Falls 26, 2005; Surf Ballroom, 1999; and Charles, Vasa, Minnesota, 2002 by Alec Soth

Welcome back to our Week In Review, a short-and-sweet round-up of the week's best photo links and stories.

Photography News

• We just closed Tod Lippy's round of Curator's Choice (we'll be announcing the winner in a newsletter very soon).


• Our fifth and final Guest Curator is Alec Soth. Yes, Alec Soth. We couldn't be more excited to help you get your work in front of his eyes. (And be up for a sweet Little Brown Mushroom prize pack)


• Work by three HHS! contenders: Erica Allen, Amy Stevens, and Jordan Tate is featured in The New Skew on view at the Center for Photography at Woodstock til the end of August.


• Larissa Leclair has launched the Indie Photobook Library with HHS! Panelist Darius Himes, Andy Adams, Shane Lavalette and Gabrielle Reed on the advisory board.


• Fraction Mag Issue 17 is online, featuring the work of Curator's Choice winner Phil Underdown and a review of Little Brown Mushroom's adult storybook Bedknobs & Broomsticks by Trent Parke


• The newly created Photography Council at the Milwaukee Art Museum is hosting its first benefit, Exposure, a silent auction with works by photographers Colleen Plumb, Brian Ulrich, Jon Gitelson and many more on Wednesday, August 4th.

The Deadline Approaches!
We are trudging into August, the dog days of summer (and the fifth month of HHS! 2010), but things aren't slowing down around here at all. In fact, we ran the numbers to show you just how many contenders we've featured. Might you be next?

We sincerely hope that you're enjoying reading our contender posts as much as we all enjoy writing them. We've seen some fantastic work so far—and such breadth—and we can't wait to look at and write about what all of you send us in this final stretch. Remember, the competition ends on August 22nd so don't dally. Get those entries in!

Have a great rest of the week! Follow us on Twitter: @heyhotshot and Facebook for all the latest competition news.

We couldn't be more excited to announce that Alec Soth, renowned photographer and founder of Little Brown Mushroom Books, will be serving as the guest curator for our 5th—and final—month of Hey, Hot Shot! 2010.

Alec Soth has emerged as one of the preeminent photographers of our time, working seamlessly across genres as fine artist, storyteller and documentarian. Soth's creative projects combine photography, video, sound and writing (and more!) into inspiring stories that emerge from his journeys on the meandering roads of America. In 2008, Soth was named a full-time member of Magnum Photos and this September, the first U.S. survey of Soth's work, From Here to There, will open at the Walker Art Center, not to be missed if you are anywhere near Minneapolis.

Two Towels, 2005, from Niagara by Alec Soth

To readers of this blog, he needs no introduction, especially as of late, with all of the interesting projects and upcoming exhibitions keeping his name at the top of our feeds and conversations. But before you race to upload your images, read on for details about the award and more about Alec's work.

Alec will be reviewing all work submitted between July 30th and August 20th (two days before the end of the overall competition entry period on August 22nd). The entrant of his choice will be featured on our blog and newsletter, and receive what he has dubbed the "Little Brown Mushroom Love Pack" which includes:

- An autographed edition of Bedknobs & Broomsticks by Trent Parke (from the SOLD OUT edition of 1,000)
- Lost Boy Mountain by Lester B. Morrison (edition of 1,000)
- The Last Days of W by Alec Soth (from the SOLD OUT edition of 10,000)
- and a screen-printed LBM t-shirt

"The Little Brown Mushroom Love-Pack"

Before starting LBM Books in 2008, Soth released several books of his own work with publisher Steidl: Dog Days, Bogota, Sleeping by the Mississippi and Niagara—all of which have become instant classics and collectibles. So it's no surprise that LBM has been producing some amazing (and quickly sold out) books.

But LBM is only a sliver of what Alec has been up to. In conjunction with his aforementioned show at the Walker Art Center, a book will also be published to accompany the exhibition. After that, another book project, a collaboration with photographer Catherine Opie and fashion designers Rodarte, will be released in November. You can keep tabs on Alec and LBM's ventures by following their blog, Twitter and Tumblr. Soth also maintains a blog at the New York Times, Continental Picture Show, featuring photo and video from his adventures around the country. One of Alec's images is part of Land Use Survey, our summer exhibition currently on view at Jen Bekman Gallery through August 15th.

Finally, you'd be remiss not to read through this insightful interview with Soth on Big RED & Shiny from last November to hear Alec discuss his various projects in his own words.

It is an honor to give you the opportunity to get your work in front of the eyes of one of the most respected—and busiest(!)—photographers around. Best of luck to everyone entering and let us know if you have any questions—about Alec's prize or anything related to HHS!—by leaving a comment or replying to us on Twitter @heyhotshot.

Ready to apply now? Go for it!

Yuji Hamada toys with ordinary spaces by defining them through the elemental components of the photograph: light and shadow. By using a smoke machine to exacerbate the stringy, effervescent rays of natural (and only natural) light, he breaths new life into sunshine, suggesting it is alive, powerful, directed and defining. What he aims to define is the extraordinary in otherwise dismissed sites, through these two coexistent and dependent ideas: without light their cannot be shadows and shadows often define the boundaries of light.

Untitled from the series Pulsar, 2009 by Yuji Hamada

His series, Pulsar, presumably takes its name from the highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars of the same name whose beams of electromagnetic radiation can only be observed when they have rotated towards the Earth. Like these intergalactic forms, the beams of light that disperse through Hamada's images emit from a pointed source: the sun—the star at the center of it all. The sun, which here on planet Earth controls the climate, dictates seasons, and is the reason for most life, is articulated and further dispersed through the leaves and branches it has enabled to exist. It is occasionally interrupted by man-made forms—a fence, automobile or cement wall—where the light cannot pass and must find a new direction.

