Because of this I will not be able to dedicate significant amounts of time to this blog.  As of today I will be publishing one featured photographer every Sunday morning.  Just like the past I will write a small bit information and my opinions on the work the that I present to you.  As always you, the reader, are encouraged to join our flikr group and submit images for consideration.  Also you can email me directly with a link to your portfolio (my email can be found under the contact tab).  I promise that I will look through each and every porfolio that you send my way.  I cannot, however, guarantee that I will email each of you after browsing your portfolio, although I will try.  If you ask me specifically for a critique I will do my best to provide that for you within two weeks; I know how valuable peer review can be.  I will email you if I plan on publishing any of your work on this blog.

In addition to our weekly featured photographer I will occasionally publish other materials related, in some way, to photography.  Occasionally news pops up that I feel compelled to share with my readers.  I have also been writing on photography quite a bit lately and would like to share some of those essays with you.  That will give you the opportunity to critique my writing, if you choose to.  On top of all this I have been offered the chance to be a part of  a small team that is curating  a photography exhibition featuring photographs by George Shiras III.  I am very excited to be a part of this team and will give occasional updates on the status of the exhibition and thoughts that I have through the curatorial process.  My apologies for all this nonsense, but given my recent extended leave of absense, I felt it necessary to update you on the future of The Photo Playground.  I hope you enjoy this weeks selection.

These photographs are from the series Dayblind by Belgian photographer, Paul D’Haese.  Admittedly, I am not usually a huge fan of contemporary black and white photography.  I know and I apologize.  My excuse is more or less baseless - my world is vibrant and rich in color, I thoroughly enjoy visually experiencing the world.  I find it hard to relate with many of the black and white images people produce.  I do, however, make exceptions and really there are a lot of them.  D’Haese’s work is one more exception to add to my list.  My first reaction to his images was excitement, they were unnerving, unsettling, and confrontational.  I experienced a sense of anticipation before each click to proceed to the next image.  What would I discover when the next image popped up in front of me?  How would the next image question my sensibilities?

Whether I stared into one of D’Haese’s rooms or peered into one of his landscapes I could not escape the sense that the subject and I were alone.  It was not a benign sense of solitude.  The images confront you with their expansiveness and the harsh juxtaposition of the subject, regardless of what it is.  They conjure feelings of isolation, the remnant emotion of being left behind.

Although the woman’s eyes are partially closed, the portrait is direct in its confrontation.  Behind her eyes lies an expression of nonchalance or is it indifference?  It’s unsettling not knowing for sure.  The passive-aggressive confrontation is always frustrating - you’re always left with the uncertainty of what the proper response should be.  Is she trying to confuse us or make us disoriented?  Should I stay and try to look harder or deeper or should I proceed to the next, resigned with the belief that I wasn’t supposed to know?

D’Haese’s images are mysterious and they offer little in regards to an explanation.  I loved it.  The formal elements, compositional techniques, and the evocation of emotional responses were spot on.  D’Haese has mastered his art and I look forward to seeing what he produces in the future.

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Today I bring a sample of work by Simon Bates, an Irishman living in Finland.  Bates has a BA in architecture and plans to begin work towards an MA in Fine Art next year.

What drew me in with these photographs is Bates’ attention to and use of spacial relationships. Whether the images have a human element or are of inanimate objects there seems to be a careful consideration of it’s orientation in regards to it’s surroundings.  I think this approach (environmental orientation) combined with many of his straight on shots creates a sense of confrontation, these confrontations with his subjects is what really made me interested. I remember talking about this briefly awhile back about another photographer that appeared on the site. I love being confronted with imagery and in this case it very successful.

Via our Flikr group.

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I was first introduced to Chris Jordan’s work about midway through my undergraduate studies.  The series was “Intolerable Beauty.”  My photography professor at the time showed a few of the images via digital projector.  I still remember that particular session of class.  Since my first exposure to his work, I have become aware of his series “In Katrina’s Wake,” “E. Pluribus Unum,” and both “Running the Numbers” series.  And now he has released “Midway,” the series in which the photos above belong.

