" From Their View " 2...George L.Smyth, Peter Gorwin, Jim Barnard

The second in our series open for discussion:

George L. Smyth:

At one time Braddock was a city of over 20,000 people, but the collapse of the steel industry and infusion of crack cocaine reduced it to a little over 2,000 inhabitants. However, this is not a place that has given up. A strong mayor and the determination of the people are starting to pay off, though there is a very long road ahead.

The Braddock Project - Part 1 is the beginning of a project where I will visit the city twice a year over the next decade to document the resurgence. This is a baseline that will tell us where it has been. Indeed, a number of these places no longer exist, as the city works its way back.

These images are scans of prints created through the Bromoil process, a labor intensive, time consuming procedure where the silver is removed from a traditionally created darkroom print and replaced with lithographic ink by striking its surface with a stiff, ink charged brush. It adds an ethereal atmosphere to the scene, allowing the viewer to enter and understand the image on their own.

For more images from this project visit www.GeorgeSmyth.com
HandMade Photographic Images: GLSmyth.com
The Dividend Reinvestment Resource Center: DRiPInvesting.org
Blog: GLSmyth.wordpress.comct please visit GeorgeSmyth.com

 Peter Gorwin:

 

a) The Birdbath in My Garden:
Photographed with a medium format 4x5, wide angle pinhole camera.
I took it using b&w film. I've printed it using a hybrid process, a Pictorico OHP
transparency generated from an Epson 2200 internegative, and then a Van Dyke.
The negative has also been scanned, and digitally printed using fine art paper.
It was captured several years ago while my wife and I lived in Southern California.
No need to explain anything about it further.

b) Cat and Her Shadow, Istanbul, Turkey 2007:
Captured with a Nikon D2X while on a trip to Istanbul in 2007 using a good
14 mm Nikkor 2.8 lens. The lens accentuated the the s-curve of the feral cat and her discovered shadow
while she was cradled in the the arc of the cobblestones. (I assume it was a "she," but I have
no way of knowing.)

It was shot in RAW color and brought to b&w through manipulation of the channels.
I then digitally sepia toned it. As usual for me, it would be printed on flat, natural rag.

I sometimes photograph animals when they reveal a certain intelligence, a certain awareness in the moment that I'm fortunate enough to capture.  Animals, however, are not a subject that I gravitate to often, just when I see what I just described. I'm very interested in saying things simply with my photos, but I hope what I aim to say with an image isn't that simple.
www.petergorwin.com

Jim Barnard:

The work and pleasure of my photography is discovering some particular beauty of a person, place or object, and then showing that beauty in play with the wondrous and sensual qualities of light.

In these portraits I used only natural light (and a white card) to illuminate the natural beauty of my subjects.

To see more of my work,  http://www.JimBarnardPhotography.com

" From Their View " 1, John Voss,Walt Stricklin,H.William Lewis

This is the first of this series open for discussion via the comments below.

Fine Art Photographers introduces 

John Voss:

The lone tree by the lake is a subject I've returned to in different seasons and times of day.  This was taken at sunrise.  The rood in the field with sunlight was pure serendipity.  I had also photographed the cross before, but without much drama or interest.  As I passed this field one morning, though, the fog, the sun, and the cross composed themselves for me, and I merely had to press the shutter!  For more of my work, you may visit www.johnvossphotography.blogspot.com. 

It's not a website with selected images, but rather an ongoing presentation of images more or less when I make them.  

Thank you for looking. 

Walt Stricklin:

Country Churches, is autobiographical project and  exploring rural churches was ingrained in me from growing up the son of a country preacher. Never seeing eye-to-eye with my father’s orthodoxy, I did discover in the quiet simplicity of these churches a truer meaning of faith.

Rambling through the back roads of the rural south brought up feelings I had not expected. There is something special about these church buildings—they have a sense of community and comfort in their architectures that grounds the soul in the common sense that went into their construction.

I try to capture the universal “Us” in everyday situations, connecting the viewer to our shared experiences. I believe our environment shapes us as much as we shape our surroundings and I want my images to celebrate the common characteristics of places and people and how they all fit together.”

http://www.waltstricklin.com

H.William Lewis:

Almost every morning and evening I take our dogs out for their walks. It had been raining in the night and I was looking for something to photograph that would show the after effects of the rain. I was struck by this leaf and the way the water droplets were arranged large and small. I converted the color raw image to black and white. 

Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ35 in raw + jpg using the following setting: F/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO 100, Exposure Comp -.7, 27mm focal length,
The raw image was processed in Photoshop CS6 and converted to black and with with either Topaz Black & White or Nik Silver Effects 1.0.
 

http://www.naturephotographybyhwilliam.com

http://www.hwilliam.wordpress.com

" On View " Images and Comments

" On View "

By submitting images to the fine-art-photographers.blogspot.com you agree and understand the following:

Send material to my email address matthew@matthewpace.com.
**Please do not direct me to your site where I can find your work.** 

By submitting material to this blog, you grant permission to post  your material and warrant that you are the sole owner of its copyright  

HOW:
1-2 images jpg. 72ppi no more than 600 pixels on the long side with your metadata embedded, a with a brief paragraph on either technique, what it's about, reason, your feelings on it etc. You may place a watermark © notice on your image or printed under it .
Either head or close your post withYour name and your URL as a link (if you wish) or a for more on my work www.ghjgjhgj….

1) Have patience, LinkedIn only allows me to email this group once a week to make a new announcement to all the membership. I will try to post 2-3 photographers a week, over a weekend in the order they come to me. Yours may be # 75…. don't get upset if it takes a while to see your work.

2) This isn't a contest. We all come from different walks in photography sharing the same interest and love.  


CAUTION :
NUDES…..I am no prude but the blog is open for the public to view and it does have a certain criteria. We can argue all about the morals, religion, justice, what the Pope and aunt Hida thinks in the Group but the blog is different and not the right place for me to challenge rules. Let' s not start a march on the establishment. There are fine art nudes,studies and then naked pictures. You can make your artist statement or info with a link to where they are ON YOUR SITE… fair enough for this subject only.

AWARNESS:

Any image on any site can be copied, but at a low res how far can you go with it? If you're that concerned, keep them home. Neither I nor Blogspot will be held liable for some nerd who wants to make a screen saver, or show it in his book report . If you have a unique way of protection let us all know, please.


COMMENTS:
Know and accept that comments good and bad can be made by others, maybe even by outside persons who read this blog. This blog is public, the Group is not.
Let's discuss the work but not go for a dissertation. Try to keep comments brief and to the point. A few words or sentences can do it best.  You can add more thought in another comment.

Please spare us all from a simple "Like"  as a comment. That serves nothing. Mom "likes " what I do… so what…Tell us why you like it or not, how you see it, how you relate to it, how you feel about it . Point out something that might open our eyes and bring an image to another level might not be standing on. Make good constructive comments.

Making a good comment is not as easy as you think , be understanding of those who try, realize photographers are better visuals than wordsmiths. We're interested in what you say, just be considerate on how you say it.

If you don't expect comments, don't send material. Refer to the person in your comment and his image.There may be more than one photographer in a post. Questions may be asked about the work or technique, however some techniques may not necessarily be divulged, the photographer's call . Stay on topic. Talk about their work not yours. Any critique should be solely on the work not the person.

Don't defend your work by answering a comment you don't agree with… "..I couldn't stand in a better place…it was raining that day…I didn't have enough time, my wife wanting to go shopping.." Better to say, " I chose to make it dark for a more somber feeling" not  "Push the brightness button on your monitor dummy.."

Being passionate is fine but keep it civil and professional . There's a difference between " Joe I think your shadows are murky, punch up the black " and Joe that looks like crap, my grandmother shoots better than that "  Remember your comment is solely your opinion even if it's based on all the diplomas, ribbons and awards you received. Critics were wrong about VanGogh and so were the buyers.

Do not send any commercial ventures, offers, sales, recruitment, subscriptions etc. of any kind, no  take my course, join my expedition or Buy My Prints crap. You can post that in the group under Promotions.

One last thing… let's not argue, let's share, learn, enjoy each other's company and move forward.

good shooting
matthew pace

When Nudes aren't Naked

What does a photographer do when he takes some time off ? This one goes to view other photography and with a title like " Naked Before the Lens" I couldn't resist. Showing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, this exhibit draws a timeline in the progression of nude photography from the 1800s to the 1900s. 

