A Conversation with Kerry Mansfield

Today Nymphoto is delighted to present a conversation with artist Kerry Mansfield, whose series "Aftermath" was featured on this blog last month.
I first saw "Aftermath" at Lenscratch, along with images from Kerry's series "Aftermath".
"Aftermath" really made me stop and look, while "Borderline" made me dream.
Often people are curious to know more about an artist, to see who is behind the images. And seeing "Aftermath" and "Borderline" together indeed heighten my contemplation of the imagery.
While some might think the series are not related, I found the same strong vision of this talented artist in both.


NP: Tell us a little about yourself.

KM:I am a bit obsessed with empty space. Growing up in New Jersey while living in an old Victorian home, my mother had a penchant for covering every horizontal surface with objects. I, on the other hand, was in a constant state of editing my immediate environment down to as little as possible. If I had my choice I would live in one of Julius Schulman’s photographs where everything is minimal, clean and ordered. I studied architecture for a few years before returning to photography and fell in love with Modernism. I'm primarily interested in space and the pictures are not about my connection to certain objects. Instead I look at how an
object exists in relation to its environment. There are certain compositions that catch my eye.


from the Io’s House project © Kerry Mansfield

NP: How did you discover photography?

KM: Every generation in my family has one artist. My uncle is a brilliant painter and he started to teach me how to draw when I was 7. That same summer I was also given a cheap camera. In all of the photos I took on July 4th I cut off everyone’s head. It could have been a subconscious statement against authority but no one encouraged my photography after that. Over 10 years later during a summer photography lass at UC Berkeley I developed my first roll of black and white film. I was stunned at the simplicity and couldn't understand why I had wasted so much time drawing what I saw in front of me when the camera was so much more efficient.




from The Cabin series © Kerry Mansfield

NP: Where do you find inspiration?

KM: I live on top of a large hill in San Francisco facing the East Bay. Almost daily a tidal wave of fog rolls over my hill and slowly crawls across the city. When my apartment is literally submerged in the tube of white I feel like the universe is completely calm and perfect. There is an emptiness filled with undulations of light and mist. To be able to hear myself I need to get as far away from people as possible. My photographs rarely contain human beings because I feel like they get in the way of the environment I’m trying to see. The less people I’m around and the larger the natural space, the greater my creativity.


from the La Cueva Road project © Kerry Mansfield

NP: How do your projects come about?

KM: When I learned how to shoot 4x5 and process my own sheet film, every image was a painstaking process. There was something exacting and pure about it but I also felt locked down and constrained. Around the same time my sister bought me a Lomo camera. I decided to give myself license to shoot at will and make bad pictures. That was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. My first solo gallery show, entitled “Public Portraits”, came from the images I shot that year with the Lomo. The same process led me to my Borderline series when I became fascinated with reflections. I trust my eyes to find instances of light that other people don’t recognize.




from the Borderline series © Kerry Mansfield

NP: What’s next?

KM: My self portrait project “Aftermath” that chronicles my treatment for Breast Cancer is still in production. The larger body of work contains over 50 images so I will be working on those for some time. I’m also continuing my “Borderline” series and always searching for people who will let me come and shoot their homes. There are also two new concepts that I’m exploring for the future as well but my current primary goal is to find a gallery or publisher who’s willing to feature “Aftermath”.


from the series Aftermath © Kerry Mansfield

NP: Thank you so much!

See more of Kerry's work at www.kerrymansfield.com.

Opening Tomorrow: Still Life @ CCNY

Stephen Sitting , June 2009 © Lyndsy Welgos

from CCNY:

Still Life
Curated by Jon Feinstein

Featuring: Erica Allen, Michael Bühler-Rose, Robyn Cumming, Louis S. Davidson, John Hutchins, Lyndsy Welgos, and Ann Woo.

November 5 - December 19
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 5, 6-8pm

Still Life examines a tendency in contemporary portraiture to remove the subjectivity of the persons photographed, literally transforming them into objects, and fashioning them as if they were still lifes. People are depicted for their formal or cultural qualities, as matter rendered through light and color. The exhibition juxtaposes this contemporary work with studio portrait work from the Camera Club Archives, fostering a discussion about the relationship between classical idealized studio portraiture and contemporary critical portraiture.

