We first met the talented German photographer Marlen Mueller, and therefore became familiar with her work, when we visited the incredible Guggenheim Bilbao in 2013, as we were both invited to the extraordinary ‚Riotous Baroque’ exhibition. Marlen started photographing when she was a mere 12 years old, and after she turned double that age and finished her studies, she recently moved to Berlin to properly pursue a career in photography. The aesthetic one finds in her images has a natural feel, evoking a sentiment of serenity through the oftenly isolated subjects within the frames, using natural light in the best possible way through analog techniques. After having worked on several commissions this year in Germany’s capital, another one of the goals of Marlen was to start exhibiting her work, with her first solo-event taking place on the 27th of November in her new hometown. Whenever in Berlin make sure to visit! [ Continue reading ]
Running for one more week in the Los Angeles-based Little Big Man Gallery: the extraordinary show named 'All In – Buying Into the Drug Trade’ by British photographer Graham MacIndoe, his first solo exhibition in the USA. Each image from the show is a variation on a single object: a small glassine heroin bag stamped with an exotic or bleakly satirical brand name, all collected by MacIndoe when he was an addict. Enterprising dealers brand and market their product like entrepreneurs in any business, with references to popular culture: Twilight, Crooklyn, New Jack City, and nods to consumer aspirations: First Class, Rolex, Obsession. The logos stamped on the baggies range from the conceptually clever to the knowingly ominous, like Dead Medicine paired with a skull and crossbones. MacIndoe’s own obsessive nature – as a photographer and a recovering addict – underscores the repetition of the images, all perfectly lit and precisely composed. But the now empty baggies are devoid of the emotional chaos of addiction; the photos are clinical and detached, almost aestheticized, yet still carry the residue of a former life in their stains and ragged edges. [ Continue reading ]
The word 'vedas' means knowledge in Sanskrit and Nicolas Alan Cope and Dustin Edward Arnold who work under the moniker Cope/Arnold created this beautiful photographic series with the same name in 2011, wanting to challenge ideas of what is acceptable against what is possible. The Los Angeles-based design duo Cope/Arnold cited their influence to be 'De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium', Copernicus' 16th century scientific document that denounced the Earth as the centre of the universe, which transcends through religious visual language and the sentiment of entrapment vs enlightenment. Chambers, hallways and corners resonate with sensuality; architectural elements take on a humanized significance within their space. Textures are explored in fine detail, but it is really light that has the most mass. Mesh cloaks and structured veils conjure ghostly apparitions. White buckram, a thick mesh cloth made from cotton, is pulled taut around stiff wire structures to create circular headdresses. Shapes like this cover and frame different areas of the face and head, then are left to drape down to the floor. The result is both haunting as aesthetic and plain stunning. [ Continue reading ]
We recently stumbled upon the thrilling photographic work of New London, USA, based photographic artist Pola Esther, who was born and raised in Lodz, Poland. As an artist Esther uses photography as her main platform for expression, with her fascinating series named 'Mutual Attraction' consisting of diptych collages, clearly showing her love of photographing nature, mostly human. The work of Esther reflects upon her intimacy, femininity and sexuality. Images with the figure can be provocative, encouraging us to peep through the keyhole, where behind lays a romantic and sometimes grim world full of the unknown. She produces a highly diverse color palette moving as broad as grainy, blurry black and white to silky pastelle-like colors in orchestrated romantic settings, sometimes juxtaposing different styles, creating wonderful little spectacles which continue to fascinate us. [ Continue reading ]
During super Typhoon Yolanda, or Haiyan, in November 2013 the people of Bantayan, a small island in the central Philippines, took shelter in schools and government buildings. After the storm the residents of these impoverished fishing communities returned to the site of their villages to find a devastated landscape, littered with felled coconut trees, corrugated iron, and twisted palm fronds.