I believe that Jordan is one of the most culturally significant and relevant artists working today.  His images directly address many of the issues that arise from mass consumer culture in America and could arguably be ideologically applied to other developed nations and even developing nations.  Unlike current environmental platforms and platitudes, however, Jordan’s work is not overtly aggressive.  In fact, I would say that the initial reaction upon viewing these pieces is that they present as passive, but due to their sheer enormity the greater issue informs the viewer of its importance and has the potential to overwhelm.  Jordan’s work leaves the viewer with the decision to act.  He is not compelling you to move; he is informing you of how we live.

In 2008 Jordan was invited to speak at the TED conference in Monterrey, California.  The video, itself, is short, but very well informed and awe inspiring.  Do yourself and favor and give him 12 minutes of your day by watching the video here.  You should also head over to his website - look at the pictures and read the statements.  Plan on spending at least an hour there.  If you can’t afford that much time in one sitting, bookmark it and go back to it.  You’ll be hard pressed to find an artist so adept at exposing the deep set cultural illness that we’ve all been exposed to in this, our consumer culture and disposable society.

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Lomo, to me, is a company that makes and sells designer toy cameras.  They dominate a niche photography market, hipsters with money, by endlessly cloning their flagship cameras and applying a new paint job - a point of contention with some toy camera photographers.  I’m not really trying to knock these guys, but the contest below is just them getting their customers geared up for yet another round of the $280 LC-A+, the camera responsible for all of their initial success as a company.

More than likely, if I can come up with something interesting I’ll submit at least one entry.  It would force me to dig my old Deco’s out of their box, they haven’t seen much use in the past couple of months.  And… I like the prizes: five cameras with your design and a three day trip to the Lomo HQ in Vienna.  Free cameras and vacation!  Check it out the details are below.

Still part of our LOMO LC-A 25th Anniversary Celebrations, we’re giving all you design-minded analogue heads the opportunity of the lifetime! Your task is to create a custom skin for the legendary LOMO LC-A+. Design it with any medium you want, but keep in mind that the winning entry is meant for mass production! With your efforts, we are giving out unarguably one of the best prizes we’ve had for a Rumble ever – read on!

The Grand Prize

A life-changing opportunity to see your design concept transformed into a limited edition LOMO LC-A+ and sold all over the world!

• Priceless exposure in the design field.
• A 3-day trip to the Lomography HQ in Vienna. Hotel and flight included.
• 5 of your self-designed LOMO LC-A+ cameras.
• Runners-up will see their design concepts in a future newsletter, gallery and who knows – an exhibit of the best works!

Submission Details

• Download the LOMO LC-A+ camera template here.
• Cut it out like a paper camera.
• Use your creativity – customise the paper camera and send us the pictures!
• Upload your customised templates to this rumble page, or send it by post in all its analogue splendour to the Lomography Vienna HQ.
• Entries should be original, and should not contain any elements of copyrighted material.
• You could submit as much entries as you can – creativity is key to winning this competition!
• By submitting your entries, you allow Lomography to use submissions for promotional purposes. Entries with no initial physical submissions may be asked to send over their mock-ups as needed.
• Competition ends January 10th, 2010 MN.

The Jury

A jury will go through all the entries and contact the best ones who will then work with the Lomography Design team to see if their customisation concept could become a reality! Up and coming designers are encouraged to submit their entries – this is one opportunity that you shouldn’t miss!

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I found Paula’s work while cruising through Flikr.  Her photostream is light with fewer than 200 images.  It was easy to browse and nearly every single image is fantastic; she is definitely not one of those people that posts every single image she captures, unless of course every picture she takes is gold.  It was incredibly difficult picking these images, as I fell in love with most of the images in her photostream.  Her representation of human banality and emotion is spot on.  As time passes, I believe her work will only get better and become more relevant.  Congrats on the great pictures Paula.

Join our Flikr group.

