A Note On Comments

I just wanted to quickly address the increasing number of anonymously rude comments that have been coming in lately. I have no issues with people voicing their opinions. In fact, the sole purpose of a blog is to stimulate discussion and nurture a variety of viewpoints. However, on the other hand when bitter souls are anonymously leaving unproductive comments that contribute nothing but negativity to a post, that's where I draw the line.

I moderate this blog on my own time and do not care for this kind of (anonymous) cowardice. I do not get paid to do this, I do it simply because I love photography. Now I know this only applies to a few people out there, but I wanted to let everyone know where I'm coming from. I ultimately do not want to restrict commenting altogether because I believe that worthwhile discussions can occur in comment feedback.

So, if you have something critical to say:

1. Don't Be Anonymous
2. Say It Constructively
3. And if you do have an issue with this blog and want to be negative, e-mail me directly

Like I said before, I know this only applies to a very few souls in the blogosphere. I would like to thank all of you who have contributed meaningful, name specific feedback on this blog.

Lewis Baltz: Subjects and Objects of the New Technological Culture

I stumbled upon a wonderful interview with Lewis Baltz over at American Suburb X. Entitled Lewis Baltz: Subjects and Objects of the New Technological Culture, the interview largely centers around the shift from analogue to digital production and whether this move has altered photography's relationship with "truthful" imagery. I realize that this is rather worn theoretical territory, however, Baltz is always insightful, thought-provoking and ultimately worth reading. Below is an excerpt from the interview. You can read it in its entirety here.


Interviewer: An analogue photo seems to maintain a strong link with the real thing that it represents, as we have the negative. So we have a material sign of the passage from a reality to its representation in the picture. With digital photos we don't have any material sign but only a line of numbers, zero and one. So do you think this mean we are getting too far from the real things we see and that we want to take in a picture?

Baltz: No. I think it's interesting that the questioning of the photograph in its relation to the reality, the interrogation of representation, the famous crisis of representation, really all took place before digital technology. Digital technology, you see, is not the villain here. It simply offers another dimension. I'm not sure if it's a farther remove from reality than analogue. I think if we can speak of reality, if reality and representation can be spoken of in the same sentence, if reality even exists any more, digital is simply another way of encoding that reality. I don't think it's farther from or, for that matter, closer to this concept of reality than anything that came before. I don't think the question of "materiality" is really what's at issue here. Photography is less material than painting; digital is less material. But the dematerialisation of art again is something that began thirty years ago as a conceptual gesture and long before people realised that it was not only a possibility but would in fact become the dominant technology.

Interviewer: But in some ways digital technologies change the relationship between the real and the virtual, because we have a real virtual world now. We have virtual reality in which we can have another world different from the real one...

Baltz: I think the balance is tipping in favour of the virtual and away from the real. But as I said before, I think that that balance had already started to tip before digital technologies. Their presence now accelerates that. Not only the presence of the technologies but the availability of the technologies. Everyone now can work with some sort of digital procedure. People are on the Internet, people work with digital cameras. Almost everything now has that possibility, maybe even the necessity, of some kind of digital interface or intervention. So in that sense, the sense that it proliferates, that it's everywhere in society, I think that will yet further detach people from whatever 19th century idea they had about reality, the phenomenal world and their relation to it and in it. Whether that change is an improvement or we are entering a dangerous brave new world, it's really impossible to say. In any case, it is the reality, it's the world we are entering, it's the world we're already half into.

Unoccupied Office

Image © Lewis Baltz

Diana Kingsley

I found Diana Kingsley's work today, who, as it turns out, currently has a show at Leo Castelli. In the statement for her work, Kingsley expounds on what motivates her imagemaking:

"In my photographs I'm drawn to situations where control is confounded by dysfunction and formal elegance is poised precariously on the verge of the absurd. Subjects are undone by subtle flaws, minor setbacks, or a sense of impending doom: cherished possessions are lost, composure is fleeting, first prize remains elusive, while honorable mentions abound. Although the subject matter varies, a coherent sensibility emerges wherein human frailty and vulnerability are reflected in the most disparate of everyday things. I'm looking for the blunt and unadorned ambience of a one-act comedy, where psychological tension and pratfalls set a mood rather than force any particular narrative."

