'Objects of Ruin, I',
John S. Cook & Co. Bank Building in Rhyolite, Nevada.  Models: Schrodinger’s Cat, Lily LeFleur, Ciel Faustus, Stormy Petrel
(From Objects of Ruin series juxtaposing the disposability of female beauty with the ruins of society.)

Same Source says about the work 'Objects of Ruin', "Is female beauty disposable?

By juxtaposing discarded female beauty with discarded ruins of civilization, Objects of Ruin satirizes the notion that human sexuality, in particular when expressed in the form of female nudity, objectifies all of us and leads us on a path to ruin. 

It is my hope that the viewer will be challenged to reconsider notions of objectification and female nudity wrapped in metaphor, while also experiencing an aesthetically engaging exploration of the ruins of society and a sometimes farcical and sometimes direct confrontation with the potentially disturbing beauty in death and destruction.

Sexual imagery is all around us.  When it is seemingly subtle, like a suggestive flower in a Georgia O’Keeffe painting, it garners praise for sophistication. 

When it is overt, as in actual nudity or copulation, it is often shunned or criticized for arguably debasing those represented. 

Once it becomes ubiquitous, like the feminine shape of a Coca-Cola bottle, we hardly notice the representation or consider it for what it is.  It’s not politically correct to acknowledge it, but sexual images of women are far more popular than those of men in our culture. 

This is true whether you are talking about fashion magazines marketed to women or sports magazines marketed to men.  There’s no denying that the female form has played a major role in Western Art as well as in other cultures, and today the fine art world continues to struggle with the notion that portrayal of the basic human condition of arousal and associated eroticism (often dismissed as obscene) conflicts with the “more pure” pursuits of physical geometry and political commentary about sexuality (the latter group being more readily labeled as “art” by those empowered to make that call).  As a photographic artist, I’m interested in pursuing the uncomfortable ground where these two worlds inevitably must overlap."

SameSource is a photographic artist with over two decades of professional experience recording images. 

SameSource fine art photography spans both landscape and bodyscape, often exploring human sexuality and its relationship with art. 

With recent showings from the Musée du Louvre, Paris, France, to Art Basel, Miami Beach, SameSource is becoming an established international presence. 

SameSource was recently recognized with an Honorable Mention in the international Lumiere Award for 2016. 

Coagula Gallery in Los Angeles has included SameSource in its Ten Top Artists exhibition for 2016 in a show curated by Tulsa Kinney of Artillery Magazine. 

SameSource work has been featured in The Huffington Post and American Photo magazine in connection with the Round Hole, Square Peg, exhibition at Artists Corner Gallery in Los Angeles. 

SameSource work has twice been selected (2013, 2016) among the 12 best photos of the year in the prestigious 12” of Sin International Art Exhibition with extended runs at Sin City Gallery in Las Vegas. 

Works from SameSource’s Apples series have twice been award winners in YDP contests held by renowned Duncan Miller Gallery.
 
SameSource has origins in the rural Midwest. After studying music and philosophy in a liberal arts education, the artist went to Italy and became immersed in the works of the Renaissance. A return to the US brought the pursuit of graduate work in music and cinema, with an eventual arrival on the west coast via the USC film school. In addition to the full-time pursuit of photographic fine art, SameSource output has included notable works as a recording artist, writer, and filmmaker.

Learn more at SameSourceFineArt.com and follow SameSource on Facebook and Instagram; SameSourcePhoto on Twitter.
 

'Objects of Ruin, XLII'
Corvina Estates RV Park, Salton Sea, California.  
Model: Schrodinger’s Cat
(From Objects of Ruin series juxtaposing the disposability of female beauty with the ruins of society.)
 

'Objects of Ruin, XXX'
Red Hill Marina ruins, Salton Sea, California.  
Models: Lily LeFleur, Schrodinger’s Cat, Heather Morgan
(From Objects of Ruin series juxtaposing the disposability of female beauty with the ruins of society.)
 

