We are thrilled to announce our Second Edition 2012 Hot Shots! Huge congratulations to:

David Favrod
Erin O'Keefe
Pacifico Silano
Ilona Szwarc
Trey Wright

These five photographers were chosen from hundreds of exceptionally talented entrants. Each is awarded with:

+ A $500 honorarium
+ Participation in the Hey, Hot Shot! group show at Jen Bekman Gallery in downtown New York

Additionally, each Hot Shot is now in the running to become the Grand Prize–winning Ultra, who will be awarded a $10,000 honorarium, a solo show at Jen Bekman Gallery and two years of representation from the gallery.

Many thanks to our panel of esteemed photography professionals—Stephen Frailey, Raul Gutierrez, Darius Himes, Jenni Holder, Lesley A. Martin, Nion McEvoy, Paul Moakley and Penelope Umbrico—who joined Jen Bekman, Sara Distin, Carrie Strine and Jeffrey Teuton in dedicating their time, energy and critical eyes to select our last five Hot Shots of 2012.

We're looking forward to many collaborations with all of the Hot Shots (and the Grand Prize–winning Ultra) at the gallery and on 20x200. Stay up to date with 20x200 to see which Second Edition 2012 photographers will release limited-edition prints.

Last but not least, we'd like to congratulate all of the Contenders and Honorable Mentions for having submitted exceptional work and raising the bar, making it challenging (but, oh, so worth it) to select this last round of 2012 Hot Shots.

The Honorable Mentions are:

Noah Addis
Matthew Arnold
Meiko Takechi Arquillos
Ana Buljan
Claire Dorn
Corey Escoto
Sam Irons
Shannon Jensen
Andrew B. Myers
Steven Paneccasio
Augustin Rebetez
Hiroshi Takizawa
Fabiola Menchelli Tejeda
Gesche Wurfel
Xiaoxiao Xu

Want your shot at the recognition, support and cash?
In addition to these amazing opportunities, HHS! is the only way to have your work considered to be featured on 20x200. The First Edition 2013 round of competition will be opening very soon. Sign up for our newsletter, follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

Lexi, Lindenhurst, NY, 2012 by Ilona Szwarc

Gillian, New York, NY, 2011 by Ilona Szwarc

Maya and Leeyla, Northport, NY, 2011 by Ilona Szwarc

Jenna, Groveland, MA, 2011 by Ilona Szwarc

Tiffani-Amber, Lido Beach, NY, 2011 by Ilona Szwarc

Ilona Szwarc

Website: www.ilonaszwarc.com

Bio:
Ilona Szwarc was born and raised in Warsaw, Poland. In 2008, she immigrated to New York City, where she currently lives and works.

Her work examines gender, identity and beauty in the context of American culture.

Szwarc has had a solo exhibition at Claude Samuel gallery in Paris and has been shown in group shows internationally - in London, Bilbao and New York. Her work has been featured in numerous publications worldwide including TIME, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Telegraph Magazine, Surface China, PDN. She has won PDN 2012 Annual in the Personal Category and has been awarded Grand Prize in the Fine Art category of the PDNedu 2013 contest. She been selected for American Photography 28.

Her project "American Girls" has received worldwide recognition, having been highlighted in The New York Times Lens Blog, MSNBC Today.com and The Huffington Post.

Statement:
American Girls is a series of portraits of girls in United States who own American Girl dolls. When I first came to US the phenomenon of the American Girl doll immediately caught my attention. Photographically it was a beautiful image - girls with their sculptural representations, their twins, their avatars. I realized that their design embodies contemporary cultural values. They were conceived to be anti-Barbie toys modeled after a body of a nine year old.

Each doll can be customized to look exactly like its owner, yet all of them really look the same. American Girl dolls offer an illusion of choice therefore an illusion of individuality. Despite they play a crucial role for girls in a moment when they are forming their identity. With a wide variety of miniature accessories, a doll hospital, a doll hair salon with personal stylists they are perhaps the most luxurious toys ever invented.

American Girl product defines and categorizes American girls - future American women and that fact raises important questions about who gets represented and how. Branding behind the doll perpetuates domesticity and traditional gender roles. I examine how culture and society conditions gender and how it invents childhood. Gender becomes a performance that is again mirrored in the performance of my subjects for the camera.

Autoportrait en poulpe, 2009 by David Favrod

Le Dôme, 2009 by David Favrod

Sadako, 2009 by David Favrod

Mishiko, 2012 by David Favrod

BAOUMMMM, 2012 by David Favrod

David Favrod

Website: www.davidfavrod.com

Bio:
David Favrod lives and works in Switzerland. He is a graduate of École cantonale d'art de Lausanne with a master's degree in art direction and a bachelor's degree in photography. Other than winning the Aperture Portfolio Prize, Favrod has also been included in reGeneration2, a book and touring exhibition showcasing emerging photographers. His work has been shown in solo and group shows around the world.

