Category: Uncategorized

Anna Malina – Untitled (2013)

My first thought is that knitphilia would love this. And I’m sure she’d have all sorts of intriguing things to say about the interrogation of the notion that work made by women has been historically discounted as not ‘art’ and instead labeled ‘craft’.

As fascinating as I think that angle would be I’m just barely conversant on that topic. So we’ll have to settle for what I know a bit more about–in this case: possible influences.

The tones are reminiscent of Selina Mayer and the surrealist feel is definitely in keeping with ellie-lane-imagery (less the above image and more bearing in mind the dark, vaguely nightmarish effect of Malina’s broader scope of work).

Really, what gets me is for all the inane repetition of adorning photographs with needle work, the thread here actually functions as a legitimate sculptural element.

It’s probably short-sighted but I can’t think of thread as a media of visual representation without thinking of Russell Mills album artwork for nine inch nails The Downward Spiral.

And I can’t think about that cover without tying it into the tradition of Joseph Cornell’s pissing all over the distinctions between sculpture and collage.

But whereas I have mixed feelings about both Mills and Cornell, it feels like Malina’s work has managed to find itself in the interstices between what those two artists considered the limit of their own work and the outer boundary suggested by that limit. But it’s not just dwelling quietly, it’s wildly clawing at the very outer limits in a way that very few artists ever manage.

Source: annaxmalina

sculpting chaos

Long story short:

I’ll be traveling in Europe for most of September–specifically Germany, Holland and Iceland. Also, perhaps Copenhagen briefly, but if that happens it’s likely to be a last minute decision.

Why am I interrupting the steady stream of naked pics to convey this? Well, I’m in a bit of a bind and I’m hoping to crowdsource a solution.

I’ve been planning this trip for more than a year. In fact, I was supposed to go last year but after being unemployed for five months and just starting a new job, it seemed too great a gamble.

This time around I have approached a handful of models (on Tumblr/people I know AFK/Etc.) about the possibility of collaborating on a photo project during my time in Iceland. A few very nearly worked out, others were derailed by scheduling concerns, one due to the photographers pregnancy and others just because I’m an unseasoned newb when it comes to working with professional models–I’ve only ever worked with friends, really.)

Iceland, if you’ve never been, is goddamn effing incredible. Yes, the weather is completely insane but it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever experienced. [Example 1] [Example 2]

Further, it’s very much the perfect location for my personal photographic preoccupation with the narrative potential of cinematographic nudes-in-the-landscape leitmotif.

Which is all to say: I’m looking for someone to collaborate with while in Iceland. (Although, if you are in Berlin and interested–then definitely feel free to get in touch.) Specifically: I’m looking for someone with an androgynous/tomboy tinged mien who ideally is a visual artist who also models. (I’m super serious about this project being a collaboration.)

As far as payment/expenses–due to two months of really shitty luck–I’m not in the position I had hoped to be. I’m hoping one of my followers knows someone within two degrees of separation on the continent who might be down. But for the right person, I’m reasonably sure we can work something out.

(To those who bothered, thanks for reading through all this. You’re the best!)

Ayaka Yamamoto – Evita Goze from Portraits of Girls in Latvia and Estonia series (2013)

Earlier this week I reblogged a quote from Reverend Bobby Anger:

There is more than finding the right light to shoot it. You must find
the people with the right light in them.

I couldn’t agree more with the sentiment. In fact, although I realize it’s meant as  a poetic metaphor–likely riffing off the line that may or may not really be Hemingway and is at least half Leonard Cohen:

We are all broken—that’s how the light gets in.

But as someone who on occasion experiences people with a glow about them–and I say experience because it’s typically something you feel for a time before you actually see anything and the seeing is rarely more than like the last question on those how many colors can you distinguish tests where you can’t actually see the difference so much as one of the samples feels slightly different.

Photographer and Model Evita Goze is an example of someone who possesses a similar quality. Only to call it light perhaps mischaracterizes it–it’s the thread stitching both her personal photographic work and her modeling together, a stillness both resigned and expectant.

I’m not sure how else to explain it other than to refer to Plotinus. Now forgive me if I don’t get this 100% correct–it’s been more than a decade since I studied this–but as I remember Plotinus’ trip was he had this absolutely earth-shattering transcendent experience. Post-experience, he was distraught and depressed… I mean after mystical union with The One, day-to-day exigencies here in the desert of the real positively pale in comparison.

It wasn’t a singular experience. He reconnected with it several more times and his notion with regard to the meaning of life took shape accordingly. He maintained that the purpose of human life is to wait expectantly for those moments of self-transcendence so that we are prepared to receive them when they present themselves.

There is absolutely something of that waiting in-between-ness to Goze’s interactions with the world of concrete visual representation. She is definitely near the top of a very short list of people I would do just about anything to work with.

Source: featureshoot.com

fpr1 – Untitled Submission to NN (2015)

A simple, straight forward and pretty image.

I deploy ‘pretty’ with intention–there is something about the pose that suggests androgyny. to me. Yeah, yeah–I know body hair–but I’m increasingly discovering that I really dig the anarchist femme folk with the short shorts and unshaven legs trend. It radiates a zero fucks given mentality that’s super attractive.

