June 2010

Ivan Pinkava was born in Náchod, northeast Bohemia, in 1961. He graduated from a secondary school specializing in graphic art, and took his post-secondary training at FAMU, Prague, in art photography. Free photography. He is especially interested in the ambiguous character of human affected by such condition of suffering from it. His work is inspired by mythology, ancient tales, religious stories and theatre. Pinkava regularly exhibits in Europe and the United States. His works are part of many public collections both in the Czech Republic and abroad. In 2005 he was appointed the head of the Studio of Photography at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.

Nick Minton is a photography student at Texas A&M University in Commerce, Texas. He is mainly a commercial photographer, but on the side he’s been working on an ongoing project, ‘Days with Rose’. Of this work he writes, ‘This is a personal project for me, some time spent with my great-grandmother, Rose, my personal hero. At ninety years old, after living many years in the house her deceased husband built on several acres of land, she has made the decision to move to a single apartment in an assisted living community. It’s been an ongoing journey, seeing the everyday moments that she and I share, an effort to find out a bit more about Rose’.

Guido Castagnoli was born in Turin, Italy in 1976. After receiving a degree in Advertising Graphics and Communication he began his professional career as an art director of a prominent advertising agency in Milan. His interest in photography began when he shot his first images using an old family-owned Leica. During the following years he left his position at the advertising firm to devote himself entirely to photography. His works have been exhibited in public and private institutions in U.S.A., Italy, Germany, England and Japan. Since 2001 he has worked as freelance photographer in advertising and editorial assignments. He is represented by Periscope Creative, Berlin and Sasha Wolf Gallery, New York. These images are from his ‘Provincial Japan’ series.

Born in 1977 in Cologne and brought up in the southern German countryside, Jan von Holleben lived most of his youth in an alternative commune and identifies a strong connection between the development of his photographic work and the influence of his parents, a cinematographer and child therapist. At the age of 13, he followed his father’s photographic career by picking up a camera and experimenting with all sorts of „magical tricks“, developing his photographic imagination and skills with friends and family and later honing his technique in commercial settings. After pursuing studies in teaching children with disabilities at the Pädagogische Hochschule in Freiburg, he moved to London, earned a degree in the Theory and History of Photography at Surrey Institute of Art and Design, and became submerged within the London photographic scene, where he worked as picture editor, art director and photographic director.

He quickly set up two photographic collectives, Young Photographers United and photodebut, followed more recently by the Photographer’s Office. His body of photographic work focusing on the ‘homo ludens’ – the man who learns through play, is itself built from a playful integration of pedagogical theory with his own personal experiences of play and memories of childhood. Jan von Holleben’s work has been exhibited internationally and published widely throughout the world.

Peter Bialobrzeski (born 1961 in Wolfsburg, Germany) is a photographer and a Professor for photography at the University of the Arts Bremen in Germany. He originally studied politics and sociology in Germany before he studied photography at University of Essen and at the London College of Printing/University of the Arts London. His photographs have been published in many magazines, and Bialobrzeski has worked for corporate clients such as Daimler-Chrysler, Philip Morris, Siemens, and Volkswagen. As a critic, he writes regularly for Photo News and FreeLens. In his new project, Paradise Now, the photographer examines the transformation of urban wastelands, many of them located on the peripheries of cities. The photographs were taken in more than twenty-eight cities and fourteen countries—including Hamburg, Dubai, New York, Singapore, New Delhi, and Kuala Lumpur —and portray the phenomenon of the transition from old to new, from the familiar to the abstract. These images are as seductive as nineteenth-century Romantic paintings, but their apparent beauty is deceptive. Bialobrzeski’s book, ‘Paradise Now’, is available though the publisher, Hatje Cantz.

Paccarik Orue was born in Lima, Peru and currently resides in San Francisco, where he is pursuing a BFA in photography at the Academy of Art University. As a photographer, he is interested in creating work that stirs emotion about his subjects and that leaves the viewers with more questions than answers.These images are part of an ongoing series titled ‘There is Nothing Beautiful Around Here.’ Of this series, he writes:

‘Richmond, California is a place where many families move when they can no longer afford to live in San Francisco or Oakland. In Richmond, the majority of the population is African-American or Hispanic and many residents are struggling with rising unemployment, foreclosure, poverty, and the ensuing violence and substance abuse. This situation has accentuated Richmond’s reputation for being one of the roughest parts of the Bay Area. I initially went to Richmond to explore and see what this infamous area was truly like. During one of my early visits, a middle-aged African-American woman asked me why I was taking pictures in her neighborhood. I answered that it was beautiful. She responded, ‘There is nothing beautiful around here.’ This notion, deeply embedded in the consciousness of Richmond’s residents, triggered my interest to further explore this forlorn city. This body of work documents the hidden charm underneath Richmond’s troubles, what its residents and outsiders fail to see.’

Tyler Gray is a Toronto-based commercial photographer currently working out of Westside Studio and currently looking for US representation. He shot this series in the early morning light of hot summer, at the now defunct Hot Air Balloon Festival in London, Ontario Canada.

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Rose-Lynn Fisher’s fine-art photography explores biological, cultural, and metaphorical thresholds, ranging from the microscopic realm of bees to the liminal spaces of Morocco to the out-cast couches of Hollywood. She has exhibited widely in galleries and museums across the U.S. and abroad, including a mid-career survey at the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art, OK. Her new book, BEE, photographs of bees shot through a scanning electron microscope, is published by Princeton Architectural Press. In 2010 exhibitions of BEE images will be on view at Farmani Gallery NY and Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, and presented at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, among other venues.

