Nymphoto

Farewell!

2010-05-21T00:01:00.004-04:00

on track to the future © Rona Chang

We are very proud of NYMPHOTO and what the collective has accomplished and stands for.
Over the years we have done it all: exhibits, charity auctions, competitions, lectures, events, meet ups, books, blogs, and interviews. We have met and worked with some amazing people and the collective has been an unrivaled experience.
What's next?
Well, we have decided to take a break.
For how long? We don't know. It might be a permanent vacation.
Why? There are many reasons, all of them positive and having to do with our members living life to the fullest.
Thank you for your support and readership. We are grateful.

So long & see you around!

The NYMPHOTO Collective

PS: The blog will stay up as an archive and we encourage you to check in on our personal blogs and websites (find them on the sidebar) to stay in touch.

Another Conversation with Emily Shur

2010-05-20T00:01:00.002-04:00

© Emily Shur

Emily Shur, much like Tema Stauffer has been involved or connected to every Nymphoto project. Emily early on participated in our conversation series. It is nice to come full circle. And thus today we present another conversation with Emily Shur - catching up on what has happend since our last conversation and discussing her assignment and her personal work.

© Emily Shur

NP: Can you fill us in a little to what has been going with you since our last interview?

ES: Well, I just looked up the date of our original conversation which was July 8, 2008, so it’s been quite a while. Lots of things have changed, but also lots of things are the same. 2008 and 2009 were very difficult years for me, professionally and financially. I was not making any money, which I’m sort of used to, but it reached a critical point towards the end of 2009, and I was forced to take a hard look at what was going on in my career. The industry was (and still is) shifting away from all of the things I had become comfortable with. I made a living shooting for magazines for almost 10 years, and continuing that has become impossible at this stage in the game. It’s unfortunate because I still love shooting for magazines, reading magazines, browsing at newsstands, etc., but it was time to accept what was happening and make the necessary adjustments. Towards the end of last year, I made a few major professional changes. I changed agents and did a full re-design of my website.

© Emily Shur

Another good thing that came out of this professional slump was that it re-connected me with my personal work. Because of nothing but sheer frustration with what was happening in my work life, I forced myself to shoot things and subject matter that I enjoyed and brought me pleasure. I was worried that my unhappiness with my career was going to spill over into my overall feelings about photography. I always want photography to be enjoyable, fulfilling, and some sort of refuge for me. I was beginning to feel mostly negative feelings about it and needed to stop that before it got any worse. I had lots of free time, so I began to put most of my energy towards shooting and editing my personal work. I applied to reviews and submitted my work to lots of contests and websites. It has been a very enlightening and positive experience, and it’s brought my attitude towards picture taking back around from the dark side.

© Emily Shur

NP: We like the re-design of your site. Particularly that we get to see more of what you call your personal work? Has your focus been shifting? And does your personal work inform your assignment work or vice versa?

ES: Thanks! It was important to me to incorporate more of my personal work into my site re-design. Right now, I’m not yet at the point where my personal work and assignment work are intertwined or derivative of each other. Part of the thought behind incorporating so much of my personal work into the new site was that hopefully I would be looked at in a different light as a photographer. I want art directors and photo editors to know that I can do more than take portraits of famous people. I want them to better understand my overall point of view, and I think that showing my personal work definitely adds an element to my body of work. I would love to get assignment work based off of my personal work, or be asked to use my personal work as inspiration in my assignment work. Showing all of my work together on one site is still kind of new, so I realize it might take a while for people to see me as someone who does quiet landscapes as well as celebrity portraits.

© Emily Shur

NP: In our last conversation you said you weren’t sure what drives your personal work. Do you still feel that way?

ES: I still am not a very project oriented photographer which I half want to change and half don’t care to change. Like I said in my answer to the first question, a lot of my personal work is pretty selfish in nature. Simply stated, it’s how I most enjoy photography. It’s how I remind myself why I love photography, and it’s where I feel most free as a photographer. The only pressure involved is pressure I put on myself. The only person I need to please is myself. So, I guess it really is driven by the hedonist in me.

© Emily Shur

NP: Your blog is popular! And it also has a new look and a new address. Can you tell us how the blog fits into your world?

ES: It is? It does have a new look and new address (www.emilyshur.com/blog). I got nerdy over Christmas break last year and taught myself how to design in Wordpress. The blog is a bit all over the place – one part photography, one part self promotion, one part love letter to The Baroness (our dog), and one part utterly and completely random. The blog is, I think, important to one’s photographic career right now although not everyone needs or wants one. It’s sort of public, so I can understand that not everyone wants to share their inner most thoughts on the internet. My blog is a place where I can get outside opinions on new work, promote upcoming events, and give people a bit more insight into what kind of stuff inspires or interests me. I’ve ‘met’ lots of other photographers and creative people all over the world because of my blog which is pretty cool. Sometimes the blog is stressful for me...I can’t think of things to write about, I censor my real thoughts because I realize that people in a position to hire me might be reading, and I feel a sense of obligation to keep it interesting and updated. So all in all, it’s not this complete zone of freedom and awesomeness, but I do enjoy it, and it makes me happy to think that people all over the world know how cute The Baroness is.

© Emily Shur

NP: What’s next?

ES: I’m planning yet another trip to Japan with my husband so that I can continue taking pictures there. I’m preparing my work for this year’s Review Santa Fe which is in June. I also recently had a piece in a group show at THIS Gallery (in conjunction with MOPLA) on April 30th. I’m hoping this year will bring some good assignment and commercial work, and that I can continue making a living doing what I love.

NP: Thank you so much!

Isa Leshko: The Picture Show

2010-05-19T13:13:00.006-04:00

Moonie, Age 32 from the series Elderly Animals and Point Pleasant, NJ #1 from the series Thrills and Chills © Isa Leshko
Head over to NPR's The Picture Show for a recent feature Isha Leskho's work in a piece titled A Photographer, A Holga and Roller Coasters by Claire O'Neill. To re-visit our conversation with Isa, please click here.

THE EXHIBITION LAB: MORE NEWS

2010-05-19T13:08:00.000-04:00

THE EXHIBITION LAB
PORTFOLIO REVIEW:

Honore Brown, Associate Picture Editor, The New Yorker
Stacey Clarkson, Art Director, Harper's
Kris Graves, Director, Kris Graves Projects
Jackie Ladner, Assistant Photo Editor, New York Magazine
Russell Lord, Fellow, Department of Photographs, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Andrea Meislin, Director, Andrea Meislin Gallery
Tracey Norman, Director, Yancey Richardson Gallery
Amy Stein, Photographer
Sasha Wolf, Director, Sasha Wolf Gallery
Denise Wolff, Editor, Aperture

June 27 / 11:00 - 6:00 / $325

Twice a year The Exhibition Lab will gather a few of the greats in the field to host portfolio reviews for our students. The review will consist of three 20-minute reviews with four of the 10 reviewers listed above. Although we cannot promise, please indicate your top four choices of reviewers and we will take that into consideration.

A "Free Pass Award" based on merit will be given by The Exhibition Lab staff to one applicant which will waive the tuition for the portfolio review. Two "Reviewers' Choice" scholarships will be awarded at the end of the review good for one complimentary Seminar at The Ex Lab.

Stay for the "review after party" where all the artists and reviewers will have the opportunity to meet each other.

To apply, please provide the following materials via info@theexhibitionlab.com

1. A written description of your work, no more than 100 words
2. 10 jpegs sent either in a zip file or attached to an e-mail (jpegs should be 72 dpi and 6 inches at the largest dimension.)

Deadline for submission is June 12th. Artists will be notified of acceptance by June 14th. Payment is due upon acceptance. There is no cost to apply.

THE EXHIBITION LAB: OPEN HOUSE

2010-05-19T00:05:00.000-04:00

THE EXHIBITION LAB
548 West 28th Street, 2nd Fl
New York, NY 10001
info@theexhibitionlab.com

Open House
Thursday June 3, 2010
6:30-8:00 PM

Find out more about the Exhibiton Lab at this open house and see a list of all upcoming classes by visiting : www.theexhibitionlab.com.

Upcoming: Michele Abeles & Others @ PS 1 -Greater New York 2010

2010-05-19T00:01:00.002-04:00

Greater New York 2010
May 23–October 18

Opening Day Celebration
Sunday, May 23, 12:00–6:00 p.m.

MoMA PS1 and The Museum of Modern Art present the third iteration of the quinquennial exhibition Greater New York, which showcases the work of artists and collectives living and working in the New York metropolitan area. In addition to presenting recent works by some 68 artists, Greater New York includes an active on-site workshop in which participating artists are invited to experiment with new projects and ideas throughout the duration of the exhibition.

A special performance by Terence Koh will take place at 3:00 p.m., followed by a DJ set by Michael Magnan from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.

Please revisit our conversation with Michele by clicking here.

Picture of the Week: Nina Büsing Corvallo

2010-05-18T00:01:00.001-04:00

from Chronicle © Nina Büsing Corvallo

Please visit www.ninabuesing.net to see more of Nina's amazing work.

Jane Tam @ Umbrage Gallery

2010-05-17T00:02:00.000-04:00

Untitled, 2008 © Jane Tam

Jane Tam & Others
Graphic Intersections & The Portrait As Allegory
Umbrage Gallery
111 Front Street, Suite 208
DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY 11201
- through June 26th, 2010

Patryce Bak

2010-05-17T00:01:00.002-04:00

Patryce Bak & Others
Hunter MFA Thesis Exhibition
Hunter College Times Square Gallery
450 West 41st Street New York, NY 10036
Between 9th + 10th Avenues
May 19 to June 19, 2010
Reception: May 19, 6 - 8 pm

Helen Sear @ Klompching

2010-05-16T00:02:00.003-04:00

© Helen Sear/courtesy Klompching Gallery

More work by the talented Helen Sear at Klompching Gallery!

Klompching Gallery
111 Front Street
Suite 206.
DUMBO, Brooklyn
-through June 11, 2010

Upcoming Workshops: Mary Ellen Mark

2010-05-16T00:01:00.001-04:00

Puerto Rican Day Parade Weekend Workshop
New York
June 12-13, 2010

Two-weeks in India
November 6-20, 2010

Find more information at www.maryellenmark.com.

Go-Go Gadget: Conquer The Battlefield

2010-05-15T00:04:00.007-04:00

Dubbed "The Battlefield" due to it's battleship-like shape, this amazing D.I.Y. three-hole, pinhole camera uses three simultaneous rolls of 35mm film! This will be an awesome summer project... Built from cardboard, tape, tin foil, felt pens, nails and bottle-tops (amongst other things you can find in your junk drawer). The three roles of 35mm of film run along the length of the box. Complex but comprehensive, you can find the instructions here, with handy diagrams, supply lists and videos. The photos it takes are super-cool!

via Wired and DIY Photography

If You Are in Iceland: Katrín Elvarsdóttir

2010-05-14T00:02:00.004-04:00

© Katrín Elvarsdóttir

Katrín Elvarsdóttir
EQUIVOCAL THE SEQUEL
Gallerí Ágúst
Baldursgata 12
IS-101 Reykjavík
www.galleriagust.is
art@galleriagust.is
+ 354 578 2100 / +354 869 2013
Open Wed-Sat 12-17
- through June 26th

Artist talk with Katrín Elvarsdóttir and Markús Thór Andrésson:
Wednesday the 19th of May at 5.30 pm

Please re-visit our conversation with Katrín, by clicking here.