Leaning more on works done from its beginnings rather than today's, one can see the struggle an artist had with censorship and what the public was willing to openly accept. With nude subjects paintings were just paintings an art representation, but photography was real life with real people, engaging the viewer as a witness to a graphic world that existed rather than a painted one. Maybe it was this reality that made it disturbing enough in the era to make models hide their faces in one form or another and photographers to title early works as " an artist study" rather than feature them as art nude for own sake. The photographs from that time period mimic classic paintings and sculptures rather than today's images that stand alone as fine art nudes. Finding a ulterior reason for their existence they were shown as anatomy or figure studies etc. that equate to not too long ago when some men said.." I buy this for the articles"  when that brown paper wrapped magazine shows up in the mailbox.



This very early 1860 photograph by Nadar was taken to help the painter Jean-Leon Derome depict his painting of Phryne before the Areopagus.




Eugene Durieu made this as part of many studies for Eugene Delacroix's paintings








Rather than for a painting, this one,by Oscar Gustav Rejlander, is influenced and taken from paintings by Raphael,Titian,Rubens and others.



As the show progresses, we start to see nude photography evolve. No longer done for other artists, faces revealed, among other things, engagement with the subject becomes more direct. 

Brassai's "Introductions  at Suzy's"… is a favorite of mine, a glimpse to a place where fantasies take place including being there for those who wondered what was inside. While this is nude, it borderlines naked, a raw, candid with that "you shouldn't be there feel" yet you have to keep staring. It moves me differently than the nude studies shown prior.      

The show was well done as usual with the Met, except for the glitzy sign NAKED that looked more like a triple x marque. I felt it deserved something better, but that just me.  
I felt that where the show missed were nudes in the present. We have come a long way of what is acceptable since early photography with extremism at both ends, and hopefully to a better visual understanding  between nude and naked.

Phoneography ..part two

My brother has an auto body shop and a tool chest taller than me. I asked him why he needed two drawers of screwdrivers to which he replied that each one does a different job. At my level of mechanics, I have only two. On his level, he has them and calls on each to do a  different job. 

Photography has become that way too. At one time only the large format to today's ever growing selection of camera types, we achieve different looks with different approaches that each one delivers.  Some help to direct our vision, some change our tactics and some free us. Large formats bring us to those pensive moments, a slower attention to detail and deliberate compostions... 35 to speed of subjects and our reactions with variety of views, plastic cameras to whimsical haphazard moments sometimes happy accidents. Like my brother's screwdrivers, each does a different job and often, with it in hand we search and focus for just those. 

Ahumada Enrique sees his path with "Menage a Trois" or the square of three...


which turned not only into a series but an App for the Iphone/Ipad that creates its layout design.

In his words..." this is a series is a result of an extreme sense of joy that I experience in the magic alignment of three elements: my eye, my Iphone camera, and my subjects"

Smart phones seem to have a spontaneity and public acceptance that other formats don't. In a crowd, on the street, in buildings, lifting a smart phone doesn't draw the attention that lifting your 35mm does. It has become almost unnoticed, a normal, unquestioned part of today's life, allowing reaction without hesitation to what we see. In view of all that is happening on the global changes in governments and movements, it has become a strong tool that through its freedom of visual capture, changes the world like no other camera before it. In time as it continues to develop, it becomes its own art form and in the world of electronic media, internet, Ipads, Smarter phones and whatever else comes, takes its place as a tool for advertising.

Phoneography... part one

Anyone aware of the history of photography doesn't have to be told how far we have come. From the "Camera Obscura" to film and now digital, it has provided a steady growth of expression with newer techniques and tools pregress. For those who pursue its medium a new forms of art or looks emerge  with every advance .

Across its brief 150 years apprx, it has struggled in its acceptance as art, coming into its own buyer's scene within the last 20 years or so. It became the realm of masters who were capable of handling the equipment along with its technical procedures and could successfully express and produce fine photographic art. For the most part, it took years of experience.The struggle of films,chemistry,and technique kept the masses at a great distance. Enter digital and with it a  new door opened allowing new artists who might not have be here had media remained the same. What did remain for a long time however, was the tool.

