Untitled by aspiring Hot Shot Dai Oinuma

As we enter the final 24 hours, take a peak at Hot Shot hopeful Dai Oinuma. Dai’s aspirations reach far higher than just making it as a Hot Shot, he dreams of heading an artist commune where everyone and everything is beautiful and famous, a place where time and age are nonexistent. Eternal fame and youth––good luck Dai, I’m all for it. His thoughts on photography:

Photography has the power to alter the colors and perception of reality. Through my images, I try to displace the perception of reality into a perception of an invented world. As this perception of an invented world is absorbed into our everyday worlds, we are able to break free from our prison of reality.

Unfortunately, this is not Dai’s never-neverland, time is as real as can be and oh how it flies. Get it in before it’s too late. The deadline is on us, enter now!

Che is Watching by HHS! entrant Christina Creutz

There are oh so many ways for us to produce photographs these days. There’s film and digital. There’s the digital darkroom and the traditional darkroom. An array of options for our processes—cameras, lenses, films, memory cards, hard drives, computers, monitors, enlargers, scanners, printers, papers, tripods, lights, labs, meters—I won’t go on, but we all know the list is endless. It’s an exciting time to be a photographer, especially one who has an ongoing romance with the equipment. Everyday there are new technologies and gadgets for our consumption, things to feed our photo fetishes.

We get a little of everything with Hey, Hot Shot!, it’s a nice little slice through the medium. I cannot offer you a website for aspiring Hot Shot Christina Creutz, but I can tell you that she uses a Mac, a Hasselblad, and still works in a traditional darkroom. As she describes her work:

My photographs tend to be described as chronicles of the decay of decadence. I shoot in places that once were splendid, but through neglect, are in disrepair. While my images generally do not have people in them, I dont find them to be lonely. To the contrary, I think that the people who have existed in these spaces are felt quite strongly in the images.

Less than 48 hours now remain to get your entries in! Whether you use an Arca Swiss or a Kodak EasyShare, the clock ticks just the same.

Deadline: Tuesday November 14, 2006 @ 6pm
Enter Today!

Austin by HS! hopeful Justin Schmitz

Sometimes it can be difficult to build up one’s own momentum, much less maintain some sort of consistency with it––communal energy is vital sustenance for artists. From a community I am rather familiar with, I offer you aspiring Hot Shot Justin Schmitz.

Justin hails from Chicago’s Columbia College—a hot bed for real photographers in every sense of the word and a grounding pad for Chicago’s blossoming and booming photography community. If you’re looking for a good time this weekend, visit Justin’s website, take a look at his links, and get caught up in the tightly-knit but expansive network of Chicago and beyond artists––hours of fun, I promise

Not in acquaintance with him, but an off and on resident of the windy city, I’ve seen Justin’s stuff before. A couple of years back I bargained with him over a piece hanging in a very “chicago” space and a fantastic one at that, Heaven Gallery. While the collector inside me is a flaky one, or at least a poor one, I have followed his work ever since.

When it comes to communal energy, Justin is well fed. Exploring many a niche within youth culture, here is what he has to say:

My work stems from a desire to describe how young suburbia defines itself. The subjects I choose subjects, like all adolescent, are constantly striving to define their own identity. My photographs document a time transition, a time of confusion, and a time of questioning. The pictures I make describe how these kids present themselves to the world and how they deal with their own ideas of their still forming identity.

Here at jen bekman we have our own booming community. Check out the roster of past Hot Shots, all continuing to impress. Join in on the fun!

making way for new construction #1 by Hot Shot hopefull Craig Wactor

Having spent a few years of my life in the Grand Canyon State, aspiring Hot Shot Craig Wactor’s project slightly tugged on a heartstring. When some of the most enticing landscape this country has to offer is being bulldozed away for the sake of the neverending strip mall and rattlesnakes and javalenas are being forced onto our front porches, it’s rather refreshing to see something other than Arizona’s lightning storms, rainbow sunsets, and fluffy little clouds. From Craig’s statement:

Photography stands apart from other media in its ability to preserve permanently a single moment in time. This allows me to record the character of the city in the midst of change. In this way, I see urban spaces as living entities. Currently, I have been photographing the removal of old buildings and structures from Phoenix, Arizona to make way for new construction. The intent is to continue visiting sites as they change, producing a chronicle of the city as it evolves. Phoenix is one of the fastest growing metropolises in the United States, and the nature of this city has changed very rapidly. I feel it is important to record this transformation for the sake of history, but also to preserve the congruence of our own identity as a community.

Now that the weekend is here, utilize your time. Enter before it is too late!

Sucker by aspiring Hot Shot Parsley Steinweiss

These days websites, business cards, bios, and books often receive more dedicated time than the actual production of new work. Not necessarily a bad thing, such activities tend to take time. Today I am thinking about names. How much time is wasted tossing our own around, ways we could shift them to make them really pop?

