Dansk

© Kim Høltermand

The Color Blue

© Justin Newhall, Northern Studies

Time To Pretend

The image above caught my eye at Flak Photo about a week ago for two reasons, the first being that the location was Cherry Hill, NJ–a town that’s about fifteen minutes from where I live, and the second is that the photo is one that can have alternate meanings depending on the viewer. For me, it’s like the beginning of a great noir thriller: a woman in a darkly lit, sleek-looking home buttoning her top and readying herself for the night, or has she already finished her night…Is there a man beside her? A woman? A lover, perhaps…a victim that she has left behind. In my mind, she is the Catherine Tramell of Cherry Hill, NJ.

Browsing through the rest of Nadine Rovner’s repertoire evokes a similar feeling of cinematic wonder, there are people who all look like they were frozen in scenes from films I want to watch. Even more exciting is that the genius behind the lens comes from the area I live in, an area that is not exactly known for producing the kind of photography that normally catches my eye. But Rovner’s work is different, it’s moody, strange and above all–it’s mysterious, with a hint of Hitchcockian suspense permeating throughout. A mix of beautiful, yet average, people in stylized environments can create all sorts of scenes in the imagination and this is what is so exciting about Nadine Rovner’s photography, she’s one to watch.

© Nadine Rovner

Culture Shock

© Tom White, Korea

When You Go

Natalie Young’s The Farm is composed of images collected at her husband’s family farm in Kansas over the time they have been together. It’s an interesting study of family memories and growth, how we all have places that we are connected to. Those places that we go for holidays to catch up after a year of fortune or misfortune, they are the ties that bind families together through generations. Some of my favorite photos from the series are from the interior of the house in Kansas, it’s decorated in a rather old-fashioned way that is very familiar. At one point we see a mantle with photos from the past and it just feels right, it also feels like we are stepping into a place that has remained unchanged for decades. The scenes Young shows us are ones that I’ve seen before in editorials or movies, but there always seems to be something missing–authenticity…this is the secret to why this series works and is so compelling.

The Farm is one of those on-going projects that is less of a technical study and more of a story that has actual emotion and depth. I suppose I’m feeling nostalgic because this week I found out that my grandfather is dying, he’s had a bad heart for many years but all of his organs are now shutting down, and this man who has always been there is now nearing his end. Looking at these photos I thought of his house, a house that has remained the same since my grandmother died in 1981. You walk in and step back in time, it doesn’t change and this was comforting in a world where change is constant. And when he goes, part of my childhood will go with him, yet another reminder that growing up means more than just maturity–it means that eventually you have to let go of the people who got you here.

© Natalie Young

Weapon Of Choice

The new issue of LOVE hits stands this week featuring a myriad of cover stars including the increasingly iconic, Lara Stone. LOVE is the brainchild of Katie Grand, formerly of POP, and the first two issues have certainly been good starts but I haven’t been as blown away as I was by her previous work at the latter publication, which is now overseen by Dasha Zhukova. Still, I think this new issue looks promising and Grand got custody of one of her greatest assets in the split with POP–the photographic team of Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. Their style is beyond innovative and I believe they are the future of image making, mixing the best of graphic design with traditional photographic technique.

Anyway, third time’s a charm, right? I’m willing to give the new issue a chance and get inspired, Grand isn’t a legend in this business for no reason. She knows how to mix powerful imagery with good journalism. Still, why is it that England is constantly churning out avant garde publications at an almost record speed? We need more of these kinds of magazines to be popping up in America and for the larger media conglomerates to get behind them–even if they only come out biannually. Places where great artists, writers, photographers, reporters, editors, and stylists can display their talent are becoming slim. We need more magazines, I love digital but one can’t deny the power of the printed page.

Photo: LOVE

Smile

These photographs by David Graham have nothing to do with each other, I don’t think, but I feel like they sum up what it’s like to wake up on Monday morning and begin a new week. They’re in a group titled Almost Paradise and that title instantly brings a smile to my face. Life is full of “almosts,” isn’t it?

Happy Monday!

© David Graham

Narcissa

A follow-up from last week’s post where I shared some images from a European publication that was “celebrating” the idea of being a bad mother. You can take it any way you want, I mean part of this shoot is rather funny and then there’s part of it that is slightly disturbing. Still, I like it when art dares, even if the art in question is French Vogue’s twisted approach to the outdated model of Leave It To Beaver-style parenting. Not everyone that has kids sees it as an experience of growth, there are many who see it in a narcissistic way where the child is simply an extension of themselves and is there to bow to their needs–not the other way around. The novel White Oleander is probably the best example of this, the relationship between mother and daughter is about control and manipulation. At one point, Ingrid–the narcissistic mother in question–gives a powerful and brutally honest monolgue about how unpreared she was for motherhood and why she dumped her daughter at a stranger’s house for a year. Her shocked daughter, Astrid,  listens in agony but also relief as she can finally learn the vulnerabilies of the woman who had dominated her for so long.

Ingrid: Imagine my life, for a moment. How unprepared I was to be the mother of a small child. I was used to having time to think, and you just wanted, wanted, wanted. I felt like a hostage. Can you understand how desperate I was? I dropped you off at her house one afternoon to go to the beach with some friends, and one thing led to another… they had a place in Ensenada. It was wonderful. You can’t imagine. To take a nap in the afternoon, to make love all day if I wanted and not have to think, “What’s Astrid doing? Where’s Astrid?” Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. Clinging to me like a spider. At the end of it, at the end, I just wanted to throw you against a wall.

The shoot above is probably a version of someone’s life, probably some wealthy young woman who still acts like a child because she can. Still, even the non-wealthy can blow smoke rings in their baby’s face–see the performance of Mo’Nique as Mary Jones in Precious for evidence of negligence at the poverty level. The photos above are just another reaction to where we are going as a culture, the world is no longer innocent and therefore family values have become passé and well…odd. We want to see grit and irony; we want to see a young, glamorous mother reveling in her own narcissism. As for the fathers, well, sexism is also still alive and well–this hasn’t changed or evolved since the days of the white picket fence fantasy. The paternal role has remained unchanged and continues to be excused much easier.

Photos: Jezebel

Secrets Of The Flesh

We are supposed to be the children of Seth, but Seth is too much of an effete nonentity to deserve ancestral regard. No, we are the sons of Cain, and with violence can be associated the attacks on sound, stone, wood and metal that produced civilization.

–Anthony Burgess

© Lydia Panas, The Mark of Abel

Take A Picture

David Bush–a second year student in the Yale MFA program for photography–captured this image for a project he is doing called “Pictures.” The photo above spoke to me because it’s both moving and tragic, proving that old age really is hell. There we will all sit, passed out with a TV tray, surrounded by reminders of what we once were.

This is life’s ultimate cruelty. It offers us a taste of youth and vitality, and then it makes us witness our own decay.

© David Bush