Sheryl Gerhard says of her work, "I picked up my first camera less than 10 years ago and haven’t put it down since.

I love viewing the world through the eye of the camera lens. Born and raised in the Midwest, I enjoy capturing rural America. I have a particular passion for time worn subjects. I find beauty in things abandoned and forsaken. 

I lived in New Mexico for a few years before returning to my roots in Illinois. I fell in love with the southwest’s wide open spaces, spectacular skies, mountain vistas and vibrant desert landscapes. 

While in New Mexico, I had the honor of having a photograph of mine displayed in The National Geographic Art Show at the Branigan Art Gallery and Museum.
 
Many of my photographs can be viewed on my art and photography Facebook page. My husband and I share this site to display my photography and his artwork."
 
https://www.facebook.com/PrairieWindsArtandPhotography

'My Brother’s Keeper'- Taken at Hoult Cemetery in rural Edgar County, Illinois. This cemetery was established in 1842. The headstones are what remains of those who lived, loved, and lost.
 

'Paris Glass'….an old sign weathered by age and neglect that I discovered in Paris, Illinois. It is what remains of a long-forgotten local business.

'Rusty Washtub'… was a great find on a drive in rural central Illinois. It is what remains of an old schoolhouse.

Simonetta Cavazza says of her work, "What remains of childhood, of games and laughs, of dreams, of either epic or boring days when people’s lives take another turn?

Things that were cherished for a while, accompanying people’s daily destiny are set aside, sometimes forgotten, but not necessarily lost forever. They simply start another journey, find new companions, often begin a new existence.

While they wait to find a new life, they tell us stories, fairy tales, mysterious plots.
With my camera I love to pick up old things from street markets and store them with love."

www.simonettacavazza.com

Sonia Melnikova-Raich says of this image "“Last Invoice” is an image captured in Kyoto, where after looking for a well known print shop in the Gion district, all we found was a locked door and a few miscellaneous tools of the trade. It was sad to learn that it had been closed for a long time. This photograph comes from the “Old Things” series, which is a reflection on discarded things of the past whose value is not in the conventional attractiveness, modern-day usefulness, or preciousness of the material, but in the priceless memories they evoke."

Sonia Melnikova-Raich was trained and worked as an architect and artist in Moscow, Russia, and has been living in San Francisco since 1987.

When she turned to photography, her schooling in painting and design remained noticeably present in her works.

Rather than treating a photograph as an illusionary “window” into a three-dimensional world, she approaches it as a canvas with its own material presence and brings the viewer’s attention to the physical surface of the photograph, geometry and structure of the composition, and pictorial aspects.

As to her objects, she looks for grace, poetry and mystique in the most common of things. In that respect she feels strong affinity with the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, with its preference for muted colors and reverence for the subtle beauty in old and simple things.

She exhibits locally and nationally and has been a finalist and winner in many competitions, juried, among others, by Phil Linhares, Chief Curator of Art, The Oakland Museum of California, Rene de Guzman, Senior Curator of Art, Oakland Museum of California, Linda Connor, Professor of Photography, San Francisco Art Institute, and Kenneth Baker, Art Critic for the San Francisco Chronicle.

She had several solo exhibits and has been featured in professional art and photography journals.
 
Featured:
CAGO Media: AN ARTIST SPEAKS (2016)

SHADOW & LIGHT MAGAZINE (2014)
(2016)

YOUR DAILY PHOTOGRAPH by Duncan Miller Gallery (2016)

FRAMEWORK, San Francisco Chronicle, photography section (2013)

CREATIVITY QUARTERLY: The Journal of Art & Design (2012) (2013)

Awards:
BLACK & WHITE SPIDER AWARDS (2016) Honorable Mention

COLOR IT RED, Red Dog News: All About Photography (2014), 3rd Place. (2016), Winner

