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31 July, 2009

Emily Shur


Emily has got to be one of the coolest people I have ever met. I had the pleasure of meeting her in Santa Fe this June at the Reviews.
A commercial photographer by day, her personal work lends itself to her downtime, when she doesn't have to think on her feet. Reacting to her circumstance, giving us who she is, where she is, and that moment of peace, like an exhale, before gearing up to go out and do it again.
Her work is quiet and unassuming. The structure, color and sometimes the light of the images draws me in. I am not sure if it is the anticipation of whats next in the image, or it often feels like something just happened, and I am disappointed that I missed the event. She calls them small moments, but to me, who soaks up as much life as I can absorb, they all seem important. It seems like the yin and yang of the careless nature of what we do to our surroundings, and finding out it is all so deliberate.



ok, ok, enough. Take a look at the work.
Emily's statement about the work -

Some of my earliest memories are of light shining through a row of hospital windows and walking down that long hallway with my father, going to visit my mother who was sick with cancer at the age of twenty-nine.
I was three years old. I’ve always found it interesting that I don’t remember seeing her in the hospital. I only remember the light coming through the window and forming bright, glowing rectangles in repetition along the floor. Through the years, I’ve thought a lot about how memory subconsciously manifests itself; how small and seemingly insignificant moments become important and meaningful over time; how a lifetime is slowly constructed out of these moments. There’s no doubt this has impacted my photography.

This body of work represents roughly ten years of picture taking and an examination of my individual experiences. These images were made all over the world, under all sorts of circumstances. Sometimes I was led to a place for work, sometimes for fun, but in every situation I found myself celebrating the supposedly small moments. Photography has allowed me to give due importance to all of the bits and pieces in my life. These images are not idealized views of life experience. Instead, they are representative of a conscious choice I have made regarding how and what I choose as my memories. Births, deaths, milestones, and change are a part of every life. A face or a smile is not required for me to associate imagery with emotion. In my world, the subtle, the natural, and the insignificant are just as powerful as the obviously epic.

30 July, 2009

Jon Edwards





I saw Jon's work in Los Angeles at ReviewLA two years ago, and loved it. Have been watching his growth and success ever since. The richness of his work both in content and in process is beautiful. Images of Maine, and its people (I say it as if it were a different country) Jon captures the strength, life and emotional connection of this way of life. Having been to Maine many times and seen this rugged beauty, I am drawn in to these images, remembering how simple and how stunning it is.

Jon's Statement -

After Practicing civil rights and environmental law for over twenty years, I have spent the last six years photographing inhabitants of islands off the coast of Maine. These individuals live simply, and demonstrate dignity and tenacity when, by choice or lack of opportunity, they are forced to survive under the harsh economics or isolation of island living, or an increasingly difficult way of life. They reside in a remote or isolated beauty and remain a direct connection with the natural environment. Their lifestyles demonstrate how far our society has come from the once organic, symbiotic relationships between human and natural conditions. My photographs are meant to be a celebration of people and places where the human spirit still connects with the natural world. It is my hope that, like my legal work, they will contribute in some small way to social justice and human progress.

29 July, 2009

Laurie Lambrecht




Laurie's trees are stark, architectural, and just plain beautiful to surround yourself with. Shot in winter, these lovely images really show how life survives. When everything goes dormant, here are these living breathing, survivors in such bleak grey.
I am excited to see Laurie's work be part of the upcoming Lishui Photo Festival in China this November.

This is what Laurie says about her work - I couldn't say it any better.

Often a symbol of strength, trees provide visual poetry for our life and its cycles. Throughout history, literature and painting have depicted the ever changing language of landscape.
With appreciation of this tradition, it is the tree that I have chosen to study. Over the past decade I have been photographing trees in urban areas, often revisiting and further exploring their individual character. This series of photographs was begun in November 2oo4 on the edge of Lake Zurich, Switzerland. To date there are almost 25 images in the series. They are photographed at the end of the day in silent moments before dark takes over. I consider them as being in a landscape in my mind as much as an actual place. The images hold some of my emotional experience of the trees rather than merely a physical description of them.


