Untitled by Jennifer Garza-Cuen

There's something delightfully creepy about the interiors and portraits by photographer Jennifer Garza-Cuen. The characters in her photos, while bordering on the far end of the David Lynch-ian scale of producing feelings of weird uncomfortability, are not who the portraits are actually of. The portraits are all a collective portrait of a place—a place immortalized in lyrics and film (both the moving and the still variety), that place being Reno, Nevada.

While I've never been to the desert west, or the strange man-made city of Reno, my projected mythology of what I imagine that place to be and mean is entirely satisfied in this theatrically produced series of images. Is Reno a place of heartaches and hard-sells? Is it a place where improbable things happen? Where weird is normal? Where time and space mean something different, and where people behave differently because of it? Looking at the series of images that Jennifer Garza-Cuen has submitted for consideration in this edition of HHS!, I am left with the bewildering thought: What, exactly, happens in rooms like these?

Untitled by Jennifer Garza-Cuen

Untitled by Jennifer Garza-Cuen

I'm uncertain whether the accompanying artist statement elucidates the answer to this question, or maybe, elaborates more on the sense of trippy displacement that these images evoke. Garza-Cuen's stream-of-conscious explication certainly adds to the je ne sais quois-ness of the project:

By staging my narrative in a real place I can reveal the unreal qualities of the everyday. History is stretched out in front of us and Reno is the stage for an anti-epic, an opera of futility, a specific in the generality of life. I use heavy light, large landscapes interspersed with characters and props taken from mythology and life, layers that physically slow down the reading of the photograph. I tread the line between the staged and the real. My characters appear and disappear, swallowed by the landscapes. The interiors that surround them take on their lost personality. Reno becomes the central character. Repetition, rhythm, place, symbols, all leads us through a story that takes us nowhere. It is the rehearsal of a performance that never takes place, a rehearsal of a life that culminates not in the performance but in the insignificant day-to-day wanderings and confusion more emblematic of actual lived life. Reno is my metaphor for life. In Reno, life is the gamble we all lose, but play anyway. Reno is every time, every place, everyman.

The daughter of, "an ex-bullfighter and a defrocked minister," and a current MFA candidate at the Rhode Island School of Design, Jennifer Garza-Cuen's work has been shown both in the states and abroad, and her participation in the NadaDada show in Reno, Nevada might be the most mindfully apt venue for this body of work.

Super Fund, 2009 by Remy Steiner

When I first moved to New York two years ago, I both lived and worked in my favorite borough: Brooklyn. Everyday, I would bike between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, passing over the 3rd street bridge over the Gowanus Canal. The smell emanating from the canal was horrible, and on most days, broken glass and garbage crunched beneath my tires. Though it wasn't the prettiest route to take, it was the easiest path, and I tried to find solace in the fact that after a few blocks of cringing, I would once again ride past lovely brownstones and tree-lined streets. Though I'm not particularly nostalgic for these rides, when I look at the work of today's contender, Remy Steiner, I look back on those early morning rides with fondness. Born in Vienna, raised in Northern California, and now living in New York, I think Remy brings a sense of wonder and fresh pair of eyes to a city that seems to be downright overwhelming on some days. The photos, taken on the fly, capture private moments of things we see everyday that are easy to overlook.

Gowanus, 2009 by Remy Steiner

Through the use of her iPhone Remy has photographed all of these place and writes that she "invites her viewers to reclaim a slice of time they lost, to experience the story and to see the world as picturesque". This new genre of cameraphone point and shoot photography is an interesting one to consider because it replaces the traditional pointing and shooting done on film of Walker Evans' era. Though images from a cameraphone are usually low quality and not reproducible in a large format, they can capture many unseen moments and be virally shared over the internet. For Remy, it appears that this mode of sharing, and the quick feedback loop that comes with it, allows her to communicate with her viewers. This insta-connection provides her with valuable commentary about the photos themselves, and represents a young life in love with a city, excited to share it with whomever will look. She ends her statement by writing, Posting her captured images on Facebook, what started out as a love letter to her adopted city evolved into something else: a public invitation for friends and acquaintances alike to share in and comment on ideas she had been kicking around her whole life.

To view more of Remy's work visit her website.

Related: See the work of contender Catherine Vermeland, who also makes images using the camera on her phone.

40 light-sensitive paper airplanes exposed to the sky over a period of ten hours at a WWII anti-aircraft lookout post. Tennessee Cove, CA, 2010 by Klea McKenna

We're pleased to announce that Lesley A. Martin, HHS! panelist and publisher of Aperture's books program, has selected Klea McKenna to receive the 3rd Hey, Hot Shot! Curator's Choice Award. In addition to being featured in today's newsletter and right here on the blog, Klea will receive a selection of seven incredible books published by Aperture. A huge thanks to Lesley for judging this round of Curator's Choice, and congratulations to both Klea for her outstanding entry as well as all the other contenders—your entries keep on raising the bar!

Tod Lippy, HHS! Panelist and Editor-in-Chief of Esopus magazine, will be our 4th Guest Curator. Tod will be reviewing all entries submitted before Thursday, July 29th, and the entrant he picks will receive a LIFETIME subscription to Esopus magazine, so submit your best work today!

Of Klea's work, Lesley writes:

Klea McKenna describes her series Slow Burn as "an ongoing series of experiments" in which each image reveals or teaches her something that leads her to the next. This approach—photography as a heuristic process, in which the "eureka" moment of one image pushes us forward toward new discoveries with every step—is ideally the foundation of any artistic practice to some degree or another. It can be a risky, but it can also be incredibly rewarding, for both the viewer and the artist. McKeeena's unique prints are made with homemade cameras or without any recording device at all (paper airplanes made out of photographic materials!). The work has its points of intersection with other artists, including Walead Beshty and Miroslav Tichy, while also seeming to represent a personal means of grappling with the inherent capacities of photographic materials and processes. The resulting work has a certain amount of rawness and tension to it—a quality much appreciated by this particular juror.

In reviewing the artists who have submitted and making this selection, I'm keenly reminded of how savvy the photo community has become as a whole—how much well-executed, carefully constructed, good work there is out there. What I find myself looking for, then, is the work that stands apart for its willingness to try to push a little bit against the expectations of "good." Not work that is different for the sake of difference, but work that takes risks; that reveals deeply held beliefs and interests in how a photograph works—or doesn't.

Detail of 40 Paper Airplanes..., 2010 by Klea McKenna

Untitled (East River) from the series Slow Burn, 2009 by Klea McKenna

Untitled (Lagunitas Creek), from the series Slow Burn, 2010 by Klea McKenna

Untitled (Interstate 5), from the series Slow Burn, 2009 by Klea McKenna

Klea's Artist Statement:

My relationship to the natural landscape lies somewhere between adoration and suspicion. This ambivalence has fueled each of my recent projects. I am interested in human perceptions of and representations of nature, and photography's ability to both confirm and disarm those perceptions. Slow Burn is an ongoing series of experiments. With each one, I learn something new which leads me to the next experiment. As we rush ahead to embrace new digital technologies we are leaving the imaging potential of traditional light sensitive materials relatively untapped. Confined, as they have largely been, to representational reproduction. With this is mind I push these materials to record perceptual experience rather than accurate image. Using analogue photographic methods and crude, handmade cameras, I explore the materiality of the photographic medium and it's capacity to interact with and represent place and landscape in new ways. Recent experiments have included filling the camera with live insect and plant specimens while photographing as well as folding the film up so that it reacts to light as a 3-dimensional object. I attempt to rupture our perception by making the flawed material of the film itself as visible as the image it has captured. There is also a sense of gradual loss in this work, the loss of natural places, of time and of the analogue photographic materials that make these experiments possible. My methodology is informed by the strategies of field biology, Victorian naturalism, and homespun science; practices that employ intense and prolonged observation of natural phenomena.

Untitled, 2010 by Chuck Koosmann

I have had awful, dismal eyesight since I was seven years old. For this reason, the images from Chuck Koosmann's submission seem very familiar to me: his blurry, impressionistic and rather painterly photographs from a series titled Almost Real... resemble quite precisely my own bewildering, vulnerable visual experience of the world on the (very, very, very rare) occasions that I find myself without a visual aid.

This association is obviously very specific to me (and potentially, I suppose, to the other, unlucky, near-blind folks out there). An individual response to these images is, in part, Koosmann's intention in this series. He writes of his work:

Recently, I have been working to find new ways to make images that are less objective, less literal, images that open themselves to interpretation, imagination and memory, where the viewer plays a role in creating what is to be known.

However, there is more to these photographs. While they do remain open to such personal readings, they simultaneously hint at something that both specifically concerns Koosmann himself, and to which virtually anyone can relate: the limitations, the incompleteness and the inaccuracy of memory. Koosmann continues in his statement:

As I get older I'm finding that memory is not a constant. It is a process, an exercise, an ever-changing creation and re-creation of what we think we know. I am not at a place where memory is a problem now, but as I age I can imagine that it may become an issue. This project helps me to see how those who struggle with memory may feel and cope, and what it may mean to me.

The viewer is not given much concrete visual information to work with in Almost Real...;we are left with no option but to project, to infer and to flesh these pictures out ourselves. I feel like I can—with some degree of confidence—guess at what these out-of-focus and often-gorgeous images depict: one seems to be the bottom edge of a set of blinds against a hardwood floor, (or maybe the slats of the railing surrounding a deck) while another hints at a domestic interior at dusk. The images are just barely representational, although Koosmann's three photographs with human figures are slightly easier to make out: one is almost definitely a seated female nude; one shows several figures against a shoreline in gray, gloomy weather, and the final is of a man in a suit, outdoors on a sunny day. His hand is at his neck; it looks as though he could be loosening his tie at the end of a long workday.

Untitled, 2010 by Chuck Koosmann

Still, I will never be certain if my interpretations are correct. This lack of clarity is enforced by the fact that each photo is "untitled," and while this is certainly not unusual in art, in this case such vagueness seems intentional, and very much in keeping with Koosmann's project.

Attempting to interpret and define these images is in this way akin to the act of remembering, and resembles trying to spontaneously picture the face of someone you haven't seen in some time. The works in this series turn the traditional idea of the photograph as a record or an aid for recollection on its head, acting as a visual equivalent to memory. The picture is full of blurry edges and fuzzy details, ultimately becoming a a hazy outline of something that we can never be quite sure of.

