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Archives
volume 32 (1.2012-4.2012) |
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 Ernst Haas: Color Correction
The early master of color photography was never celebrated for his personal, experimental work — until now.
 Boudaries of Portraiture
A new group exhibition in Boston explores the limits and peripheries of photo-based portraits. The image shown here is by Holly Lynton.
Cruel and Unusual
A thought-provoking, narrative-rich series of photographs from inside prison walls explores those punishments which may, or may not, offend society’s “evolving sense of decency”. This image is by Lloyd Degrane.
Berenice Abbott
A comprehensive exhibition covering the life of this legendary American photographer reveals a delightful array of interests and subject matter, well beyond her most familiar images.
When You Were Dying
In this series of work, Rana Javadi starts with old photographs from a famous Iranian photography studio, and then layers them with vintage fabrics, dying flowers and tarnished mirrors — creating a nostalgic tribute to a bygone era of easy living in Iran.
White Shadow
Slovakian photographer Tono Stano has been artfully distorting positive and negative space in photos of nude models — and the results are wonderful, delightful, surreal, and hard to deconstruct.
Poor Politicians
Frederic Lezmi used his iPhone camera to photograph a series of 28 vandalized political posters he discovered while walking the streets of Kosovo.
Friedlander Self Portraits 1958-2011
This wonderfully delightful book contains more than five decades of quirky self-portraits made by the American master Lee Friedlander.
Homework
Sean Lee, a young photographer based in Singapore, collaborates with his family members to make healing art and silly fun.
Casa de Mujeres
Rachel Mozman directed her mother to play the roles of three women in one fictional Latin American home. These photographs can be read as portraits — like a nested doll — and read as images that reveal the conflict of vanity, race and class that live within one woman.
Apashka
An old woman leads a cult-like community in the practice of Sufi rituals on a holy mountain in the far reaches of Kazakhstan. Photo-essay by Pavel Prokopchik.
Archive of Modern Conflict
The inaugural issue of AMC² journal brings together odd groups of work that illuminate lost corners of our cultural life. Photography is, as ever, the keystone of the collection.
The Three Graces
A wonderful compilation of anonymous found photos, each featuring three different women posing for unknown photographers. A wild, loving look at “snapshots of 20th century women”.
Russian photographer Irina Popova created a firestorm of outrage when she displayed her documentary series about two young drug addicts and their baby living in squalor in a squat in St. Petersburg. 
Japanese fine art photographer Seiji Shibuya has just published a masterwork of poetic visual imagery. 
Photographer Mila Teshaieva is documenting the not-yet-abandoned old ways of living, compared to the rapid, unprecedented change occuring in 3 new oil-rich nation-states bordering the Caspian Sea. 
Ai Weiwei uses photography and video as he incessantly documents and critiques the everyday urban and social realities in China (and elsewhere), and broadcasts it worldwide over blogs and Twitter. A major exhibition in Paris reveals the range of his prolific, provocative creativity. Above: Ai Weiwei with rock star Zuoxiao Zuzhou in the elevator when taken in custody by the police. 
Awards for the best photojournalism from 2011 were just announced by World Press Photo. Samuel Aranda’s compelling photograph from Yemen (above) was declared the Photo of the Year. Read more about this and other winning images from around the globe, and view them here in Lens Culture’s high-resolution slideshow. 
How do the faces of soldiers change — before, during, and then after, war? Claire Felicie created enigmatic triptych portraits of Dutch marines before, during and after they were deployed to Uruzgan, Afghanistan in 2009-2010. 
This brilliant photobook is an intimate diary-like exploration of personal and cultural identity, compiled by French-born Bruno Boudjelal, who travels to Algiers to discover his father’s homeland and to meet his extended family for the first time. 
Following up on his ground-breaking coverage of the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Pierpaolo Mittica shows us what remains of the homes, farms and neighborhoods around the Fukushima power plant in Japan.
Dutch photographer Ineke Key uses a panorama camera to capture the odd juxtapositions of land use in the ever-changing Netherlands.
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Archives
volume 31 (9.2011-12.2011) |
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AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED!
After reviewing an overwhelming number of submissions from 48 countries this year, our panel of international judges announced the winners of the Lens Culture International Exposure Awards 2011. It's a compelling selection of new multimedia and photography from around the world. Inspiring!
Tokyo Compression
Michael Wolf made a series of candid portraits of Japanese commuters enduring the inhuman daily crush of bodies in Tokyo's subway cars. The results are visceral, unforgettable, and almost suffocating.