28 July, 2009

Brian Buckley





Brian Buckley participated at the Santa Fe Reviews, and I was enchanted by his Photograms.

A series filled with color, light, organic shapes and dimensionality. A total treat. This particular group is lighthearted, but he also has explored more intense themes. Today - I want lighthearted fare. Maybe some other day, I'll expose his Love Lost work. I'll go with the simple elegant Circles, and a few from Organics.

Let me know what you think.

27 July, 2009

Mark Menjivar




So I have been thinking alot about who we are, what we carry with us and what we become without our stuff. I have had to shed a lot of my stuff these last few months, streamlining shall we say. Most of it precious, and some stuff just had been around too long. Everyone has baggage, some visible, some subsurface.
Mark Menjivar has found a really interesting way of looking at who we are - through food. you are what you eat is this great study of organized chaos in a small space- our habits, needs, comfort, control, and desire all in one footprint, without a single face to see. We see what baggage people bring to something so vital as food. I am really compelled by the rorsach test that these images become. I want to know more about them, see them, but being deprived of a face to a fridge, I also appreciate not knowing, and enjoying their anonymity as they would respect mine.

From the top -

Bar Tender | San Antonio, TX | 1-Person Household | Goes to sleep at 8AM and wakes up at 4PM daily. | 2008

Street Advertiser | San Antonio, TX | 1-Person Household | Lives on $432 fixed monthly income. | 2007

Red Cross Board Member | San Antonio, TX | 1-Person Household | Sleeps with a loaded .45 pistol on nightstand. | 2008

Midwife/Middle School Science Teacher | San Antonio, TX | 3-Person Household (including dog) | First week after deciding to eat all local produce. | 2008

Here is Mark's statement about the work -

You Are What You Eat is a series of portraits made by examining the interiors of refrigerators in homes across the Untied States.

For three years I traveled around the country exploring the issue of hunger. The more time I spent speaking and listening to individual stories, the more I began to think about the foods we consume and the effects they have on us as individuals and communities. An intense curiosity and questions about stewardship led me to begin to make these unconventional portraits.

A refrigerator is both a private and a shared space. One person likened the question, "May I photograph the interior of your fridge?" to asking someone to pose nude for the camera. Each fridge is photographed "as is." Nothing added, nothing taken away.

These are portraits of the rich and the poor. Vegetarians, Republicans, members of the NRA, those left out, the under appreciated, former soldiers in Hitler’s SS, dreamers, and so much more. We never know the full story of one's life.

My hope is that we will think deeply about how we care. How we care for our bodies. How we care for others. And how we care for the land.

26 July, 2009

PhotoNola


Really great news!

PhotoNola is coming! Mark your calendars - the event is from 3-13 December, 2009.
I was honored to be part of this event last year, to participate in the portfolio reviews, and I had the greatest time ever. I cannot recommend it enough. The reviews were top notch. Not only was there an incredible group of reviewers, but the quality of the work we reviewed was well conceived, crafted and a total visual treat and feast for the eyes. I met great artists like Wallace Merritt, Katrina D'Autremont, Frank Relle, Victoria Ryan, Sarah Wilson and Mary Ellen Bartley. These very talented photographers have been highlighted in Black&White Magazine (Wallace Merritt), Color (Frank Relle) highlighted at Foley Gallery in New York (Sarah Wilson), and part of a group exhibition at the Griffin (Katrina d'Autremont) and Mary Ellen is up now at PCNW thanks to Jen Bekman's curatorial jurification.
This is a year to build relationships, and heading to New Orleans in December wouldn't be such a bad idea. If you are thinking about a Portfolio Review event, this one should be on your calendar.
If I'm lucky enough, I'll see you there!
(images shown - Mary Ellen Bartley, Sarah Wilson, Wallace Merritt and Victoria Ryan)

For more information head to PhotoNola's website or drop them a line at info@photonola.org