Statement:
My name is David "Takashi" Favrod. I was born on the 2nd of July, 1982, in Kobe, Japan, to a Japanese mother and a Swiss father. When I was six months old, my parents decided to come and live in Switzerland, more precisely in Vionnaz, a little village in lower Valais. As my father had to travel for his work a lot, I was mainly brought up by my mother, who taught me her principles and her culture. When I was 18, I asked for double nationality at the Japanese embassy, but they refused because it is only given to Japanese women who wish to obtain their husband's nationality. It is from this feeling of rejection and also from a desire to prove that I am as Japanese as I am Swiss that this work was created. Gaijin is a fictional narrative, a tool for my quest for identity, where self-portraits imply an intimate and solitary relationship that I have with myself. The mirror image is frozen in a figurative alter ego that serves as an anchor point. The aim of this work is to create "my own Japan" in Switzerland, from memories of my journeys when I was small, my mother's stories, popular and traditional culture and my grandparents' war narratives. In terms of factual information, I surely appear to be the most well informed person about my own self. But as soon as I need to communicate about who I am, I tend to do it through filters, selecting what I want to communicate and how I wish to do it, in accordance with my interests and sensitivity. So what can be the objective value of the way that I picture my family and my life? How much does it concretely relate to reality or not ?

Male Centerfold, 2012 by Pacifico Silano

Wood Panelling, 2012 by Pacifico Silano

Keep It Hard, 2012 by Pacifico Silano

Autograph Session, 2012 by Pacifico Silano

Al & Casey, 2012 by Pacifico Silano

Pacifico Silano

Website: pacificosilano.com

Bio:
Pacifico Silano was born in Brooklyn, New York. He received his BFA in photography from Pennsylvania College of Art & Design in 2008. He recently graduated with his MFA in photography, video & related media and is a 2012 recipient of the Aaron Siskind Award. His video installation Where The Boys Are was recently shown in a group exhibition at ClampArt, and he has been chosen to participate in the 2013 Bronx Museum's Artist in The Marketplace Program. As part of the Artist in The Marketplace program, an installation of his work is going to be exhibited in the Bronx Museum's 2nd Biennial in June 2013. His photo and video work is an exploration into LGBTQ history and how it has shaped contemporary gay identity. He has lived in a number of places over the years but is happy to be back in his hometown of Brooklyn, New York.

Statement:
My photographic work examines life before the AIDS epidemic. By creating imagery with Al Parker, one of the most famous gay porn stars of the 1970s, I have created an unconventional series of portraits that memorialize and draw attention to a lost generation of gay men. The process of making these new pictures and reworking images from the past has allowed me to catalogue and emphasize a neglected history, one that is imbued with my own fantasies of a place and time that I never lived through.

Throughout my extensive research of this subject matter I have become infatuated with the persona of Al Parker. His image is the physical embodiment of rugged good looks, gay masculinity and dominance. Using Photoshop, Google's image search and reworked vintage photographs, I have found a way of breathing life into the forgotten, 20 years after his passing due to complications of HIV.

Scholar's Rock, 2012 by Erin O'Keefe

Red Net, 2012 by Erin O'Keefe

Folded Mirror, 2012 by Erin O'Keefe

Echo, 2012 by Erin O'Keefe

Red Box, 2012 by Erin O'Keefe

Erin O'Keefe

Website: www.erinokeefe.com

Bio:
I am a visual artist based in New York City and New Brunswick, Canada. In addition to my fine art career, I am an Associate Professor of Architecture at the New York Institute of Technology. The trajectory of my art making practice has included architecture, sculpture and photography. My work is concerned with spatial perception and the terrain between two-dimensional representation and three-dimensional space. My work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad; most recently, I was included in Humble Arts Foundation 31 Women in Art Photography at the Hasted Kraeutler Gallery. I have pieces in museum and corporate collections, including at the San Francisco MOMA and the Progressive Corporation.

Statement:
This series of images examines the relationship between object and image. I photograph two-dimensional constructions, which are themselves made from pieces of other photographic images, and rely on the three-dimensionality depicted in these fragments to create the illusion of a sculptural object. The deadpan presentation of the object, and the directness of its construction, are in conflict with the persistent uncertainty of its spatial condition.

Cut/Copy (Maurice), 2012 by Trey Wright

Cut/Copy (blue and pink), 2012 by Trey Wright

Cut/Copy (spanish fly), 2012 by Trey Wright

Cut/Copy (IP), 2012 by Trey Wright

Cut/Copy (rafflessia), 2012 by Trey Wright

Trey Wright

Website: treywright.net

Bio:
Trey Wright is an artist based in Dallas, Texas. He attended the University of North Texas and received a degree in fine art in 2009. In addition, he has taken design and photography courses at Collin College in Plano, Texas. He received a DeGolyer Grant from the Dallas Museum of Art in 2008 and a subsequent Kimbrough Grant in 2010, and in 2012 he earned the Golden Artist Color Award from Springfield Museum. In July 2012, he had his debut solo show, Last Day of Magic, at Meme Gallery.

