Category Archives: photo series

Daniel Kukla. The Edge Effect.
photo series

The Edge Effect

Gallery

While hiking and driving, I caught glimpses of the border space created by the meeting of distinct ecosystems in juxtaposition, referred to as the Edge Effect in the ecological sciences. To document this unique confluence of terrains, I hiked out a large mirror and painter’s easel into the wilderness and captured opposing elements within the environment.

—Daniel Kukla

Daniel Kukla. The Edge Effect.

Daniel Kukla. The Edge Effect.

Daniel Kukla. The Edge Effect.

Daniel Kukla. The Edge Effect.

Daniel Kukla. The Edge Effect.

Daniel Kukla. The Edge Effect.

Came across this on tumblr but I felt a little weird about posting the entire sequence here like the tumblr did. A lot of times the mirror thing seems a bit much—looks neat in the ways that mirrors fascinate us but doesn’t really say much more than that. These though use the mirror to actually reveal interesting things about the landscape.

We’ve all been in places where the view in one direction is quite different than the view in the opposite.  Telling that story in a visually interesting way—let alone finding something interesting in the story itself is hard. These photos do both.

cp2
history, photo series

Bons baisers des colonies

Image

Ici, les femmes n’ont pas de nom, elles ne sont que des «types». Le corps est une marchandise comme une autre, soumise à une exigence d’exotisme.

[Here, women do not have names, they are only “types.” The body is a commodity like any other, subject to the requirement of exoticism.]

—Safia Belmenouar

Sure enough, colonial postcards were often a kind of soft core porn.

—John Edwin Mason

CP1

cp2

CP3

An exhibition of colonial postcards. It’s a shame more of these aren’t online (the featured image seems to change though) but even the three I’ve seen posted serve to remind us of the kind of baggage that comes with the colonial gaze.

It’s very clear what kind of appeal is being sold here. And what it means to be “exotic” and female. And why images of a mixed-race future when centered around whiteness makes a lot of non-white people uncomfortable. And why appropriation of native clothing for fashion photoshoots or sexy photoshoots perpetuates more than just the male gaze.

Mike Osborne. Storage Buildings and Movie Tower.
photo series

Mike Osborne

Gallery

In the end, what he has captured in these pictures might be the unsettling result of people acting on that permission: the casual violence and neon dreams of a nation let loose upon the desert.

—Myles Little

Mike Osborne. Floating Island.
Floating Island
Mike Osborne. View from Southbase.
View from Southbase
Mike Osborne. Storage Buildings and Movie Tower.
Storage Buildings and Movie Tower
Mike Osborne. Storage Buildings.
Storage Buildings
Mike Osborne. Montego Lounge I.
Montego Lounge I
Mike Osborne. Information.
Information
Mike Osborne. Expanse.
Expanse
Mike Osborne. Valley II.
Valley II
Mike Osborne. Corner.
Corner
Mike Osborne. Curtain.
Curtain

So this series caught my eye a number of different times as different tumblrers selected different images to highlight. Some liked the black and white warehouses. Others liked the color landscapes. Etc. Etc. It’s been interesting to click through* and find that they’re all part of the same project since I’m not used to one project featuring so many different photographic styles—especially all coming from the same photographer.

*Yes. It took more than a few clicks for me to realize this. I think in each case my thought was “wait, the guy who made More?” before putting everything together.

I like the approach. Especially regarding the American West and how it can be simultaneously bleak and lonely and intimidatingly wild and overwhelmingly industrial and overdeveloped and unnatural and crowded. Too much to always shoehorn into one style.

And as someone who shoots all over the place. It’s instructive to see how it is possible to make something coherent out of parts which aren’t visually consistent.

Haunted Air
photo series

Haunted Air

Gallery

The photographs in Haunted Air provide an extraordinary glimpse into the traditions of this macabre festival from ages past, and form an important document of photographic history. These are the pictures of the dead: family portraits, mementos of the treasured, now unrecognizable, and others.

—David Lynch

Haunted Air

Haunted Air

Haunted Air

Haunted Air

Haunted Air

Haunted Air

Haunted Air

Haunted Air

Haunted Air

Haunted Air

Another through the tumblr wires. In this case, while these are indeed striking images from a historical point of view,* it’s really the portraiture point view which is more interesting to me here. Being a parent has reminded my of how important Halloween costumes are to us when we’re little. These are all family portraits which function as portraits despite, and because of, their uncanniness. The masks don’t hide anything. They never hide anything.

*Before Halloween became dominated by slickly-manufactured costumes and merchandising tie ins.

I don’t have much more to add which isn’t already covered by @kukkurovaca’s writing on Meatyard and hope that this post encourages him to migrate some of those over to this blog.

Mishka Henner. Coronado Feeders, Dalhart, Texas.
photo series, thinking about photographs

Mishka Henner

Gallery

Duchamp was about changing the way we think of art, and how we look at the world. In using pictures taken by robots, other photographers might think of me as a joke, but Duchamp faced that all his life—it makes me think I am doing something right.

—Mishka Henner

Mishka Henner. Natural Butte Oil Field in Utah.
Natural Butte Oil Field in Utah
Mishka Henner. Coronado Feeders, Dalhart, Texas.
Coronado Feeders, Dalhart, Texas
Mishka Henner. Levelland and Slaughter Oil Field.
Levelland and Slaughter Oil Field
Mishka Henner. Tascosa Feedyard, Texas.
Tascosa Feedyard, Texas
Mishka Henner. Levelland and Slaughter Oil Field
Levelland and Slaughter Oil Field
Mishka Henner. Randall County Feedyard, Amarillo, Texas
Randall County Feedyard, Amarillo, Texas

I really liked what Ed Ruscha said once, that all he wanted to do was photograph the facts. He just wanted to see if it was possible, with his gasoline stations and parking lots and all the rest of it.

—Mishka Henner

I’ve found that quite a few of my projects have revealed a lot of the assumptions and judgements that a section of the photo community continues to take for granted about documentary. It really doesn’t have to be like that. There’s so much more scope for pushing the boundaries of what documentary can be.

—Mishka Henner

Because I’ve been pumping my fist a little too much with each successive interview with Mishka Henner recently. I really like what he’s doing—both in his methods of approaching the overwhelming amount of robot photography out there as well as what he’s chosen to say with it. He’s going directly at the “what is art” question in a way which forces everyone to question their assumptions about the medium. Why do we think what’s “good” is good? What do we expect from certain genres? Are our sacred cows truly sacrosanct? We need voices and visions like his.

The Oil Fields and Feed Lots projects in particular speak to me. Partially because I like photography from space and the way patterns emerge from both nature and human impact. But also because of the scale of consumption that they present. It’s one thing to see close-up shots of the way our mass-comsumption industry had perverted nature. It’s another to see a satellite view and realize exactly how big the impacted area is.

That these photos are indeed illegal to take despite being freely available via satellite* adds that extra level of trickster fun which takes these from being just about the story of consumption to also including how these are big business—with tentacles into the government and a vested interest in our remaining ignorant of what they show.

*Reminding everyone what happened to George Steinmetz.

This is documentary photography which is about more than just what’s in the photos. Henner’s widening the frame to include the photographer and the editor and even the viewer as well.