Metropolis -
The City in the
Urban Age
This brilliantly curated show at the Noorderlicht Festival examines the consequences of more than half the world's population now living in cities, which comprise only three percent of the earth's surface. Fascinating photographs and thought-provoking reading.
Ruined Polaroids
Years ago, William Miller rescued a damaged Polaroid SX-70 camera from a yard sale, and learned how to control and accentuate aspects of the camera's flaws. Yet the images themselves are always a surprise.
L'Oeil Moderne
Like many of the painters in the beginning of the 20th century, Edvard Munch experimented with photography for inspiration — a great new exhibition pairs some of his photos and paintings, and more.
Patti Smith by Michael Stipe
This newly re-published photobook (originally from 1998) presents an intimate, diary-like record of being on the road with Patti Smith and her band in the mid-90s .
Cy Twombly Photographs
Cy Twombly (1928-2011), a celebrated painter and sculptor, revealed a subtle reverance for mythology and history in his photographic work.
Diane Arbus Retrospective
Diane Arbus (New York, 1923–1971) revolutionized the art she practiced. Her bold subject matter and photographic approach produced a body of work that is often shocking in its purity, in its steadfast celebration of things as they are.
Visual Dictionary of Russia
AnaStasia Rudenko has set out to create an ongoing series of photos that define the reality of Russia today.
Do I Measure Up?
Candace Plummer Gaudiani traveled the United States photographing the secretive world of professional and amateur body builders. She earned their trust, and captured the vulnerable nature of these people who seek physical perfection.
Somewhere*
by Andres Gonzalez
"He wants no words, only to enjoy the delicate anticipation of a moment waiting to reveal itself. What are the limits of language? This is the mind, felt, not spoken. He makes a photograph of a seagull..."
The dramatic daily push-and-pull of ocean tides depicted in diptychs by UK photographer Michael Marten makes for some jaw-dropping wonder. The pairs of photos were made from the exact same vantage point, usually within 24 hours of each other. This series, Sea Change, was award top honors in this year's Lens Culture International Exposure Awards, in the Portfolio Category. 
With their evocative multimedia depiction of the war-torn, recovering-yet-splintered captial of Chechnya, Olga Kravets, Maria Morina, and Oksana Yushko captured top honors in this year's Lens Culture International Exposure Awards with Grozny: Nine Cities. 
For the first time ever, 185 young photographers from throughout Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, gathered together for an intense and stimulating week in Moscow to meet each other and to get a critical response about their work from a large group of international photography experts. Here are our top picks — representative photographs from 43 of the photographers whose work attracted us the most. 
Photographer Mitch Dobrowner seeks out severe weather and dangerous storm systems to capture the outrageous beauty of nature's fury in this stunning series of photographs from the American Midwest. 
A young Russian prodigy, Nikita Pirogov, approaches photography as a form of visual poetry. Each photograph is self-contained and expresses its own meaning. But when viewed in ever-changing combinations with the other images, they creates further ideas, as words in a poem, or notes in a musical score. 
Using collodion wet-plate techniques and photograms, Bill Westheimer collaborates with his subjects to expose their hands and their personalities. Without the distraction of faces, these images become honest and deeply perceptive portraits, reflecting the lifestyle, habits, and sensitivity of each subject. 
The world's largest and best photography art fair and marketplace, Paris Photo, will open its doors November 10-13 at a new location — the Grand Palais — with a special emphasis this year on photography from Sub-Sahara Africa. Lens Culture is delighted to present a high-resolution preview slideshow of just a sampling of the eclectic mix of photography you will see there. The photograph above, #5126, 2007, is by Mike Brodie.
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Archives
volume 30 (6.2011-8.2011) |
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Friday Night
David Pace photographs dancers in the West African country of Burkina Faso, where they gather on Friday nights for diesel-powered outdoor parties. He captures random wild dance moves, personal fashion statements, and pure happiness.
The Brothers
Elin Høyland befriended these two hermit-like elderly brothers, and documented their lives over many years in their small hamlet in rural Norway. Harald and Mathias Ramen lived together (seemingly all their lives), happily isolated from much of the rest of the world. The pictures speak volumes.
VII: The Magazine
Exclusive multimedia reports from inside the world of photo-journalism. Often disturbing, always insightful. Updated with fresh content weekly. Shown: detail of a Moscow nightclub by Antonin Kratochvil/VII.
