David Zimmerman

All images © David Zimmerman

These images from David Zimmerman recently came into the submissions inbox which serve as a case study for the underlying theme of today´s post, originality. As much as I like them, I have a bit of bee in my bonnet in that formally they are all-too-familiar and are distinctly reminiscent of both Andreas Gursky´s The Rhine II, 1999 and also Edgar Martins´ series Hidden to name just a few examples. This is why they didn´t really get my creative juices going. Nevertheless, they are still well composed shots and as a photographer David commands respect for he has he assisted many of New York's top editorial and advertising photographers and has done several commercial assignments for the likes of Pepsi, Mercedez-Benz, Seagram's, American Express, Unilever and others. Interestingly, David's studio & home in Taos were built to LEED certified standards for sustainability. Both his studio and home are entirely solar powered, use catchment water and are passive solar heated. Hats off to you sir. His current work includes photographic projects in the deserts of the southwest U.S., the Salton Sea in southern California and documentary work along the Ganges River in northern India. He is the current recipient of the Sony World Photography Awards L'Iris D'or Prize for his landscape photography in the American southwest. David's work is represented is Susan Spiritus Gallery in Newport Beach and Capital Culture, London.

Speaking about the work, David, eloquently explains the interest that lies behind photographing this subject:

"These images of walls are an exploration of my interest in physical, social, economic and class barriers. Walls are symbols of boundaries. They are symbols of limits and obstacles. Barriers provoke, they pique curiosity and limit a clear view of the horizon. Barriers guard secrets and filter information. What is the consequence of unchallenged barriers?"

Vanessa Winship-Sweet Nothings @HOST Gallery, London

Vanessa Winship and I have been in contact a lot recently in the run up to her eagerly anticipated show Sweet Nothings at HOST gallery which opens this Tuesday. I´m just so excited about seeing this work in a gallery and feel compelled to spread the word about her fantastic project. Her photographs of rural schoolgirls from the borderlands of Eastern Anatolia,Turkey are simply stunning so what better way to help illuminate her imagery than have her discuss it. I´ll hand over to Vanessa now. She explains:

“I wanted to make a series of portraits of these girls on the borderlands. Knowing their status I wanted to give a small space for these small girls to have a moment of importance in front of the camera. I hoped the symbol of the uniform, the distance in repetition, and the austerity of the landscape would represent one thing, but I also hoped that in the expressions of the girls’ faces to draw attention to the idea of these young girls poised at the moment “just before”, The moment where possibility lies, a time where the presentation of self teeters into consciousness.”

Vanessa studied Film, Video and Photographic arts at the Polytechnic of Central London. She has lived and worked in the Balkans and Turkey for almost a decade. In her imagery she focuses on the junction between fiction and reality, exploring ideas around the concepts of border, land, memory, identity and history. She is interested in how stories are told.

Her work has been recognised internationally: She is the recipient of two first prize World Press Photo Awards. In 2008 she received the Godfrey Argent prize at the annual Portrait Award from the National Portrait Gallery, London. She is current holder of the Iris D’or, Photographer of the Year, from the Sony World Photography Awards. In 2008 she was invited to show Sweet Nothings at the Rencontres D’Arles festival of photography in France. Mare published her first book, The Black Sea, in 2007. Sweet Nothings is published by Foto8.

Reading from the foreward of the book, here is Max Houghton´s lovely, poetic description of the work:

“As we linger over Vanessa Winship’s photographs of rural schoolgirls in Eastern Anatolia, it is as though a thousand faces appear, from generations past, present and future. The face of this child’s grandmother, that child’s sister, the faces of their children’s children, faces from our own childhood, faces from the work of Arbus, Mark or Disfarmer, faces from a fairytale, faces we know and faces we could never comprehend. We are disturbed by their proximity, we mourn their distance.”

I´ll be heading to the private view this Thursday evening around 6 so hope to catch you all there!






















©Vanessa Winship

Vanessa Winship
Sweet Nothings
HOST Gallery
3 February — 5 March 2009