INTRODUCING JON ESTWARDS

8:00 am  •  17 January 2012  •  4 notes

INTRODUCING FRANCOIS COQUEREL

I’m from Paris, which feels okay. I’m 31. I started taking pictures when I was around 13 with a waterproof camera during my summer vacations. This is not an easy way to start photography. I was very curious about a huge bug in the grass. I really wanted to be able to watch it from a very very close distance. It kind of worked actually. The picture is still somewhere. From this first photograph since my today practice, what better describes it, is this quote from Robert Adams: “A photographer wants form, an unarguably right relationship of shapes, a visual stability in which all components are equally important. The photographer hopes, in brief, to discover a tension so exact that it is peace.”  My life has changed just like anybody who would have started doing something when he was 17 or 18 and would still do it 10 or 15 years later. You still do the same thing but you’re not exactly the same person anymore. Saying that, photography is a medium that helps you being enthusiastic about things you can see around. Each corner is an opportunity. This is a picture from a series inside a very old Parisian theater. The owner was a very old man who had been a familiar of Sartre, Truffaut, and many other writers, film makers or whatever from the 60’s. He was now living alone in a flat under the roof of the theater. The place was filled with painting, letters and drawings, most of them gifts from many great artists of the past century. He was literally living in his theater, surrounded by treasures and posters of plays offered to him 30 or 50 years ago. Faces of dead actors on every wall. I started visiting him every week to take pictures and listen to his stories. Apparently, he used to have a walk in the building at night when the place was completely empty, sitting alone in the performance hall in front of the stage. Well, the man died before I could finish the series and before I could even take a portrait of him. Estelle Hanania puts a lot of magic in everything she makes.

9:39 am  •  15 December 2011  •  2 notes

INTRODUCING PAUL PAPER

I was born in small and strange country of Lithuania in 1985. I grew up during turbulent times and was taken to the village during the tragic events of January. Otherwise I had a very happy childhood, spending most of my summers at my grandparents, getting lost in their garden, visiting forests with mushroom encyclopedia and climbing, what at a time looked, extremely tall cherry trees. My teenage years were marked by enthusiasms of a restless young country bursting with new opportunities. Late 1990s and early 2000s were times when people who had ideas were very welcome to fulfill them. Some crazy things were produced during this time. My aunt gave me her old Ricoh when I was 14 and I started taking pictures with it. Two years later my mother bought me an SLR and I got more into it, started looking at other’s works and experimenting with printing/processing. I liked photography because it was seemingly effortless and for one who doesn’t have too much patience it seemed like an ideal medium. I was interested in banality of everyday and the miracle of that banality. I guess my life changed in a way that I am at the part of the road where I am very conscious about an act of photo-taking. I am conscious of scenes I deem to be “photographic”, so my looking have changed. Therefore my interests have shifted a little bit, now my newest projects are not photography so much as about photography. The most amazing thing is to be able to meet so many great people. I also feel lucky to curate some of my favorite photographers and friends works. I enjoy working with people I like and it gives me pleasure and stimulus. This picture was taken when I was visiting two of my good friends: Nerijus Rimkus and Ugne Straigyte in Marijampole, Lithuania where they used to live. It is much more spontaneous than it looks like, we were outside Nerijus’ house and the ball with funny face was lying on the ground so we started playing with it a bit. There’s so many photographers I love. Most of them are part of Sraunus project.

