MIAD-FA382

Project winners!

2012-01-20T11:26:00.000-08:00

The students in FA382 worked on semester-long self-assigned projects. In December, they were fortunate to have their work juried by Alison Zavos, creater and editor of Feature Shoot. Alison is an important figure in the world of contemporary online photography. She viewed the work of each student on the class website, www.miadfa382.com.

As in previous years, the generosity of several companies made the competition that much more interesting. liveBooks donated a liveBooks.edu website, and Think Tank donated one of their Retrospective 30 bags.

Alison's pick for the overall winner was Kelly Peloza, for her series, rose-tinted. Her pick for a runner up was Briana Prudhomme, for her series, Ephemeral Appreciation. Thank you, Alison and congratulations, Kelly and Briana!

© Kelly Peloza

© Kelly Peloza

© Briana Prudhomme

© Briana Prudhomme

Exhibition: de novo

2011-12-27T08:47:00.000-08:00

exhibit installation © Kevin J. Miyazaki

An exhibit of the students' semester-long projects, titled, de novo: to photograph anew, opened December 9th in the River Level Gallery at MIAD. It was a terrific opening, with great food and lots of visitors. The work is on view through January 20th.

From start to finish, this was an exhibition created by and mounted by the students. Over the course of many weeks, the process and discussion surrounding a 19-person group show was a tremendous learning process. It wasn't always easy, but in the end, the exhibition looks wonderful.

Here's a link to a story about it on the MIAD website: http://www.miad.edu/newsroom/latest-news/1441-de-novo

Interview: David Leventi

2011-12-17T19:28:00.001-08:00

Curtain, Palais Garnier, Paris, France, 2009 © David Leventi

Sheena Hang: How did you get into photography? Who/What are your influences?

David Leventi:The first photography class I took was in high school with Mr. Swayne. My first camera was a Nikon 6006. It was my dad’s and I took it from him in order to take the class.

The first photograph on the first roll of B&W film I developed was an arrangement of yogurt containers stacked in a pyramid in the fridge.

Structured. Organized. That was always what I sought out. I enjoyed trying to capture a perfect composition—it was a way of putting a chaotic world in order.

During the class, my family and I went on a trip to Italy and my brother and I went for pizza across the street from the Gallarate train station outside Milan. At the train station, I shot a photo that—looking back now, more than fifteen years later—was like a prediction of my current work. It was a compositionally organized shot of train tracks, train sign posts, train lights, overhead train power cables, everything to do with trains—in a precise grid, in a single picture.

But, the majority of my photographs at the time weren’t so static. I was looking to photograph a moment, to capture all the essential elements uniting within a single frame. I wanted to be a conflict photographer and photographed with a Leica through college. My first job in the photo industry was working as an intern in the archive at Magnum Photos under Kim Bourus (now a partner at Higher Pictures Gallery).

I admired Henri-Cartier Bresson and his obsession with capturing the decisive moment. He was one of the founding members of Magnum Photos and it seemed like a great place to start studying outside of an academic environment. I too was looking for that decisive moment and for perfection within the compositional frame. Shooting with a Leica was spontaneous. It was ok for pictures to be out of focus and just an arrangement of forms. For me, the inherent beauty of 35mm photography is its ability to provoke an instant emotional response due to the rapidity and spontaneity of it, to draw attention to a nihilistic issue.

But, my appreciation of this changed when I started working for Robert Polidori. I came to appreciate the different type of beauty exhibited by large-format photography—one of immersion, the ability to print photographs so large and clear that they make you feel as if you are enveloped in and existing within a space. I enjoy the precision and structure of it. But, I also love the surprises I find in my large-format images when I enlarge them—things like the signature of Chagall on the ceiling of the Paris opera house or peeling paint at The Met that I never would have seen with my naked eye.

However, I still adore the decisive moment and believe Joel Sternfeld’s American Prospects to be a large-format version of this obsession.

Margravial Opera House, Bayreuth, Germany, 2008©David Leventi

Sheena Hang: Who are your photographers that inspire you?

David Leventi: Andreas Gursky, Robert Polidori, Joel Sternfeld, Alexey Titarenko, Simon Roberts, Simon Norfolk, amongst others.

Thomas Struth’s photograph of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh is masterful: http://nyr.kr/oXTz1K

Amargosa Opera House, Death Valley Junction, California, 2009© David Leventi

Sheena Hang: Did you know you wanted to become a photographer?

David Leventi:I wanted to be a doctor until junior year in high school. I never imagined I would be photographing with a 4x5/8x10 view camera today.

Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza, Italy, 2010©David Leventi

Sheena Hang: How did you market yourself?

David Leventi:I don’t market myself as well as I should. I don’t enjoy shamelessly self-promoting. It’s not my personality.

But, after graduating from college, I wrote letters to five photographers I admired asking for the proverbial “foot in the door.” I started working as an intern for Robert Polidori, grew from that into an assistant, then a Studio Manager, then a Drum Scanner. I met many contacts through him, but more importantly, I saw how a professional photography business was run and benefited from getting his feedback on the work I was producing at the time. That was invaluable. He’s been an incredible mentor and friend.

My first editorial job was for Tracy Doyle at Time Out NY. I dropped off my portfolio on the drop-off day and she called back with an assignment to photograph interiors of stores for the 2nd Annual Shopping Awards issue. After that, I got hired to shoot a huge amount of stores and restaurants for the Time Out NY tourist Guidebook to New York and then periodic assignments afterward. Some of those shots inspired my portfolio of shots of neon storefronts in the city.