REFLECTIONS, 1650 GALLERY, LOS ANGELES, CA (2016). Winner

ALL PHOTOGRAPHY AND DIGITAL ART, Contemporary Art Gallery Online,

Annapolis, MD (2015). Gallery Choice Award

Solo Shows:
HAIKU & PRAYERS: Art Photography of Sonia Melnikova-Raich. San Francisco Jewish Library (2016)

ELUSIVE POETRY OF WABI SABI: Art Photography by Sonia Melnikova-Raich, San Francisco Zen Center (2011)

FROM ABSTRACT REALITY TO REAL ABSTRACTION: Art Photography by Sonia Melnikova-Raich,
555 California (Bank of America Building), San Francisco, CA (2010)

http://art.soniamelnikova.com

“Left Behind” is the title piece of the series comprised of images captured in the “ghost” towns in California, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, where life once was full of hope and promise. But when mining stopped, people left, with mines and homes, still housing the tools and machinery, as well as all attributes of private life, left forlornly to deteriorate. It is a reflection on discarded things and places of the past whose history, in a way, is not less important than that of the ruins of Pompei or Macchu Picchu.

“Wife of Native” is an image from the series “Angel Island Stories” comprised of photographs of the personal things that once belonged to the Chinese, Japanese and Russian immigrants, who came to America via Angel Island Immigration Center (the “Ellis Island of the West”) in 1910–1940. During the Chinese exclusion, due to racial and gender restrictions barring women from independent entry, central to many women’s immigration was a special document confirming their status as a “wife of native,” which allowed lawful Chinese immigrants (primarily merchants and native-born citizens) to bring their wives to the United States.

Steven Duede says of his work "The I-70 series features the relics of service stations found along Interstate 70 between St. Louis and Kansas City Missouri.  

These two cities inhabit the most easterly and most westerly areas of the state.  Interstate 70 links these two provincial cities in an almost straight line.  

While traveling between those two cities visiting family, I observed numerous abandoned fuel and service stations that dot the landscape on either side of that highway.

 I found these structures compelling architecturally and indeed metaphorically given that they seem to mirror the ever-changing economic degradation in Middle America.  

Soon after, my lens followed these structures on my travels.  These lonely broken unique buildings possess those transitory themes I am compelled to visit again and again in my work.  

Once with a specific purpose now without, except one that follows that decomposition of compositions.  In this case the compositions were man made and structurally unique to one purpose.  

Box upon box surrounding an altar where petrol can be tapped to support our motorized needs and vehicular obsession.

They appear to me as vacant monoliths creating a gauntlet along the open road without threat to the passerby.  Without notice or function rendered useless by all-consuming truck stop comfort zones that offer more and more under one roof.

They serve as a reminder of the rapid loss of individuality that is pervasive in contemporary American culture and the hunger for the quick satisfaction of the snack, the slushee, the fuel. 
 
This series is ongoing and I am now photographing abandoned service stations wherever I might find them.  I-70 and beyond."

An artist, transitioning from painting and mixed media in the late 2000's to working exclusively in photography Steven Duede brings a sense of painting to his use of the camera.

Originally from the mid-western USA Steven has been living and working in the Boston Massachusetts area since 2001.

With a work history in museum operations, academic office administration as well as consulting and design for museums, galleries and arts non profits he carries his attachment to the creative process to all work.

Currently Steven serves as a corporator to the board of directors with the Griffin Museum of Photography. In February 2016 he founded and works as principal of Aspect Initiative, an online gallery showcasing Fine Art Photography in New England.

Having studied painting, printmaking and photography at the Kansas City Art Institute, then becoming an entrepreneur, for a time owning and operating a small music shop & gallery, Steven has devoted much of life to making art and working in creative environments. Work has been exhibited regularly in the Boston area and around the nation.

