Since we announced Chikara Umihara as our 2010 Ne Plus Ultra about two weeks ago, he has almost taken over this space with his images, and he himself has been quite the superstar here at the office - everyone who has met him has been eager to share their favorite Chikara moments. So, where is he now and what is he up to? With the First Edition 2011 competition now open, we thought it would be a good time to catch up with Chikara and share our conversation with all of our friends, both old and new.

It's been a little while since we last saw you in New York. First of all, congratulations on becoming the 2010 Ne Plus Ultra! Do you mind telling us how you'll use the $10,000 grand prize? What's the next step for you? Are you working on anything that you can tell us about right now?

First of all, thank you so much and I'm still very surprised to be named the 2010 Ne Plus Ultra! It is a great honor to be selected from the pool of diverse and exceptional submissions from the 2010 Hey, Hot Shot! finalists. I'm in Bangkok now and started a new project. (I've wanted to start this project for two years.) Also, I'm starting the MFA program in Photography at the Hartford Art School. The grand prize will definitely help keep me moving forward.

You have already participated in the Hot Shots group show in February with the Aggressive Girls series. Any plans for your upcoming solo show at Jen Bekman Gallery?

Aggressive Girls is an ongoing project, and I try to shoot more every time I come to New York. I've just started photographing in Thailand and have another project I want to start this summer. So, I have to see which series would be the strongest body of work to be presented at that time.

Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, 2009 by Chikara Umihara

Tell us your most memorable moment while working on the Aggressive Girls series? The hardest part?

There was always surprise and sensation when working with them. It is a world I've never known. If I had to pick one most memorable moment, it would be the first night I stepped into their party. That sensation, I won't forget. I think every time was challenging to me: from the beginning of this project, to getting to know them, to explaining the reason why I wanted to photograph them and, also, to think about what kind of significance or importance I found between our relationship. It took a while before I took my first shot on this project. Some days I'd go meet the person who promised to be photographed, would wait for three hours and she'd never show up. However, that was just part of my whole experience with this project. So, I've learned a lot from this project.

Untitled, from the Aggressive Girls series, by Chikara Umihara

You got into photography at a relatively late age. Do you think that has any influence on your work? Do you think it has brought you any benefits or challenges?

Before, I studied literature while in university. I've been influenced a lot by the various methods and the way photography pursues the truth. I practiced martial arts for over 15 years and found a similar discipline in both martial arts and photography. I started photography late (I think I was 32 then). My family and friends were surprised when I told them I was going to New York to start photography. However, I had my own experiences in my life and trained in literature and martial arts. For me, the devotion and the quality of
practice is important. I've never thought about the advantage or disadvantage of starting late. Yet, surely I have so much to learn and so much work to do. But it is exciting. I love challenges.

What's been the biggest/main obstacle for you as an emerging photographer? What keeps you moving forward?

Like the many emerging photographers I've known, balancing the act of art making and surviving has never been easy. I work different jobs to save enough money to start a project, and sometimes I don't have the time to photograph because of that. But during these times, I read books, study art history and look through photography books, etc. There are so many counter-practices I can use. I'm trying to learn and shape myself from diverse aspects. I want to make unique and original work.

Rainfall, from the Silent Water series, by Chikara Umihara

What's your experience with 20x200 been like? Your latest edition has been selling quite well. Did you expect that?

I love working with the 20x200 staff. They are brilliant, intelligent, very open and supportive to artists. Meeting with them and having editions on 20x200.com made a big shift in my career. It is an innovative place that has introduced a whole new output for the art world. As an image-maker, I want my work to be seen and be shared, and I want to be able to communicate with the audiences. This is one of the most fascinating parts of making work, I think. I hoped, but honestly didn't expect, to sell well. I sincerely thank the people that purchased and took time to look at the edition. And I am most curious about the kind of dialogue happening between the image and the viewer.

You've spent quite some time here in NYC, so I have to ask you - what's your favorite restaurant in Brooklyn?

That's hard. There are plenty of good restaurants in the neighborhood. Well, I choose the party at my friend's place, where we often hang. We cook amazing Japanese food.

Untitled, from the Silent Water series, by Chikara Umihara

Special thanks to Chikara, who did this interview on a weekend while traveling. See more of his photos on his website, and check out his 20x200 editions.

