Finite Foto: Alternatives

We launched Finite Foto's Alternatives issue last month. We have switched to a bimonthly magazine so the recent content is online. Visit finitefoto.com to see the entire issue or search the back issues.

"Alternative is a tricky description. To be meaningful, it relies on an accepted mainstream. And when something that was once an alternative becomes ubiquitous, is it still useful to call it alternative? I can't help but snicker when people call Nirvana or The Cure "alternative music," as if filling stadiums with screaming fans and heavy rotation on the radio is only mainstream when it's the Rolling Stones or Britney Spears. Just like music, when talking about photography it is increasingly difficult to define what "mainstream" is.  Is it an aesthetic? A process? A subject? How many people like it? When it is difficult to agree on a mainstream, it is even more difficult to meaningfully describe an alternative." -- David Ondrik

IN ISSUE TWELVE:

"Kevin Sullivan on your Alternatives"

Kevin Sullivan writes about the changing landscape of "alternative process" photography. Mr. Sullivan currently teaches non-silver photography at Santa Fe Community College, and handled technical support for the foremost alternative process photo supplier Bostick & Sullivan for nearly a decade.

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"Chip Thomas - Street Art and the Rez"

David Ondrik interviews Chip Thomas about his large-scale photographic paste-ups, biking across Africa, and the ups-and-downs of street art.

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"Vera Sprunt - Liminal"

Vera Sprunt is an artist working with photography. We're showing a collection of 19 of her luminous, multi-layered images.

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"Critical Mass - Wet-Plate Collodion"

Melanie McWhorter showcases four photographers working with wet-plate collodion photography.

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"Todd Stewart - New Mexico in Platinum:"

Todd Stewart has been photographing New Mexico for 20 years. We're pleased to present 20 of his platinum/palladium images.

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"Justyna Badach - The Life of Bachelors"

Justyna Badach has been collaborating on a series of portraits with bachelors over the past five years.

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"The Roving Art Piece: Axle Contemporary, Itinerant Gallery"

Melanie McWhorter interviews the guys behind Axle Contemporary, a mobile exhibition space that was founded in 2010.

Finite Foto is a new media collective that investigates and promotes the intersection of photography and culture in the state of New Mexico. We are dedicated to bringing awareness to the global art community about both historical and contemporary photography from all regions of the state.

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Photolucida Wow Picks: Nate Larson & Marni Shindelman

After a trip to PhotoNOLA, a workshop at the New Orleans Photography Workshops and long holiday break, I am back at the blog. I have a few more Photolucida post to include and some highlights from PhotoNOLA and a great interview with photobook designer Elizabeth Avedon.

My selection of Nate Larson & Marni Shindelman as a Photolucida favorite might stem from my own since of paranoia about social media and my interest in the notion of the sense of place. Larson and Shindleman present locations which at first glance are neutral-- devoid of history for a few-- but when text is applied seem relevant to others.

Nate Larson & Marni Shindelman

Nate Larson & Marni Shindelman

Nate Larson & Marni Shindelman

Nate Larson & Marni Shindelman

"Each morning we follow strangers through their Twitter updates, becoming intimately involved in their banal daily errands. We imagine ourselves as virtual flâneurs, exploring cities 140 characters at a time through the lives of others. Sometimes we follow these strangers for a day and other times for months, following the ups and downs of their posts to this public venue.

Using publicly available embedded geotag information in Twitter updates, we track the locations of users through their GPS coordinates and make a photograph to mark the location in the real world. Each of these photographs is taken on the site of the update and paired with the originating text.

We think of these photographs as historical monuments to small lived moments, selecting texts that reveal something about the personal nature of the users' lives or the national climate of the United States. It is also grounds the virtual reality of social networking data streams in their originating locations in the physical world while examining how the nature of one's physical space may influence online presence. " -- Nate Larson & Marni Shindelman

Read more and view more images on their site.