Untitled from the series Pulsar, 2009 by Yuji Hamada

Pulsar is grounded in one strict rule Hamada made for himself: no strobe lights or artificial lights; only natural light may be used. Using the aforementioned smoke machine and a series of filters to disperse the particles of light, Hamada captures each of these frames on a large format Linhof Master Technika camera.

Despite Hamada's rigorous, technical process, his images evoke a feeling of lightness (no pun intended) and the great serendipity photographers often feel to catch rays of sun coursing through the trees at just the right time of day. His manufactured pulsars seem like fantastical versions of the blocks we walk down each day, each a tiny capsule of magic in its transformative moment.

You can see more work from this series on Yuji's website.

I will not disclose the name of the town in which I grew up, however, I will admit that one summer the local high school had an adult education class entitled: "Making the Most of Your Road Kill." Topics within the seminar included; "How to Tell if the Meat is Fresh" and "The Secret to The Perfect 'Possum Patty." But here, here, there are some major perks to "catching" road kill. First of all, you can call yourself the ultimate go-green enthusiast, wasting no food, or spare parts. Secondly, the meat is free! There are no government issued taxes or fees for collecting roadkill. Finally, wild game is said to be very high in vitamins, drug-free, and the meat is lean with little saturated fats. Talk about healthy!

Subterfuge aside, HHS! contender Nigel Grimmer is also a roadkill enthusiast.

(Jo, Hull, 2000), September 2000 UK by Nigel Grimmer

The series, Roadkill Family Album, began in 2000 to highlight the constructed nature of a family portrait. Fooling with the iconic portrait image, each photograph in the series depicts a member of Grimmer's family, or a close friend, lying, apparently dead, by the side of a road wearing the mask of an animal. According to Grimmer, "The photographs have been taken on many holidays with friends and family. Locations include America, France, Japan, Ireland and throughout England".

Oh yeah, one of the other highlights of roadkill? It's utilitarian and universal, not just relegated to one place.

(Pasminda, Donegal, 2002), September 2002 Ireland by Nigel Grimmer

When I pass a dead animal on the side of the road, a few feelings course through my veins—namely: revulsion, sadness and curiosity. Never do I ever think of the animal as part of a family, a larger picture. Grimmer's images force me to anthropomorphize nature and to give animals personal identities. Playing on Grimmer's want to show the audience the meticulous construction of a portrait, roadkill must have interacted with a force or invention of man at one point, e.g. a deer hit by a truck, a squirrel sidelined by a sedan, a bird flying into a sliding glass door. Though it's not so pretty to think about, ultimately roadkill falls on, ahem, the road, another construction of man. Grimmer's visual, alternate realities lead me to this realization and I find myself feeling uncomfortably responsible for the death of every family member in the album.

Imagine someone from your family hit by a cadre of geese going for a Sunday drive; Grimmer probably knows what it would look like.

(Jayne, Hackney, 2007),16 April 2007 UK by Nigel Grimmer

Now, act like a good human and learn to "play dead"!

Lithuanian-born Darius Kuzmickas is a master of the pinhole camera. Remember 3rd grade science experiments dealing with the sun and optics wherein one would only need a cardboard box or a coffee can to record an image? A pinhole camera, which has no lenses and only one aperture, consists essentially of a light-tight object with a small hole in one side, so that an inverted image of outside objects is projected on the opposite side where it is then recorded on film.

camera obscura: outside in(n) 19, 2009 by Darius Kuzmickas

There are records of naturally occurring pinhole cameras as far back in history as the 4th century B.C. where Aristotole and Euclid would record and discuss the shadows left by wicker baskets, or the reverse reflection of leaf slits on trees. Chinese philosopher and theologian Mo-Ti, during the same epoch, would refer to something known as "the collecting plate" that he also observed through gaps in leaves. Of course, the human eye is another naturally occurring pinhole camera, so you have technically tried and succeeding in constructing one without even knowing it!

camera obscura: outside in(n) 29, 2009 by Darius Kuzmickas

The portfolio Kuzmickas submitted for HHS! is entitled Camera Obscura: Outside In(n) and is a technical carnival of Escher-esque images that leave the audience wondering whether a subject of the photograph is the main focus or the infinitely patterned background, and whether or not the room is impossibly constructed or highly manipulated. Kuzmickas showcases the blank, barren walls of a lonely human's living space upon which an image is reborn within a new location in soft focus. Each image features a subject flooded with the accoutrements of the outside world; a woman stamped with the pattern of an apartment complex, a man floating through a city sky.

Kuzmickas toys with our mind's eye and our perception of our own optical reality. The camera obscura technique literally means a dark, vaulted chamber. Kuzmickas images are a play on this wording and feature emotionally dark, small chambers both in the image, and outside the image for the camera obscura capture.

camera obscura: outside in(n) 55, 2009 by Darius Kuzmickas

Perhaps M.C. Escher said it best when he asked, "Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?"

It used to be a trend in the medium of photography that some practicing artists, dissatisfied with the static, frozen-in-time image would abandon the single-frame format camera for the moving pictures kind; essentially making a trade for the fourth dimension— that of time.

These days it would seem that a trade has been made again, but the trade is not of the either/or variety. It's a trade up for more skill sets. No longer does it seem that one has to identify or confine oneself to one set criteria of artistic representation or media. Photographers can begat filmmakers which can begat performance work which can begat installation ad infinitum. It's as if there is only one artistic medium anymore, and its name is versatility.

Untitled, from the series In the Fulcrum of Our Dreams by Teo Ormond-Skeaping

Today's contender, Teo Ormond-Skeaping is one such practioner, working in photography, video and installation within the same project concept. His current body of work, In the Fulcrum of Our Dreams, reflects the sensibilities of one that likes to traffic in dreams, archetypes and the shadow-sides of reality. Colors are muted yet singularly and selectively intense at the same time; some moments are blurred and softly vignetted on the edges, others feel as if you can almost smell them. By utilizing still images, moving images and installation to evoke a rich emotional palette of experience, what I am most moved by in Fulcrum of Dreams is how many and how acutely each of my senses are engaged.

