probably even stronger in modern cities than in the countryside. In a society where ways of communicating have multiplied through modern technologies, he captures the opposite phenomena, highlighting the lack of real communication and human relationships. By capturing scenes of daily life he questions the paradoxes of our time and brings us back to our relationship to others… moreover each one of his images is well thought out and beautifully executed. I look forward to seeing the next part of his series as he is now back to Japan! Watch this.

Flore Aël Surun is a French photographer who belongs to Tendance Floue, a French collective that I particularly enjoy. They're a group of engaged documentary photographers who are not afraid to shout what they think with strong images. Flore Aël Surun tells each of her stories with sensibility, with femininity and elegance and makes each one a beautiful testimony about life, death, love, "survivors." "Because [as she says] their survivals of any orders get her to the heart without a warning." And I believe that each one of her images gets to our heart without a warning. They're aesthetically beautiful and emotionally fascinating. Through her approach Flore Aël Surun teaches us the power of personal documentary photography and its undeniable artistic appeal.

22: Dina Kantor

Dina Kantor
Andre, Helsinki, from the "Finnish and Jewish" series
2006

9.08.2011

f100: Hajime Kimura and Kazuhiro Yokozeki

Respondent: Yumi Goto is an experienced independent art and documentary photography curator, editor, researcher and consultant who focuses on the development of cultural exchanges that transcend borders. She collaborates with local and international artists who live and work in areas affected by conflict, natural disasters, current social problems, human rights abuses and women's issues. She often works with human rights advocates, international and local NGOs, humanitarian organizations and as well as international photo festivals and events throughout Asia. She is a founder of REMINDERS PROJECT, and has launched REMINDERS PHOTO PROJECT GRANT FOR ASIAN PHOTOGRAPHERS "Visual Story Telling" with the Angkor Photo Festival. Ms. Goto is a jury member of the Asian Women photographers showcase for the Angkor Photo Festival, a jurist for the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand annual photo contest 2010, the KL PHOTO AWARD 2011 and for the Nikon-Walkley Awards 2011. She is a curator and a photo editor of the 100th memorial photographic book project, "THIS DAY OF CHANGE" by the Japanese publisher Kodansha, which was nominated for the Lucie Award's support Category, as well as 3/11 TSUNAMI PHOTO PROJECT. She is a recipient of Women's Human Rights Activities Award, the Yayori Journalist Award.

Selections: Tokyo Documentary Photography Workshop recipient Hajime Kimura and Kazuhiro Yokozeki, winner of the Tokyo Documentary Photography Workshop Best Humanist Prize


© Hajime Kimura

9.07.2011

21: Erika Ritzel

Erika Ritzel
Ogden Street, Englewood, CO (Ceramic Statue)
2006

9.04.2011

f100: Christine Collins and Karl Baden

fototazo has asked a group of 50 curators, gallery owners, blog writers, photographers, academics and others actively engaged in photography to pick two photographers that deserve (more) recognition - the underknown, the under-respected as well as not-appreciated-enough favorites. A little more information on the project is available in the first post in the series here.

Today we continue the series with responses from Joanne Lukitsh.

We began the series with responses from Nicholas Nixon, Matt Johnston, Blake Andrews, John Edwin Mason, Aline Smithson, Colin Pantall, Michael Werner, Liza Fetissova, Laurence Salzmann, Bryan Formhals, Richard Mosse, Shane Lavalette, Amy Stein, Amani Willett, Wayne Ford, S. Billie Mandle, Leslie K. Brown, Gordon Stettinius, Marc Feustel, Hin Chua, Adriana Rios Monsalve, Daniel Augschoell, Larissa Leclair, Elinor Carucci, Pieter Wisse, Daniel Echevarría, Natalie Minik, Qiana Mestrich, Jason Landry, Rona Chang and Stella Kramer.

Respondent: Joanne Lukitsh is a professor of art history at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design where she teaches modern art and the history of photography. She has written on historical and contemporary photography, most recently an essay on Julia Margaret Cameron for the National Gallery of Art exhibition, The Pre-Raphaelite Lens: British Photography and Painting, 1848-1875 (2010).

Selections: Christine Collins and Karl Baden

Christine Collins: The photographs in Acreage are images of the rooms and contents of a home and the domesticated spaces presumably around it. The photographs may be images from one home, or several. Looking at the photographs I become aware of a sensibility for photography intent upon using light to please and to dissimulate. The photographs pose the idea that transitions—between contents and container, inside and outside, before and behind—are the visible conditions of domestic places and things we would otherwise consider finite, and bound in time.

In and out of the car is a recent series by Karl Baden, best known for Every Day, consisting of "a reasonably detailed visual record" of his own face taken every day since February 23, 1987, and Covering Photography, a web-based resource on relationships between the history of photography and book cover design.

In and out of the car fascinates me for the way Baden "makes strange" such genres of photography as using a camera inside a car, depicting commercial signage and street photography. Baden's photographs provoke me to new ways of seeing these earlier images and to reflecting upon contemporary life. In and out of the car makes visible how the distinctions between inside and outside the car readable in earlier photographs have collapsed into the new visual forms of consumer-saturated, early 21st century life.