shawn records

it was great to finally meet shawn records and talk about photography and what we´ve been doing lately. i really appreciate his approach to his image making and talked about how it steps out of a formulistic way of thinking. his work harbor looks at a small town drawn to failure and what that means for its people. beautifully portrayed and produced in prints. here is a multimedia of shawn from the pause to begin gang.





about harbour:

"Ultimately, Harbor is a project about hope, failure, ambition, tradition, and wildness, primarily set in and inspired by Gray's Harbor in Washington state. When locals ask why I'm photographing there, I always tell them that the area has a long history of both optimism and failure that interests me: the rise and fall of logging, the construction and desertion of the nuclear plant, the spotted owl, the meth, Cobain's rise and eventual suicide, etc.... At first, I worried about offending, but that's never the case. They always laugh. They get it. In fact, I think they thrive on it".

taj forer

not a participant but a reviewer, taj forer was one of the best interviews for me. i had commented with other peers how different reviews are when the language spoken (photographer-photographer) is the same. his work, threefold sun is simple and complex at the same time, exploring light and the coincidences of ordinary life with great vision. you can get info on how to get his book here.



from his web:

In Threefold Sun, photographer Taj Forer takes a warm and thoughtful look at some people and places influenced by the work of Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), the German artist-philosopher who gave the world not just his work and writing, but Waldorf schools and biodynamic farming. Forer's color photographs of laundry lines, garden hoses, straw forts, rubber boots and kitchen tables are at once beautiful and banal. Beauty is where it might be expected (a wall of sunny children's paintings, a tree house), but more often where it wouldn't be (a slightly deflated yellow ball in a cement play yard, a sledding hill without enough snow). Utopia is waiting in a patch of sun, a smudge of mud, a chalkboard message professing heavenly joy, a little bit of blood in the small nostrils of a boy baptized with everyday dirt.

eliza lamb

"This series of photographs was created in the neighborhood of
Astoria, Queens in New York City. It is a changing community that was
built on tradition and religion. The yards are small and precious and
as I moved into the area I was fascinated by how people chose to use
them. I was intrigued by the public displays of religion that seemed
to greet me numerous times on each block. Fascinated by the
willingness or need to share these beliefs so openly, I began to
collect images of them from the sidewalk".




"As I kept walking, I found that the statues themselves told me less
about the people behind them then the way they were presented. The
custom made covers, new paint jobs, locks, trash storage and
adornments, or lack there of, seemed to tell me the greater story.
As I kept walking through the neighborhood I began to feel like I was
sharing something with the strangers around me and I began to
welcome Mother Mary as my escort on my long walks home. But as
the neighborhood changes and property values increase I am
saddened to find my new companions disappearing at every turn and
with that the life and tradition that made this neighborhood so
great". eliza lamb

dina kantor

dina kantor´s project finnish & jewish feels like an exploration of self through the other. more than just producing staged images, dina seems to look for clues of what part of these people belongs to her.




"My mother was born in Finland and emigrated to America as a child in 1947. Almost thirty years later, when she married my father, she converted to Judaism. I began photographing in Finland as a way to explore my own heritage, but as the project continues, it has come to embody a larger exploration.

With these pictures, I am investigating the ways in which photography contributes to the construction of identity and community. Today’s society is increasingly complex and multi-cultural. As our heritages blend, our identities are no longer definable by a generic social stereotype of community, but by our unique experiences and backgrounds. Photography has an intrinsic ability to record details. I am employing it to record cultural signifiers and traditions as they blend, as well as to depict physical characteristics of a hybridized community".

reiner riedler

reiner riedler looks at what mitch epstein started to perceive about american culture and its desire for recreation in the 70´s and 80´s; there is a constant need to engage with things from the "real world", even if the real world is, as reiners´ images now shows, constructed. but then again, what is real?