Untitled, from the series In the Fulcrum of Our Dreams by Teo Ormond-Skeaping

IN THE FULCRUM OF OUR DREAMS from teo ormond-skeaping on Vimeo.

In Ormond-Skeaping's multi-layered canvas the more bewildering aspects of dreamscape are invoked: sensations of symbolic import paired with faces that may have no relevance in daily life but in dream logic summon up powerful archetypal associations, creating wave of skin-prickling wave of weird emotional resonance. Is the figure below a harrowing relation? A stranger in decline? Someone with menacing and supernatural powers? A reflection of super ego?

Untitled, from the series In the Fulcrum of Our Dreams by Teo Ormond-Skeaping

The open-ended, free-association and stream-of-consciousness that runs thickly throughout this work brings to my mind the work of Bill Viola, who works masterfully at themes which combine spirit, rites of passage, Jungian psychology and the uncomfortable, seemingly unending spaces of dream life.

While it may seem initially intimidating to learn the language of a new medium and/or incorporate into an existing practice the threads of an entirely new one (or two or three), artists that are unafraid of the learning curve and forgiving of self-created messes and mistakes are eventually rewarded with a much larger tool chest and language set by which to communicate their visions.

The full photographic sequence, as well as video and installation portions of In the Fulcrum of Our Dreams can be experienced at Teo Ormond-Skeaping's website.

We're excited to announce that JBP's own Youngna Park will be guest curating Pictory's next showcase of picture-stories around the theme: Bodies of Water. The deadline to submit is August 11th, so hurry up and send your photos in!

Editor Laura Brunow Miner writes:

There's something so indescribably calming about oceans, lakes, rivers, swimming holes, even pools. Show us the bodies of water -- large or small -- that summer adventures have taken you to and describe your experiences there. We've invited Youngna Park of Jen Bekman Projects (20x200, Hey, Hot Shot!, and Jen Bekman Gallery) to guest curate.

For the unacquainted, Pictory is "a showcase for people around the world to document their lives and cultures." How does it work? Anyone can submit one large, captioned image to each of Pictory's editorial themes. These submissions are assembled by Miner, a guest curator, and a guest editor into collaborative photo essays on subjects like: New York City, Are You There, Dad?, Life Lessons, The One Who Got Away, and more. As you can see, the Showcases are pretty wonderful, and this is a great opportunity to be a part of Pictory!

To keep updated on new Pictory showcases, follow them on Twitter: @Pictory.

There are some artist's projects which require a little background information in order to appreciate fully. As the art-making world becomes larger and encompasses greater numbers of practitioners from increasingly varied backgrounds, intersecting cultures and geographic locations, so too grows the need to provide necessary context for work whose meaning might be completely obfuscated without it.

Jinkyun Ahn, based in Seoul, Korea, first conceived of his project En Cave while fulfilling a task of familial duty. He writes:

When I returned to Korea four years ago to begin compulsory military service, one of my first responsibilities as the eldest grandson was to visit my grandparents' burial sites as a sign of respect. Nearby their burial sites is an empty plot where my parents will also one day be buried. As I stood in front of the plot, my parents walked into my line of vision. Suddenly I realized that I would stand at that very spot at my parents' funerals some day. I could not stop the inevitable transformation of the view—from living parents to graves—nor could I turn away from the view where my parents' deaths will be evident. Like the chained slaves forced to watch illusions in Plato's cave, I am bound to observe a scene of my parents' death in the graveyard.

En Cave #15 by Jinkyun Ahn

En Cave #14 by Jinkyun Ahn

Ahn constructed his own "Cave" where this performance could be enacted and shared by himself and his parents without any actual funeral having to occur. Much like his concept of living through his parents' funeral by conducting an artful preemptive rehearsal of it, his artistic method is equally transparent, which I favor for its no-nonsense emotional pragmatism:

The view not only includes me and my parents but photographic equipment such as light stands and electric wires. The apparatus is exposed rather than hidden; my photographic process is photographed explicitly.

En Cave #17 by Jinkyun Ahn

Through his project En Cave, Ahn is reconciling the fact of his personal ties and history being inextricably bound up in the person he is trying to carve himself out to be apart from those familial ties and that culturally inscribed history. The act of reconciliation is necessary because, in the end he recognizes his to be an, "...experience of helplessness not only in creating highly conceptualized art in the early 21st century but also in performing as a son according to Confucian tradition in a Korean family."

The act of honoring and paying tribute to the ancestral dead is a rich subject that many contemporary Asian artists are visiting with an eye towards contemporary critique and commentary of culture-jamming. Ahn's work brought to my mind the recent project In Case It Rains in Heaven, by Hot Shot and 2009 Ultra Kurt Tong. Focusing upon the ritual burning of Joss paper as offerings to ancestors and the recently departed, Tong recreates the complicated narrative that exists in developing these offerings—a narrative being increasingly tailored to reflect material goods and status symbols that the dead perhaps were never able to attain. Or, goods that current cultural standards hold to be a meaningful and valuable tribute: joss-molded ipods, designer shoes, household appliances and automatic rifles.

Both Jinkyun Ahn's and Kurt Tong's work shows that even while centuries-old customs are still respected and observed, that the intersection of those traditions with other cultures and value systems is inevitable. Reflecting on these changes through art is an important and meaningful task as an artist so that one can fully understand and communicate those differences in their work.