Photolucida Wow Picks: Pavel Maria Smejkal

Pavel Maria Smejkal

Reading a recent issue of GUP Magazine featuring vernacular imagery, there is an article that references a piece that Dutch photobook publisher, designer and vernacular photography collector Erik Kessels exhibited. In this show, Kessels appropriates images shot by a motion detector camera set up in the woods of Texas which capture many unsuspecting deer. The images, which resulted in this exhibition and the book In Almost Every Picture #3, were not taken by Kessels and were not originally produced for the purposes of art. Kessels signed his name to the images because he use them as artworks. He took them from their original context and allowed them mean something else to himself and viewing audience. 

Although this brings up a question of copyright protection, if such a thing were to be applied to these vernacular images, it also brings to mind the allowances included in the US copyright law. Artists are allowed to build on the work of other artists to create original works. That is how art evolves. With that allowance, artists like Pavel Maria Smejkal can create. In the project Fatescapes, Smejkal uses iconic, war-time images that have been so ingrained into our collective visual catalogue. These images have become so iconic that that what is in the frame, and therefore the before and after, have lost their meaning as originally produced. The strength of the message is diluted the more that the images are viewed. Smejkal's removal of the human element forces the brain to search for the image as previously viewed. Because of this search through memory, the strength and original feeling evoked by this iconic photo is brought back. By removing this essence of the original photo which has started to weaken by multiple views, Smejkal has created a new image which revisits the original purpose and voice of the photographer as the time passes from that event.

 Pavel Maria Smejkal

Pavel Maria Smejkal

Pavel Maria Smejkal

"In my last work I am interested in historical contexts of human history, widely recorded by photographic medium in the last three centuries, I am interested in the medium itself, in its representational function and image as such. Getting off the main motif from the historical documents, from the photos which became our culture heritage, our image bank, a memory of nations, a symbol, a propaganda instrument or an example of some kind of photography, a template for making other images, in the time when almost all these photographs were reinterpreted by many authors of following generations from many points of view, with the knowledge that some of them were staged or their authenticity is disputable, I place questions about their sense, their meaning, their function and their future. I am interested in possibilities of photography in the time when analog process is over and I am asking what is next in the world waiting for change… "--Pavel Maria Smejkal on the project Fatescapes

Photolucida Wow Picks: Traer Scott

The exploration of the natural history museum diorama is nothing new, but Traer Scott's newest project adds another dimension to this exploration. There is always a voyeuristic aspect to viewing through the lens and the same feeling is evoked when looking into the diorama with taxidermied animals mixed with artificial plants and imported environment. It is all there for our viewing pleasure. In this project, Scott includes the humans trapped within the frames of the image in contrast with the animals. Interestingly, Scott captures what looks to be fear, awe and indifference in the people who pass by the reflective glass.

"In 2008, during a long anticipated visit to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, I accidentally created an intriguing image while “snapshotting” their dioramas. A reflection of my husband, inadvertently rendered in the glass and framed behind a large ostrich, gave me pause. A few months later, I began to frequent diorama exhibits around the country to furtively capture these narratives. It is both exhilarating and humbling to be the creative catalyst for these truly alchemical images which are set against a century old stage and born of random timing and fractured light. "Natural History" is a series of completely candid, in-camera single exposure images which merge the living and dead, in an effort to construct allegorical narratives of our troubled co-existence with nature. Ghost-like reflections of modern visitors viewing exquisitely rendered wildlife dioramas are juxtaposed against the preserved subjects themselves, their faces molded into permanent expressions of fear, aggression or fleeting passivity. After a century of over-hunting, climate change, poaching and destruction of habitat, many of these long dead diorama specimens now represent endangered or completely extinct species" -- Traer Scott

Photolucida Wow Picks: Jamey Stillings

Jamey Stillings

In 2009, I went on a family vacation where we drove to California and en route back from that state, we decided to drive over the Hoover Dam. I was not familiar with the new bridge being constructed over the Dam and was amazed and awestruck as we drove around the bend to find this structure which would ultimately be 2,000 foot long with a 1,060 twin-rib concrete arch about two-thirds the way through construction. The structure is functional and artistic. 

