Daria Martinoni say, "I use photography to playfully (de-)construct urban spaces, to spatially re-stage urban contexts, and to play with our perception of space and reality.

As a child, I had these nightmares: To be falling from a great height into empty space, or to be running through endless corridors without gaining any ground. Inspired by the remembrance of these nightmares, and inspired by the technique of exaggeration common in comics and cartoons, I exploit the geometry of the urban environment, and I play with perspectives and angles to create a sense of direction and an impression of depth and width.

I experiment with long shutter speeds and multiple zoom settings or camera positions in one exposure. This technique creates a moment of irritation, but also conveys a sense of calmness in the chaos, and transfers the scene into a transitional world somewhere between reality and dream."

Daria Martinoni is a non professional photographer working and living in Zurich, Switzerland. As a Geographer, she uses photography to playfully (de-)construct urban spaces, to spatially re-stage urban contexts, and to play with our perception of space and reality. She experiments with long shutter speeds and multiple zoom settings or camera positions in one exposure. With this approach, she aimes at questioning our making of the world through experience and knowledge.

Career Highlights:
Daria Martinoni has been awarded a Honorable Mention in the 2018 International Photography Awards
and four Honorable Mentions in the 2019 ipa “OneShot: Street Photography” Awards

She has been accepted to the photoSchweiz 19 (www.photo-schweiz.ch), which is the largest photography exhibition in Switzerland. Each year the retrospective provides a representative overview of the past year in Switzerland from a photographic perspective.

 

 

Darius Russell Kish says, "This ongoing series deconstructs the nightmares that infect certain memories by recreating that pyschological effect in the studio–and later through editing these elements together to achieve the unreal elements.

Much like how being behind a horror film's production reduces its impact, these reconstructions freeze the nightmares in the image, both destroying the nightmare and also the memory associated with it."

Darius Russell Kish is a visual artist currently persuing a BA in Studio Art at Boston College. His work focuses on representation of identity and the portrayal of feeling and memory in the art object.

dariusrussellkish.com 

Debra Achen says, "My "Transcendance” project draws conceptually from traditions of Shamanism and the Trance Dance experience.

Through the ages, spiritual dancing has been embraced by cultures across the globe as a means to transcend our physical dimensions and connect with the Spirit world. Intuitive body movement and controlled breathing take the dancer on an inner voyage to a state of "trance.”

For the Shaman, the soul lives forever. Spirit and ancestry are one - an eternally evolving line of genetic connection and wisdom. To symbolize this connection, some native tribes don masks during their ritualistic dances. The mask becomes an instrument of communication with the spirit of their ancestors...a link bringing the past into the present.

The "Transcendance” series integrates imagery from trance dancing and native tribal rituals, suggesting they are similar, intersecting paths.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, my passion for art began at a very young age. I majored in Art Education at Edinboro State University before completing my BA in Visual Arts and Communications at the University of California, San Diego. Originally trained in traditional darkroom techniques, my photographic creative practice has shifted more to digital processing and printing. I now live on the scenic Monterey Peninsula, an environment that provides endless inspiration for my work.

As a photographer, I am attracted to the underlying structure of things, and to the way the forces of nature – Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Gravity, Light, and Time - imprint the material world with their magic. Some of my images border on the abstract. By extracting, isolating, or separating out" a certain element of a photographic subject, it becomes simplified to a more basic, fundamental form.

Other work examines the relationship between objects, space, time, and light. Slow-capture images blur the borders between objects and the space that surrounds them. Movement of the subject or the camera adds the element of time, creating a more impressionistic interpretation of the subject."

Selected Exhibitions:

2019 - Juried Exhibition, "The Window," N.Y. Photo Curator.  Juror: Deb Schwedhelm. Honorable Mention. View Online Exhibition.
2019 - Juried Exhibition, "Momentum 2019," New York Center for Photographic Art.  Juror: Debra Klomp Ching, Klompching Gallery, Brooklyn, NY.  Juror's Selection & Honorable Mention. View Online Exhibition.
2019 - Juried Exhibition, "Center for Photographic Art, 2019 Members' Juried Exhibition," Carmel, CA.  Jurors: Connie and Jerry Rosenthal of Rfotofolio. View Online.
2018 - Juried Exhibition, "Center for Photographic Art, 2018 International Juried Exhibition, Online Gallery" Carmel, CA. Juror: Eve Schillo, Assistant Curator of Photography, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
2018 - Juried Exhibition, "Celebrating Women, Online Gallery,"  PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT. Juror: Joyce Tenneson
2018 - Group Exhibition, "Fire and Water" at The Weston Gallery, Carmel, CA.
2017 - Group Exhibition, "The Elementalists,"  Three-artist exhibition with William Giles and Carol Henry at Carmel Visual Arts, Carmel, CA.
2017 - Juried Exhibition, "The Photographic Nude 2017,"  LightBox Photographic Gallery,  Astoria, Oregon.  Juror: Kim Weston  View Online Gallery
2016 - Juried Exhibition, "Night Photography: Dusk to Dawn, Online Gallery,"  PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT.  Juror: Lance Keimig

