Pete and Friend by HHS contender Rachel Graves

I tend to be drawn to conceptual work and often to work that examines the medium itself. So I was immediately interested in aspiring Hot Shot Rachel Graves's work with found/family photographs. Full disclosure: I, too, sometimes work with family photos. Whereas I isolate details in order to explicate all I can from a single image, Graves reports,

"For this I am working directly with the family photographs my parents have - every single one of them, and rephotographing each one until it is so disintegrated and so far removed from what it was that I can no longer find anything familiar in what I see."

What great work.

With that, and with my confessional, I inaugurate this cycle's round of Contenders posts. Check back every day for a quick peek inside the submission portfolio of one of the entries for the current edition of Hey, Hot Shot! And, also, you should enter now!