The Exposure Project: December 2009

Monday, December 21, 2009

01 Magazine Interview

Jeff Otto O'Brien approached me a while back in regard to doing an interview about The Exposure Project for the Canadian online project 01 Magazine. I gladly accepted and the feature is now live amidst a plethora of other engaging essays, interviews, reviews and features that comprise Issue 4 (The "Photo Issue".)

Issue 4 includes, but is certainly not limited to: interviews with Peter Sutherland, Tim Barber, Jessica Eaton and Andrew Laumann, essays by Alexander Binder and Sam Falls, a look through Noah Kalina's book collection (which features my good friend and roommate Timothy Briner's handmade Boonville monograph) an exploration of the publishing house Gottlund Verlag, and, just to make sure all the bases are covered, a review of the new Lil Wayne record.

We would like to thank Jeff again for the opportunity, it was a lot of fun!

Heidi Norton

Heidi Norton e-mailed me earlier this week with a link to her diverse and eclectic work. I would recommend taking some time to look through the rest of it. Unfortunately, two of my favorite of Norton's images, "Whitescape" and "Blackscape", couldn't be pulled from her website. They seem to exist as wonderful, almost violent alternatives to the typical photographic still life.

"Conch Shell and Sunrise, $29.99"
© Heidi Norton

"Antietam Battlefield"
© Heidi Norton

"What Remains"
© Heidi Norton

"Hariett Tubman's Birthplace"
© Heidi Norton

"Teepee at the Ridge of South Mountain"
© Heidi Norton

theprintspace's November Winner

theprintspace announced the November winner for their monthly online photography competitions. Martin Stranka's "I Was Falling High" was chosen as the most representative image embodying the theme "Motion".

"I Was Falling High"
© Martin Stranka

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Nathaniel Ward's After the Women of Paradise Road

Nathaniel Ward recently updated his website with some new work. Of particular interest was After the Women of Paradise Road, a series which:

"examines commodified women in order to better understand the larger spectacle of mass-marketed, socially conditioned, and narrowly defined sexuality. Taken from the covers of adult periodicals distributed in magazine vending boxes that line Paradise Road in Las Vegas, the photographs reveal tropes of marketable desire that include the necessary anonymity of the sexual object, the disposability of desire, a set of clichéd sexual poses, expressions and gestures, and the sectioning of the human body into marketable parts. The weathering, sun bleaching, and amplified layers of separation between the viewer and the women who actually posed for the original photographs speaks to a desensitization to the beauty and value of the women, leading to greater psychological separation between attraction, sex, sexuality, and emotional intimacy."

From "After the Women of Paradise Road
© Nathaniel Ward

Monday, December 14, 2009

Unless You Will

The second issue of Unless You Will, a relatively new online photographic journal, is now available for download. Amassing the work of Nicolas Hughes, Jonathan Blaustein, Daniel Freytag, Benjamin Norman and Andrés Marroquín Winkelmann, Issue 2 possesses some really nice work and a simple, yet sophisticated design. Their mission statement reads:

"Unless you will, curated and founded by Heidi Romano, is an online journal that showcases a vision within photo-based art. Our goal is to bring together a collection of notable photographers from around the world and present their work.

Sometimes a photo can evoke high feelings of emotion or nostalgia and in a roundabout way it becomes a means of expressing ourselves as photographers. UYW strives to showcase photographers who add layers of meaning and capture these feelings. Their images are a happiness measurement, they give us pleasure, rekindle a memory, or trigger other emotions of their own. Our aim is to showcase these talented artists without too many frills, who work with the notions of play, honesty and craftsmanship."

Anonymous Photographs

Our friend David passed along this wonderful audio exchange between Robert Flynn Johnson (author of "The Face in the Lens: Anonymous Photographs") and Scott Shafer regarding the allure and mystique of the anonymous, vernacular photograph. Well worth the listen...