Statement:
The photographs I make are a response to the visual culture around me and trying to make sense of it. I often lay the scrap photos out on the table and arrange them like specimens to be examined. I come from a background in painting and art photography, and examining the minute details of a place are particularly important to me. These cuts and pieces act out simple narratives and call into question what entices us into the picture plane.

Burnout (Perfectly Strange), Auto Club Raceway, Fontana, 2011 by Daniel Handal

News for the new year: Photography by the First Edition 2012 Hot Shots will be on exhibit at Jen Bekman Gallery in the Hey, Hot Shot! 2012 First Edition Showcase. The group show features work by Heather Cleary, Daniel Handal, Susan Magnus, Muge and Zach Nader. If you're in NYC, head downtown to the gallery at 6 Spring Street for the opening reception TOMORROW, Friday, January 11th, 2013, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

If you can't join us for the reception, the showcase will be on view Saturday, January 12th, through Sunday, January 27th. The gallery is open Wednesday through Sunday from noon - 6:00 p.m., or by private appointment.

Jen Bekman Gallery Director Jeffrey Teuton writes of the artists:

Muge's black and white photographs poetically interpret spirituality and evolving relationships with nature and time. ...Heather Cleary modifies domestic objects such as Styrofoam cups and creates abstractions that... explore the relationship between impartial objects and personal perceptions. Susan Magnus repurposes 4"x6" snapshots she has accumulated of people and places; she paints over and distorts these composed photos to create installations that question symbolic aspects of material culture, reflecting the unreliable nature of photography and memory.

By removing models and products from fashion-magazine advertisements, Zach Nader interrogates the usefulness of the visual information that remains in asking where an image's value resides... Daniel Handal's Rough Stock explores American ideas of masculinity through the world of motorsports, which are both a modern-day parallel of and a continuation from the idealized cowboys of the past.

These exceptional photographers won the first round of the 2012 competition, earning a $500 stipend and consideration for the grand prize, in addition to being considered for participation with 20x200.com. From all the 2012 Hot Shots (second round of winners to be announced very soon), one grand prize-winner will be selected for a $10,000 honorarium, a solo exhibition at the gallery and gallery representation for two years. Since its inception in 2005, Hey, Hot Shot! has debuted more than 140 photographers, including 2010 Whitney Biennial artists Nina Berman and Curtis Mann.

Photography often produces unexpected results. Photographers can commence a project searching for something they aren't quite sure of at the start, only to find the original impetus yielding a different outcome. This is the scenario with Contender Aimee Bonamie's series the uncanny. In it, Bonamie tries to recover lost ground concerning her relationship with her grandfather, Les. Their time together filled Bonamie with recollections from the past. She let that feeling guide the making of the photographs to create a portrait of Les for the world to see his story and "to empathize with." However, when the editing process was over, she had discovered that the project revealed something quite different.

Deployed, 2012 by Aimee Bonamie

In her work, Bonamie relates physical distance to emotional distance by photographing absences and displaced memory. Interpreting her relationship in this way has revealed a distance from her grandfather. In place of the correspondence between her and her grandfather's character, which Bonamie intended to find, she found an equal but opposite lack of close connection.

Ed's, 2012 by Aimee Bonamie

Her statement elaborates:

I came to this place to create a portrait of my grandfather. I had an idea of him but I knew that I didn't really know him, and I thought this project would be a chance to do that. Les has lived a long life in a small town in Michigan. He gets angry when dinner isn't ready, his health is failing and he avoids thinking about that by talking about the weather. I was filled with thoughts of the past: memories of visiting his house, playing in the basement, childhood experiences that built up into my relationship with Les and all of these expectations I had and wanted to revisit. I wanted to strengthen my relationship with Les through this project. Maybe it was a selfish act, but I wanted to portray him in a way that would emphasize a meaningful relationship and perhaps a passage of time. I wanted to create a portrait of this man for others to empathize with. What I brought back was not that in any way. When I developed the rolls of film for A Portrait of a Grandfather, I spent a month going through hundreds of shots, looking for some kind of emotive quality, something that gave me a better insight into what he was all about. Les is a quiet, loving man; he raised four children and cares deeply about family. I was well aware of this, but nothing in my photographs spoke to that. They just showed an aging man and his collections of objects. I thought images of him and of his daily interactions would be poignant enough to create a portrait of him. What happened instead during the editing process was a struggle to say anything about him at all. Looking at my photos of my grandfather, I felt empty and completely distanced. I accepted this. I felt an attraction grow for the images that left out something that once was, that showed a misinterpreted memory, a portrait without a face, scenes that force you to the outside. It is now very much about distance and absence. Many of the locations are placed in the domestic space but distinctly hold an uninhabited sense about them. This made me realize that it's not just the past that has gone missing. In some ways, parts of my present are displaced, too.

