heidi specker

some nice work by german photographer heidi specker. see more of heidi's stuff here.

[all heidi specker. from the series d'elsi. 2007.]

jules spinatsch

swiss photographer jules spinatsch's temporary discomfort project "documents davos, genoa, new york and evian/geneva in a transitory state of emergency lock-down during the global economic summits. it combines different photographical genres: landscape photography, photojournalism and police photography...with the camera lens turned back at the security forces." see more of jules' work here.

[all jules spinatsch. top to bottom: kurpark no. 2. from temporary discomfort I. wef, davos. january 2001. evian no. 4. from temporary discomfort V. g8, evian. july 2002. video still from temporary discomfort IV. wef, davos. january 2003.]

michel huelin

work by swiss artist michel huelin. take a peek at more of michel's stuff here.

[all michel huelin. 2008. top to bottom: grass bug 1. grass bug 5. grass bug 2.]

brandon lattu

interesting stuff by brandon lattu. see more of his work here.

[all brandon lattu. 2006. top to bottom: office grey case. textbook stack. dining case (inside).]

adrien missika

adrien missika's project after yesterday. plenty more interesting stuff by adrien right here.

[all adrien missika. from the series after yesterday.]

archive • smithsonian photography initiative

the smithsonian has a haphazard batch of images online. although it's not so easy to search there are some real gems. i found most of these in the optics section, but there are a bunch of other great historical and scientific pictures. enter the archive here.

[all from smithsonian photography initiative.]

archive is a weekly column by asha schechter that appears each wednesday on i heart photograph.

sebastian lemm

some interesting projects by nyc-based german artist sebastian lemm. you can see more of his work here. and for those of you in chicago, he has a show opening at david weinberg gallery on february 29th.

[all sebastian lemm. top to bottom: subtraction #7. 2007. lapse #1. 2004. t.s.e. #5. 1999-2004.]

interview • alyssa gorelick

i heart photograph: in this image, “in a flash,” there's a tension between the document of the event and the materiality of adding to and re-photographing it. are the shine of the flash and the cut-photo flower meant to interrupt the original image, or do they serve another purpose?

alyssa gorelick: interrupting the original image is one effect of my additions of the flower and the flash. i was also thinking about the creative process being a series of tests. the image i used is of a nuclear test from 1953. the flash of my camera captured on the photo paper along with the handmade photo flower become records of my test. both experiments end in a flash. seeing catastrophic experiments combined with those that are small and gestural interest me, one hiding inside the other.

i.h.p.: along those lines, the flower, which appears to be made out of another copy of the mushroom cloud itself, provides another set of tensions: the nuclear blast as a WWII icon of total war, and the flower as an icon of '60s countercultural peace movements. what was behind your decision to make a flower as the handmade gesture to insert into the frame of the final photo?

a.g.: by making the flower by hand i am presenting my transparent attempt at mimicking a natural form, specifically a long-standing symbol of beauty and peace. the mushroom cloud image, which embodies “total war,” becomes a backdrop for the handmade gesture. by using a duplicate photograph of the nuclear test as material to construct a flower, camouflage is provided for my creation. the optical flattening that results from re-photographing the flower resting on the nuclear blast image heightens the camouflaging effect.

i.h.p.: could you talk a little more about the relationship between camouflage and materiality in the photo? it seems that making it apparent that the photo is a "photo of a photo" heightens a viewer's desire to look for metaphor, metonymy and "content" in the work rather than suppressing it. and as you mentioned earlier, the flash of the explosion doubles the flash of your camera. how does this kind of linguistic doubling play a role in your practice in general?

a.g.: we have a direct relationship with flowers, we have all seen touched and smelled them. nuclear explosions are intangible and most of us have only seen them in representations. to make a flower out of paper is to reiterate its tactility. to make a flower out of a photograph that contains an image of a nuclear blast points to the tension between the tactile and the ephemeral that a photographic representation is capable of revealing. using a nuclear blast photo as a background or environment which serves to disguise a constructed flower generated out of the same essential skin—the photo paper—implements a form of visual deception that is very much tied to war and survival: camouflage. the trick of camouflage is one that has evolved in nature as defensive function and is based on the optical blending of disparate materials. the flash in this piece functions as a linguistic and formal double as well an agent that reveals that no matter what the visual content of a photograph, we are always looking at a material skin, we are looking at paper. you ask how linguistic doubling plays a role in my practice in general, i would say it goes hand in hand with my interest in the co-existence of ephemerality and materiality in photographs.

[photo: in a flash by alyssa gorelick. see more of alyssa's work here.]

interview is a weekly column by nicholas grider that appears each tuesday on i heart photograph.

reading room • archivo

archivo is a bi-monthly journal of photography fully dedicated to the personal archives of photographers in glorious newspaper format. you can learn all about it right here.

[all from archivo. film about archivo by eva-fiore kovacovsky and harold stark.]

jason salavon

work in-progress by jason salavon. it's a commission by the united states census bureau that visualizes population by county from 1790-2000. see more about this project here.

[all jason salavon. studies for american varietal (us population, by county, 1790-2000). 2006
photographic media mounted to glass and real-time video.]

anna krachey

from anna krachey's project land/landscape. you can see more of her work here. and thanks again to barry for this link.

[all anna krachey. from the series land/landscape.]

ilia ovechkin

interesting digital projects by ilia ovechkin. the middle one is a photograph of the artist resized to 1 pixel and then selected, shown as a looped video projected onto a wooden panel. see more of ilia's stuff here.

[all ilia ovechkin. top to bottom: lake under a mountain. 2008. (still from) one pixel self portrait, selected. 2007. internationally known pleasures. 2007.]

martin pluddemann

work by martin pluddemann. see more here.

[both martin pluddemann. from the series vorrübergehendes interesse. 2006.]

hong-sung do

work by korean artist hong-sung do. see more of his stuff here.

[both hong-sung do. tourist. 2006.]

kate + camilla

legless by kate + camilla. see more of their stuff here.

[all kate + camilla. from the series legless.]

addie juell

addie juell makes compositions from stickers and then photographs them with a large format camera. you can see more of addie's stuff here. and a big thanks to barry for passing along this link.

[all addie juell. top to bottom: grassy knoll. 2004. mound of praise. 2007. untitled.]

barry w. hughes

irish artist barry w. hughes' photojars. take a peek at more of his interesting work here.

[all barry w. hughes. from the series photojars. 2007.]

archive • los angeles 1920-1990

the ucla charles e. young research library department of special collections has selected and digitized 5,746 of the more than three million images contained in the los angeles times and los angeles daily news photographic archives. a compelling and easy-to-browse collection, it's like a mini-survey of photojournalistic techniques as the archive is restriced to the time period of 1920-1990. for extra fun browse by subject as there are a lot of things one wouldn't otherwise think to look for in there. enter the archive here.

[all from UCLA library digital collections.]


archive is a weekly column by asha schechter that appears each wednesday on i heart photograph.