Jumper by aspiring HS John Wells

It’s Halloween and November has arrived whether wanted or not. For the occasion, a slightly darker shot from HS hopeful John Wells. Black and white has become a novelty here on the Hey, Hot Shot! Blog, and just as I have said before, we’re givin’ you exactly what you’re givin’ us. I am still in a state of shock and awe over the teeny-tiny amount of b+w that comes our way each round. And sometimes you really do just want to ooze with excitement over some zone system action.

For some seductively superb black and white work [that is also a little creepy], come on down to the jb Friday evening for the opening of Beth Dow’s solo-show Fiedwork. AND to really get ahead of the game, you can get your hands on one of Beth’s prints over on 20×200. Take a peek.

Happy, happy. We’re feeling festive for some photos and you have but just one week, enter before you’re time is up!

“Sofa” from the series To Stop a Sudden Outburst by Cortney Andrews

This stunner from Cortney Andrews is lovely and jarring at the same time. She has a delicate touch in the way the shadows play across the fabric and then lock into recognizable forms- the menacing yet limp fingers, and the feet distorted but still possible. I love also the use of the sofa to take up almost the entire frame, separating the viewer from any kind of grounding ground, or means of escape. Despite these disconcerting moments, the jar in the foreground remains the most ominous element to me, and reinforces the sense that something is not right.

From her statement:

“Using the ritualistic structures of sadomasochism, the subject positions of dominant and submissive are frequently invoked within my images. The drama of S/M operates in a highly controlled fantasy situation, which is often derived from a traumatic experience. I feel the reenactment of this experience can be a positive emotional reawakening for the participants. My images similarly inhabit a controlled fantasy situation, where I can project and, therefore, validate my feelings with an alter ego.
The imagery is intended to seduce the viewer with the use of compelling color and body language, but its complexity lies in layering these tonalities with a darker, secretive, and threatening quality. By creating a visual language depicting concealed internal desires, I believe it is possible to provoke change in the external world and encourage new discourses on the dynamics of “looking,” sexuality, and power from a feminist perspective.”

It seems most of Cortney’s work relies on the presence of figures to drive home the narrative but I am drawn to this, where the shadow designates perhaps the absence of someone.

Speaking of absence, I sense your absence from the competition! Time’s running out, enter today!

Denver, Colorado by Jesse Chehak

Aspiring Hot Shot Jesse Chehak submitted work from his series Fool’s Gold - a project about the American West, about people, about landscape, about opportunity, and, well, pretty much everything in between. On the work he says:

The pictures are the results of several long, contemplative, road trips based on prior geographic and historical research. I often revisit significantly narrative locations, while shooting spontaneously the contemporary circumstance. Each picture is a meditative interaction between myself, the camera, and the subject. The result is an attempt to connect the past and the present, revealing some truth behind the opportunistic nature of the American West.

A student of Joel Sternfeld, Jesse cannot emphasis enough the value of working with an artist you admire, but also are insanely intimidated by. And I couldn’t agree more.

Keep it up Jesse. And everyone else, remember the clock ticks… So… Enter today!

Hello by Jennifer Zwick

When I read Jennifer Zwick’s work statement, the first line of which reads, “Ahh, breasts. Bouncy, brazen balls of comedy, each and every one,” I must admit that I was intrigued. I had yet to look at her photos but I was dying to see what Ms. Zwick had written this about. I was more than pleasantly surprised: the above photo juxtaposes a pair of breasts against a flat, floral wall; they protrude awkwardly, and yet they don’t look ugly or lose any of the usual appeal or sexual connotation associated with breasts; I laughed a little when I looked at it. The more I looked at them, the more the word boobs filled my head, and made me painfully aware of the set I’ve got. Ms. Zwick seems to have captured the ungainly and everpresent yet innocent, giggly quality of a woman’s breasts, a duality she explains she has recognized:

As a lady, no matter what you are doing, you have them.
On the toilet? You’ve got breasts.
Buying cereal? There they are, along for the ride.
Trip and fall on your ass? The twins will see your fall, and raise you a couple aftershocks of their own.
Hello, they say!
You can ignore me, but someone, somewhere, is aware of this part of you.
Hello!
Well, hello right back, you bizarre body parts. Hello to you too.

Head to her site to get a handle on the rest of her work, like Hanging (front and back) which functions toward a similar aim as Hello, to depict the “comical awkwardness of having a body.” I chose to put up Hello because it’s just so funny, and if anything forces one to think of that comical awkwardness, it’s these two boobs sticking out of a wall. Everyone else, better hurry up and enter just like Jennifer did before it’s too late!

