Willson Cummer – Page 44 – New Landscape Photography

June 6, 2013June 5, 2013

Book Review: Postcards from Europe 03/13

Postcards from Europe 03/13, by Eva Leitolf

Eva Leitolf’s book Postcards from Europe 03/13 appears at first to be simply that: a collection of 20 large cards gathered together and presented as a book. The cards have 10.5 x 13″ images on the front and text on the back. But instead of cheery notes, Leitolf supplies grim statistics about the hazards of illegal immigration into Europe. She recounts deaths, riots and other affronts to the migrants.

Leitolf’s images are often banal landscapes, which become filled with meaning as we move through the book. Sometimes there are clues in the images: a security fence, a pile of wooden ladders, chairs knocked over. Other times we see simply a desolate beach. Only on turning over the card do we discover that 24 bodies of would-be immigrants washed up on that beach.

The book is a collection of puzzles. Once we know that, our enjoyment of the images increases. Why are dozens of oranges on the ground under a tree in one image? What is the meaning of a humble wooden platform about 15 feet off the ground at the edge of a field? We know that we’ll have the answer once we flip the card.

Because the images in Leitolf’s book are not bound, they draw comparison to prints. This is unfortunate. The plates are printed using four-color offset presses, and are well made. But they do not approach the quality of inkjet prints or traditional color prints. (Of course one could not buy a collection of 20 prints for the price of a book — but the presentation invites comparisons between the two.)

Leitolf, a German photographer, made images in Italy, Spain, Greece and Hungary for this book. Postcards from Europe 03/13 is available from Kehrer Verlag.

June 5, 2013May 29, 2013

John Viggiano

www.JohnVigg.com

My work offers new ways to document and interpret the contemporary landscape. New visualization and surveillance technologies are changing who we are and how we perceive the world around us. The now ever-present use of satellites, drones, cell phones, GPS and numerous other sensing devices radically reshapes the very meaning of photography, and what it means to record the landscape. My current project — programming a drone to photograph for me — is an experiment to come to terms with these radical new ways to visualize the world around us, and how they affect our very sense of self. A photographer no longer needs to stand anywhere. The use of technology has provided an untethered eye to view with, and a new aesthetic for understanding what the future of imaging has to offer.

— John Viggiano, Asbury Park, New Jersey, USA

June 3, 2013May 31, 2013

Magnus Bjerk

www.MagnusBjerk.com

I am interested in how we make divisions between our surroundings and ourselves and how borders and tensions exist in and between the psychological, urban or natural landscapes. Although we find nature savage, it is also where we find the sublime. This can be frightening, because we realize that something unobtainable and larger than ourselves lurks in the landscape. Perhaps it reminds us of our inherent, uncontrollable human instincts.

This perceived border between nature and culture is both diminished and increased throughout this series, as the inside and outside world seems to melt together in some images and appears more separated in other images. Some of the photographs are printed directly on acrylic sheets, increasing these optical illusions.

Even though some of the images are almost partially becoming abstracted and not containing visible traces of nature outside, it doesn’t mean that I am not interested in nature. I am also very interested in what’s “behind” the “forms,” or in other words, the “facade” that we consider to be reality. The way the trailer frames our scope is comparable to how human perception is constructed or “colored” individually.

The animal affects this distance between the viewer and the landscape outside, not only as a physical obstacle, but also because the dog is a domesticated animal that is somehow caught between nature and the human.

As the animals in the trailers are looking back at us, it can be asked whether it is nature looking back at us or if it is ourselves looking back at ourselves.

— Magnus Bjerk, Berlin, Germany

May 31, 2013May 31, 2013

Eliza Lamb

www.ElizaLamb.com

Hopewell. My hometown.

The event of going home is a complicated one. Although I moved to Hopewell as a child, it has never truly been a place that I could relate to or feel a part of. In fact my earliest intentions were to leave as soon as possible, and although I did just that, I cannot deny the soft spot in my heart that it still occupies or the pull back that still consumes me. The story I present here is less about a town and the people that live in it and more about my relationship to it — a marrying of both the frustrated teenager I was, and the sentimental adult that I am.

Once a thriving port during the Civil War, Hopewell hasn’t seen its heyday since. Today it struggles to keep its economy afloat and the local grocery stores in business. Unlike many American cities, Hopewell isn’t on the decline. In fact it has been about the same my whole life — a small, unchanging factory town in central Virginia. It is a city that seems to make futile attempts to re-establish itself but somehow slips tiredly back into what it was before. This is a place where trying seems to count as much as doing, traditional southern values still rule, and optimism is born but seems to fade away quickly in the southern heat.

I’ve often wondered why this parcel of Virginia seems to be standing still and unchanged. Now, years later I’m finding that I might just be looking at it all wrong. Maybe my lens of success doesn’t matter here, maybe it’s not even right. Maybe all that some people, some places need is simplicity and continuity –- maybe they don’t need the next step, and maybe they don’t want it.
Maybe here hoping is enough.

— Eliza Lamb, New York City

May 29, 2013May 19, 2013

Spencer Murphy

www.SpencerMurphy.co.uk

Inspired by the countryside in which I grew up in, my pictures explore man’s relationship with nature and as a force that exists separately and in conflict with the world. If the pictures appear staged, it’s a nod towards the order behind things. If they seem dark or set the viewer ill at ease, then it’s in recognition of the chaos that underlies that order. If they represent a world at once familiar and yet utterly alien, that’s because it is our own.

