I was invited to write about my work, over a year ago. I was asked on July 13, 2012, 3:44 AM, for a thousand words. I froze up. Asking me to write about my work seemed overwhelming, let alone, intimidating. I couldn’t do it. A few attempts led nowhere. Probably 150 words, then nothing. Yes, I’ve done artist’s statements, technical articles, syllabi and course descriptions, but this essay seemed impossible. I wasn’t stymied so much about the length, as by the content. What could words reveal that my photographs didn’t? A few months ago, reading the chapter on “Writing” from Why People Photograph by Robert Adams, I felt exonerated:

“The frequency with which photographers are called upon to talk about their pictures is possibly related to the apparent straightforwardness of their work. Photographers look like they must record what confronts them – as is. Shouldn’t they be expected to compensate for this woodenness by telling us what escaped outside the frame and by explaining why they chose their subject? The assumption is wrong, of course, but an audience that knows better is small, certainly smaller than for painting. Photographers envy painters because they are usually allowed to get by with gnomic utterances or even silence, something permitted them perhaps because they seem to address their audience more subjectively, leaving it more certain about what the artist intended.”

From “Writing” by Robert Adams.

Nonetheless, here I am, giving it another try. I’d like to use this opportunity, to answer a question I’m frequently asked: “What do you like to photograph?” Lately, I seem to be conflicted on this point, even posing the question to my own psyche, what DO I like to photograph? How can I answer “everything.” How do I describe what LIGHT means to me, falling on faces, buildings, land and urbanscapes, or, just in its own state of being? Complicating this desire to document light, is my love of photographing without light, seeing how close I can get to the edge of darkness. As I mature, this exercise becomes even more urgent, passing through my lens, what I see in my heart. Perhaps, it is also my changing eyesight, my points of focus seem insignificant. So, this essay, is an attempt to record, in a thousand words, my evolution from “subjects” to “moments” in my photography. Currently, that’s how I answer the question, “I like to shoot moments.”

A long time ago, when I was an editorial photographer, I would mostly be assigned to photograph people. I shot portraits, street-work, and journalistic coverage, like my personal project, the “Vietnamese Refugees at Camp Pendleton” now part of the permanent collection “’Nam and the Sixties” at St. Lawrence University:

Vietnamese Refugees, Camp Pendelton, 1975
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

In 1978, Petersen’s Photographic Magazine published a large portfolio of my photographs of men. The Men Series was also exhibited in two exhibitions, with this review, by William Wilson, Art Critic, the Los Angeles Times:

“Loretta Ayeroff stands out from a trio of photographers because she seems to like men without harboring any illusions about them. It’s hard to like any aspect of life without illusions. It’s even harder to feel that way about one’s opposite gender. And then there is the sticky business of getting your feelings on film. Miss Ayeroff’s pictures of men seem to pull this off by simply allowing her subjects to be themselves in front of the camera. (Have you ever tried to be yourself in front of a camera?) One’s admiration goes up and up. Anyway, here are all these chaps being stupid, macho, tender, defensive-dignified, thoughtful, gay or antic like the nude fellow with a potted plant between his legs. Extremely likable pictures.”

Van Dyke Parks, Men Series, 1974
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

The “Men Series” is a collection of portraits, both self-assigned and taken for magazines that I worked for, shot in black & white Tri-x film, with a Pentax Spotmatic Camera. Earlier this year, I was asked to shoot, in the “Men Series” style, for a portrait commission, to be published next month. I pulled out the Spotmatic, replaced the battery, used my favorite 28mm lens, Tri-x film, to much success. I do miss the whole experience of working with the lab, even the waiting period, to see what came out, while the film is being developed. I stopped processing my negatives, decades ago, and my last darkroom was in the late 1980’s. I just gave away my darkroom equipment last year – I wish I hadn’t. There are over 150 portraits, maybe more, in The Men Series. They are regularly requested: a book-cover, and a CD insert, were published last year. I thought I was finished shooting this subject. Recently, however, I realized that I had still been photographing men, in color, using film and digitally, for several years. Surprisingly, I am now accumulating “Men Series II” images:

Solomon Terringer, Men Series II, 2012
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

Still, let me be frank. I stopped shooting portraits, after a reflective moment, twenty years ago, when I told myself that as an “older” lady photographer, I might not be assigned to shoot portraits.

I decided to become proficient at some other subjects. That’s when the concentration on buildings, urban and landscapes began in earnest. “California Ruins” were published in California Magazine, 1982, and one image will appear this year, in an upcoming book by Geoff Nicholson, Walking in Ruins. “The Motel Series,” shot on Kodachrome 64 film, was first exhibited and published, 1987. Last year, four images, from these two series, were included in “Backyard Oasis: The Swimming Pool in Southern California Photography, 1945-1982,” the Palm Springs Art Museum’s response to The Getty Trust’s initiative “Pacific Standard Time: Art in Los Angeles, 1945-1980.” In the exhibition catalogue, Daniell Cornell, Curator, Palm Springs Art Museum, includes my work with artists I greatly admire, Lewis Baltz and Joe Deal:

Orange Umbrella, Motel Series, 1981
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

“Suburbia: “As the dream of a placid lifestyle unravels in the 1970’s, social photographers such as Loretta Ayeroff, Lewis Baltz and Joe Deal began presenting more ironic images. Their frequently wry depictions captured the mundane, sometimes debased, quality of life in suburban developments, for which abandoned or derelict backyards and pools became a poignant symbol. In a photograph of a California tract development by Deal, for instance, the house is pushed to the side and the image is dominated by a kidney-shaped grass yard surrounded by concrete, which mimics the iconic backyard swimming pool even though it is probably beyond the family’s economic reach. Ayeroff and Baltz create strongly formal images that reference human absence.”

Expanding further, I concentrated on the subject of Los Angeles, my hometown. Although I’ve always photographed my surroundings, with several moves since 2006, a pattern began to emerge. Each new environment, starts with a window, with the light of that window, and what it foretold. There is a “mountain view” from most of the buildings or neighborhoods. This immersion in un-private space, smaller accommodations, un-familiar communities, gave me a seventh sense in adapting to my surroundings. The mandatory interiors, the neighborhood walks, time of dawn and dusk, my checklist for visuals. The documentation began with my studio window on Edris Drive, the last series I shot in film:

Mountain View, Edris Drive, 2006
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

“This picture reminds me of a 1978 exhibition by John Szarkowski, who was then director of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Titled “Mirrors and Windows,” it distinguished between two types of photographers: Romantics interested in self-expression and Realists focused on objective reality. A photograph was either “a mirror, reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it, or a window, through which one might better know the world.” The distinction can prove slippery, though. Loretta Ayeroff’s photograph is both window and mirror an image of a window as a mirror. Three-quarters of this view from her studio show us the bright landscape we recognize as L.A. But the other quarter, in the sash at lower right, turns dark, moody and mysterious because it is part reflection of a view through the adjacent sash that we cannot see directly. We are looking right at the banister rail in the foreground, but where is the faint third banister we see beyond? The dim, illogical relationships in this part of the picture are typical of the subjective experience Szarkowski ascribed to mirrors. That the aberration should occupy only one-quarter of the view is about right. Mirrors have always been the minority report in photography.”

Colin Westerbeck, Los Angeles Times

 
The windows get progressively darker, culminating in “Fifteen Backyards, The Story of a Relationship” shot from one window, over a year, sunrise to sundown:

Citrus Avenue, the first studio of two, around the corner from a former Raymond Chandler residence, contains the red light from our annual, September, fire season. Chandler said, “There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch.”

Window, Citrus Avenue, 2007
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

Reading the novels of Chandler during this period, my work grew progressively darker, with an omnipresent “noir” quality:

Fairfax Avenue & Third Street, 2007
From “Los Angeles, Dedicated to Raymond Chandler”
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

Perhaps the studio window from Smithwood Drive, presaged my interest in “moments.” To shoot LIGHT, one has to be quick. There is no time to really check exposures, or carefully frame the scene. The photographs are produced almost like a “grab” shot, quickly before the light changes, or disappears altogether:

Window, Smithwood Drive, 2010
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

So, in my mind, I achieved the goal of expanding my subject matter. My portraiture had become portraits of my life, where I lived, and what surrounded me. Some of the family artifacts that I could no longer keep with me, during this odyssey, I documented. “Body of Evidence” is an ongoing project, becoming the proof that makes the case, my family once existed, despite the deaths and departures:

Body of Evidence: My Mother’s Green Gloves, My Father’s Cigarette Case, My Grandfather Frank’s Pipe, 2009-2010
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

“Moments” can include all. It’s how I think and see now, no longer restricted by subject, resulting in a panoply of choices… still-lifes, faces, rooms, vistas, corners, branches. An unexplainable mystery, an un-written story, like this, illustrating a Jane Vandenberg column, in the Huffington Post, next week:

Nighthawks, Child, 2012
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

I know the result of my shifting perspectives is an un-recognizable style. Whereas my portraits have an Ayeroff “look” I don’t think this is true with my current work. I’m letting the moment, speak for itself, un-encumbered by recognizable framing, or forcing a certain design element. As the photographer, the “mine” fades into the light, only to reveal better, what is in front of me.

For more photos and stories, please visit Loretta Ayeroff online portfolio.

Text and photos by Kyle Monk.

Moments after reviewing the image I instantly knew I created something powerful, beautiful and moving. This particular photograph of Michael Lawrence would steer the direction of the shoot. Initially I planned to photograph each subject three different ways. First a close up portrait of each face, next a full body frame incorporating a personal item and finally a portrait with the medical equipment. After photographing Mikey with his nebulizer I made it a point to focus my time and effort photographing the children with their medical devices which consisted of nebulizers, high-frequency chest oscillation vests, inhaled bronchodilators and antibiotics.

© Kyle Monk
Please visit Faces of Cystic Fibrosis, by Kyle Monk for the full size image.

This memorable photograph was taken of four year old Michael Lawrence, a young child affected with Cystic Fibrosis. In the image Mikey holds his fish nebulizer Bubbles and takes a breath to help his lungs breathe through the thick mucus his body forever produces. In an attempt to making breathing treatments more appealing and less threatening for the kids, there are a variety of pediatric masks – dinosaur, elephant, etc for the different nebulizers.

© Kyle Monk
Please visit Faces of Cystic Fibrosis, by Kyle Monk for the full size image.

Nebulizers break down liquid medication into aerosol mist producing treatment which helps clear the airways. Freeing the airways of mucus is vital to maintaining good lung function. If the mucus is not removed from the lungs, these children and adults may have more infections, decreased lung function, shortness of breath, decreased activity level and more.

© Kyle Monk
Please visit Faces of Cystic Fibrosis, by Kyle Monk for the full size image.

Within the vast darkness surrounding Mikey you see his connection with Bubbles. You get the sense he has done this countless of times before and will continue to do so just like so many others with this heart wrenching disease. During this moment the world appears to be still, but is surrounded by silence and darkness. The only sound is that of the shutter clicking as Mikey’s heart beats and hands delicately grip Bubbles. His eyes focused and in tune with the moment that I am deeply moved. I wonder what Mikey is thinking? Can he make sense of what is happening? Is he mesmerized by the endless routine of combating cystic fibrosis? I don’t know, but I can see in his eyes familiarity and innocence, and also the courage young Michael has. This was a genuine moment for me. Within a split second the truth and reality of fighting Cystic Fibrosis was in font of my eyes and I felt deeply saddened. At that exact point in time I would have done everything I could to cure Cystic Fibrosis.

© Kyle Monk
Please visit Faces of Cystic Fibrosis, by Kyle Monk for the full size image.

Michael’s journey is harder than most but he still continues to move forward as the happy 4 year old that I know. This intimate act of survival is what I find most empowering, haunting and inspiring. Understanding the severity of Cystic Fibrosis motivated me to bring awareness, honesty and silent beauty to my photographs.

© Kyle Monk
Please visit Faces of Cystic Fibrosis, by Kyle Monk for the full size image.

I believe that Michael, like so many other young children, cannot quite comprehend what cystic fibrosis is, nor what the future holds for their lives. They do know however, that they must engage in several breathing treatments a day to stay alive and healthy. This includes inhaled medicines, and wearing a high-frequency chest wall oscillation vest to break apart the mucous. Along with hours of treatments, vitamin supplements, therapies, doctor visits and more, it’s sad to know there is still no cure and no end to this life threatening disease. I’m saddened and happy when working with the children and their families. Knowing that these young lives are threatened by Cystic Fibrosis brings me down, yet their courageous personality, positive attitude and fighting spirit are uplifting and comforting.

© Kyle Monk
Please visit Faces of Cystic Fibrosis, by Kyle Monk for the full size image.

I really felt a connection with these kids taking photographs that day and I believe this bond with the children and families was a key role in the success to creating these images. I had time to sit, talk, listen and see. Most importantly I tried to be aware and ready to capture those subtle honest moments. Michael’s image moved me that day and everything made sense and I felt even more passionate and inspired to continue this series.

© Kyle Monk
Please visit Faces of Cystic Fibrosis, by Kyle Monk for the full size image.

I’m troubled and amazed with what these young kids must go through on a daily basis. As I continued the project I had also interviewed the kids and wanted to share what Mitch Russo had to say about living with CF. “I hate to do the vest! It hurts underneath my arms and I get lonely being hooked up in my room so many times per day… having CF is the worst!” says sixteen year old Mitch Russo when the doctor told him he would have to use a machine called the vest everyday for the rest of his life in order to combat cystic fibrosis. He finds having Cystic Fibrosis very challenging. Mitch tries to be a normal kid, but it’s hard when you have to plan every day around treatments, surgeries and hospital visits. “CF affects me emotionally and medically and the uncertainty of the disease makes me scared I might die,” he says.

© Kyle Monk
Please visit Faces of Cystic Fibrosis, by Kyle Monk for the full size image.

As a kid I worried about simple and practical things like auditioning for the school play, what girl I would be square dancing with and homework. I did not have to think about my health in a very serious manner or even worse that I might die. I cannot imagine having such thoughts during my youth. Genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis are unpredictable. Simply put, luck of the draw. It’s not fair, but that is life and working with these kids reminds me of how delicate our existence is. I was humbled and awakened when I photographed these strong spirits. I realize the importance of family, friends and loved ones even more.

