Sarina Cass

All images © Sarina Cass

This lovely work was sent into 1000 Words by a photographer named Sarina Cass of which she writes:

"My Girls is a study of the wonder an eight year old girl has of what it is to become a woman, that magic and construction femininity. My Girls is the study of our bodies in play an action. It is the study of pre-curated ideas of a women's ethos in mythology, fantasy and dream. Finally it is the observation of myself and the ladies in my life when environments are created for them. In order to remain emotional to the work, familiarity is essential - which is why my subjects are subjects who already have a place in my life. I want to offer them these memories. The environments are the places of my days. The subjects captured on film become an equal, if not vital part of their surrounding landscapes. With all luck, the world I aim to capture is successfully documented, and a history is created. With these images, I've worked to create my own archive of time, helping to make the poetic imagination a reality."

Sarina Cass was born in Boston in 1982. She has a B.A. in Cinema and Photography from Ithaca College, and, more recently, completed a M.A. in Image and Communication Goldsmiths College, University of London. Cass has participated in various exhibtions both sides of the Atlantic and was the recipient of the 2005 James B. Pendleton Photo Finishing Grant.

Make a visit to her website for more fantastic images from her eclectic portfolios.

Lydia Panas

All images © Lydia Panas

I´ve been meaning to post something about Lydia Panas and her fantastic photography for a while now but it was not until the other day when a friend told me about her current exhibition called Private Spaces at Foundation Yours Gallery in Walsaw, Poland, that my memory was jogged.

Lydia Panas's photography centres around portraits which are subtle and delicate but full of emotional depth at the same time. The portraits depict primarily the artist's relatives and friends.

The photographer turns her attention to young people entangled in the complex process of growing up and maturing. Her fascination with the transition period between childhood and adulthood and related problems with self-definition is what distinguishes Panas's work from other artists. The kids depicted in her photos resemble shapeless but extremely plastic forms, impressionable and unstable. The plasticity concerns both the kids' emotions raised in the search for self-identity and for a secure place within the realm of relationships with other people so potently visible in her work. However, if one takes a closer look at the images, the seemingly normal group portraits of family and friends turn out to be engaging psychological portraits. One can notice attempts at domination of some family members expressed by their bold presence in the foreground or the play-safe attitude visible in others who tend to stay further away and avoid looking into the camera. Some of the poses must have been assumed subconsciously, while others result from conscious testing of the different aspects of their identity. Both approaches are aimed at defining oneself in a given situation.

The state of suspension associated with immaturity and adulthood is captured by Panas in her work in a subtle yet unmistakable way. Her work is saturated with emotions and the sensitivity of the people portrayed.

The subjects photographed against a forest background were abstracted from their regular environment which only emphasises their vulnerability and the personal invisible dependence. Assuming the right pose is in such circumstances the essential thing to do and it is far easier to do there than in their natural environment. In the case of Panas's work photography is a means of examining the relationships which people may become involved in and the roles people assumed to build or maintain a personality.

Lydia Panas is an American photographer. Her work has been exhibited many times to date, primarily in the United States. In 2007, Panas was invited by curators of the Houston's to take part in a International Discoveries, a prestigious exhibition. That same year another American photography festival, Photolucida, selected her for the finals of their book design competition. Many-time recipient of grants awarded by various foundations supporting the arts, such as the Puffin Foundation, John Anson Kittredge and Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts Grants. Panas holds two degrees, one from The School of Visual Arts at Boston College and the other from New York University/International Center of Photography. She also completed an individual course of study at New York's Whitney Museum.

She has delivered lectures at many renowned institutions worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, Lafayette College and at Maine Photographic Workshops. Panas's work may be found in many art collections, including the Zendai Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Maine Media Workshops and Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania.

Memories of a dog : Daido Moriyama

Kim Boske

All images © Kim Boske

Just finishing at Foam is an exhibition of Kim Boske´s photographic series, Mapping, a few images from which Kim kindly took the time to share with me the other day. Needless to say, it gives me great pleasure to be able to showcase them here on the blog as I have long been an admirer of this work.

