“Ice Cream.” © Brian Callaway. Grand prize winner of PDN Faces 2012 in the Professional: Babies/Children category.

The deadline for PDN’s Faces Photo Contest 2013 is approaching. Folks can enter their work in a variety of categories: animal portraits, commercial/editorial/assignment, personal work, babies/children and self portraits. The grand-prize winner receives on-campus photography workshops from Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Aspen, CO. Not too shabby!

© Dave Lauridsen. Winner of PDN Faces 2012 in the Professional: Commercial/Editorial/Assignment category.

© Sarah Lim. Winner of PDN Faces 2012 in the Amateur: Personal Work category.

 © Jesse Ditmar. First place winner of PDN Faces 2012 in the Professional: Personal category.

“Self-portrait with Donovan at 4 a.m.” © Joe Toreno. First place winner in the Professional: Self Portraits category.

“White Swirl,” 2013 © Yvette Meltzer

“Multiple Exposures” showcases work by members of a critique group hosted by Chicago fine art photographer Jane Fulton Alt. The exhibition ranges from dramatic studies of nature to scenes of contemporary urban life. Curated by Alt and Lelde Kalmite, artists include Jane Fulton Alt, Susan Annable, Ilze Arajs, Nelson Armour, Art Fox, Mary Rafferty, Alan Leder, Janet Mesic-Mackie, Yvette Meltzer, Neil Spinner and Jessica Tampas.

“Multiple Exposures” opens today, Friday, May 17th with an opening reception from 7-10PM at the Bridgeport Art Center (BAC) in Chicago and runs through June 14, 2013.

“Talking to Ants 3.”  All Images © Stephen Gill, courtesy of the artist

The exhibition, “Best Before End,” by the British photographer Stephen Gill incorporates a number of photographic series that Gill made in and around the London Borough of Hackney over the past fourteen years. His processes include burying photographs, making exuberant flower collages, placing objects inside the camera so that their traces could be encapsulated within the film emulsion thus adding confusion of scale. Gill’s most recent series, entitled “Best Before End,” resulted from part processing negatives in energy drinks, bringing forth the most fantastic, abstract and vibrantly coloured works that somehow reflect the intensity of modern inner city life.

This exhibition opens at the Foam Gallery in Amsterdam May 17 and runs through July 14, 2013.

“Talking to Ants 1″

“Talking to Ants 2″

“Hackney Flowers, 2007″

All Images © Aaron Ansarov

This collection of zooids (dactylozooids (the hunters), gastrozooids (the eaters), gonozooids (the reproducers) and the pneumatophores (the sailors) are more commonly known as the Portuguese Man o’ War. Not much is known about these creatures except that they sting. Aaron Ansarov turned them into beautiful works of psychedelic art, yet remains unharmed. Ansarov and his wife collected them from the shores of south Florida, transported them in a cooler full of sea-water to his nearby studio, photographed them on light tables (mirrored their image in Photoshop), and returned them to the shore, unharmed. To be clear, however, these creatures are on their death bed once they hit the beach. “When they drift ashore,” says Ansarov, “it is rare for them to survive the tide and be pulled back out to sea…sometimes they may get pulled back out, but it’s up to nature’s design.” To see more of Ansarov’s work, visit his website.

Scenes from Aziz Ansari’s adventure in Tokyo with David Chang and and James Murphy.  All Images © Ture Lillegraven.

In late 2011, photographer Ture Lillegraven traveled to Tokyo with captains of their industries – comedian Aziz Ansari, chef David Chang, musician/producer James Murphy and GQ writer Brett Martin. Avid Twitter-user Ansari posted that he and his pals should go to Tokyo with the caveat that someone else should pay for it. GQ answered, and obliged. The photographic result was a smattering of energetic, fun and colorful Lillegraven images. It’s safe to say they had a good time. Lillegraven compiled outtakes from the Tokyo shoot in a promo book he sent out earlier this year, simply called “TURE: Three Photographic Projects from Ture Lillegraven” that included this adventure, Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon photographed in rural Wisconsin and the band Milo Greene shot in Big Sur, California.

Aziz Ansari is currently on tour. Check him out tonight at the Palace Theatre in Albany, NY.

Aziz Ansari is currently on tour. Check him out tonight, May 14, at the Palace Theatre in Albany, NY.

Read the complete GQ Ansari/Chang/Murphy Tokyo adventure here.

