© Christian Patterson

I love the simplicity and the evocative work of Christian Patterson. Christian Patterson is an American photographer located in New York City. Few years ago he worked with the legendary fine art photographer William Eggleston and in a way you can see the influence of Eggleston in his work. Christian plays a significant role with the Eggleston Trust, including developing William Eggleston's ace website. I found an interview with Patterson at the excellent but discontinued blog Coincidences.

I've learned more about photography from looking at things, following my instinct, and just doing what I love. My work is very organic, in the sense that I have no formal art education or training. I've learned by doing, by looking, by experimenting, and by having an open mind. So my work comes from a very personal place.

I think the most important thing I've learned is that it's about your own experiences, who you are, and therefore your attitude, style, and vision, and just doing what feels right. - Christian Patterson

During the time he lived in Memphis, Patterson began working on his first project, Sound Affects, which explores Memphis as a musical place. Christian Patterson works by instinct, examining the streets for the evocative colors that reveal the unique quality of a place. Patterson's photographs in Sound Affects are the residues of the city of Memphis, steeped in its musical history.

In 2004, Patterson was included in the PDN30 list as one of the new notable emerging photographers. He is currently represented by Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York and Robert Koch Gallery in San Francisco. Patterson writes in the popular photography blog called Speak, See, Remember.

I am not completely opposed to shooting a group of photographs as a pre-meditated project. But I have yet to identify a project that I am passionate about, that I feel a strong personal connection with, and that says something about me. I need that personal connection. A theme or a project idea does not necessarily make for great work…I prefer to shoot the work first, as it hits me, and as it moves me, and establish the connections later. - Christian Patterson

© Christian Patterson

© Christian Patterson

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by Robert Vizzini

File Magazine published an interesting series of New York City photographer Robert Vizzini all taken with a toy camera (Diana). You can find the images either at File Magazine or at his personal website under Toy camera

Growing up, prison pictures and gangster films made a big impression on me. It was Bogart, Cagney, Raft in the moral dramas that portrayed life behind the walls and what got you there. Fortresses populated by guards and inmates — cauldrons of fear and hatred.

Visions of Sing Sing, The Big House, Leavenworth — and Alcatraz, always Alcatraz. These images filled my head. Visiting San Francisco in 1997, I was thrilled at the prospect of seeing Alcatraz, a.k.a. "The Rock," "The Devil's Island of the U.S." — the place they put the "worst of the worst."

The day wore on, I set up my tripod and 4x5, trying to capture something of the mystique of this isolated place, but it was clicking away with my trusty Diana that seemed to feel right. The cellhouse, flat bar cells, round bar cells, solitary confinement, the hole, shaving station, the kitchen, library, skylight in cellblock B, the mess hall, guard towers, the officers club, lighthouse, the warden’s house. -read more here.

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by Takashi Yasamura

I like photography that creates art out of ordinary life by blending objects, color, shapes and light with simplicity. The work (see here, here and here) of Takashi Yasamura is a great example of that.

Born in Shiga, Japan in 1972, Yasumura explored the home of his parents for seven years, creating his quirky still life images with objects, traditional and modern, he found around the dwelling. The images, produced with a 4x5 camera, have struck a chord with the photography community – appearing in a solo show at Yossi Milo in New York City, a recent issue of The New Yorker and Aperture magazine, a book, Domestic Scandals, published in Tokyo in 2005, and various exhibitions around the world.- from PDN online

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Beautiful work by Gregory Colbert. I recomend to see the images in the HTLM site rather than the flash site, this last is very nice but a bit too slow even with fast broadband connection. Since his debut in Venice in 2002, more than 1 million visitors have seen his work Ashes and Snow. The images are printed on Japanese washi paper. Gregory Colbert's Ashes and Snow is an ongoing project that weaves together photographic works, 35mm films, art installations and a novel in letters. With profound patience and an unswerving commitment to the expressive and artistic nature of animals, he has captured extraordinary interactions between humans and animals.

“In exploring the shared language and poetic sensibilities of all animals, I am working towards rediscovering the common ground that once existed when people lived in harmony with animals. The images depict a world that is without beginning or end, here or there, past or present.”—Gregory Colbert

by Gregory Colbert

by Gregory Colbert

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© Gary Gladstone

For years, Gary Gladstone worked as a corporate annual report photographer taking pictures of buildings, worksites, businessmen, businesswomen and commercial products. Then in the late 1990s, Gladstone realized corporate photography was becoming mundane and decided he needed to become a “different photographer.”On a lark, Gladstone decided to spend a week traveling to different flea markets, shooting for the pure enjoyment of the craft and creating photographs that might give his portfolio a fresh, new look.

I’d never say that I wanted to photograph anyone; I’d say that I just wanted to talk to them,” Gladstone said. “If you say you want to photograph them the reaction is, ‘Oh no, I’ll break your camera.’ … So you can’t say you want to come shoot them. You say you want to ask them questions.

It was fast. Your head is going like a slot machine on three wheels – look at that guy or there’s nothing here. You have to set yourself in scan mode.”

I encourage everyone to buy a vacation to do what they want to do,” he said. “When you shoot what you love, it has a special quality about it. It shines a little brighter.

- Story by Jenny Jones

© Gary Gladstone

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