Love on the Left Bank
Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken was part of the hipster, bohemian scene in Paris, when, in 1956, he published a ground-breaking photobook called Love on the Left Bank. That book has been beautifully re-printed, and it captures the joie de vivre of that seemingly carefree era.
Proposition One
Max de Esteban makes X-rays of obsolete technology products that were used — not too long ago — for producing and communicating art. His work poses the philsophical questions of how we change (artistically, culturally, politcally) when our tools change.
Heroic, Sensitive Portraits of Men in Ghana and Ethiopia
By using rippled mirrors to make portraits of painted warriors and gentle fishermen, Elisabeth Sunday elongates the bodies of her subjects, and creates mirage-like dream images .
Suburbia Mexicana
Alejandro Cartagena photographs the particularities of hastily built suburbs in Monterrey, Mexico. His photos reveal the chaos and destruction that result from scant or misguided urban planning.
Paolo Pellegrin:
Dies Irae
(Day of Wrath)
In this amazing mid-career retrospective book, it’s hard to imagine that one man witnessed so much trouble and misery in the world — and was able to capture it so movingly. A great, intelligent interview at the end of the book provides insight into his passion and compassion as a concerned photographer.
Johannesburg 1948-2010
David Goldblatt presents old and new photographs of Johannesburg, in chronological order. His quietly perfect pictures, accompanied by spare, telling captions, show how little things have changed since 1948. Indeed, in many ways, things may be worse now than ever before.
David Maisel re-photographed x-rays of art objects from antiquity. Since x-rays map both the inner and outer surfaces of a subject, these mysterious images offer yet another dimension with which to appreciate ancient objects and the artists who made them — hinting at the continuous presence of the past contained within all things. 
Photojournalism was yet again re-defined earlier this year when Michael Wolf was awarded an honorable mention in the World Press Photo competition for photographs he took of quirky scenes he discovered while trolling around the world via Google Street View. We include a video interview with the artist, as well as several of his bizarre discoveries. 
Nancy LeVine has traveled throughout the United States to photograph elderly dogs. These portraits capture the essence of the old dogs completely at ease in the loving environments where some have lived for more than 21 years. 
Here we feature 40-plus photographs as a preview of the wide-ranging photography festival in Arles, France. As usual, it’s a mixed bag of some stunning work as well as some real clunkers. The photo above is by Olivier Culmann, from the series, Around, made in New York City after 9/11. 
Flying in a motorized paraglider over one of the most diverse continents in the world, George Steinmetz captures the beauty of Africa's landscapes and people. His pictures show not only the patterns of the land, but also the potential and hope that the continent encompasses. 
Hans Malm relies on luck and chance as he travels around the world making intentional double exposures. He shoots in one city, rewinds the film, travels to another city (sometimes halfway around the world), and shoots again. The odds for success are not great, but some of these photographs are uncanny, completely unlikely, and real gems. 
Photographer Robbie Kaye documents a fast disappearing aspect of American culture — weekly trips to the beauty parlor for rejuvenation and personal connection. This project explores the grace and courage of women as they age in a society so heavily focused on the beauty of youth.
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Archives
volume 29 (4.2011-5.2011) |
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Photo Opportunities
Conducting online keyword searches for famous monuments, Swiss/French artist Corinne Vionnet culled thousands of tourists’ snapshots, and weaved together small sections of the appropriated images to create layered, ethereal structures.
Nomad
A new photobook by Jeroen Toirkens takes us on a multi-continent search for the last living nomadic peoples in the Northern Hemisphere.
Face to Face:
Georgian Photography
An exhibition in Moscow provides an introduction to six contemporary photographers from Georgia
The Social Network
Gazi Nafis Ahmed’s series of same-sex couples and tough kids on the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, reverberates with intimacy and obvious delight. Text by Stephen Mayes.
AnthropoGraphia Award for Human Rights
A series of photographs from the winners and shortlisted photographers in this annual prize for Human Rights photography, plus an interview with the founder of the Award, Matthieu Rytz.
Picturing the Promise
Nearly a century’s worth of photographs from the renowned Scurlock Studio are compiled in this handsome book designed to celebrate the legacy of a noted family of photographers and to present a vivid portrait of black Washington, D.C.
Prix Pictet 2011:
Growth
An overview of the 12 finalists in the world’s leading prize for photography focused on sustainability.
Concrete Island
Peter Ainsworth presents a series of photographs all shot in the same location, an edge space entered into through a gap in the railings under a ring road in the suburbs of North London.
