Liz Kuball just might be the long-distance runner throughout the history of our Hey, Hot Shot! competition. We first saw her work in the Summer 2007 HHS! entry period, wherein she claimed an honorable mention; she then cast her lot with us again in the Fall 2007 entry period, then once again during the 2009 First Edition competition period (where she merited another Honorable Mention). In the interim between her HHS! entries, she's remained extraordinarily productive, appearing in Fraction magazine, as well my recent favorite zine, Get Off My Lawn; she's been in two group shows at Jen Bekman Gallery, released two editions on 20x200 (just goes to show you that good things come to those who are contenders!). Here in the last week of this year's only HHS! competition period, we were delighted to see Liz's entry come through our upload tool. Her images are from her ongoing series California Vernacular.
Untitled (Hollywood Hills), from the series California Vernacular by Liz Kuball
Untitled (Santa Barbara), from the series California Vernacular by Liz Kuball
Kuball's work from this series is a great example of my favorite kind of extended portraiture: that of place and space. Sometimes this portrait might have people in it, but more often it's an ongoing narrative told on different days, perhaps with different voices. But what's consistent is the open-ended wonder and allowance to let place speak for and by itself.
California Vernacular shows you how California itself is astonished by light and color; how the incongruous and whimsical can become personal totems and how danger can lurch out at you from unexpected corners (the first photo shown above is a truly great animal photo in a pantheon of great animal images; Daido Moriyama's Stray Dog comes to mind as a point of comparison with Kuball's pit bull). I also am drawn to the veracity of what it is that Kuball is photographing here: the vernacular, the everyday, the ephemeral. Some might look at this body of work and say that what we have on view is street photography, but I would disagree with that. To my eye, Liz's work has more in common with someone like Zoe Strauss's I-95 project than the likes of a classic street photographer like Garry Winogrand. Both Kuball and Strauss have channeled place to such a degree that the panoply of human experience is brought to bear, even when (or perhaps more precisely especially when) no human face is filling the frame.
Untitled (Hollywood), from the series California Vernacular by Liz Kuball
We often cite excerpts from an artist's statement in these contender posts, but what struck me in Liz's entry was what she had to say about her education and formative experiences:
As a photographer, I'm what is considered "self-taught," but I hate that term because it minimizes (and even negates) the profound impact that other photographers and writers have had on me...it was when I quit taking classes and started reading blogs that my education as a photographer really gained momentum. I formed friendships with photographers around the world, and through many long e-mail conversations, I learned about myself, what I care about, and what I want to photograph. I read and looked at books by people I admired and people I couldn't stand, and I learned equally from both. I entered contests (including this one) before I was ready, and learned from my subsequent rejections. I took pictures--lots of pictures--and tried to understand why some of them worked and so many more of them didn't. I wrote my own blog and, through writing, figured out what I thought. And so it continues.
Liz is someone that reads, interacts and engages with the world widely, who challenges herself both by what she's drawn to and inspired by as well as by what is counter to her nature or difficult, and she puts herself out there in the best of all possible ways. She understands that the process of learning and emerging is never ending, and that cultivating a love for both is the secret to success.