International aid flooded in to help the victims in the form of food, medical supplies and temporary shelter. After six months the tents and tarpaulins are gradually being replaced by swiftly erected plywood houses, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. Kerry Dean, a British photographer, and Alex McIntosh, a member of Centre for Sustainable Fashion, a research centre at London College of Fashion, recently travelled to the Philippines to photograph and interview the residents of Bantayan, many of who are still living in donated tents or temporary shelters, cobbled together from the wreckage of their former homes. The result is a beautiful and insightful series that captures a conundrum, a vibrant, colourful community, welcoming and open but fearful of and unprepared for a future where little seems secure. [ Continue reading ]
The latest story by the ever-inspiring Jungles in Paris brings us back to colorful India where talented Belgian travel photographer Pascal Mannaerts moved from the camel herders of The Great Indian Desert towards the east of North-India where at four locations the utmost fascinating and impressive Hindu festival Kumbh Mela is celebrated. The festival which takes place at the confluence of three sacred rivers; the Ganga, Yamuna and mythical Sarasvati, is the largest regular gathering of people on earth. Pilgrims come together at a time and place of divine indication, forming a massive swell of humanity from which a single type usually stands out: the sadhu, or holy man. [ Continue reading ]
We really like this series by the always inspiring Todd Selby in which he portrays the beautiful Tokyo studio of the visionary Japanese photographer and fashion designer Yuriko Takagi. In signature Selby-style every little detail that is worth seeing is highlighted in the recognizable colorful photographs of the light studio of Takagi. The Tokyo-based is best known for her studies of the human body and ethnic elements used in in fashion photography combines earthly Japanese serenity with folkloristic souvenirs from all her worldwide travels, from dolls and masks to a rather large collection of garments. And even her history as a fashion designer is still reflected by the Singer sewing machine which seems to not get a whole lot of action anymore though. Yet another highly inspiring photographic story by The Selby. [ Continue reading ]
We love this insane project by the Japanese artist Makoto Azuma named Exobiotanica. Two weeks ago, in the week that NASA was celebrating the 45th anniversary of the first moon landing, Azuma pioneered a new kind of space endeavor by sending plant life to the edge of space. The result of this enterprise are some of the most beautiful surrealistic, extraterrestrial images since Apollo 8′s famous Earthrise imagery was shot. Using GoPro and Fuji Film cameras, the florist-turned-artist got both film and still shots of the entire process as the plants lifted off from Black Rock Desert in Nevada and traveled to almost 30 kilometer above the earth’s surface, the ceiling of the giant helium balloons used to propel their ride towards the perfect backdrop where these tremendous images were shot. [ Continue reading ]
Rita Braz is a photographer and art director, born and raised in Lisbon, but living and working in Berlin since 2010. She has a self-proclaimed obsession with analogue cameras and black and white films, which she translated into the ongoing online outlet for her work aptly named Analogue Stories. We particularly like her travel stories which take the spectator all over Europe. In the selection Rita made for us we see images from her Balkan tour, a road trip from Berlin to Sarajevo where she would capture the Film Festival. It also features some images from her homeland Portugal which she left, but always carries with her in her heart and finally images from her elaborate trips all over her new home, Germany, exploring the country all the way from the Dutch border to the Polish exit. [ Continue reading ]
The Bonsai Project was a beautiful collaboration between Dutch documentary photographers Sjoerd Knibbeler and Rob Wetzer. They started the project in 2009 out of fascination for the experience of nature and the cultivation of our natural environment and wrapped it up in 2013. Bonsai, man-made trees cultivated in pots, has been a Chinese tradition for more than two thousand years. Since then, it developed into an art form and has spread over the world. Many enthusiasts all over the world make and keep bonsai. Really understanding bonsai involves closely observing one’s natural environment and using it as inspiration. As photographers Knibbeler and Wetzer were fascinated by the condensed experience of nature these magical trees offer. Bonsai can be seen as the most unnatural nature that exists, cultivated for mere beauty, Knibbeler and Wetzer searched for a deeper understanding of what cultivating nature can offer us: a sense of time, respect, reflection and care for things around us. On a very small scale, this happens within the bonsai culture. But it happens in many different ways, everywhere in the world. [ Continue reading ]
Since the 6th of June the beautiful exhibition 'Amsterdam! Ed van der Elsken, oude foto’s 1947-1970' is running in Het Stadsarchief Amsterdam, the museum attached to the Municipal Archive of Amsterdam. The exhibition coincides with the reprint of the book of the beautiful series which originally was published in 1979. At that time it was a powerful collaboration between the great and famous photographer and the just as great graphic designer Anthon Beeke, making it rather a classic made out of Dutch excellence, which over the last decades had been out of print and sought after. At the time of the original release, the two greats created a new kind of visual communication, which gained them a lot of praise, showing the city of Amsterdam in the course of those decades in all its diversity to a worldwide audience. [ Continue reading ]