As viewers, we grasp at clues as to what and whom these photographs represent, just as we grasp to recall events, people, or feelings we've encountered or experienced, which escape us almost as quickly as they appear. In both, there is a distinct, inescapable component of invention. Koosmann's images are hugely evocative and at the same time quite frustrating: they can inspire very personal associations and emotions, while simultaneously mirroring and highlighting just how subjective, how unreliable, how mercurial our memories in fact are.

More of Koosmann's work (although no images from the Almost Real... series) can be viewed on his website.

What I most appreciate about the work of today's contender, Taylor R. Glenn, is his ability to visually communicate a subversion of a popularly held and regularly reinforced set of cultural stereotypes about what it means to be a factory worker in China today. As recently as this week I was listening to an NPR story about a writer living in Beijing that was hired, just on the basis of his being male and white, to pose as a quality control expert touring a factory—lending the aura of Western credibility to the factory and its practices to unassuming outsiders— in exchange for $1000 a week. This story, along with an endless stream concerning product recalls, poisoned petfood, and even tales of entire villages of enslaved children working in brick factories, is what passes for cover stories about the contemporary industrial age in China.

Invited to photograph a family-run artificial flower making factory in Huidong, Taylor Glenn was treated to an entirely different narrative, remarkable in its serene normalcy and culture of fairness and dignity.

Flowers and Workers I, November 2009 from the series Far Chang by Taylor R. Glenn

A self-taught photographer hailing from Jackson, WY, Glenn writes:

This family-owned company, like many Chinese businesses, exports their products to Western markets. So many of the goods we purchase today are manufactured in China but we rarely give thought to how these products are made and the individuals who are responsible. The story of this factory and its people is very positive which is a departure from the largely negative associations the West implies upon Chinese producers. The facility is clean and the workers are treated well. The Miao family, who operates this business do so with integrity and compassion. This is an important story that is not being told in mainstream media. These images should encourage a more well rounded dialogue about our relationship with China and its people who manufacture many of the goods we buy.

Untitled, November 2009 from the series Far Chang by Taylor R. Glenn

The entire series gives a holistic sense of place and what people's working lives are like: there are expected long shots of rows of workers assembling plastic flower arrangements, but there are also many quiet portraits that are unique for their apparent lack of agenda, and other notable moments like a scene of a break room containing old school upright arcade games, where presumably the monotony of dealing in fake flowers can be replaced with the relative pleasure of spacing out a virtual, electronic world.

Glenn's project, Far Chang, by virtue of its open-ended and non-exploitative view of factory workers in China, recalled for me the work of another remarkable body of work on the same subject, Cao Fei's video piece Whose Utopia, filmed in a lightbulb factory in the Pearl River Delta. Conceived over a six month stay in the factory, Cao Fei relays the imagined dreams for a better future and livelihood of the people who work and live at the factory. What is similar to me about Glenn's work and Cao Fei's is that the tone of each is neither pitying or cloying; they both seem to impart something of what it means and feels to inhabit these spaces without relying on cheap sentimentalism or playing on our already well-played upon cultural (in)sensitivities. The focus is on Individuals instead of a collective cultural projection, and on content that is personal in place of that which is culturally premeditated. In my view, having that view widened and subverted from what I thought I knew is always a good thing.

To view the entire series as well as other bodies of Taylor Glenn's work, visit his website.

It's that time of year again and the 20% More Ridiculous Sale is back at 20x200! That means: 20% off your entire order (minimum $50), including these fabulous editions by Hot Shots.

Below are editions from just a few of our many Hot Shots. Many more are available!

Untitled, Swamp #2 by Dorthe Alstrup

Eivind by Michelle Arcila

Rincon Artificial Island and Pipeline, Ventura, California by Ian Baguskas

Untitled #46 from "Stories" by Jessica Bruah

West Forty-third Street (Yellow Cabs) by Joseph O. Holmes

Paris by Gregory Krum

Dutch Club, Anaheim, California by Brad Moore

Uman by Hosang Park

Winter Flags (East Village, New York) by Youngna Park

Las Vegas, Nevada, November 2000 by Mike Sinclair

Untitled #9 by Matthew Tischler

Get them before they're going, going, gone; you've got till Sunday, June 27th at 12:00 noon EST!

And remember: every contender who enters the competition is considered for an edition on 20x200, so get some prints, then send us your best photos!

Untitled, from Continental Drift: Iceland/California by Marion Belanger

Buckminster Fuller, the architect, inventor and futurist, frequently coined his own words. He referred to our planet as "Spaceship Earth" and he invented new terms for upstairs and downstairs:

The words "down" and "up", according to Fuller, are awkward in that they refer to a planar concept of direction inconsistent with human experience. The words "in" and "out" should be used instead, he argued, because they better describe an object's relation to a gravitational center, the Earth. "I suggest to audiences that they say, "I'm going 'outstairs' and 'instairs.'" At first that sounds strange to them; They all laugh about it. But if they try saying in and out for a few days in fun, they find themselves beginning to realize that they are indeed going inward and outward in respect to the center of Earth, which is our Spaceship Earth. And for the first time they begin to feel real "reality."

While his terminology may sound reminiscent of a certain theme park attraction, I believe that in rethinking his vocabulary Bucky was onto something: a more authentic connection with the place we call home.

It was the appearance of a Geodesic-like dome, but also the idea of understanding the world through redefinition, that brought Bucky to mind when I saw the work of contender (and previous HHS! Honorable Mention) Marion Belanger. For Marion's series Continental Drift she traveled along fault lines in the earth photographing the locations above, then brought together photographs of Iceland and California, pairing their slowly shifting landscapes. At some point we all learned about fault lines from a textbook, but they tell us nothing about what these most active places actually feel like.

The images of Iceland are sweeping and dramatic. Marion writes:

In Iceland, the North American Plate is moving westward, creating new crust as magma pushes up from the mantle. Geologically, this place marks a divergent boundary, characterized by splitting earth, steaming hot water and a young lava landscape almost devoid of trees. The land is unstable and raw.

Rift #26 (Heimaey Houses), 2007, from Continental Drift: Iceland/California by Marion Belanger

Fault #1 (Displaced Fence), 2008, from Continental Drift: Iceland/California by Marion Belanger

The California landscape, though still on a fault-line, is dramatically different:

In California, the Pacific plate is sliding north relative to the North American plate, which means that eventually, in many millions of years, Los Angeles will be where San Francisco is now. While this transformative plate boundary is characterized by earthquake activity, it lacks the spectacular drama of a divergent boundary such as what is found in Iceland...The monotone housing developments built on top of the fault seem to deny the existence of the unstable earth below the surface.

What's so exciting about the project (aside from the beauty of the photos themselves) is the spirit of exploration and learning things for yourself which the work embodies. Marion's images reveal the lesser-seen facets of this scientific story, and convey things I once learned in school in a richer way than any textbook could dream of. Looking at these photos, I begin to feel reality.

You can view more work on Marion's website.

No. 7 (BLOOD), from the series Collocations, by Hot Shot Mickey Smith, featured in Esopus 13

Welcome back to the HHS! Week in Review, a handy roundup all the best photo links and news from the past week.

+ Tod Lippy, editor-in-chief of Esopus magazine, will be our 4th Guest Curator! He will be reviewing all entries through July 29th and his pick will receive a LIFETIME subscription to Esopus.

+ Speaking of which...we are impressed with the quality of entries we have received so far, and those that streamed in just in time for review by Lesley A. Martin's round of Curator's Choice (stay tuned for her announcement in the coming weeks)...now's a good time to check out our latest contenders, who we're blogging about daily: Johnathan Wong, Alex Arzt, Gary G. Breece and Ben Golik.

+ A linktastic MetaFilter post on photograms and all the various permutations of the technique.

+ I sing the body collaborative—a roundup of artists like Alec Soth, David Horvitz, and Jason Lazarus who need you to help complete their projects.

+ Alejandro Cartagena is showing work from Suburbia Mexicana alongside photographer Christine Osinski at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland.

+ The Women in Photography project grant is open for submissions through July 15th!

+ Alec Soth's publishing venture, Little Brown Mushroom, has announced they are releasing a series of photographic storybooks for grown-ups, beginning with Bedknobs & Broomsticks, by Australian photographer Trent Parke. There is a signing with the artist at Dashwood Books, this Thursday, June 24th from 6-8 p.m. The book is available in a numbered edition of 1,000 for $18.

+ Beth Dow + Curtis Mann are featured in the newest issue of PQ #99, published by The Center for Photography at Woodstock.

+ Gregory Krum's solo show ...Practice... at Jen Bekman Gallery closes this Sunday, June 27th! The New Yorker calls the show "allusive and alluring."

That's it for this week! If you see anything we missed drop us a line on Twitter @heyhotshot. Have a great weekend!

Untitled, from the series Mum by Nancy A. Newberry

For eighteen brief months at one of the most impressionable of impressionable ages, I lived in North Texas. I moved there with my family when I was 13, and spent most of junior high school there. Fraught as that age is with confusion, insecurity and boundless wonder, longing and mystery, I remember quite vividly the pretty, preening girls of my Dallas/Ft. Worth suburb, and wanting and trying very much to fit in.

One particular adolescent detail came careening fast into my adult consciousness when I first saw the work of contender Nancy A. Newberry. Like one would imagine, football is big in Texas, and what is equally a rite of passage repeated through junior and then high school is homecoming. Many of us are familiar with the codified ritual of the formal dress, dance, and choosing of a homecoming queen and king, as has been immortalized from all ends of the spectrum in John Hughes' and Stephen King's films. There's a Texan home-spun accent to the whole thing that's just a little bit different, and a whole lot, um, shiny. It's the Homecoming Mum.

Untitled, from the series Mum by Nancy A. Newberry

From her artist's statement:

MUM is centered around a gift-giving ritual virtually unknown outside of Texas, the Homecoming Mum. Exchanged between friends the Mum is an elaborate corsage decorated to indicate the wearer's interests, social standing, and allegiances to loved ones. Homecoming mums are proudly worn for all activities on Homecoming Friday, and then immortalized as trophies on bedroom walls all over Texas. Each year the collection grows with a more elaborate Mum, marking progress and personal history. As both adornment and insignia, the Mum offers its wearer the opportunity to promote self-image, while identifying their status as an integral member of their particular community. At a time when many American high schoolers seem actively disengaged from the world around them, the Homecoming Mum constitutes a unique act of cultural immersion, and specific brand of folk art.