It was all really low-budget, but it gave me a bit of editorial validity as a photographer. Soon, I got called by Leana Alagia at New York magazine, then Lisa Berman at Vanity Fair, etc. It was a slow snowball as I got increased exposure. Each opportunity seemed to open a new door.

Sheena Hang: What made you decide in photographing Opera Houses? Do you have a story behind these photographs?

David Leventi: The first music hall I photographed was the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest, Romania. I was there working on my other major project - photographing my family's history in Romania. It was an impressive-looking interior, awe inspiring, with so many ornate details. Standing alone inside the massive hall, there was a power emanating from the space. When I came home, I processed and printed the film of the Athenaeum. Looking at it from over 4,000 miles away, though you're not actually in the space, you feel it through the picture. I judge the good images from this project by the tangible emotion I feel when looking at them.

It also connects back to my family history with the story of my grandfather. The opera houses are spaces in which my Romanian grandfather, Anton Gutman, never got the chance to perform. He was a cantor who was interned in a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp called Krasnogorsk from 1942-1948. The Danish operatic tenor Helge Rosvaenge, also a prisoner, heard my grandfather sing an aria from Tosca and gave him lessons. I grew up listening to him sing in our living room.

For me, the act of taking a picture with an 8×10 large format camera from center stage is a performance in itself. In homage to my grandfather, I guess you can say I’m living out our dreams.

I recently photographed the Bolshoi Opera House in Moscow which is relatively close to Krasnogorsk.

Interview: Emily Keegin

2011-12-16T00:16:00.000-08:00

 © Emily Keegin
      
Joshua Ramirez: If you could tell the viewer what your work was about in one sentence, what would you say about it?

© Emily Keegin

Emily Keegin: American girlhood told through the objects she loves.
  
 © Emily Keegin
  
Joshua Ramirez: I understand that your website was hacked. Would you be able to possibly describe your reactions to the incident and whether the incident has made you more cautious about displaying work on the internet?
  
Emily Keegin: Yeah! Hacking blows!  
  
But…if the crazy Viagra hawking hackers know I exist, I must be doing something right.  Right? Silver lining? 
  
Making art in your studio every day can be very isolating. The web is a nice way to feel like you’re not just shouting into a void. Sometimes people find your site and put you in a show. And sometimes they hack you. 
  
(there is probably a life lesson in there about risk taking)

           © Emily Keegin              

Joshua Ramirez: Would you be able to describe your thought/work process behind a body of work? Do you think about it/research it profoundly or do you just start photographing? How does working in a studio setting affect your workflow?

Emily Keegin: I wish I were a methodical artist. I have dear friends who plot a project beginning to end, spending hours in the library and then executing the plan impeccably.  It’s a rare occasion when I have similar luck with a pre-planned project. My most successful bodies of work are the ones that grow organically. One photograph/ one mistake / one piece/ inspires the next. This method of working tends to be messy and there are long stretches when things seem awkward. You can also end up with rolls of unusable film. But I’ve found that I need to physically work through an idea.  And if I keep going, if I keep making work- even if it feels out of place or tangential--things eventually fall together.    
  
© Emily Keegin

For the last few years my work has been wrestling with ideas of male/female sexuality, sports iconography and tools of domesticity.   Before that I was making work about music & longing (memory).  There was substantial overlap between the music work and the newer work with the pivotal image being the self-portrait with the boom box, “bringing it all back home (soft eject)”. This image happened completely by accident one bored Saturday afternoon. I was sitting in my studio drinking a beer, making a mix tape…. I didn’t think much of the image at first. But it buzzed in a way that was new and exciting to me. And so I spent another afternoon working with my body and objects in front of the camera. And another. And another. And things began to shift away from music until suddenly the central idea in my work was not sound& memory, but girlhood and memory.  I don’t think I could have gotten to this without physically working through it. 
  
Joshua Ramirez: What would you say is the biggest challenge that you have as a photographer in a World that is so saturated by images? 
  
Emily Keegin: In 2005 I began working as a photo editor for Time Magazine. This job drastically changed my relationship to photography.  Being bombarded by images all day I became acutely aware of how puny genre was as a defining characteristic. Things always get much more exciting when many different types of photographs were seen together.
© Emily Keegin
                                    
Joshua Ramirez: What do you want your photos to do or say?
  
Emily Keegin: I want to make work that on first look feels like the song of the summer. But holds your gaze with a sharp sardonic undertone.

© Emily Keegin

Joshua Ramirez: Lastly, would you be able to tell us briefly about your origins in the medium and where you plan on heading in the future with it?
  
Emily Keegin:  
There’s black and white photograph of my mother standing in front of the fireplace that is the first photograph I remember seeing.
  
 She’s naked and 8 months pregnant. Her hair is long and tied behind her neck, a style I never saw her wear. She looks down the barrel of her camera, reserved, matter-of-fact-like, not quite smiling. A long cable release is in her left hand. Her right hand reaches out toward our ancient Portuguese water dog, Govinda who has wandered into the shot, clumsy and oblivious to it all.
  
I love this photograph because it does all the things self-portraiture is so good at doing. It’s the camera at its most private and the photograph at its most telling. 
  
Everyone has a photo like this. Don’t they? A piece of art that in retrospect sums it all up.
    
