michael itkoff
pumping station, west ham, london, april 2006
michael itkoff
born: Philadelphia, PA.
Currently resides in New York, New York
websites:
www.daylightmagazine.org
www.michaelitkoff.com
work statement
One sleepless night when I was fourteen I started taking pictures of my room. It was a point and shoot camera and I wasted most of the pictures but I became obsessed with the pleasure of seeing things differently through a lens.
I lived on the edge of a state park and would often walk around it with my dog. Both of us felt constricted by the boundaries of life and leash and in the park we could wander freely. The most interesting places to explore were the edges of the park where one could see evidence of human endeavor through the trees. In those liminal zones, the wilds of nature made made even pre-fab housing and strip malls look idyllic.
Years later I moved to a city but continued to be fascinated with the places where the concrete met soil. There was a perceptible presence there, a living tension between natural flora and society’s efforts to keep it at bay. One could almost watch as, year by year, the city spread its concrete tendrils further and further afield. Soon, having man-made structures inescapably discernable through the trees began to inspire within me a vague sense of dread.
These are photographs of a landscape under seige - meditations on the mesh of human society and nature that exist woven together. Within the clusters of growth there is life, and hope, that the tide of concrete and steel is high. A city or suburb allowed to lie fallow for twenty years would soon be swallowed by bushes and wildflowers poking up from gaps in the pavement…
bio
Michael Itkoff grew up in the suburban sprawl outside of Philadelphia, PA. After studying photography at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and Sarah Lawrence College in New York, he received his BA in 2004.
Michael is one of the founding editors of Daylight Magazine, a documentary photography publication, and was an editorial work-scholar for Aperture Foundation as well as an intern for the Annie Leibovitz Studio.
July 14th, 2008 at 10:20 am
[...] and current editor of Daylight Magazine and a photographer that has shown, from his wining stake at Hey, Hot Shot in the Spring of 2006, the consistency to produce high quality work. Daylight Magazine is the [...]