My senses were heightened and my intentions became pure.

© Kyle Monk
Please visit Faces of Cystic Fibrosis, by Kyle Monk for the full size image.

Sadly I dislike saying this but these feelings eventually fade away into the daily grind. Work, family, and life gets the most of me and I forgot about Mikey and Cystic Fibrosis for some time. I hope my images will resonate with people. I want the viewer to feel something. Emotion is the goal. If you have truly felt anything from this series then I believe I have done my job. An emotion strong enough to create conversation, ask questions, raise concerns and promote action in the fight to find a cure and improve the lives of people with CF is what I want.

Cystic Fibrosis is a rare disease, but today many people with CF are expected die before their adult years are now living much longer. In order to help extend these years and find a cure we must first bring awareness and increase funding to advance science, research and support.

© Kyle Monk
Please visit Faces of Cystic Fibrosis, by Kyle Monk for the full size image.

I now feel part of a close community through my work with the CF Foundation and the families who volunteered to participate in my project “Faces of CF“. It is the thank yous, hopeful smiles and warm feelings of appreciation and dedication to life, and family that make it all worth it for me. I want to help these lives through my passion for photography. Working with the CF foundation has been a unique, memorable and uplifting experience. I felt a genuine purpose behind the lens, a feeling I rarely have. My vision has matured as I have too.

Please visit Kyle Monk website for more stories and photos.

© Kyle Monk
Please visit Faces of Cystic Fibrosis, by Kyle Monk for the full size image.

Text and photos by Robert Jackson (The Lens Collective).

Having worked predominantly with film, analogue photography seemed a logical topic to elaborate and compose some thoughts on. In a world where generating images seems almost innate, the idea of challenging photography as a medium appears more relevant than ever. In a fast digital developing world, is the choice of using analogue one that begins to challenge photography as a medium, whether it is used for its aesthetic or purely the process involved? This piece does not aim to reproach digital photography in anyway, in context I think every medium has its relevance, but describing my experience in the transition of using analogue throughout my most recent project ‘Verkamannabústöðunum’ its one hopefully worth sharing.

Please visit An Experience of Analogue, by Robert Jackson for the full size image.

Verkamannabústöðunum was the first state-subsidized development of workers housing in West Reykjavik. Built in 1931 for a working class community of Reykjavik, the apartments saw host to individual bathroom space and electricity for cooking, which was a rare occurrence. With the functional principles employed in the design of the apartments, it is noted as an important stage in Reykjavik’s architectural development. The series explores the life of individuals and families who reside in Verkamannabústöðunum, observing their relationship with their surroundings.

Working with a a medium format camera using a waste level view finder, my opinion is that this combination contributes to a very specific approach. To begin with there is a level of intimate interaction that presents itself, which can help to build a relationship between the subject and photographer, which I believe is partly due to the equal concentration between subject and camera. The idea of using film in this method is an aesthetic choice as well as the process it encourages, for me it slows down the way I look at the situation and stimulates a response in regards to what I’m doing, it’s always productive to question why. For these reasons alone the analogue approach is one that to me, suits ‘Verkamannabústöðunum’. With documentary and narrative genres, when working with subjects there can be a barrier between a subject and photographer, where I find there is an essential need to deal with in a way where the subject offers something to the viewer. However I would say this is the photographer’s job to do so, one in which I find the waste level view finder can do so by stimulating a response from the subject. The way in which the viewfinder encourages interaction between you and the subject, for me allows the subject to become more involved in the process. Whether or not it provokes a perplexing response, it is more often than not a contrasting but intriguing process as opposed to what people may expect.

Please visit An Experience of Analogue, by Robert Jackson for the full size image.

I think it is worth elaborating on the idea of film being a slow process. A problematic issue with digital photography is its accessibility, which encourages endless amounts of capturing and possibly less criticizing. Technology in the world we live in seems to be competitively driven around speed and efficiency, I find it slightly humorous talking about the ascendancy analogue cameras nurture. Whether you are working on large or medium format, the amount of shots in relation to speed is slow, be it loading with film, rolling onto the next frame or focussing the shot, there is no real way of obtaining a fast approach. I have learnt a lot in the transition from digital to analogue, working with only 10 frames I have become more aware of photography and the discipline analogues installed. Perhaps not necessary to all practice but treating photography as a craft and challenging how it can be used leads to developing bodies of work further and really pushing it as a medium. Of course this process can be used with digital but analogue plays an important role in teaching or uncovering the actual discipline. In my work there is a very similar process in the act of crafting a portrait, to the craft of painted portraiture. The element of time for me is what links the two together, despite being dissimilar in other ways, the same consideration can be installed working with film, the stuff can be very unforgiving and unless you like this element, then I think we all try to work around it by becoming more focussed to the elements of a portrait.

Please visit An Experience of Analogue, by Robert Jackson for the full size image.

What I found intriguing in this project is the curiosity value film lends itself too. I think producing projects whilst sending off film to be processed always creates an instinctive response, but producing a project where you aren’t able to, keeps the brain ticking over, thinking productively about what may take the project forwards or what is missing. This is exactly the case in ‘Verkamannabústöðunum’, I spent a month reeling off near a film per day struggling to gauge a wider picture of the series. Of course it would have been more practical to view work whilst producing it, but there seems to be a romantic element that heavily existed in photographs like Robert Capa’s, where you produce work that technically doesn’t exist until it’s processed. That’s a scary thought isn’t it? The curiosity element experienced seems to be an extremely natural one, prompting an instinctive response and breaking away from really constructing a project. Of course I think a project benefits from constructive viewing, able to respond and elaborate, but the natural spontaneity which I really value could maybe be missing.

Please visit An Experience of Analogue, by Robert Jackson for the full size image.

To conclude, I think the use of analogue photography has helped me to challenge photography as a medium, in a stage where taking photographs is second nature. To summarise this point in brief, my main conclusion is that analogue photography creates a response to the camera, and to question what is happening. Nothing is as simple as turning the camera on and pressing a button, to use the camera. There is a need to understand shutter speeds, aperture and ISO and for me I only understood this when I began to use analogue more, because it felt I had to. Of course I think there are many ways to challenge photography as a medium but using analogue for me, does so without almost thinking about it.

Please visite The Lens Collective for more photos and stories.

Please visit An Experience of Analogue, by Robert Jackson for the full size image.

Text and photos by Marc Erwin Babej, surgeon’s notes by Maria M. LoTempio.

Mask of Perfection focuses on the complex and ambivalent relationship between the beauty we perceive subjectively on the one hand, and the plastic surgeon’s scientific, geometry-based standard of beauty on the other.

Patient: A.A., age 25. Botox injected into the muscles of the forehead and crow’s feet, to minimize wrinkles. Filler injected into nasolabial folds to smooth out the depressions. Filler injected into the cheekbones to create a more symmetrical look.
© Marc Erwin Babej
Please visit Mask of Perfection – Marc Erwin Babej with Maria M. LoTempio for the full size image.

Specific beauty ideals have seesawed over the course of history, but its fundamentals have remained consistent. Evolutionary psychology has demonstrated a high degree of consistency at the root level of perceptions of beauty (such as clear skin and a waist-hip ratio around 0.7). Accordingly, notable shifts in perceptions of beauty have been rare.

Patient: B.K., age 22. Filler into the nasolabial folds, upper lip and jowl area, to even out asymmetries. Botox injected into the muscles between the eyes, to minimize wrinkling.
© Marc Erwin Babej
Please visit Mask of Perfection – Marc Erwin Babej with Maria M. LoTempio for the full size image.

What’s more, they coincide with discontinuities in general history, and particularly art history. The Renaissance marked a shift toward sleeker body ideal, prizing a sleek figure and flattened chest. The Baroque became synonymous with a body type we describe to this day as Rubenesque. Following the end of World War I, changes in the social order led to the idolization of a slim, more androgynous female body type, epitomized by Hollywood stars such as Louise Brooks. 

Patient: B.W., age 25. Botox injected into the right forehead to correct asymmetric eyebrows; also into the crow’s feet, to minimize wrinkling. Rhinoplasty to be performed, to straighten the dorsum of the nose. Filler injected into the nasolabial folds and marionette lines, to smooth out depressions.
© Marc Erwin Babej
Please visit Mask of Perfection – Marc Erwin Babej with Maria M. LoTempio for the full size image.

The current change in beauty ideal, however, is more profound than any that preceded it – in both kind and degree. In the past, manifestations of a beauty ideal could be discovered in the flesh, and also represented in art. They were also concretized and rationalized by experts on the subject (think of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man). But any individual’s conforming to the ideal of the time was a matter of “god-given” gift.

Patient: D.I., age 25. Filler injected into the nasolabial folds, marionette lines on the left and the philtrum, to even out depressions and asymmetries. Rhinoplasty to be performed, to straighten out the nose and build up the dorsum.
© Marc Erwin Babej
Please visit Mask of Perfection – Marc Erwin Babej with Maria M. LoTempio for the full size image.

The currently emerging ideal of beauty is unprecedented in that it is actionable, and that conformity to it has become widely available. Lips like Angelina Jolie; breasts like Scarlett Johansson; a butt like Kim Kardashian; less slanted eyes like a white woman; a wrinkle-free complexion like a cosmetics model? Available at a plastic surgeon near you. In other words, the emerging beauty ideal not only reflects changing taste, but also represents a radical shift in the understanding of beauty itself. Conformity to an ideal of beauty used to be a daydream; now, it has become a line item on a shopping list. Whether this development is liberating or cheapens the concept of human beauty (or both at the same time) is a matter of individual judgment.

Patient: J.Z., age 20. Filler placed in the nasolabial folds, lips and cheeks, to even out asymmetries. Botox injected into the region between the eyes, to minimize wrinkling. Narrowing of the nose tip and smoothing of the dorsal hump to create a more feminine nose.
© Marc Erwin Babej
Please visit Mask of Perfection – Marc Erwin Babej with Maria M. LoTempio for the full size image.

Hand in hand with these changes in kind and degree goes a change in the mode of propagation: as more and more of the most prominent figures in contemporary society (celebrities, media personalities; increasingly also “serious” figures like politicians) are being adjusted by plastic surgeons to the scientific standard, the standard itself is influencing the way the general public perceives who and what is beautiful – and which parts of their own bodies members of the general public might consider to have altered.

Patient: M.A., age 24. Botox injected into the forehead, to minimize wrinkles. Filler injected into the philtrum and lower lip, to even out asymmetries. Filler injected into the left nasolabial fold and right cheek, to correct depressions.
© Marc Erwin Babej
Please visit Mask of Perfection – Marc Erwin Babej with Maria M. LoTempio for the full size image.

Mask of Perfection literally superimposes the emerging scientific standard on the subjective view of beauty – and reveals the discrepancies and tensions between the two. To achieve this, renowned New York City plastic surgeon Maria M. LoTempio, MD and I selected twelve women in their Twenties who conform to the natural standard of beauty (“the last people who’d ‘need’ any work done”): they are young, highly attractive, and don’t have any particular feature that would call for alteration. 

Patient: N.J., age 25. Botox injected into the right forehead, to correct the asymmetric eyebrows, and into the crow’s feet, to minimize wrinkles. Rhinoplasty to be performed, to straighten the dorsum of the nose, narrow it and to create a narrower, more defined, nasal tip. Filler injected into the philtrum and left cheek, to even out depressions.
© Marc Erwin Babej
Please visit Mask of Perfection – Marc Erwin Babej with Maria M. LoTempio for the full size image.

Casting for this series was a very interesting process: to look “like the last person who needs work done,” the models had to be attractive in a specific way: they couldn’t have a feature that was out of the norm for their ethnicity. They couldn’t have had plastic surgery before; they had to represent a range of ethnicities and different looks. At the same time they had to come off as individuals, with personalities that project in an image (my focus in casting). And of course they had to have things for Dr. LoTempio to “perfect”.

Patient: N.R., age 27. Filler under the eyes, nasolabial folds, and partly to the lips, to create a more youthful appearance. Botox injected into the forehead and between the eyes, to smooth out asymmetries.
© Marc Erwin Babej
Please visit Mask of Perfection – Marc Erwin Babej with Maria M. LoTempio for the full size image.

There was actually one model we had to turn down because she was perfect by the standards of plastic surgery. She really wanted to be part of the project and I thought she’d be great, so I found myself in the paradoxical situation of begging Dr. LoTempio to find some flaw in her. To no avail.

Dr. LoTempio was then given the assignment to do what it takes to “upgrade” these “patients” according to the standards of her profession. All patients were initially evaluated via a set of five clinical images (frontal, 3/4 and full profiles on both side) and then examined in person. Finally, they were marked with pre-operative markings – the Mask of Perfection. The images in this series were taken in this state.

Patient: O.L., age 22. Botox injected into the right forehead, to correct the right asymmetric brow. Rhinoplasty to be performed, to straighten out the nasal dorsum. Filler injected into the nasolabial folds, right upper lip and philtrum, to correct asymmetry and depressions.
© Marc Erwin Babej
Please visit Mask of Perfection – Marc Erwin Babej with Maria M. LoTempio for the full size image.

The style of representation is as important to this series as the time. All along, my goal was to prevent knee-jerk “for” or “against” reactions, and instead to inspire individual reflection. This is achieved by layering two alienation effects: The markings “mar the view” of the subjects, preventing viewers from immersing themselves in their natural beauty. Meanwhile, the romantic, aestheticizing style of 1930s Hollywood portraiture was chosen to bar viewers from overly identifying with the plastic surgeon.

Patient: S.G., age 23. Botox injected into the crow’s feet to minimize wrinkles. Filler injected into the nasolabial folds to even out depressions. Filler injected into the upper lip and and philtrum for more symmetry.
© Marc Erwin Babej
Please visit Mask of Perfection – Marc Erwin Babej with Maria M. LoTempio for the full size image.

Achieving an authentic 1930s Hollywood portrait look was essential: rather than use soft boxes and other soft light sources, we used the same equipment as Hollywood photographers of that era. The main light was a Fresnel light – essentially a stage light that can be adjusted in size, has no “hot spot” and can be focused like a lens. We consistently used a butterfly lighting setup, which was commonly used in portraiture of female Hollywood stars of the era. The main light is positioned frontally and shines down on the model from as high as 4m, to place a shadow under the nose. A secondary light shines from below, to soften the shadow.