Basement, 2012 by Aimee Bonamie

Aimee further explains:

In reality, distance has a lot of meaning. We interpret relationships by how close we allow others to get to us. Each instance is different. We become closer to those who we spend more time with. We are drawn to people who are similar to us (already close to us) or who we can create a mutual dependence with (can narrow the distance with). Being with someone in the present, the here and now, is our chance to experience each other with the least number of filters in the way. Anything experienced outside of the here and now is considered distant by our mind and can be abstracted on different levels in its recollection, filtered and interpreted. It is made into an experience more of ourselves than of the other person. This series is much about myself, and with the photographs I share a sense of loss and meditation that was lifted from my experience of working through ideas that are now just faded memories.

Portrait of a Grandfather, 2012 by Aimee Bonamie

In her studies, Aimee Bonamie is interested in identity and singularity. Originally from Central Florida, she received her BFA in photography at the University of Central Florida and will receive her MFA at CUNY Hunter College in combined media in December 2012.

Wood Panelling, 2012 by Pacifico Silano

Contender Pacifico Silano is a Brooklyn-based photographer who uses appropriated images to inform a history rarely seen.

Autograph Session, 2012 by Pacifico Silano

In his statement, Silano explains:

My photographic work examines life before the AIDS epidemic. By creating imagery with Al Parker, one of the most famous gay porn stars of the 1970s, I have created an unconventional series of portraits that memorializes and draws attention to a lost generation of gay men. The process of making these new pictures and reworking images from the past has allowed me to catalog and emphasize a neglected history, one that is imbued with my own fantasies of a place and time that I never lived through. Throughout my extensive research of this subject matter, I have become infatuated with the persona of Al Parker. His image is the physical embodiment of rugged good looks, gay masculinity and dominance. Using Photoshop, Google image search and reworked vintage photographs, I have found a way of breathing life into the forgotten, 20 years after his passing due to complications of HIV.

Male Centerfold, 2012 by Pacifico Silano

Forgotten magazine clippings, ripped photographs and a battered VHS box are used to describe a man from the past. The objects describe a different time. This is noted by their physical wear and also by their details of clothing and hairstyles, all referencing their age. While being inseparable from their past and the exuberant period before the AIDS epidemic of the '80s, the images are recontextualized through the eyes and fantasies of Silano. The photographs, originally used to narrate an erotic fantasy, now fabricate a new story. Silano's body of work is interesting because of these layers and the imagined history they give potential to.

Al & Casey, 2012 by Pacifico Silano

Pacifico Silano attended Pennsylvania College of Art & Design in 2008 for his BFA, followed by earning his MFA in photography, video & related media at the School of Visual Arts 2012. His video installation Where The Boys Are was shown in a group exhibition at ClampArt, and he has been chosen to participate in the 2013 Bronx Museum's Artist in the Marketplace Program. His work explores issues of identity, sexuality and forgotten histories.

From Synoptic, 2011 by Amy Harbilas

Contender Amy Harbilas presents a series of images on the complex and simultaneously approachable idea of universality.

Yesterday Today and Forever, 2012 by Amy Harbilas

The major ideas behind universality center around truths that are undeniable in all possible contexts. This is a particularly interesting subject in a medium like photography, where the truths are controlled through the photographer. Harbilas is concerned with universal truths. Her photographs do not have subject matter with dominating centrality and instead they demand to be looked at as a whole. She uses this method to create the theme of balance. Harbilas elaborates in her statement:

Consider a brick. It is a familiar and simple object. When looking at the brick there is little reason to consider the water, earth and fire that come together to create it. The brick—an object—is a universal idea, whose form is understood. My images embody the same notion. Human experience informs identity and therefore existence. Though specific experiences are particular to the individual, some experiences are universal. Universality calls upon the collective experience of humankind. When the individual accepts universal ideas and knowledge, there is balance. This balance allows people to interact, communicate and function. Observing pattern within simple elements provides me with a physical manifestation of balance. It is not the elements that are important, but how they come together. There is comfort and universality in the familiar parts, but my imagery presents a unique embodiment of a new whole.

Amy Harbilas earned her BA in sociology and studio art from Washington and Lee University in 2010 and her MFA from Temple University's Tyler School of Art in 2012. In July 2012 she exhibited in the show {sub}contracted at Parsons the New School for Design, New York, NY, as well as her solo MFA thesis, Balance in Hypostasis, April 2012, Temple Gallery, Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA.

Rainbow, 2011 by Amy Harbilas

Today is the final day of the HHS! competition (all entries due by 11:59 p.m. EST, photographers, so enter now!), and we couldn't be more excited about the newest addition to our panel of judges, TIME magazine deputy photo editor Paul Moakley. Before entry into the competition closes, we wanted to introduce another Contender. (We'll continue to feature Contenders on our blog, so check back often to view other great work from the Second Edition 2012 round of competition.)