Roger Fenton is the first known photographer to capture battlefield scenes. He made wetplate collodion photographs during the Crimean War in 1855. But it was Timothy H. O’Sullivan’s 1863 photograph of the Union dead on the field at Gettysburg, “A Harvest of Death,” that inspired Karl Burke’s project, “The Harvest of Death” (created between December 2011 and January 2012) which puts a contemporary spin on these historic war photographs. Burke played video war games, eventually taking screen grabs and then re-photographing them with 19th century lenses and techniques. “I realized I could use the wetplate collodion technique combined with computer-generated first-person perspective war-type imagery to simultaneously talk about the history of war photography and the present and future of our use of remote imagery/images of virtual realities for both entertainment and warfare purposes.”

Burke, along with 500 artists from all over the world will compete for the Grand Prix during the 2013 FotoFestiwal in Łódź, Poland, June 6-16.

“The Harvest of Death, v2, Plate II”

“The Harvest of Death, v2, Plate III”

“The Harvest of Death, v2, Plate IV”

“The Harvest of Death, v2, Plate VII”

“The Harvest of Death, v2, Plate XV”

“Richard Serra, Film Portrait,” (1977-2009). © Babette Mangolte, courtesy of the artist and Broadway 1602, New York

Babette Mangolte, originally from France, is an experimental filmmaker and photographer in New York City who has been in the art, film, dance, theater, performance scene since the 1970s. The above image of sculptor Richard Serra was shot on film (digital transfer from 16mm shot in 1977, edited in 2007). A year earlier, Mangolte, using her early experimental narrative formats, made the short film “Richard Serra Film Portrait” (1976).

Mangolte’s work is represented by Broadway 1602, one of several galleries representing contemporary art (not just photography) that will be exhibiting at the Frieze Art Fair starting Friday, May 10, through Monday, May 13 from 11am-7pm on Randall’s Island in New York City. Check out Frieze New York for more information.

“Heavyweight contender Muhammad Ali getting his poetic mouth taped by trainer Angelo Dundee during his weigh-in before the big fight with Doug Jones,” NY, NY. 1962. Photograph by George Silk. © Time Inc. Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery.

The year 1963 is the subject of a new exhibition of photos at the Howard Greenberg Gallery.  It was a watershed time in American political and social history:  civil rights protests, the start of Beatlemania,  deepening involvement in Vietnam, the hope and promise inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C. followed by the shock of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The exhibition “1963″ brings together 40 photographs from both renowned photojournalists like Carl Mydans, George Silk and John Loengard to anonymous photographers who captured famous figures and events before and after the transformational year 1963. The exhibition runs  through July 6, 2013; an opening reception will be held on this evening, May 9, from 6 to 8 p.m.

“Housewife Barbara Dunlap is a volunteer in a psychiatric research study regarding the effect of LSD, a relatively new and legal drug at the time,” Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 1963. © John Loengard. Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery.

“Bob Dylan is a one-man band on ‘Folk Songs and More Folk Songs,’” 1963. Photographer unknown. © Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery.

“Marin Luther King, Jr. ends his speech with the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’” Washington, D.C., 1963. © Bob Adelman. Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery.

“Jackie and John F. Kennedy,” c. 1962. © Cecil W. Stoughton. Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery.

“On the 6:25 from Grand Central to Stamford,” November 22, 1963. Photograph by Carl Mydans. © Time Inc. Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery.

Installation view of “Monuments at Landmarks” at Art in General, New York, NY, April 20 – June 29, 2013.
From left to right: Capitol Reef Cement Dip (Facedown) 1 & 2, Moon Wave, Utah Maine Concrete Slab.
Image courtesy Art in General. Photography by Steven Probert.

Letha Wilson‘s work uses imagery from the natural world as a starting point for interpretation, construction and confrontation. A broad range of techniques and materials are used – photography, sculpture, installation, concrete, wood – in work that blurs the lines between abstraction and representation, landscape and architecture. The ability for a photograph to transport the viewer is both called upon, and questioned; sculptural intervention attempts to compensate for the photograph’s failure to encompass the physical site it represents.  Landscape photography as a genre is approached with equal parts reverence and skepticism.  Letha Wilson’s work is on view at Art in General until June 29th. She is currently represented by Higher Pictures in New York City. All images below courtesy of Letha Wilson.

Capitol Reef Cement Dip (Facedown 1), 2013, Unique c-print, white Portland cement, 37″ x 30″

Storm Cloud Circle Fold (Colorado), 2012, Unique C-prints, adhesive, archival museum board, 21” x 21” x 1 1/2”

Photogram New York (Maine), 2012, Silver gelatin print, C-print, cut and bent, 24” x 18” x 1/2

Badlands White, 2012, Unique C-prints, concrete, powder coated aluminum frame, 28 1/4” x 24 1/4” x 2”

The Wave Concrete Tondo, 2012, C-print transfer, concrete, 28” x 28” x 2”

Colorado Purple, 2012, Unique C-print, concrete, transfer, wood frame, 20” x 20” x 2”

Ghost of a Tree, 2012, Digital print on vinyl, drywall, wood, wood column, 10′ x 8′ x 14′ (image size 13 3/4′ x 8′), Part of the Placemakers exhibition at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE.  January – March 2012.

