At Friendlies 1984 by Bede Murphy

Man of many mediums and aspiring Hot Shot Bede Murphy submitted imaged from his series UPSTATE in the 80's, an archive of photographs and diary entries from his teen years.

A humoristic look at the cloistered existence (and a lack grammatical ease) it provides a glimpse of a young person declaring ownership over the creative impulse.

In his free time, Murphy runs LAND, a gallery/studio in DUMBO for adult artists with disabilities to create and show work. Keep it up Murphy.

We are reaching the one week point. Why not just enter today?

Bayshore Blvd by William John Smith

California-based Hey, Hot Shot! contender William John Smith entered the wide world of visual arts at the suggestion of a tarot reader. On his work, "The images that I'm submitting are from a five year project to document San Francisco from my viewpoint which of course is somewhat different than a visitor's. I'm inspired by most everything I see."

And you? Enter while it's still the weekend.

Sterling Heights by Rachel Hawthorn

From aspiring Hot Shot Rachel Hawthorn's submission:

In the continued investigation of how human memory is faulty and flawed, I constructed small models of homes I've lived in, all from memory and exterior photographs. Missing walls, empty spaces and partial structures trace the gaps where memory has faltered. The tiny sculptures have taken up residence in my backyard, and are photographed as they shift and warp through the weather and time, much like the fractures in personal memory.

Enter Today!

Oh the excitement for a Thursday afternoon––Raul Gutierrez has signed on as a panelist for the Spring Edition of Hey, Hot Shot! Raul, already an invaluable member of the jen bekman family, is a Hot Shot himself, a Spring 2006 Hot Shot to be specific. An amazing photographer, writer, and thinker, Raul's website and blog offer endless hours of consuming pleasure. Mr. Gutierrez has also been working hard with Ms. Bekman on the anxiously awaited, awesomely-awesome 20x200 project. [If you find yourself unfortunately out of the loop, read about that excitement here.] And, you're in luck, an old HHS! interview with Raul can be found here.

Raul Gutierrez is a photographer and design consultant who has had an eclectic career working behind the scenes in Hollywood, on Broadway, and on the internet. He recently showed his long term project, Travels Without Maps, at the Nelson Hancock Gallery in New York and has been in of a number of group shows including Hey, Hot Shot! Gutierrez also maintains Heading East, a website that is often (but not always) about photography. He is currently working on a book of Travels Without Maps as well as a number of photography related internet projects.

We love Raul and you should too! So much excitement, such a f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c panel.

Journey Into Manhood by Ryan Pfluger

Aspiring Hot Shot Ryan Pfluger loves his dad, is inspired by his dad, and, well, likes to take photos of his dad. Submitting work from his thesis project Not Without My Father, Pfluger says that photography facilitates dialogue between the two men as they create and re-create memories from Ryan's relatively fatherless childhood. In and out of rehab during the time for fishing, barbeques, and life-lessons, Ryan's father is a participant in the two of them constructing that coveted father-son bond, one that's based in both reality and fiction, one that is making up for lost time.

Maybe it's cliche to say that in a bio, but I really use photography as my way of creating relationships. Maybe it was because I was socially awkward, or rather, I still am socially awkward.

This awkward 100% New Yorker finished up his MFA at SVA yesterday. Congrats Ryan!

Enter today!

Hospital Study 1 by aspiring HS Michael Cevoli

Words from Providence-based Hot Shot hopeful Michael Cevoli:

Two years ago I began a photographic project based on the interiors of former state prisons and their nearby surroundings. I was initially interested in the massive structures, do in part to the similar functional elements found in industrial architecture, namely the timed and controlled repetitive motions that make said facilities operate, and also because of the striking beauty and attention to detail not commonly associated with a prison.

We've reached the two week point. Enter tonight!

Cocktail Hour by Kelly Hamilton

I could not ignore the resemblance in aspiring HS Kelly Hamilton's work and that of Fall 2006 Hot Shot Joe Fornabaio. Maybe it's that they both shoot black and white, unfortunately a rare trait in our hopefuls. And that they are both photographing their families, nothing very unique in itself. Or it's that they both seem to have a certain knack for getting that perfectly quirky moment that defines family life while neither glorifying it nor mocking it, but getting it just right.

Kelly is submitting from her series Sunday Dinners, a project she has been working on for the past two years. She says, "When I see a familiar expression or something completely new I press the shutter." She also gives her images titles such as Where are you headed baby brother?, Unclosable Distance, and Just Outside the Door. Keep it up Kelly!

We have a new week on our hands and only two remain to enter the Spring Edition of HHS! Why not right now?

133rd Ave at Cross Bay Blvd by aspiring HS Mark Marchesi

For this round of HHS!, contender Mark Marchesi submitted from his series The Town and the City. The work is cinematic in both its scale and suspense; I think of Gregory Crewdson minus all the bells and whistles. These images are dramatic and straight out of a thriller favorite without feeling contrived or theatrical, not to mention they're just good looking photographs. Mark says on the series:

It is inspired by Jack Kerouac's classic literary work which is set in a dying Massachusetts mill town. The novel stuck a chord and filled me with nostalgia for a time when New England mill towns thrived and the word "home" was not just a term used by developers to sell more houses.