Boske is fascinated by the system of time and space. In her work she tries to capture this illusive reality by exploring the mutability of things. Her photos incorporate various levels, merging different moments in time together. They reveal phenomena that are impossible to see or witness with the naked eye.

In Mapping, Boske investigates how physical movement in time and space continually changes our perspective on the world. By eschewing individual perspective and instead combining multiple perspectives in a single image, she creates a new, layered reality. Here Boske presents a series of views of trees that she photographed from different angles. She combines the various shots to form a new image that shows each tree in its entirety. All the perspectives of the tree exist simultaneously; they overlap each other and join together to form a single image in a changing world of appearance and disappearance.

Kim Boske graduated in 2005 at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in The Hague. In recent years she has shown work at Amsterdam’s Centrum voor Fotografie, Netherlands Photography Museum in Rotterdam, Singapore’s International Photography Festival, Ron Mandos Rotterdam, New Jersey USA (all in 2008), as well as Platform 21 in Amsterdam in 2006.

Lacey Terrell

All images © Lacey Terrell

Lacey Terrell recently sent me this fascinating work called offSET which she has created, in part, as a response to her day job as a stills photographer in the film business. In the statement for offSET, Terrell asserts:

"In this series, I have used my experience on films and locations as a starting point, but have turned my camera away from the action - off set. Slipping behind the metaphoric curtain of center stage, I will look back at the constructed reality being played out, or wander into uninhabited areas. I am intrigued by where the artifice of movie making and the ‘real’ intermingle. As I hunt for images that occupy this space, I become a flâneur of sorts; a solitary figure roaming the outskirts of the location, studying the spectacle before me, looking for things unnoticed by others. In this realm, I have the freedom to capture unwritten, authentic moments found within the contrived environment of a film set. Re-contexualizing these images, I create my own mysterious slivers of narrative that highlight the overlooked, the unexpected, and the poetic."

I recommend that you visit her website for more images and information.

Wayne Mitchelson

All images © Wayne Mitchelson

Congratulations to Wayne Mitchelson, July´s winner of theprintspace photography competition.

Writing about his project, here is a condensed version of what he is trying to do with his work:

"The 19th century German Romantic painters inspired me into my current and ongoing practice, particularly Casper David Friedrich. I was fascinated by his landscape paintings, the mood, light, compositional devices and the mystery surrounding each one. I initially started to create Friedrickesque images using photographs but 2 years on the influences from cinema directors including David Lynch, Ridly Scott and Roman Polanski, and in literature, Franz Kafka, J.G Ballard and Samuel Beckett have become more prevalent.

For example, in Kafka’s series of short observational writings called Meditations he writes about everyday situations but from a philosophical direction. In The Men Passing By, the inspiration for my Two Men Running, the narrator meditates on the vision of a man running down the street in the night. He imagines several scenarios involving the man and another man chasing him, leaving the reader to imagine these outcomes. This idea is now echoing Kafka’s musings and developing into One Frame Cinema images, a frame of an unmade film like the works of Gregory Crewdson."

Wayne Mitchelson was born in Leicestershire in 1972, growing up obsessed with fantasy and science fiction art of the 80s. Upon leaving school, he spent a while being a graphic designer until starting at De Montfort University in Leicester in 2005. After completing a foundation in Art and Design he progressed on to B.A Fine Art, graduating in 2009 with first class honours. He has work on display at the moment at The Ingenious Media offices in London and a solo exhibition at De Montfort Hall in Leicester.

Duane Michals

The Düsseldorfer Avant-Garde Foto Kunst Akademie of Derriere Garde Photography. Thomas Ruff and or Rineke Dijkstra and or Wolfgang Tillmans, 2001
© Duane Michals

Tattle-Tales from the Land of Fauxtography:

#3 Never trust a photograph so large that it can only fit inside a museum.
#4 Color is the new black and white.
#6 The announced demise of the decisive moment is premature.
#9 Photographers whose next three books will look like their last three books should quit.
#16 Museums should never exhibit photographs of visitors looking at art in museums to visitors who are looking at art in museums.
#21 An eight-by-ten inch photograph by Robert Frank can be heroic. An eight-by-ten foot Gursky is just a billboard with pretensions.
#27 Fashion photography is often artful but seldom an art.