Anastasia Deligianni

Kalochori (meaning “good village” or “nice land” in Greek) is a series I created just outside Thessaloniki, the second-biggest Greek city, in the north of the country, where three rivers meet (the Axios, Loudias and Gallikos). After having traveled through the Balkans they pour into the Aegean Sea. Their deltas form a lagoon that should be protected because it hosts rare animal and plant species, but it neighbors the industrial zone of the city and suffers from air and water pollution.

To my eyes and mind the result is a postmodern landscape combining beauty and death, rare colors and figures formed inside an oily inertia.

— Anastasia Deligianni, Thessaloniki, Greece

Catherine Slye

South Mountain Park Preserve, 03/02/18

Catslye.com

The idea for the series Lunar Landscapes came about on an impromptu photo shoot at Dreamy Draw Park for the Super Moon full moon on 12/02/17. The series came together in my mind while waiting on the moon to crest the mountain – each month for each full moon, a different park, in Arizona. The goal was to photograph the landscape, to catch the full moon cresting the horizon, so I could do what I love to do: be outside at night shooting long exposures. But not just anywhere. Here, in Arizona, in the desert with the rocks and cacti.

In 2015 I shot HOT SUMMER NIGHTS, all long exposures at night of urban landscapes – all in Phoenix. In 2016 was Night Water, again, all long exposures at night, of the canal system here in the city – then in 2017 I only worked on Nightlight – a self-portrait project, shot indoors, again long exposures done at night, but indoors. I missed shooting at night outdoors enormously. I was so ready to get back outside again. I can’t quite put my finger on it, to say it’s beautiful here is an understatement, it’s quite striking. When I’m outside at night I’m not experiencing some kind of metaphysical out of body mind meld magic – maybe I am!  ;) What I know for certain is that the combination of the light and the color and the heat feels magical. I so wanted to get back to doing what I had done before – long exposures at night, but this time in the desert. Away from the urban core and the artificial lights. And be among the cacti and the creosote bushes and the sage and the rocks – under the moonlight.

Each month I scout out a new location, typically a park, although one month I shot at a private residence. The time frame of the shoot is very narrow – it’s one night, once a month, within in a matter of minutes as the moon is rising. And then it’s over – until the next month. 12 months, 12 outings. Narrowly defined parameters is something I consciously imbue into each of my projects. Setting my own “rules” for each series builds pressure which helps me clearly and purposefully create. Precisely defined boundaries – where ambiguity is absent, is inherent I feel, not only in how I prefer to live, but in my photography itself. Even in the murky darkness of my work, there is little that is not clearly what it makes itself to be.

— Catherine Slye, Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Dreamy Draw, 12/02/17
Papago Park, 01/01/18
Carefree Ranch, 01/31/18
Picketpost Mountain, 04/29/18

Sakis Dazanis

SakisDazanis.com

Bad Egg is a series of images I collected over the last few years through my repetitive visits to an old nitrogen fertilizers factory outside Ptolemaida, a town in Northern Greece.

Driving his car I still recall my father’s voice “Close the windows quickly!” as we were approaching the area with the disgusting odor. The reaction of ammonia with other chemical elements gives hydrogen sulphide the rotten-egg smell.

The plant finally closed in 1996. Back in 2011 I started to take my first images in the area. Everything was as the Bechers’ typologies described. But there was something more than that.

Decay was so obvious to my eyes as it was then to my nose during childhood. With dust and wild plant vegetation together it was as if they had absorbed all the bad smell and transformed it into inspirational images evoking a strong feeling of appropriation and tranquility.

— Sakis Dazanis, Kozani, Greece

Douglas Stockdale

DouglasStockdale.com

The project Middle Ground/En Medio Tierra is comprised of American Southwest urban landscape photographs that were inspired by recent political changes in the United States. Although initially conceptualized as a political satire and parody of Donald Trump’s “bigly” wall on the United States’ southern border, this project developed to symbolically represent the greater political, economic, social, and cultural barriers people construct to separate themselves from others. The physical walls pictured reference psychological, conceptual, and systemic barriers people construct to dissociate from others — barriers that serve to prevent acceptance and impede interpersonal connection.

— Douglas Stockdale, Rancho Santa Margarita, California