The Image: Daniel Shea, "Old Coal Supports"

Daniel Shea: A received vague directions from a guy I met in Racine, Ohio about "weird, creepy things on the side of the road." He knew they were relics of a past coal-mining operation, back before the local industry's focus was on power plants and almost exclusively underground coal extraction. This was an important visual piece of the narrative I was interested in creating, and I had nothing to show for it. By the time I found the towering monuments to industry foregone, the sun was setting and everything was blanketed in golden, nostalgia-inducing light. I could not have found a better thing to look at, wander around, and ultimately photograph. I went back a year later, to make another picture, this time in early morning fog. The idea of these structures rising above the mist, a gesture that undermines their obsoleteness but promotes their abject monumentality seemed to be the right move.

f100: Susan Paulsen, Richard Learoyd, Daniel Shea, Peter Miller

© Susan Paulsen, Armonk, 2010

fototazo launches a new series today.

We have 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. The group of 50 respondents come from a wide range of locations, backgrounds in photography, ages, photographic interests and styles as well as from all levels of prominence in the field.

Rough guidelines for the selection are photographers who haven't received national attention or made the rounds on photoblogs already. Some replies to the query don't exactly fit those guidelines, but no replies have been edited or refused. Replies will be published over the coming weeks in groups of two, roughly in the order in which they have been received, with links and comments - if given - by the respondents on the photographers.

The goals of the series are to generate conversation for photographers that are making work that deserves recognition but, for whatever reason, hasn't gotten it as well as to introduce readers to 100 photographers and their work.

Today we begin the series with responses from Nicholas Nixon and Matt Johnston.

Respondent: Nicholas Nixon is a Boston-based photographer known for his large-format portraiture in projects such as The Brown Sisters and People With AIDS as well as for his cityscapes which were included, among many other exhibitions, in the show "New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape" at the George Eastman House in 1975. He is the winner to two Guggenheim fellowships and three National Endowment for the Arts Grants.

Selections: Susan Paulsen and Richard Learoyd

© Richard Learoyd, Maeke 2007

Respondent: Matt Johnston runs the site The Photo Book Club along with Wayne Ford. He is a freelance photographer specializing in documentary and architecture and currently teaches at Coventry University in England.

Selections: Daniel Shea and Peter Miller

Shea makes measured and thoughtful work, on his own doorstep in Ohio. He also funds major projects with print sales, offering uneditioned/editioned prints at very reasonable prices.
Shea is a member of the Dreamboats Collective who are worth a look over at www.photodreamboats.com

© Daniel Shea, Smoke Stacks

Miller's book combines strikingly honest images with similarly frank and open writings on the Vermont people and their way of life, the result is a series of intimate biographies, which the voyeur in me loves.
While Miller does feature some of the images online (www.petermillerphotography.com), you unfortunately cannot see the accompanying text. [editors note: Miller's website is not working as of 6.5.11]

Book cover for Peter Miller's Vermont People

'Vermont People' 1990, Silver Print Press

(Book)