 www.debraachen.com

Emma Hopson’s visual images explore themes of identity and time as they relate to relationships and the social landscape.

She works with primarily with a view camera as a way to connect with the history and craft of photography and she embraces the medium’s ability to affect perception.

She lives with her husband and two young sons in Savannah, Georgia. Emma is currently an MFA candidate in Photography at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Emma Hopson (b. 1979) grew up in the Washington, DC area. She worked as a photo editor for over 10 years in New York City before moving to Savannah, Georgia where she is pursuing an MFA in photography at the Savannah College of Art and Design with the goal of becoming an educator and exhibiting artist.

Erin Jennings say, "The images within this body of work address how burlesque and drag performers function within a gendered, sexual space.

Burlesque offers a thin veneer of empowerment to the performer, while still retaining an exploitative quality. This promotes an ambiguity concerning how burlesque fits in the realm of sexual exploitation, traditional and contemporary feminism, and how it affects the performer and the viewer. Is burlesque an exploitative act? Or does it empower the performer? Does it function as both an empowering and exploitative act, and what role does the viewer take within this paradox?

The question of exploitation arises in drag as it does in burlesque. Is the mode of performance empowering or exploitative? Can it function as both an empowering and exploitative act? The societal reaction to drag and burlesque is similar in that both have been decried as detrimental to the mainstream perception of their respective minority. Neo-burlesque has been viewed as both an attack and on feminism and a feminist act; drag has been viewed both as a valid form of expression and empowerment, and an act that promotes stereotypes harmful to the LGBT community.

The drag and burlesque images are two separate series that can be displayed independently of one another; however, they coexist within the same body of work due to the process with which the photographs are taken and the similarity in the nature of the performances themselves. While drag was originally conceptualized as female impersonation, the performers have a tendency to transcend what is traditionally feminine and push into what can be defined as a hyper-feminine space. Make-up becomes garish, clothing is exceptionally outrageous and exaggerated, as are the performances. This shares a vast and resonant similarity with burlesque not only in costuming and nature of performance, but in the act of projecting a facade that hyper-realizes an actualized femininity inherent within this mode of performance.         

Within the performance not only is there a tension between exploitation and empowerment; there is a precarious equilibrium that resides within the relationship between the identity of the performer (the self) and the persona of the performer (the onstage identity). There is no absolute delineation between the two. The persona and the self are inexorably intertwined, despite any perceived separateness, which functions in tandem with the relationship between exploitation and empowerment. When these ambiguities are coupled with the viewer perception of the performance, the aggregate influence begins to impact apparent subjectivity of the act. The viewer’s expectation of the performance weighs into this quagmire of perception in that the viewer projects his/her own expectation of exploitation or empowerment.

This approximation on the part of the viewer then impacts the actuality and function of the persona and the self. The eventual result determines that exploitation, empowerment, the persona, the self, and the perception of the viewer collaboratively manifest myriad realities that are perpetually in motion, requiring a constant reassessment as these variables continually react with each other.

The photographs in this body of work address these socio-political ambiguities by negating straight photography. It utilizes techniques that distort the image and the figure to reveal many faces and postures, and allow the performers image to embrace the multiplicity inherent to the complicated reality of burlesque and drag performance. The images are composed in camera. The long exposures and varying focal lengths within each exposure accentuate the constant shifting between exploitation, empowerment, the persona, the self, and viewer perception."