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Today I bring you Neil Richards.  Although not a professional photographer, per se, he is prolific with the camera.  By day he is a web designer and runs several sites.  Jetpac Magazine is an online arts and culture magazine that is downloadable as a pdf.  Both issues are huge files with tons of pages and definitely worth looking into. According the one of his sites, issue 3 is in the works.  He has a blog here and his professional site is here.

I chose these images because each one told me a story that I wanted to hear.  They are visually interesting and lately I have been incredibly attracted to images that focus on human elements, it’s probably a seasonal change thing or something, I know that soon I’ll be hibernating in my apartment for a few months, isolated from the world and it’s reassuring knowing that there are humans out there somewhere.

Via our Flikr group.

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Normally I write a little piece on the photographers that I present, but today I’m going to let Clare do most of the talking.  Below is how she explained her work on flikr to me:

“The images are mostly taken using my mobile phone camera, which is discreet and so simple to use. The photostream is my visual diary: art-lite. The images are unplanned and an intuitive response to my environment. More recently I have been making montages that echo the expanded cinema work I made in the 1970’s. I have also started to animate some of my stills and accompany the shorts with “found” sound.”

I really like this for a few reasons.  I love mobile phone cameras, in fact, I use mine religiously and am thankful that so many people use theirs in a similar manner.  What’s even better is that she takes her mobile pictures to next level, by making them more dynamic and interesting by placing them in groupings or montaging them together.  Her imagery is visually interesting and enjoyable to look at.  In some cases it’s difficult discern their meaning, but as she explains the images are an intuitive response to her environment, this works for me and I’m going to bet that it works for some of you as well.

Via our flikr group.

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It’s been a week since the last time I presented you with a selection of photographs to view.  Today I bring you Tommy Forbes from London England.  I’ve been meaning to get some of his work up for a few weeks now.  He was one of the first members of our flikr group and I knew after two pages of his photostream that I wanted to show off some of his work.  He shoots several different types of subject matter, all of them well I might add, but I chose to show some of his images that have the focus on people.  Excepting the first image the subject is staring at the viewer, involving him or her in the drama of the image.  I appreciate the confrontational nature of these images and I think that you probably will too.

Via our flikr group.

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Peninsular Tales is a small, self-xeroxed comic zine that Dan made awhile back.  Most of you wouldn’t know this, but I love zines, have a ton of them, and have made three of them myself (stay tuned I’m working on my next one, it’s photography related).  This one is very well done, with a heavy stock cover and relatively heavy stock pages.  The dialogue varies from very good to excellent and is definitely heavy to the excellent end of the spectrum.  The illustrations compliment the text very well and are fantastic.  I’m told that the supply is very limited, in fact, there may not be anymore of them left, but If per chance he does release Volume 2, you should try to get a hold of copy.  I know I will.  You may be able to keep up to speed by book marking Dan’s website called chalkstack.  He also sent along two ad cards and a nice photo card with a nice note.  Thanks a ton, Dan.  See below for a few shots of the zine.

Sorry about the photo quality, I shot them with my Motorola Hint.  I was too excited to slow down and take proper pictures.

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Today’s photo selections come from Vancouver based photographer, Ryan Maclean.  Ryan is a 15 year veteran in the photographic arena and uses a variety of formats to capture his images, including his Blackberry.  He only submitted one photo the flikr group, but after digging through his photostream I had to run this feature.  His subject matter varies depending on location, but most of them seem to carry the same air.  His photos are direct, somewhat minimalist, and slightly confrontational without really being overly overt or offensive.  My favorites in this selection are the shopping carts, as they remind me of Banksy’s sketches and paintings on commercialism.  It wouldn’t surprise me, in the least, if they were informed by a similar philosophy.  I’m also fond of the juniper peeking it’s head over the wooden fence.  I like it’s minimalistic approach, it’s use of complimentary hues, and the fact that it has warm tone while portraying a contained urban space, which are all to often, portrayed in cool or neutral hues.

via the flikr group.

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