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What motivated you to start photographing bees and how long have you been working on this project?
‘I am fascinated by bees, respect and admire them; all that they do perpetuates and adds to life’s bounty. In my mixed media artwork I’ve worked a lot with geometric pattern, primarily with hexagons, and explored sacred geometry. I used to incorporate beeswax and when the windows were open bees would come and visit, and land on the work. But this project really began the first time I saw the bee’s eye and was amazed to see that it echoed the structure of honeycomb. Whether this was a coincidence or a clue to a much deeper meaning inherent in this congruency of form inspired me deeply and made me want to explore further. It has been a gradual process – that first time was back in 1992. So this project has unfolded over years and years, with an evolving emphasis as I’ve come to understand more about bees, about their ongoing challenges and about pollination’.

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You used a scanning electron microscope to capture these close ups of bees with magnifications ranging from 10x to 5000x. How did this process work and what were some of the major discoveries you made?
‘Prior to going into the SEM the bee (it’s not alive) gets gold-coated, something like gold-plating but with such a fine layer that it’s measured in atoms -100-200 atom layers of gold. This provides conductivity and enhances the quality of the image. The coated bee is mounted onto a microscope stage inside a vacuum chamber of the microscope, so it can be viewed in any orientation – tilted, rotated, and position on x, y, z planes. The magnification, contrast, brightness and focus, all go into composing/producing my image. A finely focused electron beam scans across the surface of the bee and through an interface with the computer, generates the image.

‘It’s all a discovery in there! Seeing pollen for the first time was remarkable, one tiny grain so intricately formed. But that is true of all the bee’s anatomy, or geography, as I experienced it. I was thrilled when I’d enter a “region” of something I’ve never seen before, like wing hooks, and to see how practical nature is, practical and sculptural. Or the tarsus, or ‘foot’ area, that looks almost dragon-like to me. It was like driving through an alien terrain. And the sense of scale really plays with my mind; now when I shoot pictures from an airplane window, I am struck by the similarity between what I see through a window from thousands of feet away, and through a microscope’.

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Your Bee series is a departure from your travel and street photography. What was the overall goal of this series and what challenges did you have to overcome?
‘I wouldn’t really call it a departure as much as I’d call it a parallel path. My projects become long-term simply because they evolve over time. I think there’s a lot to be said for the process of getting acquainted with a subject. It’s like when you go somewhere new – what you first see makes an impression; then after awhile you might not even notice it anymore. But then you see other things, find the humor, the pathos, the power of repeated patterns – whether in form, time or culture. Maybe after a while of seeing something, a new point of view emerges, more risk is taken in framing it, which eventually results in a project that’s like having many generations of a family in the same house, each with a particular point of view based on their level of experience. I am also continually surprised by the editing process that shifts over time. Some projects are not meant to go on and on though- the initial spark would just get overworked instead of being allowed to smolder.

‘It’s also interesting to watch how one project has an influence on another. For example, the thrill of discovery has a liberating effect on my overall vision, stretching the boundaries of my perception. So composing an image of abandoned couches on the streets of Hollywood is somehow influenced by the excitement I felt looking at the wild looking glossa of a bee’s proboscis… The SEM has given me the opportunity to look at the actuality of a bee; here is one tiny element of our whole world, and it’s a whole world in itself! But then everything around us is so complex when you penetrate even just a little. For me this speaks to the continuum of life from the macro to the micro, from humor to tragedy, celebration to decimation- so many realities of life on earth happening at the same time.

‘The challenges of this project are in a way the same as all my others – to find and present what’s most visually and conceptually meaningful/compelling to me, and hope that it is received in kind. With this work I hope to foster deeper curiosity, greater appreciation, awe and marvel for the honeybee; after seeing what the bee looks like so close up, I think it’s impossible to think of it in the same way.

‘It’s been very gratifying to have a crossover of interest in the project from both fine-art and science. I feel deeply fortunate for the BEE exhibition at Farmani Gallery in NY, and working with the superb gallery director Elizabeth Barragan; and for my upcoming exhibit at Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica in November. And this fall, the bees will be exhibited at the Life Science Museum at BYU in Provo, UT’.

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Princeton Architectural Press has recently released your book, BEE. How did that come about and can you talk a little about your editing process for the book?
‘I met my editor, Jennifer Thompson, at Review Santa Fe, a portfolio review produced by Center. This is an opportunity to meet and show work to people who are not usually accessible for this level of attention and discussion, a fertile ground for planting seeds. She encouraged me to submit a proposal and we went from there, one step slowly to the next.

The editing process was very organic. At PAP they work thoughtfully, comprehensively, and as a tight team; extremely intelligent and creative, and nice too. There was a lot of give and take in our discussions and so it felt right as we went along. I learned a lot through the collaborative process that goes into producing a book; it’s very different than working in isolation on one’s own, and there’s a lot of trust necessary on both ends. It’s been a wonderful experience with them, both in the making of BEE, and now in the activities that support its existence and distribution’.

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How did this project change the way you previously thought about bees and what do you think about the increase of urban dwellers raising bees on rooftops?
‘I continue to learn more and more about honey bees, and meet people of shared passion for them. Now I want to learn beekeeping too. How excellent that New Yorkers can now keep bees in the city. There was just a BEE-day celebration at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, in honor of their centennial year. Thousands of people came and met beekeepers who brought their hives and bee products, as well as films and presentations. It’s wonderful that this is happening – and necessary’.

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