Erin Jennings is a Memphis based photographer and filmmaker working in camera oriented mediums. Her photographic work utilizes film, digital photography, and the digital infrared process. Erin holds a Bachelor of Arts in Film Production,  a Master of Arts in Political Science (Politics in Film), and a Master of Fine Arts in Photography. Erin Jennings now teaches photography as a faculty member at The University of Memphis 

Recent Career Highlights 

Juried Exhibitions

2019 Art of the South 2019 – Number, Inc., Hosted by Memphis College of Art, Memphis TN – Juror Bethany Springer

2017 Infrared: The Invisible Made Visible – Photo Place Gallery, Middlebury, VT – Juror Laurie Klein 

2017 Nude ’17  - The Southeast Center for Photography, Greenville, SC – Juror Mona Kuhn 

Publications

Featured Photos. The Opera Magazine: Magazine for Classic and Contemporary Nude Photography.

Volume V, June 2016. International print publication.

http://www.the-opera-magazine.com/

Publications as Author

Jennings, Erin L. 2018. “Mind the Gap: Addressing the Paradigm Shift in Higher Education”. Exposure Magazine.
https://medium.com/exposure-magazine/archive/2018/11

Jennings, Erin L. 2018. “The Democratization of the Photographic Image or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Camera Phone”. Number 92. Print and online publication.

http://www.numberinc.org/

Eva Lam says of her work, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” ~ Inspired by the novel of Gabriel Gracia Marquez, This is the last generation of the series “One Hundred Years of Solitude”.

The whole series contains of 5 generation expressing emptiness, courageous and passion, death and love affairs.  This session is about “Identity and Assurance”.  When Aureliano freaks out by her life and history of the family, she can’t do anything except go and finally translate the scrolls the ancestors left behind, which turn out to be whole history of the family.  As she finishes reading the story, the house, and the rest of the town are wiped away.  Everything is gone from memory, history and existence."

Eva Lam studied photography and is currently based in Los Angeles. Eva started as a portraiture photographer with a specialty in fine art photography. Her interest in art began with her affection for story books as a child. She loved to hide myself in movie theater and envision herself in the virtual world of moving pictures. As a female, Eva has a strong sense of femininity, it is unique, vibrant, obscure and sometimes erratic.

Picking up the camera is an exciting process for Eva, it gives her an opportunity to explore the distinctive world of sensations. She aims to integrate her passion for atmosphere, individuality and perception with a hint of modernity in each of my photographs. Essentially, share these beautiful stories with others. 

https://www.evalamfineartphotography.com

Gail So says of her series, 'Rose & The Little Prince', "When I was younger, I daydreamed and doodled a lot. One day, my mother decided to take me to Art classes once every week, and took me to a workshop called “The Little Prince”. It was not just a place that had opened up my heart to Art, but it also had made me fall in love with the story, “The Little Prince”. My art tutor would tell us this story, and analysed it after we finished our artwork.

I have revisited “The Little Prince” numerous times since then. Every time I read it, it was the same story, yet it aroused different feelings. In the story, Little Prince has travelled from planet to planet, and meeting from human to human. While journeying, he started to discover the world
of the grown-ups. Each story represented one flaw of society. Flaws that grown-ups view them as inherent in human nature, yet ironically they are only auxiliaries, and always taking things for granted. 

As for my version of “The Little Prince”, I have altered it based on my own perspective, and the way I have always dreamt about. The way that little prince did not regret, gained from experience, learned that rose is ephemeral, that it never lasts. He sees with his heart , treasures the relationship, and enjoy his moment with rose, sitting down enjoying the 44th sunsets with her happily. 

I am currently still a photography-majored student from SCAD based in Hong Kong, will be graduating next Spring. I have always been into surreal photography. Love curating photos with Photoshop, and recently have been experiencing with mixed-media. Have a huge love for blurring the line between painting/ illustration and photography. Fond of creating painterly photographs. People nowadays, talk about reality too much, somehow they even might have drowned themselves in it. So I would love to splash creativities over that, and make dreams come true through photography. 

I do not have that much experience yet, but have worked with wedding photographers for just a few times, learning as a photo assistant. On the other hand, have recently created an image for a LGBT event in HK."
 

Gary Justis says, "The subjects of these photographs originate with digital photographic captures of real-time light projections. 

I use analog procedures (involving LED, incandescent, refracted and reflected light) finding strategies of capturing images that simulate life forms, objects and structures. I try to locate and record unfamiliar subjects that lie on the edge between still visual order and material displacement.

For the last few years, my photographic images depict Dream Reality showing the characters and events that define this reality. The dreams I can remember usually take place at night, or they involve objects that float in darkness…they are singular and located in the center of my vision. In most dreams I’ve experienced, there is an active consciousness outside of myself that directs the dream’s activity. The subjects of these photographs are depictions of that consciousness."                    