Steven Duede is represented by 555 Gallery/Boston

Selected Museums and Galleries include the Danforth Museum of Art, MA, Griffin Museum of Photography, MA, DeCordova Museum,MA, Photo Center North West in Seattle WA. Fort Wayne Museum of Art, IN, Brattleboro Art Museum, VT, 555 Gallery/Boston, Sohn Fine Art, MA, Site: Brooklyn NY, Kiernan Gallery VA. Public Art Projects with United Photo Industries (The FENCE) as well as King Co. PCNW (City Panorama) in Seattle. Permanent collections: Danforth Museum, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Boston Properties.
Visit: StevenDuede.com

http://www.stevenduede.com
 

Susan Lirakis says of her work, "In a sense, what remains is similar to how a thing begins. It is like the proverbial chicken and egg question. Everything is always changing, becoming. And what is the desired end result, exactly?
 
I find beauty in all stages of life. I have witnessed and given birth. I have attended those dying. Birth and death happen in every moment. Everything arises and falls away with each breath, each word, each action.
 
We have occasion to know and experience transformation. We re-source to change the course of our lives. Opportunity arrives at every moment; we are in transition. Without the possibility of change, we cannot renew and restore, or grow and develop.

Change also means that we move into the unknown. This dynamic is both exciting and frightening; we feel groundless. We feel opposing forces at work as we verge at the threshold of our own evolution, reaching for our very self.
 
Photography is a means of exploration and expression, and a form of cultivating a changing relationship with myself. When I make images, I engage in the present. I foster and ripen concentration. I develop new understanding.

I engage in a continuous practice of seeing and determining my relationship within our world. Utilizing the camera, I slow down and take a closer look. I access ground and am more responsive in the moment at hand. I feel more connected to myself and to other, and become more meaningfully expressive. I begin to see what is right in front of me. And I play with life.

I began making photographs when I was six years old, after receiving a camera as a baptism gift from my godparents. Though the particular camera
that I hold in my hands has changed over the years, it has rarely left them.

I make photographs in an attempt to make sense of the world, and to create.

For me, it is a sacred act, a process of discovery and expression. I enter a dreamtime, using a language of image and experience. It is a world of exploration
in a territory of symbol, myth, and archetype.
 
Using plastic, lens-less, and traditional cameras, I make fine art images for display, for note cards and other stationery gifts, and as portraits for individuals and families.

I delight in collaborating with people in making individual, family, or group portraits to record events. I enjoy working in
individual images and in series.
       
I have been honored to receive awards and fellowships for further advancement of my work through the NH State Council of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen,
the Clowes Foundation, and McLaughlin Residency Fellowship.
 
I have been able to additionally share my passion for photographing through the education programming at Sandwich Home Industries, League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, Artist in the School Programming, and North Country Studio Workshops, both leading and organizing workshops and arts activities for all ages."

http://susanlirakis.com
 

Taly Oehler says of her work, "From the series Street Shrines, which explores how mourners turn nondescript public spaces into breathtaking temporary memorials. Though we do not know the dead, and we do not know how they died, we are able to share in the experience of the sudden loss of a loved one."
 
Taly Oehler is an emerging visual artist. Born and raised in Israel, she relocated to the United States as a teenager, and went on to obtain a BA and MS in Psychology from California State University, Los Angeles.

After working in the Forensic Psychology field, Taly Oehler began pursuing visual art. She has directed an award-winning short documentary and continues to hone in her still photography skills.
 
Taly Oehler's artworks investigate how our experiences shape the way we interpret the world. She is especially drawn to stories that challenge status quo definitions of reality.