Dalibor Talajic's photographs display the city of Rasa, an Istrian town along the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Talajic documents the historical link to its past as a mining town. Originally a swamp, the town was drained and exercised with the purpose to mine coal, for the benefit of Italy under the control of Benito Mussolini in 1936.

Untitled 141, 2012 by Dalibor Talajic

The town was renovated in the 1980s. It shifted purpose to industry and factory, but has since shut those endeavors down. Its repurposing has affected the mood of the town severely. The photographs Talajic has made are overcast with a defunct nature. Decay and a dreary nostalgia seem to envelop the town. He works this mood into his images by focusing on the spaces that have lived through the stages of Rasa's development.

Untitled 186, 2012 by Dalibor Talajic

As the town continues to age, Talajic seeks to document this progression and the beauty that those changes bring. His statement clarifies:

Rasa is the youngest Istrian town, made in 1937 by fascist Italy on land rich with coal, a mineral crucial in WWII. In 1936, Benito Mussolini in person laid the foundation stone for this city, which architect Gustavo Pulitzer Finali designed without a graveyard and with a church resembling a turned over coal wagon. Its unique architecture, mining history, today's decay and gloomy geographic location make it an otherworldly place, which I've been photographing for the last two years. Prvomajska, formerly the main entrance to the mines in Rasa, was transformed into a very successful machine tool factory in the '80s, but then closed in 2002 and is now totally abandoned to nature and vandals. It is one of the subjects I've been returning to regularly in the last 12 months. Like many other similar abandoned places, it is an open book on the flow of time, on the questionable values we give to things, on the fact that everything changes and on the strange beauty of those changes that, even if we label as endings, are always life.

Untitled 145, 2012 by Dalibor Talajic

Dalibor Talajic was born in Rijeka, Croatia, and attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, Italy. Photography came after a switch from his original medium, painting. Now focusing primarily on documentary photography, Talajic has recently had a solo show titled Fishermen in Rovinj, CVA Batana, Rovinj, Croatia, 2012, and shown as a part of The Zagreb 34th Salon.

Untitled 71, 2012 by Dalibor Talajic

Balloons (Midtown, Manhattan), by Youngna Park

Big news, photographers. We're thrilled to announce that Paul Moakley, the deputy photo editor of TIME, is joining the Hey, Hot Shot! panel. With this new addition to the HHS! team, we're extending our deadline. All entries must now be received by Monday, November 19th, 2012, at 11:59 p.m. EDT.

Paul knows a great photograph when he sees it. At TIME, Paul covers national news and special projects such as Person of the Year. Prior to, he was senior photo editor at Newsweek and photo editor of PDN (Photo District News). Paul is also an adjunct professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and, as a photographer and filmmaker himself, creates personal, large-format photographs and short films exploring the cultural happenstances in and around his longtime residence, Staten Island. Paul is on Instagram and Twitter, and you can learn more about his practice in this interview.

As a panelist, Paul will help select—along with Stephen Frailey, Raul Gutierrez, Darius Himes, Jenni Holder, Lesley A. Martin, Nion McEvoy and Penelope Umbrico—the five Second Edition 2012 Hot Shots.

For those who've already submitted their entries, many thanks! We've been poring over all the impressive work we've received so far, selecting Contenders to feature on the blog. For those still on the fence or procrastinating, remember: At stake for one Grand Prize winner are $10,000, a solo show and gallery representation from Jen Bekman Gallery. But you'll need to act fast to have Paul and the rest of our estimable panel of photo professionals review your photography—your shot at cash, exposure and support is slipping away. Click here for our easy submission process, and get your winning images in by Monday, November 19th, 2012, at 11:59 p.m. EDT.

Untitled, 2012 by Andy Lo Pó

The town of Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales is known for its history as a mining town during World War II. After the war, the demand for slate went down and the mining industry declined. Industry left its marks on the landscape of Blaenau Ffestiniog and took much of its population, dwindling from 12,000 to 5,000 citizens. Contender Andy Lo Pó investigated and documented the effects of mining on the city. His breathtaking landscapes show the city through the application of his aesthetic in his series All Lost Time.

Lo Pó explains,

This project was shot in and around the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales. I wanted to investigate what remains of this town since the slate-mining industry came to a halt after the Second World War. The town's landscape has an air of foreboding brutality that I found to be quite beautiful. I was keen to approach this project by seeing how I could capture the environment in a way in which some of that beauty shines through. I was overwhelmed by a sense of lost time and the feeling that its one-time inhabitants had packed up and deserted the town in quite a hurry, leaving rather grim slagheaps (which are actually more like mountains) in its wake forevermore. I commenced the project by first photographing the slagheaps and the abandoned miners' cottages then, secondly, the nearby mountains and the town itself. I used a range of film types and processing techniques to capture the mood of the town. The final images, I believe, portray the area's melancholic beauty.

