Sydney-based photographer Svetlana Bailey’s quiet, poetic images of hazy landscapes assume a sense of mystery. Through the occurrence of fog, the familiar is at once transformed into the unacquainted—much like when one’s backyard becomes something else entirely when covered in a blanket of snow—evoking the obscure and shifting the seen into something felt.

This post was contributed by photographer Katrin Koenning.

The most intriguing part of Australian photographer Steve Back’s gorgeously graphic series Hutt Lagoon is that the bright pink-colored water is all natural. “The images are not manipulated for color,” said Back. “I was commissioned to shoot some abstract landscape shots of Western Australia for a big Perth hotel. I chartered a light aircraft to explore shooting some islands off the coast of Northern WA. I had noticed these lakes on the map and Google Earth, and decided that they were worth a look. From the ground, the pink coloring is not so evident and a bit unimpressive, yet from the air, it looks fantastic. These are natural landscapes but the coloring is out of this world. And at first sight it is not easy to tell whether they are close up or far away.”

Hutt Lagoon is the world’s largest Beta Carotene farm (produced by naturally occurring algae in the water). In the middle of the lagoon are a series of manmade ponds that form the fundamental composition elements of Back’s images.

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

Kelly Hussey-Smith and Alan Hill are two photographers based in Brisbane, Australia. Working individually and collaboratively, they seek to tell stories about the human condition. In Central Queensland Project, the photographers explore an economically powerful region of Australia largely unknown to the outside world.

A significant hub for primary industries, the area is one of the country’s major coal producing regions. In their study of Central Queensland (CQ), the pair was “initially drawn to the unique visual characteristics of the area: cane fields, minescapes, impeccable suburban lawns, and the vastness of the land.” However, they soon noticed CQ to be in a state of transition. A work in progress, this project delves into the realities of this transition, drawing a record of contemporary life in Central Queensland.

This post was contributed by photographer Katrin Koenning.

David Burdeny’s graphic Drift series began while he was studying for a degree in architecture in Canada. Inspired by Mark Rothko’s multiform paintings, the series began as a study in landscape and space, using seasonal color and the horizon as the basis of the project. The initial shots were taken near his home in Winnipeg, Canada, but extended across the oceans to England, France and Japan.

The photographs are all of bodies of water, shot with film. The ‘blur’ effect is created directly in-camera using a Roundshot panoramic camera that modified the film internally while the body remained motionless. This technique created a horizontal ‘smearing’ of any stationary objects in the frame, similar to the effect a photo-finish camera has in sporting events. Burdeny found that shooting in areas with strong lighting and heavy contrast produced the best results. The final images are essentially digital prints, but as Burdeny says, although the effect could be created in Photoshop, he prefers to create the blur in-camera, which he believes creates a softer, yet stronger effect.

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

All over the country, rest areas are losing the fight to commercial alternatives: drive-thrus at every exit and mega-sized travel centers offering car washes, wi-fi, grilled paninis and bladder-busting sized fountain drinks. Louisiana has closed 24 of its 34 stops, Virginia, 18 of its 42; pretty much every state in the country has reduced its number of rest areas, or at least cut operating hours. And they’re not just being closed, they’re being demolished.

For the past 53 years, rest stops have given us rest, relief, hospitality and nostalgia. They have been an oasis of green to walk your dog, have a picnic, study the map. We can all relate to rest stops and what they represent as social and architectural icons of Americana. To me though, they are disappearing waysides of memories, anticipation and mystery of what the next one down the road will look like.—Ryann Ford

Austin-based photographer Ryann Ford honors the charm of roadside rest stops throughout the U.S. in her series Rest Stops: Vanishing Relics of the American Roadside. Inspired to systematically document them before they disappear, Ford creates a typological highlight of their architecture, environment, and spirit.

White Sands National Monument, New Mexico

Near Burleson, Texas – I-35

Galveston, Texas

Walker Lake, Nevada – U.S. 95

Near Thackerville, Oklahoma – I-35

Monument Valley, Arizona

Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

Near Abiquiu, New Mexico – U.S. 84

Juan Santa Cruz Picnic Area – Tucson, Arizona

Near Augustus, Texas – U.S. 84

Saguaro National Park, Arizona

Anthony, New Mexico – I-10 – New Mexico/Texas Border

If you’re a photographer, you can now promote your new series, website, gallery show, recent assignment, etc. on Feature Shoot for an affordable price. Find out about becoming a Spotlight Photographer here.

Austrailian-based photographer Graham Miller combines constructed portraits, documentary street portraits, landscapes and still lifes in a series named after the 1992 Leonard Cohen song, Waiting for the Miracle. Miller explores narratives created through the interplay of these images and the connections made between them. While this results in an open ended and ambiguous experience, the images seem to hold compelling stories within the fictional coastal town Miller has constructed. Miller echoes the words of photographer Robert Adams in his statement, speaking of the young protagonists that “cling precariously but tenaciously to a sense of possibility, hope, and resolve.”

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.

Black Maps is San Francisco-based photographer David Maisel’s new book of over 100 photographs spanning his career. The book combines various aerial projects documenting environmentally impacted sites; land that has been transformed and altered by industrial efforts—mining, logging, water reclamation, and military testing.

Maisel’s photographs are stunning in their beauty and challenging in their reveal. They capture the complex relationship between the natural world and the humans that intervene; a relationship that forever begs for balance. Maisel describes the sites as “contemplative gardens of our time, places that offer the opportunity to reflect on who and what we are collectively, as a society.”

Published by Steidl, Black Maps will be released on April 1, 2013.

Terminal Mirage 2, David Maisel/INSTITUTE

Terminal Mirage 5, David Maisel/INSTITUTE

The Lake Project 16, David Maisel/INSTITUTE

Terminal Mirage 24, David Maisel/INSTITUTE

Oblivion 18n, David Maisel/INSTITUTE

American Mine (Carlin, NV 1), David Maisel/INSTITUTE

The Mining Project (Butte MT 3), David Maisel/INSTITUTE

Terminal Mirage 15 (Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty), David Maisel/INSTITUTE

The Lake Project 20, David Maisel/INSTITUTE

Black Maps (Bingham Canyon, Utah 2), David Maisel/INSTITUTE

American Mine (Carlin, Nevada 22), David Maisel/INSTITUTE

Terminal Mirage 17, David Maisel/INSTITUTE

Although I’ve been remotely inspired by the song Winter Wonderland, my main focus is to explore the idea of a wonderland in wintertime Japan. Winter in Japan can be extremely harsh but I seek moments of euphoric serenity that it also offers every now and then. That’s where I believe Winter Wonderland resides.—Takeshi Suga

It’s almost as if we’re looking through snow-dusted glasses at Japanese photographer Takeshi Suga’s new series. Serene and quiet, Suga brings a warming glow to his wintery landscapes.

Now based in Kobe, Japan, Suga lived and worked in the UK until 2012 working predominantly for NME, shooting on the road with bands Mogwai, Frank Turner and The Wombats. His personal work is often whimsical and delicate.

The topic for the next Feature Shoot online group show will be photos of foggy landscapes.

Photographers are invited to submit images and captions to:
submissions@featureshoot.com

Up to five images can be submitted (480 pixels wide, 72 dpi, saved for web under 65kb). The deadline for submissions is March 22, 2013.