In collaboration with the City of Reykjavik.

Rachel Hulin, Robyn Lange

2010-05-14T00:01:00.002-04:00

Head over to Rachel Hulin's A Photographer's Blog for her interview with Editor Robyn Lange. It published earlier this year, but if you haven't read it yet, it's a good read.

A Conversation with Sarah Wilson

2010-05-13T00:01:00.003-04:00

We are thrilled to present this interview with Sarah Wilson. Sarah's work was first introduced to us many years ago, and as a result, she has participated in past Nymphoto projects. Her unique vision and sensitivity are truly special. When looking at her images, the viewer can immediately detect the regard she has for her subjects and the story she intends to convey.

Johnny Watkins from the series Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana © Sarah Wilson

George Conner, from the series Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana © Sarah Wilson

Nymphoto: Tell us a little about yourself.

Sarah Wilson: I live in Austin, Texas and I am an editorial photographer, concentrating mostly on portraiture and documentary work. I grew up in Austin through the end of high school, and then moved to New York City to attend NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts for undergrad photography. While working on my own projects after graduation, I interned and assisted for several photographers including Mary Ellen Mark, Ken Schles, Robert Clark, Robert Diadul and Mark Jenkinson. I consider the handful of years working for other photographers as my continuing education. For a young photographer looking to break into the commercial or editorial world, I cannot recommend assisting enough.

During those years after graduation, I completed a couple of personal projects that have had some staying power and influence on my career. One of them, Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana, is an exploration of my Cajun roots in Southwest Louisiana, where much of my extended family still lives. With that project, I had my first solo show, sponsored by the Daniel Rosenberg Traveling Fellowship. The other project, Jasper, Texas: The Road to Redemption documents the aftermath of the brutal dragging death of James Byrd Jr., a shocking hate crime that garnered international attention and threatened to fracture an already divided East Texas town. The Jasper photos became an exhibition that traveled to six cities in Texas, as well as New York City. Curators from the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston have included prints from the Jasper project in their permanent collections. I feel fortunate to have been able to show both of these bodies of work to magazine editors, and other important figures in the photography world at an early point in my career.

Since I moved back to Austin in 2005, I have been working as an editorial photographer for magazines such as Texas Monthly, Mother Jones and Men’s Journal. Just recently, I shot my first assignment for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, which has been a goal of mine for a long time.

Bill King on Death Row, from the series Jasper, Texas: The Road to Redemption © Sarah Wilson

Marlon Forward, from the series Jasper, Texas: The Road to Redemption © Sarah Wilson

NP: How did you discover photography?

SW: I discovered photography at Horizons art camp in North Hampton, Massachusetts the summer after my sophomore year in high school. We were asked to choose two mediums in which to concentrate. I chose drawing and photography, and quickly found that I was MUCH better at photography than drawing, so I stuck with it. I took photo classes in high school and decided to major in photography in college.

Fermin, from the series Blind Prom © Sarah Wilson

Ashley and Victoria, from the series Blind Prom © Sarah Wilson

Melissa and James, from the series Blind Prom © Sarah Wilson

NP: Where do you find inspiration?

SW: As a portrait and documentary photographer, I am inspired by people. If I weren’t a photographer, I would probably be a psychologist or a counselor because I am curious about the intricacies of people’s lives. I ponder why people live the way they do, make the decisions they make, and how these factors effect their overall state of being. Photography serves as a passport into other people’s lives, giving me the chance to sit in someone else’s skin for a little while. I need to be able to read other people’s feelings and attempt to represent them accurately. I believe that a successful portrait can depict the subject’s life, not only in the still instance that the photograph was made, but it can also tell the story of their past and their future.

Although I loved living in New York City, I find myself drawn to the South and to middle America for my personal work. People seem to live their lives more out in the open here than they do in New York, which makes my job easier.

Slow Dance, from the series Blind Prom © Sarah Wilson

Michael and Victoria, from the series Blind Prom © Sarah Wilson

NP: How do your projects come about?

SW: My projects come about rather organically. I met my writing partner for the Jasper, Texas project at a dinner party. We started talking about the interviews he was conducting down in Jasper during the murder trials. This sounded very interesting to me, so I offered to take some pictures for him. We ended up working together on the Jasper project for over two years after that.

Similarly, I met the point person for my current project, Blind Prom, at my sister’s wedding a few years ago. He was my brother-in-law’s best man and he was sitting at the same table with my boyfriend, Keith, and I. He told us that he works as the recreation director at the school for the blind. We were so intrigued by his stories about the students, that Keith ended up making a documentary about the school, called THE EYES OF ME, which aired in March 2010 on PBS’s INDEPENDENT LENS. I served as Keith’s stills photographer for the film, which led to my volunteering at prom.

Ideas for my projects also come from seeing something in the news or an event that’s happening around town. I guess I just try to keep my ears open and follow through on those ideas that keep rattling around in my brain.

The Texas School for the Blind Presentation of The Wizard of Oz © Sarah Wilson

Queen Citriana, Lauren Yvana Guerra © Sarah Wilson

Shot on Assignment for Texas Monthly, 2009

NP: What's next?

SW: I am getting close to the tail end of a long-term project I’ve been working on. For the last four years, I have been volunteering as the prom night photographer for the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. At first, I saw the photos as simply a documentation of the night, paired with formal portraits that the students could share with their families and friends. But as I continued photographing, I realized that these images could reach a broader audience. They capture the energy and excitement of a group of marginalized teens participating in the American rite of passage of attending a formal prom. I believe these images can serve as a medium for consideration of what life might be like as a blind teenager. Blind Prom has shown at the Foley Gallery in New York, The New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery, and in China at the Lishui International Photography Festival. In addition to the prom photos, I have also been documenting other events related to the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and I hope that these images from the school will be published in book form someday.

Young Bride of Warren Jeffs at the FLDS Compound © Sarah Wilson

Shot on assignment for Texas Monthly, 2009.

NP: Thank You Sarah!

To see more of Sarah's work, please visit www.sarahwilsonphotography.com

Tomorrow: Ariana Page Russel

2010-05-12T14:31:00.001-04:00

Ariana Page Russell: Save Face
New photographic work
Platform Gallery
114 Third Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98102
May 13 to June 29, 2010
Artist Reception, May 13, 6 to 8pm

Please re-visit our Conversation with Ariana by clicking here.

Deb Willis, Jess Ingram Talk @NYPH

2010-05-12T00:16:00.004-04:00

Bodies In Question: Deborah Willis & Jessica Ingram
Lecture
Friday, May 14
6:30 - 7:15pm
Get more information at: www.nyphotofestival.com.

Please re-visit our conversation with Jess, by clicking here.

Amy Stein

2010-05-12T00:01:00.000-04:00

Amy Stein
Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art
Faraway Nearby
Overland Park, KS
- through May 16, 2010

Picture of the Week: Talia Greene

2010-05-11T00:01:00.000-04:00

Opening This Week: The Naked Truth

2010-05-10T00:01:00.003-04:00

courtesy Ruben Natal San Miguel

The Naked Truth
Curated by Ruben Natal-San Miguel
Hous Projects
31 Howard Street
2nd Floor
New York, NY
Opening Reception: May 13 @ 6 PM

Susan Meiselas, Nan Goldin, Maria Ruterford, Jen Davis, Naomi Harris, Juliana Beasley and many other outstanding artists.
Please re-visit our interview with Juliana Beasley, by clicking here.

collect.give

2010-05-09T17:38:00.003-04:00

© Annie Marie Musselman

Head over to collectdotgive.org for great prints by Elizabeth Fleming and Annie Marie Musselman- and great causes!

Go-Go Gadget: Recession Accessories

2010-05-08T00:12:00.001-04:00

Has the recession hit you right where it hurts... your camera bag? Here are some "creative" DIY projects designed to improve your photography, without emptying your wallet.

This top-ten list of improvised accessories include: tripods made out of string, cereal softboxes (I'd go with fruity pebbles) and plywood reflectors amongst others. Best thing about them? Most of them can be done with stuff lying around your humble abode.

via Photojojo and Cnet UK

Opening Today: Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography

2010-05-07T00:00:00.000-04:00

(via The Museum of Modern Art)

Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography

May 7, 2010–March 21, 2011

The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street New York, NY 10019
The Edward Steichen Photography Galleries, third floor

For much of photography’s 170-year history, women have expanded its roles by experimenting with every aspect of the medium. Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography presents a selection of outstanding photographs by women artists, charting the medium’s history from the dawn of the modern period to the present. Including over two hundred works, this exhibition features celebrated masterworks and new acquisitions from the collection by such figures as Diane Arbus, Berenice Abbott, Claude Cahun, Imogen Cunningham, Rineke Dijkstra, Florence Henri, Roni Horn, Nan Goldin, Helen Levitt, Lisette Model, Lucia Moholy, Tina Modotti, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems, among many others. The exhibition also highlights works drawn from a variety of curatorial departments, including Bottoms, a large-scale Fluxus wallpaper by Yoko Ono.

A Conversation with Livia Corona

2010-05-06T00:01:00.000-04:00

© Livia Corona

We are excited to present today's conversation with current Guggenheim fellow Livia Corona.
I first became acquainted with Livia's work during the call for entries for Nymphoto at Sasha Wolf Gallery and I have been impressed with her dedication to her craft, commitment to her projects and her strong vision.

© Livia Corona

NP: Tell us a little about yourself.

LC: I live in New York and Mexico City—I think of the two as a single location, a kind of “Twin Cities” with a 5-hour flight bridging from one side to the other. I studied at Art Center College of Design. I am a photographer and sometime writer. I grew up in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. From childhood until the age of fourteen, I traveled with my swim team, staying in the homes of host teams during swim meets in other parts of the country. Unknowingly, during my travels as a competitive swimmer, I was doing my own version of self assigned Field Practicum - Of this time I most vividly remember the family dynamics inside the homes I slept in, comparing them to my own home life, and noting ways one can get by, with and without problems. As a young adult, I studied art history in Europe while on study abroad scholarship. Eventually I moved to Los Angeles for art school.

© Livia Corona

In my current role as a visual artist, I am often familiarizing with new geographies, both for research and for commissioned assignments. My work is drawn by the underlying structures affecting quotidian survival, and my photographs expand on how these manifest on a broader level. Even though my approach to image making is not exclusively anthropologic, I think my photography, to this date, is a continuation of those sleepovers experienced early on as an in kid in a position that required independent, but under-aged travel.

© Livia Corona

NP: How did you discover photography?