Diana Kingsley: In Pari Delicto
January 9 – February 28, 2009
Leo Castelli Gallery
18 East 77th Street
New York, NY











From Top To Bottom:

Experimental Gene, 2007

Siberia, 2006

Little Icky, 2007

In Pari Delicto, 2006

Bad Seed, 2008

All Images © Diana Kingsley

Thobias Fäldt

I've known about Thobias Fäldt's work for a while now, however, only recently have I grown a stronger appreciation for it. I initially wrote him off as yet another photographer conforming to the snapshot trend in contemporary photography. And, I guess to some degree, his images do possess some irrefutable snapshot qualities - direct flash, haphazardness of subject matter and a general aesthetic casualness. However, Fäldt's images transcend these attributes, or more specifically, use them to their advantage. His most successful images thrive from a pronounced sense of ambiguity, where context and geography are largely absent. It's as though each photograph has captured a cryptic moment either before or after some action has taken place. An action which is rarely resolved and that is, ultimately, unimportant. Fäldt makes us appreciate the 'in between' moments in life by revealing a strangeness in the banality of everyday life.











All Images © Thobias Fäldt

Aaron McElroy's Dolldrums

Our friend Aaron McElroy has been working on a new body of work entitled Dolldrums. Frequently off-putting and disorienting, these images graphically distill what it's like to feel truly anonymous and socially alienated. As McElroy's pseudo-apocalyptic statement projects:

"The slant of street, a boxing in view, hinting at a despondent, yet choice-less voyeurism. From the mouths poised in general street speak to a wordless tightness of keeping to oneself--there is still the stealing moment of each face---as if, yes, precisely that, we've stolen a private citizen. Such as, given up reaching them & reaching oneself, yet still a strongly perceptible humanity. A mass, a crawl, a version of polling generals on the street. Particularly while viewing the faces, we long for some trace of recognition on them, some un-numbing balance. Appears a familiar scar, pockmark, hairline. And, each person does bear the coveted resemblance in an indescribable anonymity. Recognize an average populous, a traceless foreboding, even a slightly humorous parting of lips, scrawl of an eyebrow."











All photographs from the series Dolldrums

All Images © Aaron McElroy

Peter Riesett's Testament.08

Artistic interconnectedness among artists is somewhat commonplace. After all, the nature of creation is largely based on borrowing, recontextualizing, or even directly appropriating ideas and motifs from other practitioners. We all engage in it, whether consciously or subconsciously. So, the other day when I saw Peter Riesett's series Testament.08, I was eerily struck by the similarities it shares with my current body of work, The Family Dig. As his statement so simply and eloquently asserts:

"These images are an extension of a photographic series completed in 2004, entitled TESTAMENT. This was my second grandfather to have passed away and the second time I was documenting the packing up of a life after death. The difference here, his wife is still alive -- a poignant presence mourning the loss of her husband of 60 years. After one grandfather's passing in 2003 and my other in 2007, I routinely returned to these spaces to capture what I could before these dwellings disappeared. Much like an archeological dig, souvenirs, texts, and objects filled the space, allowing me to have wordless conversations with the objects of disuse. With every visit the void and absence of life became greater within these walls. Through the wandering process of investigation, compositions were revealed, often transcending into metaphor.

Personality traits become unveiled by how and what is accumulated, stockpiled, and often cherished. These attachments and idiosyncrasies, portrayed through the collision, placement, and relationship of everyday objects intrigue me. The action of photography becomes a way to integrate myself into any given situation. Using an unflinching documentary approach and working with available light, I strive to engage viewers in a dialogue that is both physical and emotional. This is a call to witness."











All photographs from the series Testament.08

All Images © Peter Riesett

Exposure Project Book - Issue 4 Artists Announced!

So, we here at The Exposure Project have spent a long couple of weeks reviewing submissions for Issue 4 of The Exposure Project Book. We received an overwhelming amount of truly wonderful submissions, which ultimately made the curatorial decisions all the harder to make. We would genuinely like to thank everyone who submitted work and assure you all that deciding on a roster of photographers was not easy. So, it is with great pleasure that we announce the final selection of photographers for Issue 4:

Chris Bentley
Rona Chang
Daniel Farnum
Elizabeth Fleming
Lee Gainer
Matthew Genitempo
Inka Lindergård & Niclas Holmström
Natascha Libbert
Bradley Peters
Carlo Van De Roer
Daniel Shea
Manuel Vazquez
Jens Windolf
Susan Worsham
Bahar Yurukoglu

Once again, thanks to everyone who showed support and submitted work to Issue 4. We will post further details pertaining to the release of the book as they materialize.

Image © Matthew Genitempo