A few weeks later, Jamey Stillings stopped by my office. We have known each other for years as we live in the same city and, obviously, are interested and employed in the field of photography. Jamey brought a Magcloud publication that the had printed on his new project on the Hoover Dam By-Pass Bridge. Already seduced by the physical structure, I wanted to see and know more. Jamey had access that many photographers were not allowed and was dedicated to this project for years. The resulting images incorporate the vast aspects of natural environment and the will and intellect of humans to work around the physical barriers that nature puts in the way. The bridge now officially called, Mike O'Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, opened October 19, 2010 and Stillings work is showing at the Springs Preserve and continues through January 23, 2011. 

Jamey Stillings

Jamey Stillings

"How a structure and its creation are documented greatly impacts how it is remembered in history. Construction of the bridge downstream from Hoover Dam is unique both for its historical importance, by its proximity to the dam, and for its technical achievement, bridging the Black Canyon over the Colorado River with the longest concrete arch span in North America. The bridge challenges us to examine the juncture of nature and technology on a scale that is both grand and human. When I first encountered the bridge at Hoover Dam in March 2009, it immediately captured my imagination. Watching the bridge's construction, especially at night, is both inspiring and magical. The photo essay, which is evolving from this initial encounter, allows me to meld photographic and aesthetic sensibilities with a reawakened sense of childhood curiosity and awe. Photographically, the bridge as subject is creatively and technically challenging, dynamic and transitory. Over the past year, I have returned to the bridge again and again. As it evolves, each visit requires fresh perspectives and visual inquiry. This opportunity to spend extended time with a single ‘subject’ has brought a depth of visual understanding both to the approach and the resulting body of work. The overarching goal of the Bridge at Hoover Dam photo project is to acknowledge the collective talents and labors of those building the bridge and to place the bridge within the historical and aesthetic context of Hoover Dam and the American West"-- Jamey Stillings

View the entire project's website.

Looking for Designers

I have decided to start a series of posts with individuals and companies who design quality photobooks. I have an email from one designer requesting a post and I thought it would be a nice feature for this blog. If you have a great designer to recommend for this feature, please email me melanie (at) melaniemcwhorter.com.

Photolucida Wow Picks: Christopher Churchill

My third top pick for Photolucida is Christopher Churchill. I found this work fascinating as I look at the work before the statements and I often enjoy guessing what the work is about. I was quite surprised that the 10 images used to represent his work here we under the theme of American Faith.

Christopher Churchill

 Christopher Churchill

Christopher Churchill

Christopher Churchill

"American Faith is an exploration into the inherent human need to be connected to something greater. It documents faith as a universal part of the human experience and the various ways this is manifested throughout the United States. I began this project in 2004 at the height of political and cultural tension in a post September 11th America. The topic of religion was fueling intolerance, bigotry, nationalism, and negatively influencing our societies perspective of its self. Personal faith had been tied to religion in a way that inverted the hierarchy of the two. It’s meaning was redefined to describe radical religious actions and righteousness rather then the universal commonality it brings to humanity. In our migrant society there is little opportunity for meaningful interaction with others. It is these elements that caused Americans to see faith in enormous groups rather then the individuals who make up our society. While the reasons for making this work would evolve these initial observations served as the impetuous for me to begin. I had decided to travel through every state in the country, photographing strangers and collecting stories of their experiences in being a part of something greater. Always in a visceral, fluid way, never planning where to go, I would place my own faith in a certain random process. I would abandon efforts of trying and instead allow events to inform each other. I began to collect physical evidence in images and recordings of there being a larger sequence of events in the world. Testing my own faith in this process everyday. One event would influence another and I would slowly work my way into an almost predestine path of mariachi bands and Hutterite colonies. As this project ends and its relentless beckoning fades, I am humbled to be the ambassador of these stories and images."-- Christopher Churchill