LV: There were many moments pointing the way when I was growing up, but I chose to overlook them. I was always setting up photographs here and there, but I was opposed to photography as a career for myself because at that early age I did not know how I could transcend what I then knew of it: the two photographers in my home town only photographed events for the local social pages. I would notice how people would charm up to them yelling, “Shoot me! Shoot me! Put me in the paper”. Oh lord, the tension, I would think. I wasn’t attracted to the possibility of this chant as my life soundtrack when trying to earn a living.

My mother often visited a friend of hers who owned the one photo studio in the city. I would tag along on the visits and pass the time looking at the photo display cases, or hang out the back of the studio to watch how the photographs were being made. The owner of this photo studio was also one of my godmothers, and as a never-ending, very generous first communion gift, she processed my rolls of film for free up until my twenties.

In my early teens my mom and I went to watch a Luis Buñuel film cycle. There I saw a still photograph of a famous scene from “Los Olvidados” (The Young and the Damned). In it, the main characters, Jaibo and Ojitos, are beating up a blind paraplegic musician. The film of course made an impact, but more than the film’s subject I recall trying to imagine who the person who set up these scenes was. I think I experienced here for the first time that capacity of images to reveal perhaps as much about the preoccupations of the image-maker, as about the people portrayed in the images themselves. To simply notice this ability was a good sized step forward at that age, because it almost instantly informed me that there were other languages to communicate through, via the use of photography and narrative. It opened my eyes to listen for this unspoken language.

© Livia Corona

NP: Where do you find inspiration?

LV: It often shows up in research, or as I listen in conversations with or about the subject I am shooting. It is in these conversations that the images start to become clear. As we are talking I’ll think or suggest, “Let’s make a photograph that talks about that!” and I’ll propose an idea. Every image has its own solution. It’s a way to address a specific aspect of what can be an otherwise overwhelming topic, so little by little the story advances. Each shot is meant to stand alone, but collectively the images reveal a whole way of existence, even if seen one image at a time. Before the shooting begins, the people portrayed in my projects already know why I’ve decided to put a camera in front of them and they’ve decided if they want to participate in the story or not. I usually bring samples of previous work, or of the project I am working on. What I do is not straight on documentation, as I am asking people to perform a version of their lives to illuminate an aspect of a topic. One image cannot sum up an entire life. It’s a bit as if we are putting together a play in a small town, where everyone is pitching in to get the story made by the means available. Though I can turn shy about self-revelation and talking about myself in interviews, I am not timid about cohabiting the world of the people I photograph. My point of departure and influence starts from the inside, and it is natural to consider what is important from the perspective of whom I am photographing. Even when I don’t happen to agree with it, there is room to respond from within the image.

My research is almost endoscopic. It starts with one person, usually inside their home, talking a lot, considering every thing mentioned, even if unrelated to the final objective. People really inspire me. This doesn’t mean I like everybody, but it’s a real blessing, as there are so many of us about. And even when some of us aren’t very civil, my overall interest is more about the overall reasons that belie behaviors and social ideology. Why are things heading this way or that? Who’s fomenting this idea? Who and what raised us?

© Livia Corona

NP: How do your projects come about?

LV: Every project has its own catalyst. For my book Enanitos Toreros (powerHouse Books, 2008) it began very casually, when a woman, who has dwarfism and works as a comedic performer, invited me to travel with her group of dwarf bullfighters after I made her a headshot. For the book Of People and Houses (HDA, Austria, 2009) Andreas Ruby, a Berlin based architectural critic and theorist, saw my 2-4-6-8 series of photographs, made as an artist take of a very unique house in Los Angeles, and proposed a type of six week residency in Graz, Austria where I got to interpret characteristics of it most recent architectural projects.

© Livia Corona

In my current work, Two Million Homes for Mexico, my drive comes from the riddle of what living in these neighborhoods can do to the development of a social and creative expression. What are the manifestations of this experience on the young minds growing up in these insular and remote landscapes, as they draw from a singular cultural and socio-economic backdrop? There are now more than 2.7 million of these identical homes built as neighborhoods all over the country. Who is behind this development model? How is it reconfiguring?

© Livia Corona

At broad glance the photographs of these houses, aligned row after row in such colorful and dramatic volumes, surrounded by mountain scenery, lit by a sunny Mexican sky, can remain in that realm of the pictorial panorama that a lot of contemporary art photography gets seduced by. As a visual artist it has been very important for me to transcend this aesthetic appeal, applying it just enough, when necessary, to engage the viewer into a close up view of what is happening inside these graphic and colorful developments. Developers provided infinite rows of identical 100 to 200 square feet homes. Dwellers are now faced with the task of turning the rows into streets and developments into cities. I am inspired by the inventiveness of people in these neighborhoods, who are adapting with a very hands-on approach—despite a limited infrastructure— to procure a more appropriate living environment. Mexicans, as other Latin Americans, are notoriously gifted in appropriating the built environment. My project both celebrates these small individual triumphs as it frames the challenges and abuses made in providing housing for an ever-expanding population.

© Livia Corona

NP: What’s next?

LV: I was recently awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, which will afford me the opportunity to complete the project Two Million Homes for Mexico. I am currently in New York City, where I do part of my post-production. I love many things about New York; one of them is the efficient pace for productivity in the air that just gets in you. I work out of a small studio, along with two very talented studio assistants. Now we are in the process of a pre-final edit, and working on a book mock-up for presentation to potential publishers. Afterwards, I head back for a long road trip with stops in these housing developments throughout Mexico, hoping to identify and fill any blank spaces of aspects I want to cover.

NP: Thank you so much!

To see more of Livia work please visit: www.liviacorona.com.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

2010-05-05T02:47:00.002-04:00

Isa Leshko: Catalog and Print Sale

2010-05-05T00:28:00.003-04:00

Thrills and Chills Catalog, Photographs by Isa Leshko

Isa Leshko's photographs from Thrills and Chills is currently on view at the Griffin Museum of Photography until May 9th. She has also produced a beautiful catalog to accompany the exhibition, which is currently up for sale on her artist website. A portion of our Conversation is also featured in the catalog.

Catalog Specs
ISBN: 978-0-615-35421-7
First Edition: 250 copies, each signed & numbered
Pages: 28, with 19 images and accompanying text
Size: 6 x 6 inches
Publisher: Exit 12 Press, an Isa Leshko Project
Purchase Here

The Wave, from Thrills and Chills, © Isa Leshko

Medium: Archival Pigment Print
Image Size: 4.5 x 4.5 inches
Paper Size: 5.5 x 5.5 inches.
Edition Size: 100, each signed & numbered verso (on the back)
Purchase Here

In addition to the catalog, Isa is also selling a limited edition print from Thrills and Chills shown above.

She has also had a lot of wonderful press lately from the exhibition, including Pulitzer Prize winning art critic Mark Feeney who reviewed her work in an issue of the Boston Globe.

Keliy Anderson-Staley

2010-05-05T00:01:00.004-04:00

© Keliy Anderson-Staley

Keliy Anderson-Staley in
Going Forward, Looking Back: Practicing
Historic Processes in the 21st Century

Trustman Art Gallery, Simmons College
300 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115
Opening Reception: Thursday April 22, 5 -7 p.m.
Gallery hours: M-F 10-4:30, closed May 14
- through May 28, 2010
For more information visit simmons.edu/trustman

Please re-visit our conversation with Keliy by clicking here.

Picture(s) of the Week: Judith Stenneken

2010-05-04T00:00:00.003-04:00

Photographs from Bombay: Building the Promised City, © Judith Stenneken

Bombay | Building the Promised City

by Judith Stenneken

”Consider it a blessing to share the same address as God.”

(A Builders’ Advertisement in Bombay)

Fortune Seekers are flooding the megacity Bombay daily from the various provinces. Many of them are living and working at countless large construction sites in the city.

Men standing in glassless windows are swinging reinforcements with a lot of strength from floor to floor upwards. Rhythmical and without mistakes – regular as a clockwork. In huge deep plates the women in colourful saris are carrying the prepared cement to their husbands. The experienced teams of two are working their way from room to room, always with the same pace.

Like cogs of a huge machine it is a perfect and never ending seamless workflow. While a new floor is being prepared on the rooftop, electricians are installing power supply lines on the mid-levels. On the first floor people are moving in and in the grocery stores on the ground floor the workers can already buy the vegetables for their lunches.

In the skeleton construction work site other scenes are taking place, too. Bright children’s voices are permeating the hallways. A girl and two boys are imitating their fathers as they are plastering a future living room. A mother wipes the cement dust of her two kids. A grandmother is cooking for her family of seven on a camping stove.

Until a building is finished the workers and their families are living in it. For security reasons the children hardly ever leave the construction site.

My work is looking beyond the pure documentation of a state for the transient and personal intermediate spaces, which are hidden in every situation and action.

Klea McKenna: Slow Burn

2010-05-03T00:01:00.003-04:00

-through May 2010

To re-visit our conversation with Klea McKenna please click here.

Today: Zoe Strauss Final I-95

2010-05-02T00:01:00.001-04:00

click to enlarge, courtesy Zoe Strauss

Go-Go Gadget: Double Your Pleasure

2010-05-01T02:09:00.006-04:00

I've always loved the dreamy quality of the photos that have come out of my Holga. Not to mention the fact that I never quite new what would come out of it at all. You don't really want to fix all the imperfections of the camera, because after all, that's part of the charm. Not something to really improve opon right? Unless.. you add a little 3-D to the mix. Check out Lomo's Holga 120 3D Stereo Camera, a medium format camera that takes two side by side shots.

Bonus: it looks cool too! It's like two Holgas united Voltron-style to form one super-Holga. It takes standard 120 roll-film, and captures two slides simultaneously when you snap the pic. If you buy their kit, it also comes with a slide viewer! Add a little novelty with the colored gels included to use with the built-in double flashes. It won't break the bank either, $100 for the just the camera, $150 for the camera, viewer, film and slide mounts. AWESOME!

via Wired

On View Now: Carrie Mae Weems

2010-04-30T00:01:00.003-04:00

Carrie Mae Weems

Slow Fade to Black

Jack Shainman Gallery
513 West 20th Street
New York, NY

-through May 22, 2010

A Conversation with Jennifer Ray

2010-04-29T00:00:00.010-04:00

Fruit, Dentures, and Viagra, 2008, from Go Deep Into The Woods, © Jennifer Ray

This week we're proud to showcase Jennifer Ray as part of our Conversations series. Jennifer's series titled, Go Deep Into The Woods, investigates the human presence after sexual encounters in public wooded areas. She used information gathered from online communities to trace the aftermath of sexual encounters. These photographs remind me of the 1970s infrared photographs of Japanese photographer, Kohei Yoshiyuki, where he followed people into the park and caught them in the act. Jennifer's take is not of the act itself, but of the evidence that remains after a seemingly private act in a public space.

Under the Willow, 2008, from Go Deep Into The Woods, © Jennifer Ray

Nymphoto: Tell us a little about yourself.