I started taking pictures as a child. My mother once told me that once you begin seeing in frames, it’s impossible to stop.  
  
In college I became fascinated with the qualities of large format negatives, and light on film. I became quite fetishistic about it, nearly crying when Kodak discontinued my beloved tungsten balance film. My work therefore played into this. Shooting at night, interiors lit up by appliances, Americana at dusk. Empty beds lit only by the television screen. All printed large... what can I say. It was aughts. Crewdson was everywhere. 
  
At this point I am really interested in the installation of the image. I want to move beyond the frame. IT’S TIME TO BREAK THE TYRANY OF THE RECTANGLE!

 © Emily Keegin

Check out more of her work here: http://www.emilykeegin.com/

Interview: Bill Sullivan

2011-12-15T19:30:00.000-08:00

Self Portrait with Mirror #33 © Bill Sullivan

Pigment print on canvas 26" X 18"

2009, edition of 3

Alice Waraxa: How would you describe your vision as an artist?

Bill Sullivan: My vision? I don't know, changing but always the same? In spite of wanting to do something new, I often end up with something that was already there in the past

Every couple of years I seem to want to start from scratch on something new - something new that seems exciting at that time...But often in spite of yourself, you see stuff returning from previous ways of working and projects, an image, a concept that I was trying to work hard out Return in a different form. And in the process trying to do something new - you end up resolving something old.But as far as what that vision is concerned with I guess it is something to do with the psychological reading of images.

AW: What could you give as advise to photographers that haven't entered the field just yet?

BS: As far as advice for new artists or photographers.... prepare for the long haul - and embrace change. Keep your mind as open as possible to new positions - and be prepared to fail.

Don’t be ignorant or keep your head in the sand. Look at as many images in as many areas of art and photography as humanly possible.

And ask yourself exactly why certain images work and why other images do not. Cut expenses and create as much time as possible to experiment and develop work.

Also as far as where to show and tell all this new work you will be making. The small art book scene has really exploded and provides almost a new model for how artists can get people to see their stuff. There is art book fair circuit or scene. From PS1’s Printed Matter book fair to the recent Off Print in Paris - this interesting direction. And artists like Ofer Wolfberger has really embraced that model - creating new bodies of work coming out of very different and unique books for each new projects. But that is really something to watch - his site and blog Horses Think has allot of the info on it.

Self Portrait with Mirror #56 © Bill Sullivan

C-Print 2010

AW: Are there any online resources that you find yourself visiting regularly? Are there any offline resources that you use?

BS: Funny these days it’s Facebook more and more I am afraid - its amazing right now the breadth of images, and information folks I see. For mostly abstract painting Pascal Blanchard is an extraordinary resource, Deborah Hammond for great classic art photography most of which I have never seen, Brad Feuerhelm and Andrew Leigh for incredible found and vernacular photography. Facebook may be problematic in other ways and may not be very good in a year from now but right now it’s about the best online resource for new images and shows for me.

It also connects really well with this booming small art photobook or zine world I was talking about which really is where it is at for allot of people connected to art photography these days

People like Erik Van der Weijde and his 4478zine site work really well and integrate through Facebook as well as Shane LaValettes LayFlat who is expanding into a bigger online resource as well. And right now it is a great mode of operating and connecting to other people in the art world that is pretty accessible - and cheap for new artists.

AW: Your work deals with perception of reality in portraits. What is your exact definition of a portrait/self portrait?

BS:I guess it is someone, an artist, made someone look a certain way interesting or boring.... ugly or attractive? But so they did in such a way that the friends and family, the people that actually know the person - could still recognize the person. But it seems like a portrait is something that functions on those 2 levels, depiction and recognition.

Self Portrait with Mirror #14 , © Bill Sullivan

C-Print 2008

AW: You seem very confident in the direction of your art, in what I read from the interview on your website. Do you develop that confidences about you’re direct before you work or is it a process that develops through the creating of the work?

BS:I don't know about that. I guess if it comes out as confidence I think of it as more of in the end you have no choice but to trust your vision, Its your way of seeing that you offering to people

So you have no choice but to trust that. And we are lucky with art and talking about things we did in the past - hindsight can be 20/20 and we can always change the story.

AW: The concept of taking light and making it an actual object is very interesting, what lead you to or why did you choose to use a computer screen in your process?

BS:I had been working with noise for several months, basic B&W noise - dots, just watching the distortions and modulations of noise shifting from image to image. And I did that by layering image over the same image in the same frame ... making each new image disappear in a soup of all the other mages, and after I felt like confident that I understood something about the way that noise worked on us, psychologically speaking - I felt like I understood something about how we are effected by modulations of contrast. I looked for other sources or places that contrasts could be modulated organically, and that’s how I came to the screens

Untitled (torso) © Bill Sullivan

Pigment print on canvas

2008 20"X 24” edition of 7

AW: Was the public response what you expected or where you surprised at the outcome?

BS:I am not sure what I expected. People’s response is always a little different than what you might expect - but a majority of people typically gravitate towards the same images, and you never know exactly what those images might be.

AW: During a gallery showing do you take great planning in the layouts of your work, the 1st perception of your viewer, and installation specifics when displaying in galleries, or is that something left to the individual curator of the gallery?

BS: You have to do everything you can as a an artists to play a role in hanging a show of your work

- You know better than anyone else typically the strengths and weaknesses of how certain pieces hang on the wall, and really that is the work - how it seen.