Spring Program 1982, 2007 by Millee Tibbs

For the Friday, I give you aspiring Hot Shot Millee Tibbs.

My recent work is a response to our relationship with mediated images, specifically those of women. I use the transgressive space of self-portraiture to upend the canonical power relationship between photographer and subject. The act of reenacting these photographs is a gesture meant to question how a woman is expected to present herself. In present American culture, women are asked to have the body of fourteen year olds, and fourteen year olds are presented as desirable women. By reenacting these childhood poses I am asking the viewer to reinterpret them through what I see as our culturally confused and confusing relationship to sexuality.

Born and bred in Alabama, Millee attended Vassar college where she double majored in Hispanic Studies and Studio Art, batteled her frustration with her peers, and developed an addiction to photography. An interesting tidbit, Millee says, “Photography wasn’t permitted inside the art department at the time, so I did it on the sly and hand worked my photos (sewing, scratching, drawing) until they were considered art. My work has evolved a lot since then.” A decade later, she comes to us. Keep it up Millee!

self (boy-scout) and x-men, 2007 by Ryan Pfluger

Today’s Hot Shot hopeful has made his appearance on this dear blog before. Now a proud owner of a Masters from the School of Visual Arts, Ryan Pfluger submitted work from his recent project looking back at his suburban rearing and how it has shaped him into the man he is today. The above two images are not a diptych, more a pair from his submission that I felt will strengthen my point below.

Ryan says that the series includes supplemental spaces to inform the self-portraits that make up the meat of his artistic agenda - what he refers to as the “breathing room between pieces.” Now I don’t want to pick on Ryan [I’ve spotlighted him twice for a reason] but I find it frustrating when artists water down their bodies of work in what become sprawling sets that need either a) a filter for flipping through or b) a good tackling by an adequate editor. Ryan’s series is still in the holding-my-concentration range, and sometimes quantity and quality do go hand in hand. Sometimes supplemental images are necessary, especially when working with portraiture, even more so with self-portraiture. I thought, however, that Ryan’s nod towards this frequent photographer insecurity was the perfect opportunity to vent.

Having said that, I encourage you to go check out Ryan’s site, it is loaded with well-executed photography, that might tap into all THE 20-something males’ nostalgic sides. And rather than take from his statement, I offer you some words from his info page: “Ryan feels that there is a strong, vulnerable connection between the individual, their sense of self, their surroundings, and their bodies.”

While we keep our eyes on Ryan, get it in - we want to see what you do. Enter today!

Untitled (one) by HS Hopeful Derek Wang

What is going on in this image, I would like to know. There are a few ideas flashing through my mind that just may please today’s aspiring Hot Shot Derek Wang. In his words:

“Photography is all about a very specific captured moment. The viewer only sees what is presented and is left to interpret what it all means. What happens before and after that specific moment is not necessarily provided, so the rest is left to the imagination. It’s that mix of ambiguity behind what is clearly being visually represented that I love. A photographer gets to inspire viewers to create their own stories.”

Thanks Derek.

Derek finds himself without a website, so you will have to stick to pondering this piece. Enjoy [and then enter].

Dikeledi Jeanette Kekakna by Ian van Coller

Tuesday - a busy day. Allow me to pass the mic to today’s aspiring Hot Shot, Ian van Coller. Ian…

This project focuses on the intersection of post-apartheid black and white identities via photographic portraiture and oral recording of black domestic workers. There are more than 1.5 million black South Africans, primarily women, who still serve as maids and nannies in white households. Although these domestics and their employers remain separated by an enormous gulf in race, culture, education and poverty that characterizes much of South Africa today, they are often wedded by an intensely intimate, personal, and awkward interdependence. In this project, my intent is to capture some of the complexities that all South Africans face in creating and asserting post-Apartheid identities in the face of dramatic economic and cultural realities. The women in this portrait series were photographed in the homes where they are employed. They were asked to choose their own dress and posture as a means to express their identity within that environment, and became active participants in the construction of these images.

Tell us about your work? Enter today!

Early Morning Rainbow by aspiring HS Samuel Falls

I, surprisingly, have not seen a photograph of a rainbow in a very long time, so I give you today’s pick from the entry pool, Samuel Falls. On the work Falls says, “My hope is to create images that rely on the tangible natural reality of the pastoral and human’s historical relationship to landscapes while tuning in to an imaginative world which exists in our imaginations, constructed by literature, painting, and music.”

On hiatus from the ICP-Bard MFA program, Falls remains in mega-production mode — taking long weekends in Vermont with the good old Graflex Speed Graphic in tow and a bus load of inspiration coming from…

Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks
Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog
Jean-Honore Fragonard in general
Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises
Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice
And [of course] Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and