Jennifer Ray: Growing up in North Carolina I spent a lot of time wandering around by myself in the woods. My mom had a rule that my brother and I had to spend a certain amount of time outdoors every day. We were supposed to stay within earshot of the house, which is actually pretty far, so I had a lot of autonomy. I used to climb this one particular tree – it was the taller than all the others – and I would just sit up there for hours at a time, swaying in the breeze and watching the animals go on with their business down below. I grew up feeling connected to the natural world and experiencing it on a really intimate level.

Entwine, 2008, from Go Deep Into The Woods, © Jennifer Ray

Although I loved much about North Carolina I didn't like the politics, so I left to do my undergrad at Oberlin College in Ohio. It’s a liberal, freethinking sort of place - very different from my hometown - and I came away from it with a profoundly different understanding of the world. It uprooted some of my most deeply held assumptions – beliefs that were so ingrained that I didn’t even realize they were beliefs. In particular, Oberlin introduced me to new ways of thinking about sexuality and gender, which has had a direct impact on my current project, Go Deep Into the Woods. Nothing was taboo there, and my courses, conversations, and experiences chipped away at calcified ideas I had about what is natural, and by extension, moral. Beliefs about these issues are vitally important, affecting what behavior we criminalize, what rights we grant, and who we persecute.

Impression, 2008, from Go Deep Into The Woods, © Jennifer Ray

Tommy, 2009, from Go Deep Into The Woods, © Jennifer Ray

NP: How did you discover photography?

JR: I think I’ve always been an observer, possibly a bit of a voyeur, so when I first picked up a camera on a family vacation when I was twelve, photography felt natural to me. I photographed obsessively after that, and my dad taught me how to use my grandfather’s old manual camera, a Canon AE-1. During my first semester in college I took a photography class on a whim, and everything fell into place. I had intended to major in politics, but art appealed to me in that I didn't have to locate myself within one particular ideology and it allowed me to respond to the world on a personal level. I had an amazing professor, Pipo Nguyen-Duy, who is still a great friend and mentor to me, and who taught me to take photography seriously as an art and as a means of communication. He always told us to make ‘seductive’ images, and I still think about that every time I make a picture.

Shelf Fungus, 2008, from Go Deep Into The Woods, © Jennifer Ray

NP: Where do you find inspiration?

JR: I’ve had a lot of crazy experiences while shooting: I’ve been taken into police custody on suspicion of planting a bomb, I’ve chatted with undercover cops, and I’ve paid a prostitute when I inadvertently scared away her customers. I’m a boring, nice girl from the South with a rock collection, and I love that photography gives me a reason to be impulsive and brave and maybe a bit reckless. Those experiences fuel my work, even if they don’t show up in it explicitly.

Totem, 2008, from Go Deep Into The Woods, © Jennifer Ray

I want to make pictures that make people a bit uncomfortable. When I’m shooting, I often know that I’m on the right track if I’m uncomfortable myself. I choose subject matter that forces me to confront my own assumptions, and my attitude toward my subjects tends to shift over the course of a project as a result of my experiences. I try to reveal things that many people are afraid to look at; by doing so, I hope to coax out a moment of self-reflexion from the viewers.

Iced Over Porn, 2009, from Go Deep Into The Woods, © Jennifer Ray

The act of photographing is a means of learning about something; it’s an excuse to poke around in something that isn’t your business. I try to keep my eyes open, literally and metaphorically, and notice when I see things out in the world that strike a note of resonance with the things I’ve heard on the radio or read in the newspaper. It’s incredibly important to me to make work that contributes something to the cultural dialogue, and I hope that my work is both complicated and engaging.

Beneath the Cottonwoods, 2009, from Go Deep Into The Woods, © Jennifer Ray

NP: How do your projects come about?

JR: I constantly explore, and my projects are always a result of my natural curiosity; they are a way of processing the world I find myself in. I began Marginal shortly after I moved to Chicago and was a bit taken aback by the rough city I encountered. I found these remnants of lives lived on the edges and margins of Detroit, Gary, and Chicago. In a strange way, the places I photographed reminded me of my childhood spent in the woods, of finding comfort in the crook of a tree or in the protective obscurity of dense foliage. I think it's possible to photograph things that are foreign to you without being a tourist, and the pictures in this project are a record of my subjective experiences and efforts to understand, on a personal level, what I saw.

Go Deep Into the Woods follows quite a similar framework and emerged directly from observations I made while working on Marginal. I was wandering around a park that I had never been to and started to notice condoms and porn scattered around the bases of several trees. I did a little research and realized that I had stumbled onto a cruising ground, a place where men went in search of semi-anonymous sex. The Larry Craig scandal was fresh in my mind (the Idaho Senator arrested for 'toe-tapping' in an airport bathroom stall), and cruising brought up questions about sexuality that I didn't know how to respond to. As it often does, the ambivalence I initially felt motivated me to pursue the subject.

Blue Hanger, 2007, from Marginal, © Jennifer Ray

I’m just about to finish my MFA at Columbia College, and I’ve learned to be disciplined in my approach to building projects. One of my mentors, Dawoud Bey, often advises students to stand in one spot and dig a deep hole, rather than digging a bunch of little holes. It’s easy to start a project and then abandon it when you reach an impasse, but you get somewhere much more interesting if you can stay with it for a while. I can’t say that I’ve always done a great job of applying that advice - I tend to get restless - but it’s something I always keep in the back of my mind.

Frosty Suitcases, 2007, from Marginal, © Jennifer Ray

NP: What’s next?

JR: I’m three weeks away from finishing grad school and I’m both thrilled and terrified! Work from Go Deep will be up in several exhibitions in Chicago in the next few weeks including New Insight at Art Chicago, New American Landscape at Las Manos Gallery, and my thesis exhibition at Glass Curtain Gallery. I’ve got a list of projects that I haven’t had the time to work on, and I can’t wait to get started on them. The end of grad school brings a lot of things I’m not looking forward to, like student loan bills, but I’m dreaming about the freedom to do exactly what I want with myself, at least until the money runs out.

Mattress and Pillow, 2007, from Marginal, © Jennifer Ray

Thank you Jennifer! For more information, please visit www.jenniferray.net.

Friday: Transplants - Emily Shur, Liz Kuball & Others

2010-04-28T00:01:00.005-04:00

click to enlarge
Transplants. A photography show in conjunction with MOPLA.

4.30.10 – 5.14.10.

Opening night – 4.30.10 7-10PM.
This 3rd show is co-presented with the good people from MOPLA (Month of Photography Los Angeles). 10 renowned and award winning photographers, living and working in Los Angeles but born and raised elsewhere.. in other words 10 Transplants:

Adam Amengual.

Aaron Farley.

Amanda Friedman.

Sian Kennedy.

Liz Kuball.

Chris McPherson.

Scott Pommier.

Ryan Schude.

Emily Shur.

Claire Weiss

Jeremy Weiss

Yanina Manolova on WIPNYC

2010-04-27T12:01:00.000-04:00

from WIPNYC:

For more powerful images by Yanina Manolova, head to www.yaninamanolova.com. And thank you to WIPNYC for continuously introducing us to and showcasing a roster of amazing work.

VESTIGE - Works by Justine Reyes and Sonja Thomsen

2010-04-26T00:01:00.002-04:00

from 58 Gallery:

VESTIGE - Works by Justine Reyes and Sonja Thomsen
Through May 2nd
Closing Reception May 1, 7-10pm
58 Gallery
58 coles st jersey city nj. 07302

Justine Reyes:
These Last Things consists of large-scale color photographs of the interior of four drawers. I took these drawers out of my uncle's dresser after he passed away. The title refers to the Novissima or the Four Last Things that every man must face; Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell. I chose this title not only because my uncle was Catholic and very religious but also because it refers to the things we leave behind when we die. These drawers are the last physical trace or vestige of my uncle, left untouched in his memory.

Sonja Thomsen:
As the word lacuna references both intellectual and physical gaps, the temporal installation titled lacuna is a metaphor for memory and aging. 70 small images hang on the wall, some in stacks of reproductions waiting to be peeled away. Throughout the duration of the installation the images are removed, fade and reveal an impression in plexi of the image that was once there. Place and person become symbol and impression in the work creating an emotive narrative suspended in the gap between; a man straddling dementia, a boy in his teenage prime, hands cradling the last harvest of raspberries.

The Exhibition Lab Open House

2010-04-25T00:01:00.002-04:00

from The Exhibition Lab:

OPEN HOUSE
THURSDAY, JUNE 3RD
6:30-8:00 PM
Come join us and see what it's all about...
Or just have a beer and hang out.

Gallery owners Michael Foley and Sasha Wolf are thrilled to announce the formation of The Exhibition Lab, a new study center for fine art photography.
The Exhibition Lab will provide a vibrant modern-day salon for artists, scholars and others who are interested in engaging the world's diverse and vital photography community through the gateway of New York City.

Classes, in the form of seminars, workshops and semester-long courses, will be offered on subjects geared to practitioners of the medium (i.e., Critique Levels 1 and 2, Book Publishing and Photography Blogging), as well as to those in the academic community (i.e., The Art and Ethics of Documentary Photography and The Philosophy of Being an Artist). The Lab will be a significant contributor to the photography community for a number of reasons. Located in central Chelsea in a new space shared by Sasha Wolf Gallery and Foley Gallery, the Lab will function as a hub for the study of photography outside of traditional academic venues. Its impressive list of committed artists and scholars who will be teaching classes and seminars for the first session speaks for itself. Working in collaboration with Foley and Wolf, these teachers have been encouraged to design their classes and seminars based on their unique expertise and interest.

Contact Information
the EXHIBITION LAB
548 West 28th Street, 2nd Fl
New York, NY 10001
info@theexhibitionlab.com

Go-Go Gadget: Adobe Photoshop CS5: Content-Aware Fill Sneak Peek

2010-04-24T00:01:00.000-04:00

Annie Leibovitz opens new museum of contemporary photography in Stockholm

2010-04-23T00:01:00.000-04:00

courtesy Fotografiska

(from Fotografiska)

Annie Leibovitz (exhibit) opens new museum of contemporary photography in Stockholm

World's largest museum dedicated to contemporary photography opens in Stockholm on May 21st. "Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005" will open the museum as the main exhibiition. Premiering exhibitors also include Vee Speers "The Birthday Party", Joel-Peter Witkin "Bodies" and Lennart Nilsson".

Located in the Stockholm harbor, Fotografiska is the new meeting point for influential contemporary photography.

A Conversation with Sara Applegren

2010-04-22T00:01:00.006-04:00

Candace and I were introduced to the work of Sara Applegren when we were invited by Tema Stauffer and David Andrew Frey to guest curate an issue of Culturehall; for that feature - titled Framed- we included images from Sara's series View of a Passing Landscape.
Sara's work is a fresh and modern as her name and we are delighted to present this conversation today.

© Sara Appelgren

NP: Tell us a little about yourself.

SA: I was born in 1975, in Nyköping, Sweden, and now I'm living and working in Stockholm, Sweden. I got my Master of Arts at Konstfack (Stockholm University College of Arts Crafts and Design) in 2004 and since then I have been freelancing as an artist and photographer.

