This is a reshoot of the dry cleaner that I shot a couple weeks ago. Shot 8/18

another extended exposure in worcester taken 8/18

Jeff Brouws

It's been a busy 10 days, between Philadelphia, NYC and Boston, but I wanted to take time to highlight the work of Jeff Brouws, an established photographer represented by esteemed galleries such as the Robert Klein Gallery in Boston as well as the Robert Mann gallery in New York. Jeff seems to blend the visual and conceptual sides of photography beautifully. His newer series, Proximity, uses triptychs to highlight the dichotomy that is observed in North Dakota between a seemingly simple, romantic version of American rural life and the nuclear missile silos that lie only miles from those places. As Mark Rawlinson puts it in his essay titled Out of Sight, Out of Mind, the Proximity triptychs "gather together the tick-tock of everyday life—the work of the grain elevator, the life of the corner convenience store—with the Minuteman ICBM silos. Abutted in this way, the disjunction between one and the other, long forgotten, becomes chillingly apparent: Out of sight, is out of mind". This newer work falls in line with Jeff's older series, After Trinity, which contains images of the site where the first atomic bomb was detonated. Jeff's work is structurally beautiful and the work maintains an ever present meaning. For achieving this balance alone, I admire Jeff's images. Also, blogger has made it incredibly dificult to upload a high quality version of the triptych below, so please check out Jeff's site as well.

Trinity Site 1, Location of First Atomic Bomb Detonation, Alamogordgo, New Mexico, 1987

All images are exclusively copyrighted by Jeff Brouws

More on my platform shift

For those of you who have an account with wordpress, I am starting to shift my blog platform. You can check out my wordpress blog here, though the content is almost exactly the same. I've been struggling with the aesthetics of the blog, so let me know what you think.

Özant Kamaci

I came across this guy totally randomly as I was checking out LOZ, the blog run by Laurence Vecten, a photographer based out of France. Özant's work, especially from his series "Pause" and "Pause M" consists largely of images of airplanes caught behind trees and other visual obstructions. Özant explains his photos as serving as an interruption of anticipation. His idea of capturing an image at a time when most people are anticipating what comes after, such as the plane emerging from the tree, is interesting in itself. However, he also seems to have followed through with a visual concept that challenges the way the viewer is able to perceive the image. The airplanes are often so integrated into the other parts of the picture that you are challenged to look at the relationship between such a massive piece of modern technology and nature (cliche, I know, but...) in a way that focuses exclusively on form and texture. I think these pictures are pretty cool, and I'd like to see more work like this come from Özant. Özant is Turkish, but currently lives and works out of Toronto. You can check out his website here.

All images on this post are © Özant Kamaci

It looks like the photo a day thing needs to be put on hold until my schedule allows for more shooting. Anyway, I had a day off today so was able to squeeze off this shot during a drive to Fitchburg.

Sterling, MA

Juliane Eirich

During my various blogspeditions, I continued to see Juliane Eirich's name . Juliane splits her time between the United States and Germany, and has shown work all over the world, including Syria, Tunisia, France and Germany. Juliane seems to be most recognized for her night work, which is outstanding. Though I typically don't try to speculate on this blog about technique, it look as though Juliane throws light on some of the subjects in her work. However, unlike so many other night photographers, (this is based on the assumption that she does use artificial light), Juliane seems to use light at night in a way that brings out the great aspects of what is already there, rather than throwing out a gelled strobe that always seems to fictionalize the picture. I particularly liked her Schools series, which includes pictures of elementary schools in Oahu, Hawaii at night. Juliane has just recently won second place in the Camera Club of New York's 2010 national juried competition, as has also been featured in the debut issue of the online zine Over/Under. On a side note, Over/Under's first issue was titled "Night Moves", and has an eclectic collection of night photography that's definitely worth checking out. Here are a couple of Juliane's images.

© Juliane Eirich

© Juliane Eirich

© Juliane Eirich