Newberry goes on to say that the impetus for this project came when, recovering in her childhood home from an injury, she came across these exact mum mementos from her high school days, and wrote that she was, "..immediately confronted by the ritual trappings of collective history," with the discovery.

Reminiscent to me of the compositionally taut (and not say psychologically fraught) images from Sally Mann's body of work At Twelve, or even Lauren Greenfield's long study of Girl Culture, these strange portraits that Nancy Newberry gives to us in Mum skillfully evoke many of these same themes that I never seem to grow tired of looking at: visual descriptions of what it is like to be yearning towards a very defined social status, obsession with body image, a waxing appreciation of a dawning and powerful sexuality and maybe most striking—the deep desire to create distinctions of individuality while adhering to a tightly controlled, ritualized and recognized social code of sameness.

Plus, Homecoming Mums are just morbidly fascinating. Like an exploded Christmas ornament, the Mums can grow to defy all expectations of mum-ness, appearing to dwarf the wearer's features, or even conceal one's basic features.

Untitled, from the series Mum by Nancy A. Newberry

Newberry's entire Mum series can be viewed on her website. An exhibition this fall at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston will show images from this project.

We all do it. That is: peer inside other people's windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of the storied lives that may be hiding inside. My own stolen glances are guided by a visual hunt for elaborate chandeliers, gorgeous floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases, or the hope that I'll happen to see a Van Gogh or Picasso hanging on a living room wall from where I'm standing on the sidewalk. From there I make up intricate tales about the people who live in these mysterious homes, imagining from whom they inherited their belongings and how they must spend their days.

Window of Split Devotion, 2009 by Ben Golik

In many cases, however, it's what's on and in the window—flower boxes, statuettes, lacy curtains, crosses, signs, stickers or flags, that are telling of who the people who live inside. Relics are collected, then placed—sometimes delicately and other times haphazardly—on sills, offering tiny hints of personal proclivities and other subconscious habits. These are the geometric frames that contender Ben Golik documents for his project Other People's Windows as he walks around a succinct grid of streets in the London suburbs, offering interpretive interjections and loose analysis of the residents he imagines live behind these windows with the titles he attaches to each image.

A map to navigate Other People's Windows

On Church Lane, there is the Window of Quiet Contemplation, Window of Unkempt Promises and the Window of Forgotten Childhood. Turn a corner onto Station Road and you'll find the Window of Misplaced Affection, Window of Tangled Emotions, and Window of Romantic Ideals. Golik presents his windows street by street, navigable on a map, so one can visually follow the path he may have taken on foot as he observed, captured and annotated each of his stops.

Golik writes of his project:

Some windows are carefully stage-managed, filled with consciously chosen cues. Other less considered arrangements can be even more revealing. Some build barriers against the world outside. Others engage with passers-by, telling a story - fact or fiction - about the people living there. Whether contrived or carefree, each of these windows says something about its owners. The observant passer-by might catch a moment of self-expression. For some, the sill is an outdoor mantelpiece on which to celebrate prized possessions. For others, it's a place to discard the unwanted; objects unworthy of display inside that will ironically garner more attention outside.

Window of Fleeting Glances, 2010 by Ben Golik

If Golik knows, or speculates further about these windows, their contents, and the homes they're attached to, he restrains himself from sharing this information in the presentation of his images. He instead saves his more extemporaneous observations for the blog attached to the project, where he writes snippets like, "A WWF sticker. An RSPB sticker. The pretty lace swans. The people behind this window clearly love animals. Plants... not so much. I almost called this the Window of the Lapsed Environmentalist." Ben invites one to look at—and into—these images as though nobody is home, and even if they are, to take joy in not knowing what lays beyond their choice of window decor.

You can see additional images from Other People's Windows on the project website as well as more from Ben's portfolio.

We're happy to announce that Tod Lippy, HHS! panelist and editor-in-chief of Esopus magazine, will be Guest Curator for our 4th Curator's Choice award. All photographers who enter the competition by Thursday, July 29th will have their work reviewed by Tod—and the photographer he selects will receive...(drumroll please!)...a LIFETIME subscription to Esopus magazine.

Every issue of Esopus to date.

Back in December, I was wandering through St. Mark's Bookshop when I spotted the colorful cover of Esopus 13. After flipping through and finding myself unable to tear myself away from the awesomeness, I knew that I had to take the issue home. I went home and wrote, on my own blog:

Today I picked up a copy of Esopus magazine and it reminds me of what I love about design. Esopus is a non-profit that "provides an unmediated forum through which creative people can interact with the general public." The magazine is lavishly produced with different paper for different sections including one well-played vellum overlay and at least three pull or fold out bits. It "never includes advertising or commercially driven content and is priced well below its actual cost of production so that it can be accessed by a wide range of readers." This is a thing of beauty.

Not only does the Esopus Foundation Ltd. (which encompasses the publication) talk about supporting artists, but they put their money where their mouth is and produce exquisite magazines and events. JBP is no stranger to the organization either; 20x200 artist Jason Polan has done a three day collaborative event at their Manhattan project space and to this day, the tear-out poster by Hot Shot Mickey Smith from inside Esopus 13 is hanging in my room.

So, you can imagine that when I heard Tod was both joining our panel and guest-curating, I couldn't believe my ears. Esopus is a truly awesome organization and the winner of this prize has both my envy and congratulations! We can hardly wait for you to show us (and Tod) your best work, so make sure to get your entries in by Thursday, July 29th to be eligible for this fabulous prize.

Successful work abounds in the storied narratives of prodigal photographers. Following the kinds of life-changing crossroads or traumas that beset all of us from time to time, some compelling imagery can and has been made by artists retreating into their geographic/psycho-biographies for release, reprieve and answers. Often at the threshold of these adult moments, we realize, even if we're not willing to concede that we know very much, that at least we know where we came from. And in instances where we have renounced the past, a return to what and where we were at one time can provide important clues about which direction to go next.

Untitled, from the series Off Route by Gary G. Breece

Photographer Gary G. Breece had reason to have this dialog with himself, which ultimately led to Off Route, the body of work he's submitted for this round of HHS!. From his artist statement:

Five years ago, after experiencing numerous endings and unexpected losses, I found myself off track and at a psychic crossroads of sorts. Feeling directionless, I became drawn to, but at the same time reluctant, to revisit my Southern rural roots. I eventually decided to get a place on the coast of North Carolina and began spending bits of time there, taking rides on my '76 Moto Guzzi motorcycle, through the meandering back roads, allowing myself to just see what I'd see. These rides acted as a form of therapy for me. And the more I took these little journeys, the more I fell in love with the beauty of these out-of-the-way places. So I sought them out more, connecting with the landscape and locals, immersing myself in a place that I'd left years before and was now seeing with new perspective. I consider many of the color photographs from this series to be self-portraits...each image depicts landscapes or subjects that are themselves perhaps off route, just as I was during that time.

Untitled, from the series Off Route by Gary G. Breece

Untitled, from the series Off Route by Gary G. Breece

Untitled, from the series Off Route by Gary G. Breece

I highly recommend taking a moment to view the Off Route series in its entirety on Gary's website. Seen as a complete body of work, the images offer a sense of private revelation and a glimpse at experiences that are infused with contradictory sensations of alienation mixed with a near meditative transcendence. It is well worth the viewing time. Breece's eyes see both the beauty and sadness in encroaching nature, barren vistas and broken-down motels. And, he steals strange, private moments off the side of the road that are generously given back to an audience of strangers.

PDN emerging photographer, Photolucida book award winner, Aperture Portfolio Prize finalist and Hot Shot Alejandro Cartagena is currently having a show of his highly lauded body of work Suburbia Mexicana, Cause and Effect at the Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon.

Untitled, from the series Lost Rivers, part of the Suburbia Mexicana project by Alejandro Cartagena

From the press release:

In recent years, photographer Alejandro Cartagena has chronicled the vast and rapid growth of nine cities in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, Mexico. Encouraged by the Mexican government, housing developers there have taken advantage of the cheapest land available to construct new housing to be sold to lower- and middle-income families. More than 300,000 new homes have been built in this region since 2001. Evoking traditions established by the New Topographics photographers of the 1970s and 1980s, Cartagena has followed this complex story of unhampered sprawl in a compelling series of rich color photographs.

Suburbia Mexicana, Cause and Effect is comprised of five distinct parts: "Lost Rivers," "Urban Holes," "Fragmented City," "An Other Distance," and "People of Suburbia." When seen together, Cartagena's images create a visual narrative of dramatic, wide-scale urban transformation. He documents the finished, vacant developments waiting to be inhabited, the older, deserted neighborhoods left behind, as well as the environmental impact of nearby rivers drying to trickle to support growing populations. Through a combination of traditional landscape, abstract formalism, and documentary motifs, Cartagena invites the viewer into a montage of contemporary Mexican suburbia that is at once informative and beautiful.

We've written about Cartagena's work at length before, and his ongoing photographic investigations of urban disintegration and cultural homogenization have never been more relevant than they are today. His images have a rare poignancy that seem to reach a crescendo of concern when viewing his interrelated bodies of work from this singular project. If you have not had a chance to see his work in person and you're on the West Coast, his exhibition running through the end of this month is very highly recommended.

On view simultaneously at the Blue Sky Gallery is Christine Osinski's Staten Island Shoppers series, a Walker Evans-esque stealth photography venture in which Osinski made medium-format portraits of shoppers with a hidden camera.

Alejandro Cartagena: Suburbia Mexicana, Cause and Effect
June 3—June 27, 2010
Blue Sky Gallery
Tuesday - Sunday, 12 - 5 p.m.
First Thursday 6 - 9 p.m.
122 NW 8th Avenue,
Portland, Oregon 97209 USA
503-225-0210

A quick memory of a familiar argument frequently hashed out amongst art-minded friends: Which takes precedence: a well-seen image or a well-formed idea? Is an artwork less strong if it has to be followed by an explanation as to what it is or why it exists, or is it better if it is just a plainly stated, obviously well-seen and/or well-executed thing? Sure, we'd love it if all artworks could be both things at all times, but that's art batting in 1000 territory, and how often does it do that?

For some time now, I've become increasingly drawn to something that I can only quantify as open-ended collaborative works. Threads of commonality to the kinds of things that have sparked feverish, I-Should-Have-Thought-of-That! admiration include a willingness to start a conversation around an idea but not control it or its outcome, and a zany confidence in the idea itself that precludes having to offer up full disclosure of contents or contributions (i.e. not having to satisfy an artist-as-omniscient arbiter-of-everything, but to be generously willing to create guidelines in the artwork that allow for both participation and privacy on the part of the collaborators).