All Images © Glen Luchford / Dashwood Books

Damaged Negatives,  the new book by fashion photographer Glen Luchford, makes something beautiful out of what sounds like a disaster for any photographer: Several of Luchford’s negatives, including images of Kate Moss and other models, were damaged by water.

“I put the images in storage for two weeks, which turned into two months. The entire storage unit flooded and the owner didn’t tell anyone, so by the time I arrived, the images were just mostly gone or in a state of high deterioration.” But Luchford, who has shot for Italian Vogue, The Face, Prada, Saint Laurent among other clients, was intrigued by the way water subverted his images.  Beautiful faces are obscured by oxidation; couture clothing appears burned. Luchford has said in interviews that he isn’t sure why he treated the negatives so carelessly in the first place, but once they were transformed, he wanted to exhume record them.

Damaged Negatives is published by Dashwood Books, the independent bookstore and publisher, in a limited edition of 1,000 copies.

“Maiike.”  All Images © Malcolm Brown.

Malcolm Brown‘s first exhibition of “The Hundred Dollar Portrait” (an excellent use of Tumblr, in my opinion) opened Friday, May 3 at Poor John’s in Toronto, Canada, and runs through May 31. What is the “Hundred Dollar Portrait?” It is a personal project Brown began working on in 2012, and is continuing. Bring three changes of clothes (something you wear a lot, something that stands out, and something with sex appeal), and let Brown work his camera magic to produce a variety of images of YOU. Contact Brown if you would like one of your own. Results may vary.

“Omari”

“Helen”

“Elenie”

“Vince”

“Tara”

On assignment from the event organizers, Tomasz Lazar photographed a professional pole vault competition in September 2012. Many pole vaulters from around the world were invited to take part in the competition including Björn Otto, winner of the silver medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The entire square of the city of Szczecin, Poland was closed because of the event which provided an unusual backdrop for his images.

Björn Otto concentrating before his jump

Marcin Szczepańzki, a Polish pole vaulter

Björn Otto during his jump

An overview of the city during a pole vaulter’s jump

The Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival runs through May 31st in Toronto, Canada. The festival includes exhibitions and public installations from Sebastião Salgado, Erik Kessels, Martin Parr, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, and Arnold Magg. In addition to these shows, galleries, museums, and other venues will participate in the festival by hosting exhibitions registered and promoted as part of the festival.

Martin Parr, Canada, Toronto, 2012. © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Sebastião Salgado, Botswana, 2008, from the series Genesis. © Sebastião Salgado / Amazona Images

Sebastião Salgado, Amazonas, Brazil, 2009, from the series Genesis. © Sebastião Salgado / Amazonas Images

Erin Kessels, 24hours in Photography, Installation at Foam Amsterdam, 2011. © Photo by Gijs van den Berg

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© Erik Madigan Heck for Stockland Martel

This image was shot for Mary Katrantzou, a Greek fashion designer who currently lives and works in London. It is the fourth collaboration between young designer Mary Katrantzou and photographer Erik Madigan Heck takes the form of a black & white photo series and a short film inspired by Katrantzou’s autumn/winter 2013 collection. The title: “Cathedrals.”  Erik Madigan Heck is the 29th Annual Infinity Awards 2013 recipient of the Applied/Fashion/Advertising category. The Infinity Awards ceremony takes place this evening, May 1st, at Pier Sixty, Chelsea Piers. Other winners include David Goldblatt for the Cornell Capa Lifetime Achievement, Kitra Cahana for Young Photographer and David Guttenfelder for Photojournalism.

“Style and Finesse,” Harlem, NY 2010.  All Images © Jamel Shabazz

Although it’s too late to see Jamel Shabazz‘s “REPRESENT” at the Brooklyn Central Library, you will be able to bring them home in his new book, “REPRESENT: Photographs from 2005-2012 (Jamel Shabazz Productions). The images in this book feature veterans, gang members, mothers, fathers, protesters, fraternities, sororities, and everyday people from diverse cultural and racial backgrounds. “I realized that my life’s mission over these past three decades has been to contribute to the preservation of world history and culture for future generations to see and learn from. “REPRESENT” is just one of many chapters of this endeavor, and I hope that this work will have its place in the chronicles of history alongside other books of similar subject matter.”

