spending some time with the pairings in this collection. see more, here.
Students, Zühtü Paşa School – LOC
Students, middle school Eyüp Rüşdiyesi – LOC
Students, middle school Sultan Ahmed Rüşdiyesi
Students, private school Mekteb-i Edeb-i-LOC
Students, private school Ravza-yi Terakki – LOC
Students, imperial military middle school Halep Mekteb-i Rüşdiye-yi Askeri-yi – LOC
Though he’s spent over a decade photographing at-risk landscapes, some of the most unique topography photographer David Zimmerman has seen is found in the folds of fabric.
Zimmerman, a landscape photographer based in New Mexico and New York, began his project Last Refuge, in which he photographed piles of clothing and remains from an off-the-grid community, almost by chance. As the economy took its toll on broad swaths of American life, Zimmerman increasingly saw groups of people who had either lost their jobs or houses, and were, as the photographer describes, “increasingly desperate to survive.” These aren’t drifters who might be expected to live a transient lifestyle, he says, but teachers, firefighters, musicians and other blue and white-collar professionals.
Though sleeping on out-of-the-way dirt roads and parking lots is nothing new for Zimmerman—he’s lived and worked out of his camper truck while on the road, throughout 15 years of making images—the increasing number of people doing the same thing caught his attention. ”It really startled me, to be honest with you,” Zimmerman says, despite having read countless stories of similar communities who were often functioning without electricity or running water. “It didn’t sink in entirely what [was] going on out there, until I saw it for myself.”
As Zimmerman spent time talking to and even photographing members of these marginalized communities throughout the American southwest, it wasn’t their portraits or their poverty that resonated with him in a visual sense. Rather, it was their clothing. ”Whether it’s [being] homeless, or lacking a car,” Zimmerman says, “the clothes end up being the very last thing that you and I and they will own. When it absolutely becomes desperate, that’s the final thing that we will own.”
And so the piles of leather jackets, sweaters and coats—found at a 20-person community in northwestern New Mexico—form a descriptive landscape of their own. The entire series is actually shot on the roof of one man’s house, a retired firefighter in his seventies that came to live out in the desert about 25 years ago. He built his shelter underground, and used abandoned clothing to insulate the “roof” of the structure which now litters the desert floor.
Isolated from their surroundings as well as their former owners, the images of clothing are stark reminders of life on a subsistence level, and seem to encapsulate the difficult trajectory of the lives of their owners in their tattered seams and frayed edges. So what began during trips to photograph the natural landscape morphed into a project spent documenting its human counterpart—“the human aspect of the landscape is just as important for me as the physical landscape itself,” Zimmerman says. Last Refuge becomes a sort of typology of different textiles representing a human “dilemma,” as the photographer calls it, as well as a visually isolated reminder of what’s left to lose. ”That’s how it spoke to me, as opposed to just being about one person,” Zimmerman adds. “It was a very big problem, a nationwide problem.”
Last Refuge is on display at Sous Les Etoiles Gallery in New York from Dec. 8-Jan. 28.
David Zimmerman was recently shortlisted for the Terry O’Neill Tag Award, and won the Sony World Photography Awards L’Iris D’or Grand Prize in 2009. More of his work can be seen here.
Laura Hughes is a photographer located in NYC. She began experimenting with a digital video and Polaroid Land Camera. She was drawn to the vivid color and painterly texture of the instant film. These Polaroids became a visual diary — documenting her travels, self-portraits and portraits of her friends. About her series Botanicus Obscurus she writes:
‘My flowers are based on Rorschach’s ink blots. By photographing and mirroring the flower an entirely different entity emerges. The flower, the initial element, morphs, into an alien being. The details and textures of the plant remain. The mirrored pieces fit together like a puzzle, and the outcome is always surprising’.
When did you first know that you wanted to be a photographer?
I didn’t really know until my second year of undergraduate study. I was on a Media Production degree and in the second year was taught photography by two of the most passionate and exciting photographers I have ever met. It was also the time I truly discovered the University library and the work of Ed Ruscha, Jeff Brouws, Walker Evans and Alec Soth, the kind of big names and big pictures you tend to gravitate towards as a young photographer.
I’d love to say it was one singular image, or a view, or moment, it would be far more romantic!
Matt Johnston
Matt Johnston
Matt Johnston
Matt Johnston
What is your daily routine like, when you are not on assignment?
It varies, a lot. I’m currently teaching on the open class #phonaralongside Jonathan Worth, we have over 1,200 students taking part across the globe and so both producing content, and working out the logistics, takes up a decent chunk of the day. The nature of the class, and issues we address are all very much about working as a photographer in today’s post-photographic era, and with things moving so quickly I spend a good amount of time researching and speaking with current practitioners.
Matt Johnston
Matt Johnston
Matt Johnston
Matt Johnston
Matt Johnston
It started in January of this year, and came out of discussions I had with Wayne Ford and Jonathan Worth while teaching on the above open class #phonar. The goal is to create a space for as many people as possible to share their thoughts on some fantastic photo books as well as to promote the physical book and experience of looking/reading in itself. As well as the website where we invite people to share thoughts, we have also promoted the idea of meet-ups where a group actually meet and sit around a table with a stack of books. So far we have had meet-ups in the UK, Australia, and just recently the Photo Book Club Barcelona was set up.