The latest story by the always inspiring Jungles in Paris is once again of great beauty. It focusses on the the camel herders living in the largest Indian state by area, named Rajasthan, which translates to Land of Kingdoms. A large part of the state comprises of the Thar or Great Indian Desert, in which one still finds a significant group of people living of camel herding. The centre for these herders in terms of trade is the town named Pushkar and its fair which attracts herdsman from all over the desert. The images for this story were all taken in this town, located in the middle of the Rajasthan state and more importantly the Thar Desert, which explains why it attracts herdsman from all over, which prove to be the perfect subjects with their highly stylish appearance through colorful turbans and garments, beautiful accessories and faces showing the hardships of the desert. [ Continue reading ]
Running only a couple more days in the Tokyo-based Taka Ishii Gallery: the beautiful exhibition named 'Love on the Left Eye' by 74-years old Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. The exhibition, Araki’s twenty-first with Taka Ishii Gallery, consists of 65 prints which have been selected from the photographer’s most recent work. The title of the exhibition refers to possibly the most famous Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken’s 1954 book 'Love on the Left Bank.' When Araki was around twenty years old, he saw 'Love on the Left Bank,' and from a continued inspiration he now took photographs of women in poses inspired by the work of van der Elsken. 'Love on the Left Eye' therefore can be seen as an homage to van der Elsken, but also shows a very personal side of the Japanese photographer. Since October of last year, Araki has been largely unable to see out of his right eye due to a retinal artery obstruction, which is reflected directly in the right side of the photographs which are blacked out with magic marker. [ Continue reading ]
'Cinci Lei' by Dutch photographer Joost Vandebrug follows the lives of a group of kids that inhabit the tunnels underneath the streets of Bucharest, oftenly referred to as the Lost Boys. Vandebrug has been documenting the Lost Boys since early 2011. Over the years he has become very close with many of them, learning their incredible stories. He saw the coming of age of a generation set against a backdrop of drug addiction, powerful friendships, orphanages, harsh winters and boiling summers. It started when Vandebrug gave Costel, one of the Lost Boys, a few pictures that he had shot of him the day before, and he then carefully invited him down to show where he lived. With no common language, photography became a way to communicate. 'Cinci Lei' has been the first official publication of the inspiring project by Vandebrug and was financed through Kickstarter. [ Continue reading ]
On the 10th of May the second solo exhibition of the greatly talented, and one of our favorites at this moment, photographic artist Adam Jeppesen opened at the Brussels-based Galerie van der Mieden. As with his earlier series 'The Flatlands Camp Project', the series named 'X' is also based on his journeys around the world, in which the Danish photographers takes the traditions of travel photography to new grounds. In his new series Jeppesen has worked with photogravure, wanting to explore the possibilities of further evolving this graphic side of his work. The motives in this series of photogravures stay completely anonymous, every context of place and time is stripped by the artist. Deserted landscapes that are neutral and empty, cold mountains and desserts, located somewhere between documentary and dream, which makes it possible for the viewer to create a personal imagination about the place. Jeppesen’s very private journeys become potentially universal. [ Continue reading ]
We are honored to give a little preview of a new Where They Create story by our friend Paul Barbera. It features the London office of creative agency Wieden+Kennedy, which shows a lot of character, but also the large size of one of the leading offices worldwide. The inspiring ongoing Where They Create series documents creative working spaces from all around the world through the lens of Paul. With Where They Create, the Australian photographer found a way to turn his inherent voyeurism into a form of anthropological research. Looking for absurd and hidden elements within the seemingly normal, Paul enters the studios of international creative people: artists, art directors, architects, designers, stylists and captures all the details of their personal stories and artistic processes. His curiosity, naturalness and good eye for interiors, together with his ability to transmit emotions and warmth make his project unique and constantly inspiring. From the need many creatives have to transform their offices into intimate spaces, almost like home, keeping things close to be able to create their workspace will almost alway show a lot of personality. Others could work anywhere, travelling with the bare essentials as Paul does, but everybody, even if for a while, leaves personal traces, aspects that don’t pass unnoticed, laying there to be caught by Paul. [ Continue reading ]
Luke Stephenson just started a Kickstarter campaign to publish his latest beautiful series in a collaboration with YES, who also designed 'An Incomplete Dictionary of Show Birds'. Named '99 x 99s', the series is a photographic project which documents the story of the 99 ice cream through a photographic road trip around the UK. In the summer of 2013, over 25 days and 3,500 miles, Stephenson travelled around the coastline of Great Britain. Going from place to place the photographer was fascinated by the human touches that make each 99 ice cream unique. In the series the seaside ice cream vans and parlours that sold the 99s are also portrayed and the myths which surround this very British icon are discussed, giving the project a significant anthropological dimension, next to Stephenson's excellent eye for finding beautiful aesthetics in unexpected places. [ Continue reading ]
