© Graciela Iturbide

"The unconscious obsession that we photographers have is that wherever we go we want to find the theme that we carry inside ourselves."—Graciela Iturbide

The work of the great Mexican photographer, Graciela Iturbide, is very special. I find most fascinating the ethnic portraits reflecting her own people and culture of Mexico. These images are not only beautiful, but they hold the essence of great photography: the power to amaze. From the influence of perhaps the most celebrated Latin American photographer, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Graciela has become on its own a very influential artist. Her work was recognized recently as the winner of the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography for 2008.

"I think you can see Graciela Iturbide in all of my photographs. I feel that photography is a regard within a regard—between the gaze of the photographer and the gaze of the subject the image becomes a reflection of the person taking the picture." - Graciela Iturbide

A good way to experience her work is to look at this book. This book combines together Iturbide's most expressive work, including select self-portraits. On the web there are some galleries with a limited number of images like in art-net and the Hasselblad gallery. Unfortunately the online galleries are just just a brief sample of the vast work of Gabriella.

© Graciela Iturbide

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© Hee Jin Kang

Sometimes photography that depicts the objects that define our "regular life", the things that are with us and so become part of our ignored existence, is the photography that best defines who we are. No portraits are needed then, we can see the person emerging from the "stuff". An example of this is "Sandy's Deli" by Korean photographer, residing in New York City, Hee Jin Kang.

“For two years, I photographed at my parents' corner store, Sandy's Deli, located in a New York City borough. Through this photographic investigation of a place, I created a portrait of my parents without pointing the camera directly at them. Working with a 4x5 camera, I saw layers of accumulation, and objects that, in their disarray, made rhythmic juxtapositions. This accrual of stuff can be peeled away to reveal something simple, poetic and intensely personal, even within a public space like a Korean deli." - Hee Jin Kang.

© Hee Jin Kang

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© Emiliano Granado

Beautiful images showcased in a beautiful website. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, as Leonardo da Vinci said.

A lot of artists will use bios/ or /statements/ to ramble on and on trying to give their work additional power or legitimacy. Not here. My photographs are what they are. Straight up reality. I'm just using my camera as an excuse to peer into peoples' lives and observe them.- Emiliano Granado

© Emiliano Granado

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© Christopher LaMarca

A good idea for a photojournalism project should have relevance, should have immediacy, should cause controversy, should touch a topic outside of the mainstream media and should affect the emotions of the viewer. Pair that with beautiful photography, images that drive the narrative with beautiful aesthetics, and the result is work with significance and impact.

I am describing "Forest Defenders" by Christopher LaMarca, a great project that exemplifies all these qualities and has served to launch further Christopher's career, with numerous awards and publications. In this project, Christopher LaMarca has been photographing environmental activists who protest logging in the once protected areas of pristine national forests.

These days I am particularly sensitive to logging and the destruction of trees. Few weeks ago I went to "my" canyon for a run in the afternoon to find it fenced, access totally restricted, the trees destroyed and cut in pieces, and all the signs of new multi-million dollar houses coming in. It happened in few days, just few days to destroy it. Anger is not enough to describe what I felt. A sense of loss that I will not forget.

Remember the "qualities" when you search for ideas of your next project: relevance, immediacy, controversy, unconventional, emotional. This will be a good start for the project.

I have been photographing these activists and loggers since the summer of 2003. My connection to this project revolves around the passion and endless work that consumes these people who live in the back-country for months at a time; and who are willing to sacrifice their comforts' to stand up for their beliefs. Although these activists are often seen as radicals or eco-terrorists, little has been documented about their activities outside of these stereotypes. These stunning landscapes will continue to be decimated due to political pressure and lack of education, these are some of last truly wild places left in America.- Christopher LaMarca

© Christopher LaMarca

This project garnered him numerous awards, including PDN's 30 New and Emerging Photographers To Watch and NPPA's Best of Photojournalism. His Forest Defenders project was featured in the 2006-2007 ICP triennial, Ecotopia, along with being published in Aperture and Art Review.

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© Wayne Lawrence

Wayne Lawrence is a documentary/portrait photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. I find his portraits really excellent. Most images appear to be shots of regular people taken in the street, or maybe, not so regular people after all.