Untitled, 2012 by Andy Lo Pó

Lo Pó's fascination with the world produces work with a storybook-like quality. In addition to landscapes, he is an accomplished portraitist. His methodology in shooting, including his decisions involving composition, are decidedly contemporary. The beauty of his work in All Lost Time is made up of the considerations of mood, positioning and thematic story telling.

Untitled, 2012 by Andy Lo Pó

Lo Pó attended the London School of Communication and recently participated in The World in London exhibition by The Photographers' Gallery to coincide with the 2012 Olympic Games. He also received seven honorable mentions in the 2012 International Photography Awards (IPA) and has won 'Best in Category' for both environment and portraiture at the Association of Photographers' (AOP) Assistant Awards. Andy Lo Pó was born in Melboune, Australia, and shoots with a large format Linhof Master Technika.

Untitled, 2012 by Andy Lo Pó

Rene, 2012 by Alejandra Carles-Tolra

Contender Alejandra Carles-Tolra explores her fascination with the lives and homes of the Puerto Rican families that live near her in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston. Her photographs focus on particular details about these homes and their inhabitants. She clarifies in her statement:

Since moving to the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston from my native Barcelona, I have gotten to know several Puerto Rican families who live nearby. As I began to build a relationship with them, I was welcomed into their homes and families. I have become interested in both the interiors of their apartments and in making their portraits. The spaces fascinate me because of their careful decoration. The families present their homes as glorious domestic spaces—even as the walls and woodwork show signs of long use. The use of golden furniture and shiny ornaments, as well as religious iconography, describes an intense relationship to religious belief. In the portraits, I am interested in personalities and relationships. While I learned about their stories and generational relationships, I began to attempt to photograph their characters and vibrant gestures. Throughout my visits I have been aiming to depict what has kept me mesmerized all these months.

The Throne, 2012 by Alejandra Carles-Tolra

The decoration given to their homes shows the reverence these families feel for their spaces. Religious motifs and grandiose coloring mix to show their exuberant heritage. The spaces also show heavy use. The walls, furniture and styling show nicks, dings, scrapes and wear in the loving way that something cherished does when it is used daily. Even the people photographed show such personality through their clothing, gestures and the stories revealed in their eyes.

The Siblings, 2012 by Alejandra Carles-Tolra

Alejandra Carles-Tolra received her BA in sociology from the University of Barcelona and expects an MFA in photography at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2013. This summer Alejandra Carles-Tolra was featured on The Fence at Photoville. Carles-Tolra was born in Barcelona, Spain, and shoots with a Canon 5D.

Carmen, 2012 by Alejandra Carles-Tolra

First Kiss, from the series Was Once, 2012 by Chad Crews

Curiosity and photography go hand in hand. Rather than satiating the quest for understanding the unknown, taking photographs largely increases curiosity. Some factors reveal themselves when contemplating a space's history and purpose; most do not. Instead, photographs can lead us to consider fantasies. In his photographs, Contender Chad Crews is concentrating on the potential stories of these spaces. When interviewed for Hey, Hot Shot!, Crews said about his work:

I was captivated by the discovery of each of the places I would explore and the overwhelming thoughts about what they must have been like when they still had a heartbeat: them fully in bloom, through their decline, and up to present day. Everywhere I looked told a different story, and I tried to capture those stories with my camera.

Crews has put attention back on spaces that have been forgotten. The series Was Once gives the viewer the freedom to consider the many possibilities inherent in the spaces. Without giving any outside reference to their origins, the photographs lead the viewer to create interpretations. This causes a reflection on the viewer's own ideas, acting more like a mirror than a window.

Room For Two, from the series Was Once, 2012 by Chad Crews

Crews also demonstrates the idea of fleeting appreciation for one's surroundings. His two series—Was Once and Remembering To Breathe—both show how use, misuse and time have worn the spaces. Remembering To Breathe, however, demonstrates the connection. People and place are interacting and the energy is caught on film:

The inspiration for the Remembering To Breathe images was a combination of wondering if the people of the past ever thought those beautiful places would ever look the way they do today or if they had been too caught up in the time to notice their decline, and what we might be missing, present day, by not taking the time to appreciate or notice what's going on within our own surroundings.

The Swarm, from the series Remembering To Breathe, 2012 by Chad Crews

Chad Crews is a New York City-based artist. His past exhibitions include the Underground previews, at the Milk Gallery, during Spring 2011 and Autumn 2011. Crews' next project includes working with photographers Gordon Ball, Marc Lemoine and Frank Garcia on various projects, including books, zines, a blog and a group exhibition. He was also nice enough to answer a few of our questions. Thanks, Chad!