Patient: V.N., age 24. Filler injected to define the cheek bones for a more dramatic effect. Filler injected into the lower lip, to correct the asymmetry; filler injected to even out jowl area. Botox injected into the forehead and between the eyes, to smooth out asymmetries, to create a more sleek appearance.
© Marc Erwin Babej
Please visit Mask of Perfection – Marc Erwin Babej with Maria M. LoTempio for the full size image.

The right kind of retouching style was another crucial aspect of the 1940s Hollywood look. Luckily, I found a true master of his art in Irfan Yonac – a former fashion photographer who is old enough to have retouched in the pre-digital era and is an expert in the look of that era.

For more photos and stories, please visit Marc Erwin Babej website.

Patient: Y.Z., age 29. Filler injected into the nasolabial folds, lips and cheeks, to even out asymmetries. Rhinoplasty to be perfoemed, to narrow the nose. Botox injected into the muscles just lateral to the eyes, to minimize wrinkles.
© Marc Erwin Babej
Please visit Mask of Perfection – Marc Erwin Babej with Maria M. LoTempio for the full size image.

Text and photos by Gwen Brinton.

Photographing estates in the UK

I started shooting on Rolleiflex film in 2003. The nature of looking down through the lens at the subject in a square format felt more intimate. It was more personal than pointing the camera directly to my eye. Therefore the process of photographing becomes less threatening and invasive to the subject. Medium format film enabled a personal touch and the square format of the negative and print I found to be aesthetically beautiful. Subjects looked at the camera with curiosity. There was no instantaneous fear for the subject as the Rolleiflex has an antique look, if anything it creates intrigue. I have always been inspired by Diane Arbus and Nick Waplington so invested in analogue equipment from the 1940s to pay homage to her New York portraits and Waplingtons photographs of estates in the 80s – in the hope that I could document everyday street life.

The Rolleiflex enabled me to capture a series of photographs of family life. This took place on the South London Estates where I was living at the time. I photographed the residents and their children playing with toy guns and ironically pointing the guns indirectly to their childhood friends’ heads. There was a darker meaning to the photograph as their father stood in the foreground smiling, maybe unknowing and maybe all knowing of the unexpected trials and tribulations children are eventually awoken to as they grow up. As a photographer I wait for the right moment. The click of the shutter was decisive. The moment spontaneous because I had a clear vision of my subject matter and what I wanted to capture. Real life as it is and not the glamour and privileged riches that we are subjected to for the few in the Western world. These kids trusted me and I wanted to share their innocence, beauty within a moment that I will remember for the rest of my life.

Portrait of Rio

Rio was a dancer at a workingmen’s bar in Maidstone. Martin Andrews (who’s name I have changed) a shady character with a violent disposition and feared locally, enabled me access to the dancers. Martin was the bouncer on the door and for all of the bad press he has recently received in the media he got me access into a world that many photographers will never be able to gain entry to in such a manner as I did. He drove me from London to Maidstone and then escorted back. He was respected amongst the clientele and the proprietors alike and did his job, always checking on me, making sure I was ok. The establishment itself was run down – empty – not many men there – maybe we went on a quiet night. The silence crept darkly throughout the evening that at first created a feeling of awkwardness. This enabled me to photograph Rio on 35mm camera with flash.

Strip Bar
© Gwen Brinton
Please visit Family Life, by Gwen Brinton for the full size image.

Her eyes were wide – opened glance – starry – intoxicated with some substance that endears girls with the confidence to dance on stage for not much money. Some of the girls were dancing to put themselves through university. I was unsure as to why Rio was doing it; maybe she was supporting her lifestyle and family. This is only my interpretation. Her glare was startling to me and only after the film had been developed had I noticed that I had an amazing photograph. The quietness of the club enabled me to meet the dancers, photographing them on their cigarette breaks, whist waiting for their song. They’d chosen their own soundtrack to dance to. The club was bleak and by the end of the night I was tired, ready to leave. The girls were after glamour shots – so I sent them the rolls of film that I had – but never received a response. I wonder whether the photographs are pinned up on the walls to this day. The club wasn’t quite as dark as a club I experienced in Cambodia. Here, women are numbered and men came in to choose what number they wished to purchase. For sure the girls didn’t make as much cash as they would have liked – but I am sure that we went on a quiet night – I think it was a Thursday.

Club scene
© Gwen Brinton
Please visit Family Life, by Gwen Brinton for the full size image.

Clubbing boys and girls

Clubbing is an intensified atmosphere, it is peaceful and a riotous, monumental emotion united. I have loved every moment of capturing our clubbing generation on digital film. The great thing about digital photography in a club is the flash and the instantaneous movement of the subject that captures expressions with electrifying colours. Everyone is exhibited and uninhibited inside the home that tonight is our club. We dance beyond spiritual retribution. It is bound in utopia where everyone is spared from the waking life of our ordinary existence that dawn in days after the early hours. Are we are all oblivious to our own states that are high in resolution and magnified by perpetual beauty? Sometimes our body language can be interpreted and misunderstood and that is part of the joy of the experience. Photographing the generation of clubbers opens up an untold visual language that is explained through the lens. The untold language that my subjects share, their secrets, loves and truths in that blissful moment they exchange. The camera enables tales, tribulations and ecstatic bodily warmth.

Club scene
© Gwen Brinton
Please visit Family Life, by Gwen Brinton for the full size image.

I will never forget to record and remember these times of unity and of peace, which in transitions like these, we cherish with our hearts, even though intimate moments like these may sometimes remain forgotten as the lights go on. Coats are fetched and the journey home is of much disarray and confusion. Captured in the frame a face may creep into the photograph from behind the main subject. Looking distant, this makes the images stronger, more conceptual and open for interpretation. As the camera flashes on and flashes off the aperture focuses on a boy. He instantly recognizes the lens. Holding up his fist in a respectful notion of recognition – as if to say – it’s ok – as if he is in a peaceful trance and is acceptant of the moment that has been revealed and offered.

Club scene
© Gwen Brinton
Please visit Family Life, by Gwen Brinton for the full size image.

Text and photos by Yana Feldman.

I would like to present my photo project “Saint-Petersburg. Childhood of many faces”, that is dedicated to children of different nationalities in Saint-Petersburg from families where the national traditions, customs and family traditions are really saved.

Buck drums
© Yana Feldman
Please visit Saint-Petersburg, Childhood of many faces, by Yana Feldman for the full size image.

I started to think over this project, when I was studying on the 4-th term in Saint-Petersburg State University of Culture and Arts. Being a student (and still now) I appreciated the work of American photographer Steve McCurry. I had the idea to make something of this kind. With the kids as the main heroes of my project. However, that time I did not have clearly formulated concept of my future project.
Then one day I got spontaneously my first shot series that further on leaded to start my work.

Together with my husband, we strolled slowly in the center of Saint-Petersburg, when he saw a group of gypsies Luli, who mingled with the crowd near the market and asked for alms. I decided to make some shots. To tell you the truth – at first time I was slightly frightened to start photographing them. I understood of course that we were in the heart of Saint-Petersburg, not a Middle Eastern or Indian town, but I still have not stopped thinking that they can yell at me, prohibit to shoot, do something else like this. Luckily, nothing happened. Although I shot mainly behind the back of her father. A sort of human shield for me.

Offense
© Yana Feldman
Please visit Saint-Petersburg, Childhood of many faces, by Yana Feldman for the full size image.

Photographs turned out to be very lively, not staged at all. I still had no idea how I should use that series for me, so I just put it aside that days.

Next heroes of my project, I found, when I was invited to reportage a holiday in the Jewish boarding school for boys. For me, it was a new experience, so I asked for permission to stay on one of the lessons to see how it looked like. I made ​​some good shots from there, one of which became lately the presentation of my project.

Give me a hint!
© Yana Feldman
Please visit Saint-Petersburg, Childhood of many faces, by Yana Feldman for the full size image.

That is probably after the second shot I have formed the final vision of my future project. I realized that I wanted to do a project on children of different nationalities who live in Saint-Petersburg. I deliberately turned down the opportunity to make shots in hinterland and/or other cities/countries. Originally is was an idea just to take pictures of children of different nationalities; further on it turned into a definitive decision to devote that project for those children who observe family traditions, culture, and any features that are transmitted in their families from generation to generation, all together at the same time living in a multinational city. Representing the people of different nationalities in my project, I want to show those children who, despite the fact that they live in St. Petersburg, don’t forget their traditions, celebrate holidays, study in special schools, and follow in their culture. In my opinion, no one can honestly convey the emotions and mood but a child.

I just tried to distance myself from a national perspective and to focus on some cultural and family values. But as it turned out – to do so would not be easy. After all, many family and cultural characteristics of families in some way connected with the national peculiarities of these same families.

The second home
© Yana Feldman
Please visit Saint-Petersburg, Childhood of many faces, by Yana Feldman for the full size image.

Other heroes of his project, I began to search for different ways: through a variety of acquaintances, friends of friends, random encounters. With the help of social networks in which I methodically sought out by community groups and relevant words combinations. Finding such groups, I contacted the organizers, explained to them who I was and what I wanted from them, asked to give me the contact of families with children of a certain age, and whose families follow the traditions. Many people denied participating in my project because they did not understand who I was and what I did. Yes, and judge for yourself – here is some stranger, who says that your family is interesting for him and he wants to shoot all of you (sometimes to visit your house). How many people would immediately agree to help him?

If you take the statistics – two or three persons answered me from each of a dozen messages I wrote. One or two families welcomed to become my heroes from a dozen of those, who firstly answered me. However, most of them immediately expressed their willingness to dress children in a national costume. In addition, according to my question what kind of family or cultural characteristics they observed in their family – puzzled shrug and said that they had nothing except costume.

Unfortunately, too little families keep even any family traditions (eg, Sunday dinners, recipes from their grandparents, and skills from father to son, etc.), and mind of their historical roots a fortiori. Perhaps this is because big city forces people to assimilate, to live in a different rhythm, subordinates its own rules. While searching for heroes to my project, I encountered hundreds of families who, unfortunately, could not “confirm” their national identity.

Granny's pie
© Yana Feldman
Please visit Saint-Petersburg, Childhood of many faces, by Yana Feldman for the full size image.

Of course, there were also positive responses. With the help of my friends, I suggested to contact a Georgian family, which as it turned out, through the generations from mother to daughter passed branded prescription hachapuri in Adjara.

With the help of social networks, I was lucky to find few more future heroes – a Tatar family, whose younger generation had settled in Saint-Petersburg long time ago, and great-grandparents lived near Kazan. However, they often come to visit her great-grandchildren, and great-grandfather (who was the religious head of his homeland) taught his great-grandson the precepts of holy book Koran with each visit.

A link of generation
© Yana Feldman
Please visit Saint-Petersburg, Childhood of many faces, by Yana Feldman for the full size image.

In addition, with the help of social networks, and through the personal contacts I was able to meet and visit the calligraphy lesson in boarding school for the children of Japanese businesspersons and diplomats. At the Korean Cultural Center, where boys learned the tradition of drumming Buck. The Islamic center where young children from the Central Asian republics and the countries of central Africa were studying the Arabic alphabet, drawing the letters on the flour. The Armenian Church. I visited the Turkish and Sudanese families, where I could see the art of drawing with paint on the water – Ebru, as well as traditional outfits of young Sudanese girls.

The art of calligraphy
© Yana Feldman
Please visit Saint-Petersburg, Childhood of many faces, by Yana Feldman for the full size image.

Random article in the newspaper about a family of ropewalkers who acted at festivals, fairs and public events in various cities of the CIS led me to be acquainted with this amazing family. Along with hundreds of other spectators, I was able to see how the young Seyfulla performed exercises on the trapeze (of course with the safety net). However, he was only 3.5 years!

Hereditary rope-walker
© Yana Feldman
Please visit Saint-Petersburg, Childhood of many faces, by Yana Feldman for the full size image.

The most incredible adventure happened with me when I, accompanied by a volunteer travelled to Gypsy village on the suburbs of Saint-Petersburg. Before that trip, I had very vague thoughts who the Gypsies were, where and how they lived. In addition, of course, I could not even imagine then 20-30 miles from my house might be a big gypsy camp. I met several families, looked through the difficult conditions of their living. Nevertheless, I tried to depict on my photographs all that range of positive emotions and feelings that are unique to every kid.

Pumping water for cooking
© Yana Feldman
Please visit Saint-Petersburg, Childhood of many faces, by Yana Feldman for the full size image.

There were many other equally interesting meetings and photo series. Sometimes the natives of big city never suspect the existence of some nations and nationalities, living together with them. Even they much less know about how that people live. Nevertheless, it is worthy of attention. This will help to build intercultural and interfaith dialogue, to present and reveal the life of the representatives of different nations, to remove stereotypes and clichés from the minds of different people.

It may seem that all my heroes are ordinary children, but of different age and appearance. However, it is not true. I set myself the task to open the door to the small world of every family, to be acquainted with the culture of each character, which is stored only inside and not visible from outside. Family, lifestyle, religion – all these are just begin to govern the children and we can only guess about his future fate.

Male from the birth
© Yana Feldman
Please visit Saint-Petersburg, Childhood of many faces, by Yana Feldman for the full size image.

For me personally, in this project “Saint-Petersburg. Childhood of many faces” it was also important to preserve and pass on the aesthetics of the photographs. I did not make the task, and did not want to shoot and show the blood, dirt and any other thrill, which, unfortunately, sometimes common in modern documentary projects. After all, no matter what – the children always remain children. Nevertheless, at the same time, I specifically refused to shoot glamorous baby photo. Can you even suggest how family and cultural traditions in some way be related to the “puppet” kids?

Easter
© Yana Feldman
Please visit Saint-Petersburg, Childhood of many faces, by Yana Feldman for the full size image.

Somewhere in the middle of a project, I decided that after the diploma work I would like to continue working over this project. By that time, it had already become a part of me. In addition, when I was offered (after graduating) to hold an exhibition at the gallery of the Saint-Petersburg State Academic Capella, I realized that I was ready to exhibit my project to the vast audience. I started preparing for the exhibition, which also became my first solo exhibition. The exhibition opened in mid-January 2013. A short time later, I was offered to present an exhibition in Minsk.