from a text by Jens Lindworsky: "When wishes are out of reach, simulation is taking over our leisure time and our holidays. Imaginary worlds are created, often under massive technological exertion, in order to offer us experience as reproducible merchandise. Although the quality of these adventures on demand sometimes proves to be rather dubious, the boom does shed light on one thing: the yearnings and dreams underlying people’s daily lives."



mitch epstein

Buena Vista, Colorado 1988
from Recreation: American Photographs 1973-1988

sara malakoff

extremely well composed, both in color and form, new york photographer sarah malakoff´s images are an exciting site to see. her prints carried out the presence and ambiance of the spaces represented.

back from photolucida/ some of my fav photographers

brook reynolds




looking at one of the consequences of the fall of our contemporary capitalist system, brook reynolds images act both as metaphor and document.

from her statement:

These photographs depict abandoned gas stations to represent the unavoidable end to our consumption of fossil fuels. Gas stations as we know them will either become obsolete or evolve as we find new sources of energy, but these photographs only show dilapidation and emptiness to emphasize our present circumstances and the urgent need for change. As surreal as they may seem, these images document real places that are representations of the future. The images were taken in GA over the past two years, which could be representative of a national or global trend. The project continues to evolve as I discover new locations and revisit old ones, and as time passes it will be interesting to see what happens to these sites as we make the transition to other sources of energy.



We are all dependent on each other and our individual actions do affect the future of our world. Nobody really knows for sure how much we have influenced global warming, but just the knowledge that we have contributed to a destructive cycle that could endanger many life forms is enough for me to say it is time to do something to reduce our negative impact on the overall health of this planet. Nature will renew itself as long as we give it a chance to heal, and we can be a part of that healing process by searching for ways to live in harmony with the environment.

website and email crash....sorry

they are working now.

getting cold in portland....

photolucida portfolio review 2009

i am of to the photolucida portfolio reviews in portland oregon. posting will be slow.

mexican vanguardia photography/ PHOTOICON MAGAZINE

This months issue of photoicon magazine features 26 vanguardia photographers from mexico, including myself. it is a good and extensive coverage on what photography is all about in mexico.

the editors note:


By SANTIAGO GARCÉS VILLANUEVA
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR


In our previous issue, Made in Scandinavia, we came into contact with a world where photography is mostly a consequence of the profound study of a concept together with the techniques that translate it into images. In contrast, this issue is dedicated to radically different photographic languages. Rather than a collective artistic effort, we will look at the multiple expressions of photography in a country where extreme contrasts are the rule.

To get a better understanding of the general composition of this issue, it’s worth mentioning that Mexico is going through very complicated times, marked by the violence of drug wars and the extreme poverty in which a large part of the population lives. Paradoxically, some of the world’s wealthiest individuals have made fortunes out of this same society.

In spite of all this, such a context seems to be a source of inspiration: Mexican photography is worthy of the international recognition, but it also plays, in its more conventional form, a central role in everyday life.

Today, it’s extremely difficult to talk about Mexican photography in general, but it’s even more difficult to describe it in detail. This medium forms part of an infinite number of ways of life, each with their corresponding forms of expression, which cannot be easily catalogued and which, like the worst type of virus, are continually mutating.

Just like the inhabitants of this multitudinous country, photography is constantly adopting different personalities and moods, sometimes suggestive, incomprehensible and sometimes simply bipolar.

The line between fiction and reality is a fine and tortuous one. To see this, one only has to compare the portraits of quinceañeras – sweet sixteen-like 15-year olds – in palaces that they will probably never visit, with the princesses photographed by Daniela Rosell in her Rich and Famous series in palaces they will probably never leave.