5:51 am  •  8 December 2011  •  92 notes

INTRODUCING HANNA PUTZ

I was born in Vienna, Austria in 1987. I left Vienna by the age of 17 through my work as a model and moved to Paris after I finished school. Since then I mainly lived between Paris, London and New York. Growing up in Vienna ment a lot to me and it still does. Vienna has a rich cultural history and I find that Viennese people have a very dry sense of humour, and they’re usually quite grounded. The simplicity of my photographs often reflects the honesty with which I was raised. I just turned 24. Working photographically for me is essentially ‘talking’ in my own visual language, thus becoming an exploration of both the inner self and exterior surroundings, so the goal of my work has always been to try to clarify that visual language to such an extent that I would eventually reach an understanding between the two, or at least set up an interesting dialogue.. This is my close friend A. and her family. I shot them in paris were I stayed at her place and spent a wonderful time with her..as allways when im with them. I especially admire the works of the Artist Roni Horn aswell as Philip Lorca di Corcia, Rineke Dijkstras and Taryn Simons. Within my close personal sourroundings I really like the works of photographer Thomas Lohr aswell as Daniel Sannwalds, Amira Fritz´s and last but not least Jork Weissmanns photography.

9:39 am  •  17 October 2011  •  12 notes

INTRODUCING JON AUSTIN

I’m from Leeds, United Kingdom. It’s a nice city. Apparently it’s 25ºc (77 F) outside today, but it’s usually just above freezing point. Apart from that, it’s a lovely place. Yorkshire people are very friendly, and there is a certain charm to northern England that I love. I’m 25. 26 in a month. 26 sounds a lot older than 25. I started taking pictures about 6 or 7 years ago. I went on a walk with my family around this castle. My older sister had a digital camera. I put it in black and white mode and thought I was dead arty. It all spurred from there. I just started to enjoy it as a hobby. You know taking pictures of flowers and trees and all that boring stuff. I remember the turning point was when I was at a friends house. His house mate had a copy of Martin Parr’s The Last Resort. My perception of photography changed from that moment. The colours were so vibrant! and the images were of real people and real situations. I started realising there were all these amazing photographers that I wasn’t even aware of for the past 18 or so years of my life. So I started buying lots of books and just appreciating it all. I don’t think I have any goals. Not consciously at least. Maybe to make people smile. I think I take photos from quite an optimistic viewpoint. I am attracted to bright colours and humble situations. I mean I just feel like certain moments or objects need to be captured, or i’ll never see them again, and that’s sad. My life hasn’t dramatically changed since I started taking pictures. It Just turned me into a freak who is always looking around for photo opportunities. And it’s turned me into a social retard. I made a little book last year. Just a small run. But I’ve sold them, and that makes me feel good. So I guess that would of never happened if I didn’t take pictures. I studied music at university, so if i weren’t taking photos i’d probably be a rapper or something. But in terms of photography for me, it’s still early days. The past years have just been a play around of sorts. I’m starting to think a bit more seriously about it all now. I want photography to make me loads of money so I can buy my mum a house in Spain like I always promised. That’s the materialistic side of me. Other than that, I just want it to take me places and give me the chance to meet and photograph new, interesting people. I have always liked 35mm. I currently use a contax g2. But i went through a couple of rangefinders before I settled with that. I am getting into digital now. Why not hey? I love love love film, but i’m willing to give digital a go. People think too much about the equipment (including me) and forget about the more important things. But, this would be my fetish camera - Leica m7 Hermès edition - The brown one obviously. Wouldn’t use it though. Would just frame it. I took this picture in a small town in Provençal France, called L’isle sur la sorgue, just outside of Avignon. They were doing this jousting on the river in these special converted boats. You know what jousting is right? Traditionally it’s two guys on horses who run at each other with a massive spear thing and whoever gets knocked off is the LOSER! Think it’s from medieval times, but google it if you want. Anyway.. they were doing this, but on boats. There was quite a big crowd watching, I was pretty excited, but it was a major disappointment. The boats were moving at a snails pace and rather than the impact of traditional jousting, the guys were just prodding each other off into the river. So my camera turned to this couple. They were enjoying the event, and they were enjoying each other’s company, and they had similar hairstyles which was cute. The light and the colour was crazy that night, I just instinctively took this. Jacob Lillis, another chap from Northern England who captures his surroundings so well. For people who didn’t know, this is what Yorkshire looks like. Jake’s images have such a sense of nostalgia to them. When I look at them I can almost smell the yorkshire air. Really talented guy and a true gent. He’s based in London now, but he hasn’t let them southerners douse his northern charm. I’m a sucker for American photographers too. Emiliano Granado’s work is so good! The images are oozing with charm and bursting with colour and I love his choice of subject matter. He also seems to have quite an optimistic viewpoint on his subjects. Photos that make you smile.

