Brownstone © Andy Rudak

Andy Rudak's clever and well-executed personal project 'Cardboard Cities' recently caught my eye, along with the eyes of a bunch of other people with excellent taste (I think I first saw it over at It's Nice That,) including the UK's Association of Photographers who gave a Best in Category to 'Tokyo' in their annual awards.

Andy's commercial work is great, and his personal work is entertaining. Enjoy!

Chris Anthony's sumptuous-looking wet plates are collected into "a magical, mysterious photography book of tintypes, portraits, still lifes and seascapes."

"I've tried to avoid working with a very rigid theme or set of guidelines on this series and have wanted to take pictures of things, people and characters that mean a lot to me personally through themes of solitude, hope and survival. Making the masks, and many of the props and costumes is a big part of the process and it helps me define this unique and demented little world I live and shoot in. There are many still lifes (or portraits rather) of Seahorses, which I find to be one of the most beautiful and fascinating creatures in existence. The mysteries of the sea is certainly a big part of the subject matter in these pictures and I like to think that the book ends with a sort of crescendo of color images of survivors braving waves and currents, perhaps the result of a future world where ocean tides will wash away the planet's coastlines."

There are tons of 'rewards' on his Kickstarter if you fancy funding.

© John Delaney

Who doesn't love a great environmental portrait, eh? John Delaney writes in about his recent SVA Masters Thesis project "Hoboken Passing." The project is currently a Critical Mass finalist, and will be exhibited as a whole in January 2013. Nice work! Read more over on John's website.

Steve Pyke photographing Buzz Aldrin

Who would not be excited to be on the receiving end of an email like this one from the supreme Steve Pyke?

"Dear Friends, I am writing to introduce you to a project I am involved in with NASA in Houston. It's an exhibition of my portraits of the men that walked on the moon. This is to coincide with the screening there of the documentary Moonbug" by filmmaker Nichola Bruce.

It will be an independent exhibition for NASA's Johnson Space Centre of photography, film and archive of the Apollo astronauts and lunar missions.

"To accompany the project we will be producing a beautiful, limited edition 112-page book of Steve's photographs, together with selected images of original NASA photography within the Fairley Archive, as well as postcards, posters, signed prints of the photographs and signed copies of both the film and soundtrack." (soundtrack by genius Matt Johnson of The The.)




I know it's all a bit fundy lately, but I try to only put quality projects in front of you.

Steve says he's in England digging astronaut portraits out of storage. I'm here to suggest you support the exhibition and accompanying book.  

From 'Deep in a Dream' © Michael Massaia

Jörg Colberg reached out to some of us photo bloggers asking if we would nominate photographers for an initiative to show those "who have demonstrated an openness to use new ideas in photography, who have taken chances with their photography and have shown an unwillingness to play it safe."

I've been watching Michael Massaia for at least a couple of years ever since his work was recommended to me by photographer Baron Wolman. Before deciding when and what to publish, I eyed him as he produced several quite gorgeous and diverse series, each photographed on film on a large format camera in the middle of the night. A humble character, as an artist who spends hours alone both shooting and developing his own, large platinum prints might have to be, Michael's dry humour creeps in to the otherwise-quiet work - for an artist who produces such considered, serious photographs, his emails have me in stitches. Michael is genuinely self-effacing, but he is a discerning and determined self-promoter, who I feel is as-yet under-appreciated.

My nomination is not so much about new ideas, rather the complete opposite of so much photography that dashes past our eyeballs daily. Who else these days would say their photography is about "managing failure"? Massaia is married to "the importance of creating something from start to finish, by hand." He is lonely when the sun comes up and the joggers come out, preferring to be harried by rats, hassled in the Rambles, threatened in the suburbs, or wading into Central Park pond at 4 am. Truly an off-line, analog guy, unwilling to play the games of the 21st century.

Kurt Hollander submitted some work recently. His blurb said that he's from NY but has been living in Mexico City for 20 years, and quite prolific, too: "...edited Poliester, a contemporary art magazine of the Americas, from 1982-2000, wrote and directed Carambola (2005), a feature film starring Diego Luna, am the author of el Super (rm 2006) and Sonora: the magic market (rm 2008) and have exhibited my photos in galleries and museums in Mexico City and recently at Rotunda gallery in Brooklyn."

As more avid followers know, I actively dislike a small number of subjects, including religious iconography. So I wanted to see what else Kurt had other than "Holy gore" - Mexican loos hit the spot! Enjoy!





All images © Kurt Hollander

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The night-stalking young master of film and printing, Michael Massaia.

Here's Michael's aCurator magazine spread featuring some of the scenes shown in this video interview.