We brag a lot about how great the Hey, Hot Shot! panelists are, but for good reason. The panel is really made up of some pretty amazing people, including photographer Kent Rogowski. Kent recently launched Scaffold, a non-profit that gives fellowships to emerging artists. Aside from its mission, inarguably a worthy cause, Scaffold is innovative in its foundation and fundraising approach. Run by artists and launched without an endowment, Kent is using the reach and power of the web to not only find applicants but also to fund their projects. He goes into detail about the project and his goals in the interview below. If you're excited about Scaffold already, you have the opportunity to support it right now by bidding on a signed Shepard Fairey Obama Hope poster (below) on ebay. All proceeds from the auction will directly benefit Scaffold. Auction closes on January 19th, 2009. So, read Kent's interview here and see why this particular poster is so appropriate for this endeavor, then go bid! (Poster not your thing? Donate here. Or, sign up for the mailing list by emailing hi@scaffoldfund.org to hear about the first grant deadline.)

Where/when/how did you decide to start Scaffold?

I started seriously thinking about starting Scaffold at the end of last summer. The original inspiration had been building for a while and came from a convergence of thoughts and experiences. After my book, Bears, came out last year and had such a strong presence and response online, I started to think about how drastically the Internet was changing distribution and creating opportunities for artists that did not exist a few years ago. This fascinated me, but I thought that it might influence my next body of work rather than motivate me to form a non-profit organization.

At the same time I started to think more about how the Internet was changing existing communities while creating new models and possibilities for organizations. Obama's presidential campaign is an obvious example of this, another would be a non-profit such as kiva.org that specializes in person to person mirco-lending to individuals. Both leverage the power of small donations with a large community of users. This led me to think about what opportunities were lacking for individual artists that could possibly be filled online, funding and distribution were the things that seemed most in need of innovation.

While I was on the panel for Hey, Hot Shot!, I was surprised by the number and quality of the submissions. It was then that I started to think an online organization such as Scaffold could be viable. Once it was clear that the financial markets were going into a recession, I thought that the need for an organization like Scaffold was even greater and decided to move forward.

What are your hopes for it this year?

If we can get enough small contributions, I am hoping to get the website and submission tool up and running and to announce the first fellowship deadline by early spring. After the first grant is given, I will evaluate the overall response and if successful, try to slowly scale everything up. Since Scaffold was started with an idea instead of an endowment, the number, size and frequency of the grants will depend on the number of submissions. My goal is for Scaffold to give away around $20,000 in fellowships to individual artists in its first year of operation.

Where do you see it in 5 years?

Hopefully, Scaffold will grow into a focused but flexible organization that provides a dependable and frequent source of funding to visual artists. If the community using Scaffold continues to grow, I think it could be possible to provide other services and opportunities to its grantees. One natural progression could be to offer a form of fiscal sponsorship to recipients of fellowships that allowed them to continue to raise money for their projects using the Scaffold website and base of users.

How does Fractured Atlas come into play?

Fractured Atlas is a great organization that provides fiscal sponsorship and other services to artists. They don't have a direct role in Scaffold other than acting as my fiscal sponsor. They allow Scaffold to receive tax-exempt donations to help pay for operating expenses.

I am going to guess that if you are reading this you are an "emerging photographer," or someone who is interested in "emerging photography." And if either of those applies to you then you probably already know about Rachel Hulin and her fantastic blogging about photography (emerging and otherwise).

But did you know that Rachel is a Hey, Hot Shot winner? Spring 2005.

Did you know that Rachel has a new blog?

Bookmark it. If you fall into one of the two categories above then hers is one of the most important voices you should be listening to about photography each day.

Democratic National Convention 2008: Attendees at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado, on August 28, 2008. Joe Fornabaio for The Wall Street Journal . Fornabio is a Fall '06 Hot Shot

The Wall Street Journal puts it simply: "Joe Fornabaio photographs Democratic and Republican heavyweights," in their caption to Fall '06 Hot Shot Joe Fornabaio's slide show. Click through "Power Players" for Joe's portraits of Karl Rove, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah), Tom Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Former Republican Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Mark Warner, Democratic Senate candidate and former governor of Virginia, and New York Democratic Gov. David A. Paterson.