A new tool is born..the Cell Phone: Tool for the masses..

Unobtrusive, at hand,capable of not only processing an image and tweaking its look, but immediately publishing it from within and on the spot, it gives birth to a whole new world of potential artists, some of which have probably never been photographers before. Every person I know has at some point shown me his "Pocket Images" some good, some bad, all fun but mostly random . In their hands, an instant photographer;  In others... an artist's expression, and these are some of what can be done through their eyes and experience taking this new tool to higher level :

Chris Hudson  an award-winning Art Director and Creative Director at advertising agencies in London and New York, is a member of the Royal Photographic Society and London Independent Photography.
With his keen eye for color, he finds new freedom with his cell phone and some of the apps that can be had. Here is the  Hipstamatic app. This from a flower series is part of his current book project. 

While in Iceland, he was so impressed by the quality of the phones ability to produce a quality image that he shot half of his trip with his iPhone.





Experiencing the same in my last travel, my assortment of lenses remained in my bag. The freedom and fun of my phone allowed me to see subjects in a whole new light, a different approached unencumbered by multi-equipment decisions and with no one to be suspicious of who I was and what was my motive, I was free.

 

Apps allowed processing after capture and adding a frame, to re-interpret scenes with a different light. This famous New York icon takes on a different look than its predecessor one hundred years later.

Imagery while waiting for lunch and published before it comes opens a whole new world with its a very addictive visual fever. More than just a sketch book, it becomes a final product.

But we are not just one brand of tool as it is really the person behind them that matters most. In capable hands this new tool, like discovering something other than a paintbrush, creates a whole new way of painting.  Donna Callighan  has been a successful professional photographer for over twenty years. Her approach in this new form is rather than use an in phone app, she processes her "cellimages" in Photoshop with her unique style.

This is part one of of this series of Phoneography. If you wish to contribute images for review, contact me through my profile...My thanks to both Chris and Donna for their contribution. 

Featured Artist...Jeff Weinstock

I heard it said that inside a great cinematographer or videographer is a great photographer to start with. That part proves out in Jeff Weinstock's work. His attention to composition and color saturates his landscapes showing us scenes begging to be a "set "


"I began working as a still photographer after a thirty year career as a nationally recognized documentary and commercial cinematographer. When the time came to close that door, in 2003, another opened as I turned to still photography to fill the void left after thirty years of creative filmmaking."
Starting out as a cameraman for the Washington bureau of NBC News, at 24, he was assigned  to cover the Ford administration. Some time later he was transferred to to the network's New England bureau where he also began to freelance for major clients. There he began his interest in still work.
In an era where most still shooters are looking at motion as their new expression, Weinstock takes the reverse with a thirty year track record behind him. 

"... the transition to still photography freed me from strictly structured content, budget constraints, working in large collaborative groups, and bringing to life the concepts and visions of others.  I've spent the last six years traveling to areas that have drawn me in by their unique natural beauty and the ability to shoot only that which touches my creative sensibility and personal esthetic."
 
His sensitivity to his surrounding is best expressed by the light he captures. It stands out dominate painting a portrait of the place he is drawn to. One of them being The Olympic Peninsula in N.W.Washington.

"From November, 2008 thru October, 2009 I spent over two months on The Olympic Peninsula in N.W. Washington photographing it‚Äôs rain forests, the Olympic National Park, the Olympic Mountain Range, and miles of broad coastal beaches battered by fierce winds and waves from winter storms off the Pacific.  That now completed project had become a passion  and from it grew an artistic and personal connection with the approximately 6800 square miles of the bio-diverse Peninsula.  The breath-taking beauty of this bio-gem is everywhere, and in certain places it‚Äôs beauty so mystically magnificent as to touch one on a spiritual level."

His commitment to this vision is total, having left his home in Boston in October 2010 and moving to Portland, Oregon to live in the Pacific NorthWest and continue his pursuit. His philosophy on his work is simple....
"My design is to share my vision of the ordinary and the extraordinary with those who find some value in the photographic images I creates. No more, no less."

more can be seen    here

Featured Artist...David Fine

Some see small things in big subjects and some see big things in the small ones, David Fine sees   bold graphics in his.