© Sara Appelgren

NP: How did you discover photography?

SA: I started taking lots of personal pictures of myself and my friends during my teens, so I actually started learning photography and darkroom techniques fairly early on, yet during my first three or four years of art studies I focused almost entirely on sculpture and drawing. It wasn't until my studies at Konstfack (1999–2004) that I started to seriously incorporate photography in my art. There I learned more about lighting and advanced camera techniques, and how to use it all in a more controlled and conscious way. So ultimately it took me several years of art studies to kind of shift into photography, and to this day I suppose I approach my work in a kind of sculptural manner.

NP: Where do you find inspiration?

AG: I'm very interested in how experiences are created; and I'm easily inspired by situations where experiences are the main focus, for example concerts, shows, movies, stories, sporting events and so on. I find it really interesting to contemplate all the parts that are in play in these kinds of situations, and especially all those things that aren't in the spotlight but still has such a great impact on our experiences. I've been focusing on the spectator for quite some time now, and I find that solely contemplating any given audience often give birth to new ideas. I also find it interesting how we position ourselves against others at social events, how we communicate (or not) and how we approach others in various situations – myself included, naturally. Pictures from outside the arts and culture scene might also inspire, like news photos or instructional pictures. One of my first photo projects “Scenes” 2002–2003 is based on pictures from self defense books.

© Sara Appelgren

Pictures meant to communicate one particular thing or point of view have always fascinated me, everything from religious icons to illustrations in classical fairy tales, and lately all sorts of propaganda. I find propaganda's extreme simplification of complex issues interesting, as well as how it uses such overblown drama and black and white thinking to reinforce it's message. It could be argued that propaganda is a kind of aggressive extension of the essence of scenography – influencing and persuasive, a one way communication.

© Sara Appelgren

NP: How do your projects come about?

SA: Timewise, the actual photo shoot is a fairly minor part of my work process even though I usually end up taking a huge amount of pictures to achieve the end result of any art project. I typically lose myself in a subject doing some form of research for an extensive period of time, like collecting pictures and texts related to any particular subject. I often begin a process without a clear idea of what the end result will be, and I seldom fit an entire concept in one single image. I have a spatial approach to my ideas and I always take the viewer into consideration early on in the process. Nearly all of my work revolve around various aspects of scenography and experiences, particularly from the spectators point of view. I often set out from one specific situation or occurrence to provide some sort of frame for a project to make it easier to handle, but the point of origin isn't always relevant to the end result as I often strip so much out of the pictures that they end up approaching something else entirely or at the very least become quite ambivalent. I'm not interested in telling a story that can be read in one way only. There is no definitive key, I feel more like I'm providing the viewer with a space to project onto.

© Sara Appelgren

Most of my works are closely related conceptually; one work often leads to another. In “Portraits” you can see an audience's fascination and presence, and the following work “Settings” focuses on the space of expectation: the foyer – the space we're in before and after a show. In “Mingle” we meet the spectator as a social and mingling being that's both watching others and being watched. The environmental depictions of fairy tales play an integral part of “Telling Stories”. The first part of the ongoing project “Stage” shows the stage prepared for a concert. I suppose it's all some form of deconstruction, disassembling a greater whole into it's elemental parts and giving all the parts the same significance.

© Sara Appelgren

When I've worked on public commissions I've based them both spatially and conceptually on the specific places for the final works and created a sort of scenographic photo installation for them. With “View of a Passing Landscape”, a commission for a long corridor in a psych ward in Stockholm, I created a condensed train trip in the form of a number of train windows with various views from actual train rides. Each view can be seen as scenography for widely different moods. The choice of depicting views from a trip also emanates from the idea of how traveling relates to longing, searching and expectations. A trip is always a forward motion, regardless of whether the destination matches our expectations or not. We leave something behind to meet something new. It's like life itself – a trip with a variable view.

NP: What’s next?

SA: I've just started working on a new series of portraits based on rituals in front of a mirror in preparation for a night out, or before a show or concert. I am interested in the preparations themselves in combination with the expectations for the evening, but I'm perhaps even more interested in the rituals moments of introspective concentration where we meet our own gaze in the mirror – unavailable for anyone else. I'm providing some samples of the first few photos in the series.

© Sara Appelgren

N: Thank you so much!

To see more of Sara's work please visit: www.saraappelgren.com.

In San Fran: Klea McKenna Opening @ Rayko

2010-04-21T00:01:00.000-04:00

SLOW BURN [recent experiments]
by Klea McKenna
Reception: Sunday April 25th, 4- 6 pm

Rayko Photo Center
428 Third Street (at Harrison St)
San Francisco, CA 94107

Exhibition dates: April 25th - May 30th 2010

Picture(s) of the Week: Sarah Sudhoff

2010-04-20T00:01:00.004-04:00

Suicide with Gun, Male, 40 years old (I) © Sarah Sudhoff

Illness, Female, 60 years old © Sarah Sudhoff

Suicide with Gun, Male, 40 years old (II) © Sarah Sudhoff

Heart attack, Male, 50 years old (III) © Sarah Sudhoff

This week we are sharing some images from Sarah Sudhoff's new series At the Hour of Our Death. While confrontational in nature, these fluid stained surfaces are somehow poetic as they linger in your thoughts. Here's a snippet from her statement.

These large-scale color photographs capture and fully illuminate swatches of bedding, carpet and upholstery marked with the signs of the passing of human life. The fabrics which are first removed by a trauma scene clean up crew, are relocated to a warehouse before being incinerated. It is in the warehouse that I photograph these fragments stained with bodily fluids. I tack each swatch to the wall and use the crew’s floodlights to illuminate the scene. The images are my attempt to slow the moments before and after death to a single frame, to allow what is generally invisible to become visible, and to engage with a process from which we have become disconnected.

You can read more about this body of work here and here. Sarah's work can be found on sarahsudhoff.com and At the Hour of Our Death can be seen on her blog sarahsudhoff.blogspot.com.

A.I.R. - Call for Artwork

2010-04-19T00:01:00.002-04:00

(from A.I.R.)

"At Her Age" - Call for Artwork

Curated by Martha Wilson, artist and founder of Franklin Furnace

An open call for artwork by women artists that address women, age and sex to be exhibited at A.I.R. Gallery.* The exhibit will examine how women view their changing bodies. A.I.R. welcomes an open interpretation of the theme.

DEADLINE: May 14, 2010

This call inaugurates A.I.R.'s new yearly CURRENTS exhibition series that addresses issues that warrant expanded critical attention in the art world.

For more info, to apply online or to download an application click HERE

Or mail SASE to A.I.R. Gallery, 111 Front Street 3228, Brooklyn NY 11201

*All self-identified women artists world-wide are invited apply

Bonnell Robinson and Dana Mueller on WIPNYC

2010-04-18T00:01:00.003-04:00

from WIPNYC:

Go-Go Gadget: Model Release Forms Go Mobile with New iPhone App

2010-04-17T00:01:00.000-04:00

Model Release Forms Go Mobile with New iPhone App
For $9.99, you can replace paper release forms with an app that incorporates industry-standard legal language that is accepted by the world's leading stock photo companies.

Read more at: http: www.creativepro.com.

Alison Brady & Others @ Kopeikin Gallery

2010-04-16T00:01:00.002-04:00

© Alison Brady

4 x 4: four figurative photographers, four images each
Alison Brady
Mandy Corrado
David Schoerner
Martynka Wawrzyniak
Kopeikin Gallery
8810 Melrose Ave, west of Robertson Blvd
Los Angeles, CA
April 24th - June 5th
Opening Saturday April 24th from 6 - 8 pm

revisit our conversation with Alison Brady, by clicking here.

A Conversation with Amanda Marsalis

2010-04-15T00:01:00.002-04:00

Amanda Marsalis was first introduced to Nina and myself many years ago, through Hank Willis Thomas. She has participated in Nymphoto shows in the past and has established a very successful commercial photography career. Her work exhibits a superior command of the use of light and her portraits intimately tell a story you want to listen to.

Nymphoto: Tell us a little about yourself.

Amanda Marsalis: I was born in San Francisco, California. I grew up in the East Bay of San Francisco and then the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri, where I graduated from high school. I returned to the Bay area for college where I went to California College of Arts and Crafts, which has since been renamed California College of the Arts. My mother was a flight attendant and my father a pilot. I was a very independent child and I guess the word is willful. I started traveling on my own as soon as I could. About the same time, I also began going to see punk bands play and eventually, had the bands touring through St. Louis put on shows in my mother's basement. Having access to that music scene and then to the world, since I was able to fly for free through my parents, was a large influence on my life. Today I travel constantly for work, and also because it is what I love to do. I live in a house with a fig tree in the garden, that I am always happy to come home to. I have been in Los Angeles for a little over 5 years. I am anxiously awaiting the return of Polaroid.

Edgar © Amanda Marsalis

NP: How did you discover photography?

AM: My high school in St. Louis had a large darkroom as well as black & white and color classes. I used to skip my other classes and spend as much time as I could in the dark room. I first used an SLR of my mother's she bought in Japan, before I was born. Then I bought a Nikon F3 at a camera show and took it with me everywhere. I went from high school to art school to life as a photographer. I often joke that it is the only skill I have since it sometimes feels like the only thing I have ever done.

NP: Where do you find inspiration?

AM: That is a hard question to answer. My first instinct is to say light – even to say love. When I love someone or something, I want to take a picture. When the light is beautiful, I want to take a picture. I would put Joan Didion on my list of inspirations, along with great meals, bands I love, the Met on a Sunday afternoon. It is so open though. I love that about being inspired, you never know where it will come from.

NP: How do your projects come about?

AM: I do not really create a project and then shoot it. Mostly I shoot what I see, and then in the editing it will come together as a cohesive project. When shooting for myself, I usually photograph my friends and loved ones. So when I am working too much and spending not enough time with those people, my personal work suffers. I am working at finding the balance. I have a feeling it is a life long process. I am ok with that.

NP: What's next?

AM:I have just self-published a book of my Polaroid’s titled Lost At Sea. It is my first attempt at putting my images together in book form. I am happy with the results. It is a very personal and close to my heart project, images of loneliness and love. I just had a birthday so as I write this I feel as if it is a new year, a clean slate, and anything is possible. I am going to hold onto that feeling for as long as possible.

NP: Thank You Amanda!!

To see more of Amanda's work, please visit her website: www.amandamarsalis.com

Opening Reception Tomorrow: "Thrills and Chills" at Griffin Museum

2010-04-14T00:01:00.003-04:00

Images from Thrills and Chills, © Isa Leshko

(via Griffin Museum of Photography)

Thrills and Chills Photographs by Isa Leshko
April 8 through May 9, 2010
An opening reception is April 15, 6-9 PM. All are welcome.

While some people see pure fun in amusement park rides, photographer Isa Leshko explores "the fantastic and sinister place these rides hold in my imagination."

Thrills and Chills, a series of her photographs, is featured in the Griffin Gallery of the Griffin Museum April 8 through May 9. The exhibit is sponsored in part by Panopticon Imaging in Hingham, MA. An opening reception with the artist is April 15, 7-9 PM.