Fornabaio has been doing lots of on-the-road political reporting recently. Keep an eye out for his work throughout the remainder of the campaign season.

See Joe's website section "Conventional" for more of this great work.

Summer '07 Hot Shot Shuli Hallak's photo appeared in The New York Times Magazine's "The Way We Live Now" column on June 15, 2008

Okay, she definitely does not belong in the trash, but that's where I found her work today. Or, more precisely, I came across one of Shuli Hallak's photos in an issue of The New York Times Magazine in a pile that I was building as an alternative to the trash. The pile is small, but it's been growing for some time, and it's made up of articles and entire magazine issues that I plan to read. "Plan" being the key word.

So, it's a good thing I decided to flip through a few as I attempted to throw out some of the pile. Because luck granted me this gorgeous photo I'd originally missed by Ms. Hallak, who happens to have been a Summer '07 Hot Shot. Her photo is stunning. A good fit for the "The Way We Live Now" column it illustrates.

I can't stop staring at the photo. I can't believe it lived so long in my trash.

Yesterday's 20x200 blog was awash in Hey, Hot Shot! goodness.

First, Kara posted about two Hot Shots, Kelly Shimoda (Spring '07) and James Rajotte (Summer '06), who frequently shoot for the New York Times these days.

Then, Jen announced a special Monday edition of 20x200, by current Hot Shot Kate Orne. Orne's edition is also a benefit for a recently established school for the children of sexworkers in Pakistan which was founded under the umbrella of Sheed Society (an organization Orne founded to address the social issues particular, not to mention particularly brutal, to Pakistani sexworkers.

A new feature. I found this on Flickr. What a nice, quiet update from Spring '06 Hot Shot Alison Grippo. She tagged this one: New York, fog, film, medium format, mamiya, and bw and captioned it, "This is a foggy day trying to look across the east river, in theory the UN building is back there."

A New Understanding (Rock), 2007, c-print by Hot Shot Curtis Mann

And not just any show. The phenomenal Dawoud Bey curated Are We There Yet?, a group exhibition of photo and video based work that features Fall '05 Hot Shot Curtis Mann. The show will be up at the Hyde Park Art Center (5020 South Cornell Avenue, Chicago, IL) until September 28.

Be sure, also, to check out Mann's blog.

Critique + Curator, 2007 by Hot Shot Mickey Smith

Winter '07 Hot Shot Mickey Smith has a one-woman show of her series, Volume, from August 30 until October 26 at The Center for Photography at Woodstock, in Woodstock, New York. There will be a benefit auction for the center on Saturday, October 11.

Volume is an ongoing project documenting bound periodicals and professional journals in public and private libraries. Mickey recently moved from Minnesota to New York and she's started a blog too.

Jen Bekman had this to say about Mickey in PDNedu's "One 2 Watch, 2008:"

"Everything about her—how she approaches her work, makes it and presents it—is meticulous. There’s lots of attention to detail, but it’s also not mechanical. And above all, her work is really stunning."

Fall '05 Hot Shot Megan Cump has work featured in Working Space 08, currently on view at the Cuchifritos gallery inside the Essex Market. Go see Megan's work and stop in at Shopsin's and Saxelby Cheesemongers too.

In New York City, it is hot. In Ultra Ian Baguskas's Kamping Kabins it looks nice and cold. You don't have an air conditioner, eh? Buy a print from 20x200 and dream. There are still some prints, in all three sizes, left of this great work.

Baguskas writes:

Kamping Kabins is from my project, Search For The American Landscape, which looks at the relationship humans have with nature; specifically, the conflict between our inherent love of nature and our desire to alter it and need to take from it.

These images were inspired by photographic surveyors such as Timothy O'Sullivan and Carlton Watkins who explored and documented the land and settlements in the old West by photographing landscapes not only for their beauty but also as a record of places that few people had seen before. My photographs, however, are of landscapes that have experienced human exploration and the subsequent impact from the growing demand for convenience and natural resources.

Colleen Plumb may be one of the newest Hot Shots, but she's already running with a crowd of past winners and others who have shown at Jen Bekman gallery. Colleen's photo, above, is currently featured on Flak Photo, in a section devoted to this year's Review Santa Fe, an annual juried portfolio review for photographers who have created a significant project or series and are seeking wider recognition.