Once again we are extremely pleased to give another beautiful preview of a story by one of our favorites on the internet: Jungles in Paris, curated by Darrell and Oliver Hartman. This particular story takes place in downtown Dakar, on a beach called the Plage de Fann, although most of the regulars there don't even really need to call it by name. End-of-day beach workout is a routine part of life for many fit young guys in the city, especially the students who go there after class at nearby Cheikh Anta Diop University. They have benches with weights made from old wheel rims, and permanent apparatuses for push-ups and pull-ups. All of it is very basic. Guys do push-ups in the sand, skip rope, help and compete with each other, and just generally hang out. Of course there is lots of soccer played as well, as there is all over Senegal. There's a little side area for prayer. This is a city where you can do this sort of thing year-round, given the climate, although it's often cooler and more comfortable towards end of day. Certainly a workout place unlike any other in the world! [ Continue reading ]
On the 8th of March the Rotterdam-based Nederlands Fotomuseum opened Viviane Sassen’s exceptional photographic project titled UMBRA. We have been a fan of Sassen's work for a long time now and love this particular collaboration with the Dutch museum. Especially for the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Sassen has made a new series of works that focus on the play of light and shadow, a very characteristic element that runs through all of her work. Sassen supplements this series with previously unseen images from her archives. UMBRA, which translates to 'shadow' in Latin, presents Sassen’s autonomous work in a kaleidoscopic exhibition in which shadow is often a metaphor for the human psyche. [ Continue reading ]
David Lynch is a man of many talents. Although he is best known for his cinema, over the years he has branched out as far as his own brand of coffee, the production of music, various interior design projects and basically everything that's moldable into his moody enigmatic and subversive aesthetic. His latest form of expression, although he has been doing it throughout his life, was the exhibition and publication of his photographic series called 'The Factory Photographs' at the London-based Photographers' Gallery. The series reveal Lynch's self-confessed love of industry, machinery, man-made objects, and 'people hard at work'. The dark and brooding series of black and white photographs were taken at derelict factories in Germany, Poland, New York and England, among other places. His unique cinematic style is much in evidence in his depictions of labyrinths of passages, detritus and decaying manmade structures slowly being taken over by nature. [ Continue reading ]
The conceptual photographer Carl Kleiner recently released this amazing series named 'Postures'. Known for his often-times colorful still lifes in which Kleiner finds interesting and humorous positions for the photographed; in this series the Swede selected tulips as his subject. Mounted on constructions of wire, a technique one sees more often in his work, the tulips are positioned in different somewhat melancholic angles, without losing the aesthetic of the natural characteristic of late blossoming tulips which bend over because of the weight of the petals. The beautiful lines of the flowers remind of ballet dancers gracefully performing their dance, spotlighted on either a grey or black backdrop, with one tulip having lost a single petal inevitably marking the final moments of blossoming. We love how Kleiner found all these emotional forms and sentiments through his immaculate positioning, next to the already apparent beauty of the tulip. [ Continue reading ]
We have been a fan of the work of New York-based Mikael Kennedy for some years now and really appreciate his latest series 'California'. The series captures one week in California in which the photographer is clearly on the move. The beautiful photographs with the familiar toned down color palette show the wide landscapes of the American state with only sometimes allowing traces of civilization to play a minor role within the frame. A road, roadside fences, an electrical cable, the inside of the car a photograph was taken in, and just a little glimpse of a house. Kennedy places the geographical entity of the state of California first and its inhabitants second. The pictures therefore evoke somewhat of a lonely and melancholic sentiment within the beauty of the depicted landscapes, making the urge to visit the beautiful area even greater. 'California' has been published by Done To Death Projects in a limited quantity zine of 100 pieces which sold out within four days. [ Continue reading ]
We really appreciate the work of Copenhagen-based Englishman Alastair Philip Wiper and love his recent series in which he combines two of our favorite concepts: aesthetics and craftsmanship. The beautiful series shot in the familiar clean aesthetic of the photographer shows the factory of another favorite of ours: Danish company S.N.S. Herning located in Herning and famous for its knitwear. The company was founded in 1931 by Søren Nielsen Skyt, and enjoys worldwide recognition for producing their iconic fisherman sweater using a bobble technique developed by Skyt, intended to help with insulation. The company has had it’s ups and downs, and the collection has grown and shrunk, and until just a few years ago it had shrunk so much that it was almost non-existent, surviving only by selling a few of the classic fisherman’s sweaters. That is when the grandson of the original Søren Skyt, also Søren Skyt, decided to quit his job and focus on reviving the company after which the factory depicted by Wiper was taken into use. [ Continue reading ]
'Ezekiel 36:36' is a beautiful and fascinating series by photographer Nick Ballon, portraying Bolivian Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano (LAB), one of the world’s oldest surviving airlines, in an almost surrealistic fashion. Founded in 1925, it has played an important role in every stage of the country’s history. Since its privatisation in 1994, LAB has suffered at the hands of successive administrations, becoming gradually dismantled due to chronic mismanagement and corruption. Currently under threat of closure and with its downed of aircraft slowly crumbling away, this airline continues to survive through the loyalty and faith of its remaining 180 staff. Sensitive to this poignant and transitional time, Ballon has spent six months recording the present day story of LAB. Due to the circumstances of the airline and the angles chosen by Ballon the photographs suck the viewer in, reminding of the cinema of David Lynch or the work of Philip-Lorca diCorcia. [ Continue reading ]