"Amusement park rides are vehicles for enacting fantasies for both children and adults alike," Leshko says. "They simulate flight, daring sea adventures, and encounters with other worldly creatures. From the moment we strap ourselves into our seats, we surrender ourselves to these giant machines and the physical release they provide. The experience combines elation with fear; thrills with chills."

She says when creating some of the images, "I suspend disbelief and embrace the underlying fantasies of these rides. With other images, I examine the tensions that exist between fantasy and reality. I am fascinated by the range of emotions - from anger to shock to disenchantment - that people exhibit in pursuit of the amusement these rides are supposed to provide."

Leshko says she uses a Holga camera to give her images "a vernacular feel and a sense of immediacy. I print these images deliberately dark to reflect the murky realm I envision these mechanical beasts inhabiting."

Leshko grew up in an industrial town situated off the New Jersey Turnpike. She received a bachelor's degree from Haverford College in Pennsylvania, where she studied psychology with an emphasis on neurobiology and cognitive science. She spent the 1990s working for dot.com startups as a project manager and software engineer, before discovering her passion for photography.

She studied at the New England School of Photography and the Woodstock Center for Photography and completed the Artist's Professional Toolbox program sponsored by the Arts and Business Council of Greater Boston. Her work has been exhibited widely.

After 16 years of living in various New England communities, including Providence, RI; Portsmouth, NH; and Salem, MA, she moved to Houston, TX, in October 2009.

Be sure to also revisit our conversation with Isa here: A Conversation with Isa Leshko

Upcoming: Ann Ginsburgh Hofkin & Others @ MPLS Photo Center

2010-04-14T00:01:00.002-04:00

courtesy Ann Ginsburgh Hofkin

LANDSCAPES • UNFEIGNED OR ILLUSORY
MPLS Photo Center
On Exhibit: April 23 through June 13th
Opening Reception: 23 April 2010 7:00-10:00pm
Exhibit Times: Monday - Thursday, 12:00-8:00pm; Friday - Sunday, 12:00-6:00pm

Picture(s) of the Week: Sophie Lee

2010-04-13T00:01:00.003-04:00

© Sophie Lee

This week we are thrilled to present photographs by Sophie Lee who is currently completing her BA at these Manchester School of Arts. Sophie explores the boundaries between reality and fiction, employing language of theater and performance.

Her website is currently under construction, but you can follow her blog at: www.sophie--lee.blogspot.com/.

Sharon Montrose & The Baby Giraffe

2010-04-12T00:01:00.003-04:00

(via A Cup of Jo) see a featurette from Etsy of photographer Sharon Montrose working with a baby giraffe and talking about her work:

courtesy Etsy

Jane Tam in WSJ

2010-04-11T15:15:00.001-04:00

Head over to The Wall Street Journal to read about our very own Jane Tam!
Congrats, Jane! Well deserved.

Call for Entries: CCNY 2010 National Photography Competition

2010-04-11T00:00:00.000-04:00

CCNY 2010 National Photography Competition with juror James Casebere

Deadline: April 19, 2010

The Camera Club of New York (CCNY) is pleased to announce an open call for applications for its Annual National Photography Competition. Photographers and photo–based artists working in any genre are eligible to apply. Applicants are encouraged to submit a cohesive body of work.

Selected applicants will be featured in an exhibition at the CCNY gallery in the summer of 2010 and also on our website. The first place selection will receive a $500.00 cash award.

For more information or to download an entry form, please visit http://www.cameraclubny.org/competition.html

About the Juror:

James Casebere‘s pioneering work has established him at the forefront of artists working with constructed photography. For the last thirty years, Casebere has devised increasingly complex models that are subsequently photographed in his studio. Based on architectural, art historical and cinematic sources, his table–sized constructions are made of simple materials, pared down to essential forms. Casebere‘s abandoned spaces are hauntingly evocative and oftentimes suggestive of prior events, encouraging the viewer to reconstitute a narrative or symbolic reading of his work.

Go-Go Gadget: Stock Tips

2010-04-10T00:05:00.001-04:00

Stock photography is on the rise and Alamy's got a few recent developments making the release process a little easier. Fresh on the heel's of their announcement that you can now upload releases to their site, they've alerted users of a handy new iPhone app.

Easy Release lets you create PDF release forms in a snap. Just enter some details, attach an image and digitally give it your signature - all on your iPhone. Then email the PDF to yourself, your models, whatever.

While we're on the topic of stock photography, read an interesting article on The New York Times, illustrating a big shift in the stock industry. Are amateurs in danger of diluting the market and undermining the career path of veteran stock professionals? Interesting read.

via Alamy and The New York Times

Video: Laura Pannack on "Young Love"

2010-04-09T00:00:00.000-04:00

via Contact Editions

Laura Pannack: On 'Young Love' from Contact Editions on Vimeo.

A Conversation with Amy Elkins

2010-04-08T00:00:00.005-04:00

Bon, Brooklyn, NY. 2008, © Amy Elkins

This week's conversation with Amy Elkins reveals her inspirations and background in photography. Besides being a wonderfully talented photographer and artist, she is also the co-founder of Women in Photography and blogger of wanderlustagraphy.

Max, Brooklyn, NY. 2008, © Amy Elkins

Nymphoto: Tell us a little about yourself?

Amy Elkins: I was born in Venice Beach, CA and was raised both there and in Santa Monica, Ventura, Oxnard and Ojai. My entire family is still rooted in Southern CA and I enjoy getting back there as much as possible. While out there I studied painting, sculpture, life drawing, lithography, book making, psychology and literature before coming to photography full time. When I first came across the internet, I would stay up all night publishing short stories (similar to blogging) and studying maps of places I had never been. As soon as I saved up, I traveled cross-country by truck/car several times. My first move away from home was to New Orleans; second was to New York. My first solo train ride was a month long loop across the US and Canada with a backpack. My first flight was from New Orleans to Stockholm. I love the desert and the ocean. I enjoy extremes.

I earned a BFA in photography from School of Visual Arts in 2007. Taking all of the above into consideration, this degree took me just under 10 years. I now live in Brooklyn. I'm represented by Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York. I recently had several pieces in the group exhibition Versus at Hous Projects Gallery in New York, as well as several in the group exhibition Homesick at Carnegie Art Museum in California. In addition I've been asked to be a part of Exposure Project's Graphic Intersections v. 02.

Brendan, Brooklyn, NY. 2008 , © Amy Elkins

Momentary, Brooklyn, NY. 2007, © Amy Elkins

NP: How did you discover photography?

AE: The first time it was when my older brother received a blue Kodak-Fisher Price 110 camera for Christmas. I was really jealous. I was only 7 years old but I thought it was amazing. For my following birthday, my aunt gave me a red 35mm Minolta. I used it as a snapshot camera nonstop for eight years before it died. The second time it was when I talked my school and my parents into letting me leave half day to start taking photo classes at the college while in my last year of high school. The third time was when I was living in New Orleans and being mentored by Herman Leonard. He was 90 years old and completely schooled me on exposing film and printing in the darkroom.

I like the idea that I am rediscovering it frequently in varying ways, even though that sounds fairly cheesy.

John Ben, 7th Ward | New Orleans, 2009, © Amy Elkins

Left image: Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica, CA. 2007
Right image: First Visit On Our Own, Santa Monica, CA. 2007, © Amy Elkins

NP: Where do you find inspiration?

AE: Besides being inspired by light and color, especially the way it is described in paintings, I am heavily inspired by other people and their stories. The idea of sharing intimacy and specific moments with people is very compelling to me. I guess I am just as drawn to being a voyeur as I feel most photographers are, but my fascination also mixes with a certain degree of cultural anthropology and psychology- a desire to glimpse at behavior, emotion and circumstance. My newest project Black is the Day Black is the Night taps heavily into this notion- of trying to enter a reality that is so far removed from mine, solely from what is shared and described directly between my subject and I in letters. It makes my imagination go wild. Also I've found much inspiration in the slowness of writing and receiving physical letters in the mail. It makes a profound impact on how I view and experience things, knowing that I will try to describe those life events in letters shortly after. It's been making me far more aware as a visual artist.

Inmate Christmas Portrait on torn chair, 2006, © Amy Elkins

NP: How do your projects come about?

AE: A lot of my projects come from personal experiences I’ve had with certain people or in certain places in my life (family projects, Gray, Weight of Air). Other projects stem more from curiosity regarding things unfamiliar to me (Wallflower, Black is the Day). At this point I am loosely trying to piece together certain projects that I've worked on in the past with newer projects to make a larger statement about identity, exploring varying ideas of masculinity and stereotypes: strength, violence, vulnerabilities, subtleties. All of this fascinates me wildly.. looking into something that I simply cannot ever fully understand or be.

The Real May Never Equal the Imagined, 2009, © Amy Elkins

Wallflower came about during the time my father spent in a federal state prison. It was spawned by my sudden intrigue regarding masculine identity, especially when one is stripped of personal context or when facing heightened states of vulnerability. It was really hard to witness my father have this sudden breakdown. My family projects and Wallflower portraits erupted at the same time out of my need to explore what was happening in my personal life. I felt removed by the 3000 miles that separated me from my family. That distance mixed with how my father's situation impacted all of us in such different ways became a catapult for how I photographed and absorbed time with family after moving away. Everything felt familiar but in the same breath, not at all. While "15 Minutes" and "Where I Found You" along with the self portrait project "Beyond This Place" dealt with highly personal content; Wallflower allowed me to step back and investigate the vulnerabilities and nuances of the men surrounding me- a mix of peers, neighbors and friends.

My newest project, Black is the Day Black is the Night, came about through a few online searches regarding how to get in contact with people serving prison sentences in the U.S. Consequently I started correspondence with several men serving death row terms and several men serving life without the possibility of parole. It began as a writing project, rather than a photography project. What drove me to the subject was the fascination with how those serving life/death terms relate to and maintain their notion of identity, self and / or their relationship to the outside world. I didn't start making work about this correspondence until about six months into corresponding. It's very much a work in progress. I suppose it started just like any other of my projects.. curiosity and the need to explore further what drives that curiosity.

NP: Could you tell us a little bit about wanderlustagraphy and WIPNYC?

AE: Wanderlustagraphy is a blog I started in 2007. It was in my hopes to set it up as a way of sharing work amongst photo peers, regardless of location and building on the idea of a virtual global photo community. I think the internet proves itself such a valuable tool because it helps connect those who might not live in an area with an active photo community. The work on the site is curated out of what is submitted to a rolling open call for submissions. Out of images received, mini themed shows are put together and posted to the site weekly. When Women in Photo was founded (in 2008) I started having difficulty maintaining two blogs and asked Clayton Cotterell to help me keep up wanderlustagraphy. We now alternate posting shows to the site.