Selected Exhibited Work:

2017   Photography as Social Conscience,  Lore Degenstein Gallery, Selinsgrove, PA

2017   "UnPresidented: The Inauguration Show", LACDA, Los Angeles, CA (group) 

2017   Dynamic Landscape, Black Box Gallery, Portland, OR (online annex)

2016   Transformation, Pennsylvania Center for Photography, Doylestown, PA (online)

2016   Electron Salon, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA (group) 

2016   Color Burst, Black Box Gallery, Portland, OR (online annex)

2016   Water, Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO, Director's Honorable Mention (group)

2016   Sky meets Sky, YourDailyPhotograph.com, Duncan Miller Gallery (online)

2016   Hollywood, Crying In, YourDailyPhotograph.com, Duncan Miller Gallery (online)

2016   Neighborhood Nursery School Fundraiser, XIX Studios, Eagle Rock, CA
Selected Published Work

2016   Sky Series, Buffalo Almanack, Issue 13, Where Thou Art?

2016   Selected Images, Femme Fotale Vol. III , Analog

2015   (not) Los Angeles, lensculture, Editors' Pick

2015    St. Paul’s, The Tolucan Times, banner photos

www.talyoehler.com

Travis Gordon says of his work, "If I had to describe my work, I would simply say that my photography is an expression of myself.

I have always had a personal and spiritual fascination with the natural world and the people and things that inhabit that space. 

As broad as that may sound, I am drawn in by the natural patterns, forms and textures of a world often overlooked. For me, beauty is found everywhere. It’s in the small details like the remains of a fallen tree. Its spiraling rings allowing one to reflect on a life long-lived. It can be found in the quiet melancholy of fractured and broken  gravestones.

I wonder about their seemingly now forgotten lives, knowing that they were once loved and missed. I seek to draw the viewer into these moments, some of which are fleeting, that they may take time to reflect and see the beauty in everything.
 
My passion for photography began nearly 25 years ago in my hometown of New Orleans.

It was there that I first picked up my father’s 1970s era Nikon and began learning how to use it.

This curiosity evolved into a more formal education in the fine arts when I moved west to Los Angeles where I studied and earned my degree in photography at the University of Southern California.

Although it never became a full time pursuit, I continually cultivated my passion for photography gaining inspiration from some of the medium’s great masters including Edward Weston, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Imogen Cunningham.
 
Until recently, the majority of my photographic exploration has been a personal one having never opened myself up to exhibiting my work to the public at large.

It was always an artistic and even a therapeutic outlet to counter the rigors of a busy career. However, this past year I happily began exhibiting my work and am humbled to have been a part of numerous shows and exhibitions, including multiple exhibitions at Apero Gallery in Fullerton, CA, Beyond the Lines Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, CA, Dab Art in Ventura, CA as well as being a featured Emerging/ Contemporary artist for YourDailyPhotograph.com among other online exhibitions.
 
I currently reside in Pasadena, CA with my wife and young son."
 
www.travisgordonphotography.com
 

Vicky Martin says of her work, "I was deeply inspired to create the series ‘If Only These Walls’, after completing a previous series documenting condemned and derelict housing as a consequence of an abandoned government regeneration programme. 

Many communities resisted and resented the imposition of the programme, given the sweeping forced re-locations and displacement of complete neighbourhoods.

Whilst there I witnessed a great sense of loss, sadness and hopelessness in the areas where the program collapsed due to withdrawal of funding. 

I wanted to relate their sense of loss and abandonment through a contemplative series of images using derelict and abandoned walls reflecting a past history, I also wanted to contemplate my past through adding a series of objects that hold a personal symbolism, connection and resonance.

My intent in combining a relationship between wall and object is to infuse a new narrative and relevance to what was once forgotten, but also elicit a contemplation on their purpose and connection to us now."

