HUSSEIN (2017)

Montreal-based photographer Yannis Davy Guibinga, who was born and raised in Gabon, recently asked an auditorium of people at the University of Toronto, “Can you believe that in 2017, some people still think Africa’s a country?” Everyone laughed. He smiled, “It’s funny, but it’s true.” Then he looked at the audience seriously. The tone shifted.

At twenty-two, Guibinga is part of a growing movement of young artists reshaping the way the world understands Africa and its diaspora. His voice rises above the din of centuries of misinformation, prejudice, and revised history to tell personal and universal stories about what it means to be part of the continent.

No Goodbye

Her eyes once filled with joy
Until he said, ‘Why not a boy?’

She followed in her childlike trance
Waiting for a loving look, or a backward glance.

No man should ever leave,
A little girl who says, ‘Daddy Please’.

Copycat Dolls

Fickle followers of fashion
Flock to the frilly frock and mock,
The very stature that should matter.

Where follies of copycat dollies
Prance pristine with glamorous gleam.

From day to day, with nothing to say.

Gillian Hyland’s photographs aren’t “real” in the strictest sense, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t “true.”

The pictures are based on the artist’s own poems, which are based on real life, but the final results are elaborately staged pieces of theater. She casts her models, chooses the location, selects the wardrobe, and gives mood boards to hair and make-up artists to inspire the final look.

Now in its sixth year, Photoville by United Photo Industries opens Wednesday, September 13th, at Brooklyn Bridge Park. The massive (and free) event will include more than 55 of the signature Photoville gallery exhibitions, all beautifully installed in recycled shipping containers.

As always, your favorite food vendors will return, along with a community book store by Red Hook Editions. Penumbra Foundation will once again be making tintype portraits. There is an abundance of exhibitions, workshops, and panels scheduled this year– and many opportunities to discuss some of the world’s most pressing issues: climate change, immigration, poverty, incarceration.

Whether you’re looking to escape the world’s headlines or confront them headfirst, Photoville 2017 promises to deliver. Here are just a few of the exhibitions and panels we’re most excited to see. Be sure to check out the full line-up here.

HM01 Spectogram

RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus

No world government has ever confirmed the use of numbers stations, but none have flatly denied it either. The stations date back to the Cold War, perhaps earlier, and many are still transmitting. Often, it’s a string of numbers recited by a computerized female voice— sometimes the voice of a child.

According to the thousands of enthusiasts who monitor them, the broadcasts could be coded messages sent from intelligence agencies to their spies. They cover vast distances, and they’re impossible to decode. When the public asks, government officials and bureaucrats typically respond with something like, “We don’t intend to discuss these stations, if any exist at all.”

For London photographer Lewis Bush, that’s not enough. He’s devoted two years to investigating and locating possible stations. He spoke to some of the dedicated “numbers monitors” who have spent much of their lives scrutinizing the broadcasts. He also studied declassified documents, history books, interviews, and first-person accounts by former agents.

I had featured the work of New Orleans artist Lee Deigaard a few years ago, and I was so excited when I learned she’d be at the Living With Animals conference at Eastern Kentucky University in March so we could finally meet. I love the photographs in her series Equuleus (“part of a multi-media long-term project, In Your Dreams [Horses], exploring horse personality and individuality, sensory processing and proprioception, concepts of invitation, initiation, and trespass, and shared thresholds of experience between horse and human”) for their playful concept, their surreal, otherworldly quality, and the series’ thoughtful, poetic statement.

In his series The Fire in the Freezer, Tucson, Arizona artist Serge J-F. Levy documents “the small happenings of life and the ordinary scenes in the extra-terrestrial landscape of the American Southwest.” The project, which was awarded special recognition by the Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in 2015, moves beyond documentary or landscape photography to describe the artist’s shift from life in New York City to the Sonoran Desert, from black and white street photography to color images that focus on scenes in nature, and from one “place” in life to another.

So far this summer, photographer Rhiannon Taylor has sipped wine on a balcony while looking out over Sydney Harbour Bridge, dined on hot and sour soup in Siem Reap while listening to the sound of singing monks, and visited a TriBeCa penthouse with a rooftop garden.

In the last year alone, she’s traveled throughout Australia, South Africa, Bali, Abu Dhabi, Italy, the US, and more. She’s chronicled these unforgettable trips on her blog, In Bed With, where she takes followers on an international adventure, stopping over in some of the most unique and unconventional hotels, resorts, and lodges on earth.

A Rhiannon Taylor photograph is instantly recognizable. It’s clean and luxurious, and most often, it’s accompanied by travel notes, detailing where she ate, where she slept, where she wandered. Frequent comments on her Instagram include: “So jealous!” “Sounds Heavenly!!” and “This looks like the perfect place to escape!” (exclamation marks included).

When building her blog and her commercial website, Taylor chose Squarespace, a platform that understood her pristine aesthetic and on-the-go lifestyle. We asked the photographer to tell us about her life, her travels, and everything she’s learned along the way.

Black Eye Gallery

In a digital world, physical photographic prints are precious.

Since Feature Shoot launched The Print Swap earlier this year, it has continued to grow with over 2,500 selected photographers swapping prints with other photographers around the world.

For our second Print Swap exhibition, Alison Zavos, Feature Shoot Editor-in-Chief, and Black Eye Gallery Director and Photographer Tom Evangelidis will be selecting approximately 40 landscape photographs from The Print Swap for an exhibition at Black Eye Gallery in the Darlinghurst neighborhood of Sydney, Australia. Devoted entirely to contemporary photography, Black Eye Gallery represents emerging and established artists. Photographers who have exhibited at Black Eye Gallery include Sandro Miller, Ron Haviv, Robin Schwartz, Nick Brandt, Simon Harsent, Robyn Beeche, and Frank Ockenfels.

Photographers of all genres are invited to submit work. Simply tag your photos #theprintswap on Instagram or email your images (at 620 px wide) to [email protected] As always, submitting to The Print Swap is free, though winners pay one-time fee $40 per image to be included. We cover printing and shipping costs. While The Print Swap is ongoing and there is no deadline to submit images, photographers should apply by October 10, 2017 at 11:59PM EST to be considered for this show.

Only new landscape images submitted between today, September 4th, and October 10th will be considered for the show. Images that have been submitted and chosen for The Print Swap prior to September 4th, 2017, will not be considered, though previous participating photographers are more than welcome to submit new images. The Print Swap show will run from October 30th through November 12th, 2017.

Learn more at www.theprintswap.com and follow along at @theprintswap on Instagram for updates. And be sure to check out the winners of the first ever Print Swap exhibition, happening this summer at Photoville at Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Black Eye Gallery

Black Eye Gallery

Broadway, 1954.

Feast Of San Gennaro, Little Italy, New York, 1952.

Coney Island, 1953

Now in his 89th year, American photographer Marvin E. Newman is receiving his due as one of the finest street photographers of the twentieth century. His self-titled monograph, just released as a XXL Collector’s Edition from Taschen showcases his vibrant collection of cityscapes made in New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles—as well as in the Heartland of the nation and the outskirts of Alaska between the years 1950 and 1983.

Born in the Bronx in 1927, Newman studied photography and sculpture at Brooklyn College with Walter Rosenblum. He joined the Photo League in 1948 before moving to Chicago the following year to study with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Institute of Design. “They taught you to keep your mind open and go further, and always respond to what you are making,” Newman remembered.