I fell in love with Zack’s work when I saw it in other contexts — highlighted at various times by the Asthmatic Kitty record label and website — so I was thrilled to see this entry.
Bent’s images are familial and familiar. He captures moments that manage to be both joyous and mysterious. I find myself looking at his photos and really wondering what his characters are actually up to.
]]>
Myriam Lutz combines found photographs with self portraits. I like that in this one, Peony Bay, she is not dressed up as a character from the photograph’s time. I like that it’s her, in today’s clothes, and that she’s placed herself, sort of awkwardly, posing in the past.
]]>
I thought I wasn’t much for cheesy reasons to post. But this photo by Hey, Hot Shot! contender Shana Wittenwyler warrants almost no comment. The energy is high, it is humorous, and it tells a story from an unexpected angle. It does more than document a public moment; it provides what seems to be a private window behind tons of turned backs. And something political obviously seems especially perfect for today.
]]>
There’s still something charming about the Americana (New Yorkana?) of the Miss Subways contest. Or perhaps there’s only something charming in retrospect about the city voting on pretty commuters via posters on trains. Either way, HHS contender Fiona Gardner captures a bit of the bygone magic in her series that revisits these beauty contest winners decades after their small reigns. (From 1941 to 1976 an ad agency sponsored the contest; female commuters who were residents of New York City were eligible to compete for spots on future ads.)
Gardner makes use of the poses of iconography, to subtly and not so subtly, hint at the current lives of these former beauty queens. She says her work is “influenced by traditions of staged photography, early Hollywood spectacle, and contemporary performance-based art practices.” She continues, “In particular, I am interested in 19th century photographers Lewis Carroll and Julia Margaret Cameron, contemporary photographers such as Jeff Wall and Justine Kurland, and the filmic spectacles of Busby Berkeley and Esther Williams.”
]]>
“I work among the sex-workers and their families in Pakistan being the first photographer to document this shunned community. This body of work examines the uneasy peace between Islamic fundamentalism and profanity in the brothels.”
Kate Orne is undeniably walking in the altruistic footsteps of Zana Briski with her efforts to “raise funds for the two little schools, the first ones ever to offer education to the children of the sex-workers with the mission to break the cycle of children being born into prostitution, sex abuse, drug addiction and crime.”
To fully grasp the complexity of the narratives, Orne’s images are best seen as a complete body of work. Yet the image above, Getting High, recalls Nan Goldin and how some photographer’s lives are inextricably bound to the people they love and document.
]]>
Jeremy Chandler is the current Photographer Laureate for the City of Tampa, where he resides. Chandler states that he “playfully question(s) and explore(s) a myriad of issues including land use, utopian ideals, alterity, masculinity and class.” Playfully? More like a head-on assault via beautifully staged shots of masculine ideals and fears, the postures of fighting and hunting, and nature.
]]>
I lived in over 10 houses before I was 20, so as soon as I saw these images of abandoned homes, I was pierced by their ability to speak not of comfort and safety, but of the delicateness and transience of life.
Then I remembered a song by The Smiths:
The passing of time
Leaves empty lives
Waiting to be filled
Sigh.
]]>
I am allergic to everything, and so I instantly recognized this Benadryl pill in Jeremy Freedman’s work. Freedman shoots pills in a close-up hazy way that seems fitting to pharmaceuticals. The colors really pop.
]]>
Summer ‘06 Hey Hot Shot winner Brandon Herman has two photographs in the current issue of Kaiserin (including the cover!), a bi-annual art magazine that features emerging artists. Herman also has an edition available on 20×200.
]]>
Summer ‘05 Hot Shot Noah Kalina has a stunning photograph on the cover of the current issue of SEED and a 10-page photo essay on “Labs at Night” inside the magazine. And Kalina recently stopped by 20×200 to release an edition and a chat with Jen Bekman.
]]>