The possibilities being offered by micro-philanthropy sites like Kickstarter, ProjectSite et al to artists, writers and others of compelling vision is one of the certain bright spots in an otherwise depressing terrain of arts-related budget cuts. By providing a carefully vetted platform for individuals to make their pitch, show what work they've done so far, and offer up a carefully devised plan of attack, crowd-sourcing funds for artists' projects has become a very successful strategy to realize the fulfillment of otherwise hard-to-reach goals.

One of our earliest Hot Shots, Erin Siegal, has been working tirelessly on a project for the past two years that she has recently put up on the Kickstarter site for a final push of funding to complete her research and turn her work into a book.

In a recent interview with Jasmine DeFoore, Siegal explains how her latest research project came to be:

I fell into the world of adoption corruption entirely by accident, and as a result of being a photographer.

My sister and I went to Guatemala on vacation in December 2007. While waiting for our plane in the Guatemala City airport, we were surrounded by Americans leaving with newly adopted children. On a visual level, it was a very striking scene because of the trans-racial element as well as the sheer number of children leaving. I was immediately curious to learn about what was happening.

Taking on a project like this requires more than a few leaps of faith. Finding Fernanda is a book both necessary and overdue. It's traditional investigative journalism done in the service of the public good, exposing wrongdoing and holding those in power accountable. The broader appeal lies in the compelling experience of two very different women, one Guatemalan and one American, whose lives accidentally intersect because of one little girl: Fernanda.

Siegal has been working on this documentary project of investigative journalism since 2008. After she came to the realization that she had been moving towards creating work that was, "more multifaceted, human-rights based [work] that couldn't be told [only with] pictures," she applied and was accepted into the Columbia University's Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, where she was given the tools, resources and the time to begin a year-long thesis into the world of international adoption fraud. Since graduating from the program, she has secured a publisher for the project, Cathexis Press.

Scheduled for release in the fall of 2011, her publisher writes about Finding Fernanda:

Cathexis Press is pleased to announce the acquisition of a book that will tackle the controversial and painful topic of international adoption corruption. Over the past five years, 20% of the 100,000 children adopted into the United States came from Guatemala. Journalist Erin Siegal relates the chilling tale of a Guatemalan mother whose two-year-old daughter and infant child were stolen from her, interwoven with the story of an adoptive mother from Tennessee who began to question the practices of the agency that was handling these two girls. Siegal's book will shed light on an alarming problem that, unchecked, will only continue to grow.

While Siegal's Kickstarter project reached its initial funding goal, there are 30 days left in the donation cycle and her target goal of $5,000 still has a ways to go to be met. If you are interested or invested in the issues that she is trying to bring to light, even a small donation (over half of her supporters fall into into the $15 or more category) will help her do what remains to be done in bringing this book to fruition. Here's a quick breakdown of where the Kickstarter funds will go:

• Two months of living, reporting, and writing in Guatemala City
• Legal costs affiliated with getting the US State Department to respond to the thirty Freedom of Information Act requests I have in-process (some of which are almost two years old!)
• Costs associated with database access, and phone/internet access (international calls, etc)
• On-the-ground transportation support (read: gas!) for my dear friend J.L, my Guatemalan reporting sidekick/ driver/ buddy (Yup, the kind of door-knocking I've been doing requires the buddy system)

In a time where institutions, city, state and federal funding for the arts is in decline, it seems impossible to think that a $5 online donation will really make a dent or impact in the arts at large. But for several recent artists we've featured with similar projects here it already has.

Visit Erin Siegal's Kickstarter project site here.

Astoria, where Eliza Lamb has lived for the past five years, is located in the northwestern corner of Queens, New York City. A testament to the ephemeral nature of any neighborhood in NYC, Astoria was first settled by the Dutch (Nieuw-Amsterdam anyone?), then populated by the Germans in the 1800s, the Italians in the early 1900s, Greeks in the 1960s (giving Astoria the largest Greek population outside of Greece itself) and Lebanese and Moroccans in the 1970s. This proverbial melting pot, or now salad bowl, is a bric-a-brac of religious totems, symbols and beliefs. It is no wonder that Lamb was able to get such contrasting sacrosanct imagery within a 10-block radius of her home in Astoria. She is interested in the ideas of boundaries, of religion, of small shared spaces, of personal interaction, especially in New York City. She shoots almost all her images from the public space of the sidewalk and often includes protecting fences.

Marble Reflection from Astoria Series: Streetside Religion by Eliza Lamb

Lamb writes:

I shoot exclusively found objects, in natural light, on medium format film. I do not crop the images - I believe in creating the image in the camera... Sometimes people are interested to know that I was also raised a Catholic but am not currently. My great grandmother had a small 'Bathtub Mary' in her backyard growing up, that we all used to take turn praying at as young children. This is a familiar object and one that provides an odd sense of alienation but also comfort.

Playing on the intergenerational theme of one neighborhood in Queens, Lamb admits that she became interested in photography first through her grandfather who was an engineer. An engineer must apply science, math, ingenuity, creativity and some elbow grease in order to develop solutions to technical problems. How apropos then that the word engineer is derived from the Latin root ingenium, meaning "cleverness" (Oxford Concise Dictionary, 1995). Lamb applies the curiosity of engineering to the tenets of photography, often shooting an image without its person. Because of this capture of personality without a body, Lamb considers herself "a portrait photographer who doesn't shoot people."

Seahorse from Astoria Series: Streetside Religion by Eliza Lamb

The images from the Astoria Series: Streetside Religion were shot over a three-year period. Originally, Lamb would shoot alone during long walks through the neighborhood. However, she says that defensive neighbors would come out to question her intentions, their privacy, and ask her to leave.

Lamb explains:

This again presented the question to me as to why these statues were there in the first place. Were they there to share, to protect, to include or to exclude? So I started taking Maddie (Lamb's 8-year-old daughter) with me, with her little camera, and suddenly I was no longer something to be removed, trying to take something from them - instead people would come out smiling and include us. I was the same person but it was a huge shift.