The web has been fantastic for promoting photo books but there is nothing like turning the pages, feeling the paper and smelling the glue!
Photography is not dead!
I think those that are ‘up and comers’ have some great opportunities right now, I don’t know if the playing field has been this level in quite some time. The rise of indie publishing, blogging and social media breaks down some of the traditional barriers of ‘entry’ to the photographic world. So don’t be put off! Sure it’s hard but as Stefan Chow pointed out – ‘it was the same 50 years ago’.
(Matt is based in London. See more of his work, here. Also be sure to check out this video of Matt speaking about the Photo Books Club at the London Design Festival, here)
Moa Karlberg lives and works in Stockholm where she works on long-term projects in Sweden and abroad. About this work she writes:
The project ‘Watching you watch me’ is discovering how a photographer can get as close as possible to others, without acting illegal. I have taken portraits of people through a mirror, when they are totally unaware of the camera inside. This way I get shots of people watching themselves. Since the pictures are taken in public spaces, I can publish them however I want to. At least in Sweden, where the laws are generous to journalists and artists. But in which forums and publications does the single individual feel insulted? ‘Watching you watch me’ is an effort to create debate on laws and ethics within the photographer’s role.
Stanley Kubrick was a writer and director famous for movies such as: Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. Before he began directing he was a photographer for LOOK Magazine from 1945-1950. The Museum of the City of New York andVandM have recently chosen 25 of Kubrick’s photographs out of 10,000 negatives to sell with the majority of the proceeds going to the Museum of the City of New York.
Traveling the streets and country lanes of Europe, photographer Pierre Gonnord has spent the last two decades making extraordinary portraits of marginalized individuals. His subjects range from simple farmers and immigrants to monks and circus performers. A Frenchman living in Spain, Gonnord travels with a studio that gives his images a richness that speaks to a long tradition of portraiture in photography and painting. The works bear the names of the subjects, but no more detail; this has the effect of respecting each sitter’s individuality, rather than using them as representatives of a group.
Gonnord’s work will be presented for the first time in the United States in an exhibition opening on December 8 at the Hasted Kraeutler Gallery in New York. The artist titled the show “Relatos,” a word which means “narrations” or “stories” in Spanish to evoke the way he has chosen his subjects. “Under their skin,” Gonnord writes, “my contemporaries narrate unique, remarkable stories about our era. Sometimes hostile, almost always fragile and very often wounded behind the opacity of their masks, they represent specific social realities and sometimes another concept of beauty.”
Relatos is on view at Hasted Kraeutler Gallery in New York from Dec. 8-Feb. 4.
Laura Pannack is a fine art photographer based in London. In 2010, her work received first prize in the Portrait Singles category of the World Press Photo awards. This work is from her series on Young British Naturists (YBN), a group for UK naturists aged between 16 to 30. She writes:
When I came across YBN, I was fascinated with understanding reasons why these young people wanted to belong to a group exposing such human vulnerability. I wanted to know why they felt the need to be naked or be part of a group where this was not only acceptable but also encouraged. I soon realized that naturism is more than just about being naked, it is a philosophy of life with physical, psychological, environmental, social and moral beliefs. Some would classify naturism as a religion.
YBN arrange camping activities and outings to meet and socialise with like- minded young people. At events, members get to know each other, play sports and relax. The group accepts all types of individuals, there are no rules; members can be any of race, religion, profession, political preference, economic status and need no specific skill or talent; individuals are accepted just as long as one is under 30 and has an interest in naturism. Perhaps this complete acceptance is one of the keys to its success.
Nudity is often associated with sex. However I discovered that this could not be farther from the truth within naturism. The human body becomes almost an irrelevance, something with which they become almost unaware of and is their own norm.
In order to fully understand my subject and gain the trust and respect of the people I wished to photograph I felt it was essential for me to cross over to their side and be naked. By placing myself in a vulnerable situation , the connection with my subjects was one of mutual understanding and equality. This ongoing project consists of young British naturists aged between 17 and 30. I aim to capture them as individuals, not just naturists.
Peter Andrew is an award-winning commercial and fine art photographer from Toronto, Canada. His body of work includes advertising, location, portrait and landscape photography. Of this Freeway series, he writes:
I was drawn to these structures because they are easily overlooked and yet ubiquitous in most western cities. Everyday cars flow over these highway junctions like the concrete arteries of city’s cardiovascular system. I love having the chance to watch them moving while I am shooting from above. I ask the viewer to closely examine the traffic, terrain, and surrounding architecture in the images. My interest is in observing the differences seen between them. Some are slick and chaotic while others appear chipped-up and old but at the same time neat and symmetrical. This is an ongoing series that will soon feature the highway stacks of the State of Texas.
Maurizio Strippoli is a Milan-based fine art photographer. This work is from his series, Inside, in which he writes:
‘In my photos I feel a sense of being “inside”; not only inside the rooms but also inside other lives, inside a time I feel is passing by even if everything seems still, inside a whiteness which reveals or hides other stories’.
