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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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This image floated through my Facebook timeline a few months ago, and I was immediately smitten. I love the mixed media, the tissue paper, and the messiness. The wax is balled up and crinkled in places. There are tears, ridges, small pieces of text. The image catches me and makes me wonder what is happening with the women.
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So what is the story in this image, entitled Self-Portrait with Murphy (1990), besides being a hilarious photo? In my version in my head, I doubted we would ever know. And that is part of what makes it great for me: it left me with more questions than answers: Was it empathy for the cat? Absurdity? Strictly a photo set up? Was Gordon having a bad hair day? Is the attire part of the setup? Is (non-headdress) clothing his usual attire or an outfit chosen for the photo? Why is there money in the floral arrangement? Does he wear this "hat" often?
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With this series, Jonas Yip has shown us something different than we usually find in this style of photographic imagery. No lens created any part of the image. These works come only from a combination of ambient light and his hands as he explores the materiality of the emulsion and the boundaries of photographic processes.
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Weston makes “fun” images. Candy colored, with engaging characters, they make me laugh. But they go beyond that. They also make me think.
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The photos in this series begin as silver halide prints, but that is just a starting point for the final images Kauffmann creates.
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Leibrand is employed as a research scientist who works on developing an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven tool for health care quality measurement in Medicaid populations. This image reflects her concerns about how scientific data is sometimes used and manipulated.
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unendingly, an albatross was created using both gum and platinum-palladium processes. However, Angel often uses additional hand-applied paint when she wants a specific color to come forward, which was the case with this work. To do this, she paints into particular areas of the gum coloring to achieve her desired color in a specific spot. She also stated that using a base of platinum/palladium brings "a more polished look" to gum prints, which she said often can appear "raw."
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For me, this image is romantic in a sad, desolate sort of way. The color is beautiful, and the scenery is far different than most of us encounter in our daily travels. And then there is that glorious, late afternoon late.
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Dermott began this series of platinum-palladium portraiture work in 2018, after studying the work of Sally Mann. Her attraction to Mann was twofold; Dermott, like Mann, had also photographed her family. But even more importantly, Dermott was interested in the qualities and beauty Mann brings out in the photographic print itself.
Her portraits seemed to capture something, perhaps a moment of psychological conflict or existential youth angst. I don't find that discomfort of the sitter with the photographer, but rather via Dermott showing something about who her sitters are and how they relate in the world. The work is somber, direct, and confrontational, showing hints of Nicholas Nixon from his original image of the Brown sisters, made in 1975.
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"Beauty has become such an unfashionable word in art, so I hesitate to say this, but really there is no other answer: I'm looking for beauty, I want to participate in beauty, I want to share it with the world. It's not necessarily a romantic beauty that I'm looking for — it's about feeling an emotional connection with forces that are greater than us like nature or time, even destruction."
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