Piqued your interest? Check our more here!

Yankees from Astoria Series: Streetside Religion by Eliza Lamb

Can't get enough of Queens, NYC? Check out past HHS! Contender and blog focus, Alexander Segreti, who also photographs within yards of Lamb.

The sixteenth century practice of Dutch still-life painting has long placed living objects—flora, fauna and food, primarily—alongside inanimate but significant tokens like skulls, porcelain, candles and books. Rich, velvety backgrounds, usually black, were awash with a matte natural light, and the artist's task was to paint petals most intricate and fruit most delicately nuanced to demonstrate their deft with a brush.

Oranges, 2010 by Jennifer Mason

New Zealand-based contender Jennifer Mason approaches this centuries old tradition with a modern twist, adding bold backgrounds to her compositions. In Oranges, red berries and a handful of the title-fruit are part of a vibrant palette that also incorporates aqua and yellow, recalling the bright colors popular to the 1950s. Magnolia also takes a modern twist; Jennifer has constructed and suspended a still-life mobile of branches and magnolia flower petals that appear to be floating in space. Although the objects are uncharacteristically raised-from-table, Mason maintains the even halo of light and rich color that are constant variables of the still-life style, while diverting from the accepted posture of items, front and center on the table surface.

Magnolia, 2010 by Jennifer Mason

Still Life With Fish & Orange Slices from the series Vanitas by Justine Reyes

Mason is one of a handful of photographers who have adopted this tradition of still-life painting, partaking in their own battle with form, function, position and color. Justine Reyes, in her series Vanitas, composes still-lifes that incorporate elements of family and memory, featuring photographs of relatives past and teacups and dishware that belong to unnamed family members. Both photographers walk the trickle of a line between life and death, placing symbols of life—succulent, fresh fruit—next to symbols of death: an extinguished candle, remnant fish bones, broken egg shells. In doing so, they insist that these images, while void of people, are very human portraits, comprised of the same fragile tension that exists in our life and inevitability of entering the world thereafter.

Dima, 2010, from Stunt Bikers by Luis Belmonte Diaz

Something I often find myself thinking about is the difference between a practice and a project.

A practice is a daily routine; it's showing up to do creative work...even when nothing happens; it's never leaving the house without a camera; it's writing things down in a notebook; it's posting photos (even your weaker ones) on a blog; it's literally anything you do day-to-day to move your work forward--or sometimes just take in what surrounds you.

A project is something else entirely. Visit any photographer's portfolio website (too many to pick from, but literally try any) and you will find projects in a list on the lefthand side, or front and center in a slideshow. A project is hard to define because, as we've seen throughout the competition, there are so many different ways to make work. Distinct from looking, thinking and recording day-to-day, a project means action.

Scrolling through contenders, I think about what each photographer set out to do, or what irresistible possibilities they could not ignore. For contender Luis Belmonte Diaz that possibility is knowing more about things that catch his eye by getting right up close and taking photos.

Oil, 2010, from Stunt Bikers by Luis Belmonte Diaz

Luis writes:

Passing by the Ermitage in St. Petersburg, I saw a couple of boys riding what looked like very weird motorbikes. The vision of these drivers and their machines fascinated me immediately.

I spent a few days in the square waiting for the rain to stop and photograph the drivers, their machines, as well as the asphalt, looking for the unstable equilibrium that had attracted me the first time I saw them, that same tension I also found between machines and asphalt.

The best way to view Stunt Bikers is how Luis has sequenced it on his website. Scrolling from left to right, tightly cropped shots of faces in helmets and stripped down motorbikes are punctuated by traces of burned rubber and swirls of oil. The images amplify each other and create an unconventionally close-up portrait of this sport.

A project like this can be a catalyst for something--like interaction with a random group of people. But what made me think of practice and projects in the first place is how this series is a step beyond spontaneous, but not overly conceived. In practice, one might pass by the very weird motorbikes, snap a photograph, and keep on walking. To spend days getting to know something that catches your eye seems to lie somewhere in between.

You can view more projects at Luis's website, including the full Stunt Bikers series and the similar In Transit.

Untitled, July 2010, by contender Thomas Prior

Welcome back to our Week In Review, a short-and-sweet round-up of the week's best photo links and stories.

Hey, Hot Shot! News

+ 4th Guest Curator, Esopus Editor-in-Chief Tod Lippy, has been reviewing incoming HHS! entries and will be looking at all submissions through July 29th. That means you've got 10 DAYS to get your best work in front of Tod and be entered to win a lifetime subscription to Esopus magazine!

+ Two more reasons to enter: you can apply multiple times with different bodies of work (like contender and Curator's Choice Award Recipient Kyoshi Becker McKizzie) and you can even win twice* (like double Hot Shot and Ultra Joe Holmes). So, apply today—we love looking at and writing about your work!
* Although we can't guarantee that this will happen again in the near future.

+ Which reminds me, have you seen our latest contenders? Check out Thomas Prior and Jaap E. Helder.

+ A beautiful print by photographer Eirik Johnson is available this week on 20x200.

+ Also check out this interview with Eirik and a slideshow of his work on The Morning News.

+ Brian Ulrich reports that the Milwaukee Art Museum is hosting its first auction, including works by Colleen Plumb, Anna Shteynshleyger, Sonja Thomsen, Shimon & Lindeman, Jason Reblando, Fred Marsh, Aron Gent, Ciurej & Lochman and Jon Gitelson.

+ Comparative photography shows receding glaciers in the Himalayas. Don't miss this interactive panorama made with a photograph taken in 1921!

+ Zoe Strauss has launched a dedicated blog for her On The Beach project, documenting the oil spill. She's also raising money for the next 12 days, contribute here!

Have a great rest of the week! You should follow us on Twitter: @heyhotshot and be our friend on Facebook.