8:46 am  •  4 October 2011  •  16 notes

INTRODUCING MARNIX VAN UUM

I’m from The Hague, in The Netherlands and I think it’s a lovely city with a village kind of feeling to it. There’s not much to do here though except for hanging out with friends and maybe go to a party now and then. I’m twenty years old and I started taking photography more seriously when I was around seventeen, when one of my best friends introduced me to film photography. Luckily for me, my mom had an old Minolta XG 1 somewhere hidden in a closet, so I could start right away. I was hooked immediately, because it felt good creating something out of ‘reality’. I have some great memories of me and my friend wondering around The Hague looking for something to photograph. I want to make a living from photography, that’s my main goal. A particular goal would be an exhibition at the MoMA, New York. That would be awesome. I think my life would be boring and pretty much useless without photography, since I’m not very good at most things. Thanks to photography I’ve met some great people and I became aware of the good friends and girlfriend I have, since I document most of the things we do together. It’s always a pleasure to look through my archive and see some funny and awkward moments we’ve encountered. Because of photography I was published in a book that was published by a publisher that I love. That’s a lot of ‘publish’ in one sentence. I love my Rollei Compactline 350! It just makes me giggle when I’m taking photographs with it. I wouldn’t say that the above is my favourite photograph, but what I love about this one is that some things aren’t controllable. When I came home after shooting this, I was already pleased with the outcome, but after staring at it for a while I noticed that the left shoe of the subject was covered in dog shit (sorry, I love to exaggerate). This unpredicted detail gave the photograph much more meaning, so I was happy with the never to be traced dog. A photographer that I admire would be Paul Kooiker. He’s really good at creating atmospheres that can be both provocating and aphrodisiac. He creates realities out of something that isn’t real or didn’t really occur.

2:18 am  •  29 September 2011  •  1 note

INTRODUCING CHARLES GUTHRIE (blog)

I come from a number of places. I was born in Orlando, grew up in New York City and then moved to Virginia. After school I decided to move back to New York, and since then I’ve been traveling around quite a bit. I spent the last year of my life living in China, and traveling around Asia, but now I’m back in Virginia. I feel like everyone needs a home, and the more you travel the more you learn to appreciate where you come from. I’m 22. I remember shooting old polaroids as a kid, disposables, and goofy panoramic cameras my parents used to buy. Then when I was about 15 I took my first real interest in Graphic Design… At the end of high school was probably my first leap into photography. I think it was a purely selfish interest. I was interested in most all art mediums.. but while traveling it was a personal diary of everything around me. After I really started looking at my work I realized how much I wanted to continue making photographs. Both my main series Lately Its Been Late, and Cheat Death are very personal. To have people appreciate the photographs I make, is enough for me to keep making them. I think I’m constantly finding things I want to make photos of. During high school, I took a big interest in this girl, I was so captivated by her beauty that it made me want to photograph her. Now we’re together. In general I am really happy with almost all Contax products. The new one in my bag hasn’t seen much yet. This is one of my favorite photographs. I took it at the great wall when I was in Beijing, china. The father is wearing the yellow, mother in pink, and she is holding her child in green. It’s a very eerie photograph to me that’s very interesting to look at. Yurie Nagashima is one of my favorite photographers. The way she assembles her series and books is simply perfect. She was a really influential photographer in the history of Japanese photography and her work is definitely up there with my favorites. 

