Photographs with magical light always capture my heart. This obsession with luminous qualities began with the intensive lighting in the work of Philip Lorca DiCorcia, was solidified by the 2006 exhibition Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and extends to the unearthly glows found in the photographs of 2009 Hot Shot Mike Sinclair. The misty haze found in Contender Sarina N. Finkelstein's work just reinforces my swooning. Golden sunshine is just, well, sunny, and instantly implies the endless summer of the West Coast. It is surprising, then, to see this light fall on sobering and increasingly all-too-familiar subject matter (as we've also observed in the entries from other Hey, Hot Shot! Contenders this year): the effects of the recession.

Sarina documents the surprising resurgence of gold miners in the mountains of Northern California and their struggles. Says Sarina of the project,

This body of work focuses on five California gold prospecting communities. The miners here--victims of recent layoffs, veterans, ex-convicts, and freelancers in between gigs--are dependent on the income from their claims to feed their families. Selling an ounce of gold at $1000/oz provides them with hope for survival. The New '49ers arrive in Winnebagos and pickups, having sold their homes and farms for subsistence. They create the same semi-permanent Hoovervilles along the edge of the river canyon as their predecessors.

This image strikes me because it documents a pregnant moment: a young man casually strolling down a riverside, a family in the far distance. At first glance it seems idyllic. However, the context casts the image in a darker light; this is a place of hardship, where people take on unknown odds in unlikely ways to survive in the worst economic climate in generations. But it is also full of promise; accidental but tight-knit communities emerge as they face the same hardships and an uncertain future together.

Sarina Finkelstein received her BFA in Photography and Art History from Washington University in Saint Louis, and then completed her MFA in Photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She has been a guest speaker for the Professional Women Photographers (PWP) and a featured photographer in PWP Magazine, as well as a speaker and award recipient at the 2004 Society for Photographic Education National Conference.