Downtown Corrida
Through photomontages, Alban Lecuyer stops time at the precise moment of the deliberate destruction of old buildings, and inserts those images into urban setting with human witnesses.
For two years, Liz Hingley explored the two-mile stretch of Soho Road in Birmingham, to document and celebrate the rich diversity of religions that co-exist there. 
UK Photographer Peter Dench asserts that “the English have turned drinking into a national obsession, nearly an art form.” His photos take the viewer from the local pub to posh charity balls, horse race festivals to nightclubs, and the hospital to the grave. 
Prix Pictet finalist Chris Jordan has been documenting an astonishing and disturbing effect of consumer waste: discarded plastic packaging and toys inside the stomachs of thousands of dead baby albatrosses. 
Dan Dubowitz travels the world in search of abandoned, decaying buildings. He finds beauty in many of these spaces, and he documents them lovingly with his medium-format camera. 
To examine the role of energy in the United States, Mitch Epstein embarked on a five-year-long, twenty-five-state project called American Power. This series won top honors in the Prix Pictet 2011 photography awards.
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Archives
volume 28 (1.2011-3.2011) |
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The Last Iceberg
Camille Seaman, who is a 2011 TED Fellow based in California, has been photographing dwindling icebergs in both Arctic regions. Her spectacular work is now being exhibited in San Francisco.
Sarah Moon: 12345
A major survey exhibition at Stockholm's Fotografiska museum showcases almost four decade of the work of Sarah Moon.
Young European Photographers:
Circulation(s)
Festival
A vast, new annual exhibition of photography from young European talents is showing in Paris through March 20, 2011. It's a diverse show, and worth a look.
One Voice,
One Thousand Children
A two-part series by Marcus
Bleasdale looking at Child Soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Young Girls
who are conscripted, raped and made the wives of soldiers. The stories are told by two distinct single voices
representing many. A multimedia feature inside VII The Magazine.
 Object of Desire
This controversial group show explores the blurry lines between love and lust, erotic art and pornography, sensuality, fetishism, transexuality, seduction and desire .
Beyond Photographs, Beyond Words
By sorting and collocating seemingly accidental moments, Maria L. Felixmueller composes dream-logic narratives that convey multiple layers of meaning.
Swim & Steam
Damien Peyret photographs men and women soaking in steaming hot pools during cold, dark, northern winters. The color of his Polaroids seem to capture a story originating in a different world, peaceful and detached, where gravity does not interfere with people's lives.
Following the Reindeer
For one year, Siberian photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva lived with, and documented, five nationalities of nomadic reindeer herders — a way of life unchanged for centuries.
Insulae
Massimo Cristaldi's night photography captures the "islands of light" surrounding US military housing complexes in Italy, and the symbolic struggle of light and dark.
International Portfolio Review in Paris
More than 160 photographers (from 32 countries) participated in our first international portfolio review in Paris. Here is a sample image from each, plus links to their websites. Browse, discover, and enjoy!
For a recent commission, British photographer Stephen Gill created quirky pieces of art that combine the effects of photograms, faded film, light flares, chance, and his own unique vision of where to point his camera. 
Lens Culture is pleased to present a high-resolution slideshow of winners from the 2011 World Press Photo Competition. The photo above, by Daniele Tamagni, Italy, won 2nd Prize in the Arts and Entertainment Stories. It is one of the few photos from this year's competition that may bring a smile to your face: The Flying Cholitas, women wrestlers in Bolivia. 
Britta Jaschinski, winner of the 2010 European Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, makes charcoal-like photographs of wild animals in their native habitats, often as their natural environments are radically changing. 
In a small, remote Russian village, photographer Lucia Ganieva discovered a wonderful anomaly in home decoration — the interiors of practically every home in the village feature room-size photographic murals. The resulting visual intensity creates intruiging atmospheres in these otherwise modest dwellings. 
Natan Dvir, an Israeli Jewish man, photographed and talked with 18-year-old men and women who are part of the minority Arab population that continues to live within a country that is largely defined by opposing religious beliefs. 
Collaborative artists John Armstrong (in Toronto) and Paul Collins (in Paris) paint over parts of each other's photographs using kitschy styles of old-fashioned advertising illustration (and other motifs) to create pleasantly jarring juxtapositions. 
This latest in the series of photobooks titled, in almost every picture ... , deals with one family’s attempt to solve one of the great mysteries of photography: how to shoot a black dog.
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Copyright © 2011-2012 Lens Culture and individual
contributors. All rights reserved. |
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Landscape Boundaries