Hailing from Georgia, he applies his more than twenty years experience in the commercial world to his art. His focus is on three areas:



*Things That Rust and Splinter
*Things That Splinter
*Nature and Landscapes

"All 3 areas of study can be summed up in the exploration of the impact of time on our landscape through things that rust and things that splinter.  I am drawn to abandoned places that hold secrets of yesterday where time has clearly created new textures, colors and shapes that fold into our landscape.  I focus not only on shape, texture and color, but on the interaction of the elements within our landscape. I have always been drawn to the desert and the West.  Those that visit the desert either love it or hate it, with very little in between.  Every visit I take leads me in a different visual path where at times the silence is deafening, the light is brilliant, and the moment of capture is clear. "

These two images are from his series "The Pass", a small collection of views of an abandoned 1937 Flat Head Ford truck.
" I originally found this truck as I was hiking through the desert in Southern California near Death Valley. The gentle lines and shape of the truck create their own landscape, color pallet, texture and feel in one of nature’s most challenging environments. "



He works in medium format, first film and recently digital seeing his subjects from the wide perspective a 40mm gives. 

"Walking the streets of Bodie many times over, this was perhaps my coldest visit ever.  I always have a new experience there, and this time was no exception.  While a snow storm closes the pass, and the wind blows cold as ice – there is nothing like trying to manipulate a tripod and dials on a camera."

These are Wheel in the Sky and Time Spoken..

More of his work can be seen ...............HERE

Featured Artist...Stephen Tomasko

Images speak differently to each of us. Sometimes they take on other meanings not intended by their creators. This week's featured artist, Stephen Tomasko puts it best...
"For me, making photographs, especially involving people or the things that people make, is about story telling. As with any type of story, if engaged, people will bring their own history and sensibilities to round out a narrative. My goal then is to make an image beautiful and compelling enough to make the viewer want to linger, and in some way then make it their own. "
I have passed this scene many times in many cities,someone's portrait being drawn or painted.The subject sitting in anticipation, trying not to make eye contact with the viewers whose faces might reveal the results. Here she is either complacent or on edge pressing on her elbow, her hands wrenched hoping for the person she wishes to be appear on paper. I have stood in this same spot as part of this audience. Not wanting to make eye contact I too have felt the same apprehension as she does in this image making it hard to witness the end. It's a uncomfortable barrier that I can however, safely cross here via this photograph thanks to the recognition of the moment Tomasko captures. It works for me, and in this comfort zone, as Tomasko says, makes me linger. 

"Boys and Girls" is about the roles that we play in our culture. It is also about the excitement and terror of relating to one another. These images were all found in the American landscape, processed minimally, and printed full-frame. Aside from being true, they are also better than any I could have concocted in my own head. Of course, they are interesting as images because of the composition and the framing, and the recognition of and reaction to the light. These things I can do. It’s for the continued supply of American weirdness and wonder that I’m reliant, always surprised and forever grateful.



Stephen Tomasko makes photographs of the natural and the man-made. He has created bodies of work with subjects as diverse as the steel and automotive industries, the life and landscape of the American city streets, and pristine blooming gardens. Tying the work together is a vision of carefully seen straight photography, presented full-frame, with minimal processing. 

For more his work go here

Featured Artist...Denis Olivier

  

Bordeaux is mostly known for its great wine. It's also known for great photography. For wine suggestions, contact me offline..for photography look towards Denis Olivier, our new "Featured Artist."

Originally born in Royan,France where he was introduced to photography through his parents, he started by drawing later painting taking part in some exhibitions. By seventeen, he began to photograph turning his attention to it as a more interesting area of study after finnishing three years of Biochemistry. Attending the Poitiers School of Fine Arts he meets Alan Fleig who introduced him to photography as an art form.

"...felt a need to practice photography, and with a friend we spent a lot of time learning how to develop films and photographs. We did sessions with models, scenery, and discovered France."

He continued on and trained with Phillipe Salaun, the assistant to Robert Doisneau   

"I did some jobs for organizations, shows and commissioned works. I then started in December 1995 working with computer graphics and made use of the Internet.