Larry Sultan Dies at 63

Larry Sultan, one of the most inspiring and revelatory photographers of his generation, died of cancer at his California home yesterday.

From Pictures From Home
© Larry Sultan

You can read his New York Times obit here.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Brea Souders' Islands & Streams

Brea Souders recently updated her website with a new project entitled Islands & Streams. She writes:

"In this project, I dissect the dream journals of well-known writers, scientists, philosophers and other figures. I select potent fragments from the dreams, and then re-create them in a controlled studio environment. While working on each image, details that were left unclear in the dream description must be filled in – the color of a wall, the pattern in a sheet, the placement of an object. My choices throughout the process are intuitive, beginning with the selection of source material and carrying through to the casting of models, the props used and the general mood of each image. The resulting photographs could be seen as a distillation of the dreamer’s inner psychological make-up, however they have been tinged by the process of outside observation and analysis."

Untitled # 8
© Brea Souders

Untitled # 3
© Brea Souders

Untitled # 1
© Brea Souders

Untitled # 6
© Brea Souders

Anna Collette's Suburban

Anna Collette's unequivocally titled project Suburban explores the landscape with a similarly deadpan gaze as many of the "New Topographics" photographers. In an article about Collette's work written for Big RED & Shiny, Matthew Gamber states:

"In the photographs these structures are haunting. Why is that? To better fulfill the definition of their purpose, they should have littered the landscape, necessitating the demolition of the neighborhoods of individual houses in the foreground. The fact that the apartment buildings stand isolated and singular testify failure of the death as a rational, constructed solution to a spatial, urban problem. They are monuments to their own failure.

Besides, people don’t like to be seen as spatial, urban problems. Many reject making a home in this type of architecture. Most prefer to be individuals who have the have the luxury of owning individual houses. The American ideal of the individual house takes the form of a truncated box with an obtuse angled, shingle-laden roof."

From Suburban
© Anna Collette

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Website Update & Print Sale!

Untitled # 4 (From Pixel Portraits)
© Ben Alper

Hi Friends,

I wanted to let you all know that I just launched my newly redesigned website. Additionally, I've added a new project entitled Pixel Portraits and a collection of vernacular photographs under the moniker Found.

Also, in an effort to fund the production of a few upcoming projects, I am offering 6 images from my series The Family Dig as affordable limited edition prints. Visit the "Print Sale" page for further information.

Spread the word

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Maurizio Anzeri

Italian artist Maurizio Anzeri's process incorporates both photography and embroidery. His intricately sewn and often brightly colored vintage photographs call to mind the collage work of Surrealists and Dadaists such as Hannah Hoch, Raoul Hausmann and John Stezaker. In discussing his work, Anzeri states:

"I work with sewing, embroidery and drawing to explore the essence of signs in their physical manifestation. I take inspiration from my own personal experience and observation of how, in other cultures, bodies themselves are treated as living graphic symbols. I then use sewing and embroidery in a further attempt to re-signify, and mark the space with a man-made sign, a trace. I am interested in people’s stories and histories, and the relation between intimacy and the outer world. I have been working with hair for the past few years. I stitch and sew hair together until it becomes a sculpture. I see hair as a metaphorical medium to represent bodily boundaries, the embodiment of space."

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Behind the Scenes: New Photography 2009

In conjunction with New Photography 2009, MoMA recently uploaded video interviews with Walead Beshty, Leslie Hewitt, Sterling Ruby, Daniel Gordon and Sara VanDerBeek. For those of you unfamiliar with this year's theme, MoMA's website explains:

"New Photography 2009 is a thematic presentation of significant recent work in photography that examines and expands the conventional definitions of the medium. Although the six artists in this installation—Walead Beshty, Daniel Gordon, Leslie Hewitt, Carter Mull, Sterling Ruby, and Sara VanDerBeek—represent diverse points of view, working methods, and pictorial modes ranging from abstract to representational, their images all begin in the studio or the darkroom and result from processes involving collection, assembly, and manipulation. Many of the works are made with everyday materials and objects, as well as images from the Internet, magazines, newspapers, and books. Some of the artists also work in other mediums and their pictures relate to disciplines such as drawing, sculpture, and installation. As traditional photographic techniques are being quickly replaced by digital technologies, the artists included here examine the process and structure of making photographs."