Take for example, the recently launched project by artist Jason Lazarus, Too Hard to Keep.

Submissions from too hard to keep, a project by Jason Lazarus

Open for submissions throughout all of 2010, Lazarus is collecting images from anyone willing to send fragments from their lives that are too hard to hold onto any longer. From his solicitation for submissions:

I am creating a repository for these images so that they may exist without being destroyed. You may dictate whether the images you submit to the archive are:

1. images not to be shown again, or
2. images that may be exhibited in the future with other submissions to the archive.

The reason you can't live with the photo or photo album I do not need to know...

Images of exes, deceased grandparents, friends or pets, children, or even self-portraits taken during hard moments, the most compelling aspect of Jason's project is that it's so what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Too Hard to Keep is a repository for things that you don't want around you but you also don't want destroyed. To contribute to the project you don't need to offer any narrative or explanation, you can even stipulate that you want the image to remain "publicly private," and Lazarus will scan the back of it and display it on site face-down. The whole idea is almost a complete inversion of the experience of something like, say, Post Secret, in which as a viewer you are privy to someone's actual darkest, silliest or most mundane thoughts, and where you are also a consumer of an endless interior monologue—someone else's. Lazarus has instead created a space where individuals can offer something up rare and raw of themselves and have it not be a spectacle; release is the principal artistic realization and revelation here. I really hope that Jason's project takes off and receives many more submissions; the potential for the project is so big. To view the entire archives of submissions thus far, or to read Jason's guidelines for submission, visit the site.

Images from Week 1 of The California Sleepwalker's Treasure Hunt by Alec Soth

Another project that we've been following with growing curiosity is Alec Soth's California Sleepwalker's Treasure Hunt. Back in April on the Little Brown Mushroom Blog, a crowd-sourcing call was made for people to give tips on where to find condors, hare krishnas, punk hangouts, metal detector enthusiasts as well as, "anything else that fits into this line of thinking" (the actual request list is longer). In his solicitation, Soth promises that for any tip that leads to an actual photograph, that person who provided the lead will receive a reward. The solicitation entry received over 75 replies, mostly from helpful people in-the-know of the exact kinds of spots Soth hinted having an interest in. Since then, a few threaded exchanges have revealed that Soth is not disclosing what generated his scavenger list, why he's doing what he's doing, and that he's entirely comfortable with you not knowing.

Maybe this project will turn into another limited-edition, lo-fi and full-of-punch publication, or maybe it will become something none of us in the cybersphere will ever see. Something that is very appealing in these works that Soth has been engaging in is that they are chock-full of artistic license and liberty for the artist, and have none of the expectation for a highly-polished, or prohibitively expensive (in terms of time as well as money) execution or release. And by dint of his participation in the LBM blog (and in the past with his own, now defunct, blog), Soth gives us occasional glimpses and moments of what a successful working artist is both thinking and doing, allowing us in to see a process that may yield something tangible and "finished" as well as the moments where you're just left to wonder. And that's okay. And part of the point.

Image from Things For Sale That I Will Mail You by David Horvitz

I first came across David Horvitz's work through his website Things For Sale That I Will Mail You. Beguilingly simple, Horvitz's site offers up several conceptual "products" available for purchase via Paypal in which he is willing to perform specific acts related to your purchase.

The product listings range from the exotic ("If you give me $1,626 I will go to the small Okinawan island called Taketomi and send you an envelope filled with star-sand (don't worry, I've been there before, I know where to go). I will send it from there."), to the quixotically quick and intimate ("If you give me $1 I will sit in silence and think about you for one minute. I will send you an email when I start this, and I'll send you another email when I'm done."). Each product listing is also accompanied by a list of those who have contributed to the project thus far, when they contributed, and often, what they received from Horvitz in return for their payment.

Horvitz's offerings on Things For Sale That I Will Mail You read to me like the dreamy meditative acts that I might enact on a daily basis were I paid myself to be a dreamer. What I realize as I consider whether I want to buy a photograph of the sky made just for me that moment, or if I want him to write a letter of apology on my behalf for someone I've wronged, that these products are of the making of many general acts in life that we as Horvitz's consumers might engage in were we not too busy in our workaday lives to set aside time to wonder, reflect, give back and blissfully blank out. When considered in that context, I am beset by two conflicting impulses: to both buy one or several things on Horvitz's site, or to doggedly determine that I will carve out space and time to do things on his list that only require my time and/or thoughtfulness. Send something to someone for free, just because. Apologize to someone that I know I owe an apology to. Think about someone else, and only them, for one whole minute. Horvitz's project is an instruction as well as a caution: you can do these things for and of yourself, or you can pay me to do them for you.

For more on David's past and more recent work, you can peruse this Chicago Art Review from last fall, or this recent Bombsite interview from this spring.

We here at Jen Bekman Projects are also very fond of collaborative art projects that our artists are engaged in, such as nearly every project that Jason Polan has undertaken (his most ambitious project to date underway with his stated goal of drawing Every Person In New York), or the work of someone like Jane Mount, who has been creating artworks of actual people's Ideal bookshelves. We have several for sale here, or you could go directly to Mount's Etsy store and commission an custom ideal bookshelf of your own.

The allure of the collaborative art project is seductive in its simplicity to you as a viewer: in order to become a fully realized object d'art, the artist needs you to be engaged, willing to participate or share a piece of your life, pay a small amount of money for, or otherwise be a willing patron/co-creator in an act that will be a dance between you, the artist, and everyone or no one else.

I love my dog and he loves me. When I'm bored he's ready to play, when I'm tired he's there to snuggle, and when I'm feeling stressed he comes running over to lick my face. I know it's kind of silly, but I sometimes wonder what our relationship would be like if he could talk. I think he loves me, at least. Since we can't communicate through language, our bond—as simple and wonderful as it is—is based almost entirely on inference and projection.

It's this gap of understanding between pet and owner (as well as the widespread phenomenon of household pets, in general) that fascinates contender Alex Arzt.

Debbie and Peanut, Chico, CA 2009, by Alex Arzt

Alex's series Human-Animal documents household pets and the people who love them a little too much.

Alex writes:

I continually wondered how adaptable the human home is for other species, whether that species lives in its own bedroom or in a cage in the backyard. The animals in these pictures often occupy the home space as fixtures much like the trinkets and framed pictures that display the animal lover's identity. Various objects, including empty grocery store food packets, tchotchkes, stuffed animals, animal clothes, car decals, drawings, memorialized gravesites and photographs identify the human owners as animal-lovers, even when the object of their affection is not captured in the frame. As many of my photographs make clear, some human identities are carved through the creation of a familiar human-pet dynamic involving both affection and dominance, captivity and care. My photographs record this man-made symbiosis as it occurs in and around the American home.

Another series, Ailurophilia (another word for "cat fancier") more narrowly investigates obsessive pet owners of the feline persuasion. The photographs are hilarious (especially as a full series), but I'll let them speak for themselves:

Untitled from Ailurophilia by Alex Arzt

Untitled from Ailurophilia by Alex Arzt

Untitled from Ailurophilia by Alex Arzt

All I have to say is that aside from taking fine photographs, It takes someone pretty brave to venture into a cat convention. You can see more work at Alex's website.

Long before there were cameras as we know them today, or film or a photographic print, there was the camera obscura. Literally from the Latin, "room" and "darkened," camera obscuras were first put into wide use as a tool for perfecting perspective in Renaissance painting. Utilizing a large boxlike space (or sometimes an entire darkened room itself), an image of what is outside the box is projected onto an opposing wall via a carefully placed pinhole that would then admit light into the space, projecting an upside-down view of what the focal length of aperture size allowed. It is said that Vermeer used a camera obscura, as did Johannes Kepler, who coined the phrase and brought a portable tent camera with him while he surveyed for astronomical observations.

Originally trained as an architect, contender Johnathan Wong has used the camera obscura to transform Las Vegas hotel rooms in an attempt to, "to disclose subtle and invisible details about a place or object unavailable to the naked eye" in his series Unseen Las Vegas.

Paris, Las Vegas 2009 from Unseen Las Vegas by Johnathan Wong

In his starkly contrasted black-and-white images that recall Bill Brandt's inky blacks, a room otherwise under cover of night is blasted with an odd inverted light from the view outside the windows. A busy city and jagged architecture invade an otherwise serene sleeping space, creating the illusion that a city is falling upon you while you sleep. Even though there are no humans physically present in these photos, when viewing them I automatically cast myself into dream space where I imagine myself laying on the beds in these rooms experiencing the upside-down reality of the outside world coming in.

Circus Circus 2010 from Unseen Las Vegas by Johnathan Wong

Wong's images and disconcerting architectural reveries recalls the work of another photographer (who was also not originally trained as a photographer, but as a sculptor) working in the same vein. Vera Lutter has been creating negative images created with a camera obscura that is literally a 1:1 size of the room she is in, and has trained the tiny pinhole to relay super-sized images of cityscapes, industrial sites, airport hangers and most recently—the city of Venice.

Zeppelin Friedrichshafer I, August 10-13,1999 by Vera Lutter

Campo Santa Sofia, Venice, XXIII, December 17, 2007 by Vera Lutter

Of the process of working over long periods of time (many of her exposures are made over multiple days; one exposure took three-and-a-half months), she has said:

I never know what is going to happen. My way of working is very hands-off. I install the apparatus of observation, the camera, and then endure the process of observation and record whatever happens. The work is essentially about the passage of time, not about ideas of representation.

The first time I created a camera obscura, after I had realized how long I had to sit in there to adjust my eyes to the darkness, to see the projection, which is about 20 or 30 minutes—I thought I'd seen God. When I saw the first projection, it was an epiphany. It was probably one of the most overwhelming moments of my life.

Whether the Vegas Strip or the Veneto, whether shown as a positive or as a negative, both Wong and Lutter's images succeed in showing us images that themselves become documents of time, and show us far more than we could ever see looking at the same view right-side up.

You can view the entire Unseen Las Vegas series at Johnathan's website.

Happy Monday! If you've been keeping up with us over on our blog, Twitter and on Facebook, you're already well aware of the stellar entries we've had coming in this season. We're featuring one contender a day till the competition ends, which means: apply early and there's a good chance we'll feature you, too! You've also got just three days left to be considered for our 3rd Curator's Choice Prize. Lesley A. Martin, Publisher of Aperture's Books Program, will be reviewing all entries submitted by this Thursday, June 17th and will select one photographer to receive the incredible selection of books from Aperture's shelves, below.