From myself I would like to wish all the readers: look for unusual ideas, do not dwell on the simple. Having found an exceptional story – in any case do not give in to difficulties! After all, the more ambitious and more complex you set a goal – the more pleasant you will be, when achieve it!

For more photos, please visit Yana Feldman website.

Africa inside
© Yana Feldman
Please visit Saint-Petersburg, Childhood of many faces, by Yana Feldman for the full size image.

Gonzalo Bénard: Small Town Inertia: do you want to explain the title or the story behind it?

Jim A Mortram: Small Town Inertia is a long form documentary and environmental portraiture series that I have been working upon for the last 3 years. It concerns itself with the real life stories of several people within a 3 miles radius within my local community in Dereham, East Anglia in the UK. The title stems from the notion that many people end up and stay here even though they desire to leave.



I entered into the series with the notion that everyone has a story and with a desire to afford a voice to those that often have no platform to communicate their story. Themes have varied from person and situation. I’ve reported about isolation, poverty, drug abuse, homelessness, self harm, mental illness, juvenile crime, epilepsy though for myself the over riding experience has been one of endurance in spite of the impossible walls life often presents to us. Wall’s that box us in, wall’s that separate us, wall’s to climb to be set free.

© Jim A Mortram
Please visit Small Town Inertia, an interview with Jim A Mortram for the full size image.



Small Town Inertia reports from within these documented lives. Lives lived in the now. Lives lived within times of much change. As the cultural, political and economic landscape changes these stories depict the final destination for the results of many of those high up and far away decisions and influences. These photographs and supporting stories depict the full stop of the Welfare State cuts, Housing Benefit cuts, Health cuts, loopholes and failures of systems and what happens when the heart of a community is slowly eroded. They also depict the lives of those hanging on, bowed yet not broken, of lives where a fight to survive is very real. Fighting apathy, addiction, fighting loneliness, illness all the while clinging to self-respect, adrift in the community, in life, but not yet lost.

Gonzalo Bénard: Everybody can see the tremendous quality of your photography, even on internet where sometimes we can’t see it properly, so let’s not talk about it and let’s go beyond the technical stuff. Since I know your work you’ve been always focused on what it is to be human, bringing naked-fragile minds through your portraits. What’s the relation that you have with them all to achieve such deepness and honesty when doing a portrait?

Jim A Mortram: I always treat people, as I myself like to be treated. You can never feign nor fake interest in a person. I’ve never singled out people with an eye that they might make a good story for example; it’s a very organic evolvement. Though every person I’ve photographed I’ve met as a stranger over time bonds form, trust very much has to be earned. People are very giving and that humbles me greatly, my greatest debt is always to the person the other side of the lens. It’s such a great honor to be accepted and brought into another person’s life and given the access to document it. I’m sure I could work in a faster fashion but for me long form documentary is where my heart is. Often I’ll visit people and not even take an image, just talk and more importantly listen, and I listen more than I shoot. I have an equation that I always bear in mind Talk more than you shoot and listen more than you talk and it serves me well. I break shoots up into periods of straight documentary and periods so shoot portraits, make interviews and shoot video. 



© Jim A Mortram
Please visit Small Town Inertia, an interview with Jim A Mortram for the full size image.

The most wonderful outcome of the series is seeing the positive effects that it has upon the people featured within the series, our very real bonds and the sense of community, both with the people I photograph and from the wider photographic community itself whom have been of outstanding support.

Gonzalo Bénard: I know that your main job is to be a carer, but your hobby became a continuity of that. Do you feel a carer when you’re photographing them?

Jim A Mortram: That’s a really interesting question and something I’ve often mused on. My conclusion is that being a Carer, especially for a loved one, a member of the family has influenced me as a person and those experiences evidently trickle down and appear in my personality now so are present when I shoot. It’s a high stress situation working as a Carer and you need to develop many skills you’d never use in everyday life, elements such as thinking really fast in serious situation, life threatening ones from time to time, acute patience and knowing when to shut up and listen, to understand what a person needs when they can’t always communicate. All these have had a real impact on the way I communicate and especially listen during shoots but I have never felt like a Carer, everyone I shoot is just like me, were all human being regardless of what we might be experiencing, I always take that into every situation I go to document.

© Jim A Mortram
Please visit Small Town Inertia, an interview with Jim A Mortram for the full size image.

Gonzalo Bénard: Do you feel that for them is important you to be there and in some way leaving a register in your photographs? Do you feel this ex-change when you’re with them, being important for you to photograph and for them for being photographed?

Jim A Mortram: Yes. Very much show and for many reasons. Initially it’s to have an opportunity, ANY opportunity to share their experiences and to be heard. It’s, I feel a really empowering step for the people I work with on these long form series to make the decision to get involved, stay involved. It’s a way for many people to take a positive step, to maybe take some control where there might be a huge absence of any control in their lives. It’s also a mirror for many people, it might be the first time that they have paused for thought as every day is just surviving, enduring and when you live just to make it through one day to the next it’s often hard to distance yourself from that experience and take a moment for reflection.

Gonzalo Bénard: Do you want to share a special moment with any of the people you shoot towards your photography or you being photographer?

Jim A Mortram: I’d first encountered Shaunny totally by chance as I’d taken a street shot of him taking his shirt off outside a pub in Market Town. Subsequently that shot went on to place 3rd in the Photo Radar POTY (Documentary) and I wanted to find out who it was I’d made this random street image of. 



© Jim A Mortram
Please visit Small Town Inertia, an interview with Jim A Mortram for the full size image.

Market town is a small place and it did not take too long to find someone that knew someone that could put me in touch with Shaunny. I got an email and arranged a meeting at his home. At this time I was still borrowing a camera and lenses so I’d picked them up the morning of the shoot along with for the first time a 50mm.



My sessions always work the same. There is a lot of talking. I’ll always set out what the project is about, where images will be shown etc and then we really get into exploring life. Many times the people I shoot have no significant opportunity to talk, open up or be listened to. I like to ask a question then let things roll, to let the person reveal as much as they are want to share and interject with further questions throughout the conversation making fresh junctions together, seeing where it takes us.



I’d started with a 28mm, a f2.8 and the light was very dark that day and the D200 I was using was not the best camera for an interior, little light and so I was pretty much forced into putting the 50mm f1.8 to the body to give myself a little more room to play with.

 This first shoot with Shaunny was one of the first that I’d really explored intense 1 on 1’s. Walking into a total strangers house was quite something but my own fears were suppressed by the desire to do justice to what was happening within the room. Shaunny was opening up more than I had expected. Within 15 minutes of arriving he was opening his soul to me, every pain, loss, regret began to flow forth, at first just a trickle but soon becoming a river that was to burst it’s banks.



© Jim A Mortram
Please visit Small Town Inertia, an interview with Jim A Mortram for the full size image.

“I never talk to anyone about this stuff” Shaunny said as we talked through the loss of failed relationships, finding his Mother passed away at 15, the death of his young children, his battle with chronic back pain due to an accident, his self medication with alcohol. 



“Do you want to stop? I can put the camera down at any time” I told him, we were very close, the 50mm forces you to use your legs as a zoom so I was maybe 1 foot away from Shaunny, both of us standing parallel to the single window in his flat. Winter skies outside, I remember someone revving their car, redlining it, testing the engine outside a monotone drone that seemed to amplify the words, the stories Shaunny was sharing. There was no longer a camera between us. I often look over the viewfinder so actual eyes can lock, I shoot manual so that was spot metered and taken care of, shooting wide open at f1.8 hand held is tricky at the best of time and as Shaunny’s first tears started to come I fought to keep my own hands from shaking.



“Do you want to stop mate, I don’t have to photograph this” I asked again “No, I want you to, this is the first time I think I’ve ever opened up about these things, I want people to know I have regrets, that I am sorry, that I’m not who they think I am, I want people to see that I hurt too”.

© Jim A Mortram
Please visit Small Town Inertia, an interview with Jim A Mortram for the full size image.



Shaunny saying that was a revelation for me. I could easily have put the camera down had he not said that. In that moment I knew that to not do my best in this situation would be a dereliction of duty. Here I was, in another mans home, toe to toe with him baring his soul and tears, very old, bitter, painful and real tears spilling from his eyes and I felt for the first time the burden of a very wanted responsibility. I could feel myself totally engaged in this moment, this shared moment and also aware of controlling the camera, probably nervously as I’d never used a f1.8 50mm before so I was as nervous as all hell of getting it wrong but everything was happening so fast I just had to let the fear go, rely on instinct and carry on.



I shot a lot in 10 minutes, maybe 40 images and most all with Shaunny looking right into the camera, right into me, right into the audience. These were intense shots. Being so close to another human being in pain, sobbing their heart out. As Shaunny reached the climax of his very personal cathartic out pouring I took one last shot placed the camera to one side “Mate, that was amazing. Have you any idea how much that touched me. I’m almost in tears too! How do you feel?” I asked. Shaunny drying his tears looked up and at me and said, “Fucking brilliant mate, I feel fucking brilliant. Like a weights gone. Thank you.”



This really choked me. Thank me? I’d done nothing. Pressing a shutter is no big mystery to me. I’d not expected this day to unfold anywhere close to where its destination eventually was. It was becoming a moment of very real clarity for me too. These moments were teaching me why I had to pursue the Small Town Inertia series, that every person has their story, tales of loss, tales of joy, endurance regrets and hopes of redemption. Instead of 15 minutes of banal transient fame they deserve, instead of being the focus of an imposed ego destined to be art on a wall we all deserve to be listened to at the very least within our lives.

© Jim A Mortram
Please visit Small Town Inertia, an interview with Jim A Mortram for the full size image.


I put my arms around Shaunny and gave him a hug “You don’t have to thank me mate, thank yourself, you found it in you to face all these things, to get them out. You feel the regrets you do, they affect you. You’ve shown that in extraordinary circumstances today. I’m proud of you… be proud of you too. “



I packed my gear away and as I left I told Shaunny that I’d sit on the images for a while and visit again with a print, if he wanted them public we’d go from there. When I got home I was relieved the shots had come out at all. Whilst editing them I found the shots with open eyes a little too obvious and they somehow through all their evident pain lost some intensity and they did not really reflect the most poignant moment of that morning. The very last shot however did. When Shaunny paused for that final moment, tears upon his face with eyes closed finally reflecting upon the life, his life and all it’s pain and all his regrets that he had just fought into and excised and shared for me epitomized the pain, struggle, endurance, reflection and acceptance of that cold morning shared in a flat with a stranger. A few weeks later I returned with a print. I was weary, would Shaunny be pleased, would he not want to share the image at all. My fears were allayed instantly. Shaunny loved the image, was proud of the day. We’ve gone on to share many other moments together as I’ve documented his life and the portrait we made together hangs on his wall still.

Gonzalo Bénard: You’re creating a relation with them, only that way you can also have the honesty in your work that is so important, and I guess that this is not a short time project but a longer one. Do you want to show the evolution of being alive in such register?

Jim A Mortram: Absolutely. I could not see myself working in any other way than long form. Without the time invested I think I would document in a much shallower, ephemeral way so taking months, years to constantly document and share it gives the series context, there is a evolution within the lives, to tell any story you have to do more than read chapter one you have to read from the front to the back cover.

© Jim A Mortram
Please visit Small Town Inertia, an interview with Jim A Mortram for the full size image.

Gonzalo Bénard: Which is the evolution you noticed more since you started this social photographic work till this latest one you’re still developing?

Jim A Mortram: I firmly believe that you never reach a destination; I’m constantly moving forwards in terms of the way I do things mostly as I believe we never stop learning. The largest constraints to the work are financial; it’s hard to self-finance travel, film, equipment, bills etc when you pay for everything from Carers Allownce Benefits and that’s frustrating but not enough of an obstacle to stop my work on these series.

Gonzalo Bénard: Apart from the exposure you’re getting with your photography that can and should bring more awareness to our society, is there a immediate and practical help you’re getting or can get doing this work with/for them?

Jim A Mortram: I’ve had a wonderful reaction from so many photographic peers, curators and editors, something that began slowly and led to a point where I have a wonderful network of friends that help out in many ways which is something I value so dearly. RE the project I get no financial help outside the occasional donation, no Arts grants etc. One company that has helped me has been the UK Office of Hahnemuehle papers that were just fantastic in supporting my last exhibition, without their help the show could never have taken place at all.

© Jim A Mortram
Please visit Small Town Inertia, an interview with Jim A Mortram for the full size image.

Gonzalo Bénard: Of course that there’s always people who think that you’re taking advantage of them, and I’m saying this by some comments I read on an article about your project on BBC news, maybe from people who never did anything useful nor are aware of your real work. Is there anything you want to share to our readers who don’t know you?

Jim A Mortram: It’s easy for people to make a snap decision when looking at a series or a single image, I can understand that and honestly many of the situations people I work on stories are in, I’ve experienced myself so I have a real and true empathy, a connection with them and that’s mutual. I’ve always made sure everyone I’ve ever worked with fully understands the project, consent is always the first element discussed and I’ve never had a complaint from anyone that’s been a part of a series in fact it’s just the contrary as my phone often rings with people wanting to do it, to be involved. What people maybe don’t understand is the depth of commitment between all the people in the series and myself, it’s long term and very real.

Gonzalo Bénard: How can someone take part on this project or how can someone help you/them on this Small Town Inertia?

Jim A Mortram: The most important thing I would always say is to view the images in context with the interviews and testimony upon the Small Town Inertia site or the Aletheia Photos site of which I’m a member. If anyone would like to help the project there is a donate link upon the Small Town Inertia site.

© Jim A Mortram
Please visit Small Town Inertia, an interview with Jim A Mortram for the full size image.

Photos by Bar Am-David, text by Bar Am-David and Eli Am-David.

Tel Aviv is divided into nine districts that grew up during the city’s short history. The most notable of these is Jaffa, the ancient port city out of which Tel Aviv grew. This area is traditionally made up of a greater percentage of Arabs but recent gentrification is attracting a young, professional population and Israelis.

© Bar Am-David
Please visit Portraits from Jaffa, by Bar Am-David for the full size image.