Gary Justis earned His Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1979. He has developed his work professionally in the area of sculpture, printmaking and photography for the last 39 years. He lived and worked in Chicago from 1977 to 1999. He currently resides in Bloomington Illinois where he continues his work in sculpture, printmaking, experimental photography and writing.

He holds a Professorship at Illinois State University. He has exhibited work at the Whitney Museum of American Art at Phillip Morris, NY, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art.

He has also exhibited work in numerous exhibitions at private galleries in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. Gary Justis’ work is included in various collections throughout the country; most notably: The Museum of Modern Art Library, The New York City Library (special collections), The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Artist’s Books Collection, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC and JP Morgan Chase, New York, NY.

EDUCATION:
1979 MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
1977 BFA, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

2019 The Poetry of Light and Motion: Works by Gary Justis, The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, Galena Annex, Galena, IL

2018 Gary Justis: Luminous Objects, Contemporary Art Center, Peoria, IL

2017 Heads on Horizon, sculpture and photographs by Gary Justis, Ramp-Arts, Bloomington, IL

2016 Emergence, New Digital Photographic works by Gary Justis, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles
2015 Light Play: Light Producing Objects by Gary Justis, Hiestand Gallery, Miami University, Oxford, OH

GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

2019, Open Source, International Members Exhibition, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA

Stories, PH21 Gallery, Budapest, Hungary

2018 Electron Salon International Members Exhibition, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA

Corporealities, juried international photography exhibition, PH21 Gallery, Budapest, Hungary

American Splendour, juried international photography exhibition, Lion Gallery, New York, NY

Peripheral Visions, juried international photography exhibition, PH21 Gallery, Budapest, Hungary

2017

Cube Art Project, Public screening, July 2017-January 2017, Pinnacle Bank Arena, Lincoln, NB

Stories, PH21 Gallery, photographs, Budapest, Hungary

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

Woman as Warrior, Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, IL

What the World Needs Now, Photographic Exhibition, B Complex Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia

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

Mobile Only, PH21 Gallery, Budapest, Hungary

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Eddie Breitweiser, “Heads on Horizon at Ramp-Arts”,Site Specific (on-line), February, 2018, (ill).

David Roth, “Mechanical and Luminous, The Artwork of Gary Justis”, Esthetic Lens (on-line), January 2018, (ill).

Cassidy, Victor. “Gary Justis at the Elmhurst Art Museum”, Art in America, April, 2008, pg. 172, (ill.).

http://www.garyjustisphotography.com/
 

Harry Longstreet says, "No one just takes up space. The human condition is an entire canvas of thoughts, emotions and reactions to circumstances. 

I try to capture the truth about diverse people and how they live and reflect their respective spaces.

My subjects never know they’ve been photographed.  I don’t set-up or pose any shot and never shoot with anything but available light.

I’m retired after twenty-five years as a writer, producer and director of filmed entertainment, primarily for television.

Since retirement I work as a photographer  always looking for images that speak to the human condition and the world around me. I favor ambient light and unposed, unaware subjects. I’ve had a number of one-man shows and my work has appeared in more than two hundred national and international juried exhibitions."

Moses Lake Museum-Regal Award-2019

New York Center for Photographic Art- “Humans” – First Place-2018

Fusion Art Gallery - Black & White”-Best in Show-2018

Franke Tobey Jones-Senior Art Show-First Place Photography-2017

LA Photo Curator- “Senses Working Overtime”-First Place-2017

Allegany National Photography Competition-Second Place (Black & White)-2017

Washington State Juried Art Competition-First Place (Photography)-2017

Stories of Music Volume 2 –January 2017

www.harrylongstreet.com

Jean-Claude Bise says, " I'm a self-taught photographer. I learned in the labs of my friends painters, decorators and photographers during the artistic movements of the 60s-70s.

Powered by these surrounding energies I chose photography to express my ideas, my concerns. In my photographic approach I try to bring subjects that lend themselves to reflection.

In this photographic series, 'Derision', I wanted to bring humor by derision. And by that, try to make the audience smile. Why not bring humor and good mood. The photography allows us by the smile to leave the worries of the daily life, the space of a moment."

