At Work by Winter 2007 Hot Shot Ben Roberts

Ben Roberts
Currently residing in Hackney, London, UK

website: http://www.benrobertsphotography.com

Work Statement
I’m a documentary photographer at heart; I started taking photos as way of documenting research for drawing and painting, but before long the painting took a back seat; I’m interested in documenting stories about human behaviour and condition, but the images don’t necessarily have to have people in them; I try to look for human traces in both landscapes and domestic spaces to help complete a story. I’m inspired by the work of (amongst others) Mitch Epstein for his quiet appreciation of interiors and objects, and Larry Sultan for the subtlety and variety of his portraiture.

With an emphasis on atmosphere and subtle suggestions of a narrative, I aim to create images that intrigue and provoke a response. My ambition in an image is to evoke a sense of déjà vu for the viewer - a tangible sense of familiarity that can be either warm or uncomfortable. To convey these qualities through portraiture and documentary photography is my constant motivation.

Bio
I grew up in Birmingham, UK, until the age of 18. I then took myself off to Scotland where I completed an MA in Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh. I followed this up with 2 years travelling and compiling an admittedly naive portfolio. Since then I have completed a 2 year photography diploma at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth, and haven’t looked back since. I am a member of the respected young photographers collective Photodebut.org, and have had my work exhibited in The Museum of London and published in The Fader and The Sunday Herald. I am currently first assistant to the award winning UK documentary photographer Zed Nelson.

I’m 28yrs old now, and am constantly excited and inspired to be living and working in London’s vibrant photographic industry.

Money by Winter 2007 Hot Shot Mickey Smith

Mickey Smith
Currently residing in Minneapolis, MN

website: http://www.mickeysmithart.com

Work Statement
The three images submitted to Hot Shots are from my current project, called Volume. I seek out and photograph these titles as I find them on the shelves of public libraries. I do not manipulate, light, or touch the books, preferring to document them as created by the librarian and positioned by the last user.

Searching endless stacks, I am continually struck by physical mass of information and tenuousness of printed works as they fade from public consciousness. The irony and graphic quality of repeating titles fascinate and draw, no matter how mundane, from known to obscure, from Vogue to Blood. I photograph titles that are flirtatious, utilitarian, and personally or socially symbolic.

I am inspired by many artists, but particularly drawn to the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Barbara Kruger, and Edward Ruscha.

Bio
Mickey Smith was born in 1972 in Duluth, Minnesota. She received a BA in Photography from University of Minnesota Moorhead. Works from her most recent project, Volume, have shown at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in Saint Paul, Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh and the Society for Contemporary Photography in Kansas City. Smith is the current recipient of the McKnight Artist Fellowship for Photography and a FORECAST Public Artworks Grant.

Untitled, Kowloon, Hong Kong by Winter 2007 Hot Shot Ka-Man Tse

Ka-Man Tse
Currently residing in Brooklyn, NY

website: http://www.tsewhat.com

Work Statement
My photographs are about a desire to see, to touch without touching. I am a photographer because I am a hoarder. I am a cowardly collector of faces, sights seen without cameras, murmurs in the hallway, children’s logic, things unsaid, lists and maths found on the pavement. Some of my favorite things are sights and not objects; sights seen for the low-fidelity breaking of a heart, a kind of could-have-been, something born to be a memory of loss. So I gaze without manners, turn my head once more, and squeeze my eyes lest the image fall out.

My work explores common themes of home, childhood, memory, desire, loss, and place. Growing up, I had wanted to see my birthplace, the Hong Kong in my parents’ photographs. I began to photograph in Hong Kong in 2004, starting at the location of departure, the decommissioned Kai Tak Airport, and progressing into other spaces of wonder.

Bio
Ka-Man Tse is the creative director of NYC-based dirtypop Magazine. Her work has been published in Hyphen Magazine, Time Out New York and by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She has exhibited at the Fifth Avenue Committee in Brooklyn and currently serves as the Assistant to the Director of Photography at the JCC in Manhattan and as a Teaching Assistant at the International Center for Photography. She lives in Brooklyn, and shoots in NYC and Hong Kong.

John by aspiring Hot Shots Kate and Camilla

The notorious New York duo Kate and Camilla are artists in a league of their own. They met in a photo class at Smith College, teamed up to get their MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and quickly ran off to New York where they now have their very own studio and some considerable clientele.

We’ve always said that we make images we want to see and we hope that the world wants to see them too. That said, in the constant flux of information and inspiration, we often return to portraiture and consider most of our work to be a form of portraiture. We are less interested in capturing the truth of a person than we are interested in capturing our truth through a person, place, or thing.

In a list of subjects of interest they include sex, faces, sexfaces, bodies, parts, scapes (land not garlic), masculinity, femininity, portraiture and its history. John is a piece from a semiannual “nude art modeling” collaboration between the two and a man named John. They pick a flexible theme, gather some random props, and he meditatively moves around.

Kate and Camilla have a large body of work worth a look on their website. And they are recipients of PRINT Magazine’s New Visual Artists Award for 2007; pick up March’s issue for their feature. Kate and Camilla––keep it coming.