Later this summer, Jen Bekman will be at Sante Fe, to jury the Center's Singular Image Prize for color photography.

Winter '06 Hot Shot Rebecca Smeyne can be found frequently in the music pages of The Village Voice. See an array of concert photos she shot here, including a just-posted look at Santogold, Diplo, and A-Track in Central Park.

Brandon Herman's cover photograph for Kaiserin Magazine

Summer '06 Hey Hot Shot winner Brandon Herman has two photographs in the current issue of Kaiserin (including the cover!), a bi-annual art magazine that features emerging artists. Herman also has an edition available on 20x200.

SEED magazine, cover photography by Summer '05 Hot Shot Noah Kalina

Summer '05 Hot Shot Noah Kalina has a stunning photograph on the cover of the current issue of SEED and a 10-page photo essay on "Labs at Night" inside the magazine. And Kalina recently stopped by 20x200 to release an edition and a chat with Jen Bekman.

Spring '07 Hot Shot Daniel Traub reports that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has acquired four images from his City's Edge series. The very series that won him a spot in Hey, Hot Shot!

Traub was also recently included in the PDN 30 2008 - one of 30 "new and emerging photographers to watch," by Photo District News.

And he's not the only Hot Shot featured on that illustrious list. Fall '07 Hot Shot Birthe Piontek and Fall '06 Hot Shot Shen Wei are honored there too.

Ian Baguskas's Rincon Artificial Island and Pipeline, Ventura, California, 2007 40x51" C-print

Peggy Roalf reviews Sweet Water, Spring '06 Hot Shot Ian Baguskas' current show at Jen Bekman Gallery, in Design Arts Daily.

She writes:

"In the last several years, photographers around the globe have taken up the plight of the earth, further endangered today through climate change, deforestation, and drought. The landscape, with human activities accepted as a 'natural' aspect of the view for better or worse, provides the raw material, from both a visual and philosophical standpoint. One of the most beguiling exhibitions on view in New York is 'Sweet Water,' photographs by Ian Baguskas, at Jen Bekman Gallery."

Baguskas' Sweet Water is up until May 3, 2008.

We start this series of catching-up interviews with Spring '07 Hot Shot Mark Marchesi, who has a solo show now at Nelson Hancock Gallery.

How did you come to enter Hey, Hot Shot!?

MM: I had stopped by a couple of openings at Jen Bekman Gallery when I still lived in NYC, which was around the time she opened. Then I moved to Maine and became a father and was pretty far removed from the scene for a while. I was making work and when that work was ready to show I started compiling a list of contacts to send stuff to. I remembered about Jen Bekman Gallery, and went to the site to see if it mentioned anything about submissions. There was Hey, Hot Shot! and it said that the competition was the only way she was reviewing new photography. It happened to be just before the deadline for the Spring competition, so I entered.

What have you been up to since we last saw your work in Hey, Hot Shot?

MM: Last summer and fall I was shooting a lot of abandoned military forts in Maine and New Hampshire. I was really excited about that for a while, but I stalled out on it for several reasons when winter hit. I was also working on a pretty involved promotional mailing and a book proposal. Before the new year I was offered the opportunity to show at Nelson Hancock Gallery, and for two months all my free time was taken up by printing and framing. I build all my own frames from scratch, so as soon as Nelson and I firmed up a date I went to work cutting, gluing, and sanding. I also make all my own digital c-prints, so there was a lot of work to do on the files. Now that I am done with that, and I don't need snowshoes and a parka to go shooting anymore, I am getting back out with my camera. My main focus right now is on a new project about working waterfronts and commercial fishing communities in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes.

What kind of impact did Hey, Hot Shot! have on your career?

MM: This question is a little difficult because I don't always feel like I actually have a career in photography. I am definitely trying to start one, and Hey, Hot Shot! was a step that I am glad I took that direction. Whenever you present your work there is a thought process you must go through which is valuable no matter what the outcome. Entering these types of calls forces you to get outside of your own head, which is necessary at times for a lot of us. Hey, Hot Shot! didn't launch me into art stardom, but it was a great experience. I got to know Jen who I have a lot of respect for, along with the other winners, some of whom I am still in touch with and continue to get feedback from. I am also happy that it gave (and is still giving) me a lot of exposure on the internet. Lastly, the positive reinforcement of actually winning something is always good.