13/32 (Not the Man I Once Was), 2009, © Amy Elkins

Women in Photography was co-founded by Cara Phillips and myself in 2008. It is primarily an online showcase for sharing and promoting the work of female photographers ranging in genre and career level, from emerging and mid-career to established. Since our launch in 2008 we have expanded from the online site to further help promote and share the works of women photographers; we've gained non-profit status through our sponsors Humble Arts Foundation and have given talks on occasion (such as our panel discussion with Robin Schwartz and Elinor Carucci at Aperture), we have curated a physical show as part of PPOW's Young Curators New Ideas II this past August and in June we were able to create the WIP-Lightside Individual Project Grant in the amount of $3,000 through the generous efforts of Lightside Photographic in NYC. It's been a truly great experience in so many ways. Make sure to visit wipnyc.org in the very near future for information about how to submit for the 2010 WIP-LTI / Lightside Project Grant.

26 Years out of a death row sentence, 2010, © Amy Elkins

NP: What’s next?

AE: I have a few new projects that I am excited about starting, though they are coming along slowly. While attempting to practice patience, I'm interested in seeing how they will contribute to or play off of what I've been working on with other projects. I am going to continue working on current projects, especially Black is the Day Black is the Night and hopefully along the way I can find time to go through older works and revisit previous editing decisions. Often I feel things get lost along the way. I'd of course like to continue making work, showing work and traveling.. though a grant or residency would be amazing. For now, I am excited about being in a group portrait photography show at Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain this coming June in Montreal.

Thank you very much, Amy! To see more information:

www.amyelkins.com
wanderlustagraphy
Women in Photography

Annie Leibovitz Sued Again

2010-04-07T00:02:00.001-04:00

Catherine Opie at Gladstone Gallery

2010-04-07T00:00:00.000-04:00

Catherine Opie exhibition, courtesy of Gladstone Gallery

Catherine Opie
"Girlfriends"

Gladstone Gallery
515 West 24th New York
Mar. 19 - April 24, 2010

Picture(s) of the Week: JeongMee Yoon

2010-04-06T00:00:00.000-04:00

The Pink Project - Jiwon and Her Pink Things, Light Jet Print, 2008, © JeongMee Yoon

The Blue Project - Hyunho and His Blue Things, Light Jet Print, 2009, © JeongMee Yoon

The Pink Project - Jeeyoo and Her Pink Things, Light Jet Print, 2008, © JeongMee Yoon

See more of JeongMee Yoon's work at www.jeongmeeyoon.com.

Zoe Strauss Needs Volunteers

2010-04-05T19:16:00.000-04:00

Find out more here: www.i-95-10.blogspot.com.

WIPNYC & Daily Candy

2010-04-05T08:31:00.002-04:00

Amy Elkins, Cara Phillips in conjunction with Nicola Kast curated a feature highlighting women n photography, find it by visiting: www.dailycandy.com.

Larissa Leclair interviews Joni Sternbach on Surfland

2010-04-05T00:00:00.000-04:00

Photography writer, curator, and writer Larissa Leclair has recently published a great interview with Joni Sternbach about her series Surfland.

Kelly Shimoda's collect.give print

2010-04-04T00:00:00.000-04:00

Kelly Shimoda's print above is being released in an edition of 20, at a print price of $45 for collect.give.

Kelly pledges to donate 100% of the proceeds to the organization Start Small. Think Big.

Go-Go Gadget: Pick Flickr

2010-04-03T20:46:00.006-04:00

Do you love Flickr as much as I do? Are you constantly wondering, "what are my friends doing on Flickr"? Is your busy schedule keeping you from knowing what's the newest, freshest content being snapped and shared by your inner circle? Have you already forgotten what you uploaded last year? Well, thanks to some creative apps in the App Garden, you'll wonder no longer:

Docent - "your helpful Flickr gallery assistant". Find all your contacts' galleries and be notified when they update them.

Flickr for Busy People - displays a list of your Flickr contacts who have uploaded photos in the last 30 minutes, 2 hours, 4 hours and 8 hours.

Flickriver - you can view most interesting photos by user or group, search for photos or just explore and discover the most interesting photos on any specific day.

Photojojo Time Capsule - set up the Time Capsule with your email & Flickr account and you can enjoy a pleasant reminder of the days of yore, with a twice monthly email of photos you snapped last year.

via Flickr & Photojojo

Tomorrow: Panel Discussion: Women in Art Photography: Past, Perspective and Projections

2010-04-02T00:00:00.004-04:00

Women in Art Photography: Past, Perspective and Projections
Presented by Humble Arts Foundation and Affirmation Arts, in conjunction with 31 Women in Art Photography

31 Women in Art Photography Installation, courtesy of Humble Arts Foundation

Saturday, April 3, 2010, 2PM

Moderator: Marla Goldwasser, Director, Affirmation Arts

Panelists:

Charlotte Cotton / Co-curator, 31 Women in Art Photography, Creative Director, National Media Museum
Jon Feinstein / Co-curator, 31 Women in Art Photography, Co-founder and Curatorial Director, Humble Arts Foundation
Vanessa Kramer / Director of Photographs, Phillips de Pury & Company
Justine Reyes / Exhibiting artist, 31 Women in Art Photography
Sasha Rudensky / Exhibiting artist, 31 Women in Art Photography

Affirmation Arts
523 West 37th Street
New York, NY 10018
(212) 925.0092
affirmationarts.com

Exhibition on view: Saturday, March 6 – Saturday, April 10, 2010

Light refreshments will be served after the panel.

Opening Tomorrow: Megan Cump at Collective Gallery

2010-04-02T00:00:00.003-04:00

Human Nature

a two person show with Megan Cump and Thierry Kupferschmid

Collective Gallery 173-171

April 3 - May 4, 2010
Opening Reception: April 3, 2010, 6-8pm

173-171 Canal Street, 5th floor
New York, NY 10013
between Mott and Elizabeth Streets

Opening Reception Tonight: Lydia Panas

2010-04-02T00:00:00.000-04:00

Family Pictures... Untold Stories
Fourteen Photographs
by Lydia Panas

March 27 - May 23, 2010

Opening Reception: April 2, 2010 / from 6-9 PM
Artist's Talk: 5-6 PM

The Banana Factory
25 W. Third St.
Bethlehem, PA 18015

A Conversation with Rachel Hulin

2010-04-01T00:00:00.012-04:00

This week we have our conversation with photo blogging queen and co-creator of The Photography Post, Rachel Hulin.

Nymphoto: Tell us a little about yourself?

Rachel Hulin: I'm from Northeastern, Connecticut, which is the unpopular side, closer to Providence than New York, and seemingly populated with as many goats and cows as people. I spent my summers (eight in total) at an all-girls camp in Maine that my mother and her aunts had attended as well, where I learned an appreciation for the outdoors and riflery and lobsters and group singing.

I went to Providence for college, where I studied Art History, and then followed my friends to Brooklyn, and never left. Here I've been a graduate student, a photo editor, a photographer and a writer.

NP: How did you discover photography?

RH: Somehow I convinced my parents to give me my grandfather's old Minolta SLR that he'd picked up abroad during the war. It was clunky and satisfying to play with and was just complicated enough that I could master it at ten-years-old and feel fantastically proud of myself. Photography just very quickly became my thing. There was one tiny camera shop in my town and I worked there through high school, hiding out in the darkroom and processing slide film (we saw some crazy images come out of that machine).

I became the photo editor of my college newspaper the second day of school, and was the staff photography for the Department of Old World Art and Archaeology. I photographed many coins and had my own private darkroom there, it was amazing. I also took several classes at RISD.

NP: Where do you find inspiration?

RH: Oh, mostly from other photographers, I suppose. I just love love looking at other work, there's always something new.

My own work is very narrative, and I get ideas from fiction. I've always been a big reader and love to write, so it's important to me that my images tell a story. If I'm ever on a weekend jaunt or a little out of my element it's a good time to make pictures; my normal routine isn't quite as inspiring as a new place, though I do sometimes make pictures of mundane things.

I also love the movies, and folks who keep you guessing but are super rich and visual, like David Lynch and Jim Jarmusch. Jarmusch's Dead Man just absolutely blew my mind when I saw it; it was rich and beautiful and heartbreaking and still.

NP: How do your projects come about?

RH: Oh man, I'm always brainstorming and planning something. Sometimes commercial work will lead to personal work- I'm going to Mendoza, Argentina in April and hopefully will come back with a little of both. I keep making work because things keep happening, friends keep being interesting, and I keep carrying my camera around.

I don't plan distinct personal projects any more, per se, it's all sort of part of a whole at this point.

The blog came out of the blog I wrote for a while for Photoshelter; I found it so gratifying to stay in touch with the photo community and I wanted to keep doing it. It's sort of evolved into a wackier thing than the original, newsier version, but I have fun with it. I really generally enjoy the interwebs, and want to keep doing things there.

I just launched The Photography Post with Danielle Swift and Kate Steciw, which has updating livefeeds, and we've gotten great feedback from it. I'm excited to see how we can make that more of a robust space in the coming months.

NP: What’s next?

RH: I'm going to write a novel! Really.

Thank you, Rachel!

For more information visit:
www.rachelhulin.com
A Photography Blog
The Photography Post

Tonight: Artist Talk with Sarah Pickering and Book Signing

2010-03-31T13:47:00.002-04:00

In Conversation: Susan Bright and Sarah Pickering
Talk and Book Signing

Wednesday, March 31, 2010
6:30 pm

FREE

Aperture Gallery & Bookstore
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555

Join independent writer, lecturer, and curator Susan Bright, and photographer Sarah Pickering in conversation on the occasion of the publication of Pickering's first monograph: Explosions, Fires and Public Order (Aperture, April 2010). A book signing will follow the conversation.

Opening Tomorrow: "Select Gender" at Farmani Gallery

2010-03-31T12:22:00.005-04:00

Kate Hutchinson sent us a note of a group exhibition showcasing 14 rising photographers whose work focuses on gender and sexuality curated by Rafael Soldi, Paolo Morales, and Elle Perez.

Farmani Gallery is proud to present Select Gender, introducing fourteen rising photographers communicating their contemporary viewpoint within fine art photography. The exhibition, co-curated by budding artists Rafael Soldi, Paolo Morales and Elle Perez, will present a diverse selection of innovative artworks that focus on the theme of gender perceptions and the role of sexual assignments in America and abroad. This exhibition embraces the mission of the gallery and the curators in their support of promising talent and our hopes to further a conversation through photographic works of present-day subject matter.

Select Gender revolves around the themes of gender-based identity, self-awareness and gender-specific culture. Whether they are discussing their own identity or that of others, this diverse group of emerging photographers shows us different aspects and interpretations of perceived gender roles. The juxtapositions of gender queer, hyper masculinities, and ambiguous representations force the viewer to question his or her own perceptions and the legitimacy of a gender binary. Ultimately the goal of Select Gender is not to expose, shock, or titillate, but to offer reflection on the constructs and wide range of possibilities for gender expression.

