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| © Jessica Eaton, cfaal 35, 2010 |
Colin Pantall and Joerg Colberg have organized a collaborative community initiative to start the fall. They asked a range of bloggers and editors to select up to five photographers who "have demonstrated an openness to use new ideas in photography, who have taken chances with their photography and have shown an unwillingness to play it safe. These three categories can be interpreted in any way."
My five nominations finish today. My first four selections for the series were Bryan Graf, Amy Elkins, Paul Graham, and Abelardo Morell. The selections are not in any order
Other selections for this initiative will be posted on (or by): Conscientious, Colin Pantall, Andrew Phelps, aCurator, Mrs Deane, Reciprocity failure, Harvey Benge, Microcord, eyecurious, LPV Magazine, and Stella Kramer.
First a few words on how I made my selections and interpreted the criteria.
I took "new ideas" to mean visually and thematically fresh photography, but not necessarily working within or creating new modes of photography.
"Taken chances" and "unwillingness to play it safe" I understood as photography that has prefaced the pursuit of the internal logic of a project and individual artistic lines of thought over engaging contemporary visual trends - as well as over the artist's own history in making images.
Finally, I also added my own final criteria, choosing photographers I believe produce strong images in addition to using new ideas and taking chances.
I came up with a list of 24 photographers over the last couple months, adding names as I came across new work or thought of someone's work that I believe fits the criteria. I cut the list down to 10 fairly quickly, but getting from 10 to 5 has been difficult. At this point, however, it's time to leap.
Before talking about my last selection, I'd like to say I appreciate the initiative from Colin and Joerg - I've enjoyed seeing who other participants have selected and thinking about who I believe is making strong, risk-taking work based in new ideas.
I tried to make my list of five a mix of types of work and stages of career and it wasn't that hard to do so; this, in combination with the great selections of others, has left me more optimistic about the number of people out there pushing our medium forwards in different ways at different points in their career.
I would also like to make - like a number of other participants - a nod, in no particular order, towards other photographers that I considered heavily:
Phil Toledano, Masao Yamamoto, Kate Steciw, Marie Quéau, Luke Norman and Nik Adam, and Dmitry Sokolenko.
My last selection for the series is Jessica Eaton.
Somehow this choice came down to either Eaton or Masao Yamamoto, photographers who pretty much couldn't be farther apart on, well, everything. Eaton has pushed herself to evolve her visual investigations of additive color, transparency, perspective, rhythm and other visual phenomena at a dizzyingly intense speed. The images here in this post come from within a two year period, a blistering burst of creativity and innovation for which I nominate her as my last selection for this series.
Other selections for this initiative will be posted on (or by): Conscientious, Colin Pantall, Andrew Phelps, aCurator, Mrs Deane, Reciprocity failure, Harvey Benge, Microcord, eyecurious, LPV Magazine, and Stella Kramer.
______________________________________________
First a few words on how I made my selections and interpreted the criteria.
I took "new ideas" to mean visually and thematically fresh photography, but not necessarily working within or creating new modes of photography.
"Taken chances" and "unwillingness to play it safe" I understood as photography that has prefaced the pursuit of the internal logic of a project and individual artistic lines of thought over engaging contemporary visual trends - as well as over the artist's own history in making images.
Finally, I also added my own final criteria, choosing photographers I believe produce strong images in addition to using new ideas and taking chances.
I came up with a list of 24 photographers over the last couple months, adding names as I came across new work or thought of someone's work that I believe fits the criteria. I cut the list down to 10 fairly quickly, but getting from 10 to 5 has been difficult. At this point, however, it's time to leap.
______________________________________________
Before talking about my last selection, I'd like to say I appreciate the initiative from Colin and Joerg - I've enjoyed seeing who other participants have selected and thinking about who I believe is making strong, risk-taking work based in new ideas.
I tried to make my list of five a mix of types of work and stages of career and it wasn't that hard to do so; this, in combination with the great selections of others, has left me more optimistic about the number of people out there pushing our medium forwards in different ways at different points in their career.
I would also like to make - like a number of other participants - a nod, in no particular order, towards other photographers that I considered heavily:
Phil Toledano, Masao Yamamoto, Kate Steciw, Marie Quéau, Luke Norman and Nik Adam, and Dmitry Sokolenko.
My last selection for the series is Jessica Eaton.
Somehow this choice came down to either Eaton or Masao Yamamoto, photographers who pretty much couldn't be farther apart on, well, everything. Eaton has pushed herself to evolve her visual investigations of additive color, transparency, perspective, rhythm and other visual phenomena at a dizzyingly intense speed. The images here in this post come from within a two year period, a blistering burst of creativity and innovation for which I nominate her as my last selection for this series.
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| © Jessica Eaton, XPOL 6.3, 2011 |
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| © Jessica Eaton, cfaal 140, 2011 |
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| © Jessica Eaton, cfaal 260, 2012 |
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| © Jessica Eaton, Pinholes 60, 2011 |