Yet, let’s not heap idle praise–there’s some interesting stuff going on ‘under the hood’ so to speak. The lower frame edge hints at the drop off at the bed’s edge. I’m betting the image was originally supposed to only feature the bed. This would’ve worked compositionally since the subject is essentially isolated in the top two-thirds of the frame. The inclusion of the bed’s edge actually unifies the darker ranges of the composition, drawing the eye inward from the outer edges of the frame to the body and further emphasizing the oblique position of the light source.

The impetus behind this image recalls this libidinous offering from the ceaselessly-astonishing-in-her-explicit-evocation-of-female-sexuality Rita Lino. However, in this case, although Lino’s image is bluntly absent with regards to equivocation and as thrilling as that always is to encounter in lens based visual culture, I am convinced the above is ultimately the more enduring record of wrestling with notions laying along a parallel conceptual track.

Source: nymphoninjas

Chadwick Tyler – Cora Keegan (2014)

I think there are all kinds of negative implications when you use the frame to dismember a body like this. HOWEVER, everything else about this is in-fucking-credible–the Albers-esque palate, the texture and semi-reflective opacity of the water, Keegan’s skin tone and pose, etc.

The other thing I want to point out here is to reiterate the notion that as bad as it is to amputate legs, it’s much MUCH worse to decapitate.

I know, I know, you want to reclaim your body autonomy while remaining anonymous. I hardcore support you. But there are literally hundreds of ways for you to post your nudes without resorting to offing your own head. The above is a stellar example. Yes, Cora Keegan is a famous model–but the principle still applies. A little creativity instead of the lazy head-out of frame strategy produces seismically better results.

Here are some more examples: Janosch Simon, Jakub P and Elene Usdin.

If you’re willing to think outside the box and engage your critical, creative problem solving skills, then you’ll likely be able to keep your head inside the box while making a better picture and remaining anonymous.

Source: thekuratorr

Cem Edisboylu – [↑] FRG3519 from Flash of Light series (2015); [←] KOW3207 from Fräulein Kowalski series (2014); [+] ALG2968 from Alessa Ghoulish series (2014); [→] KAD2723 from Sofie seires (2014)

I’m not prepared to endorse Edisboylu’s wholesale. I’m pretty sure it’s digital–and let’s be real there is no reason an image maker with fine art aspiration would ever bother shooting non-analogue B&W.

Further, the nudes-for-nudity’s-sake work reads as both awkward and clunky.

Not to say it’s all bad–I think the above images are all actually brilliant; the central image of Fräulein Kowalski is, in fact, goddamn fucking breathtaking.

And how good the three portraits are–where the focus is on immediacy, intimacy and a sort of Buber-ian relationship, where any nudity serves in an ancillary capacity–is part of why the other work seems so godawfully boring by comparison. If the image maker can do so much with so little, it would follow that with more the viewer would be reasonable in expecting expanded and not diminished returns.

But what I really appreciate about Edisboylu is a feature of his presentation you’ll probably miss if you don’t have fat fingers and aren’t clumsy as fuck like I am. All the images in his portfolio–so long as you open into a new tab–lead to a more in-depth selection of images from the same shoot. This is a badass feature for two reasons.

  1. It shines a light on the darker corridors of individual process and in this case it’s easy to understand why the image maker has chosen the images he has to represent the shoot. (I’m always talking about editing. This is what I’m referring to–the process whereby you pare down the multitude of images to the best and brightest. Given the sampling of other shots, it’s easy to follow the shown work on why each image was chosen.
  2. You can actually interpolate even more about the shoot. For example: Edisboylu clearly shoots a lot during his sessions. The cross section of the shoot with Fräulein Kowalski, for example, seems to suggest that he tends to adopt the loathsome spray-and-pray approach that digital imaging facilitates. Yet, as much as I detest that approach, there does appear to be at least some respect for the audience. Consider the handful of Tumblr famous photographers who go to great lengths to post several new images every single day. I want to see and appreciate an artist’s best work, not experience a continual watering down of quality in an effort to build a sense of brand constancy. I’ll always take two marshmallows later over one marshmallow right now. It’s appealing that Ebisboylu seems to understand that. His work is definitely better for his reserve.
Source: ungemuetlich.de

Evgeny Mokhorev – Girls from Teenagers of St. Petersburg series (1996)

This is edgy in all the ways I crave for photography to be edgy.

Beyond that I’m not sure what else I can say about it. Except, except… OMFG, it reminds me of Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy’s The Tribe. (TRIGGER WARNING: if you are a person with any sort of trigger, this film will unquestionably be a problem for you; proceed with caution.)

If you haven’t heard of it’s the story of the seedy underbelly of a Ukrainian boarding school for deaf teens. There is zero spoken dialogue; everything is in sign language and subtitles are intentionally withheld.

It’s riveting and brilliant and unconscionably brutal.

It’s also ballsy as fuck–almost every scene occurs in a single uninterrupted long take, which if not up to the standards of someone like Béla Tarr you are pretty much required to overlook the sometimes less than perfect framing by virtue of the fact of how completely batshit fucking crazy camera tai chi several of the scenes are.