Tag: favorite

Magdalena Franczuk – [↑] Untitled from Body Language series (2014); [←] Untitled from The Needle danced with the Thread (2014); [→] Untitled from Sailing the Big Sea (2014); [↓] Untitled from Mathilde and the other girls (2015)

What the eff is going on in Poland?

Seriously… for better or worse, I have become a curator. And whereas I’m frequently asked by folks I interact with AFK about various issues pertaining to photography/image making, I’m generally going to address specific considerations (i.e. the nature and functionality of color in lens based fine art will elicit references to Prue Stent), the female gaze (Arvida Byström or Ashley Armitage) best American fine art photographer (unequivocally Allison Barnes).

But if you ask me to create a top ten most exciting image makers in the world right now, I swear to fucking Christ, the list is probably going to be half women working in or connected distantly to Poland (ex. Allison Barnes is of Polish descent).

I’ve not done the above images justice by removing them from their rigorously-cultivated respective contexts. (It really is very much worth your time to click over to Franczuk’s page and tuck in. It’s goddamn breathtaking.)

In choosing images, to pass along to you I very much wanted to focus on both the incredible production design which went into making these. But, that’s also telling because the production design is merely an organic facet of the whole. There’s this constant balancing between curiosity and caution, between fantasy and reality.

And it’s all surprisingly racy–but whereas the rote pathway for most erotic work follows the line between explicit and graphic depictions of desire/sexuality, there’s a careful duality in Franczuk’s work; less implication than uncertainty with regards to where on experience (say: intimacy) ends and where another (say: arousal) begins.

For an artist in her early twenties, there’s a distinct visual voice and a strong sense of faith that the process of mastering technique and contemplating concept will result in a sometimes strange but always unshakable sense of something fundamentally true.

Absolutely amazing work.

Source: magdalenafranczuk.com

Crystal Zapata – Don’t Be Afraid of Yourself II (2014)

I am in love with this image. Seriously, I know mid-career artists who aren’t as conceptually cohesive, direct and unequivocal.

And Zapata isn’t about holding the hands of anyone who misses the ostensible point:

I’ve never had such a hard time trying to make art. Lately, I’ve been
trying to figure out what it is that I actually care about. As it turns
out, I am a woman. I can go on for a while about all of the things that
anger me about our social construct, but all I will say is fuck the
media and fuck history for telling me that I have to be a pretty,
flawless, sexual being, when my own sexuality is taboo.

This image should not shock you. I see photos of sexualized women
hundreds of times per day, so why is THIS considered inappropriate?
Question your surroundings.

Awesome and profoundly relatable.

Source: crystalzapata

Anna Cladonia – Various Portraits* (2010-2015)

I’ve been thinking about Emily Dickinson a lot lately.

Not due to any connection between It Sifts From Leaden Sieves and the fact it’s snowing balls outside right now. (Although I am hardly oblivious to the synchronicity.)

But, on that note, why do we teach Dickinson to middle schoolers by introducing them to the myriad complexities and nearly infinite scope of her work via the aforementioned poem and A Narrow Fellow in the Grass? It’s no wonder I hated her work until I revisited it in my twenties and immediately fell in love with the work and the incredible woman who made it. (Seriously: the think-question you tend to get asked on first dates about what person living or dead you’d most want to have dinner with, yeah… Emily Dickinson all the way. Even if I have grown to strongly prefer Bishop’s body of work.)

I promise… this seemingly self-indulgent ramble does relate to Cladonia’s devastating photographs–bear with me a bit longer.

My objection to the way Dickinson tends to be taught is that it tends to emphasize the allegorical (nature imagery) over the more metaphorical work. You’d do much better to start with the exquisite, goth-before-goth-was-a-scene I Felt a Funeral in my Brain… Couple that with the fact that the window to Dickinson’s bedroom overlooked a cemetery and even twelve year-old’s can easily grasp the incisive eye which uses words to describe the landscape of a morbid imagination.

However, once you dig into Dickinson–I mean really dig in–one line of hers takes on profound resonance: “my business is circumference.”

It’s an odd claim–especially from a woman who never traveled further than a day away from the house in which she was born. Yet, the acuity of her perception and her openness to the world and experiences in her immediate surroundings taught her in a fashion not unlike that of a storied traveler.

Cladonia exhibits a similarly circumscribed scope. Her photos are ostensibly portraits–largely shot in ramshackle Moscow apartments. But within those narrow parameters there’s evidence of an encyclopedic familiarity with the history of photography.

Beyond the essential Russian-ness of her work, the astute viewer can easily recognize winking references to virtually every Russian image maker I’ve ever posted on this blog–but especially to Igor Mukhin and Evgeny Mokhorev.

But there’s also grace notes from David Hamilton and Duane Michals.

Having and wearing your influences on your shirt sleeve doesn’t necessarily make for good work, unfortunately. But what Cladonia manages is less homage than a point of loving departure–she takes a great idea that resonates strongly with her and makes it her own.

In and of itself–that’s the mark of a truly great photographer. But there’s also the way she embraces and eschews obtrusive image grain, her spare and gorgeous use of autochrome-esque color (I + II). And that’s not even getting into her revelatorily explicit handling of masturbation and sexual expression.

Source: photosight.ru

The Art of Blowjob – Title unknown feat. Camille Crimson (201X)

So much of porn is an either or proposition. Gay or Straight. Softcore or Hardcore.

It’s not the extremes necessarily bother me. Sometimes I really want something like this as a ‘palette cleanser’.