Curator's Choice Prize
Words Without Pictures by Charlotte Cotton
Sawdust Mountain by Eirik Johnson
Winter Stories by Paolo Ventura
Photography After Frank by Philip Gefter
Legacy by Joel Meyerowitz
Explosions, Fires, and Public Order by Sarah Pickering
Kamaitachi (trade edition) by Eikoh Hosoe

Send us your best work, and put yourself in the running for this fantastic prize from Lesley and Aperture. And, don't forget about the Grand Prize: a $5,000 honorarium, 2 years of representation from Jen Bekman Gallery and a solo exhibition. After Thursday, the entry fee will increase, so if you've been sitting on the fence, don't delay any longer.

Recent Contenders

Top row: Alan Thomas, Catherine Vermeland, Kendall L. McMinimy, Andrew D. Musson, Ariel Kirk-Gushowaty
Bottom row: Katherine March Driscoll, Tom M. Johnson, Alex Leme, Mark Lyon, Monia Lippi

Read about all our contenders from the 2010 competition on the blog.

Photography News

+ Joerg Colberg wrote a great post about the number of photographs we take, and memory. Stay tuned to the HHS! blog for more on this soon.
+ A Photo Student is giving away 180 rolls of color 120 film. All you have to do is guess the photographers of 50 images which will be posted on the blog in the coming weeks. The person with the most correct answers gets the film.
+ Hot Shot Rachel Sussman is featured on Mrs. Deane for her project, Oldest Living Things in the World.
+ 2007 Hot Shot Gregory Krum's solo exhibition ...Practice... is on view for a few more short weeks at Jen Bekman Gallery till Sunday, June 27th. Don't miss it!
+ Last week we released a 20x200 edition by Greg Allen, appropriating Richard Prince, appropriating Sam Abell. The spectrum of reactions ranged from "brilliant" to "dangerous." Read responses from A Photo Editor, Dinosaurs and Robots, Blake Andrews, Art Fag City, Hyperallergic, C-Monster, and everyone on Twitter
+ The Photography Post points us to a crazy new pull-and-spin panoramic camera from Lomo, the Spinner 360.
+ Jonathan Blaustein writes for A Photo Editor on Review Santa Fe: "Overall, the event is both grueling and exhilarating."
+ Hot Shot Kurt Tong's work can be seen all around Europe this summer.
+ Don't Die is the title image of Hot Shot Justin James Reed's new artist book and series of images on view at Stockbridge Fine Art in Philadelphia.

See you in next week! In the meantime, poke around the profiles of Hot Shots past and present. See anything we missed? Let us know on Twitter @heyhotshot.

In the past week, I have just signed and dated nearly a ream of paper in the closing documents for my first home. As is also customary in such transactions, I also handed over the largest cashier's check I've ever personally had withdrawn from my bank account, to fulfill my end of the closing settlement costs. So it is with a finely honed sense of chagrin that I encounter the images of Monia Lippi, who has been documenting what might be one of the last vestiges of a homesteading movement in the lower forty-eight today.

Untitled, July 2008 from series Floating Winona by Monia Lippi

The Latsch Island Boathouse Community on the Mississippi River in Minnesota is home to just under 100 floating domiciles, of which a quarter of the residents live in year round. The community's lineage spans 100 years, and the inhabitants have endured unappealing epithets such as "river rats" and "boat people" throughout dark periods during the 1970s and 80s when loud parties and drugs were the norm. In the past two decades, however, The Winona Boathouse Association has become a legal entity and the inhabitants have been granted the right to live and remain in their community on the river.

Untitled, July 2008 from series Floating Winona by Monia Lippi

In the process of documenting the residents of this determined, outlying area that exists proudly beyond more conventional suburban spaces, Lippia has been struck by the inventiveness, resourcefulness and mindfulness of those that live year round in seasons both harsh and calm (in differing ways; in the summer there is the threat of flooding, and in the winter that of frozen ice) on these banks of the Mississippi. In her statement, Monia writes that:

The fighting past and the captivating natural beauty gave me reasons to persist in this project and return many more times. I appreciated the life philosophy of the island inhabitants, an example of an American style of freedom and dreams that doesn't happen everywhere. These floating houses are rooted in American self-sufficiency and historical ecological models, with a lineage to Thoreau's construction of his own house from recycled wood. They exist outside the usual economic systems dictated by commercial real estate interests, a turning away from suburban developments toward communal lifestyles.

In this entry period for HHS! in 2010 we've seen a fair amount of work dealing with people's private domestic spaces, or shared living arrangements when embarking on a new life, or their conceptions of a shifting or encroaching suburbia. Now we have Monia's voice to reflect and inform upon this theme, images of a subset of individuals that prefer to live truly off-the-grid, beholdin' only to nature and one another for support, sustenance and mercy.

See the entire series as shot in both the summer and winter on Monia Lippi's website.

Photographer Kurt Tong, another fine example of Hot Shot-turned-20x200-artist, is presently enjoying a hot streak of exhibition opportunities, recognitions and accolades from across the pond. A few of the places and exhibition venues where Kurt's work can be seen this summer follow below:

Hong Kong Chronicles
Kurt Tong: The Queen, the Chairman and I
Diorama Rue Raspail, 26 Rue Raspail, Arles, France
July 3-10, 2010
Event details

Memories, Dreams; Interrupted
Photofusion
July 29 - September 17, 2010
17a Electric Lane
London SW9 8LA

In Case It Rains In Heaven
Kemistry Gallery
August 2010
43 Charlotte Road, Shoreditch
London EC2A 3PD

This body of work will also be exhibited in November at Compton Verney
November 13 - December 12, 2010
Warwickshire
CV35 9HZ

Kurt Tong was also listed as a finalist in the Flash Forward Emerging Photographers 2010 awards. A book launch and festival will occur this fall; more information here.

Kurt's portfolio features several distinct bodies of work, and while projects differ in many ways, they remain related in voice, concern and questions. There is an ever-present desire to connect viewers with culture and difference through the personal, and his images consistently reflect a non-saccharine sensibility and sensitivity. What does it mean, for example, when a ritual offering for the dead that has been in place for centuries is now changed in its type and scope of offerings by the the hyper-consumerism of a fast-accelerating middle-class bent on having the latest Western goods? How can an artist represent a collective cultural history through the filter of one family—his own?

Untitled, from the series In Case It Rains In Heaven, by Kurt Tong

Untitled, from the series In Case It Rains In Heaven, by Kurt Tong

Untitled, from the series Farewell in Labrador, 2010 by Kurt Tong

In spending time with Kurt's work, I get a sense of someone that is not only invested in creating strong images, but also in following the arc of a story through a series of questions that become realized in the making. Through his photography, Kurt seems to be telling us that all photographs are stories, that all narrators are simultaneously reliable and not, and that history, like memory, is a fickle beast.

If you're lucky enough to be spending some of the summer at the photofestival in Arles, or the fall art season in London, be sure to make some time for a stop at one one the many venues that Kurt Tong's work will be shown this season.

drive, 2008 by Katherine March Driscoll

Each one of Katherine March Driscoll's photographs is presented as a diptych; each comes with a partner, a sort of fraternal twin. In all of her submitted works, one exceedingly similar image follows another, both seeming to depict the same scene, only a few minutes (or even seconds) apart.

These sets of images establish a sense of narrative; they create the feel of progression and chronology. They are not single, discrete, or "decisive" moments in time, but rather sequential details from an encounter or experience. (The most overt example of this is in stop, where we see a city traffic light, red in the first frame, change to green in the next). Each image, however, is drastically cropped and can be disorienting, since no faces or discernible locations are ever provided to ground the viewer. At first, this effect can make the work look haphazard and impromptu, but it becomes evident, when viewed in tandem that the images' orderly presentation is a reflection that the work is calculated, and their effect decidedly intentional.

stop, 2010 by Katherine March Driscoll

In each one, I sense conversations, interactions and the beginnings of compelling stories, that Driscoll chooses to abandon, leaving me both frustrated and curious to know more. Each of Driscoll's photographic pairs also bears an abrupt, rather reticent title (all are single, one-syllable words). Though they seem to describe the depicted actions: wait, drive, climb, they are also cropped and enigmatic, much like the images that they accompany.

Driscoll's series highlights both photography's ability to tell stories, to build narratives, as well as its shortcomings in this regard: we never get the full picture, there is always action excluded, existing just outside the frame, and just beyond our reach. She emphasizes both photography's narrative potential and, simultaneously, its existence as something constructed, selective and subjective, with the photographer including only what he or she wishes to present.

wait, 2010 by Katherine March Driscoll

Still, somehow, the images manage to convey a sense of intimacy. Each photo is a fragment, cropped to omit unfamiliar faces, or specific, identifiable places. Thus, we can insert our own memories and experiences onto these images. In keeping with this idea, Driscoll writes of her work:

A photograph can be enlightening and frustrating; a still representation of the kinetic life that surrounds us. Through the movement of pairs, we are provided with a more well-rounded understanding of what's pictured and granted access to these scenes. We can then enter and contribute to the depicted experiences based on the influences of our personal history.

As a New Yorker of seven years, any discussion of moving out of the city is often met with a grimace and retort, "you're moving to the suburbs?," as though a move of complete and utter resignation. Much in the way we like to disparage New Jersey based on a handful of stereotypes and (perhaps a few realities), the 'burbs have become synonymous with repetitive and too-large houses, big box stores, gas-guzzling cars, and lack of individuality. On top of that, popular culture hasn't done much to bolster the suburbs' reputation: a housewife sells drugs in the suburbs in Weeds, women-become-robots in suburban-based The Stepford Wives, neighbors reveal dark secrets and strange obsessions in Desperate Housewives and Betty Draper goes mad with boredom in the upper-class suburbs of Westchester in Mad Men.

Carpets, 2009 by Tom M. Johnson

Given this, it's easy to forget that the suburbs were part of the post-World War II American dream—that they provided respite, jobs, security and space to millions of families. Homogeneity wasn't a prevalent concern— families were trying to affordably restart life after years of being uprooted, and being in homes just outside cities seemed the sensible way to do this. And for many, it's still the best place to raise a family, attend high quality schools, and live a better quality of life than they could imagine elsewhere.