Mark has been working on this series for the past three years and there is an immense amount of worthy work on his newly updated website. Keep it up Mark!

It's Friday and the weather is turning around, the perfect time to enter the Spring Edition of Hey, Hot Shot!

Wedding by Laura Griffin

Contender Laura Griffin submitted work from her Comfort of Strangers series. Interested in a bit more than the mundane, she's out to write poetry with her imagery, looking for the strange, the beautiful, and the mysterious in her subjects. Griffin comes to us from Atlanta, Georgia and is inspired by guess who. From Griffin's statement:

With this work, I believe that an image can stand in direct representation of an idea, emotion, or remembrance through association. The colors, light and subject matter create feelings of isolation, silence and timelessness and I hope that the viewer will relate these images to their own experiences and memories.

You have a little over two weeks to get those entries in. How about today?

Wishing Well by Mandy Sue Springer

Here on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog you have seen a handful of contenders. Spending a good amount of time with each entry, most contenders tend to stick with me. Being in the try, try, try again game myself, I always find it helpful to see how others choose to revamp and repackage their work for submission, whether they start fresh with a new body of work, leave just a trace of the previous, or submit the identical twin to their former. During the Winter Edition, I paired the work and words of artist Mandy Sue Springer with some thoughts about the statement, both written and unsaid [see that here]. This round Mandy Sue has a new website where you can see her series Digging for Salamanders along with other photographs, paintings, and mixed media. From her statement:

I used to want to change the world, but I learned that was not going to happen. Instead I had to change my world and find all the beautiful things in the ugly things and fall in love with this new found beauty. I can remember the amazement in finding salamanders under rocks in the creek. I would keep them in buckets for just a little while, but then let them go. Growing up my life was a treasure hunt, and they were just one of the little hidden treasures. I am once more searching for these lost treasures.

enter today!

Revenge by G.F. Diaz

Contender G.F. Diaz is pushing the Metaphor with a capital 'M' on the viewer. Hoping we will make a connection in "the physical with intangible symbolism," Diaz is interested in the very essence of perception and how we as consumers of photography love to pick apart the frozen image. Digitally constructed collages of wildlife taken from their natural environments and placed in "unlikely" backdrops, sometimes subtly, sometimes blindingly, the images span the gamut of the photoshop composite. While Diaz's words seem to demand a more serious reading of the work, the images are unquestionably humorous. The selection above, for me, is the perfect mashing of the ever-favorite toying with taxidermy genre and the equally as loved deer painting camp. Some words from the artist are in order...

I embrace nature, chaos and survival as my sources of inspiration, and infuse these themes with vivid human statements. I see our ambition, betrayal, triumph and pitfalls in each of these compositions, as we often find ourselves out of our elements and surviving the most unfavorable conditions.

Diaz unfortunately does not have a website, but you can enjoy Revenge all day long. Time likes to just slip on by and, as always, the deadline is planning on creeping right up, so keep the good work coming!

Deadline: Tuesday May 8 @ 11:59PM
Enter Today!

Jolene: Teenagers Belfast by Michelle Sank

Contender Michelle Sank's submission:

Michelle is interested in the way that individuals are shaped by social structures, how gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity 'enter into' us as subjects. The work looks particularly at individuals positioned within lower socio-economic structures where, for example the promise of adult sexuality appears to offer future security and happiness. Her deceptively simple portraits ask important and probing questions about the status and perception of young people in contemporary society.

The clock ticks, enter today!

Read the announcement over on Personism.

We're still in private beta for a few more weeks - Sign up for our mailing list and we'll keep you posted!

I'm lost (part 1) by Laurent Champoussin

Contender Laurent Champoussin resides in Paris, France. Excusing himself for his english skills, he sums his statement up with, "Do you remember of that cue from "The Maltese Falcon : 'the stuff that dreams are made off'? So I'm trying in a humbly way to catch this stuff in a world like it is without artifice."

Ice Fishing Two by Finn O'Hara
Contender Finn O'Hara comes to us from Toronto. Submitting from his series made in the Canadian Arctic, Finn is interested in access to cultures that are generally unfamiliar to the outsiders. Attributing his success within the project to dedicated research, discussion and, he admits, blind luck, he hopes to capture the remote, obscure, and the little known. From his statement:

As polar issues such as global warming become more important, I hope to document the people of the Arctic and their emerging society. The elders of Cambridge Bay have seen the transformation of their society from one in which small family groups lived in nomadic camps, to a far more modern community life. In a single Arctic lifetime, more has changed for them in one generation than what has occurred over several thousand years for "western society". As they embrace traditional knowledge and values, and the new opportunities presented to them by advanced technologies, I hope to document this social transformation through a combination of portraiture and landscape photographs.

