Poignant Pics was originally a series where we’ve asked photo curators, educators, collectors, and makers to share a brief essay on a photo that has significantly changed the way they think or look at the world. Poignant Pics are now written exclusively by our editor Diana Nicholette Jeon.
Color like this can only be a labor of love, like gardening.
Can one invent landscapes to speak to the natural and culture changes humans experience during migration? Ellen Jantzen ponders this in her invented landscape, Meadow View.
What does one do when, as an adult, they learn the painful secrets of their ancestral history? Linda Plaisted learned the answer to that and shows us via savvy use of materials.
Given that her photographer father, Todd Walker, was well-known for pushing at the edges of photography, it's not surprising that Todd Walker imparted his exploratory nature upon his daughter. Walker grew up in her father's studio, often surrounded by his photographer friends, many of whom we now consider luminaries. Walker uses her talent and challenges with double vision to create works that invite viewers to experience photographic installations as unique transitional worlds of her imagining.
Gladis said, “I’ve always been drawn to night photography, as darkness can turn the most benign daytime scene into something with a much different mood.”
"Inserting myself into the image acknowledges my artist's hand and records the passage of time.”
The luminous moments of Passage are performances of contemplation and meditation, an experience of feeling the presence of absence. I called it her gone-ness. I challenged myself to create as many worlds as I could find in a single stucco wall on the side of our house.
I love diptychs or triptychs, I love the "interesting conversations" that happen when disparate-seeming images are skillfully forced to hold space together.
Who makes an artist photobook out of image transfers on clay?
The zipper triggered memories of her extremely frugal mother saving buttons and zippers from their clothes for future use. She had grown up in a household where sweaters were hand-knitted and clothes were homemade, and she stated, “My mother’s hands were always busy.”
Photo historian Michel Frizot wrote, "The photograph is not in its essence a transparency through which we gain access to a known reality but, on the contrary, a source of ambiguity and often, perplexity. The photographic image is a constellation of questions for the eye because it offers viewers forms and signs they have never perceived as such and which conflict with their natural vision." That's quite an accurate statement for this triptych by Kurt Schroeder.
Mitchell writes, "These are spaces of transition. I create a world between a dream and a cinematic still. There is a sense that the space and narrative continue beyond the frame, with echoes from a past existence, that nature will eventually have its way with us.
Meltzer told me photography allows her to see the world from a fresh perspective. Having spent a long career in education and social services, she shares some of what she learned via her series, Through the Lens of Children, from which this picture, Sure!, arises.
The dichotomies and questions pictured within the image brought me so many new questions and brought me back to look at again and again.
Asner-Alvey told me that using her body repetitiously displays her ongoing struggle to gather and reconstruct the fractured pieces of her humanity. She continued, "The process of image transfers mimics the textures of skin and creates a bifurcated visceral, painterly image."
Though The Visitor could have been made anywhere with an aging and neglected building, it sings to me of my mental picture of the South (which is most likely a fairy tale that exists only in my head.)
Zoom became a lifeline for many of us during the pandemic. But what when one of the participants secretly goes beyond simply participating? Where is the line between looking, voyeurism, and spying?
I am interested in the way the textures make a statement within the frame. It gives me the impression of emerging from something negative.
I love the sense of wonder in this photograph. It leaves me with more questions than answers, and in a “good” way. I like when images such as this one keep drawing me back to interpret its clues. There is something at once both pagan and mystical cohabitating within this image. It’s curious and quirky, and those keep drawing me back.
The lack of a title and statement carries the same ambiguity as the facial expression and adds to the enigma. You sense the image has a backstory, but you are left to make your own. The artist provides no clues.
I found the book a compelling hybrid of the handmade and the commercially printed. Stockdale takes us along with him on his travels, literally and metaphorically, allowing us to experience his highly personal journey.
Bradley began this project during the pandemic. As he walked his dogs, he would pick flowers to photograph during confinement. It initially started when Bradley needed something beautiful to focus on during the pandemic gloom, similar to what my initial thoughts surmised. But it blossomed into something much more profound.
I love this image for its paradox: Why is the girl prancing in a cape in an area marked dangerous? Why are the 'scary things' so pretty in color in such an ugly, industrial-looking area?
Several months back, before my year got crazy and I got way too far behind on the writing here, I saw this image by Emack on Instagram. I was immediately taken by how beautiful this work was. Emack, like many others, has been photographing her daughter for almost a decade. With the inclusion of her nieces as well, it resulted in the long-term project, Cousins, which has received a significant amount of attention, well-deserved, in my opinion.
I saw this image by Alon Goldsmith online the same day as the horrific pronouncement came from the Supreme Court. As he is the father of two daughters, I imagine he wonders about their future as women in this country.
I saw this image, Period of Existence, in the FRAMES Magazine Facebook group many months back. It caught my eye because the artist, Stephen Schneiderman, noted that he made this image in the darkroom in the early '90s. No Photoshop.
I was familiar with Schneiderman's much more recent, digitally composited work from his FB posts. But until he posted this image, I had no idea that he had taken a workshop with Jerry Uelsmann. Or, more impressive, Schneiderman had a letter written to him by Uelsmann congratulating him on his technical prowess.
Photographs and photography are a massive part of Carpenter's family story. Her family has been involved with photography since the 1930s; her mother, father, uncle, and grandfather were photographers. These images are from a series where Carpenter explored family stories, especially those related to the fallibility of memory and the fragility of the brain. She once thought she would tell this story in writing, but it seemed more fitting to make images given the family's ties to photography.
During the 26 months I have curated this feature, I've not written about an artist more than once. That's not because I like their work any less, but instead, I choose to keep showing a wide variety of great work by many living artists at all levels of their careers. Then this image crossed my path on Facebook, and in the current state of the American Experiment, I decided to break my own rule. Shane Balkowitsch is a master of creating flawless surface wet plate collodions. But that is not why I am showing you this image. It's the content. Because following the leak of the Roe document from the Supreme Court last week, several things happened in the U.S. at the state level.
The entire series, Heavy in White, is provocative and beautifully made. I urge you to visit Bianchi’s website to view or re-view the work.