© Steven Lippman

Steven Lippman shot these self-portraits (gnarly, right?!) using the GoPro Hero3 Black Edition. Surfing with a camera attached to your arm or board takes some getting used to. It’s all about personal preference on what type of angle you want…GoPro has done a really great job of making the camera small, lightweight and versatile.

Lippman loves to surf in Malibu during the winter, but also enjoys traveling and surfing in remote parts of Indonesia. “The best time [to surf] is when all the elements come together – wind, swell direction and tide.” Follow his adventures on Instagram @stevenlippman.

Moments: Surf Culture by Steven Lippman opens March 21st at 5th & Sunset Studios in Los Angeles. GoPro donated equipment for the show which will be auctioned off with 100% of the proceeds going to  A Walk On Water. Lippman is represented by Stockland Martel. (more…)

Untitled, from the series Stucco, 1973-76
Gelatin silver print
5 x 7 inches (12.7 x 17.8 cm)
Edition 3/6, 2 AP

This selection of Los Angeles-based Judy Fiskin‘s gelatin silver prints captures varied landscapes and vernacular architecture highlighting planned and unplanned symmetries, natural forms mirroring man-made, and anthropomorphic structures in several site-specific series. Informed by her study of art history, Fiskin’s attraction to her signature small-scale photography arose from looking and discovering works of art through reproductions. Humor permeates these series where certain information, emotions and ideas of beauty are shown through visual means. Fiskin edits her surroundings, underlining certain repeated visual choices made by the public at large, and presents variations on a theme.

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All Photos © Kevin Cooley.

Skyward  is Kevin Cooley’s new video installation project portraying Los Angeles’ manufactured landscape and its relationship to the natural world. Presented as a projection on the ceiling, the work is a metaphysical gaze skyward – past the gridlock of street-level to the pristine blue sky promising freedom and limitless possibility.

Shot entirely in L.A. County, the work is comprised of hundreds of individual shots, presented in one continuous sequence. Cooley explains the visual narrative: ”We begin downtown near Bunker Hill and make stops through various parts of the city. Flurries of overlapping flight paths, of birds, helicopters and more, are punctuated by the brief appearance of iconic southern California structural elements such as freeway interchanges and rows of palm trees and we discover interdependent ecosystems largely overlooked in everyday life.” Cooley’s installation is on view  at YOUNGPROJECTS, a contemporary gallery for moving images, until March 9, 2012. (more…)

All photos © Henry Wessel/ Pace MacGill Gallery.

Since the 1960s, Wessel has photographed vernacular scenes of the American West, particularly in California. Immediately drawn to the quality of light he encountered during a visit from New York to Los Angeles, Wessel moved cross-country to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1971. From stretches of dusty highway to modest California bungalows framed by telephone poles and palm trees, Wessel’s often spare and solitary images capture the idiosyncrasies and irony of American life with a wry objectivity. His photographs of parking lots, beach-goers, and shrubbery — all illuminated by the brilliance of Western light — find beauty and intrigue in the commonplace and document the social landscape in a manner that is casual yet formally compelling. An exhibition featuring 29 vintage photographs taken by Wessel from the late 1960s to the late 1980s opens tomorrow evening at the Pace MacGill gallery. The exhibition is on view until July 11, 2011.

-Pace MacGill Gallery

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