Behind the Scenes: New Photography 2009: Walead Beshty

Behind the Scenes: New Photography 2009: Leslie Hewitt

Behind the Scenes: New Photography 2009: Daniel Gordon

Anna Fox's Workstations

In the satirical yet humanistic vein of Martin Parr, Jeff Mermelstein or Lars Tunbjörk, Anna Fox's series Workstations observes "the highly competitive character of working life in Thatcher’s britain."

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Yuta Nakajima's Simple Matters

I discovered the work of Yuta Nakajima a few weeks ago at a benefit exhibition that we both had work in. His series Simple Matters contains some surprising and rewarding images of extremely pedestrian objects and spaces. See more here.

Johan Bergström's Smoke Signals

Last week, Swedish photographer Johan Bergström e-mailed with some new work from his ongoing series Smoke Signals, a project which examines the displacement of villagers at the hand of aggressive mining practices in the German countryside. In the statement for the work, Bergström elaborates:

"In the Lausitz region of eastern Germany machines are digging their way trough the landscape in search of lignite, the dirtiest combustible on the planet in terms of emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. These immense open cast mines are rapidly expanding and forces villagers to leave their homes. But the destruction of landscape and extrusion of villagers has a long history. Thousands of Brandenburg residents have lost their homes since mining began in 1924. A total of 136 villages have been destroyed to make way for the mines, displacing at least 30,000 people."

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

theprintspace Photography Competition

theprintspace, a professional photographic printing studio and gallery based in East London, recently asked us to assist in the jurying process for their online monthly competitions. The current call for entries revolves around the theme "Celebration". So, if you think you've got images that fit the subject matter, follow the submission procedure below to enter the competition.

"theprintspace is running monthly competitions of the best photos that you enter, to be judged by an expert panel of professional photographers and industry experts, as well as Facebook administrators of photography groups.

Each month will have a theme according to which you can submit your images (A MAX. OF 3 IMAGES per person per month please!) - the winner will get a highly coveted mounted 20x24 inch print of their choice from theprintspace studio.

All of the monthly winners will be included in theprintspace's next grand bi-annual group show at our gallery in East London! This will consist of a big opening night with free drinks, high profile guests and the opportunity to gain extensive exposure! The exhibition will run for 2 weeks, and will be the perfect opportunity for aspiring photographers to showcase their talents to the world."

*How To Enter*

In order to be eligible for the prizes, you MUST be a fan of "theprintspace" on Facebook: you can do so by clicking here. If you are not a fan, and are selected as the winner, you will be disqualified and the runner up will be awarded the prizes.
Once you are a fan, return to this page, then go ahead and click 'add photos' (scroll a little further down from here) and please add no more than 3 IMAGES per person.

*Prizes*

* a 20x24 inch print of the winning image on the paper type of your choice (choosing from c-type matt, gloss, or metallic), mounted on the most innovative & cutting-edge material used in print mounting from theprintspace: Acrylic Reverse.
* The winners will be featured in our next grand bi-annual group show at renowned theprintspace gallery in East London
* Extensive exposure from theprintspace
* Special feature on The Exposure Project Blog

*Panel of Judges*

Ben Alper & Anastasia Cazabon – founding members of The Exposure Project

Jon Tonks – a successful photojournalist based in London. Jon has been widely published in the press and exhibited.

Joyce Kim – acclaimed photographer based in Baltimore, with a highly diverse portfolio of work.

Louis Rosenthal – photograher and moderator of the highly successful Facebook group "Photography & Photographer"