For Pablo #3 © Bill Sullivan

Pigment print on paper 2009

Bill Sullivan is an artist who lives and works in New York City. His work has been exhibited and published internationally. He graduated from Georgetown University in Washington DC in 1988 with a degree in English Literature and Painting. He worked for more than a decade on a conceptual body of artwork entitled Das Blaue Auto, which used a variety of media and text to chronicle the evolution of a fictional lost European Art movement. He took up photography with a focus on street photography in 2002 and began to fuse his conceptual concerns with his experience as a portrait painter, culminating in the project 3Situations,completedin2007.

Interview: Sarah Girner

2011-12-15T16:27:00.000-08:00

From Transience of Things series © Sarah Girner

Katie Young: What originally sparked your artistic interest in photography?

Sarah Girner: My interest was sparked very early on: When I was eight years old my mother took me to the darkroom of an Arts Center and I watched her expose pieces of paper to light and carefully place them in the developer tray where the images would appear ever so slowly, so that initially I thought I was imagining it. It was like watching a magic show. I remember the awe I felt and the silence of the darkroom. I still feel that way today.

KY: I am constantly looking at and inspired by various photographers’ work. Which photographers or artists are currently or have always inspired your work?

SG: This may be a bit of a predictable answer but as a color photographer I have always studied and admired the work of William Eggleston. His concept of photographing democratically, of rejecting canonical images and instilling a sense of importance in the most mundane situations resonates with me. When I look at his images I see a part of a story. Sometimes it feels like the message of the image lies just outside the frame - just beyond the viewer’s grasp and that can be equally frustrating and wonderful. I also keep going back to the work of Rinko Kawauchi. When I look at her pictures I feel like I know her - like she’s a friend sharing all these intimate details about her inner and outer life with me. Her new book Illuminance is beautiful.

From Transience of Things series © Sarah Girner

Kelly Peloza: Was photography an instinct or a choice for you? Did the concepts and personal elements of your work precede your career as a photographer or become fully realized as you worked? Are you still questioning these ideas?

SG: Photography was definitely a choice, though it wasn’t as immediate as I would have liked. I went to university and studied history and political science and then started working as an editorial assistant at a German magazine. But somehow there was this creative void and I realized that photography was a way of filling it.

I am never happier than when I am creating images. I feel like my head can be a noisy place but when I am shooting there’s nothing but silence and an all-pervasive calm. I think that calm permeates my photographs. The act of photographing slows me down. I shoot with my grandfather’s 1953 Rolleiflex, which to me is a nice continuation of family history and tradition. Opa Franz loved his camera. He shot the wedding of my parents with it. And there isn’t a day that I don’t think of him and my family when I am looking at the ground glass. It reminds me equally of where I come from and where I want to go.

From Away series © Sarah Girner

KP: Is your self-described sense of rootlessness a driving factor for your travels or have your travels and experience instilled this state of mind about the transience of place? What are your feelings toward your current place of residence and the idea of having a permanent home?

SG: I moved a lot when I was younger. I was born in Germany but moved to the United States when I was six years old. I assimilated, learned the language, adapted to the culture and started identifying with this new nationality. Ten years later I moved back to Germany with my family - again feeling a sense of displacement. I spent the following decade repeating this pattern and skipping from country to country – from Ireland, to Spain, to Austria and finally back to New York, which has evolved into a permanent place of residence in the last five years. Today I’m married to a wonderful man who moved even more than I did and we try to anchor each other. But that doesn’t mean that the restless feeling ever goes away. So I travel.

My photographs have always been about coming to terms with my personal concept of home – it’s a confusing and loaded term for me. I think it was Graciela Iturbide that said “The unconscious obsession we photographers have is that wherever we go we want to find the theme we carry inside ourselves.” This is true for me. It doesn’t matter where I go, the images I make there always form a dialogue between these two cultures I carry inside myself. They are defined by a sense of geographical suspension and a slew of questions about my sense of belonging in this world.

From Away series © Sarah Girner

KY: There is a sense of transience or constant moving within the theme of your work. What is the relationship between you and the places you photograph?

SG: In my series The Transience of Things I focused on estate sale houses in the suburbs of Westchester County. This is where I grew up from the age of six to sixteen and the series is a study of the final moments of a home. I was very curious about this place – it always felt full of secrets and lies and regrets. The suburbs are so iconically American and stand for all the values and family traditions of the middle class that are now quietly eroding. When I walk through the houses and photograph I am confronted with so many memories. It’s odd, because they are not necessarily my memories but they nevertheless feel tangible. I can relate to them and I want to communicate this to the people that look at my photographs.

My other series Away works differently. There is no real place anchoring the project. It’s really only about my memories and the way a certain place may make me feel. It’s more of a reflection on myself and a way to communicate in images what I feel but cannot express in words.

KP: While the places and scenes in the photographs on your website are real, the concepts photographed are surreal and ephemeral. Do you explore fantasies to uncover truth or to further create an imagined interpretation of reality?

SG: I consider myself a documentary photographer. None of my images are set up or arranged: Everything that I photograph already exists in its own state and each photograph that I take is a document of a real place or an object in its physical environment. However, all of my photographs are made to communicate on an emotional level as well. I’m a chronic daydreamer and I find this is evident in my images. Places and objects can trigger so many different memories and associations in different people. Each image is equally a document of a reality and a construct of a memory. I think photography lends itself to this beautifully.