The rational for visual Jaffa voyage lies in the social political background use of the photographs containing the cultural practices that emerge from the use of these images. Furthermore at the photographic journey I created a conceptual substructure for people to be involved and to take action upon the forgotten back yard of the main metropolitan in Israel.

© Bar Am-David
Please visit Portraits from Jaffa, by Bar Am-David for the full size image.

The late modern history of Jaffa starts with the Ottoman conquest. Only in 1654 the “Latin hostel” was established by the order of the Franciscans, who were responsible for the affairs of the Christians in the Holy Land a few years earlier by 1642, an attempt was made to build a similar hostel entrance “cave” used to store the pilgrims until the arrival of officials from Ramle or Gaza. On a later stage they were established the Armenian monastery and the convent Greek – Orthodox who also served as hostels. Construction of these buildings was used as a lever to the reestablishment of a permanent settlement in Jaffa.

© Bar Am-David
Please visit Portraits from Jaffa, by Bar Am-David for the full size image.

Beginning of the permanent settlement in Jaffa built friendly relations between the Ottoman Empire and France which influenced the increase in traffic of goods at the port. Thus we find in Jaffa in the settlement a variety of Muslims, Christians, European and few Jews.

General Napoleon Bonaparte who arrived in Jaffa on the third of March 1799 found a fortified city with a large garrison. Napoleon was able to capture the city on the seventh of March 1799, so he went north to Acre. He left in Jaffa the injured soldiers in the hospital that was set up in the Armenian monastery. He returned to Jaffa at the end of May 1799 when he retreated from Acre.

© Bar Am-David
Please visit Portraits from Jaffa, by Bar Am-David for the full size image.

After the conquest of Jaffa there was a beginning of process of re-construction and production by the local ruler Mohammed Abu sprout and with the help of the British army led by General Sidney Smith. In 1820 Jaffa Khaled estate was founded by a Jewish Rabbi Isaiah Ag’imn Istanbul that marks the beginning of renewed Jewish community in Jaffa.

In 1831, the army of Muhammad Ali conquered Jaffa as the rest of the Land of Israel. Ten-year reign in Jaffa established around the city’s neighborhoods with Egyptian characteristics. In 1840, Jaffa returns to Ottoman rule and the city and the port continue to evolve and grow. Outside Jaffa’s neighborhoods were created. First of all, the Americans built the “Church of the messiah” (1866) that was sold to the Germans by leaving Jaffa to the Templers who continue to use the American colony in homes they themselves built.

© Bar Am-David
Please visit Portraits from Jaffa, by Bar Am-David for the full size image.

In the years to come the City of Jaffa continues to grow in all directions. The inhabitants make the port a main orange marketing export centre under the brand “Jaffa oranges”. New Jewish neighborhoods such as Neve Tzedek (1887), Neve Shalom (1890) were established. A new paved railroad track to Jerusalem was inaugurated in 1892.

In 1900 was laid the cornerstone of the famous clock tower of Jaffa marking 25 years to the rise to power of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. In 1909 at the northern part of Jaffa was founded the first Jewish independent neighborhood called Achuzat Bayit which eventually becomes the first quarter of the first Jewish city named Tel Aviv. As a result of the 1948 independence war the two cities of Jaffa and Tel Aviv were united to one of the two main metropolitan cities, including Jerusalem, in Israel.

© Bar Am-David
Please visit Portraits from Jaffa, by Bar Am-David for the full size image.

As to my personal response in which these images increasingly rivals the normative world and in which these photographs should be instrumental in shaping our collective and individual conceptions of reality. The Voyage to Jaffa means to inspire and motivate the public and support any opinion that will emphasize actual aspects within the social and the political conflict that surround Jaffa as a micro cosmos of the Middle East regional conflict. The collection of Jaffa photographs aim to present the diversity, the complexity of the different societies and its inhabitants by showcasing some mainstream and some alternative images.

In my opinion, the cultural landscape of Jaffa must engage the viewers emotions on multiply levels, and the viewer should be a real partner in a holistic outlook of the several photographs. The photographic art as shown partly in this voyage has the ability to put through a visual complex throughout time and different lifestyles.

© Bar Am-David
Please visit Portraits from Jaffa, by Bar Am-David for the full size image.

In my mind’s eye, it seems to be required to create multiply visual modes that sometimes are not acceptable by the mainstream of society. It also enables us to show a wide spectrum of emotions and mental states. Jaffa is a typical micro cosmos of this spectrum. I know from a personal experience that a subjective view of photographic art is unavoidable.

However I tried to convey to the viewer a complete portfolio of images and hidden messages to produce identity and involvement. Furthermore by offering materials reflecting visual culture in human geography as well as cultural memory and visual activism I hope to evoke a deep and honest public awareness.

© Bar Am-David
Please visit Portraits from Jaffa, by Bar Am-David for the full size image.

This special photography experience serves as a basic media tool and as a language of art in an ongoing social dialog. It also enables us to show a wide spectrum of emotions and mental states in an immigration oriented and multicultural country. The photographic journey through Jaffa highlights the power of symbols skillfully and wisely.

Such photographic works can encourage directly or indirectly a social public discourse and shedding light on potential actual solutions.

© Bar Am-David
Please visit Portraits from Jaffa, by Bar Am-David for the full size image.

Jaffa is the most celebrated place in Israel, where Israelis and Arabs live in peace together despite the conflict. My purpose was to examine the lifestyle of this particular place and to look at how ordinary people survive in their extraordinary circumstances. These photographs do not pose solutions but serve as a reminder of enduring spirit through the most challenging adversity.

For more information and photos, please visit Bar Am-David website.

© Bar Am-David
Please visit Portraits from Jaffa, by Bar Am-David for the full size image.

Roger Ballen is one of my favorite photographer ever. His complex, beautiful and disturbing images are intense and powerful visions rooted deep inside the subconscious mind. Mysterious visions that last long time inside your brain, as vaguely unexpressed questions.

It was a great honor when Roger Ballen accepted to be art of CO-mag, and answer some question about his practice and vision.

Cat catcher, 1998
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

Fabiano Busdraghi: You studied geology and before becoming a full time photographer you worked many years searching for minerals in South Africa. Speaking about your double scientific and artistic experience, some times ago you wrote to me: “In order to create strong images one has to be a scientist and artist.”

Personally I’m extremely interested in this topic, because I’ve be a physician during some year before switching to photography. So many people I met in the scientific or art word, think as they are two completely distinct universes, while during centuries art, science, technique… where simply considered the same expression of the human knowledge.

Lunchtime
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

What is in your vision of the relationship between science and art? Why it’s important to be an artist and a scientist at the same time?

Roger Ballen: One might think of the artist/scientist analogy as the relationship between the conscious/subconscious mind. Whilst there are many overlaps, creativity has to be channeled through a part of the mind that is is rational and is able to make decisions based on experience. Nevertheless the source of creativity is based deep inside the subconscious mind.

Eulogy
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

Fabiano Busdraghi: It’s easy to see the analogy between searching deep underground and the subconscious exploration in your photographs. But I ask to my self if there is something else, something more practical and direct compared to this metaphor.

Do you think that the formal training typical of science influenced your photographic approach? What is the role of the scientific method in your images?

Fragments, 2005
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

Roger Ballen: My goal in many ways is to become a master of the medium of black and white photography. As each year passes I continue to learn more about the media and how to “express greater complexity in a state of purer simplicity”. I think my training in the field of geologist assisted me in appreciating the relationships between cause and effect which is fundamental to the scientific approach.

Fabiano Busdraghi: When they started, many of my photographer friends had a lot of artistic ambitions. After a while, -mainly because of economical constraint- they started some parallel commercial activity: weddings, advertising, etc. The problem is that little by little they become prisoner of the economical appeal of their commercial work. The resulting situation usually killed their creativity and all the their artistic ambitions.

Head inside shirt, 2001
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

You practiced photography as an hobby for many years and -as a consequence- yo wasn’t obliged to make a living out of it. Do you think that this kind of freedom was fundamental to find your way? Would you suggest to young photographer to have a parallel and completely distinct job to experience the same freedom? Or it would be better to concentrate uniquely on photography form the beginning?

Roger Ballen: I often explain to younger photographers that the field of art photography is one of the most difficult careers in the world. There are literally trillions of photographs in the world and billions of people taking photographs. In order to have any possible success in this business ones work has to stand out and have lasting impact over time.

Crouched, 2003
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

In life it is crucial to find the correct balance. Whilst “what might work for one may not work for the other”; I have stated that firstly one ought to photograph for oneself not the market, secondly that being an art photography requires the same discipline and dedication that one might apply to any other field and thirdly that it is crucial to have another profession to subsidize the costs of daily life.

Fabiano Busdraghi: Looking at your photographic production, animals are extremely recurrent: dogs, cats, ducks, birds, snakes… Some time ago I was reading an analysis of Pink Floyd songs where animals had a central part, especially concerning Syd Barret. In the book, the massive presence all kind of real or mythological fauna, insects, and animal sounds could even be interpreted as an early sign of Syd mental illness. Even if I’m not sure about this statement, I think the parallel between a band who often explored the dark side of our existence and your introspective work is evident.

Three hands, 2006
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

So, why so many of your photos are populated by animals? What is the importance of animals in your work?

Roger Ballen: For most of my life I have been fascinated by the similarities of animal behavior to human. A substantial amount of my imagery over the past decades has attempted to decipher visually the animality of the human being.

On another level, my images comment on the complex relationship between mankind and animals. It is quite obvious that this interaction is not one of mutual trust and benefit. Quite the contrary.

Scavenging, 2004
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

Fabiano Busdraghi: You have organized and diffused your work in the form of photo books. It seems to me that books are central in your production, and are the natural physical materialization of your work. Before exhibiting your work is so many galleries and museum, you already published several books, and it’s your book Platteland who drove so much attention on your practice and was a fundamental turning point in your life.

Can you explain why you have this fascination for books? What are the implication of having a photo book as the main objective? When you produce a new body of work, do you already think to it as a future book? Or after some year shooting new work, you “discover” a book editing all the raw material you gradually accumulated?

Caged, 2011
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

Roger Ballen: My career has revolved around the production of books namely Boyhood, Dorps, Platteland, Outland, Shadow Chamber, Boarding House, and Asylum. These projects have all taken approximately five years to complete.

All of the above book projects started with a word that eventually became the title to the future book. During the years that it took to complete these projects my goal was to define in a purely visual, subjective manner the meaning of the particular word. Each strong, successful photograph added another dimension to the project in progress.

A book, unlike an exhibition is permanent, it is something one can go back to over and over again. It establishes a level from which one can begin the “next climb”.

Loner, 2001
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

Gonzalo Bénard: I studied 12 years at a Jesuit’s school being an atheist since I remember myself, however, the very first photograph I knew from you was the most engaging portrait of God I ever seen. I have shown it in almost every master class I gave, as example of composition, conceptual photography, etc. But knowing you and your work, you’ve been always creating, projecting and representing your inner world, maybe as process of oneself knowledge. This photograph can be seen as an icon to a man full of faith and yet can also be an icon of a pure atheist, showing God as a nonsense dogma. The guy seems sleeping relaxed feeling protected yet giving the back to us, humanity; the dog seems asking “what the hell is going on here?”; the God himself as a wired puppet, a doll with a funny smile, and the whole environment as opposite to the golden church.

Where are the creator here? Where are you in this photograph?

Squawk, 2005
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

Roger Ballen: I have always stated that whilst some may find this image titled “Loner” disturbing; it is ultimately conveying a profound statement about the meaning and nature of the identity of God.

On a formal level the photograph is integrated by the fact that the eye of the dog is comparable to the doll, the dog and the man on the bed lie in the form of a cross, and the reverse spelling of the word God is Dog.

Untitled, 2009
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

Gonzalo Bénard: You often say that your photographs are a way to define yourself, your “psychological and existential journey”, however you do not come up on them, your real face/body is not visible in your work. Do you project yourself in the photographed beings – humans/animals? Most of your work has some kind of ritualistic mood, not coming up in the photographs yourself, are you playing the shaman, using others to project yourself in these rituals? Or going further if I may: are each one of your works a mask you use (or could use) being the shaman?

Roger Ballen: Like my photographs my being consists of endless fragments many of which I am oblivious of. Each photograph I produce reveals Roger Ballen’s mind through a camera. People fail to realize that a camera is fundamentally a tool of the mind; no different than a paint brush in the hand of a painter or a pen of a poet.

Ape skull, 2002
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

Gonzalo Bénard: Parallel yet not separated from your photographic blood you run the Roger Ballen Foundation, with which you add an important role in South Africa education for culture, with lectures, classes, workshops, dealing with people who might be a world future great photographer. Knowing by my own experience, teaching and doing workshops can be an amazing way to learn from the new ones. What do you give from you? What do you get from them? Being teaching an ex-change of minds in which everybody should learn from the others, what’s the most pleasant for you leading the Roger Ballen Foundation? Do you want to share a bit your experience on this?

Roger Ballen: The purpose of the Roger Ballen Foundation is to increase the aesthetic awareness of contemporary photography in South Africa. Unless the public becomes aware of the value of photography and begins to collect photographs it will be almost impossible for young artists to continue in this field without other forms of material support.

Deathbed, 2010
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

The Foundation has organized and supported master classes, symposiums, exhibitions, and lectures over the years all of which have been very well attended.

Gonzalo Bénard: as an art-photographer I know that a serious interview about our work can get one tired, specially when we feel we already answered most of the questions people do, and sometimes we ended up giving an interview thinking: “pity they didn’t ask about this or that as it’s important”… like the importance of having a left nipple to chat with the right one. Do you want to answer to yourself?

Gasping, 2010
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

Roger Ballen: Answering to yourself is the most important activity of an artist.

For more information and photos, please visit Roger Ballen website.

Possessed, 2009
© Roger Ballen
Please visit Roger Ballen interview for the full size image.

Text¹ and photos by Marc McAndrews.

“Have you ever been to a brothel?” she asked.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

It was August 2004 and “she” was the girlfriend of one of the bikers. They were staying in the motel room next to mine at the Cadillac Inn in Lovelock, Nevada and were on their way back from the Sturgis bike rally. We were trading stories when she began excitedly telling me about the Brothel Poker Run that takes place throughout Nevada every February.