I worked in artistic direction for several years, then digital cameras came along and I found a way to work quickly and experiment without using too many resources such as film, chemicals, photo sensitive paper and of course the wonderful resource of water."  

His work appears as classic Zone system for those of us who remember that. Squares, my favorite, seem to dominate his frame and help to focus on, this is his view exactly as he saw it.  

Apart  from his classic approach, he also has a series of manipulated images making creative compositions by blending them together, some whimsical, some haunting in his Dreamspace Reloaded series. 

He has been well exhibited in France, appearing in magazines and collections. 

More more of his work can be seen here

Featured Artist...John A. Benigno

"For me, the art and craft of photography are self taught.  Primary influences come from the writings and works of Porter, Feininger, Steichen, and Strand, to name a few."

 

These are the opening lines of this week's featured artist, John A. Benigno. Taken from his resume, they help to define the inner vision he expresses on paper. More than pictures, they strike me as portraits of the souls who either have or still occupy those spaces.

These are from his collection,"Adobe Churches".

"Adobe is among the most ancient of building materials.  Of the earth, and in need of constant care, 

it is ideal for structures determined to endure as expressions of faith and culture.There are hundreds of adobe churches scattered throughout the high desert of the American Southwest.  A few, still in existence, date back to the mid-1700's, while many others were established as far back as the early 1800's.  Some are large, imposing structures, but most, built by parishioners, are small and modest. Each is unique and worth exploring.  They stand as symbols of deep faith, homage to centuries old customs still practiced in towns and villages found throughout New Mexico."

John's interest in photography started as a child. His dad brought him one of the first Polaroid cameras. Toady he teaches photography at several Community Arts Centers in Pennsylvania. His work appears in many galleries and private collections throughout the country and published in various magazines.

Classic in approach, film and darkroom, today he crosses over to digital output. Still using film, he scans and then applies his formula in Photoshop, recreating his toned or tea stained technique that he applied to his silver prints. 

"Perhaps, because much of my work tends towards realism, my photographs often are described as traditional.  In fact, many of my primary influences come from the writings and works of photography early masters, including Porter, Feininger, Steichen, and Strand, to name a few.

While I welcome a comparison to the past, realism is merely a means to an end.  Rather, I believe that my artistic vision is driven more by my background in the social sciences, especially anthropology and history, than by my great admiration for photography's early masters.My real interest is to capture timeless moments in the landscape, and, if the land has been influenced by man, to stimulate curiosity about how, when and why." 

His other works include landscapes from the Southwest,the Amish country,Seascapes to name a few. His theme follows throughout as does his philosophy.

"Making a photograph is a struggle between my mind’s eye and the subject.  Eventually, they merge in a peaceful coexistence.  The resulting photograph becomes more than the subject.  The viewer can’t possibly travel to this place with me -- it is mine.  Instead, hopefully, the image before them will ignite their own internal journey to a time and place of their own. The key is to look"


More of his works can be found here.

Featured Artist...Joel Salcido

Our "Featured Artist" this week is from Austin,Texas where he currently works as an editorial and fine art photographer.
Joel Salcido started out as a staff photographer at the El Paso TImes and also traveled in Latin America for USA Today, receiving multiple awards, several for his coverage of life in Cuba and the inhalant abuse on the US-Mexican border. He worked his way to becoming Photo Editor and in 1991 he decided to branch out and pursue commercial work before his decision to move his family to Spain to work on his fine art photography.

"I made a commitment to use the camera as an instrument that would reveal beauty and truth in its simplest form.  And so “Hecho en Juarez” came to be.  Then came my year in Spain from which, “Spain: Millennium Past” showed me that the true wonder of tradition is anchored by an incessant human effort to celebrate life.  Most recently, the “Roma: Entre Fantasmas”  also follows tradition as a romantic view of local folklore in this border town where ranch, horse and religion still dominate. "

His artistic pursuit with a journalist's background marries well in his images and subject approach  painting his vision with its own tone. Each body takes on its own flavor not just from what he sees but the colors he sees it through, from his portraits to his travels, with excellent technical execution as well as artistic judgment.