Contender Tom M. Johnson photographs Lakewood, a development outside of Los Angeles, where he grew up and has since returned to live with his own family. He writes of the town:

"The founders of Lakewood designated their suburb "Tomorrow's City Today," because it was modern and unique in its conception. Lakewood offered a utopia for the post war middle class: affordable housing, new schools and parks, good jobs in the aerospace-defense industry, and a new commercial concept, the shopping mall. Then the nineties came and suburban paradise began to fade. The aerospace-defense industry abandoned California, and what made tomorrow's city today had become yesterday. Yet Lakewood adapted to the new economic climate and endured, and its new motto, "Times Change Values Don't," accurately demonstrates that the hopes and dreams of Lakewood's citizens today are not that different from those of the folks who came to Lakewood during its genesis."

Garden Woman, 2010 by Tom M. Johnson

Tom depicts the city from his knowledge of what it once was—and is able to identify where much of the suburbs' idealism dissipated into a point of defense rather than a point of destination. He sees where facades have been altered, new neighbors have moved in, and town signs have changed to reflect a new reality. In his images, Tom expresses nostalgia for the streets he explored as a kid, and looks at the same places with his adult eyes, searching for remnants of that past while existing in a very different present. His images depict some expected scenes—low-slung homes (modest ones), four blonde-haired sisters leaning against a truck, men and women watering their yards and gardens, and teens playing around a tiny plastic pool out in the yard. However, he also captures a surprising heterogeneity that may challenge what we urbanites think, among the people who live and work in Lakewood. These people are, very likely, not thinking about themselves as part of the suburban masses, but simply living their individual lives and trying to full their own hopes and dreams.

You can see additional images from this series on Tom's website.

A bunting strip of colorful foil letters with the words "Don't Die" is the title image of Justin James Reed's newest project, a limited-edition artist book and series of images currently on view at Stockbridge Fine Art in Philadelphia through the end of July. At first glance, one isn't sure if they're entering a party or mortuary; it seems the slightest bit immoral to take merriment in the rainbow refractions that dance off of the words.

Don't Die by Justin James Reed

The artist book, available at Stockbridge Fine Art and also on Justin's website, is a sixteen page soft-cover work, printed in an edition of thirty. Justin is also selling 11"x14" archival pigment prints of Don't Die in an edition of five for $100 apiece. The works in the book are a departure from the dense, seasonal landscapes that have been prominent in Justin's work in the past, and present objects and hyper-colorful images that encroach on the surreal.

Don't Die
Stockbridge Fine Art
On view through July 31st
319 N. 11th Street, 4th Floor
Tues - Fri, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., or by appointment

No!, 2010 by Alex Leme

It is always very exciting to see how an artist evolves between two bodies of work while at the same time revealing deeper questions he or she has about the world they are trying to explore. When we first saw contender Alex Leme's project Literary Ghosts in the 2009 HHS! Second Edition, not only did we fall for the subject matter (being lovers of books here at JBP), but as Sara wrote, we were intrigued that his photographs "elevate the drama of untold stories that might otherwise be considered mundane." It is here where I see the connection with Alex's new project COTTON PLANT, ARKANSAS. Alex is concerned with what is left behind in spaces—secrets, mysteries and ghosts that feed these places with haunted energy, and a legacy.

Tyler, Trace, Austin And Adam, 2009 by Alex Leme

America's industrial revolution left behind many small rural towns like Cotton Plant, Arkansas, towns that are struggling after a past cultural and industrial boom. Alex writes about the town, and series:

Despite its rich history and "promising" past, Cotton Plant has suffered the same challenges and consequences as any other small rural city in America. What once was a thriving economic and cultural center and one of the fastest growing communities in Eastern Arkansas is now littered with ghost factories, abandoned schools and the carcasses of crumbling buildings while the handful of the remaining local stores struggle to survive. The sense of purpose that once accompanied steady work has long since vanished.

Alex aims to expose a town that once had a rich history by focusing predominantly on stereotypically male-dominated spaces of industry and business. Many of the images are made where men tend to congregate: the playing field, the hunting club. Other, domestic spaces like a backyard or former home have fallen into utter disarray, suggesting there's nobody there—men or women—who care to do the upkeep. All of the figures photographed in this series are also men, often looking deflated by their work and carrying the burden of being the bastions of labor that will regenerate their town. The look on their faces is uneasy but not unpleasant. Photographed in front of buildings and schools, Leme suggests that they have stories to tell, the loss of industry is their weight to carry and finding a solution is their responsibility.

See more images from this series on Alex's site.

Dr. Wilk D.D.S., Exam Room 1, Instrument Tray, 2010 by Mark Lyon

There is nothing pleasant about the doctor's office. In fact, it seems as if the designers and architects responsible for these spaces routinely go out of their way to create dingy or sterile environments. But what if the fluorescent view from the dentist's chair wasn't of crumbling ceiling tiles, but instead a mountain vista? Somewhere along the line, somebody proposed this improvement upon the institutional aesthetic and giant photographic murals were pasted up in waiting rooms around the world.

While this ridiculous decorating trend has since fallen out of favor, institutional vistas still exist—I know this for a fact because in his series Landscapes for the People contender Mark Lyon hunts down and photographs these interiors and the laughably absurd juxtapositions that they create.

Mark writes:

These wall sized photographic murals seem to serve a psychological function, given their potentially intimidating or banal locations like dental room and laundromats. These landscape murals allow the viewer an alternate mindset to nerve racking procedures or the mundane activities of everyday life. Photographs from "Landscapes for the People" use the peculiar relationship between found images and operative items. The resulting photographs of these locations document the strange play of the functional environment and the idealized psychological landscape.

Dr. Carpenter D.M.D., Exam Room, Dental Implants, 2010 by Mark Lyon

In viewing Mark's images the eye is immediately drawn to the landscape, but it doesn't stay there for long. The feeling of serenity is replaced with a moment of confusion as the eye and the mind try to reconcile the appearance of electrical outlets, flat-screen televisions, and other non-descript objects of industrial design within the frame. The entire image is flattened into a kind of surreal, hilarious collage of the ideal and the decidedly less-than-ideal.

Previously, Mark was one of the runners-up for the 2009 Aperture Portfolio Prize (along with Alejandro Cartagena) and his work is also being exhibited alongside Hot Shots Curtis Mann and Cara Phillips in American ReConstruction, on view through June 12th at Winkleman Gallery. You can see more work at Mark's website.

p.s. Aperture is accepting 2010 Portfolio Prize submissions through July 14th!

Welcome back to the HHS! Week in Review, a handy roundup all the best photo links from the past week.

October 6, 2009 by HHS! contender Cate Vermeland

Photography News
+ We're anxiously awaiting reviews and write-ups of Review Santa Fe, which should be popping up online any minute. A Photo Editor says that they will be filing their report next week. Let us know if you've seen anything about the event or written something yourself!

+ A new issue of Fraction Mag is out, featuring work by Geoffrey Ellis and Bryan Formhals.

+ Philip Gefter, author of Photography After Frank, will be speaking at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The book is one of seven in the gift bag being awarded as part of our 3rd Curator's Choice Prize, as judged by Lesley A. Martin.

+ Liz Kuball has written a review of Sarah Pickering's Explosions, Fires and Public Order (also part of our 3rd Curator's Choice Prize!) for the current issue of 1000 Words Magazine.

+ ...and on that note, in case you missed the announcement, Guest Curator Nion McEvoy has awarded Kyoshi Becker Mckizzie the 2nd Curator's Choice Prize, which you can read all about here.

+ With 13 days to go, Mark Marchesi is $18 past his funding goal for his project to document Portland's Working Waterfront. Congratulations, Mark! You can still kick in and be eligible for rewards like a quart of fresh lobster and haddock chowder..

Left to right: Alan Thomas, Catherine Vermeland, Kendall L. Mcminimy, Andrew D. Musson, Ariel Kirk-Gushowaty

Read about all our contenders from the 2010 competition on the blog.

That's it for this week! If you see anything we missed drop us a line on Twitter @heyhotshot. Have a great weekend!

Ariel Kirk-Gushowaty contends that in order to make an evocative portrait of someone, it could be more compelling to make a portrait that makes references to that subject, without the actual subject ever having to make an appearance. Her submission to HHS! consists of a portrait series that is conceptually about her grandmother, who passed away in 2007. None of the images, however, include any direct picture of her.

Abbie, 2007 by Ariel Kirk-Gushowaty

From her artist's statement:

There are no actual images of my grandmother in the series, instead the portraits are comprised of 3 generations of her female descendants. This decision was very much intentional. A single photograph shows a person at an exact time and place, and though it may seem to imply a lifetime, there are few specific details of that lifetime offered. Rather, drawing on the Renaissance tradition of portraiture, my strategy was to subtly suggest aspects of her person through the inclusion of her clothing, glasses, personal items, and most importantly, a part of the human legacy she left behind. My intention was to acknowledge how incomplete any portrait must be, and at the same time invite the viewer to engage with the work across multiple levels of meaning.

Kirk-Gushowaty's series and her thinking through on what it means to make a portrait is reminiscent to me of a pivotal moment in reading Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida, where Barthes provides an intimately contextualized argument on the experience of looking at photographs while all the while contemplating an image of his recently deceased mother. Throughout the slim but densely thoughtful volume, Barthes describes this childhood photograph of his mother in great detail, but the conceptual hook of all the thinking guiding him through this writing is that ultimately he will never show you, the reader, this photograph of her. It is, he writes, an image "that is not meant for you." Relative to Barthes, in Kirk-Gushowaty's series is a notion that a true portrait of a person goes far beyond summoning up their physical likeness; it is also about the relationships of those who both knew you and and those who will come to know you through the recollection of those same individuals. A portrait is ultimately one person's subjective memory of you, collected and disseminated through coincident and contradictory memories of all the others that realize a connection as well.

Megan, 2007 by Ariel Kirk-Gushowaty

The entirety of this series, as well as several other bodies of Ariel Kirk-Gushowaty's work, can be viewed on her website.

We're pleased to announce that Guest Curator Nion McEvoy, Chairman and CEO of Chronicle Books, has selected Kyoshi Becker Mckizzie (who we previously featured on the blog for another body of work) as the recipient the 2nd Hey, Hot Shot! Curator's Choice Award. Kyoshi will receive a gift bag from Chronicle with a hand-picked selection of photography books, including Andrew Zuckerman's Bird and Linda Connor's Odyssey: The Photographs of Linda Connor. We'd like to extend enormous gratitude to Nion for judging this round of entries and for the generous award, and offer our congratulations to Kyoshi!