31 July, 2009

Emily Shur


Emily has got to be one of the coolest people I have ever met. I had the pleasure of meeting her in Santa Fe this June at the Reviews.
A commercial photographer by day, her personal work lends itself to her downtime, when she doesn't have to think on her feet. Reacting to her circumstance, giving us who she is, where she is, and that moment of peace, like an exhale, before gearing up to go out and do it again.
Her work is quiet and unassuming. The structure, color and sometimes the light of the images draws me in. I am not sure if it is the anticipation of whats next in the image, or it often feels like something just happened, and I am disappointed that I missed the event. She calls them small moments, but to me, who soaks up as much life as I can absorb, they all seem important. It seems like the yin and yang of the careless nature of what we do to our surroundings, and finding out it is all so deliberate.



ok, ok, enough. Take a look at the work.
Emily's statement about the work -

Some of my earliest memories are of light shining through a row of hospital windows and walking down that long hallway with my father, going to visit my mother who was sick with cancer at the age of twenty-nine.
I was three years old. I’ve always found it interesting that I don’t remember seeing her in the hospital. I only remember the light coming through the window and forming bright, glowing rectangles in repetition along the floor. Through the years, I’ve thought a lot about how memory subconsciously manifests itself; how small and seemingly insignificant moments become important and meaningful over time; how a lifetime is slowly constructed out of these moments. There’s no doubt this has impacted my photography.

This body of work represents roughly ten years of picture taking and an examination of my individual experiences. These images were made all over the world, under all sorts of circumstances. Sometimes I was led to a place for work, sometimes for fun, but in every situation I found myself celebrating the supposedly small moments. Photography has allowed me to give due importance to all of the bits and pieces in my life. These images are not idealized views of life experience. Instead, they are representative of a conscious choice I have made regarding how and what I choose as my memories. Births, deaths, milestones, and change are a part of every life. A face or a smile is not required for me to associate imagery with emotion. In my world, the subtle, the natural, and the insignificant are just as powerful as the obviously epic.

30 July, 2009

Jon Edwards





I saw Jon's work in Los Angeles at ReviewLA two years ago, and loved it. Have been watching his growth and success ever since. The richness of his work both in content and in process is beautiful. Images of Maine, and its people (I say it as if it were a different country) Jon captures the strength, life and emotional connection of this way of life. Having been to Maine many times and seen this rugged beauty, I am drawn in to these images, remembering how simple and how stunning it is.

Jon's Statement -

After Practicing civil rights and environmental law for over twenty years, I have spent the last six years photographing inhabitants of islands off the coast of Maine. These individuals live simply, and demonstrate dignity and tenacity when, by choice or lack of opportunity, they are forced to survive under the harsh economics or isolation of island living, or an increasingly difficult way of life. They reside in a remote or isolated beauty and remain a direct connection with the natural environment. Their lifestyles demonstrate how far our society has come from the once organic, symbiotic relationships between human and natural conditions. My photographs are meant to be a celebration of people and places where the human spirit still connects with the natural world. It is my hope that, like my legal work, they will contribute in some small way to social justice and human progress.

29 July, 2009

Laurie Lambrecht




Laurie's trees are stark, architectural, and just plain beautiful to surround yourself with. Shot in winter, these lovely images really show how life survives. When everything goes dormant, here are these living breathing, survivors in such bleak grey.
I am excited to see Laurie's work be part of the upcoming Lishui Photo Festival in China this November.

This is what Laurie says about her work - I couldn't say it any better.

Often a symbol of strength, trees provide visual poetry for our life and its cycles. Throughout history, literature and painting have depicted the ever changing language of landscape.
With appreciation of this tradition, it is the tree that I have chosen to study. Over the past decade I have been photographing trees in urban areas, often revisiting and further exploring their individual character. This series of photographs was begun in November 2oo4 on the edge of Lake Zurich, Switzerland. To date there are almost 25 images in the series. They are photographed at the end of the day in silent moments before dark takes over. I consider them as being in a landscape in my mind as much as an actual place. The images hold some of my emotional experience of the trees rather than merely a physical description of them.