I was once in a relationship with a Man of Adventure. His bookshelves were filled with what I came to refer to as Men! Who Did! Great Things! His heroes were explorers, extreme athletes and a long list of bon vivants of varying health and alcohol tolerances. In the course of our time together, I came to know the names of each of the seven summits, that the Himalayan sherpa Tenzing Norgay probably was the first to ascend Mt. Everest over Edmund Hillary (but the secret of who did what first died with them), that the arguably most grueling one-person race in the world is the Véndee Globe. While not romantic in the most traditional sense, his quite literal lust for life underscored for me what the idea of romance was in the most far-reaching sense.

Thomas Prior is also a non-traditional romantic that follows the foolish and courageous. Prior's most recent visual investigations have been photographing people engaged in recreational activities in places or circumstances that are both beautiful and dangerous. The images he has given us to consider in this edition of HHS! were all taken on Maho Beach, which is an area situated on the Caribbean Island of St. Maarten. If you're not an adrenaline junkie or in a relationship with one that might advise you on such things, what's unique about Maho Beach is that it is situated directly adjacent to an airport, and the approaching jets fly oh-so-close to the beach such that it makes for anything between a dramatic horizon line, at the very least, to a life-threatening case of jet blast at the very worst.

Untitled, July 2010 from the series Maho Beach by Thomas Prior

Untitled, July 2010 from the series Maho Beach by Thomas Prior

In images from Prior's Maho Beach, people are shown in postures of alarm, excited agitation and fear, running across the picture plane with their bodies shown at harrowing (or harried) angles, hair standing straight up on end, blasts of sand shooting vertically in a wall in front of covered faces. My immediate associations are cult b&w Japanese monster films, where entire populations are scurrying for cover while under attack from the likes of mutant villians Mothra or Godzilla. Such shenanigans are exactly the kind of canvas that Prior goes looking for in his projects. Recently featured as a PDN 30 Photographers to Watch, Jacqueline Tobin interviewed him for the accolade, writing:

The "mixture of the super dedicated people and beautiful open landscapes" drew him to these subjects, he says. "The locations are simple, yet not at all boring. They're visually incredible, but made more amazing by humans."

In many of his images, Prior seems to catch people in somewhat awkward moments. "That kind of awkwardness is what I naturally react to," he says. "I like people awkward and landscapes ordered. This style runs through all of my photos and it's how I've always made pictures."

Untitled, July 2010 from the series Maho Beach by Thomas Prior

A 2009 HHS! Honorable Mention, we loved Prior's work so much that we made editions of two of his images from his series Blackrock Tower (check out our recent post on the 20x200 blog on extreme weather as artistic fodder). This latest body of work, made this summer, even, is perhaps even more impressive. I can't wait to see what he turns up next (and for those savvy among you, we all might get to find out what that next is if you're on the 20x200 newsletter mailing list for next week, hint hint).

You can view all of Thomas Prior's bodies of work on his website. He also maintains a blog.

Ambiguity may be the clue: there is the material, and there am I intruding my private intent. I know the imminence of the world and experience it with full sensuality; at the same time I am involved with the projection of myself as idea. Strong tensions are inevitable, pleasurable and disturbing. Is not the esthetic optimum order with the tensions continuing? —

Aaron Siskind, Creative Camera, May 1970

Today's contender, Jaap E. Helder, has a few things in common with someone that I consider one of the great photo-art gods, Aaron Siskind. Both of them find photographic inspiration in the landscape and environments of coastal Maine, and both of them have a painterly sensibility as regards texture, marks, depth and formal composition in the frame of an image.

Franklin 9, 2010 by Jaap E. Helder

Maine 1, 1949 by Aaron Siskind

Hailing from the Netherlands and originally trained as a painter, Helder has found in his residence in Maine many echoes of a childhood past spent in a busy, industrial harbor town. His images speak to a love of color and line interrupted by the element of a time which causes decay, and in its overlap with a seen subject, completes it. From Helder's artist statement:

Living in coastal Maine, I am inspired by the raw beauty of the landscape and the Atlantic Ocean, the worn surfaces I see around me, especially the ships in the harbors with their many layers of industrial paint, scratched and marked and worn down by the elements.

Through the relationship of colors, forms, and marks, through rhythm and balance, and the physical and psychological work... I draw the viewer into an imagined landscape, into a colorful, dynamic world that hovers between the abstract and the representational.

Trenton I, 2010 by Jaap E. Helder

There is in Helder's work a large playground for sensual visual pleasure: forms interrupt forms, overlap, elements that in painting would require many built-up layers and scraping away with a palette knife here only require the passage of time and the caprices of wind and sun. Like Siskind, his is a very formal eye, and there is nothing arbitrary about what constitutes the edges of a frame, or its interior. What we are given to look at as a final photographic vision is the product of a situation where the artist has looked and looked and looked again at this same scene dozens of times. Like a painter before a blank canvas summoning up the composition hours or days before a mark is ever made, that is the process by which these images have been realized.

A complete catalog of Helder's photographs as well as paintings are nicely laid out on his website.

Untitled, from the series Fairgrounds by Mike Sinclair

Happy hot and steamy July! And welcome back to our regularly-scheduled Week In Review, a short-and-sweet round-up of the week's best photo links and stories. We can hardly believe we're in month four of competition, which means you've got just a little time left—till July 29th—to submit your entry and be considered for our 4th Curator's Choice Award! Tod Lippy, editor-in-chief of the fabulous Esopus, will review all entries that come in by the 29th, and one photographer will receive a lifetime subscription to the magazine! Make sure to take a peek at their archives to see the tremendous range of essays, artifacts, portfolios and artist projects they've featured over the years.

Recent Contenders

Left to right: Kate Stone, Sarah Szwajkos, Kathleen R. Robbins, Mary Kathleen Shafer, Selena Salfen .

