Pete and Friend by HHS contender Rachel Graves

I tend to be drawn to conceptual work and often to work that examines the medium itself. So I was immediately interested in aspiring Hot Shot Rachel Graves’s work with found/family photographs. Full disclosure: I, too, sometimes work with family photos. Whereas I isolate details in order to explicate all I can from a single image, Graves reports,

“For this I am working directly with the family photographs my parents have - every single one of them, and rephotographing each one until it is so disintegrated and so far removed from what it was that I can no longer find anything familiar in what I see.”

What great work.

With that, and with my confessional, I inaugurate this cycle’s round of Contenders posts. Check back every day for a quick peek inside the submission portfolio of one of the entries for the current edition of Hey, Hot Shot! And, also, you should enter now!

CSAV Chicago, New York by Summer ‘07 HHS winner Shuli Hallak

Summer ‘07 Hot Shot, Shui Hallak, has a show at Chelsea’s Moti Hasson Gallery. The gallery will show work from the same series that won her a coveted HHS spot.

CARGO, a solo exhibition of photographs by SHULI HALLAK is up from MAY 8-JUNE 29, 2008 at Moti Hasson.

Congratulations, Hot Shot!

Shuli Hallak’s recent photographs document cargo in its state of transit between production and consumption. Almost every manufactured product humans consume spends time in a shipping container, yet consumers remain largely unaware of the process by which goods are actually transported. Hallak describes a cargo ship as a “sublime, moving city” and finds beauty in the fundamental necessity of the shipping industry, in the romance of travel over sea, and in the raw, precise, purely functional architecture of ports. In “Cargo,” Hallak unveils an essential stage in the delivery of goods from manufacturer to consumer and invites viewers to share in her process of discovery and in her fascination with what she finds.

Visit Shuli’s HHS page, her website, and her current show.

By Summer ‘06 Hot Shot Kate Bingaman-Burt.

The past few weeks have been great, but, look, we need a break.

And, by “break,” I mean a short pause here as we get ready, technically, to launch the first Hey, Hot Shot! edition of 2008.

So grab your portfolio, and start working on your statement and bio; I look forward to seeing them when we return.

From Room Temperature, by Kirby Pilcher

Today’s 20×200 edition is photogaphs by Luke Strosnider, who, as Ms. Bekman points out in her newsletter, is a colleague of Hey, Hot Shot! alums Kirby Pilcher and James Rajotte at the Visual Studies Workshop.

You don’t get her newsletters? You’re missing out. Sign up to get gossip like this and first crack at each 20×200 edition.

Ian Baguskas’s Rincon Artificial Island and Pipeline, Ventura, California, 2007 40×51″ C-print

Peggy Roalf reviews Sweet Water, Spring ‘06 Hot Shot Ian Baguskas’ current show at Jen Bekman Gallery, in Design Arts Daily.

She writes:

“In the last several years, photographers around the globe have taken up the plight of the earth, further endangered today through climate change, deforestation, and drought. The landscape, with human activities accepted as a ‘natural’ aspect of the view for better or worse, provides the raw material, from both a visual and philosophical standpoint. One of the most beguiling exhibitions on view in New York is ‘Sweet Water,’ photographs by Ian Baguskas, at Jen Bekman Gallery.“

Baguskas’ Sweet Water is up until May 3, 2008.

Carlo Van de Roer’s Hey, Hot Shot! winning entry.

Carlo Van de Roer, a Fall 2007 Hot Shot, is almost a sell out. And he will be, soon, surely. For the second time. His Untitled (Bondi Baths, Sydney, Australia), 2007 is today’s 20×200 edition. And there are only two prints left! His previous 20×200 edition, Untitled (Astoria Park, Queens, New York), is long gone.

Carlo’s work is in high demand. He won the 2006 ADC Young Gun Award, the 2007 IPN Go Indie Award, the 2007 PDN Pix Digital Imaging Award, and most recently he won 1st place for fine art at the 2007 APA Awards. So you should hurry.

• The New York Times reports that MFA students at SVA show at the MoMA. In the bathroom. The show lives on, online.
• In the 40th anniversary of New York Magazine, they attempt to define a New York Canon from 1968-2008, and they also run a few Q&As with “iconic New York artists about creating their masterworks.” Mark Stevens talks to Cindy Sherman about her Untitled Film Stills. She discusses process, character creation, and, to some extent, intent.
• Earlier this week, the Pulitzer Prizes were announced. Adrees Latif of Reuters won for Breaking News Photography “for his dramatic photograph of a Japanese videographer, sprawled on the pavement, fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar.” Preston Gannaway of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor won the Feature Photography category “for her intimate chronicle of a family coping with a parent’s terminal illness.”
• Mike Stimpson uses Legos to recreate famous photos from Robert Capa’s Death of a Loyalist, to Cartier-Bresson’s Behind the Gare Saint Lazare. “Strobist.com taught me everything I know,” he says.
• It’s photo auction time. Controversy over the oldest — or just an old— photo. Even Gawker’s covering the photo auctions, drawn to the nudes. Phillips de Pury canceled a sale of Diane Arbus prints because of concerns about a recent lawsuit. There was even a Fine Photobooks Auction at Christie’s.
• Cathy Horyn discusses Juergen Teller’s role in Marc Jacobs’ ad campaigns. How great is it to see a photographer so in charge of a commercial campaign? Small thing: the NYT blog swapped out the photo they initially had (Teller’s ad that featured Victoria Beckham’s legs splayed out of a shopping bag) at the top of the post. Why?

Winter ‘07 Hot Shot Mickey Smith

Why visit one gallery, when you can visit 75+ all at once? The AIPAD Photography Show runs today through Sunday at the Park Avenue Armory. “More than 75 of the world’s leading fine art photography galleries will present a wide range of museum quality work by contemporary, modern and 19th century masters at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City,” says AIPAD.

“AIPAD is dedicated to creating and maintaining high standards in the business of exhibiting, buying and selling photographs as art. Acting as the collective voice of the art photography dealers that make up its membership, AIPAD maintains ethical standards, promotes communication within the photographic community, encourages public appreciation of photography as art, concerns itself with the rights of photographers and collectors, and works to enhance the confidence of the public in responsible photography. AIPAD members provide a wide range of services to the public, such as exhibitions, appraisals, expert opinions and consultations.”

And while an armory full of exhibitors can feel like overload, it’s also a great chance to quickly visit with some people you might not usually have the time (or the access) to see.

From The Town and the City, by Spring ‘07 Hot Shot Mark Marchesi

Spring 2007 Hot Shot Mark Marchesi has a solo show at Nelson Hancock Gallery, in DUMBO. In The Town and the City, Marchesi travels between New York City and his home in southern Maine. He compares and contrasts, but also proves some similarities that might not be noticable at first glance.

“The Town and the City” is up through April 26.

Stay tuned for more from Mark and interview updates with other Hot Shots too.

You Are Important by Spring ‘05 Hot Shot Stephanie Cinelli, one of this week’s 20×200 editions