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Shabazz has been documenting “urban life” for over 30 years. He gives a lot back to his community by mentoring youth, both in the field of photography and career planning. Represent.

“The Brothers”

“The Divas”

“Breezy Boy Dancers”

“Federations of Black Cowboys,” Hempstead, NY 2010

“Dandy,” Harlem, New York 2010

All Images © Mitch Epstein, from “New York Arbor” (Steidl)

Mitch Epstein‘s new book, “New York Arbor” includes photographs of the idiosyncratic trees that inhabit New York City; these pictures underscore the importance of trees to urban life and their complex relationship to their human counterparts. Rooted in New York’s parks, gardens, sidewalks, and cemeteries, some trees grow wild, some are contortionists adapting to their constricted surroundings, and others are pruned into prize specimens.  Join Mitch Epstein at Cooper Union tonight, Monday, April 29 at 7:00 pm for a discussion about “New York Arbor.” A book signing at Dashwood Books is Tuesday, May 7th.

]]> http://pdnphotooftheday.com/2013/04/20250/feed 3 http://pdnphotooftheday.com/2013/04/20208 http://pdnphotooftheday.com/2013/04/20208#comments Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:00:43 +0000 Amy Wolff http://pdnphotooftheday.com/?p=20208 “A Perfect Mum #4,” 2012  All Images © Miles Aldridge. Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery.

“Miles Aldridge: I Only Want You to Love Me,” a retrospective of the internationally renowned British artist’s cinematic fashion-based work opens May 8th (through June 8, 2013) at Steven Kasher Gallery in New York City. The 20 large-scale color photographs in the exhibition present a satirical, darkly humorous view of women, fashion, and commodification today. Aldridge creates an entirely believable world just slightly beyond our own: hyper-sexualized, hyper-materialistic, and full of dread. Think Stepford Wives on acid.

This exhibition launches Aldridge’s two new books: “Miles Aldridge: I Only Want You to Love Me” (Rizzoli, 2013, introduction by Glenn O’Brien), and “Other Pictures” (Editions 7L/Steidl, 2013). Join Aldridge for a book signing at the opening reception on May 8th, from 6-8pm at the Steven Kasher Gallery.

“The Rooms, #2.” 2011

“I Only Want You To Love Me #1,” 2011

“I Only Want You To Love Me #4,” 2011

“Chromo Thriller #3,” 2012

“Dinner Party #5,” 2009

Brian Kaplan‘s “I’m Not On Your Vacation” is a new series taken around Cape Cod, Massachusetts during the winter months after the tourists have all gone home. People work there for the summer, coming from places like Jamaica and eastern Europe, often times earning more money in one week than they can in a month back home. During the off season, the population plummets.

These images are currently on view at Panopticon Gallery in Boston through May 13th in the  “Views from Cape Cod and the Massachusetts Island” exhibition with Neal Rantoul.

“Leo,” 2011

“Sandcastle Resort,” 2011

“Natalia,” 2011

“The Barn,” 2011

“White Village Cottages,” 2011

What is it like in someone else’s shoes? Caleb Cole’s series, “Other People’s Clothes,” brings us a step closer. This collection of non-traditional self-portraits are a product of Cole’s exploration, wondering what someone else’s life is like. Each photograph in the series is a constructed scene that begins with an outfit or piece of clothing (either bought, found, or borrowed), then a person Cole imagined to fill those clothes, and then a location is chosen. In a statement on Cole’s website he says, “they are portraits of people I have never met but with whom I feel familiar, as well as documents of the process wherein I try on the transitional moments of others’ lives in order to better understand my own.”

The book, “Other People’s Clothes” is available through Cole’s website in a limited edition of 250. As a winner of the Hearst 8×10 Photography Biennial, Cole’s images are currently on view in the atrium at the Hearst Tower through August 31st.

“February is Dental Month”

“Man In Parking Garage”

“The Hunter”

“The Last Page”

“The Pink Kitchen”

“Dendrobium spectabile.”  All Images © Jonathan M. Singer / Courtesy of Abbeville Press

Happy spring everyone! Botanica Magnifica features two hundred and fifty photographs of rare and exotic plants and flowers by Hasselblad Laureate Award winner Jonathan Singer. The original edition of Botanica Magnifica, consisting of five lavishly hand-bound volumes, was limited to just ten copies, the first of which was recently donated to the Smithsonian Institution. The book is published by Abbeville Press in New York, NY.

“Passiflora quadrangularis”

“Euchile citrina”

“Vigna caracalla”

“Hibiscus ‘Silver Memories’”