Picture of the Week: Jane Tam

Cynthia on the Couch, 2007 © Jane Tam

See more of Jane's work at: www.janetam.com and catch her work at Nemo Design Gallery in Portland, OR.

Mary Ellen Mark: Seen Behind the Scene

courtesy WNYC Radio

Graphic Intersections

from The Exposure Project:


from graphic intersections © Jane Tam

Graphic Intersections is a collaborative project loosely based on the old Surrealist and Dadaist game The Exquisite Corpse. Designed to unite disparate artists in an interconnected photographic relay of images inspired by one another, this project strives to emphasize a system of response entirely rooted in unmediated visual reaction.

The first photographer made a photograph, which was subsequently forwarded to the second in line. The 2nd then, based solely on their own visual, emotional, intellectual or philosophical response, in turn made photographs in artistic reaction to the one they were given. The artists involved were not given any written material to accompany the photograph, nor did they know whose image they were responding to. This was designed to propagate chance, or as the Surrealist’s put it, exploit “the mystique of accident.”

Ultimately, Graphic Intersections to challenge the bounds of sequential, narrative imagery, while simultaneously fostering stronger lines of artistic affiliation.

Graphic Intersections brings together images by:
Ben Alper, Anastasia Cazabon, Thomas Damgaard, Scott Eiden, Grant Ernhart, Jon Feinstein, Elizabeth Fleming, Alan George, Hee Jin Kang, Drew Kelly, Michael Marcelle, Chris Mottalini, Ed Panar, Bradley Peters, Cara Phillips, Noel Rodo-Vankeulen, Irina Rozovsky, Brea Souders, Jane Tam and Grant Willing

We Hope You Had A Happy Halloween!

from Halloween in Harlem © Amy Stein

Go-Go Gadget: Ghost Picturer

I love a good ghost tale and admit I loved Tales from the Darkside when I was younger. So, I'm celebrating Halloween with a post highlighting some paranormal-photo activity.

© 1936, photographers Captain Provand and Indre Shira

According to About.com, "The Brown Lady" is arguably the most famous ghost photograph ever taken. It was snapped in September, 1936 by Captain Provand and Indre Shira, two photographers who were assigned to photograph Raynham Hall for Country Life magazine. The ghost is thought to be that of Lady Dorothy Townshend, wife of Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount of Raynham, residents of Raynham Hall in Norfolk, England in the early 1700s. Her husband suspected her of infidelity, and although her "official" death is recorded in 1726, it was thought that he just locked her away in a room until she died many years later.

Now you too can add in a spooky specter to each photo you take! For those who prefer old school film to Photoshop-trickery, the Ghost Finders Camera promises "there's a ghost in every room!".

© Mike

I don't know about you, but I think I can get the same effect with the light-leak in my Holga. It also reminds me of this photo my mother showed me when I was younger, it was of the sky where the virgin mary was appearing in a cloud. Maybe they took it with a "holy ghost finder" camera.

Boo.

Polaroid to make a comeback

According to the Huffington Post Polaroid cameras are making a comeback in 2010. Read about the relaunch here.

A Conversation with Ellen Rennard

© Ellen Rennard

All of us at Nymphoto love the evocative & timeless work of Ellen Rennard. And I am delighted to present today's conversation with Ellen -- a fellow horsewoman who inspires me with her photography, writing and spirit.




© Ellen Rennard

NP: Tell us a little about yourself.

ER: Born on the island of Guam, I was raised in small town Wisconsin and suburban Chicago. I earned a BA in Independent Studies from Princeton University and an MA in English from Middlebury. Now I live outside of Boston, where I teach at Groton School. In an earlier incarnation I published some nonfiction and poetry, but I’ve focused on photography for over a decade now. In 2003 I started a project about The Downs at Albuquerque, a racetrack in New Mexico, close to where I was living at the time. Then I had to put it on hold for a few years. When I returned to photograph in the summer of 2007, the work began to take off, and now it’s shaping up as a book.



© Ellen Rennard

NP: How did you discover photography?