By this time I had been driving and living in my van for weeks so I stopped into Lovelock to relax, shower and look over some of the photographs I had recently taken. The late summer sun in the desert is brutal, able to push past every form of shade. Even though the air conditioner was on full blast, my room was stagnant and sweltering from having been cooked all day. To get some air I went outside and sat in front of my room to drink beer, smoke cigarettes and watch the traffic go by.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

The bikers were out front of their rooms as well, a few doors down from mine. At first it was just two of them, like a couple of off-color raccoons, their faces a patchwork of sunburn and bright-white, bare-skinned eye sockets, acquired by riding through the desert all day with sunglasses on.

We sat there silently drinking our beers in the late afternoon light until eventually, with the intention of asking to do their portrait; I bummed a light and offered them a beer in return. One thing lead to another, their friends joined us and a few days later I left them with a massive hangover. I don’t know at exactly what point it was that she asked the question, but like a moment of clarity, it’s one of the few lucid memories I have from our weekend together.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

I had heard the Nevada brothels existed, but going to one hadn’t ever really crossed my mind. I was never a big fan of strip clubs; they felt desperate and depressing to me. The ones I had been to were rooms full of drunken men, yelling at the sight of a nipple, desperately throwing money at women who had no intention of sleeping with them. And prostitution? Well, I had always thought of it in terms of what one used to see on the seamier streets in NY or roaming the casinos in Vegas. The legal, sanctioned, and regulated sale of sex never showed up on my mental radar.

As I was leaving town I found myself thinking about brothels, wondering what I was going to find there. I had all these preconceived ideas: double-wide trailers in the middle of a barren, dusty desert, women with no pasts and men running from theirs, whisky soaked owners trying to hustle a buck off of someone else’s misfortune. Drifters, grifters, runaways—I saw all these people in my imaginary brothel. The insides were all dark and dirty, the air was heavy with smoke, alcohol flowed and drugs were a badly kept secret. It would be gritty and American and I imagined myself making formal 4×5 photographs of all of this.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

But, really, what the fuck did I know? I had never even been to a brothel before. My fantasy was filled with scenes and characters more suited to a Nick Cave song than anything that had to do with reality.

When I got back to New York a few days later, fully recovered from my Nevada hangover but still suffering from an Ohio one, I immediately began planning my trip back West and flew out a few weeks later to do some scouting.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

The first brothel I ever went to was the Bunny Ranch in Carson City. I didn’t call them, had no introduction, but just showed up early one evening with some tear sheets and a vague idea of what I wanted to do. To say I was a little on edge would be a pretty big understatement.

I vividly remember sitting in my van in the parking lot outside the brothel. I sat there for quite awhile, trying to get my nerve up, breathing hard and starting to hyperventilate. I was all calm and confident talking about it back in New York, but to actually be here about to try to talk myself inside was a whole other story. I kept thinking to myself, “Why the fuck did I tell people I was going to do this! What the fuck was I thinking!” All I wanted to do was turn around, go back to my motel room and hide under the covers and pretend this had never happened. I was completely, one hundred percent, out of my comfort zone.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

Reluctantly, I stepped out of the driver’s side door, walked up and pressed the red buzzer on the gate. Trying to mask my awkwardness from whoever was watching me, I took a deep breath and opened the gate, concentrating on looking as relaxed as possible walking up the stairs. I opened the frosted glass doors of the entrance, walked through and…Holy shit, there were all these women standing there in lingerie, perfectly lined up under bright lights, smiling right at me. That veneer of calm and confidence never made it through those frosted doors. I just stood there blushing, fidgeting, unable to make eye contact, holding my tear sheets and my little notebook and my binder. I was totally confused, unable even to get my rehearsed greeting out. I felt so stupid, so vulnerable and so exposed.

A voice to my right asked me to “pick a lady” so, blindly, I lifted my arm and pointed out in front of me. I had no idea who I picked; I only briefly looked up from nervously studying the floor.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

She took me gently by my free hand and began giving me a tour of the house. We passed through the bar, went down this hallway, down that hallway, past the doctor’s office, outside, then back inside. I tried to explain to her that I was a serious photographer; I was here to do serious things. “There was no need for a tour,” I assured her. We went all around the house until finally we arrived at her room where she closed the door and laid lazily across the bed. With seeming unconcern, she began fixing buttons on her top which I swear didn’t need any fixing.

She looked up at me and smiled, “So, what else can I help you with?”

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

“I just want to take pictures,” I stuttered in return.

Arriving back in NY a few days later I was convinced that all had gone well and the sought after permission was a done deal and so I bought another van on EBay and readied for another trip.

But life and work got in the way and it wasn’t until early the next summer that I was able to get back out on the road. Now usually when I leave on one of these trips I meander for a few days, maybe go down south a bit, explore the switchbacks of West Virginia or the tiny towns out in Indiana. This year I bee-lined straight for Nevada arriving a few days after, tired and nervous yet excited for the possibilities. I spent the day after I arrived resting to get my bearings and trying to think about what exactly I was going to do.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

I woke up early the next morning, feeling ready and prepared. Leaving Carson City I headed east on Route 50 towards Mound House and The Bunny Ranch.

This time when I arrived I was prepared when asked to “pick a lady” and asked to see a manager. The doorwoman, who acted as a gatekeeper for drunks and creepy photographers looking to take pictures, asked if there was anything that she could help with. As the women in the line-up relaxed and began slowly drifting back to the parlor and their rooms, I explained that I was the photographer who was here a few months ago and had been given permission to take some photographs whenever I came back. Looking me up and down she took the folder of images I was holding, thumbed through them quickly and handed it back. Bluntly she told me they weren’t interested in any photographs and the manager wasn’t available, but I could call back later that afternoon if I wanted to talk to somebody.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

Not quite sure what had just happened (was I denied or just stalled?) I made the drive back to Carson City and attempted to regroup. Hours later I was still nervously pacing my motel room, back and forth from concrete wall to concrete wall, staring at the phone in my hand trying to organize my thoughts. I needed to figure out what exactly I wanted to say to whoever it was I was about to call and talk to.

After a series of fumbled phone introductions I was finally transferred to someone I was told could help me. The woman I eventually spoke with on the phone assured me that I must have been mistaken, that she was the only one that would have been able to give me that kind of permission and she had no idea who I was. She was sorry, but she couldn’t help me. “Thank you and good-bye.”

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

I stood there in a state of shock from the abruptness and finality of her response; I had figured that I would at least be allowed to come in for a meeting to talk with someone.

I remembered seeing a sign for another set of brothels on one of my drives out to the Bunny Ranch, so after dinner I set back out for Mound House hoping I’d have better luck at one of these houses. I found them hidden down a small slope of a hill, past a few auto painting and machine shops. This was Carson City’s version of a red light district. Three brothels—the Kit Kat Guest Ranch, The Bunny Ranch II, and The Sagebrush—were situated on a large cul-de-sac parking lot. Closing off its far side was a junkyard that filled the surrounding acres with stacks and stacks of abandoned cars and buses.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

Walking into The Kit Kat was a much different experience. Gone were the bright lights and line-ups of the Bunny Ranch, replaced by a lone bartender watching TV in an empty and dimly lit parlor. As I took a seat at the bar one of the women appeared from a side hallway and slid in close to me. Eyeing the folder resting in front of me she asked where I was from and who I was looking to see. Taking out my Polaroids and placing them on the bar, I began explaining to her that I was here to start a project photographing the brothels, a very serious project. Without even bothering to glance at the Polaroids she turned, disappeared into the back and returned a few seconds later with another woman and the manager on duty. We only spoke for a short time before the manager deferred to the woman who had originally approached me and then vanished back down the hallway. I was much more comfortable here and this time when a tour was offered I was able to accept without having to look down at my shoes.

The woman who took me around was tall and full-figured. I remember being struck by how at ease she was talking to a total stranger with half of her breasts spilling out of her top. Walking through the house we chatted about possible locations to shoot and who would be up for it. She promised to talk with the owners later that day, but assured me it was all going to be just fine. We sat back down at the bar and one by one she called the other women over to introduce me. They were overwhelmingly excited about the photographs and we made plans for me to return later that week to get started. I was in and I could tell this was going to be amazing.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

When I returned to the house a few days later they knew who I was and were ready for me. But, instead of this being a positive thing, I was met at the door by a large bartender resting his hand on a small caliber pistol holstered to his waist. He buzzed me through the front gate but met me outside, closing the front door behind him. He regretted to inform me that the owner of the brothel, while appreciating my interest, had to decline my offer. I began to protest, but he quickly raised his hand and cut me off. He was sorry, he said. There was nothing else he could do.

And I needed to leave the property—immediately…

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

Later that evening I was having a few consolation drinks over at Mo and Sluggo’s bar in Carson City, thinking back on the past few days’ events and my brief foray into legalized prostitution. The woman with the overflowing breasts had made an off-handed comment that the brothels over in Elko would be worth checking out. She thought they’d be much easier to get into. I sat there mulling over her advice. I was becoming quite disheartened by the whole process. I had been in town for some time now and was getting stonewalled by one person after another. It was probably the whiskey, but I resolved to make the drive and give it one more shot.

The next morning at breakfast I looked over notes from my recent attempts, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. What could be giving them pause? What was keeping me from getting inside? I needed to re-calibrate, to be more certain in what I was trying to say. I needed a new approach, so I wrote out an introduction and recited it over and over again to my eggs and grits until it came out smooth and natural. After downing a pot of coffee, I got in my van and merged onto I-80 to make the seven-hour drive east out to Elko.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

It was the middle of the afternoon when I finally arrived in town and pulled into a gas station to ask for directions to the closest brothel. Barely taking his eyes off of the black and white TV behind the counter the attendant pointed out the window, indicating a few blocks in that direction.

Situated on two streets in a residential section of town, the Elko brothels are located two blocks from the casinos and the town center. There are five brothel licenses available in Elko and all of these are taken with four of the houses open and operating—Mona’s Ranch, Sue’s Fantasy Club, #1 Geisha, and Inez’s Dancing and Diddling.

The brothels were sitting there innocently in the midst of modest single-family houses, their neon signs not yet lit up. Kids were outside playing, riding their bikes and chasing each other up and down the block. Parking half way between two of the brothels I gathered my things, recited my intro one more time and walked into Mona’s Ranch.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

Like the Kit Kat there was no immediate line-up here, just a bartender casually wiping down the bar and smoking a cigarette. Stopping mid-motion, she leaned forward on the bar and watched me walk down through the hallway and out into the parlor. “You wanna drink or you just wanna see the ladies?” was how she greeted me. I opened my folder and went right into my prepared speech. This time it came out smoothly and easily; it felt honest and sincere with no stumbling. Dragging heavily on her cigarette she turned her head to the side without moving her body and called out into the back, “Caarlii!!”

Coming out smiling from the back hallway wearing cut-off jean shorts, a pink halter-top, and flip-flops was Carli. She walked up to the bartender, leaned heavily on her shoulder and, while never taking her eyes off me, asked, “So, who’s this?”

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

Carli was then the Big Sister at Mona’s Ranch. She had no problem with me photographing in the house, but wanted to check with the owner first. He had just bought the place and she didn’t want to make any assumptions. She invited me into the kitchen while she made the phone call. Just as she was dialing he walked through the back door carrying overloaded bags stuffed with groceries for the week. As Carli began to ask him about the photographs he interrupted before she could finish, “Sure, whatever, but he’s your responsibility.” And just like that, in a very unceremonious way, I had finally gotten access.

Sitting at the kitchen table Carli offered me a cup of coffee and gave me a quick rundown of what to expect at Mona’s: the women, the schedules, when they’re busy, what to do about customers, some basic ground rules for when I was shooting. For instance, if I was working in the bar and a customer rang, I had to break everything down and hide it all in a side room.

I told her my story and what my experiences had been so far. When I had finished she smiled so sweetly at me. Slowly, Carli reached across the table, placing her hand gently on mine. Shaking her head she seemed as if she was going to start laughing out loud at any second, “Listen Honey… you gotta relax…no one’s gonna hurt you here.”

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

Carli walked me down the hall and took me to my room. It was a good-sized room, much bigger than what I had back in New York. A bare king-sized bed sat in the center of the room, pushed up against a mirrored wall. Two worn end tables sat on either side, loaded with more condoms and lube than I had ever seen before. After bringing in some clean sheets, she introduced me to Whispers, who I’d be sharing a conjoined bathroom with. Then, after offering their assistance for anything I needed, I was left alone to get settled. That was to be home for the next five days.

While bringing my gear in from the van a pair of Lucite shoes caught my eye, sitting neatly on a staircase of flocked wallpaper and lit from behind by rope lighting. I went back to my room and got my camera and some lights, setting them up slowly.

I took a photograph.

For more photos and stories, please visit Marc McAndrews website.

© Marc Mc Andrews
Please visit Through the Green Door, by Marc McAndrews for the full size image.

1. From an essay by Marc McAndrews appeared in Nevada Rose, a 160 pages photobook about legal brothels in Nevada designed by Natasha Samoylenko and published by Umbrage Editions/Nan Richardson (Associate Editor: Antonia Blair).

Text and photos by Darek Fortas.

I was originally attracted to making images, as it offered a unique ability to escape the very rigid and limiting aspects of linguistics, which we use to communicate everyday. For me, making a new body of work is like inventing a new way of communicating with others, especially when it comes to sequencing images in a photobook.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

It happens very often that people overlook things which are important, or interesting when they are situated at their doorstep. It’s also very common that places we are originally from, gain much more significance when we move somewhere else. This is what exactly happened in my case.