For our final Q&A with the First Edition 2012 Hot Shots, we asked New York-based artist Susan Magnus to fill us in on her series, her inspirations and her background.

Living in: Beacon, NY

Your formal and/or informal education and training in photography:
I attended the University of Colorado at Boulder then transferred to Parsons and The New School for Social Research in New York, where I received a BFA degree with honors. I've lived and worked in Manhattan, Paris, Frankfurt and San Francisco. While residing on the West Coast, I completed the MFA program at Mills College in Oakland, where I had the opportunity to study with Catherine Wagner and visiting artists Sophie Calle, Lynn Hershman Leeson and Tom Marioni.

How you pay the bills:
Real estate investments

Best advice you ever received as a photographer:
Sol LeWitt's letter to Eva Hess

(View a PDF of the complete letter here.)

Three artists who inspire you:
Pina Bausch
Mona Hatoum
Rudolf Stingel

Photograph (or other work of art) that you can't get out of your head, ever:
Merce Cunningham performs STILLNESS (in three movements) to John Cage's composition 4'33" with Trevor Carlson, New York City, 28 April 2007 (six performances; six films), an installation by Tacita Dean in the cavernous basement of Dia:Beacon. Enveloped in the darkness of the museum's subterranean gallery, I was mesmerized by Dean's poignant, ghost-like film projections of the world renowned choreographer.

Photo: Ken Goebel for Dia:Beacon

Your favorite photobook(s):
New York City Museum of Complaint - Municipal Collection 1751-1969, Matthew Bakkom
Animal Logic, Richard Barnes
Peter Piller: Zeitung
Atlas, Gerhard Richter

What was the last great exhibition you attended? Any exhibitions you currently recommend?
Several years ago, I had the opportunity to visit the studio of Doug and Mike Starn. It was fantastic to experience their installation, Big Bambú, in their immense workspace located in a former foundry. The only way to scale the bamboo structure was to climb—there was no walkway as there was at their subsequent installation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was magical—and exhilarating—to ascend barefoot all the way to the top! Regarding current exhibitions, I highly recommend Rosemarie Trockel: A Cosmos at the New Museum.

Reading now:
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of American's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson

Recent good reads: Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad and Patti Smith's Just Kids

Top three photo-related websites/blogs:
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog
MoMA PS1 Studio Visit
New York Public Library Digital Gallery

Top non-photo website/blog:
John Peel Archive

untitled, 2011 by Susan Magnus

Tell us a little about the inspiration/impetus behind the series you submitted, and why you felt it was important to share this work:
The blurring or forgetting of our daily experiences and my interest in a relationship between memory and the artless snapshot were the genesis for this installation. Over the course of several decades, and prior to obtaining my first digital camera, I accumulated numerous 4x6 inch snapshots—some were of people and places no longer recalled, others were under or over exposed, many were banal and of no sentimental value. As this prosaic collection of "rejected" pictures grew, I considered ways to repurpose them into my work. Obscuring portions of each image with glossy, black paint seemed an effective visual analogy for how we may forget, misrecollect or repress the past. By installing them in a matrix that converged in the corner of the room, I was able to transform these snapshots into a three-dimensional experience that begins to suggest an architecture of memory—pointing to its inherent transience and unreliability.

untitled (detail of installation), 2011 by Susan Magnus

Next project(s):
I'll be exploring my father's 8mm films that document our family life in the 1960s and 1970s with the intention of creating work based on some of this imagery.

Untitled, 2012 by Mateusz Sarello

Contender Mateusz Sarello's series Swell is the story of breakup and the Baltic. The not-quite-cathartic undertaking originated as a photo-documentary piece about the Baltic sea, but was altered due to changes in the photographer's personal life. The project switched to an escape from reality for Sarello, who sought to alleviate his own loneliness. Sarello's statement begins with something that stands like poetry:

The road. Winter. Lack. Lack of everything that's important. I try to think of the "road." I can't. I'm utterly exhausted. I'm only really going because of the weather. The prospect of wind, snow and my flashes on the beach kept me awake. And also I'm scared of a few days of thinking only about Her, and here I'll have the Baltic. My Baltic. Instead.

Sarello's photographs are cast with feelings of bitterness and cold. His desolation is depicted with bizarre animals, totems of warning and anger and the harsh coast. Along with the four black and white images, six color postcards accompany the series, detailing small encounters and descriptions of the scenery:

Over a dozen color "postcards" have survived from the first trips. They are the beginning of this story. There is no end yet. We're about half-way.

Untitled, 2012 by Mateusz Sarello

Mateusz Sarello attended the Photojournalism Workshop at the Academy of Photography in Warsaw. In 2012 he has exhibited in Milan, Warsaw, Kaunas, Dublin, Zagreb, Krakow and Belfast.