6:34 am  •  16 September 2011  •  6 notes

INTRODUCING JASON WURM

I was born in Downey, California and I reside in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York. I feel inspired in this town. I’m 33 years old and I started photographing seriously when I was 22. Photography seemed to be the one thing where I showed any talent. I take photographs to help me learn more about myself and more about the medium. When I first got serious about photography, I was very curious about Walker Evans. His work in Cuba inspired me to visit the country and go on my own photographic journey there. It was an invaluable learning experience for me, that set me on the trajectory to where I am now. Regarding the photograph above: I was walking through Fort Green Park with my camera, looking for anything interesting and I came across a couple of park rangers in the process of opening the door to a tomb. I took photographs of them doing this and they asked me if I was part of the local press they were expecting to arrive for some event. “YES! I’m a freelance photographer for the Eagle”. They somehow believed me, even though I provided no credentials to back up my claim. They then allowed me to enter and photograph the tomb, which is located in the side of the largest hill of the park. It’s wherethey keep the remains of thousands of American Revolutionary war martyrs that died a horrific death on a British prison ship in a nearby bay. This is one of the things I love about wandering around with a camera. You never really know what will present itself and that keepsme walking around town. There are many photographers I find inspiring, but Tod Papageorge’s book of photographs from Central Park, is one of my all time favorites. Here’s a great interview by Rick Woodward.

3:57 am  •  31 August 2011  •  3 notes

INTRODUCING KIYOTAKA HAMAMURA

I was born in Japan. I change my work base when I change my work style. I used to live in Tokyo and in London. Now I`ve been living in NY since last February. I`m 24 years old. I graduated from a fashion school, and after that I worked as a Fashion stylist. Then I met many photographers. And I learned how to use a camera. When I was 21 years old, I quit styling and started taking photos. I`m always interested in documenting real life and people. So I`m taking photos of people that I know. It is a kind of Diary. But most of photography work is difficult to distinguish from my style. So I`am trying to put my color in my work. My life has completely changed when I started taking pictures. I moved in another country. If I wasn’t taking pictures, I wouldn`t have lived in NY and in London. I was born in Japan. So I wanted to take something I`ve never seen. My life is my photo travel. When I quit taking pictures, I would be back to my country. But probably I would start taking pictures in my country for another purpose. I usually use Leica fII, Leica minilux, and contax G2. But I sometimes use Hasselblad 553ELX when I take portraits. I prefer a 35mm film camera than a Digital camera. I used to have a Canon 5D markII, but I couldn`t become friend with that camera. I didn`t want to put the camera in my bag. This is a photo of my friend Tereza. I asked her if I could shoot her and she said ok, but she was two hours late on our meeting. We were supposed to meet up at 4pm. She came at 6pm. This is story of this photo. I am fun of Ana Cabaleiro  I think she is an amazing photographer. She has her own world in her heart.

3:43 am  •  2 August 2011  •  6 notes

INTRODUCING MICHAEL GELINAS

I was born of ocean slime in Newport Beach, California, I still find sand and water dribbling out of my ears every so often. I now ooze about more inland of Orange County but it is all the same around here, cold and blank in the mornings, nosebleed suns in the afternoon. I am ninety-two cat eyed years old.  I took up photography about 1.5 years ago because I saw something nice at nighttime hours and wanted to keep it forever. I never saw a goal in my photography. I could never see my work getting anywhere. I just like to experiment with memories caught with eyes outside of the skull. Photography hasn’t changed my life so much, as it drastically changed the style of the rest of my art. I only hope photography opens something for me. My future looks like shit right now. I only like to keep one camera at a time. So my current relationship is with coco, a canon ae-1 with a 70mm lens. She is so speyshul. This photograph was taken near a year ago when I began using film. I was staying with my grandparents in northern california and everyday for a month I would tread through acres of wheat and black oak. It really helped my flow of photography, taking photographs of everything that caught my interest. I absolutely adore the work of hui+ and fenk they make my life a little bit brighter.

3:44 pm  •  25 June 2011  •  8 notes