Kamping Kabins by Hot Shot and Ultra Ian Baguskas, an edition for 20×200

In New York City, it is hot. In Ultra Ian Baguskas’s Kamping Kabins it looks nice and cold. You don’t have an air conditioner, eh? Buy a print from 20×200 and dream. There are still some prints, in all three sizes, left of this great work.

Baguskas writes:

Kamping Kabins is from my project, Search For The American Landscape, which looks at the relationship humans have with nature; specifically, the conflict between our inherent love of nature and our desire to alter it and need to take from it.

These images were inspired by photographic surveyors such as Timothy O’Sullivan and Carlton Watkins who explored and documented the land and settlements in the old West by photographing landscapes not only for their beauty but also as a record of places that few people had seen before. My photographs, however, are of landscapes that have experienced human exploration and the subsequent impact from the growing demand for convenience and natural resources.

“The other day’s pineapples,” by James Deavin

Remember that talk about websites? I still don’t have all the answers. But I have a good example. James Deavin, a Summer ‘05 Hot Shot, has a great website and a great blog. James’s last post, by chance, is about website redesign. He writes, in general, with a candid honesty that is refreshing. It is nice to see his daily snaps so close to his carefully edited portfolio projects.

And there are gems like this, “. . .using a camera/phone hybrid. These devices mean you can more easily ask your friends for advice on composition-related dilemmas.” I never thought of the cameraphone that way before. Brilliant.

SEED magazine, cover photography by Summer ‘05 Hot Shot Noah Kalina

Summer ‘05 Hot Shot Noah Kalina has a stunning photograph on the cover of the current issue of SEED and a 10-page photo essay on “Labs at Night” inside the magazine. And Kalina recently stopped by 20×200 to release an edition and a chat with Jen Bekman.

Carrie Marill, A Dream World Glimmers In The Background Of The Soul (Detail)

Fall ‘07 Hot Shot Todd Forsgren has six photographs in the latest Jen Bekman show, Ornithology. The group show, which features a stellar array of artists working in various media, opens tonight, from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. at the gallery, at 6 Spring Street.

Ornithology features bird-themed works by Echo Eggebrecht, Todd Forsgren, Laura Levine, Carrie Marill, Christina Muraczewski, Victoria Neel, Lamar Peterson, Jason Polan, Alec Soth, Amy Stein, Keith Taylor, Bert Teunissen, and Luke Stephenson. Many of these artists will debut exclusive editions on 20×200 during the course of the exhibition.

In the spirit of summer, Ornithology takes its cues from the great outdoors. With their brightly colored plumage, sweet songs, and uncanny ability to fly, birds have captivated humans for centuries, making ornithologists out of even the most casual of observers. From Aristotle to Audubon, Darwin to the binocular-clad of Central Park, our feathered friends have proven to be a source of abundant inspiration.

Of his work, Todd writes:

Ornithologists now use mist nets instead of shotguns. These nearly invisible nets are set up like fences and function as huge spider webs, catching unsuspecting birds. The researcher carefully extracts the bird from the net. Each bird is measured, aged, sexed, and banded with an individually numbered anklet. Then the bird is released.

I photographed these birds while they are caught in mist nets, moments before the ornithologist extracts them. Here, the birds inhabit a fascinating space between our framework of the bush and the hand. It is a fragile and embarrassing moment before they disappear back into the woods, and into data.

Okay, so you like what you see here, and you’ve done some further investigating at the 20×200 and Jen Bekman sites. Hopefully you’ve visited the gallery and other galleries too. Now it is time to start shopping.

Join Jen Bekman, Michelle Dunn Marsh, and Amy Stein, and moderator Michael Foley for In Focus: Collecting Photography, a panel discussion, tonight, Thursday, June 12, at 7:00 p.m. at The Affordable Art Fair (135 W 18th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues).

The Affordable Art Fair is, “the place for new and established collectors to discover and buy paintings, drawings, sculptures, video, photography and limited edition prints from distinguished galleries, all priced from $100 - $10,000. This year the Fair will host more than 70 galleries from the US, Europe, Asia, Canada, and South America.”

Time is almost up.

Have you entered this round of Hey, Hot Shot!? If not, then you need to do it soon. Do it now. Send us your photos and your completed application at once, for the chance to be selected and honored in the Hey, Hot Shot! competition.

Unlike previous years, we WILL NOT be extending the deadline. Not even by a day or an hour or a minute! All submissions are due TUESDAY, JUNE 17, at 8:00 P.M.

Migrant Community, Shanghai 2006 by Spring ‘07 Hot Shot Daniel Traub

Spring ‘07 Hot Shot Daniel Traub reports that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has acquired four images from his City’s Edge series. The very series that won him a spot in Hey, Hot Shot!

Traub was also recently included in the PDN 30 2008 - one of 30 “new and emerging photographers to watch,” by Photo District News.

And he’s not the only Hot Shot featured on that illustrious list. Fall ‘07 Hot Shot Birthe Piontek and Fall ‘06 Hot Shot Shen Wei are honored there too.

Kent Rogowski, from Love = Love

Hot Shots and would-be Hot Shots and regular people alike: go see Kent Rogowski’s show, Love = Love, at Jen Bekman Gallery.

Jen Bekman Gallery is pleased to present Love = Love, an exhibition by Kent Rogowski, comprised of six large-scale photographic prints based on altered puzzles, as well as a selection of the original objects. Love = Love will be on view until Saturday, June 14, 2008.

Rogowski’s collages are created with pieces of puzzles which are cut from the same die but depict different, unrelated images. Using these photographic fragments as his palette, Rogowski creates entirely new compositions by his careful mapping of their collisions. The intermixing of these glossy idealizations of flowers, bucolic scenery, and man-made wonders results in disorienting and wholly unique fractured fantastical landscapes. In photographing his completed objects, Rogowski transforms them yet again. Shifting the scale of the photographic image modulates the grid-like uniformity produced by the borders of the puzzle pieces, diminishing or increasing the order they exert over the chaos of the constructed image.

James Danziger, of Danziger Projects, thoughtfully wrote,

“Mixing flowers, blues skies, puffy clouds, and idyllic scenery, Rogowski creates his own alternate fractured universe, one that undergoes yet another transformation when he photographs the finished object. Humorous and cheery, they are not without their own sly commentary on the commodification of happiness and idealism.

Whether they’re photography or re-photography or collage (or a combination of all three) is beside the point. Kent Rogowski’s work demonstrates yet again that although it may be increasingly hard to come up with new ideas, where there’s a will there’s a way.”

Marine Wedding, by Sping ‘07 Hot Shot Nina Berman, installation view.

Spring ‘07 Hot Shot, and all-around hot shot, Nina Berman will speak on an Aperture panel at this weekend’s New York Photo Festival. As I’ve already implored, you MUST go to the festival, and when you’re there, be sure to catch Nina talking with Vicki Goldberg and Claire Beckett at Aperture Presents: Picturing Iraq. There should be more public discussion of images of this war; I expect a great conversation with this trio.

I know where you should be this weekend: the New York Photo Festival.

Lesley A. Martin, a HHS panelist, is one of the curators, and it looks to be a tremendous affair. Jen Bekman gets in on the action too, sitting on a panel about curating tomorrow at 5:00 p.m.

The festival was created because “New York City, home to the most influential commercial and fine art photography community, has lacked—until now—a large-scale event dedicated to photography.”

This year, powerHouse Books and VII Photo Agency launched the New York Photo Festival, which is the first international-level festival of photography to be based in the United States.

Visit the festival’s site to see the great schedule and report back about what you go to see.