From Transience of Things series © Sarah Girner

KP: Could the same ideas you explore be expressed through writing, painting, or other media? Do you work solely with photographs?

It would be difficult for me to express the ideas and sentiments that I hope to communicate in my photographs through any other medium. If I sat in front of a canvas and had to come up with all of the elements I would want to include on it, I’d sit there for the rest of my life. The same goes for writing. I do love to write and keep a blog where I accompany my images with text that sometimes pertains to the image and sometimes tries to convey a thought that came to mind while looking at or making the image. However, I could never exclusively express myself through writing.

I love photography. I love the process - the analog process, that is. Making the image, then waiting to get the negatives back from the lab, spending hours in the darkroom making contact sheets and later work prints… All of these aspects are a very important part of my creative process. Analog photography continues to teach me about patience and slowing myself down in this world where everything keeps getting faster and faster.

KY: What would your advice be to young photographers wanting to get their work out into the world?

SG: Be persistent. Listen to and take criticism but also stand your ground. Believe in and respect the images you make. Don’t rush things.

From Transience of Things series © Sarah Girner

KY: Are you currently working on any future projects?

SG: I have been trying to get a project I’m really excited about off the ground for the last eight months (and as I mentioned before… patience is not my strong suit) and hope to begin shooting at the beginning of next year. But I am superstitious and fear that if I talk about it now I might jinx it. So… ask me again in March of 2012!

More work can be seen at Sarah's website: sarahgirner.com

Competition sponors!

2011-12-14T07:06:00.001-08:00

Last year, we were fortunate to have David Bram of Fraction Magazine judge our class project competition. The winner was Julia Kozerski, who has had an exciting year of exhibiting her work nationally and online, as still a senior at MIAD.

This year we're thrilled to have Alison Zavos of Feature Shoot as our juror. Alison is at the forefront of the online photography world and is constantly viewing the work of emerging and established photographers. We sent Alison the link to our class website, from which she made her selections.

The prizes for Alison's top two picks are a Livebooks.edu website for one year and a camera bag from Think Tank Photo. We thank both companies for their continued support! And we'd like to take another chance to thank PZ Direct, a terrific source for Pina Zangaro portfolios, who has been a generous supporter for the past 2 years.

Friends of the Class: Jennifer Shaw

2011-12-12T07:49:00.000-08:00

Images from the series Hurricane Story © Jennifer Shaw

The popular photography festival PhotoNOLA just wrapped up in New Orleans. We were fortunate to talk via Skype the festival's coordinator (and Milwaukee native), photographer Jennifer Shaw. Jennifer talked in depth about the creation of her series and book Hurricane Story. Thanks, Jennifer!

class projects

2011-12-11T10:11:00.000-08:00

The students have been hard at work all semester on individual, self-generated photography projects. You can see the results, along with artist statements and bios on our companion website miadfa382.com.

We're thrilled to have the project competition jurored by Alison Zavos, the creater and editor of Feature Shoot. Alison is one of the most active people in the online photography world, and probably sees more pictures in a day than most of us do in a year.

The winners will be announced in less than a week, so stay tuned!

Friend of the Class: Greg Ruffing

2011-12-08T16:53:00.000-08:00

from the series Yard Sales © Greg Ruffing

Chicago-based photographer Greg Ruffing joined us by Skype to chat about his various ongoing projects and some recent curatorial work. Thanks, Greg!

Interview: Magda Biernat

2011-11-27T16:38:00.000-08:00

Katie Guth: Personally, I find myself drawn to your work mainly based on the content and the eye you have for what is captured within the frame. What is it that intrigued you to do some of your personal work and how did you come across the different subject manner, especially the work in ‘inhabited’ and ‘quietly forgotten’?

Magda Biernat: As an architectural photographer I am always drawn to interesting structures and buildings. I am always on a lookout for an interesting design. While traveling I usually research sites that might be of interest to me, but many things are also lucky encounters, things I run into by accident.

Red Shirt © Magda Biernat

Katie Guth: I noticed that you grew up in Poland and began your photographic studies there. What drew you to the United States? Since you’ve spent so much time in both countries, I’m curious to know the differences in photographic style, or teachings, if there is any?

Magda Biernat: Yes, I studied photography in Poland, but I also recently finished my MFA program in New Media, which was partly taught in Berlin and partly in New York. School in Poland gave me a pretty good base in photography – history, techniques, etc. But back then I was mostly doing black and white photography, spending many hours in the darkroom. I think teaching over here is a bit different, less traditional and more conceptual. Not focusing on theory so much but your own way of thinking and creating.

Salvation Army © Magda Biernat

Katie Guth: When studying photography, was working for magazines something that you saw yourself doing? Did working with the different magazines benefit or play off of your personal style or goals as a photographer?

Magda Biernat: I don’t think I ever thought of myself as an editorial photographer. While studying photography I wasn’t sure what I would end up doing. When I first moved to New York I worked at Magnum Photos and there I realized that black and white documentary photography was not for me, so I decided to change my path and turned towards architectural photography instead. I took a workshop with Norman McGrath and soon after started assisting him on numerous jobs. Almost at the same time I started working as a photo editor at Metropolis Magazine, which is all about architecture and design, which gave me yet another perspective on that field.

Untitled © Magda Biernat

Katie Guth: After I graduate in May, I have hopes and some plans to travel to different countries, which I know is something you took time away to do. Was this more of a career goal or personal goal for you? Also, what was one of your best career oriented experiences while traveling and do you have any recommendations?