Exhibitions:
 
3rd Open Call Juried Photography Exhibition, Providence Center for Photographic Arts, Providence, RI, US. February 16 – March 11, 2017

RED Exhibition, SE Center for Photography, South Carolina, US.  3 Feb - 28 Feb 2017 

Feminine / Masculine Exhibition, Honourable Mention, PH21 Gallery, Budapest, Hungary.
12 Jan - 7 Feb 2017

Color Exhibition, SE Center for Photography, South Carolina, US. 2016
4th Biennial of Fine Art Photography, Berlin, Germany.  2016

Masks Exhibition, SE Center for Photography, South Carolina, US. 2016

Awarded Director's Choice
Stories Exhibition, PH21 Gallery, Budapest, Hungary. 2016

Awards:
 
L I C C  London International Creative Awards 2017 Honorable Mention

Photogrvphy Grant Award 2016 - Fine Art Nominee

Gateway Arts Center NYC, awarded 4th place portrait category

IPA Family Of Man 2016 - Honorable Mention

La Grande Photo Awards 2015/16 - Portrait Category - Double Nominee

Fine Art Photography Awards 2016 - Awarded Winner of the Fine Art Category 2016

PX3 Color Trilogy: RED Photography Awards, Prix de la Photographie, Paris.

2016 - 3 Honorable Mentions
9th Annual International Color Awards, Los Angeles. Nominee Fine Art , Nominee Fashion 2016

The 8th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers. Fine Art Finalist 2015

Lensculture, CONNECT Juried Show 2016

www.vickymartinphoto.com

Wayne Palmer is a fine art photographer and television director. Wayne’s work in black and white photography addresses the connections between found objects in urban and rural environments.

His work can be interpreted analytically for the composition of elements, or for the deeper resonance and emotion the work generates. Each image is more expressive than descriptive, and has a subtext of storytelling.

Wayne’s love of black and white was formed reading Time and Life Magazine. His dual career began after arriving in NYC, working in the studios of PBS station WNET, then meeting the great photographer André Kertesz. Kertesz evaluated Wayne’s portfolio and urged him to continue to develop a personal vision.  Wayne continues to pursue his vision today.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

MIAMI STREET PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL 2016, Miami, Florida     (Festival participant in Art Basel 2016)

DAVIS ORTON GALLERY  Hudson, New York

LOS ANGELES CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY
PHOTOPLACE GALLERY Middlebury, Vermont
                  
CENTER FOR FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY
Fort Collins, Colorado (2 Shows)
                      
 LEIGH WEN FINE ART GALLERY    Chelsea NY
 
GREENPOINT GALLERY     Brooklyn, New York
 
 DCAA/BARRETT ART CENTER   Poughkeepsie, New York
                             
WALL SPACE GALLERY    Seattle, Washington
 
23 SANDY GALLERY     Portland, Oregon
                       
UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT     Stamford Art Gallery
 
FAIRFIELD MUSEUM      Fairfield, Connecticut
 
FINE ARTS GALLERY, BUDDY HOLLY ART CENTER Lubbock, Texas
 
CAMBRIDGE ART ASSOCIATION     Cambridge, Mass.
 
PERMANENT COLLECTION:

THE MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
 
 SOLO EXHIBITION:

  THE CAFÉ    Lambertville, NJ
 
  PUBLICATION:

  PLACES JOURNAL August 2015

www.waynepalmerphotography.com

William Frej says of his work, "After a life of living and working in many of the world’s developing countries, always with my camera at my side, I returned to Santa Fe, New Mexico to devout my full time to photography. 

My recent focus has been black and white photography, portraying the monumental architecture of the early Maya and the Khmer, as well as the vibrant civilizations that still exist in these regions today. 

The visual depiction of the architectural remains of these once mighty kingdoms brings to mind the similarities and even parallels between them and poses the question of what lessons can be found in their history? 

This question is timely as our contemporary society contemplates a multitude of environmental issues, from global warming to urbanization, and as we begin to see the decline and even collapse of cities, communities and cultures throughout the world.

“What remains” is a powerful depiction of my visual response to the Kingdoms of the Khmer in Cambodia.  To me, these images of Khmer sites built from 928 AD to 1181 AD capture art as a built environment and a once vibrant culture manifest through an engineered devotion to gods, forgotten yet never lost.  They now stand witness to a civilization that can, perhaps, contribute to modern societies’ search for new approaches to the multitude of issues the world now faces."

www.williamfrejphotography.com