Farmani Gallery
111 Front Street
Suite 212,
Brooklyn (DUMBO), New York 11201

April 01, 2010 – May 22, 2010

Press Preview: Thursday, April 1, 2010, from 5-6PM

Opening Public Reception: Thursday, April 1, 2010, from 6-830PM

Photographic works by:
Daniel Aguirre, Carl Bower, Caleb Cole, Nicolas Djandji, Jason Hanasik, Jamil Hellu, Monique Bergen Henegouwen, Kate Hutchinson, Katie Koti, Diane Russo, J. Aiden Simon, Sarah Sudhoff, and Molly Landreth + Amelia Tovey

Commercial Photography Now

2010-03-31T09:33:00.004-04:00

Head over to The New York Times to read Stephanie Clifford's article For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path, or click here to find it.

Opening Tomorrow: The Urban Forest by Kate Glicksberg

2010-03-31T00:00:00.000-04:00

Court and Luquer, Brooklyn, 2009

THE URBAN FOREST
By Kate Glicksberg

April 1 – 18th, 2010

OPENING RECEPTION: April 1st: 7 – 10pm

Opening night music provided by Treehouse DJs (Raspberry Jones & Treeboy)

Chashama
30 W. 8th Street (at MacDougal)
New York City
hours: Wed – Sun 1 – 7pm or by appointment

Picture(s) of the Week: Jennifer Ray

2010-03-30T00:00:00.002-04:00

Jennifer Ray has been giving us a snapshot of her new work. Please head to her website to see more.

Center of Photography at Woodstock's Photography Quarterly

2010-03-29T00:00:00.001-04:00

The Center of Photography at Woodstock have released their Photography Quarterly #98 Magazine, which features portfolios by previous artists-in-residence, many who have appeared on Nymphoto!

Our very own Rona Chang is also featured in the quarterly, along with Hee Jin Kang, Juliana Beasley, Justine Reyes, Kanako Sasaki, Jennifer Williams, and Stacy Arezou Mehrfar to name a few.

There's also a great selection of essays and interviews.

Wendy Ewald interviewed by Emily Glass
There is perhaps no other practicing artist in photography that converges the margins between artist and subject more than Wendy Ewald. Emily Glass interviews this ground-breaking image-maker at her upstate New York home about her process and her ongoing career.

Notes from the Blogosphere by Liz Unterman
Unterman investigates this exciting new platform where ideas are being exchanged, voices are being discovered and the roles of artist, curator, and tastemaker are being converged and asks five leading bloggers about what Blogs they turn to in order to know where photography is at.

PQ 100 @ Center for Photography at Woodstock

2010-03-28T00:01:00.001-04:00

from CPW:

The Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) is pleased to present PQ:100, an exhibition surveying the photography, films, videos, and photo-based installations that have been featured on the first 100 covers of CPW's publication PQ (Photography Quarterly).

Go-Go Gadget: Quantum Leap...

2010-03-27T15:21:00.004-04:00

...for cellphone cameras. Menlo Park, California based company InVisage Technologies, has spent the past several years developing a proprietary film that coats the image sensors used in cellphone cameras enabling them to capture more light. The film utilizes a semiconductor material called a quantum dot.

One of the biggest problems with cellphone cameras now is their performance in low light. Currently, image sensors in cellphone cameras use silicon to capture light, which is then processed to create a picture. Companies making these sensors have run into problems as they keep trying to advance them so that they can absorb more light.

Up until now, advancement in using quantum dots for other applications has been difficult, but InVisage believes they've found a "secret recipe" that will enable them to make cellphone cameras perform four times better within two years.

"With such technology, the current three-megapixel camera found in the Apple iPhone could be turned into a 12-megapixel camera that works better in varying light conditions", a spokesman for the company said.

Will this be the beginning of the end for stand alone point-and-shoots? Doubtful, but it does seem like there may be a big leap in cellphone camera technology in the near future.

via NYTimes.com

Tomorrow: Invisibility to Visibility

2010-03-26T00:01:00.000-04:00

from A.I.R. Gallery:

Invisibility to Visibility:
Are Museums Opening Up to Women Artists?

At The Brooklyn Museum on Saturday, March 27, 2pm

A.I.R. Gallery, The Feminist Art Project and The Institute for Women and Art are pleased to announce the panel discussion, Invisibility to Visibility: Are Museums Opening up to Women Artists?, part of a two-panel series, The Issues of the Moment: What is the Future for Women Artists? For the third year, this series considers the most current critical issues and concerns for women artists, and celebrates Women in the Arts during National Women’s History Month.

Introduction by Elizabeth A. Sackler
Panelists: Chrissie Iles, Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art; David Revere McFadden, Curator, The Museum of Art and Design; Alexandra Schwartz, Coordinator of the Modern Women’s Project at the Museum of Modern Art; Jorge Daniel Veneciano, Director of the Sheldon Museum of Art.
Moderated by Ferris Olin, Co-Director, Institute for Women and Art at Rutgers, and Kat Griefen, Director, A.I.R. Gallery.
The panel will be held in the Cantor Auditorium of The Brooklyn Museum and hosted by The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. The Brooklyn Museum is located at 200 Eastern Parkway. Free with Museum Admission.

For more information on this panel, including a full press release, please click HERE

This panel series is made possible by The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with A.I.R. Gallery, The Feminist Art Project, and The Institute for Women and Art at Rutgers.

For further information contact A.I.R. Gallery Director, Kat Griefen at 212-255-6651 or kgriefen@airgallery.org .

A Conversation with Anne Lass

2010-03-25T00:00:00.007-04:00

The photography of Anne Lass is often about the relationship to landscape and the question of anonymity. In this week's conversation, she presents a selection of photographs from several different series.

Nymphoto: Tell us a little about yourself?

Anne Lass: I grew up in northern Germany being part of the Danish minority. Our family has always enjoyed to travel and discovering all these unknown places as a child has had a great impact on me. After high school I moved to London, then to Copenhagen where I attended different art schools. Hereafter I began my Diploma Studies in Essen, Germany, where I studied Documentary Photography with Jörg Sasse. I was lucky to be in a group with quite a few very talented photographers - we still have good exchange and collaborate in different projects. Right now I am based in Berlin, am the proud mother of a one year old boy and enjoy to live in this diverse city.

NP: How did you discover photography?

AL: As a teenager I attended a darkroom course and found out what a mirror reflex camera is all about. The work with photography immediately became highly fascinating to me and has been ever since.

NP: Where do you find inspiration?

AL: I like to walk for hours and observe my surroundings. Going places and discovering new areas is always inspiring to me. From recreational areas to places which people avoid - it does not really matter, as long as I find this certain atmosphere I am looking for. Despite of this, a good conversation, an interesting article or an old image found on a flea market can be very inspiring too....

NP: How do your projects come about?

AL: For my project Wandeln, which is about contemporary life and living space, I can photograph anytime and everywhere. The project contains so far over 60 images from Australia, Europe and the States. The images are connected in different groups and relations depending on the context Other projects deal with a specific geographic area, for example the Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago. At the moment I feel drawn to situations which seem staged, yet it is not a dogma that my photographs have to be "real". If something needs to be changed to make the image better, I will do so. The final image is important to me and the world delivers the material.

NP: What’s next?

AL: I am currently working on a project about areas changing because of erosion, places which might disappear within the next days, months or years. Furthermore I will do a landscape project in Belgium this spring and have plans to photograph a suburb of Lisbon - and I have quite a few new images for my project Wandeln which I am looking forward to connect with the other ones. And today my solo exhibition, In Our Time, opens at the Goethe Institute in Washington D.C.

Thank you for participating Anne!

To see more of her work, please head to www.annelass.de.

In Our Time (In unserer Zeit)
Photographs by Anne Lass
Thursday, 25 March 2010 - Friday, 28 May 2010
Goethe-Institut Washington, FotoGalerie

Opening reception
Thursday, March 25, 6 – 8 pm
with photographer Anne Lass and Al Miner, Independent Curator and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Curatorial Assistant

Alessandra Sanguinetti Exhibition and Lecture tomorrow

2010-03-24T00:15:00.000-04:00

(via Boston Photographic Resource Center)

Alessandra Sanguinetti’s On the Sixth Day exhibition and lecture

The Art Institute of Boston Main Gallery

Thursday, March 25, 5 pm - 7 pm.

Alessandra Sanguinetti will be discussing her work On the Sixth Day, a series of animals on a farm in Argentina, exploring the relationship between man and beast. The documentary style photographs were taken in a province of Buenos Aires by roadsides, fields and woods as she observes the rituals and traditions of local farmers and animals - rabbits, horses, pigs, lambs, cows, chickens - caught in the cycle of life and death.

All events are free and open to the public.

Sanguinetti will be giving a free guest lecture on Tuesday, April 20. at 6:30 pm, Room 101, Boston University Kenmore Classroom Building, 565 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

Lay Flat 02: Meta Release Party and Signing at ICP on Friday

2010-03-24T00:10:00.000-04:00

We interviewed Ann Woo last September and are so glad to see her a part of Shane Lavalette's Lay Flat publication, and also have her image be on the cover!

A few of the other participating artists include:

Lay Flat and the International Center of Photography invite you to celebrate the release of Lay Flat 02: Meta.

Friday, March 26th from 6-7:30pm
FREE and open to the public!

ICP Museum Store
International Center of Photography
1133 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
t: 212-857-9725

The editors and various contributors will be in attendance and available to sign copies of the publication.

For more information or to purchase visit www.layflat.org

* RSVP is not required but you can do so on the Facebook event page.

Tonight: JoAnn Verburg Lecture @ ICP

2010-03-24T00:01:00.002-04:00

JoAnn Verburg
Lecture
ICP
January 27, 2010
7 PM

Picture(s) of the Week: Toni Pepe

2010-03-23T00:00:00.005-04:00

Toni Pepe, who we previously interviewed, sent us some photographs from her new body of work titled, "The Gesture of Tradition."

“Tradition is the illusion of permanence.” – Woody Allen

The Gesture of Tradition is a series of photographs that deal with the manifestation of identity through domestic tradition and ritual, art history and the mass media. Familial and cultural history is a specific kind of narrative, one that is shrouded in reverence and subject to memory. The photograph, an object heavily involved with memory and narrative works seamlessly to convey this approach to legacy and identity.

The Gesture of Tradition is an investigation of the family tree – a physical and visual diagram of the qualities of one’s own past. I use myself as both subject and author in an attempt to simultaneously experience the gestural characteristics of my heritage, while at the same time maintaining a sense of control as narrator. I am focused on the structure of ancestry – of what has come before us and how that defines an individual. Throughout this series, I strive to implement a sense of history – a narrative beyond the frame, delicately woven into the objects, gestures, lighting, and character. Everything within the frame is considered and functions to evoke something in the viewer that is familiar, but perhaps forgotten.

The Gesture of Tradition will be on display at Stony Brook University and she will also be presenting a paper at their Philosophy and the Arts Conference. The conference will be held on Stony Brook University’s Manhattan campus (110 East 28th Street) the weekend of March 26th-27th.

Toni's panel, Recollective Generations is scheduled on Saturday, March 27th from 1:45-3:30 p.m. and the photographs will be up beginning Friday, March 26th. For more information about the conference please visit their site: www.philosophyartconference.org.