November 2011

Malayan Coral Snake

Mark Laita is an advertising and fine art photographer based in Los Angeles. This work is from his project, Serpentine, of which he writes:

‘The sensual attractiveness of snakes, which coexists with their threatening, unpredictable and mysterious nature is truly unique. This dichotomy, in which their beauty seems to be heightened by their danger, and vice-versa, is what I find so fascinating. Add to these contradictions the rich symbolism of serpents and you have a wonderfully compelling subject’.

Beautiful Pit Viper

Coral Snake

Emerald Tree Boa with babies

Philippine Pit Viper

King Cobra

Rhinocerus Viper

Mussarana (juvenile)

Red Tail Boa

Kim Holtermand is a photographer located in Denmark. Of this series, Deserted City, he writes:

‘The Deserted City series was shot in and around Copenhagen on an early Sunday morning. The weather forecast had promised a lot of fog in the capital, so I packed my gear and drove towards the center of the city. Most people were still sleeping so there was this eerie, apocalyptic mood all around. Many of the streets where empty and buildings that were normally full of life stood stranded like the aftermath of a nuclear war. It was the canvas of my dreams’.

Photo by Albert Bonsfills

Maurizio Strippoli is a Milan-based fine art photographer. This work is from his series, Inside, in which he writes:

‘In my photos I feel a sense of being “inside”; not only inside the rooms but also inside other lives, inside a time I feel is passing by even if everything seems still, inside a whiteness which reveals or hides other stories’.

Mistress Arella I

Kate Peters was born in the city of Coventry; located deep in the heartland of the UK. Discovering photography in secondary school she soon became inspired by
exposure to artists such as Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe and Cindy Sherman. After receiving a BA (hons) in Photography from Falmouth College of Arts, Cornwall, Peters spent a four years assisting photographer Nadav Kander and developing her own personal works.

Now living in London her beautifully observant portraiture and editorial work explores ‘the environments we, as humans inhabit on both physical and psychological levels’ and her work regularly appears in publications such as Monocle, Exit, Guardian Weekend, The Independent New Review and The Telegraph. Several of her photographs are held at the National Portrait Gallery in London and she is represented by Institute Artists Management London. Of this series, yes, Mistress, she writes:

Visual explorations of gender, power, absence and memory combine to form the underlying themes in my work. ‘yes, Mistress’ looks at the world of the Dominatrix and the male slaves that serve them in dungeons throughout the UK. I am interested in challenging traditional representations of women and exploring alternative roles of women in contemporary society. I am fascinated by the way participants are temporarily able to enter an alternative reality, to step into a role, the same way an actor takes on a part. For the past two years I have been photographing professional Dominatrix, combing portraits with mise en scene, the images are fragments of a story revealing a side of life in the UK not often seen. Isolated from their surroundings the women portrayed become icons of a hidden world, it is left for the viewer to wonder as to who they really are.

Mistress Morrigan

Maid Franchesca II

Goddess Sophia

Miss Toe Tease

Mistress C

Madame C

Mistress Absolute

Mistress V

Maid Franchesca I

Working primarily in photography, Los Angeles-based Sidonie Loiseleux explores the materiality of the medium through physical manipulations of the two-dimensional object. Permanent cavity, a ballistic term used to refer to the hole left by the passage of a projectile, is a series of images related to the displacement of matter. The images for this project were picked from the 22 million images of black holes brought up in a Google search and xeroxed 22 times.

Vue photographer Garry Simpson took a rather unconventional route into the world of photography. He spent eight highly charged years in the Marines, but decided that a lifelong career as a soldier wasn’t for him. Having always been captivated by pictures, he enrolled in a full time photography course at Bournemouth Art College and quickly found himself lured by the excitement of the advertising industry.

This personal project takes a closer look at a true institution -the men and women who work on the beauty counters in London’s best-known department stores and make up studios.

Photo by Nick Meek

Katherine Squier is a photographer living in Austin, Texas. Of her work, she writes:

I try to live with awareness and photography allows me to capture moments that inspire me as I live them. The majority of my photos are shot with a point and shoot that I carry in my purse- and whether it’s something I see that I frenziedly try to pull out my camera and capture, or beautiful light that catches me eye that I ask a friend to stand in, I rarely ever premeditate a photo. By knowing of the beauty but never looking for it, I find life is infinitely full of ‘photos’ waiting to be taken.