— Spencer Murphy, London

May 27, 2013May 19, 2013

Max Li

www.MaxLi.nu

River Indus is the place I often visit at weekends. It is located in one of the few quiet suburbs. However, with the introduction of the government’s massive urbanization plan, both sides of the river will be transformed into a huge residential area which houses more than 100,000 dwellers. Over the past winter, I went to the banks and tried to photograph the places that haunted me repeatedly.

This project documents the temporal existence of the suburban landscapes and the beauty of everydayness. It explores the tension between temporality and transcendence.

— Max Li, Hong Kong

May 24, 2013May 19, 2013

Bob Avakian

www.BobAvakianPhotography.com

The camera is a mirror that allows me to see my surroundings with new eyes while at the same time becoming more aware of myself. Out at night, alone, the day’s cares recede and the sense of time fades. Allowing a heightened awareness to take over, I direct my attention to conveying the quiet and solitude of the night. It is this shift in attention, I believe, that allows me to experience the moment with a different vision.

I photograph the landscape at night and at dawn. The camera captures the frames as stills, freezing time, regardless of the length of the exposure, and creating an image different from what the eye perceives. I like to believe that these resulting images are from a moment suspended between night and day.

My exposure and printing decisions enable me to take the surroundings I know so well and present them as they have not been seen before. What fascinates me about this process is that magical element of surprise. I venture out in search of scenes that contain an unknown light source of have some other mysterious quality. Of course there are times when I don’t find anything. Since the night sets the stage, I never know where I will wind up. It reminds me so much of life.

— Bob Avakian, Edgartown, Massachusetts, USA

May 22, 2013May 19, 2013

Kimberly J. Schneider

www.KimberlyJSchneider.com

I am drawn to desolate land and seascapes. For me, making images is a meditation of sorts, a search for truth. While I am intrigued by the formal qualities of the areas I photograph, there’s something about shooting in the land and sea that releases my innermost thoughts and somehow transfers them to my photographs.

In this digital world, I remain a purist. I shoot black & white film and print my images in my darkroom. I primarily shoot infrared; I appreciate the way it appears to turn the world inside out, as well as expose what the naked eye cannot see.

Point Lobos & Beyond began in May 2010, when I made images in California for the first time. During that trip, I learned that I could stay at Bodie House. That moment changed my life, photographically speaking.

Since my early days of photography, I had dreamed about shooting in Carmel, specifically at Point Lobos, where the masters who inspired me did. I spent two days there, photographing and immersing myself in everything Weston. I even got to go in Edward/Kim’s darkroom.

As I was shooting in Point Lobos, I could almost feel the spirit of Edward Weston guiding me, and I suddenly realized that I had found the place that I truly connected with. Making photographs there had a profound effect on me and changed who I was as a photographer.

In spite of the fact that I was drawn to Point Lobos by Edward Weston’s images, my images are about my spiritual journey. This body of work is ongoing and I’m still not entirely sure where it will take me.

At this point, the images are about exploring Point Lobos, and other areas in Northern/Central California, from the ground on up and beginning to understand what it is that I have always been looking for.

My search for answers continues. I recently returned to Point Lobos and am just in the early stages of printing the new images. My concept will continue to grow and take shape as I learn more about these images during the printing process

— Kimberly J. Schneider, New York City

May 20, 2013May 20, 2013

Alon Koppel

MAY 20 Alon Koppel

www.NotLikeHere.org

A quiet, subdued anthropological look into the tension on the surface of the earth, and the constant struggle between nature and humans. The boundaries we lay down, when, where and why and happens to them over time.

The photos observe places and spaces. Between what appears, what’s not there yet and what disappears. I seek a simple description of life with these photos. And even though the moment captured looks like it can be captured again, it will never be the same.

I was always interested in photographing physical and virtual borders – the space between us and our surroundings – and what we do to those locations. The photographs often manifest that by showing subtle ecological issues. Things most other people walk or drive by without care or notice.

— Alon Koppel, Red Hook, New York, USA

May 16, 2013April 24, 2013

Brooke White

www.BrookeCWhite.net

Over the past decade my major works completed, which include large-scale photographs and non-narrative films, investigate how globalization and technology effect our connection and disconnection to the landscape and place. The New South Project investigates the ways in which the global economic market and technology has distanced our connection to place thereby creating a radical form of displacement to landscapes in the global south.

This project began in Bangalore, India, where I was a Fulbright Scholar in the fall of 2012. I went to Bangalore to photograph the changing landscapes of the city and the country due to the booming IT sector. This project has expanded to include the Deep South of the United States, in states such as Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, where the oil industry dominates. Each location in The New South Project is facing many challenges due to globalization some of which include, environmental degradation, displacement and political instability. The New South Project investigates how new hybrid identities and landscapes are developing as a result of globalization.

The images are coupled with Google map images as a way to investigate the idea of lived experience of place versus a virtual one. In today’s environment it is very easy to virtually visit anywhere in the world, but what does it mean to physically embody a landscape or to have a landscape or place embody you? This project tries to answer these questions.

Additionally, there is a Google map, which can be seen here, that investigates the concept of embodiment interactively.

— Brooke White, Oxford, Mississippi, USA