We're featuring one contender daily on our blog; read about the work of some of our entrants from the 2010 competition and apply today, for a chance to be featured.

Photography News

+ Jen Bekman has joined the Advisory Board for 25 for 25, AOL's new grant program, which will award $25,000 to 25 of "tomorrow's ground breakers and visionaries." Entries will be accepted from July 27th - September 1, 2010, and you can submit your information here to request application materials.

+ Speaking of great opportunities, the Aperture Portfolio Prize deadline is only a day away, on July 14th! They are looking specifically for work that hasn't been widely seen or published elsewhere, and for images that have been made within the last five years. The winner will receive a $5,000 prize and an exhibition in Aperture's gallery.

+ Interesting reading material: Now on Imprint: Why the photography book is thriving, in defiance of all available conventional wisdom.

+ Over on the 20x200 blog this week, we wrote about photographer Zoe Strauss's new project On the Beach, a documentary concerning the fallout of the BP Gulf oil disaster in affected coastal states. Take a look at her project and consider making a donation so that she can extend her time in the Gulf.

+ We recently released a beautiful, haunting edition on 20x200 by photographer Roger Ballen, to much enthusiasm and excitement. Collectors have begun to receive their editions, and photographer Matt Neibur had a moment of aesthetic communion with his postman (also a 20x200 fan) when he was delivered the print. We love these kinds of moments of synchronicity!

+ Congratulations to Mickey Smith, whose multi-paneled Collocation (Nature), a permanent glass installation she created for the University of Florida, was selected as one of the 40 best public artworks of 2009. An edition of two of the panels of the work (available as partner prints) is also available on 20x200.

When I am having a nightmare, my unwelcome dreamscape usually involves familiar people and situations, where things occur in a strange logic and stream of events that never actually happened in real life, but makes acute emotional sense upon waking. For individuals to whom real and persistent trauma or abuse have occurred, I've been told that their nightmares are actually the stuff of a remembered reality: a continual re-staging of abusive power dynamics, senseless and horrible events, and a crude feeling of emptying out that is realized when the dream has ended.

4024 Locke Ave, from the series Exposure in Vivo by Selena Salfen

The work of Selena Salfen is both the stuff of art and art therapy, for the story she is compelled to tell and work through is that of a trauma suffered by three generations of her family, and by telling it and re-orienting the past, she hopes to purge its menacing hold and power on those still around to feel its grip. From her spare and haunting artist's statement:

My grandfather has been a consistently frightening figure in my family. He returned severely damaged from his nine months as a starved and violently interrogated German prisoner of war in World War II. Functioning through the remnants of his untreated traumatic experiences, he raised a family in a physically and psychologically abusive household, governed by his alcoholism and nonsensical rules. He worked as a mortician, stealing from those he embalmed and bringing a desensitized relationship with death home to his six children. This traumatic environment cultivated self-destruction and dysfunction amongst the children, leading to suicide, addiction, and many life-long struggles. The legacy of my grandfather's experience in war and resultant abuse of his family has mutated and transmitted itself through three generations. For this project, I use the camera to disrupt the pattern of silence that has guarded our family's dysfunction, while reconnecting the family and redefining their experience within my grandfather's environment.

Extracting the Gold (from the Teeth), from the series Exposure in Vivo by Selena Salfen

The Punishment Buzzcut, from the series Exposure in Vivo by Selena Salfen

Putting the Cat Down, from the series Exposure in Vivo by Selena Salfen

How does you begin healing from a bogeyman that's still around? How do you begin to tell the past so that in the re-telling, you don't actually re-live its potent and toxic emotions as well? How to let go of the past; or maybe more precisely how to lessen its effects on the present? Salfen goes on to describe the psychological underpinnings to her artistic practice for this series:

To make this body of work, I flew members of my family back from their scattered locations to the house in Missouri where my grandfather still lives. This process mimics the treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, referred to exposure in vivo, in which subjects are directed to return to the physical location of a trauma and confront their fears in order to heal. The photographs I make in these locations are reconstructions of stories from the past, as well as observations of each descendant's reimmersion into this historically traumatic location. In addition, I excavate the space, searching for evidence of past and present dysfunction amongst my grandfather's neglected animals, rotting food, and sixty years of hoarding.

The images from Selena Salfen's Exposure in Vivo project stun and confuse me, and leave me with the feeling that I have witnessed something powerful. Sifting through the series on her website, going through the narrative once, twice, several times in a hypnotic, compulsive repetition, I feel as if I have been experiencing a tilted, muted dream life of someone's waking nightmare. Would these images seem menacing without the backstory? I believe they would, if taken in their careful sequencing that Salfen demonstrates on her site. Can they bring any peace or closure or better coping to the actual family members affected and depicted in them? I sure hope so.

Images from this series are currently on view at the The Camera Club of New York, where Salfen received second place in their national photography competition, alongside 2008 Hot Shot Juliane Eirich.

Salfen's entire series Exposure in Vivo is viewable on her website.

Like we said yesterday: we love seeing great organizations support artists making exciting and challenging new work. One of the best places to present your photographs before the photography world's most discerning eyes is by applying to the Aperture Portfolio Prize. If you're readers of this blog, you're likely already quite familiar with Aperture; Publisher Lesley A. Martin was one of our HHS! Guest Curators, and they're host to myriad fantastic lectures, events, parties and exhibits all year long. They're a nonprofit comprised of gallery, publishing house, magazine and more, and consistently produce beautiful displays (both in-print and on walls), of contemporary photography.

The Portfolio Prize, which closes for deadlines next Wednesday, July 14th, aims to "identify trends in contemporary photography and specific artists whom we can help by bringing them to a wider audience." They looking specifically for work that hasn't been widely seen or published elsewhere, and for images that have been made within the last five years.