‘Coal Story’ is about going back to my own roots. When you live somewhere else, especially if you live in different country, going back to your own roots is about fulfilling a desire to have psychological comfort with moving on.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

I was born in Silesia in 1986, the southern and the most industrialised part of Poland. I have a very foggy memory of the communist era, as I was only three years old when it all finished. My dad later told me that basically communism was about waiting. Can you imagine that in the 1980s in the Polish People Republic some people were setting up tents a night before the shop opened just in order to secure their place in a queue, before they could acquire a Russian made TV, or washing machine of their dreams, as it was coming in ‘very limited edition’.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

After spending more than seven years in Ireland I realised the importance of coming back and making a photographic body of work about Silesian identity and how the mining industry manifests itself thought the photographic lens and at the same touches on the communist resistance movement and the conflict between the individual and the state.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

Coal mines played a significant role in the process of overcoming the communist regime in Poland, simply because the whole economy of the USSR couldn’t function without Silesian coal. To the great extent that it was also about Solidarity, with Lech Walesa as a leader. This was the main social movement; organising the masses and igniting the quest for freedom among Polish people which eventually got rewarded in the form of first free elections in 1989.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

When you are making a project like ‘Coal Story’ one of the first things that comes to mind are the notions of reality and authenticity. I wouldn’t like to elevate authenticity to the level of looking for truth, or working within a surrounding space as I don’t know what truth or reality really mean. I understand authenticity as appropriating humane elements, dealing with people’s stories and bringing all those elements to create ultimate fiction, which stays in opposition to the hard and fixed ideas informing contemporary and classical notions of photography. It’s impossible to faithfully represent anything, because everything is constantly changing.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

We live in a world that has big issues with terms like truth, objectivity and faithful representation. I see an act of image making as being manipulative, in a very positive sense of this world. I have never claimed truth value, or objectivity. I have some issues with believing whatever we can experience around is only one possible spatial version of our existence.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

I always liked observing people. There’s something really interesting about observing, but at the same time not being observed. Being behind a ground screen and wearing a dark cloth on your head while composing and focusing the image gives you this precious opportunity. The camera has become a mediator that has helped me to overcome a distance between me and other people I once had.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

I captured some people whose life was split between two socio-political systems and heard many interesting stories, so I learned much about it myself. Photographing people for me is a search for the ‘contained’ that does not want to be instantly revealed to the camera, sometimes the work of the portrait photographer resembles the act of separating the subject from his mask and certainly shares some similarities with the practice of psychoanalysis.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

People always feel more confident in their own environment, it’s up to the image maker to adopt and extract the most formative aspects of a given space, people, objects etc. Making portraits also means I get access to the very intimate ‘other space’ that is created between me, my sitters and mediated by the camera. Even a minimal difference in facial expression or pose can have huge significance to what an image communicates, or whether an image is successful, or not.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

Portraying other people is an extremely difficult task, image makers have to exercise deliberate control over what appears and how it appears in the every single image. Sometimes it resembles a battlefield, documents the struggle for dominance between the artist’s conception and the sitter’s will.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

The Polish equivalent of the phrase ‘to make a portrait of somebody’ is to ‘take somebody down’ (zrobic komus zdjecie), which is quite interesting. People in the 19th century believed that you could loose a soul by making a portrait. It’s also quite interesting that through the centuries our culture developed a huge significance towards human figure and face. I always considered portraiture as the most revealing in the process of image making. For me, making portraits aspires to the process of extracting the entire life to date from my sitter.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

I feel it’s quite an extraordinary process to make a good portrait of somebody. Photography as a medium exists on a basis of compromise between what we perceive and what was fixed as standard. For me good art disrupts this order by providing a gateway to defamiliarise the viewer.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

How would I categorize ‘Coal Story’? People create categories to understand whatever surrounds them better. It’s always interesting to hear what others have to say about your images, how they interpret them. Good images have the wonderful capacity to operate on many different levels. They intersect with the viewer’s state of mind, level of visual literacy, experience – as long as my images successfully communicate and enrich others, I’m not overly concerned how they are categorized, I simply let the images speak.

For more informations and photos please visit Darek Fortas website.

© Darek Fortas
Please visit Coal Story, by Darek Fortas for the full size image.

Text and photos by Alberto Maserin.

Coming from an Italian background, Catholicism has always played a very important part in my culture and daily life. From a very early age I was involved with my local parish and going to afternoon catechism classes to prepare for my First Communion.

Et Nunc © Alberto Maserin
Please visit Et Nunc, by Alberto Maserin for the full size image.

I remember that the local priest use to let us play football before the class started to keep us interested and stop us going crazy. Other times he used to show us some of the latest movies. We were just a gang of very chaotic youths, like anybody between the ages of 7 and 10. We were kids with a low attention span and full of energy that wanted just to play and have fun; but having to follow the rules and behave while we were doing the altar service was difficult for us.

Et Nunc © Alberto Maserin
Please visit Et Nunc, by Alberto Maserin for the full size image.

Inside the church before mass you could hear the buzz of people chatting all around, kids laughing, the noise of footsteps as people came in . . . and then all noise suddenly stopped at the sound of the bell which announced the priest’s arrival.

Et Nunc © Alberto Maserin
Please visit Et Nunc, by Alberto Maserin for the full size image.

At that point in time you could feel the crowd become quite reverential towards the man in the vestments who stepped upon the altar. Once he put on those bright vestments and stood on the altar then he becomes something different than he was before. Catholic teaching says that the priest becomes a vessel of Christ and only he has the power to transform the host and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ through the process of transubstantiation during the mass.

Et Nunc © Alberto Maserin
Please visit Et Nunc, by Alberto Maserin for the full size image.

It was difficult to say what made us behave, maybe it was the respect we felt on the altar and the idea that something mysterious was happening in front of us that meant the priest had to dress in such unusual clothes. It was always very impressive to see the mass from the altar and watch the priest and the congregation as they performed the rituals of the mass. Anyhow at the end of each mass there was a free copy of a comic magazine for us as a reward for behaving!

Et Nunc © Alberto Maserin
Please visit Et Nunc, by Alberto Maserin for the full size image.

When I grew up and became a teenager I kept going to mass regularly with my local Scout association where most of our activities were associated with religion and we met a lot of different priests who were part of different religious orders. We had a laugh with them, played games and sometime ate lunch with them. The Sunday mass was an important part of the scout life. Even when I didn’t have to go to the scouts on a Sunday, I used to go to mass because all my friends were there and sometimes you could chat to a local girl you liked.

Et Nunc © Alberto Maserin
Please visit Et Nunc, by Alberto Maserin for the full size image.

On its own a symbol can be meaningless but when it is located within a specific context it can acquire an awesome power. So when the priest puts on his vestments, who he was before the mass, all his individuality and personality, disappears. He is transformed into somebody that could have stepped right out of the middle-ages. It’s like he travels back in time to a different world when the power of the church was much greater and it was the center of all education and power in Europe. Its hard to believe nowadays but the bright colors of the vestments would have been quite spectacular hundreds of years ago when life was a lot less bright. It was a real sign of status and power to have bright colours; most people in medieval Europe lived in a very dull world so the decorated church and the brightly dressed priest would have had a huge impact upon them.

Et Nunc © Alberto Maserin
Please visit Et Nunc, by Alberto Maserin for the full size image.

The priest’s preparation for service is done in the sacristy, a room in a church where vestments and other sacred items used in worship are kept. Because these are private places, usually unseen by the public, they have often been personalized by the clergymen and remind me of dressing rooms you would see backstage at a performance. What is fascinating about these rooms is the mixture of sacred religious objects (hosts, bibles, patens, chalices, etc.) mixed in with what we all see in everyday life (Irish dictionary, emergency phone numbers, radios, tea mugs, etc.). I remember in one particular sacristy seeing a poster of Liverpool football team hanging on the wall. I did not know if it was there to get a little extra help from Somebody above to win matches in the premier league or just for decoration! This extraordinary environment is perhaps the most intriguing site in any church because here sacred and profane blend and collide each other, more than anywhere else in a church.

Et Nunc © Alberto Maserin
Please visit Et Nunc, by Alberto Maserin for the full size image.

I suppose it was around at this time that I became fascinated by the mystery and layers of meaning, which are associated with the rituals of Catholicism. The meaning of these rituals and the symbolic purpose of the garments have lost their original significance and we just take them for granted I suppose. But every aspect of the mass, from the architecture of the church to the medieval vestments the priest wears, is designed to enhance the spectacle and theater of what you see happening at the altar.

Et Nunc © Alberto Maserin
Please visit Et Nunc, by Alberto Maserin for the full size image.

My work is an attempt to capture the transitional moment when the individual disappears beneath the sacred vestments and he readies himself to celebrate mass. Over the years, I have met a lot of clergymen who have all had very different personalities: gentlemen and intellectuals, traditional or modern, talkative and quiet, colourful and dull, but once they were in the act of celebrating mass they all have to conform to a certain expectation we have of how a priest should behave during this time. It is amazing how the wearing of a certain type of clothing transforms how you behave and act. Clothes alter our perception of people and in everyday life we look at the same person differently if they are dressed in casual clothes or if they are wearing a suit and tie. They are the same person but our perception of them changes depending on their outward appearance.

For more informations and photographs, please visit Alberto Maserin website.

Text and photos by Gonzalo Bénard¹.

When I first started creating this project in my mind I had no idea how interesting it would be, and especially how much I could learn from it – in so many ways. What I learned about people, about human feelings, the subjects’ reactions, how they face emotions, how they (we) grow up building our own rituals to survive emotions, or how psychological or sociological this became. Also, bringing a new meaning to what is it to be a photographer.

B Shot by a Stranger © Gonzalo Bénard
Please visit B Shot by a Stranger, by Gonzalo Bénard for the full size image.

A camera has always been a tool of voyeurism; I’d not realised that before. Till I started the B Shot by a Stranger project… and stretched the boundaries. Street photography can be as voyeuristic as shooting a model posing. A war or disaster photographer catching moments of pain and distress uses the camera as voyeuristic tool too. But none of this can go as far as watching someone in their vulnerable, intimate, nude, private, lonely moments.

B Shot by a Stranger © Gonzalo Bénard
Please visit B Shot by a Stranger, by Gonzalo Bénard for the full size image.

Most of the volunteers are young people with a social life, people with life, regular people with emotions and feelings even if they have masks to hide their emotions and feelings towards society (don’t we all?). However, when they go back home, alone, they feel their own loneliness, some emptiness, some “facing ourselves feeling”. University students or workers, most of them are experiencing their first years of life living alone or sharing flats far from their families. Experiencing their first more serious break downs. They’re young and experiencing the first steps of adulthood. How to deal with new emotions, how to face them. Building defenses and rituals to help them fight and grow up.

B Shot by a Stranger © Gonzalo Bénard
Please visit B Shot by a Stranger, by Gonzalo Bénard for the full size image.

B Shot by a Stranger had volunteers worldwide. These people are from different cultures, different faiths and different corners of the earth, all of them experiencing lonely moments. The same feelings and emotions. Aren’t we all humans? How we react to them can be different from each other, but can also be similar no matter where you’re from. It’s curious to see, for example, the ritual of a bath using the water as cleanser, or as protection. Water is used by all religions to give the protection of the Gods, to purify our spirits. But a bath can also feel like going back in time to the most protective moment for a human: the mother’s womb. And there you’re “allowed” to cry or just let some tears out . . . because those tears will merge with that water which purifies the spirit. Also you don’t even have to see that you’re crying because you’re already wet by the bath.

B Shot by a Stranger © Gonzalo Bénard
Please visit B Shot by a Stranger, by Gonzalo Bénard for the full size image.

Some people decide to face themselves, they do look straight and naked into the mirror when lonely. In moments. When they are not in a dark corner of the room with the face covered or hugged by their arms. Or just lie down naked, face down into the pillow breathing in their own existence.

B Shot by a Stranger © Gonzalo Bénard
Please visit B Shot by a Stranger, by Gonzalo Bénard for the full size image.

But sometimes we are so drowned in our own sorrows, our own loneliness that we forget an infinite world of things we love to do, things that makes us happy and which do not require anyone else. Things we do when we’re alone because we’re in the mood for that. The so called hobbies for example, like playing an instrument, drawing, writing, dancing, singing, cooking . . . and sometimes we just need a “click” to find that out. And immediately we leave the self-sorrow, the sadness and move on to some moments of joy, to some moments with ourselves, to the pleasure and the happiness of being alone: a wonderful way of “being” alone not “feeling” lonely.

B Shot by a Stranger © Gonzalo Bénard
Please visit B Shot by a Stranger, by Gonzalo Bénard for the full size image.

So we dance. We sing. We draw. We cook. We enjoy our own self. Being alone and lonely.

And suddenly moving from the moment that we’re face down covering our sadness, we jump up and say: “Do you want to see the drawing I did the other day?” Or we just jump up and put some music on and start dancing. You realise that you can take out some pleasure from within you. And you gain new life. You found joy in the way you created a ritual, a way round to fulfill your loneliness. You’re dancing now. And you don’t even need to “drink to forget”.

B Shot by a Stranger © Gonzalo Bénard
Please visit B Shot by a Stranger, by Gonzalo Bénard for the full size image.

I didn’t know what loneliness meant before I started this project and I was quite curious to understand the feeling of it. Since I was a kid I have always created things to do, I always filled my spare time drawing, writing, painting, doing photography, or just walking observing nature, human nature. I’ve been always an observer and a creator. I spent almost my entire life alone, but never lonely.

B Shot by a Stranger © Gonzalo Bénard
Please visit B Shot by a Stranger, by Gonzalo Bénard for the full size image.

Loners are loners because they allow themselves to be loners. Sometimes they seek the attention of others not realising that they’re just seeking their own attention. Having someone else – especially a stranger who will not judge you, who will respect you, with whom you don’t have any special emotional ties – can be distracting, but can also be a sweet and comfortable way for you to face yourself instead of the cruelty of facing the mirror. You share with the stranger waiting for him to tell you what you need – or want – to hear from your own self. And then you have two possible answers if they cross the boundaries: leave fulfilled or leave running away (from yourself).

B Shot by a Stranger © Gonzalo Bénard
Please visit B Shot by a Stranger, by Gonzalo Bénard for the full size image.

As this project, “B Shot by a Stranger”, was undertaken without an imposed physical presence or even an energetic interference, it left much more space for you to keep feeling your own loneliness. The volunteers were not acting, they were going through it for real. They were alone and lonely. I was on this side, shooting (and sometimes listening to them) as a stranger, from the other side of the world, using an Internet satellite. They just had to leave the laptop and webcam open, “taking me” with them to their physical places: bedroom, living room, bath, kitchen, garden . . . So I could be there with them . . . not being. They could trust in this stranger as they knew they could just turn off if they didn’t feel safe. At certain points the Internet can be unreal, can belong to a dream’s box. You can enjoy the dream, you can release your subconscious mind and you can just wake up from it whenever you want. You can show who you are. Or not. You can be listened to by a world. You can be seen. You can exhibit yourself. You can share. With or without your own identity.