ER: My father was an enthusiastic advanced amateur photographer, and as an intelligence officer in the Navy, part of his work was to document former Japanese munitions sites in the South Pacific. He also photographed me with his Rolleiflex, lights – a whole studio set-up – until I was about 5 -- so from that experience, portrait photography became second nature to me. I made my first serious photograph with a Brownie camera when I was 9 -- my friend Mary in her white communion dress standing on the sidewalk. In college when I was writing my thesis on images of Native Americans, I became friends with a student of Emmet Gowin’s, photographer/filmmaker Victor Masayesva, who encouraged me to get a Yashica MAT124, but I didn’t identify myself as a photographer for another twenty years. Then in 1998 I took a workshop called The Camera and the Pen. On the first day, the teacher sent us out to photograph something the size of a truck or smaller. I decided to find a horse, but after a couple hours of fruitless searching, I just about gave up. Then I stopped at a store, saw an old farm truck parked in front, and thought, well, a truck will have to do. Within a dozen frames, I started to see. It just blew my mind, and I’ve been passionately committed to photography ever since. Of course, I eventually discovered plenty of horses to photograph at the racetrack.


© Ellen Rennard

NP: Where do you find inspiration?

ER: I find inspiration in art – especially music, painting, photography, and literature. Pentthi Sammallahti, Frida Kahlo, Helen Levitt, Sherwood Anderson, Rumi, the Rolling Stones, etc. In nature – light falling on green pond scum, a bear lumbering across my yard, the smell of rain in the desert. And traveling. I mean, how can you not be inspired when you see a man in Tanzania riding a bicycle with three loveseats balanced on the back? Or a brown cow and a string of balloons in front of a taqueria in Mexico? Most of all, I’ve been inspired by my teachers, especially Shelby Lee Adams, Douglas Kent Hall, Craig Stevens, and Eugene Richards, and by friends who are also devoted to photography, including, among others, Suzanne Révy, Paula Tognarelli, Jordan Kessler, David Bram, Keith Johnson, Cara Phillips, and Amy Elkins. For their support I am most grateful.


© Ellen Rennard

NP: How do your projects come about?

ER: I start with an idea that usually comes from something I see that seems worth exploring in a number of realms – visually, psychologically, and culturally, for instance. I photograph a little, look at the proofs, maybe revisit the subject, photograph more. If the situation holds my interest, if it resonates, I just enter into it and stay open to whatever emerges. I photograph, I listen, I write, I read, I hang out. At the racetrack, I took my time getting to know people, gaining access, and at a certain point, I just made a decision to stick with it. Or perhaps more accurately, the project wouldn’t leave me alone, so I decided to pay attention to what it was saying. Then different doors started to swing open, so I kept returning through this past August, when I knew I was finished photographing there.



© Ellen Rennard

NP: What's next?

ER: Over the next year I’ll be writing the text for the racetrack book as well as re-editing and sequencing the images to include the new work. I’ll be preparing for a solo exhibition of the project on The Downs at Albuquerque for January 13 – February 28 at the Griffin Museum of Photography’s Atelier Gallery at the Stoneham Theater in Stoneham, Massachusetts. Next summer I’ll start to explore a new long-term project, possibly in color. I have a wildlife photographer friend who has invited me to stay at her cabin in – let’s just say far away -- and I’m planning to take a long drive with my Australian Shepherd, Tommy, and to spend some time visiting there. It’s nowhere I’ve ever been, I wasn’t expecting to go, and I don’t know what I’ll encounter along the way. But I’ve always wanted to work on a road trip project with text and images – so perhaps that’s what will evolve from next summer’s travels. Lately I’ve been seeing some possibilities closer to home as well. I’ll have to wait and see what I see.


© Ellen Rennard

NP: Thank you so much!

To see (& read) more of Ellen's work please visit: www.ellenrennard.com and her excellent blog: Quintessence.
Ellen is represented by Kevin Longino at www.kevinlongino.com.

This Friday: Joni Sternbach @ ICP

Joni Sternbach: Surfland
Lecture
ICP
1114 Avenue of the America,
NYC
October 30, 2009 7 PM