Each entrant can submit up to two separate portfolios of fifteen images each, and also designate if they'd like their work to be considered as a book proposal. A team from Aperture, including work scholars and staff, will review all the submissions.

Untitled, n.d., from the series The Edge by 2009 Aperture Prize-winner Alexander Gronsky

The first prize winner will take home $5,000 and will be slated for an exhibition at Aperture Foundation. So: got some free time this weekend? Put on your editing cap and pull together your best portfolio for Aperture.

SBD Runways, 2009 by Mary Kathleen Shafer

Contender Mary Kathleen Shafer references artist Robert Smithson in her documentation of airfields, over 100 of which she has photographed from both the ground and from up in the air. She writes of Smithson, "he identified the airport as the quintessential earthwork, a stunning example of leaving a longer mark on the land," an idea which made had a great impact on the issues of temporariness that surrounded his own work. Schafer also describes her fascination with "Le Corbusier's ideas about the drama with which the empty horizontal space of airfields meets the verticality of airport facilities and surrounding urbanity". In discussing this, her photographs start to reveal an interesting tension—that between the natural progression of the land and the impact left by man versus the drama and invisible energy of the space not occupied.

Smithson's Spiral Jetty, an meticulously crafted outdoor installation made of mud, salt crystals, basalt rocks, earth and water in 1970, was vulnerable to the forces of weather and simple unpredictability. Built in a lake that was going through a drought at the time of construction, the Jetty found itself submerged once the water rose for almost three decades until 2005. The longevity of earthworks demonstrated that they were threatened by the environment, as well as by human-generated industrialization.

Airports, like Smithson's installation, are highly calculated places that must pay heed to the environment as well as to human impact. Thinking about these images in a present day context, we can also see a certain tension being revealed in what is physically present and the drama of the invisible space. Since 2001, airports have been a point of uneasiness for both the government and citizens. Despite the impressive landscaping and coordination of machinery, airports are seen as sites of national weakness and risk, a vulnerable access point to the safety of the country. Looking at Mary Kathleen's work, we see airfields and their horizons from afar, where all appears to be peaceful and serene, a never ending web of tarmac surrounded by mountains, absent from any this unpleasantness. However, the potential for havoc can always be assumed at airports; the calm and often grandiose landscape cannot stay that way forever.

Miramar #2, 2009 by Mary Kathleen Shafer

View more of Mary Kathleen's work on her website.

Several recent contenders have also featured planes, transportation and airports in their work: Ozant Kamaci and Judith Stenneken.

Anne's Wedding, 2000 by Mike Sinclair

Guangzhou Zoo II, 2007 by Kurt Tong

We are pleased to announce photographers Mike Sinclair and Kurt Tong as the newest Ne Plus Ultras. Selected from 2009's ten talented Hot Shots, Sinclair and Tong have earned representation from Jen Bekman Gallery, and will be preparing for solo exhibitions and participating in art fairs over the next two years. Congratulations to Kurt, Mike and all of the 2009 Hot Shots!

We would also like to recognize each and every one of the 2009 Hot Shots for their talent and dedication. All of these photographers participated in group exhibitions at Jen Bekman Gallery—Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition and Second Edition—and many have limited-edition prints featured on 20x200. You can expect to see lots more from all of them soon.

All ten Hot Shots were chosen from an extremely competitive group of photographers who thoroughly impressed our esteemed panel: Jen Bekman, Christine Collins, Dana Faconti, Caterina Fake, Stephen Frailey, Raul Gutierrez, Darius Himes, Jenni Holder, Julia Leach, Nion McEvoy, Lesley A. Martin, Alan Rapp, Kent Rogowski, Stefan Ruiz and Jeffrey Teuton. We'd also like to extend our thanks to every member of the 2009 panel for their time and commitment to Hey, Hot Shot!

2009 First Edition Hot Shots:
Michelle Arcila
Daniel Cheek
Mike Sinclair
Parsley Steinweiss
Kurt Tong

2009 Second Edition Hot Shots:
Marisa Aragona
Leah Tepper Byrne
Alejandro Cartagena
Jessica Eaton
Justin James King

It was difficult to select just two photographers from the talented group of Hot Shots, but Kurt and Mike emerged as the best fits for the gallery's roster. We look forward to continuing to work closely with both artists across all of the Jen Bekman Projects. Please join us in congratulating them.

Meet our newest Ultras:

Kurt Tong has worked and traveled extensively across Europe, the Americas and Asia. In 1999, Kurt co-founded Prema Vasam, a charitable home for disabled and disadvantaged children in Chennai, South India before becoming a full-time photographer in 2003.

Tong received a Masters in documentary photography from London College of Communications in 2006. He has since been chosen as a winner in the first Lens Culture - Rhubarb Photo Book Award, the Blurb Photography Book Now competition and the prestigious Jerwood Photography Award.

Kurt's photographs have been widely exhibited around the world at venues including: Jen Bekman Gallery in New York, Impressions Gallery in Bradford, The Royal Academy in London, La Casa Encendida in Madrid, Abbaye de Neumunster in Luxembourg and the CPA Exhibition in Chengdu, China. This summer and fall, several of Kurt's projects will be on view in the UK and France.

Mike Sinclair is an architectural and fine art photographer living in Kansas City, Missouri. His photographs are frequently published in the architectural press and elsewhere, including The New York Times, Metropolis, Architectural Record and Interior Design. His work is in several public and private collections, including The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, also in Kansas City.

In addition to the the Hey, Hot Shot! group exhibition, Sinclair has participated in Mixtape at Jen Bekman Gallery.

Hey, Hot Shot! 2010:

The 2010 competition is currently open for entries and we look forward to seeing your submissions. Follow competition news and updates on Twitter and Facebook, and read about featured contenders daily on our blog. The deadline for submissions is August 22, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. (EDT). Apply now!