Magda Biernat: It was mainly my personal goal. I always wanted to travel for an extended period of time and taking one year off was the best thing I have done. The body of work I came back with also helped me place my work in a New York gallery and show it in different countries. My career as a fine art photographer started with that body of work.

As for recommendations, just be open to things that happen to you.

Katie Guth: I’m currently in my senior year of my undergrad program; what would you suggest or advise to someone about to graduate in photography?

Magda Biernat: Be passionate about what you are doing. When you don’t love what you do, it is never going to “the best”.

Friends of the Class: Lisa Hostetler

2011-11-21T19:50:00.000-08:00

Cryopreservation Unit
Cryonics Institute
Clinton Township, Michigan
© Taryn Simon

The exhibition Taryn Simon: Photographs and Texts at the Milwaukee Art Museum represents the first time the artist's different series have been shown together in one venue. The curator of the show, Lisa Hostetler, met with us to discuss every aspect the exhibition - from the original discussions with Simon to the final installation of the photographs.

Thanks, Lisa!

Friends of the Class: Wally Mason

2011-11-12T06:44:00.000-08:00

© Kevin J. Miyazaki

Yesterday we had a great visit to the Haggerty Museum of Art on the campus of Marquette University. Wally Mason has been the director for the past 4 years, and has been ambitiously collecting and exhibiting photography at the museum. He gave us a behind-the-scenese tour, which was full of energy and wisdom.

Thanks, Wally!

Interview: grace kim

2011-11-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

untitled © grace kim

Julie Xiong: I tried finding more information online about you and how you work but could not find much. Do you prefer to keep your life off the internet besides your photography? If so, why?
grace kim: yes I appreciate the internet and the openness of others, but it is not in my nature to share in a very public way. the web is a such an impersonal, voyeuristic space, where time and information have no beginning or end, and existence has become so performative. the more intense this energy become, the more I feel a need to hold back. I prefer to express myself through my work and engage with those I care about on an intimate, personal level.

Julie Xiong: Everyone seems to have websites these days, how does the internet benefit you as an artist?
grace kim: the internet has connected my work with wonderful people around the world who I may not have crossed paths with otherwise. it also facilitates an incredible amount of research on any subject one desires, without having to walk out the door. it is hard to imagine life without it.

untitled © grace kim

Julie Xiong: According to your curriculum vitae (CV), you keep going back to school to further your education. How do you benefit from furthering your education as an artist? Would you recommend it to everyone?
grace kim: I have gone back to school at times when there was a specific discourse or resource I wanted to engage with, but I don't think school is a necessity, it is just a system, and education is much greater than that, it is a way of being. I have never responded well to structure and authority in general, so the only thing I would recommend to anyone is to approach life as a school and to nurture your sense of awe and curiosity.

Julie Xiong: Do you have any photographers that you admire or aspire to be like?
grace kim: there are many whom I hold in high regard but I don't aspire to be like anyone but myself, and I tend be more interested in artists who approach their work differently than I do. I feel connected to the ideas of jean baudrillard, anais nin, andrey tarkovsky, jorges louis borges, and maya deren, to name a few.. and I think yoko ono is a magnificent free thinker and spirit.

untitled © grace kim

Julie Xiong: Why do you prefer to shoot in black and white as opposed to color? Does black and white emote something unique that color cannot?
grace kim: I enjoy using metaphors through aesthetic language that contribute to the underlying dialogue of the piece. themes of duality and contradiction are important to me, and black and white has a poetry and lyricism that explore these very beautifully. it also has a purity and formal elegance that resonate with my ideals. color is often too much information - there has to be a reason for it, conceptually, never just because.

Julie Xiong: Your series, dream meditation, consists of pure and fantasy-like photographs as well as dark and haunting photographs. Can you tell me more about your intentions with this series?
grace kim: I was thinking about contradictory aspects of existence that live in parallel to one another - such as the tension between meditation and escapism, life and death, interior and exterior life, the physical and the metaphysical, beauty and melancholy..

untitled © grace kim

Julie Xiong: dream meditation is a very personal exploration for you. How different do you think the outcome would be if you photographed someone else besides yourself?
grace kim: dream meditation would not exist if I had photographed someone else.

Julie Xiong: Do you feel you have fully explored dreams and death through this series?
grace kim: I feel that I have put to rest what I was going through at the time this series was created.. but these themes are not finished, they have only evolved.. I think dreams, death and meditation are subjects that will always move me, there will always be more questions to explore.

Interview: Christopher Colville

2011-11-07T07:04:00.001-08:00

Nothing is the Rule © Christopher Colville

Kayla Massey: My first question for you is that in a lot of your work there seems to be a strong tie between the image itself and the entire process or almost ritual you preform along with it. When and why did you decide that was an important step with your work and are you happy with the outcome?

Christopher Colville: Art and photography are funny things and we all have different motivations for creating work. I create work as a way to engage the world in an attempt to better understand what it means to be part of all this. I feel that many photographers are looking for some sort of truth or fact that can be neatly tied up in the photographic frame, but I am suspicious of that sort of work or static understanding. The artist William Kentridge speaks about understanding the world as process rather than a series of facts and this is in line with my own feelings. Everything is shifting, changing and becoming something new and I want to make work that engages these changes. I also feel that people find comfort and meaning through ritual, weather it is the morning ritual of visiting the local coffee shop or something involved in a religious system of beliefs.