I find particularly compelling the intensity of the subjects in his images. They convey a sense of meaningful presence, energizing the moment, and at the same time convey a sense of timelessness. Time has no value, past and present remain the same in their life.

© Wayne Lawrence

© Wayne Lawrence

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© William Greiner

There are some photographers that master the use of color to the extend of becoming the most important subject of the photograph. It is not about the elements depicted in the frame, it is not about the light, it is about the color. William Greiner, uses color as the main excuse to arrange the other elements in a picture. It is simple, and delicate, no need to saturate the image full of colors, juts to arrange some color elements in subtle ways. I love it. It is no surprise that one of his influences was William Eggleston.

Making Room magazine published a very interesting interview with William Greiner on his work in new Orleans after Katrina.

"At the age of twelve, I bought my first camera by mail order. It was a cheap 35mm model with no light meter. I would spend hours in front of my house photographing automobiles as they passed. The process was an experiment in exposing film in different ways and achieving different results. This experience hooked me on the magic of the medium." --William Greiner

© William Greiner

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© Matthew Dols

I like the series by Matthew Dols, "Women w Text". Text added as a caption to the image can provide quite a different feel to the understanding and perception of the photograph, and in this series it works beautifully. The other work of Matthew is very interesting as well. He tends to push the image to the extreme of light, with high contrast, extensive use of dark and highlight areas. It works.

Look also at the Work in Progress, very interesting photo-collages. More pictures with text can be seen here.He prints the images in silver gelatin paper, nice. And if you are interested I found that some of the pictures are for sale [quite inexpensive] at Absolutearts.com.

I am writing this journal as though you might read it. I have this desire for you to read this because it's those things that I mean to say, and never do. It's who I feel I really am, but never show.- Matthew Dols

I personally like a lot when the artist blends an interesting caption with an interesting image, like Matthew does. I am not sure why this is not used more often. Mixing words with pictures actually elicits different reactions from the viewer than just looking at either one alone. There is biological basis for a synergy between both visual and language inputs as the neuronal pathways involved in receiving, processing and integrating the information are different but they can cross-over to generate a different emotional reaction when activated simultaneously. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is the image "This Photograph is my Proof" by Duane Michals. I can repeat enough how much I love that image and the caption.
Here it is a challenge for you to consider. Try to use captions in your existing photographic project, and see if you can engage a different response from the viewer. You have nothing to loose, and lots to gain.

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© Darin Mickey

Darin Mickey has a photographic style that is intriguing. His work focuses on photo realistic images, with subjects being ordinary people and ordinary places, but they turn to look unusual. The people in his photographs look lifeless, although they are indeed well alive. The people and the street scenes in his images appear artificially frozen, immobile, isolated. I am not sure on the visual clues that convey that feeling. Perhaps it is the lighting, the isolation of the elements in the composition, perhaps the fact that the people never look at the camera. What ever it is, I like it a lot.

A couple of series worth to mention are "on land" and the great "Stuff I Gotta Remember Not To Forget". This last was a photographic recording of Darin's father at work and at home. It is a unique visual story that shows with incredible candor the everyday life of his father while working as a salesman. It is a remarkable work; even when the images look sort of lifeless, they convey humor and tenderness. The work was published as a book by J&L Books.

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© Jarret Murphy

Jarrett Murphy, is a recent graduate from the Rochester Institute of Technology, in Rochester, New York. I find his night landscape photography quite original. His images play with shapes, curves, lines and isolated objects conveying a surreal feel to the scene, that otherwise would be quite mundane. I had the opportunity to run few questions with Jarret and get information on his artistic interest.

These photographs reject and embrace one of my greatest disappointments—that with the deluge of commercial imagery, what was once extraordinary has become common. As commerce increasingly co-opts and embellishes images of natural beauty it simultaneously exalts that beauty and subverts it. To draw people back to reality, it must become hyper-real. I have chosen a process that allows standard subjects to be fantastical, for through long exposure I create single images that appear to freeze single moments but actually represent multiple moments. The finished photograph allows me to create the illusory reality that is, in part, a fantasy.

