fine art photography

During her work as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Chile’s Astronomical Observatory, Los Angeles-based photographer Aspen Mays conceived the unique project, Sun Ruins. She found an abandoned darkroom at the Observatory containing discarded astronomical prints and negatives, some more than a half-century-old. For the series Sun 1957, she used a collection of mid-century silver gelatin prints of sunspots. Contact prints of the negatives were made into prints arranged to simulate a sun calendar. The series Punched Out Stars was created from old silver gelatin prints, using a simple hole punch to remove star images from the photos—a technique that yielded some beautifully abstract forms.

Feature Shoot Contributing Editor Carolyn Rauch is the Deputy Director of Photography at Newsweek.

Cinematic, richly saturated images reveal UK-based Hannah Starkey’s deeply personal vision. She chooses seemingly simple scenes—often of a single woman, alone, in a public place, preoccupied with an ordinary task. But she situates the subject in an environment of glass, windows or mirrors that partially obscure the subject while the reflections add dimension and mood to the portrait. Though the photographs at first seem tranquil and contemplative, a second look suggests a deeper, more complex narrative.

Feature Shoot Contributing Editor Carolyn Rauch is the Deputy Director of Photography at Newsweek.

Dan Allegretto’s delicately observed pictures document his surroundings. A recent graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology, he is now based in Brooklyn, NY.
With the palette of a watercolored sunset faded by the sun itself, these images work like a highly personal journal filled with light and warmth. They are made universally relatable not only by their beauty, but also by the way Allegretto seems to offer the viewer little gifts—the experience of looking at them is like receiving a bouquet of flowers from a stranger.

Feature Shoot Contributing Editor Matthew Leifheit is an independent writer, curator, and photographer based in New York City.

We move along the arrow of time as stationary observers, watching the world transform before our very eyes, yet rarely aware of our transition into ‘the future’. Billions removes us from this stationary reality for a brief moment, lifting us to the surface for air. From this detached place, these images allow us to see our world, yet we feel neither comfortable nor uncomfortable about it. In our times, the concept of a ‘billion’ no longer overwhelms us. We now recognize a new kind of whole. It is a work that allows you to recognize your world and your place within it.—Ward Roberts

Billions, a series by Melbourne-based photographer Ward Roberts, captures the energy of bustling, urban Hong Kong in his boundless, twinkling captures of light, pattern and form. Each image is an intriguing world of its own, full of possibility, wonder, and begging for exploration.

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A retrospective of secretive genius Keith Smith is currently on view at Bruce Silverstein Gallery. Spanning from the 1960s through the 80s, it offers a rare glimpse at his personal work. Primarily known for his artist books and for his seminal instructional texts on bookmaking, Smith has never actively sought attention for his own photographs. As a result many of the works in this exhibition are being seen for the first time.

Although these methods are not in fashion among contemporary practitioners—layered negatives, sewn together prints, historical printmaking techniques such as photo-etching and drypoint—the show is a breath of fresh air in a climate of digital sharpness and perfection. Smith enlivens and warms these very personal images by working back into them manually, making the artist’s hand an integral part of the image. He often uses the same negatives over and over, rhythmically questioning the boundaries of photography, creating jazzlike variations on themes of love and desire.

The exhibition runs through June 1st, 2013.

Feature Shoot Contributing Editor Matthew Leifheit is an independent writer, curator, and photographer based in New York City.

Arne Svenson, The Neighbors #1, 2012, pigment print, 63 x 26″, ed. 5

For my subjects there is no question of privacy; they are performing behind a transparent scrim on a stage of their own creation with the curtain raised high. The Neighbors don’t know they are being photographed; I carefully shoot from the shadows of my home into theirs. I am not unlike the birder, quietly waiting for hours, watching for the flutter of a hand or the movement of a curtain as an indication that there is life within.—Arne Svenson

After inheriting a bird-watching telephoto lens from a friend, New York-based photographer Arne Svenson embarked on an intriguing and voyeuristic project, The Neighbors, capturing little stolen moments of the residents of a glass-walled apartment building across the street from his NYC studio. The resulting images are small movements and quiet details; they are the moments when noone’s looking—until now.

The Neighbors opens May 9 at Julie Saul Gallery in New York and will remain on view through June 29, 2013.

The Neighbors #17, 2012, pigment print, 47 1/2″ x 30″

The Neighbors #16, 2012, pigment print, 46″ x 30″

Arne Svenson, The Neighbors #12, 2012, pigment print, 46 x 26″, ed. 5

Arne Svenson, The Neighbors #11, 2012, pigment print, 45 x 30″, ed. 5

Arne Svenson, The Neighbors #9, 2012, pigment print, 45 x 30″, ed. 5

The Neighbors #8, 2012, pigment print, 39″ x 30″

Arne Svenson, The Neighbors #5, 2012, pigment print, 44 1/2 x 30″, ed. 5

The Neighbors #4, 2012, pigment print, 45″ x 30″

Arne Svenson, The Neighbors #2, 2012, pigment print, 45 x 30″, ed. 5

All images courtesy of Julie Saul Gallery, New York

Grüß Gott – a fairy tale is a project by Austrian-born, Berlin-based photographer Florian Reischauer in which he revists his childhood home, a small village in Austria—a place that now seems surreal to him. Endless waves of grain and verdant pastures combine with fairy tale-like characters as he explores memory, tradition, and the cycle of time in a narrative that seems to remain quite open-ended.

GB. England. Kent. Margate. 1986. from Life’s A Beach (Aperture, 2013)

You can read a lot about a country by looking at its beaches: across cultures, the beach is that rare public space in which all absurdities and quirky national behaviors can be found.—Martin Parr

We can’t say enough about British photographer Martin Parr’s new book, Life’s a Beach, published by Aperture this year. Parr’s coastal infatuation started in the 1970s—you may recall his 1986 release of The Last Resort, a capture of the seaside resort of New Brighton, near Liverpool. He has since continued to document beach-goers from all corners of the world—Argentina, Brazil, China, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Japan, the United States, Mexico, Thailand, and of course, the U.K. Compiling 100 sun-soaked images of intriguing and eccentric characters in sand and sea, Life’s a Beach is a true delight.

Italy. Lake Garda. Riva del Garda. 1999. from Life’s A Beach (Aperture, 2013)

GB. England. Mablethorpe. 1992. from Life’s A Beach (Aperture, 2013)

GB. England. Weymouth. 2000. from Life’s A Beach (Aperture, 2013)

Japan. Miyazaki. The Ocean Dome. 1996. from Life’s A Beach (Aperture, 2013)

Belgium. Knokke. 2001. from Life’s A Beach (Aperture, 2013)

Italy. Lake Garda. 1999. from Life’s A Beach (Aperture, 2013)

Japanese photographer Ayaka Yamamoto’s portraits play with the idea of identity; not so much with how one is created but rather how one is stripped away. In 2009, Yamamoto traveled to Estonia and Latvia in Northern Europe to capture these shots—lands that were far different from her own. She says the language barrier and unfamiliar culture enabled her to view her subjects as “new beings”, free of information and context built up over time. They are presented as mysterious and intriguing, almost in a state of transition—it’s hard to discern where they’ve been or where they’re headed.