I don’t know that I ever made a conscious decision to work through ritual but it has always felt like a natural way to work. To be honest some of my more ritual practices are tied up concepts but others are more like practice, which is really more a way of creating a framework to sustain work. Either way, sustained practice or intellectual rituals provide a natural way for me to gain a better understanding of what I am working with or thinking about.

Kayla Massey: Your work is set on the basis of a very strong idea that might not always be apparent without the text to go along with it by explaining your entire process and what exactly the viewer is looking at. How important is it to you that the viewer knows the origin of the work you create?

Christopher Colville: Ideas and questions drive my work, but I am not always that worried about finding answers. I am also not that worried that my audience understands every part of my practice. When you put your work out into the world you lose a certain amount of control over it and this is exciting. If the work is strong it will take on a life of its own and transform into something better than you could have imagined. I feel that part of our work is to seduce your audience with suggestions, but it is their job to complete the investigation and hopefully come up with their own questions. If the work is strong enough, people will take the time to gain or create an understanding of its origin.

Kayla Massey: How did you become interested in this process where it seems that you have very little control in how the final image will turn out but is rather determined by the subject you choose and the light conditions of that day?

Christopher Colville: Control. When it comes down to it we have very little control over anything, and this relates to the topic of understanding the world in terms of process rather than facts. I have two young children and I am becoming very aware that I can’t control them. I can create frameworks to guide their growth as individuals, I can influence them and give them everything I have, but in the end they are going to grow up and become their own people. I can only hope I have done my part in influence who they will become. Artwork is the same.

I make many different types of work. The two bodies that I am currently focused on, both in one way or another, celebrate the loss of control. This is most apparent in the gunpowder work where I am making explosions on photographic material.

At the same time, the images from the series Instar, appear to be the most controlled because they employ the language of large format landscape photography, but the images are of phenomena that are a part of a continuum of experience that remain a mystery to me. I suppose the only thing I want to control is my medium so I can obliterate it and allow it to become something new.

Kayla Massey: How important is the installation and the way your photographs are viewed to you and your work?

Christopher Colville: This completely depends on the work. Some bodies of work demand the performative experience of an installation. Other, more traditionally photographic bodies of work rely on sequence. I do love the emotional impact installation can provide, but it is not always the right answer, some times the images need to do the work on their own.

Kayla Massey: Through your work you are asking the viewer to think about and consider a lot of larger ideas. While making this work have you discovered new ideas or beliefs within yourself and if so how has that affected your work?

Christopher Colville: I generally don’t know where I am going to end up when I begin a new body of work. More often than not I start with one question and end up somewhere completely unexpected. It is the surprises and discoveries that happen along the way that allow work to evolve. I believe the most exciting point in the creation of a body of work is when you are running at full speed, working as hard as you can, but a complete understanding of the work is just outside your reach. When you don’t fully understand what you are doing, but know you are heading in the right direction, the desire to understand propels you and makes the work worthwhile. In the end, the new questions or understanding I find through work lead to the next body. If you have the answers before you get started, you should be asking different questions.

For more of Christopher Colvilles work and more information visit http://christophercolville.com/

Interview: Beatriz Diaz

2011-11-03T18:12:00.000-07:00

Patrizia Fusi: About your project "geographica", what is the reason to use white as color for reduce the pictures's reality?

Beatriz Diaz: It´s interesting that you use the word color to talk about “Geographica”. I’ve never thought about this project in terms of black and white and yet it is.

When I started working in this project, my original intention was to photograph the landscape that preceded me, the landscape in my memory and thus, an invisible landscape.

By using a subtractive process I make them appear invisible and timeless -as if with each layer of information I remove a layer of reality. I reduced these landscapes to their basic perceptual elements, in order to make them appear immaterial, to show them as ideas or as primordial images. I want the viewer to experience a familiar image and yet see it as something that is not real, but imaginary, like a vision, a dream or a mental image.

Patrizia Fusi: I saw that in many your projects there are nature elements, true or fake, print on fabrics (like in "my grandmother's garden"), what is your relation whit the nature?

Beatriz Diaz: I am interested in alienated relationship that we have established with nature in the present, I believe this is more a dissociation, or a battle, between culture and nature.

C.G. Jung wrote “I am certain there would be no spirit if it were not part of nature”, on the understanding that there are not two things, spirit and matter, but two aspects of one thing. This is the relation to nature that I wish I had.

Patrizia Fusi: I read that your work "my grandmother's garden"is in memory of her and your childhood, was work on it hard for you?

Beatriz Diaz: Creating the work helped me realize her absence. When she died I was leaving in the US and she was in Mexico, I didn’t get to participate in all the ceremonies and rituals with the rest of the family, so in a way, working in this series was my own way of saying goodbye to her.

Patrizia Fusi: Do you work with the film or digital? And why?

Beatriz Diaz: I work with any process that gives the results that I looking for. In “Geographica”, for example, I scanned the pages from the magazines and processed them in photoshop, and in “My Grandmother’s Garden” I used a medium format film camera. I think the process works as a character in a play, and therefore it gives part of the meaning and emotional quality to the art work. In that sense, the process is always important to me, and I do take in consideration many options, and I always choose what ever works better.

more info on http://www.beatrizdiaz.com/

Interview: Elizabeth Chiles

2011-11-02T21:11:00.000-07:00

Briana Prudhomme: Tell me a little bit about your process when you work, creating your extended images, diptychs, and triptychs, etc.

