Photographers

Statia Grossman: The other shit you left behind

You're allergic. I get it.

Totally worth a second entry, Statia Grossman's heart-rending yet entertaining project catalogs a bunch of the shit her partner left behind when he walked out. Head over to her Tumblr and show some support.

See no ex. Hear no ex. Speak no ex.

This Lacie underwear

How you gonna manscape now Mr. Metrosexual?

Click here for the previous post.

All images © Statia Grossman

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Patrick Fraser: Parada

Patrick Fraser emailed to tell me about his 'Parada' series which "came about from a road trip through Uruguay earlier this year. I started noticing different structures along the roadside and seeing the sign 'Parada' nearby - paradas are bus shelters.

Then I noticed people waiting and decided that this was a story about transience, character, patience, and landscape. Documenting paradas became a way of seeing the country and its inhabitants in a simple photographic essay."

Patrick has an anthropological eye - among several projects on his website, check out the series 'This is Britain.'

All images © Patrick Fraser

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Alex Thebez: When We Are Together

Thebez 506578-5232270-Together_ROUGH4.jpg

Laying it bare in a limited edition book, Alex Thebez brings us his project 'When We Are Together.' Not too self-indulgent, this is the most charming book of personal work I've received lately. (And the purple cover is texturally really nice...) Check out some other work by this sweet, young experimentalist.

Thebez PageImage-506578-5232275-Together_ROUGH9.jpg

"Hello, my name is Alex.

These photos I am showing you are of my family and this boy that I dated for a while, until recently.

The photos are taken in a few different places over a period of four years or so.

I spent most of my adult life being away from my family.

I started living alone, abroad, when I was fourteen. I see them during vacations or holidays.

We would take trips together as a family sometimes.

Most of my family still don't know that I like boys."

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Statia Grossman: Shit you left behind

Your dirty laundry.

In an ongoing personal project just released on Statia's Tumblr, the photographer finds catharsis through a really well-executed series that most of us can relate to. Go ahead and share the shaming!

"He broke my heart and left. He also left a lot of his shit in my apartment. I photographed it all before tossing it. Hell hath no fury like a ~~woman~~ photographer scorned."

Shit that the Salvation Army got.

I assume it's shitty if you left it here.

Your tight hipster sweatshirt. Hope I didn't stretch this shit out.

Your glory days.

Did I mention that he broke up with me right after my birthday? This one goes out to your shitty timing.

I found the perfect key for you.

Me.

All images © Statia Grossman

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Neil A. White: Lost Villages

Tying in slightly with Fleur Alston's project depicting landscapes where battles and hangings and invasions and such once took place, Neil A. White's project 'Lost Villages' shows homes and rural areas potentially about to become history.

"The Holderness coast located in the North East of England endures the highest rate of coastal erosion in Europe. The devastating consequence of this is villages and land slowly disappearing into the sea. The 'Lost Villages' project aims to explore the constant battle between the North Sea and the mainland, and to document the irreversible change taking place on the Holderness coast."

"The speed of the erosion has increased significantly in the past decade thanks to rising sea levels, which is linked to climate change. It is estimated that up 32 villages dating back to the Roman times have already been lost to the sea. During World War II many outposts were built on this 61 km stretch of coastline. What remains of these outposts is now falling into the sea."

"The historical events which took place on this coastline are fascinating. Since Roman times it is estimated that a strip of land three and a half miles wide has been washed into the North Sea. Two miles are estimated to have been lost since the Norman invasion in 1066 AD. One lost village, Ravenser Odd, is particularly significant. Described as a mediaeval "new town" founded in 1235, it was also a thriving sea port. By 1346 it was recorded that two thirds of the town and its buildings had been lost to the sea due to erosion. In the years that followed from about 1349 to 1360, the sea had completely destroyed Ravensor Odd."

"The 'Lost Villages' project will continue to document the erosion of the Holderness coastline and the difficulties experienced by the people, who are quite literally living on the edge there. In just over a year of working on this project, I have seen the coastline change markedly right before my eyes. This really does bring the speed of the erosion into reality."

All images © Neil A. White

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Andrew White

It was lovely to have the opportunity to attend the NYU Photography and Imaging thesis students' portfolio review recently. I saw the work of five of the most confident youngsters I've ever critiqued, each with something interesting going on. I connected with all of them, but it's Andrew who has followed up on my request for a copy of the cheese couch from his cheese-melted-on-plastic-toys series... We discussed the unlikely nature of the American cheese slice and its reluctance to melt at the edges.

His thesis project, however, is about human interaction with LCD screens, as seen below in this panorama of the artist's parents. Love the art work!