Finn also shared with us his appreciation of photography not only as a "beautiful art" with endlessly exciting and practical tools, such as the Hasselblad he romances, but as a multifaceted job with endless opportunities to be jumped upon.

So jump on this one... Enter today.

Traces #1 by Brady Robinson

Orlando-based artist and contender Brady Robinson submitted work from her series Traces, images of what she so literally describes as "fleeting landscapes." Jessica Dawson from the Washington Post has already categorized Brady's work as travelogue impressionism. Moving at a pace that doesn't mesh with that necessary for the careful and patient landscape photographer, Brady is such an artist with a different lifestyle. I am rather curious as what these shots would look like if Brady had been equipped with say a 4x5, a tripod, and more time, my curiosities answered: they would look just like that which we are already far too familiar with. A project still in the works, Brady continues to adventure out into the landscape documenting her experiences in speedy motion. From her statement:

The work is a mapping of time and space; movement is captured through a window point of view while wandering through the landscape. Reflections are captured to give a sense of inside and out. As a photographer, I examine the social and cultural landscape and exploit the tradition of the "snap shot". New relationships between disparate images are formed through scale and sequencing.

Rocco by Sigrid Jakob

Contender Sigrid Jakob is interested in masculinity, in fact she limits her subjects to men and only men. In straightforward portraits within both studio settings and the domestic space, she analyzes their bodies through the lens, how they are put forward by the sitter and then how the bodies are accepted by her audience. In her words:

My basic theory is that being a man in this day and age is fraught with difficulty. Women have been gaining power, at work, in relationships, economically. Men are increasingly expected to conform to stricter ideals with regard to their appearance, being emotionally expressive, being good team players. Male stereotypes are no longer the refuge they once were. With these shifting expectations, men are expected to redefine themselves.

Known for her series on the gay male subculture of bears, she scrutinizes the manner in which the male body is exalted depending on the context. For her, bears represent "a redefinition and reappropriation of male stereotypes that is both traditionalist and utopian."

Sigrid began taking photographs as a teenage runaway. The camera was a way to prove her existence and validate her view of the world when no one else cared. She is inspired by other female artists who are wandering in the terrain of masculine identity such as Collier Schorr and Laurel Nakadate.

Deadline is Tuesday May 8, 2007. Time is on your side but why not enter today?

Auditorium by James Rajotte

Summer 2006 Hot Shot James Rajotte is adding another notch to his belt. In addition to being a Hot Shot and featured in PDN's 2006 Photo Annual of Student Work, James has earned his Master's in Fine Arts in photography from the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY.

The culmination of his blood, sweat, and tears, (trust me, I am also an M.F.A. candidate and it's rougher than you think) will be on display at the Visual Studies Workshop Gallery, 31 Prince Street, Rochester, NY from April 7th - 27th. That's right, the opening is this Saturday (tomorrow!) at 7:00 p.m.

Scott, 2006 by James Rajotte

With blasted, James joins the ranks of photographers working as sociologists, including, but not limited to, Phillip Toledano, made famous by his portraits of video gamers, and Paul Graham who photographed people watching television in the late 80's and early 90's.

He's in good company but his photos stand out because they are slightly ambiguous. His subjects seem genuinely engaged but sometimes sad, sometimes thoughtful, sometimes alienated, and always alone, illuminated by the off-color glow of a monitor, and seated in surrounding darkness. The work gives rise to the questions he poses:

What, if any, are the visual opportunity costs of an electronic society? Why look at actual reality when we are able [to] fulfill our intellectual and emotional needs anonymously and vicariously via meta-realities?

The show proves to be worth the trip to Rochester. If you absolutely can't make it, do see the work on Rajotte's website.

Identity by Amelie Sourget

There are moments when the mind goes blip, sometimes for short periods and sometimes for more extended ones. What always perplexes and entertains me is the way the mind retains information from when it goes on these little breaks. Images jump in and out of the brain, leaving traces that are not always trackable. Words, sounds, and smells become more fragmented and jumbled than usual. Your blogkeeper is recovering from such a blip.

With contender Amelie Sourget my initial mental stutter began with her name. Originally hailing from France, Amelie has recently relocated to the fine city of New York. While providing me with very little meat beyond the three images she submitted, I know she shoots with a Hasselblad, lives for the color darkroom, and was once upon a time a political science major. Amelie, also, has a knack for tackling the broadest of subjects in the simplest of fashions, giving her images titles such as An absurd world and Identity. There is a good amount of work on her website so take a peek, see how it sticks.

As for your entries, the clock ticks. Enter today.

Thermometer by Walker Pickering

Contender Walker Pickering puts it simply: he shoots nouns.

And you? Enter today.

California Firestorm by Lenard Smith

I am heading back from what has been pure undergraduate madness. Still in Chicago, but missing New York terribly, you can expect daily tastes of Hot Shot goodness from yours truly. Today I give you contender Lenard Smith. Lenard offered us a quaint tale of his initiation into photography, one that I wouldn't want to refuse you.