B Shot by a Stranger © Gonzalo Bénard
Please visit B Shot by a Stranger, by Gonzalo Bénard for the full size image.

And me? I was just playing the listener role, the watcher, observer, the stranger in their life. The friend they needed at that moment, with whom they chose to share their intimate loneliness. For them, I became a friend, an acquaintance or I remained a stranger. Like a life play, a game of feelings, a psychological fulfillment, a sociological observer. A creator of different moments in others’ lives. A learner. A stranger they could trust. Knowing that I could open their eyes as they opened mine. Learning from both sides. From both sides growing up with each other in one more experience of life.

B Shot by a Stranger © Gonzalo Bénard
Please visit B Shot by a Stranger, by Gonzalo Bénard for the full size image.

For more information visit Gonzalo Bénard website or buy B Shot by a Stranger Blurb book.

B Shot by a Stranger © Gonzalo Bénard
Please visit B Shot by a Stranger, by Gonzalo Bénard for the full size image.

1. Gonzalo Bénard is an artist photographer and creator/author of B Shot by a Stranger project

Following text and photos by Russell duPont.

All art is a journey.

Many years ago, as a teenager, I discovered Cartier Bresson, fell in love with his work and bought myself an Argus C3 rangefinder camera, so boxy and heavy that it had the nickname, “The Brick.” With that, I went around sticking the camera in my friends’ faces and into downtown Boston, trying to imitate the great photographer, trying to recognize those instants when the visual world arrived at a point worth recording.

Christmas eve, Aram’s spa
© Russell duPont
Please visit A Journey, by Russell duPont for the full size image.

Only a few of those images remain today and I’m pleased, looking at them, to see that even in the first two photos which were posed, there are elements of the “decisive moment” Cartier-Bresson wrote of “…..a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera….”

The third photo is one of those happy moments, being in the right place at the right time, having the fortune to snap the shutter at the peak of action or expression.

Corner of King & Train sts.
© Russell duPont
Please visit A Journey, by Russell duPont for the full size image.

Somewhere along the way, life intruded. Marriage left me with boxes and albums of photos of children, as infants, as toddlers, as teens. There was no time to stalk the streets, freezing time, no desire to set up the darkroom in the bathroom after the kids were in bed.

Her room
© Russell duPont
Please visit A Journey, by Russell duPont for the full size image.

And I had found that, in what work I was doing, I experimented; collaging photos, mine and others; painting over my photos; using commercial high contrast paper, anything to alter or make a photo not just a photo. I was all over the place, without direction and because of that, I put away my cameras and, for a number of years, journeyed to other things, writing and painting.

Reclining nude
© Russell duPont
Please visit A Journey, by Russell duPont for the full size image.

I immersed myself in painting and printmaking; many of my prints derived from photographs I had taken.

The greek
© Russell duPont
Please visit A Journey, by Russell duPont for the full size image.

And then, as is the case with many journeys, the road turned. The building where I had my studio for almost 15 years was sold and we, 100 artists, had to vacate. While putting everything into storage, I found many of my old negatives, scanned them, studied them and felt the urge to take to the streets rise within me once more, this time with a new digital Nikon and no worries about needing to set up a darkroom.

Since then, I’ve been back wandering the city, sticking my camera, as I did in the past, into people’s faces, looking once again to record a moment, that 1/250th of a second that would normally disappear like a wisp of breathe on a cold day. I had become a pursuer, a recorder of the transitory.

Eadies Garage
© Russell duPont
Please visit A Journey, by Russell duPont for the full size image.

And, I’ve been fortunate. Exhibitions have been steady; there have been some sales; I’ve been mentioned in a couple of articles. I was back on the streets, doing what I had begun to do so many years ago. But then, there were those boxes of old negatives …..

Outside Macys
© Russell duPont
Please visit A Journey, by Russell duPont for the full size image.

And in them were photos I had taken of the cast of a play I had been in (yes, I had some acting stints along the way), the stage production of Edgar Lee Masters‘ book of poetry, Spoon River Anthology.

In the book/play, each, now deceased, resident of Spoon River speaks of his life; his accomplishments or lack thereof; his relations with others; the mundane, the petty, the small but courageous acts of daily life. I had forgotten / ignored these photos and many of the negatives had deteriorated over the years and now, after all this time, they spoke to me. The idea of making Masters‘ characters come alive through photographs became almost an obsession with me.

This was no longer street photography where the moment was transitory. Here, I felt I was dealing with the transitory nature of a person’s life, as Masters’ did in his poetry.

These images already existed and I had to decide how to present them, how to make them, in a sense, ethereal and reflective of their epitaphs. To this end, I decided to use the damaged photos as is and to “age” other photos that would be used. Encaustic came to mind. I had never used this process before but thought the wax would give the photos the ethereal quality I was aiming for. Since each image represented someone who had died, I added the brass or copper trim that might appear on a casket or an urn. And, finally, each photo was housed in a deep, recessed frame [coffin?] and accompanied by a “Memorial Card” with the lines the character speaks.

Lucinda Matlock - Spoon River
© Russell duPont
Please visit A Journey, by Russell duPont for the full size image.

Because my favorite character in Spoon River is Lucinda Matlock, I began with her. She is the most positive character of all the residents, unselfish, chastising.

I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed–
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you–
It takes life to love Life.

Pauline Barrett - Spoon River
© Russell duPont
Please visit A Journey, by Russell duPont for the full size image.

Pauline Barrett, a suicide, followed…

ALMOST the shell of a woman after the surgeon’s knife!
And almost a year to creep back into strength,
Till the dawn of our wedding decennial
Found me my seeming self again.
We walked the forest together,
By a path of soundless moss and turf.
But I could not look in your eyes,
And you could not look in my eyes,
For such sorrow was ours—the beginning of gray in your hair,
And I but a shell of myself.
And what did we talk of?—sky and water,
Anything, ’most, to hide our thoughts.
And then your gift of wild roses,
Set on the table to grace our dinner.
Poor heart, how bravely you struggled
To imagine and live a remembered rapture!
Then my spirit drooped as the night came on,
And you left me alone in my room for a while,
As you did when I was a bride, poor heart.
And I looked in the mirror and something said:
“One should be all dead when one is half-dead—”
Nor ever mock life, nor ever cheat love.”
And I did it looking there in the mirror—
Dear, have you ever understood?

Shack Dye - Spoon River
© Russell duPont
Please visit A Journey, by Russell duPont for the full size image.

and then Shack Dye, a Black resident of Spoon River, taken advantage of my the white citizens.

The white men played all sorts of jokes on me.

They took big fish off my hook

And put little ones on, while I was away

Getting a stringer, and made me believe

I hadn’t seen aright the fish I had caught.

When Burr Robbins circus came to town

They got the ring master to let a tame leopard

Into the ring, and made me believe

I was whipping a wild beast like Samson

When I, for an offer of fifty dollars,

Dragged him out to his cage.

One time I entered my blacksmith shop

And shook as I saw some horse-shoes crawling

Across the floor, as if alive –

Walter Simmons had put a magnet

Under the barrel of water.

Yet everyone of you, you white men,

Was fooled about fish and about leopards too,

And you didn’t know any more than the horse-shoes did.

Mrs Sibley - Spoon River
© Russell duPont
Please visit A Journey, by Russell duPont for the full size image.

Then, the secretive, unfaithful Mrs. Sibley, wife of the Rev. Amos Sibley.

THE SECRET OF the stars,—gravitation.
The secret of the earth,—layers of rock.
The secret of the soil,—to receive seed.
The secret of the seed,—the germ.
The secret of man,—the sower.
The secret of woman,—the soil.
My secret: Under a mound that you shall never find.

And, so on. I’m not sure that I will ever get through the hundreds of people who inhabited Spoon River but that is not important.

I began this essay by writing that “All art is a journey” and the photos I’ve left here document that journey for me and excite me to the journeys that lay ahead.

Please visit Russell duPont website for more informations and artworks.

Text and photos by Pavlove der Visionär.

Opening line

I would like to tell you a story, the story of Pavlove the dog or rather Pavlov’s dog and how Inneres Auge¹ began from this word play. Maybe not everyone knows what I am talking about when I mention Pavlov’s dog but I will refresh the memory of those who forgot. Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who, at the end of the 19th century, studied dogs’ conditioned reflexes, a sort of scientific approach to understand the working of living organisms also in relation to their living environment. I have never appreciated this man, who used animals for his experiments, but he inspired the development of my photo project that few months later I would call Inneres Auge.

© Pavlove der Visionär
Please visit Psychovisual Notes, by Pavlove der Visionär for the full size image.

I was fascinated by the idea of creating an alter ego that somehow switched the dog-scientist roles. It would make my project more detached and objective. So, Pavlove, a dog, was going to study human behaviors that intrigued him through photography.

Man in backlight in space

I wanted to explore visually a number of questions I have always been fascinated with: people, spaces and the ensuing interactions between the two. How do people interact with the places where they live every day? Do people affect places or is the other way around? The more I wondered the more I wanted to get to the bottom of the matter. I tried to understand whether there was a science that studied the relationship between people and spaces, to find ideas or at least to have a general idea on the topic. I ran into the so-called Living architecture theories but they offered very little in the way of emotions to give me a satisfactory answer.

© Pavlove der Visionär
Please visit Psychovisual Notes, by Pavlove der Visionär for the full size image.

I decided to focus my work on a limited group of people to be analyzed so as not to make serious inference errors. I would study the group of young creative people living in Milan, where creative defines people capable of creating or inventing something new applied to any type of work. I was going to analyze visually the most disparate aspects of creativity by taking photos of creatives where they lived. This was a nearly psychological approach to a work that until now had nothing photographic about it.

© Pavlove der Visionär
Please visit Psychovisual Notes, by Pavlove der Visionär for the full size image.

Ego

Against this backdrop, Pavlove der Visionaer, whose identity is unknown to the masses, began to work on the Inneres Auge project. An alter ego was going to interfere somehow in the communication with the people that I wanted to get involved in the project. However that was not going to change because the presence of an alter ego was paramount, as whoever I contacted had no way to develop preconceived notions about me. In this way, the photographic work, the idea would become central while everything else would be irrelevant. This choice of remaining anonymous – even though on the face of it might have looked like a useless barrier that often put off the people that I contacted – turned out to be useful to ensure that I would recruit only people really interested in the project.

© Pavlove der Visionär
Please visit Psychovisual Notes, by Pavlove der Visionär for the full size image.

De Rerum Natura

The organization of portraits was the most sensitive phase. I was determined to be as minimally invasive as possible; I had to be a presence-absence, a sort of visual recorder inserted in an everyday context where a person interacts with space, her space. This decision affected greatly the photographic technique of the work, which was carried out with a Canon 5dMark II and used solely the natural light of the various locations. In fact, I wanted the light to be one of the key elements of the photos, like the person and the space, and that is why I indicated the exact hours in the photo captions.

© Pavlove der Visionär
Please visit Psychovisual Notes, by Pavlove der Visionär for the full size image.

Closed eyes

The last thing I want to mention is the choice to close the eyes of all the creative people that I photographed. As I said, I wanted this project to bring to the fore the relationship between people and space and, in the meantime, I liked the idea of a fil rouge that united all the creatives involved. I did some experiments during the first photo shoots without any great results until the answer came serendipitously.

© Pavlove der Visionär
Please visit Psychovisual Notes, by Pavlove der Visionär for the full size image.

A creative told me that, even though he liked my project a lot, he was so shy that he was very uncomfortable before a camera and he would probably be very unnatural and stiff. I asked him to close his eyes and his face relaxed immediately; he was finally comfortable in his own space.

© Pavlove der Visionär
Please visit Psychovisual Notes, by Pavlove der Visionär for the full size image.

After these photos I understood that closed eyes was the way to go. By asking people to close their eyes I created for them a relaxed, nearly meditative condition. I asked them to perceive the surrounding space with their other senses, trying to commune. Once I understood how to deal with the creatives photographed, it was a downhill road; I only had to focus from time to time on the spaces, study them carefully and grasp the moment where the person and his or her space achieved unity. That can take place only with the things you love, with the spaces that you know well because, after all, you are them and they are you.

© Pavlove der Visionär
Please visit Psychovisual Notes, by Pavlove der Visionär for the full size image.

The Story behind the scene

The idea of this project was born in 2009 between Berlin and Milan, the two cities where I was living at that time. That’s why my website Pavlove der Visionär is written in German. At that time (2007) Berlin was the place to be to feel the power of creativity, I had my phd in communication and my final work was about the concept of Cultural Planning in Berlin. So I passed some months reading books about gentrification, urban renovation and environmental improvement and to understand culture was able in a modern city like Berlin to retake place in alternative space. Because of this, I started also to be fascinated by the relation between creative people and their habitat. Place reflects people and it’s so strong the relation between of the two that I decided to make a work about that.

© Pavlove der Visionär
Please visit Psychovisual Notes, by Pavlove der Visionär for the full size image.

In 2010 I worked in an art contemporary space in Milan that promotes modern art. Everyday I used to have connections with creative people and so I realized that would have been interesting shoot them inside their habitat. Each of them was really interested about my project and the idea to closed eyes in front of my camera, was so an original thing that permitted me to find quickly lots of creative happy to be part of the work. Now the project has been developed in Milan, Rome and is keeping on in Berlin also. The project has not real ending point, will keep going on naturally and will finish naturally as well.

© Pavlove der Visionär
Please visit Psychovisual Notes, by Pavlove der Visionär for the full size image.

Epilogue

Pavlove is many things, not just “Inneres Auge” (wich is already on Itunes as an App). A new project is already under way. Keep your eyes and ears open².

Per ulteriori informazioni si prega di visitare il sito di Pavlove der Visionär.

© Pavlove der Visionär
Please visit Psychovisual Notes, by Pavlove der Visionär for the full size image.

1. Inner eye, Ed.
2. A special Thanks to Emanuele Cucuzza to support this project.