28 July, 2009

Brian Buckley





Brian Buckley participated at the Santa Fe Reviews, and I was enchanted by his Photograms.

A series filled with color, light, organic shapes and dimensionality. A total treat. This particular group is lighthearted, but he also has explored more intense themes. Today - I want lighthearted fare. Maybe some other day, I'll expose his Love Lost work. I'll go with the simple elegant Circles, and a few from Organics.

Let me know what you think.

27 July, 2009

Mark Menjivar




So I have been thinking alot about who we are, what we carry with us and what we become without our stuff. I have had to shed a lot of my stuff these last few months, streamlining shall we say. Most of it precious, and some stuff just had been around too long. Everyone has baggage, some visible, some subsurface.
Mark Menjivar has found a really interesting way of looking at who we are - through food. you are what you eat is this great study of organized chaos in a small space- our habits, needs, comfort, control, and desire all in one footprint, without a single face to see. We see what baggage people bring to something so vital as food. I am really compelled by the rorsach test that these images become. I want to know more about them, see them, but being deprived of a face to a fridge, I also appreciate not knowing, and enjoying their anonymity as they would respect mine.

From the top -

Bar Tender | San Antonio, TX | 1-Person Household | Goes to sleep at 8AM and wakes up at 4PM daily. | 2008

Street Advertiser | San Antonio, TX | 1-Person Household | Lives on $432 fixed monthly income. | 2007

Red Cross Board Member | San Antonio, TX | 1-Person Household | Sleeps with a loaded .45 pistol on nightstand. | 2008

Midwife/Middle School Science Teacher | San Antonio, TX | 3-Person Household (including dog) | First week after deciding to eat all local produce. | 2008

Here is Mark's statement about the work -

You Are What You Eat is a series of portraits made by examining the interiors of refrigerators in homes across the Untied States.

For three years I traveled around the country exploring the issue of hunger. The more time I spent speaking and listening to individual stories, the more I began to think about the foods we consume and the effects they have on us as individuals and communities. An intense curiosity and questions about stewardship led me to begin to make these unconventional portraits.

A refrigerator is both a private and a shared space. One person likened the question, "May I photograph the interior of your fridge?" to asking someone to pose nude for the camera. Each fridge is photographed "as is." Nothing added, nothing taken away.

These are portraits of the rich and the poor. Vegetarians, Republicans, members of the NRA, those left out, the under appreciated, former soldiers in Hitler’s SS, dreamers, and so much more. We never know the full story of one's life.

My hope is that we will think deeply about how we care. How we care for our bodies. How we care for others. And how we care for the land.

26 July, 2009

PhotoNola


Really great news!

PhotoNola is coming! Mark your calendars - the event is from 3-13 December, 2009.
I was honored to be part of this event last year, to participate in the portfolio reviews, and I had the greatest time ever. I cannot recommend it enough. The reviews were top notch. Not only was there an incredible group of reviewers, but the quality of the work we reviewed was well conceived, crafted and a total visual treat and feast for the eyes. I met great artists like Wallace Merritt, Katrina D'Autremont, Frank Relle, Victoria Ryan, Sarah Wilson and Mary Ellen Bartley. These very talented photographers have been highlighted in Black&White Magazine (Wallace Merritt), Color (Frank Relle) highlighted at Foley Gallery in New York (Sarah Wilson), and part of a group exhibition at the Griffin (Katrina d'Autremont) and Mary Ellen is up now at PCNW thanks to Jen Bekman's curatorial jurification.
This is a year to build relationships, and heading to New Orleans in December wouldn't be such a bad idea. If you are thinking about a Portfolio Review event, this one should be on your calendar.
If I'm lucky enough, I'll see you there!
(images shown - Mary Ellen Bartley, Sarah Wilson, Wallace Merritt and Victoria Ryan)

For more information head to PhotoNola's website or drop them a line at info@photonola.org