Our 3rd Curator's Choice Award will be judged by Lesley A. Martin, publisher of Aperture's books program. All entries submitted by Thursday, June 17th, are automatically eligible for a selection of outstanding titles published by Aperture.

And, for all of you who've not yet applied—every day we're inching a little closer to our deadline. Send us your best work, and put yourself in the running for the Grand Prize of a $5,000 honorarium, 2 years of representation from Jen Bekman Gallery and a solo exhibition. Five photographers will also be selected for a group exhibition at JBG and a $500 honorarium. Last but not least, every entry is reviewed for participation on 20x200, and we're featuring new contenders daily on the HHS! blog.

Untitled 1, May 19, 2010 by Kyoshi Becker Mckizzie

Guest Curator Nion McEvoy writes of Kyoshi's Hey, Hot Shot! entry:
In Kyoshi Becker Mckizzie's Untitled 1, a brown hand extends between two brown feet and seeks to pry the lid off a washing machine. Toes curl around the coin slot.  The soles look--it¹s even clearer in the next shot--dirty. The off-white metal boxes in their metallic regularity seem unaware of the invading spirit. (Only the repeated words "Speed Queen" suggest they might be willing to play.) But really, these are mundane, simply functional objects, while the hand seems to come from one of island-dwelling mischief makers of The Tempest.  And indeed, the job of this and the other dancers seems to be to mess with the obdurate machines of the Laundromat just as Prospero¹s servants mess with the dull-witted invaders of his domain.

In the next shot a really filthy sole is shown off in the foreground, perpendicular to a granite countertop. Steel dryers gleam and drift into darkness, displaying a sinister red dot at regular intervals.  Dancers lie on them, pose on them wearing colorful floral dresses. As the sequence goes on, the dancers propitiate the machines, enter them and climb back on top of them. When they climb inside the machines, the women are both sexual and clumsy, innocent and artful.  There is a delightfully anarchic spirit at work here amid the well-considered staging, costuming, and choreography. The cropping and the changes in perspective underscore a sense of cinematic motion. The sequence jumps. And the sure visual rhythms conveyed by the rows of machines provide the drums and bass that anchor and set free the pretty colors and impish Terpsichore of the performers.

Playfulness and impish effrontery are surprisingly hard to convey well.  So although Kyoshi Becker McKizzie¹s entry was surrounded by a great deal of excellent work, including many stunning images, his stood out for me.  And it seemed the perfect way to start the summer.

Untitled 2, May 19, 2010 by Kyoshi Becker Mckizzie

Untitled 3, May 19, 2010 by Kyoshi Becker Mckizzie

Untitled 4, May 19, 2010 by Kyoshi Becker Mckizzie

Untitled 5, May 19, 2010 by Kyoshi Becker Mckizzie

Toy House by Andrew D. Musson

If you have ever had to pull up stakes and start over somewhere completely new, then you might share the same kind of temporary sight that Andrew D. Musson displays in his body of work New, Familiar. Having displaced himself from a southern city to "the" city in New York, the first three months were a period of sublime displacement, where senses are overstimulated, a gaze is directed in uncommon and uncommoner places, and where the process of taking things in never seems to cease. It's a fleeting jolt of a way to experience and mediate new existence in a new place, and scenes stay startling and new to your eye for an indeterminate but finite amount of time.

Communal Coat Rack by Andrew D. Musson

Roof with a View by Andrew D. Musson

Whether it's a keyhole view of a bedroom while walking through the neighborhood, or in succinctly encapsulating the experience of shared space among strangers in a shot of the apartment coat rack, or just getting used to the notion of the roof vista as experienced by nearly every new yorker in the summer, Musson's vision is snappy, eager and amused. Settling in quickly with an internship with Ryan McGinley's studio, and assisting for Luis Sanchis under Thomas Prior, it would appear that Musson's future is busy, bright and surrounded with charismatic compatriots, and fellow lovers of a world that's film-based.

See the full portfolio of images from New, Familiar on Musson's site, or get a better sense of his sensibility by tooling around his tumblr site centris, which focuses on showcasing the work of many early career photographers.

Basketball Board, 2010 by Kendall L. McMinimy

The photographs of contender Kendall McMinimy depict symbols—vestiges of summer. However, he encounters them in the dead of winter: a driveway basketball hoop, a motel swimming pool, a row of deck chairs, a jungle-gym—snow-covered, static, abandoned and deprived of their usual and intended respective functions.

A cool palette, relentlessly chilly setting, and feeling of profound isolation unites these photos, and stands in sharp contrast with the warm, sweaty, thoroughly communal usual use of these items or locations—an evening basketball game in the driveway on a July evening, or a cool lemonade (or beer!) with friends on a poolside lounge chair in the sweltering heat.

In McMinimy's work, everyday objects are rendered useless by the shift of seasons, becoming almost wholly aesthetic. Recognizable items now teeter on the verge of abstraction, almost pure patterns against a snowy backdrop. This feature of McMinimy's photographs, as well as their meticulous composition and strong graphic quality calls to my mind the work of 20x200 artist James Deavin, whose cropped, linear photographs of uninhabited and almost unrecognizable athletics venues convey—for me—a very similar feeling.

A complete, utter absence of human life is pervasive, inescapable and overwhelming. There are no people, no footprints—literally nothing to indicate that anyone still inhabits this landscape. The scenes take on an almost post-apocalyptic feel, filled with remnants of human life, interrupted.

Motel Pool, 2010 by Kendall L. McMinimy

McMinimy conceives of the series as an open meditation on the nature of winter, and our relationship with the season. He sees the pieces as subject to the various interpretations, impressions and associations of a vast and varied audience; there is no one, specific, intended meaning. He states of his work:

These images are intended to draw the viewer into the snowy isolation - to feel the effect of a long winter, and to place a high value on what summer will bring. However chilling the landscape, some viewers will see hope in the vestiges of summer. Others may feel the jeer of summer relics left out by insensitive procrastinators, caught off-guard by an early onslaught. Some may see garish summer monuments demanding our unseasonable attention, tainting the pristine landscape...My course through the snow and ice became my passage through inertia, isolation and confinement I had previously succumbed to in winter. In finding this path, I also found a glimpse of the true character of the region: that winter's fury strengthens resolve and winter's stillness affords introspection.

My immediate, gut reaction to this series is that its images are lonely and mournful. And yet upon further consideration, in creeps a glimmer of hope, some potential for positivity: In McMinimy's compositions, things that are traditionally almost aggressively mundane—things that are intended specifically and exclusively for use, and as a result so often just fade into the background—are transformed into objects that inspire deep reflection, and ones that might now be seen as beautiful.

You can see more work from this series, Summer Eclipsed, on his website.

In Gregory Krum's exhibition ...Practice..., currently on view at JBG, there are two images—one of a peony and the other of a Cherifa tree—created with the camera on Greg's Blackberry. Their sharpness is muted, and a light emanates from mysterious source, creating a halo around the plants' branches. In print, the two works' slight muddiness is observed as painterly, evoking the qualities of Dutch still lifes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. While the tradition of still-lives, combining intricate flora and fauna alongside other temporal and significant objects (the vanitas) was originally a means to show one's deft as a painter, Greg borrows the textural and effulgent qualities of the paintings and creates them with his very modern device.

left: Peony (Blackberry), 2010 by Gregory Krum; right: Flower still life with Guelder roses, Columbine, 1671 by Dirck de Bray

Having observed Greg's work, when I came across Catherine (Cate) Vermeland's HHS! submission, entirely created with her Blackberry, it brought to mind inquiries about the tools we choose to use, and how this affects the subjects we're photographing. Many cameras are utilized because of the aesthetics they create, like the saturated, unpredictable hues of the Holga, and the apparent in-camera vignetting in some Yashicas. But, the hallmark of phone cameras has been their inconsistency, poor ability to capture in low light, low-resolution, and lack of contrast and color saturation. So, why choose this as a means of making images?

Novermber 25, 2009 by Cate Vermeland

Cate writes:

"One of the aesthetic challenges photographers face is to match the appropriate technology to the content of their work. For the past eight months, I have been using my BlackBerry cell phone's camera to make note of those heightened moments. I believe the everyday, modest qualities of the cell phone camera can communicate perfectly this quotidian world. With it, I am able to immediately respond to the portal that alerts me to this subtle, yet modest, beauty."

For her, it is the perfect tool, exactly because it is a multi-functional everyday object happens to have the capacity to capture pictures. One isn't expecting the Blackberry to produce something beautiful, so what is remarkable is when it does, and that it can. She photographs the mundane in what she calls Cate Vermeland's Guide to the Everyday, quoting John Burnside in her statement, who once said, "I want the here and now, the divine quotidian, the subtler beauty of the unremarkable."

October 6, 2009 by Cate Vermeland

By photographing a bus, sink, bikes, coffee mug and wicker chairs, each muddy because of the limited means of this sure-to-become-obsolescent technology, yet all alarmingly familiar and accessible, Vermeland asks questions about whether beauty is within the object, in the photograph, or a function of the tools we use.

Yesterday morning I read a review on Design Observer of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Triennial: Why Design Now? The exhibition, filled with exciting renderings and prototypes, is charged with "presenting the most innovative designs at the center of contemporary culture." What the author points out, however, is that while these "innovations" may look great as concepts, they may not be so dazzling in real life.

Masdar Development designed by Foster + Partners

One example is a carbon neutral and zero waste planned city imagined for the outskirts of Abu Dhabi by architects Foster + Partners. When the ground is broken on this development, an entirely premeditated metropolis will rise from the desert. On one hand the unity of this vision presents new opportunities for efficiency and sustainability. On the other, this place is effectively a void—and potentially a vacuum—of authentic local character.

Carport, Tokyo, 2009, from Open Secrets: Photographs of Japan by Alan Thomas

I had forgotten all about the article until I came across the work of contender Alan Thomas, who has been documenting the "secret" urban landscape of Japan. Tokyo is one of the largest and most iconic cities in the world, so Alan's clean and quiet photographs seem like a strange portrayal of this place, but it's a different side of Japan that he seeks to capture. Outside the hustle and bustle of the central districts, Alan endearingly photographs "the spaces between planned projects."

He writes:

It is in these narrow confines that people and businesses perform the countless small-scale improvisations that give Japanese cities their character. These minor spaces are at once public and oddly intimate, and easily missed—the open secrets of urban Japan.