Untitled (One) by aspiring HS Keith Kin Yan

Keith Kin Yan hails from Hong Kong, moved to Singapore, then to Boston, New York remaining a fascination and his ultimate destination throughout. For him it was the dystopian metropolitan environment that film and comic books lead us all to believe it could be.

What I found upon my arrival luckily didn’t live up to what I’ve imagined, but this vision of a dark cinematic New York stayed with me and I set out to capture the New York I’ve visualized with my images.

And that is exactly what he has done. Keith successfully transforms the New York City we all know into the gotham noir we’d all, in the back of our minds, like it to be––a city that truly is full of mystery, adventure, and vices of all sorts. This New York is the dark metropolis, the sin city, a city where venturing downtown is a risky temptation. Not to mention, the work is simply good looking.

Keith has many, many images for you to pour through on his site as well as his flickr––for your Sunday, enjoy.

Howling Coyote by Paula Rebsom

To tease the anticipation, this weekend I owe and will give you daily-double submission spotlights. Be sure to schedule us in for your lunch hour on Monday, the winners for the winter edition of Hey, Hot Shot! will be announced at 12PM sharp. Oh the how the excitement mounts.

Aspiring Hot Shot Paula Rebsom is interested in the hunt, more specifically in the sexualized nature of hunting. Growing up in North Dakota, she spent her childhood hunting with her father, even winning prizes for marksmanship. Today her work battles the contradictions she ran into as she grew older, as outsider perspectives forced her to confront the many ethical issues surrounding her sport and questioned a female in a predominately male game. A performance artist and a sculptor before a photographer, Paula’s creations are documented in bizarre and moody photographs. In her words:

In my work I explore paradoxes of identity, including human/animal; male/female; hunter/hunted; and predator/prey relationships. I sew costumes and props for myself and then find ways to insert myself into every day scenes.

Keep it up Paula!

Air Show by Ben Pier

Aspiring Hot Shot Ben Pier studied in Chicago at Columbia College, then left the good old Midwest for Brooklyn. I know about his education, his age, his sign, even his bloodtype, but not much about his work––only that I think this image is pretty great. From his submission:

I started shooting in high school, I have an older brother who was into it, he would shoot his friends skateboarding and what-not and I thought it(he) was pretty much the coolest thing ever. … I am intrested mainly in people and strive to photograph the human experience and condition. I am constantly inspired by my friends and a lot of the time by complete strangers.

Good luck Ben.

It seems to me that one of the most difficult things about being an artist is getting one’s act together and getting work out there. If only each of us would jump on every opportunity we ran across, well we’d be a lot better off––procrastination can be a killer.

Here is one not to miss, The Photographic Resource Center’s annual juried exhibition EXPOSURE. An amazing resource, the PRC is “an independent non-profit organization that serves as a vital forum for the exploration and interpretation of new work, ideas, and methods in photography and related media.” Their Annual Juried Exhibition promotes some of today’s most promising photographers and is an opportunity not to pass up.

AND our own Jen Bekman has been asked to be guest juror for 2007 and will be giving a lecture there in March as part of the amazing line-up of speakers for the spring.

The deadline has been extended through February 18––that’s Sunday!

Exposure: The Annual PRC Juried Exhibition
Deadline: February 18, 2007
Entries can be postmarked or hand delivered to the PRC by Sunday and the entry form can be downloaded here.

You’re reading about it, thinking about it, so why not enter before it passes you by. Good luck!

On Holiday by aspiring Hot Shot Ben Roberts

In my attempt to celebrate my least favorite of holidays, I’ve poured love songs, ballads, and many a nostalgic tune through my ears since waking. Now I am stuck with one of my favorites on repeat––thank you Doris Day. In passing along aspiring Hot Shot Ben Roberts, I hope to also get this tune I will not name, but leave for you to guess, out of my head. From me to you, words from Ben’s statement:

I’m interested in documenting stories about human behaviour and condition, but the images don’t necessarily have to have people in them; I try to look for human traces in both landscapes and domestic spaces to help complete a story.

While our panelists tackle the difficult task of selecting just who will be first 10 Hot Shots of 2007, I will continue to bring you some submission spotlights. Enjoy.

Winners by Michael Simon

You have three hours to get your entries in. Three hours until your time is up, until your last chance to enter the Winter Edition of Hey, Hot Shot! passes you by. Are you a winner? Get it in and get it out there.

For a little motivation, I give you Hot Shot hopeful Michael Simon. Michael submitted work from his series taken at the 2005 Supernationals Chess Championship in Nashville. On the project:

With 5,230 kids entered, the event holds the official world record for the largest scholastic chess tournament in history. Chess parents were kept at least fifty yeards away at all times during match play, so the players were left on their own to win or lose the most important chess matches of their young lives. Their faces expressed rage, glee, frustration, isolation, boastfulness, indifference and every other possible emotion as each strove to defeat his or her opponent. But in the end, every child was a winner. Waiting backstage, most of them almost as tall as their intended recipients, were 5,230 trophies.

Get to it. Enter Now