Usually though I’m more like Goldilocks when it comes to porn in general and straight porn in particular–I want something that’s somewhere in the middle.

Alas, I find myself alienated more often than titillated.

That’s why I want to single this out. Depictions of oral sex in straight porn tend to be either passive and perfunctory or gag-inducing extreme irrumatio.

This appeals to me. Yeah, it does have that even illumination characteristic of porn but there’s some natural shadowing, too; but, it’s a pretty frame. (I’d have liked it even more if the camera was maybe a foot and a half back–but that’s splitting hairs.)

But the aesthetics aren’t what draws me in. What gets me is that these people seem to really want to be doing what they’re doing. He’s thrusting upward and she’s sliding downward. To be blunt–it’s representative of what sex is like when sex is at it’s best: collaborative.

Who knows if the rest of the scene continues this sort of feeling? Either way I’d still be interested in knowing where it’s from… so if anyone has any idea, please pass the info along.

Source: sex-girls-passion

Stef-d – Phylactere (2015)

I’m not 100% sure this works as a whole but the various parts are exquisite–the frame, pose, palate and background softened to the point of near delirious illegibility (it reminds me of David Carson’s packaging for // | /’s The Fragile pushed even closer to the brink of disintergration) are all goddamn effing stunning.

I say not 100% because the soft focus is not as consistent as I would prefer. For example: look at Phylactere’s left knee–the fuzziness dominating the rest of the frame seeps too far into the foreground–accentuating the digital post-processing and diminish the dream like colour-fete.

Also, compare the subtly of the separation between Phylactere’s back and hands compared to the rather obvious halo around her head.

Ultimately this is too good to merely serve as an effective proof of concept but not strong enough to stand up to scrutiny on its own.

Either way it’s an ingenious approach to shooting in a dull, over-obviously appointed as such studio space.

Tor Larsson – Fifteen 15 (1974)

I have no idea what the story is with with these images. (I very much want to know more/everything about them–so if you know anything, please share.)

I have half a mind to use them a prophylaxis against Clark and McGinley’s youth and beauty. And, I mean–yes, the above photograph is #skinnyframebullshit and not especially technically accomplished, but, at least, it embraces what it’s ostensibly about contrasted with Clark and McGinley’s constant equivocation. It’s like I always feel with maybe not as much Clark but McGinley feels like this sort of fragile fairy tale that will wilt or collapse under too much scrutiny.

I mean… maybe it’s just me–after all I was raised in an insanely regressive Evangelical environment but the stories my non-Xtian friends tell about discovering their sexuality are a great deal less curated.

Everything about this feels if not authentic then perhaps at least grounded. There’s a playfulness that serves as a sort of lubricant against what would otherwise been an arousal killing gravitas. I love the way that her sticking her tongue out conveys both a mugging for the camera–which actually de-emphasizes the way her legs are spread for the camera to get an unobstructed view of her vulva; but it also teases the implication of oral sex. (Also, I really dig that you can see the reflection of the edge of the tub in her hippie glasses.)

I don’t know. Unlike Mcginley, these resonate with me not because of some sort of false nostalgia–a wish for an experience so rarefied it might as well not exist. Instead, it reminds me of dear friends who have told me about how your best friend was someone who not only knew you masturbated but would lay side by side without under the covers masturbating, racing to see which of you would orgasm first. (Contrary to my own experience where sex was dirty and solely for the purpose of procreation.)

Also, I really–in a way I cannot clearly articulate–respond to the woman in the shorts and shirt. The way she’s participating in the intimacy but not the physicality.

Source: oldalbum

Source unknown – Title Unknown (19XX)

Excepting her face, the carpet and too a lesser extent the curtains, there’s almost no mid-tones to speak of here. Everything is bright white or deep shadow black–there’s enough of a hint of grey to insinuate the clavicle, differentiate her left hand from the background and keep things from going completely flat.

The black dress conceals her figure but the rope is enough to emphasize the curve of the body, imply a bust line.

The composition filters the gaze from the loop in the rope, to the hollow of her fist and then back to her vaguely dissociated expression–which is highly reminiscent of Renée Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc.

Source: thenorthship

Source unknown – Title unknown (2009)

The above is an edit from a larger original image:

Apologies for the pixelation, but I can’t find the original so I had to screen cap the TinEye results.

This is sort of the opposite of my usual claim that less is more. The edit–although thoughtful for emphasizing the elbow, arm and side of the boys body as a window and presenting stylized skin tone as well as focusing attention onto the green yellow palate–is ultimately less engaging than the original.

Sandra Torralba – [↑] Estranged Sex 4 (2008); [←] Estranged Sex 8 (2009); [→] Estranged Sex 12 (2009); [↓] Estranged Sex 2 (2008)

I love these so effing much I can’t even…

It’s partly the pathos–the simultaneous ravenous curiosity and trepidation that comes along with exploring the boundaries of your sexuality as an adolescent, the libidinal asymmetry that touches all relationship, the fine line between performing your sexuality in public and the need to restrain or privatize the sexual as it pertains to your family and television as active incitement to participate voyeuristically with the sexual performance of strangers.

I’m not quite sure these qualify as capital A Art, the process that goes into making these images is reminiscent of Gregory Crewdson–about whom I make no secrets to the fact that I think his work is heinous excrement not even deserving of inclusion in discussions of lower case a art; but if you spend any time perusing Torralba’s blog, you’ll note that her process is of a decidedly fine art bent.

This is exactly the sort of work I started this blog to showcase and it’s exactly the sort of work I want to be creating as a photographer.

Source: sandratorralba.com