In his statement, Alan quotes architect Fumihiko Maki, who writes that, "compared with New York, Tokyo is a disorderly, relaxed city, whose architectural framework offers few constraints. That is precisely why the formation of territory in Tokyo is either very delicate and personal or extremely abstract in nature." The pictures from Open Secrets depict both of these territories, but what they all have in common is something that a planned project could never possess: character.

Hiroshima, 2004, from Open Secrets: Photographs of Japan by Alan Thomas

While many photographers are documenting urbanization and suburbanization, what's refreshing about Alan's work is that it is a celebration of the unique, quiet spaces that remain. In her review of the Triennial, Browning concludes that, "Masdar...actually does a disservice in making adaptation look beautiful." While the renderings may look slick, it's photographers like Alan who demonstrate what true character looks like: urban pockets of light and shadow—treasures unto themselves.

You can view more work, including the full Open Secrets series, on Alan's website.

Welcome back to the HHS! Week in Review, a handy roundup all the best photo links from the past week.

In case you missed our two big announcements this week: Todd Hido has joined the stellar HHS! Panel and Lesley A. Martin, Publisher of Aperture's Books Program, will be our 3rd Guest Curator. We'll be announcing Nion McEvoy's selection for the Second Curator's Choice Award early next week, so stay tuned!

Top row: Jeffrey Kinney, Kevin C. Moore, Janet C. Taylor, Sheri Manson, Jo Ann Walters
Bottom row: Stacia Prosser, Caroline J. Hancox, Joshua Dudley Greer, Alexander Shahmiri, Elizabeth Clark Libert

Read about all our contenders from the 2010 competition on the blog.

+ Gregory Krum's solo show ...Practice... is on view through June 27th at Jen Bekman Gallery.

+ The MoMA has great photography shows up at the moment: Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography and Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century

+ If you missed our roundup of upcoming photo deadlines, you should give it a skim. There's literally something for everyone.

+ Communication Arts recently profiled Bob O'Connor for their series on "Fresh" artists.

+ The world's most expensive camera(!) has been found. The Daugerreotype fetched more than £615,000 (a.k.a. $900,667 USD) at an auction last week.

+ Rachel Sussman is raising money to fund her project, The Oldest Living Things in the World through Kickstarter, and she is so close to reaching her goal with 18 days left! Help her get to the Antarctic to photograph 5,000 year old moss by backing her in the next few weeks.

+ Mark Marchesi is also using Kickstarter to find backers for his project, Documenting Portland Maine, aimed at capturing the coastal fishing community of the city's waterfront as both the fish and the fisherman grow more scarce. Help Mark reach his goal of $2K—just 20 days to go!

+ Alejandro Cartagena's Suburbia Mexicana, Cause and Effect will be on view at Blue Sky Gallery / Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts from June 3rd to 27th. Tomorrow, June 2nd, Alejandro will be doing an artist talk with Christine Osinski who will also be exhibiting her series Staten Island Shoppers.

+ The Whitney Biennial has ended, but Nina Berman's work gets a shout out from Dan Nguyen.

+ Umbra Penumbra, a solo show of work by Jessica Eaton, is up at Gallery Push through June 13th.

See you in two weeks! In the meantime, poke around the profiles of Hot Shots past and present. See anything we missed? Let us know on Twitter @heyhotshot.

Tonight is the eve of Review Santa Fe, the annual portfolio review event that takes place amongst the low-slung adobe structures of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Photographers from far and wide apply to bring their portfolios, and 100 are selected to bring their projects, both complete and in-progress, to be reviewed by esteemed curators, editors, publishers galleries and their own peers.

Fire, Ise-Shima by Emily Shur

Emily Shur, who attended Review Santa Fe last year, writes about some questions and thoughts she faces with the new body of work, Shizenkan, that she's bringing to the event tomorrow:

As I finish up my preparations for Review Santa Fe and make sure all my ducks are in a row, I get that this is something that will probably come up in my reviews. Am I showing something new or am I just photographing the same interesting things that many before me have found interesting? And does it matter? I guess what matters to me and what matters to gallerists, book publishers, and the like might be two different things. I go into this year's review having the benefit of participating previously, and I am not as nervous as I was last year. I know how I feel about this work. Whether or not my explanations of the project are what my reviewers are hoping to hear, I can at least go there knowing that other photographers before me have made their own personal masterpieces out of work they felt strongly about.

These are amongst the challenges—and inquries—many of these photographers will face, who come from fine art, editorial, commercial and documentary backgrounds as they open themselves up to hearing sometimes-laudatory and sometimes-harsh criticism that can both inspire and sting (but on both fronts is always meant to challenge intent and grow the artist).

After Day 2 of last year's event, Emily wrote:

I can honestly say that after today's reviews, I am officially in need of improvement. The art review is not my normal scene. Stick me in an office with a photo editor or art director, and I'm fine. The work is what it is. They either respond favorably or negatively. The art world is that, and then some....what is the intent behind the work? Why do you take these pictures? The pressure for those answers to be good and meaningful is pretty intense. This is what I have been thinking about all of last night and today.

While the 100 photographers attending the event are entrenched in their own rigorous schedule involving twenty (yes, twenty!) 9-minute viewing sessions, there is also a Portfolio Viewing session free and open to the public, where you can go and view the works of this talented bunch.

Review Santa Fe Portfolio Viewing
When: Friday, June 4, 5:30 - 8:00 p.m.
Where: Hilton Santa Fe Historic Plaza, 100 Sandoval St., Santa Fe, NM
Cost: Free and open to the public

Untitled from the series Custom Machinery by Joseph O. Holmes

There are quite a few JBP photographers bringing new and continuing bodies of work to Santa Fe, so while you're out there, be sure to keep a special eye out for these photographers and their projects:

Alejandro Cartagena: Fragmented Cities; Views of Suburbia Mexicana 2006-2009
Emily Shur: Shizenkan
Joseph O. Holmes: Custom Machinery
Lacey Terrell: The Passing Ring 1996-2010

If you're not lucky enough to be out in the Southwest, CENTER has released the names of the 100 selected photographers whose portfolios will be reviewed, which you can also view online. There's truly a trove of talent here, so take the time of these hot and humid days to click around.

One of the highlights of this year's competition has been working with our guest curators to offer you awards throughout the entry period. For our third month, we're proud and excited to share that Lesley A. Martin, Publisher of Aperture's Book Program, and a HHS! panelist, will be our Guest Curator. She will be reviewing all entries submitted by June 17th, and and will select one photographer to receive an incredible selection of books from Aperture's shelves.

Aperture, with which many of you are already familiar, is simply a remarkable photography institution, created out the vision of legendary photographers, curators and artists—Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange among them. Since 1952, when Aperture was founded, it has expanded to also include a gallery and publishing house, releasing books by artists including Robert Adams, Bruce Davidson, Sally Mann, Stephen Shore and many others of equal renown.

As Publisher of Aperture's book program, Lesley has edited dozens and dozens of gorgeous titles, ranging from An-My Lê's Small Wars and Richard Misrach's On the Beach to The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography by Lyle Rexer, reinforcing that Aperture's reach as a non-profit arts institution is also about constant advancement of photography as a fine art.

Lesley, and Aperture, will generously award the following titles to one contender who applies by Thursday, June 17th.

Words Without Pictures by Charlotte Cotton
Sawdust Mountain by Eirik Johnson (an exhibit of this work is on view at the Aperture Gallery till June 10th)
Winter Stories by Paolo Ventura
Photography After Frank by Philip Gefter
Legacy by Joel Meyerowitz
Explosions, Fires, and Public Order by Sarah Pickering
Kamaitachi (trade edition) by Eikoh Hosoe

Whether you're a book lover, photography lover, or both, this is a truly covetous selection of beautifully produced titles, so we encourage you to get your entries in as soon as you can! The photographer Lesley selects will be announced in our newsletter in early July, featured here on the blog, and notified by email!

Cardinals, 2010 by Paul A. Nelson

It is bird breeding season where I live. In fact, in the Southern Tier of central New York State, spring came nearly six weeks early, so some birds are actually on their second nesting attempt. This spring the birds have come closer to my viewing accessibility than ever before: two nests were made in some vines outside my kitchen window, vines that have been steadily growing more dense in the past few years. A rotund and entirely serviceable cardinal's nest sits a couple feet below a much larger and more ovoid-shaped robin's nest. The nests were built astonishingly quickly, and very soon thereafter the females began incubating their eggs, encompassed and encamped in the vines and their little houses built with sticks.

Watching them these past weeks has been a great pleasure, as I have never been able to observe birds for so long and so closely as I have these brooding females.

Paul A. Nelson, a Minneapolis-based photographer, knows something about watching birds as well. Entranced with the images and drawings by pioneer ornithologists James Audubon and Roger Tory Peterson, Nelson began brainstorming on how he could render something of the fleeting and finely detailed spirit of both the birds and the original drawings with photography. Choosing to focus his first photographic studies on songbirds, Nelson writes about some of his initial thoughts on the project:

Birds are hard to get close to. You don't often get to a chance to see them close up; they move so quickly and jittery that it's easy to miss out on their natural beauty, subtle colors, fineness of feathers, and the grace of their movement.

White-throated Sparrows, 2010 by Paul A. Nelson

Cognizant of the fact that what he wanted to be able to show in this body of work was something more artful than what one might encounter in a field guide, Nelson used his advertising and technical background to concoct a portable studio where he could release hand-held banded birds in precise intervals in front of a waiting, multiple-frames-per-second digital camera. He's even posted a video of the process on his blog:

One of Nelson's first desires in this project was to be able photographically capture birds in flight without the clutter of a natural background, so that the avian creature could occupy not only most of the frame, but also our attendant powers of concentration and imagination as well. Indeed, the high-powered pop of the studio flash and the speed of today's modern shutters (and the care and attention paid to bird handling), these images depict the surprise, grace and infinitely changing quick movements of these ubiquitous natural companions from whom we cannot always get a good visual fix. I especially enjoy seeing the mid-air leaps that the legs of the cardinal couple create as they are momentarily fixed and frozen by the flash, as well as the beautiful, torpedoed contortions that the sparrows make as they ready their tiny bodies to propel them outwards beyond the reach of Nelson, his studio, and ourselves. I will follow Nelson's continued studies as he embarks on making much more of this work this summer.

To see more of Paul A. Nelson's professional work, visit his website. He also maintains a blog.

Related: read Jen's newsletters about Andrew Zuckerman's hi-fi bird-capturing techniques over at 20x200.