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.