Biography

2013 - Urban Landscape, 1650 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 900, Expo-group
2014 - Biennale de Nancy - Ailleurs – Exhibition - Expo-group
2014 - Premio Arte Laguna Prize 13.14 - (Venice), Exhibition - Expo-group

2015 - SeeMee Exhibitions – Paris - Musée du Louvre - Projections in Gallery

2016 - Galerie de l'Evole, Neuchâtel (CH) - Expo solo

2016 - New York Center of Photographic Art - Manhatann – Jadite Gallery - Expo-group

2017 - The Artbox.Project Basel 1.0 – Exhibition EuroAirport Basel – Projections in Gallery

2018 - Artbox Project New York 1.0 – Exhibition New York Artweeks – Projections in Gallery

2018 - Tifa -Tokyo International Foto Awards – Expo-group

2018 - Chania International Photo Festival – (Gr) – Expo-group

 

Josh Raftery says, "My work examines the relationships between loss, intimacy, memory, religion, science, and the tangible nature of existence. I utilize antiquated photographic processes to emphasize the passage of time."

Josh Raftery is a native of Phoenix, Arizona, where he studied forensics and photography. He received his BFA in Photography from Arizona State University in 2011. He received his MFA from Ohio University in Photography + Integrated Media in 2015.

He has been an instructor of photography at Ohio University, the University of Kentucky, and is currently a Visiting Instructor of Photography at East Carolina University.

Raftery’s work has been included in several publications, as well as exhibited nationally and internationally.

 www.joshraftery.com

Laura Blacklow says, "Since childhood, I have been keeping track of my dreams, even from the time before I could write and could only make drawings.

Now I use a journal to more completely track the different ways I might understand my life  So, along with other observations, I record descriptions of my dreams with illustrations. The dreams often put together disparate incidents and, more importantly, indicate what I had not been able to apprehend in words.

When I have decided a dream is more universal and less connected solely to me personally, I use a camera to create an image that I remember as related to part of my original sleeping vision. Then, I enlarge it digitally onto a large sheet of vellum paper, making sure to print it black and white, low-contrast (mostly gray), and large.

I use vellum, even though it is a challenging substrate because it can stretch and will take limited layers of the chalk-like colors I employ. Yet, vellum has a translucency that seems to make the hues glow when I apply pastels on top of the photographic information.

I want my art work to remind viewers that there are a variety of modes for lived experience, and that sometimes the most ordinary occurrences prove to be the most meaningful and memorable, if only we pay attention."

Laura Blacklow is the author of "New Dimensions in Photographic Processes: A Step-by-Step Manual for Alternative Techniques" (5th revised and expanded edition 2018, Focal Press, an imprint of Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group, New York and London. Her work is based in photography but is altered through the addition of text and the creation of limited edition artist's books and unique prints.  She has been a professional artist for decades and teaches at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University.

She was on the Board of Directors of Boston's Photographic Resource Center, an active member of the Guatemala Solidarity Committee, and has been volunteering at Fotokids Original in Central America for nearly 25 years.

Career Highlights:

Laura Blacklow's art work has been shown nationally in venues such as the Worcester Art Museum, and internationally in spaces like the American University in Cairo, Egypt; reproduced in numerous books--most recently in "Cyanotype: The Blueprint in Contemporary Practice" by Christina Z. Anderson, 2019--- and has been collected by museums such as the Fogg at Harvard University, corporations like Doubleday Publishing Co., and individuals, such as Lucy Lippard, Sol Lewitt, and Bela Kalman .

www.laurablacklow.com
 

DREAMS HOME:
https://www.laphotocurator.com/dreams-emma-powell

FIRST PLACE:
https://www.laphotocurator.com/dreams-emma-powell/first-place-ralph-mercer-rayanne-s-dream/1

SECOND PLACE:
https://www.laphotocurator.com/dreams-emma-powell/second-place-margo-reed-stress-dream-sharon-alagna-untitled-bed-self-portrait-3----/1

BEST SERIES:
https://www.laphotocurator.com/dreams-emma-powell/best-series-claudia-ruiz-gustafson/1

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
https://www.laphotocurator.com/dreams-emma-powell/honorable-mentions-gary-justis-below-harry-longstreet-almost-home-robin-ay-suffocation-traci-marie-lee-that-lumbered-all-the-way-josh-raftery-as-she-sleeps----/1

EXHIBITION #1:
https://www.laphotocurator.com/dreams-emma-powell/exhibition-1/1

EXHIBITION #2:
https://www.laphotocurator.com/dreams-emma-powell/exhibition-2/1