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Fleur Alston: Dark History

Dead Man's Island © Fleur Alston

Fleur Alston, reporting from the UK's south east county of Kent. According to Wikipedia, Kent's location between London and continental Europe has led to it being in the front line of several conflicts, including the Battle of Britain during World War II. East Kent was known as Hell Fire Corner during the conflict.

Fleur has made a project out of photographing her local historic sites of former gore.

"The wonderfully evocative named Dead Man's Island is the site of a mass grave. Prisoners were kept in the hulks on the Thames estuary and when they died they were buried on Dead Man's Island. The bones of Napoleonic prisoners as well as cholera victims are supposedly lying on the shore. It is difficult to get there though; unfortunately I do not have a boat and even if I had one it is a bird preservation and the wardens are not particularly friendly."

Gallows Hill

"Possibly self-explanatory, this was the site of a gallows. The extraordinary thing is you can almost mark the spot the gallows stood still today. The photograph is of the ancient path the prisoners would have more than likely walked to there final destination. Out of all the places I have visited so far this was the most strangest and atmospheric! It was a very spooky place."

Deadman's Point

Deadman's Bay

"Deadman's Bay has an ominous history; due to tidal currents, numerous bodies have been and possibly still are washed up on its shore. There is also a folklore that two fish-like creatures with legs have been found on two separate occasions. There is a tiny strange museum close to the bay.

Deadman's Point, however, not more than 200 yards away, is named for an entirely different reason. It is a Roman burial site, now the home of a holiday caravan park. Not sure it's somewhere I'd want to stay knowing all the history of that area."

Blood Point

Blood Point was the scene of King Alfred`s famous defeat of a Viking invasion force and a bloody battle took place there.

Slayhill Marshes is the site of a Roman battle which took place before the marshes were formed.

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Bill Westheimer: The Ascent of Hand

Artist Bill Westheimer's current project: "Ascent - an art installation exploring the evolution from analog man to future digital man - revealing who we are about to become."

Using photograms, sculptures and ultimately, 3D printing, Bill suggests how as "Man descended from apes, now humanity ascends to the digital future."

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Vivian Maier

Image via the Maloof Collection, Ltd.

Here's another post from my guest contributor Elyse Weingarten.

The surprising discovery of previously unknown street photographer, Vivian Maier, has been ubiquitously reported internationally for the past two years. Maier, who worked on and off as a nanny in Chicago for almost forty years, prolifically photographed the city's streets on her days off, ultimately creating a body of work that has been compared to such twentieth-century masters as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Weegee and Diane Arbus.

In just a short time, Maier's work has been in exhibitions throughout the world and curated in two book published by CityFiles Press, with another book set to come out later this year; a documentary about Maier and the discovery of her work, 'Finding Vivian Maier,' is also currently in production. John Maloof, a local historian in Chicago, uncovered Maier's work when he bought a trunk full of prints and negatives at an auction house selling off Maier's belongings from a storage locker she'd left unpaid. Part of Maier's meteoric rise in popularity is undoubtedly due to the spectacular nature of how her work was uncovered. This, and the narrative of Maier's life, overshadows her photography; like many touted artists, she is known more as a personality than for her work.

In Maier is the unraveling of one of our most necessary social myths. In the name of societal order and reason, we must live with the illusion that the external self presented is the veracity of one's entire character, a near reflection of their interior being. That anyone could hide such a significant piece of their life brings us to a state of wonder and awe. It seems so anomalous that it, like a good piece of gossip, becomes a story to be told over and over, juicier with each telling.

It is interesting to note that this division between the private and public selves rests at the foundation of photography. If we walk around with only our outsides showing, the camera, in gifted hands, is a device to illuminate our emotional exoskeletons. So glued in place are our facades, it takes an artist to raise them. - Elyse Weingarten.

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Tom Griscom: Students

© Chris Grammer

Photographer Tom Griscom teaches at The Nashville Art Institute. These images are a selection from his recent location lighting class, which contains just six students. Tom says "I created this class as if we were a working studio. I booked a bunch of shoots, we scouted the locations, came back and looked at the clients' past photographs as well as samples of similar shoots. We designed the light and tested in the studio, then on the dates the shoots were booked, we went on location."

They spent three days photographing The Roller Girls and their coaches and refs - 40 people in all, and they will get to use some of the students' images for promotion. I wish I'd had more opportunities to photograph things like this when I was in school, it all seems very dull in hindsight.

This is the kind of teacher I wish I had. "I cannot stress how immensely proud I am of this group. I am entering my 7th year as a teacher, and this is probably my most memorable class as well as being one that is probably going to transform my whole approach to the classroom. The Roller Girls are an amazing bunch of ladies. It is interesting, theirs and our story is very similar. I stressed to the students that when it comes to working in the world of photography, that this type of work is so dependent on being a team. It is somewhat analogous that we became a team while photographing an amazing team." Tom Griscom