Elizabeth Chiles: In the presentation of all of my work, the installation, size of each image and sequence is important. I think taking control of the images and giving the viewer a concrete way to view them helps the reading of the work. It seems especially important in my work since the images are often ephemeral or abstract in nature and therefore don't lead down a narrative path. That openness is important to me and yet I have an idea about how the images build on each other and create a space, physical and psychological, so I need to show those relationships clearly.

For my recent series 'The flower and the bloom' I felt that the tension or expansion between images was important so I ended up working with small prints, spending many, many hours looking at images in relation to other images. When the pairings and sequences finally came together I taped the small prints together and kept looking at them until I was sure. Recently I printed the work at its final size and most of the images are 16 x 20 or 20 x 16. They still have a relationship to the body and they allow for the detail and texture in the images to be seen.

Briana Prudhomme: Does it usually take a few tries to be able to find the perfect match?

Elizabeth Chiles: Yes, many of the images can communicate with each other in different ways. It's important for me to remember what I would like to communicate and then to be clear that the pairings do that the connections are not too obscure or too flatfooted.

Briana Prudhomme: Do you ask other people's opinions after pairing them, or try and keep it to your own instincts?

Elizabeth Chiles: I make all of the choices myself and then I usually show them to a few trusted friends to gauge their responses.

Briana Prudhomme: Do you find yourself trying to put images together while you are shooting?

Elizabeth Chiles: No, if I shoot enough I will have the material I need to bring the work together.

Briana Prudhomme: Are there any inspirations for your series ‘The flower and the bloom’?

Elizabeth Chiles: The project is concerned with a quote that I read in a Joseph Campbell book called Myths of Light in which he reveals an antidote about Goethe going to India and finding that it was possible there to see both the fruit and the flower at the same time because there are not distinct seasons. That antidote created a strong visual in my mind and I loved the metaphor that things can be both fully developed and at the same time be arriving - these beautiful cycles in living. The pairings in 'The flower and the bloom' are both visual and conceptual in that they reveal the 'is' and 'is becoming' at the same time.

Briana Prudhomme: I also noticed that nature is something that is always apart of your work. Can you tell me a little bit about your reasoning behind that?

Elizabeth Chiles: Nature is everything. We are energy as are the plants, animals, stars, and rocks. For me nature is a starting point to understanding life, what it means to be. I have also found light and the texture of plant life to be strong metaphors for the questions I have needed to explore as a human being.

Briana Prudhomme: Do you have a favorite place in nature to shoot?

Elizabeth Chiles: I enjoy shooting in neighborhoods, parks, gardens and wooded areas. ‘The flower and the bloom’ work was made in Maine and the majority on Monhegan Island though some pictures were made in the area around Rockland where we were staying. Since the work is largely close up I can make pictures that seem like they are in an abundant wilderness in my neighborhood or at a man made wilderness. Of course, shooting in a place that is naturally abundantly beautiful is a treat and gives me inspiration and context for the natural elements in my immediate environment.

http://elizabethchiles.com/

Interview: Adam Ekberg

2011-10-31T06:37:00.000-07:00

Sarah Stankey: Who/what has inspired you to create images?

Adam Ekberg: I am inspired by a wide variety of things. My interest in creating ephemeral moments comes pretty specifically out working for several years in an assisted living / hospice facility. Also, I have been thinking a lot of my earliest childhood memory of late which involves a serial arsonist burning down the barn behind my child hood home. As a small child I watched it burn to the ground while holding a glow stick given to me by a neighbor of my parents. I have also been thinking a lot of some years after college when friends of mine and I lived in remote places. In sum I like to think I am mythologizing my experiences.

Sarah Stankey: You mention on your website that photography "can serve as metaphor for existence." What might that metaphor be?

Adam Ekberg: I suppose that is acknowledging the ephemeral things in my pictures tend to mirror qualities of human existence. I am really into the place where photography and performance intersect- while my work is largely photographic there is a lot of performative aspects outside of the frame to make the moment that the picture is made. The ephemeral nature of the performance and the photographic moment is analogous to existence.

Sarah Stankey: Do you spend a lot of time experimenting with your work? For example, were the 'Aberrations' an accident at first?

Adam Ekberg: The 'Aberrations' were a complete accident but I am rarely that lucky. I like to fidget with things (like the picture where I wedge a cocktail umbrella in a Bic lighter). The word experimenting might be too scientific for what I do. A lot of the pictures come out of either a desire to see something realized in the work or the result of restless tinkering.

Sarah Stankey: From viewing your photographs I can see that you must have had fun with what you are doing. Which is more important in your work, the final image or the performance and act of creating the ephemeral event you capture?

Adam Ekberg: They are both important. I work so hard to make the picture a perfect record of the event but the making of the event is almost always better. It depends on the picture to a degree. The aberration pictures were pictures of nothing and the effect of making concentric circles of rainbow was not seen through the lens where as Outpost #1 that I made last summer with my friend and his daughter was a really wonderful thing to be present for. During the afternoon I dragged all the materials I needed out into the woods on the bank of a river (tiki torches, a generator, colorful lights, gas, extension cords, etc). We set up this scenario with the lights and the torches and made a series of exposures as the sun faded. I think the resulting picture is great but it can’t touch being out in the woods watching this thing we had made radiating colorful light.

For more information visit Adam's website adamekberg.com