October 2011

London-based duo Mike Diver, photographer, and Pedro Aguilar, fine artist and retoucher, met five years ago and quickly formed a successful creative partnership, Diver & Aguilar. This work is from a series of portraits taken of matadors in Spain.

Madrid-based photographer Marta Soul is a founding member of NOPHOTO, a collective of contemporary photographers. Her projects reflect on the interplay between images and reality, as well as the mutual influence that each has on the other’s meaning. She is interested in exploring contemporary society’s determined roles for identity, sexuality, culture, and appearance.

Of this series, Idilios, she writes, ‘Idilios (Spanish lyrical word for ‘romances’ in English) shows a series of romantic recreations based on amorous experiences represented by the same woman (the artist’s alter ego) kissing different men in various places. The series is constructed in an ideal context in order to accentuate the romantic love experience. A jewellery shop, a golf course and a luxury hotel appear as appropriate sites in which to stage romance. Experiences are more intense and happiness is materialized. The kiss is the main act and the only one, a symbol of the stereotyped romantic situation. What the red-headed star of the series does is consume that moment as fully as possible.

‘The man appears as the woman’s partenaire: he is just one more element, not a co-star, and therefore he changes with the setting. The action is dehumanized to some extent by this reiteration of instants that give priority to light, luxury and form over emotions. Constant renewal seems to be the only path to reach our ideal, which is perhaps more in line with an advertising slogan than with any other belief. The reflection in this work originates in trying to understand how we integrate our emotions into a consumer lifestyle in which everything has to be attractive yet has an expiry date because there is a constant search to change for something better’.

Idilios will be on exhibition at Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles from October 29-December 24, 2011.

Bela Borsodi was born in Vienna 1966. After studying graphic design and fine art he started to work as a photographer. In 1992 Borsodi moved to New York and in 1999 he focused on still life photography, which is still the main direction of his work. Borsodi lives and works in New York. This series, Skin Flicker, was shot for S Magazine.

‘Everything manmade references nature,’ Torkil Gudnason says. The fashion photographer uses exaggerated lighting and colored filters to amplify the verdant fragility of the flowers and plants he photographs. ‘They change and evolve. Not one moment is the same. Sometimes they start to die and sometimes they begin to live’. The resulting images celebrate nature’s endless permutations, evoking millennia of evolution in the curvature of a single stem. This work is from his fine art series, Hothouse Color. Gudnason is represented by ARTIST & AGENCY.

Based in Paris, and partly New York, Rasmus Mogensen has been working professionally as a fashion & beauty photographer for the past 18 years. Mogensen had his first independent photo exhibition at age 17 at Gallery Photografica in Copenhagen. His fine art photography is now represented worldwide by Fahey/Klein Gallery.

Laetitia Bica lives in Brussesls and works in between Brussels and Paris. In her photos, she plays with reality, and transforms what she sees into her own vision of beauty, full of clichés and humor. Bica photographs for art and fashions magazines including Marie-Claire, Le Vif Weekend, Show off, Vice, and Zoot among others.

Peru salt terraces

Clint McLean is a photographer and photo editor based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He is frequently traveling the greater Middle East and occasionally Africa or beyond. Of this series, Salt, he writes: ‘I have been photographing salt for about four years now. In that time I have gone to Ethiopia, France, Peru, Yemen, Mali and many other places to photograph it from the places it is harvested. My salt project started out though as a fascination that something so mundane and overlooked could come from landscapes so amazing. The project has now evolved to become a landscape based comment on grand beginnings having humble endings – and vice-versa – simple things that hide majestic pasts. The salt work is also in a subtle way about myself. The documenting of the salt also serves as document of my travels and provides a focus for my trips. These salt adventures are as much for the love of travel as they are for the photos’.

Yemen salt ponds

Salt near the Dead Sea, Israel

Salt in the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

Salt mining, Yemen

Lake Rose, Senegal

New York City fashion photographer Torkil Gudnason was inspired to create this series of pampered dogs when he stumbled into a dog show and was struck by similarities between the coiffed pups and their owners. “Our dogs really are reflections of us,” he says. Torkil’s clients include Vogue, Surface, Detour, Neiman Marcus, Calvin Klein, Armani, Givenchy, and Rolex among many others. Gudnason is represented by Judy Casey for editorial work and Artist & Agency for fine art.

Chris Davis grew up on the north shore of Chicago – leaving to attend Parsons School of Design, where he studied photography. After graduation, he went to assist full time for Hiro, and, then worked full time for James Nachtwey as his studio manager. Since then, Davis has worked on a variety of projects both commercial and editorial. This work is from his series, Safari, which was shot in South Africa. Davis writes: ‘As I sat in the Land Rover and looked around, it all seemed fake – like I was in front of the dioramas at the Museum of Natural History. Even the animals appeared to be posing’. Davis is based in Brooklyn.