It’s precisely this fine, sinuous line between reality and fiction that seems to have always existed in Mexico and is more defined every day, which we trace in this issue through the sincere images of local photographers and the surprised and curious views of foreign photographers.

bill finger

from an interview by james wagner:

"Memories though very personal often cue into societal or cultural elements that make up shared experiences of a particular time or place. A sort of collective consciousness, if you will. I attempt to play off this, which includes making use of a certain filmic quality. Movies have become such a powerful connection that most of us as a society share". bill finger

dystopia/ robert koch gallery

the dystopia exhibition will be up until the 25th of april. dont miss it if your in san francisco. robert koch gallery.

guy batey; the melancholy of objects

what is it that attracts us to photograph found objects? it seems an obsession that photographers can´t leave behind including myself. guy batey´s proposal is one more in the long list.




"The Melancholy of Objects is a series of portraits of the objects I've found lost or discarded on the streets of Southwark in south-east London where I live.Some of these objects seem to talk to me, and the photographs are my reply".

will govus

nice picture over at will govus´s page. moody.

rona chang

i really like rona chang's pictures.

david taylor

and on that same border but in the US side is david taylor with his proyect working the line. from his statement:

To the American public the Border Patrol generally functions either as the heroic defender of our periphery or as a band of government thugs that beat up on displaced Mexicans. Neither exaggerated position is accurate. Most agents say they want a clear mission and will enforce whatever border policy the American electorate articulates. They view their work as service to our country in much the same way that someone in the military would. Many are frustrated by the presentation of the border issue in main-steam media. Some agents believe our current border policy is misguided while others equate the border issue with post 9/11 national security.

The political views of agents run the gamut from republican to democrat (though the majority are conservative). However, political affiliation does not seem to correlate with the empathy agents have for those that they are charged with apprehending. Some freely acknowledge that if they were in the south, looking north, they would be crossing as well. Others take a hard line, reducing the issue to right and wrong - legal and illegal. A surprising number of agents are the children of parents that crossed the border. Fifty-one percent are Hispanic. They frequently save the lives of people who have been abandoned by their coyotes (smuggler/guides) in the desert.

The Border Patrol is currently in a state of transition. It is migrating from an organization that, for most of its history, looked and functioned much like a rural sheriff's department, to one styled after the high-tech military of the 21st century. The photographs from this ongoing project create a more complex portrait of an organization that is most often seen through the lens of ideologically driven polemics.

division del norte: a border community in reynosa mexico

i have spent the last few weeks working on a project in northern mexico.





this community lives close to the US border and to drug dealers which they call "mañosos".





it strikes me how they have decided to stick to a "normal" rural life instead of joining the immigrant or drug cartel statistics.

leonie purchas: Polygamy in the Banlieux of Paris

leonie purchas statement:

The Tall Family- Polygamy in the Banlieux of Paris

Tall Abdou who had come to France from Mali in the 70's leaving his wife Tall Feinda in Africa. He legally married Tall Hamssatou after a few years living in Paris, who had already been married and had 8 children. A few years later his original wife Tall Feinda joined them in Paris and together they now have 15 children.

Three years ago Abdou and Feinda were obliged to divorce in order to keep their work permits as a result of the government's new Pasqua laws. The two women now live 10 minutes walk from each other in the Paris suburb of Clichy-Sous-Bois. Their husband now spends three nights at a time with each. The children, grandchildren and the rest of the extended family also move between the mothers and regard both apartments as home.



Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Interior Minister, cited polygamy as the cause of the 2005 riots famously stating ‘Have you had enough of this scum? We are going to get rid of them for you.’

paul d´amato

found via conscientious, i was struck by the greatness in paul d´amato´s portraiture work.



i found a small coincidence with Robert Doisneau´s picture of a couple outside a store with one of paul´s images. both are just great!

sarah wilson: blind prom 2008

i´ve been wanting to post sarah´s work for some time. I like the change she proposes on how blind people have been documented.

mischa keijser

really nice work over at mischa keijser´s website. the landscapes are the best for me.

generador : guadalajara

and a group of photographers from guadalajara created generador. a site that is generating a community of young mexican photographer exhibiting, teaching and creating photo projects.

more guadalajara power: paula islas

paula islas was a grantee with me last year in the young creators FONCA grant. her work looks at social cliches in men and women.