Untitled, 2012 by Mateusz Sarello

We've caught up to 2010 Ultra Chikara Umihara, wherein he discussed his winning series Aggressive Girls. As the grand prize-winning Ultra, Chikara earned $10,000 and gallery representation from Jen Bekman Gallery. The Ultra also has limited-edition prints, from his series Silent Water, available on 20x200.com. Currently on the road, feverishly working on another project, Chikara took some time to fill us in (as much as he was able to!) on his latest endeavors, for our last installment in Catching Up with Hot Shots.

What's the next body of work you're dreaming of?
I'm currently working on a project I'm calling Journey to the Roots of Martial Arts. What I'm very interested in is this unique, intense and contradictory harmony of meditating in the fight. By exploring new and old martial arts practices, I want to investigate the core aspect of what martial artists ultimately achieve and conquer. But I've been working on two projects since last year, which I'm not ready to show just yet. Give me lil' more time. I can't wait to show them!

Where do you find inspiration for your work? How do you brainstorm new ideas?
Reading mostly, or being out on the street.

Untitled, from the series Aggressive Girls, 2009 by Chikara Umihara

What do you like to do when you take a break from shooting?
Sculpting or enjoying hot springs.

Eroded in the Silence, by Chikara Umihara

Untitled, 2012 by Hiroshi Takizawa

Contender Hiroshi Takizawa's photographs seek to better understand the inside of us all. While primarily focusing on a subject matter of rocks and the earth, the meaning transcends matters of geology. To Takizawa, rocks are a representation of transcendence. Using visual strategies of reflective surfaces to connect to the viewer, he wants people to consider time and existence.

Untitled, 2012 by Hiroshi Takizawa

In his statement, Takizawa contributes a broader way to consider his work:

It is my first time [producing] a collection of what is outside—rocks. I aimed to capture the essence of things by choosing objects that are reversible between the memories of the subject and object. For example, I picked the 0.5-billion-year-old piece of stratum, told to be the oldest in Japan. It exists from a long, long time ago, before the first humans lived on Earth. The stratum has resisted change for a long period... it seems to connote everything. Dazing at rocks [gives] a sense that everything is connected, and then invites us to the moon. You can experience that excitement, like déjà vu, no matter where you are. An image turns millions of times in your head until something seems to have become familiar, and you suddenly forget the days when you were lonely. Everything gets mixed in a mass, unidentifiable. All becomes one, and one becomes all. That rock went through this billions of times, and that was what drew me to the rock. It is said that geologists learn about the Earth's birth through the study of aerolites. This may be an example that knowing more about the outside leads to a better understanding of the inside.

Untitled, 2012 by Hiroshi Takizawa

Hiroshi Takizawa was born in Saitama, Japan, and attended Mejiro University in 2006, where he studied under the Department of Psychological Counseling. In 2012 he exhibited at the Turner Gallery in Tokyo. More of Takizawa's work in this series is available on his website. Although difficult to navigate unless you read Japanese, don't let that deter your interest, as his work truly rocks.

Untitled, 2012 by Hiroshi Takizawa

Part of moving to a new place is the appreciation of the old. Contender Collin Avery's series Ihaidmiatm (I'm here and I don't mind it all that much) explores such a change in his life. Avery has gained a new understanding for the locale of his past. He has been able to narrow this connection to his home into certain objects and to translate their message into constructed representations.

Untitled hand clasp, 2012 by Collin Avery

The photographs in Ihaidmiatm are both soft and hazy, reminiscent and sad. They reveal truths about his relationship with the present, while alluding to an idealistic version of the past. The story his work tells relies heavily on subtle details and presentation, as well as on the objects included. Patterned fabric, a roughly painted cross section on a window, centered placement and carefully edited arrangements give reference to the main object of each photograph. To Avery, each object holds a connection to his New England origins, serving to represent his nostalgia and longing for home while in his new surroundings, Montana.

Installation with plastic head and cloth, 2012 by Collin Avery

In his statement, Avery writes,

Since moving to Montana, vacant of any personal memories, I have found myself connecting to certain items and details on a subconscious level that help alleviate my loss of home. It was not until I had left the familiarities of home did I discover a deep appreciation for the place I was raised. Fragmented moments and hazy memories are transformed into tangible objects. My photographs create an open dialogue between the ideals of the image-maker and the apparent truths that each of the photographs actually present in relation to myself.

Sunset, 2012 by Collin Avery

Collin Avery has been included in a number of publications, including Incandescent Zine, out of Portland, Oregon. Earlier this year, he finished his BA at Montana State University in film and photography. Recent shows include the 2nd Annual Photography Exhibition at the Viridian Artists Gallery and the San Francisco International Photography Exhibition. His work was also exhibited at Saatchi Gallery in London as part of the Google Photography Prize, where he was a Top Finalist. Now residing in Los Angeles, Avery was raised in the small town of Adams, MA. He shoots with a large-format camera.

Undeveloped film from my grandmothers attic, 2012 by Collin Avery