© Ditte Isager

Danish photographer Ditte Isager began her “Dolls” series as a “little weekend project,” a “free place” to experiment and create “little quirky stories.” A successful commercial and editorial photographer based in New York City, Isager is most often called on to “tell others’ stories and build up their universe,” she says. Her “Dolls” photographs, which are created in her studio using natural light, a Linhof 4×5 camera and Polaroid film, have provided her a creative “recess” from the rules and parameters of assignment work. Made over the course of five years, the 23 works are currently showing at Galerie Wolfsen in Aalborg, Denmark. (more…)

All images © Amanda Marsalis & Automatic Books

Photographer Amanda Marsalis was in Venice for a friend’s gallery opening when the publishers of Automatic Books noticed her making Polaroid photographs of flowers. An avid Polaroid user, Marsalis began photographing flowers as her remaining instant film stock dwindled. Though she’d created a zine of some of the photographs, she hadn’t planned on doing much else with her “little project.” The Automatic Books publishers asked Marsalis if they could make a book of her Polaroids, and Reproduction, a lovely 102-page, hand-bound volume came to be. Writes Marsalis in a statement that appears on the back cover of the book: “Reproduction for me is three things: The purpose of a flower, the way the book is being printed, and a woman’s fertility/sexuality. Myself being the woman. I feel in a tradition of classic photographers shooting still lives as an exercise in image making and self examination.”

 Fruit on the Beach

Ellen Jong‘s The Invisible Line uses photography, video and poetry to document how Jong remembers falling in love over a four-year period leading up to her wedding day. The work is intimate and echoes the bold and provocative sentiment of Nan Goldin and Tracey Emin, but with the snapshot aesthetic of William Eggelston. Highly adept at interjecting private moments into a public space, Jong’s work provides a window into realized and uninhibited displays of passion. Where most people fail at being able to completely let go, Jong travels deep into the nether lands of love where her heart acts as a compass.

“There is an invisible line,” say Jong, “that lies between my body and my mind. It withholds my deepest beliefs, fears, curiosities and desires. It is there to protect me. It is there to tell others where I stand, what is mine and why I am. In falling in love, I lost sight of my invisible line and I let it go. Love breaks down walls and sets you free.”

The Invisible Line is on view at Allegra LaViola Gallery in New York from June 5 – July 6, 2012

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© Ziyah Gafic

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the start of the conflict in Bosnia that eventually became the worst genocide Europe since World War II. While journalists who covered the conflict and historians are now reexamining the bloody conflict and its lessons, the events of 20 years ago are not yet relegated to history. “How could they be, when there hasn’t been catharsis or absolution?” says Ziyah Gafic, a Bosnian photographer.

Gafic, who was 12 years old when Serbs attacked Bosnia in a grab for power in the former Soviet satellite, has been working with the International Commission on Missing Persons to photograph the eyeglasses, snapshots, keys and other personal belongings of victims of ethnic cleansing. The items have been collected from mass graves and are being used as tools to identify some of the 30,000 missing Bosnians. Gafic’s goal is not only to help reunite these objects with the victims’ families, but to document and remember the genocide.

“We so desperately hoped lessons learned in Bosnia will help prevent or solve faster other conflicts, but how foolish was that?” Gafic says. “Just looking at Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Libya, makes ‘never again’ quite a cynical statement.”

Related Article: Ziyah Gafic: A Forensic Documentary of Genocide

© Cade Martin.

Cade Martin collaborated with Design Army to create a ONEderful, whimsical world of fuzzy bunnies, baby chicks, talking bears and smiling clouds; where deadlines give way to creative euphoria and that ONE, elusive idea suddenly hits you. The image above was part of Martin’s campaign to advertise The One Show. Read about Martin’s shoot here.
The One Show, hosted by the One Club, is an international advertising award show that sets the industry standard for creative advertising in print, television, radio, outdoor, innovative marketing, integrated branding and branded content.