These images juxtapose the human and the natural. Each image records the duality of man’s presence and absence, as nature is being constructed around and by civilization. To record these landscapes impacted by but vacant of human presence, I impose my own presence while excluding myself and my influence from the scene. Imposing my own presence is lighting these landscapes, while excluding any tangible elements or footprints.- Jarrett Murphy

© Jarret Murphy

The juxtaposition is present in most of the images, but is meant to be subtle. Some of the photographs have roads running through the foreground with tire tracks on them, some have fences or other structures. And sometimes the landscape itself is the result of human influence, such as many of the parks that I've shot in that were engineered and designed. The idea is not to see actual people in the images, but to know that the human influence is pervasive, and that nature is being formed by us, or forming itself around us. - Jarrett Murphy

• Please tell me about your beginnings as a photographer and artist?

I do somewhat feel like I was raised to be an artist by my parents, although I'm pretty sure that's not what they intended. They encouraged me to make as much artwork as wanted, even, as I mentioned, letting me draw or paint on the walls of my bedroom. Art supplies were the only expense they told me they would continually pay for, within reason. I expect all they intended was for me to have an outlet, a backup plan for making sure I didn't wind up disturbed.

As far as photography goes, I didn't get into that until I was in high school. I took it the first semester I was allowed to, I guess I was jealous of seeing the upper classmen on the bus showing people their contact sheets. I liked the class, needless to say, and took advanced photography the next semester. There were no classes above that offered, but I took advanced photography again, and they gave me credit for it as long as I did new projects. Then I took an independent study in photography the following year.

• Could you describe your experience at the Rochester Institute of technology? What are the most important topics you learned at school?

I'll answer those questions backwards I suppose. I'm not sure if I could name any classes I took that were all that much more important than others. I can say that fine art, advertising, and photojournalism students all take the same classes for the first two years, then you choose which field to go into for the next two years. I went to RIT intending to be a fine art photography major, but at the end of my second year I went into advertising photography. Those classes taught me more about light than fine art would have.

My experience at RIT was pretty average I assume, except that most students, even art students didn't really go out much. There were about five of us that would go out every weekend (all photographers; margaretlejeune.com, nicholasduers.com, kevinnorrisphoto.com, sarahanneward.com, www.seandyroff.com). I guess the single experience that stands out in the midst of the Sony news is a show at an RIT affiliated gallery mid senior year. I wouldn't have entered if a friend of mine didn't work there and encourage me to enter. It was perfectly themed for me, surreal landscapes. I had shot my first photograph of the series in April, 7 months earlier, one more in June, and hadn't shot any more of them. Two of my best friends, Sarah Anne Ward and Kevin Norris, came to the show and told me it was a waste of my time to be shooting anything else. I shot the third photograph of the series the next week. Ever since then I've been shooting with my girlfriend, Margaret LeJeune, around New York, Pennsylvania, and now Arkansas.

• Tell me about your influences and how they shaped your work? What is the key aspect of the work of these photographers that you find more influential to you: style, composition, career, aesthetics?

Michael Kenna, Gregory Crewdson, Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, and Simen Johan. Obviously Micheal Kenna for making beautiful images at night. Crewdson, ParkeHarrison, and Johan all make surreal images, some of which are quite beautiful as well. I know what my subjects are going to be, the most important aspect for my images is that they are beautiful, realistic, and at the same time at least somewhat surreal.

• What comes to you next? Are you lining for a career in fine art or in commercial photography or in both?

I know it's difficult, maybe next to impossible, to make a living doing fine art, but that's my goal right now. I apply to almost every juried show that accepts photography that I find, and with the recent news about the world photography awards shortlist, I've started applying directly to galleries and museums.

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© Ye Rin Mok

I like a lot the simplicity and the casual look of the work of Ye Rin Mok. In this time of overly complex [or manipulated] images in the commercial area it is very nice to see work that focuses on the fundamentals of the aesthetics, with simple and nice compositions that work very effectively. Ye Rin Mok, maintains the same style, casual but beautiful, when photographing portraits, fashion, objects or the landscape.

© Ye Rin Mok

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