Even in my most self-conscious of moments, my name is the one thing I would never change, I am rather fond of it. In the early stages of my romance with photography, I was sifting through the shelves of a used bookstore and ran across this. Not only did she have my name, her photos looked oddly similar to my own, and, on top of everything, she used my typeface of choice. Since then, my font preferences have changed and so has my work, but to my name I still stand true. But it’s always entertaining to think of the possibilities, just like the hours spent practicing our autographs as kids… Self-branding can be fun!

Aspiring Hot Shot Parsley Steinweiss does not have a website, instead just a really great name. From Parsley’s statement:

I am interested in the microscopic, in what the human eye cannot see on its own, in how organisms behave - how they feed, produce, protect, communicate, decay. In our domestic spaces we deny these organisms and interactions from existing in our minds. We think of ourselves as clean and hygienic. However, our personal spaces are inundated with living organisms - mold, dust mites, sprouting potatoes. I like to imagine the lives of these organisms.

Keep the work up Parsley Steinweiss. As for everyone else, another day has passed. Enter now!

By Your Side (Distance) by aspiring Hot Shot Chad Muthard

Fresh from the entry pool, I give you Chad Muthard. Take it away, Chad…

The work I construct is an attempt to resolve issues or conflicts in the mind. Most of the work is derived from events or moments in life, that I struggle to understand the effect of and/or outcome of the situation. These ideas are then taken and projected into narrative form in images, which tend to become elaborately fictional versions of the event.

Behind the door, I keep the universe by aspiring Hot Shot Rachel Herman

Rachel Herman grew up a child to midwestern art dealers. It took her years to see the possibility of crossing the line into creativity and calling herself an artist––something that often requires a good deal of confidence and guts. These days Rachel is interested in the way that places are witness to so many of the trials and tribulations, loves and romances, and all-around living that is contained within them. In her words…

I get in and out of places surreptitiously, like a good voyeur. I work episodically, like a diligent short story writer. I return to themes over time, specifically those that have to do with couples and family and the spaces in which these relationships unfold. I use the camera to nestle in and ask questions about how and where we live with the people we love.

Sometimes, I think the most powerful portrait can be unpeopled. The images I’m submitting here show a very special place that, in turn, reveals the magical, romantic and complicated couple who lives there.

If you keep them coming, then so will I. One entire week, just for you! Enter before it is too late. But since the pressure has ebbed, I offer a bit of uplifting worldly wisdom from Rachel: “Sometimes all it takes is one person to believe in what you’re doing. Then everything looks different, better.” I like the way Rachel thinks.

For all of you that should be kicking yourselves in the pants, some relief… Due to popular demand, we here at jen bekman have decided to extend the Fall 2006 Edition of the Hey, Hot Shot! competition for one additional week. That’s 7 more days to get your act together and get it in.

New Deadline: Tuesday, November 14 @ 6pm
Winners announced: Monday, November 20 @12pm
Fall Edition Showcase Soiree: Wednesday, December 13 6–8pm
Fall Showcase Dates: Thursday–Sunday, December 14–17, 2006

You all remember that almost unbearable excitement as the final days of school rolled around and the day would soon arrive when you could flip through the pages of the yearbook giggling over goofy pictures, staying secretly thrilled that your face was gracing the pages of a “real� book. Well, here at jen bekman we’re dealing with that same sort of excitement.

More than a yearbook, this is the one and only Hey, Hot Shot! Yearbook. It will include some of the best work being produced by today’s emerging photographers––Winter, Spring, Summer, and the yet to be determined Fall 2006 Hot Shots! All 40 artists in one full color, hardbound, slip-covered, beautiful book…this is going to be a book to brag about.

And whom do we have to thank, well, the geniuses behind Blurb of course. Blurb makes it possible to publish professional quality books without the intricate and often exclusive processes associated with publishing. Why shouldn’t we all have the reward of holding our very own book? If you haven’t explored the possibilities offered by Blurb, then discover the dream right now.

Stay tuned for more information on reserving your very own yearbook. And, of course, Hot Shots will get a complimentary copy. Excitement, pure excitement. Will you sign mine?

After the Sandstorm by aspiring Hot Shot Nicholas Cope

My oh my how time does fly, only one day remains to get your entries in for the Fall 2006 Edition of Hey, Hot Shot! And your last chance to be considered for one of the three spots in the HHS! Annual ne plus ultra exhibition in January 2007. The clock is ticking––it’s time to show us what you’ve got.

Take a look at Hot Shot hopeful Nicholas Cope. Nick calls himself “an intuitive photographer who shoots from the hip, but often ironically produces work that appears calculated and detached.”

What kind of photographer are you? Enter Today!