  
"As a journalist, I spent half of my career framing tragedy and disaster and sometimes glorified in it.  Eventually it chipped away and eroded my hope in mankind to a skeletal resemblance of what it once was.  In my need to rediscover hope, I began to seek refuge in what I deemed, “visual poetry.” "  

His decision to leave the world of steady paychecks took courage and self belief in what he really wanted to achieve, he did and still does because for Joel this is more than a business, it's a love that continues producing work for publications like USA Today and Texas Highways along with collections in The Austonian, The Witliff Southwestern and Mexican Photography Collection at Texas State University-San Marcos, The El Paso Museum of Art, the Harry Ransom Humanities Center at UT Austin and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
 
His viewpoint.." For more than 20 years photography has been my companion on this journey we call life.  Many times it has escorted me into the darkest corners of human existence.  Other times it has opened the gates of light where visual poetry and beauty reside.  Photography can easily fall into the trap of celebrating the worst aspects of ourselves and it is for that reason I continue to print my awareness of hope so in the end it may help us all understand the beauty still within us."

More of Joel Salcido's work can be seen here

Featured Artist...Andy Mars

Some artists seem to walk the line between photography and painting and our current one, Andy Mars does just that... Living in New York, Andy, a member of Professional Women Photographers, (PWP) creates her one of a kind mixed media artwork, blending water colors, acrylic paint, pastel chalks and pencil on various substrates as well as photographic paper.

She has been exhibited in many Galleries in Manhattan still finding time to volunteer service for noteworthy causes such as providing pet and family portraits to raise money for the dogs who once worked at the World Trade Towers in the aftermath of 9/11. She taught mixed media photo art to cancer survivors at the Creative Center in NYC as well as giving workshops to Senior Citizens titled "What Do All Those Buttons Do On Your Digital Camera" She recently won the "Volunteer Group of the Year Award" from Women in Need (WIN) by volunteering her service to initiate the community service committee for her group PWP.

Andy is currently a Photography Mentor (teaching photo art lessons) to a burn-accident child to improve his fine motor skills and self esteem.  Her depth of sensitivity for me shows in her work, warm color, attention to the beauty within a small space, an appreciation of a single object over the big picture. They seem to be an icon for the larger landscape she stops to see. 

Her abstract work shows the everyday world around her in a way that seemingly blends the real yet unreal giving a modernistic quality to her series.
More of her work can be seen ...here...

Featured Artist...Jamie Durling

From the last post of human intimate moments, we turn to one of human voidness with this week's Featured Artist, Jamie Durling in his ongoing series "Things We Left Behind"

"Inspired by my love of post apocalyptic novels and films I am creating a series of images which show a world void of people but littered with the detritus of their presence. I have shot beaches, shopping centres, cinemas and cafés eerily empty and disused in a post-human world. I want the viewer to see the 'Things' in the images as useless, redundant relics of humanity and as traces of our relatively fleeting existence. Retrospectively I can see an element of the influence the work of Eugene Atget had on me in my 'formative' years as a photographer; his empty Parisian streets fascinated me. Though his streets weren't truly empty, but rather the long shutter speeds his process required meant that people weren't around long enough to leave a trace on his images."

Residing in Weston-super-Mare, a small seaside town, in the South West of England, Jamie begins his career after graduating in 2009. Relatively new, his work shows a continuity of statement of an idea visually expressed. 

"Sometimes I like to spend several days thinking about the photograph that I am going to take, even before I've picked up a camera. I normally keep a camera on me, just in case I see something that I like, because sometimes I enjoy taking photographs spontaneously."

Looking at this work, I think of the wonders that Rome, Egypt, the Mayans and all the great civilizations left behind that we now uncover with amazement, trying to decipher their meanings and usages. Will tomorrow, long after we are gone, uncover what Jamie shows us, and wonder what their usages were and how did we live, truly? If an event occurred that would wipe away all records written or recorded in any form leaving behind things represented in these images, what will they say of us? 

 

Art is questionable by us but when it questions us directly it is to me art on a different level.

More of his work can be seen ....here

Jamie is also a fine writer as evidenced ..here

read Truth/Untruth.. my favorite.