Photo Friday with Luca Zanier’s Space and Energy 

Swiss photographer, Luca Zanier, photographed over fifty nuclear power plants, coal-fired power stations, storages for nuclear waste, and other energy systems over the course of two years. By focusing on shapes and colours, Zanier abstracts these environments and forces the viewer to think of them beyond their purpose. In doing this, the artist highlights a complexity, and perhaps even beauty, to these structures that may have otherwise been overlooked.

In his artist’s statement he explains, ” Enormous spaces, endless walkways, wide sluices, cryptic signs; all combined with miles of cables and pipes.They form a technical universe that radiates a cool logic. A hidden world, known only to a few and yet which has a huge influence on our day to day lives, absolutely essential in fact…What I am proposing is to dissipate technology into aesthetics, at least to a certain extent. Only the caption will remind the beholder of what he or she is contemplating: A highly complex system whereof our modern life depends. Energy systems which serve us and, at the same time, can threaten us.”

-Rudayna Bahubeshi

Photo Friday with Christopher Nunn’s Falling into the Day 

The above photographs belong to the aptly named series, Falling into the Day, by English photographer, Christopher Nunn. The ongoing series captures moments of David Blackburn’s life, as he tragically slips further into the recesses of Alzheimer’s. The famous pastel and landscape artist appears isolated, but simultaneously peaceful, as he lives, rests, and leaves notes about his home.

Incongruous household objects suggests he is slipping away, but organized slides and pictures suggests he is, or once was, a fastidious man. The empty pastel box begs the question of whether the once prolific and acclaimed artist remains, or whether the box that possessed his tools of creation was emptied some time ago.

In the photographer’s own words, “What began as a simple character study of an eccentric man and his quiet existence slowly became a story about the confusion and alienation of living with dementia and the subtle ways in which the condition can manifest itself.”

-Rudayna Bahubeshi

Photo Friday with Chris McCaw’s Sunburn

The beauty of Chris McCaw’s photo series, Sunburn, was born out of a mistake. During a camping trip, the artist tried to capture an all night exposure of the starry sky. As a result of drinking too much whiskey, McCaw failed to wake up before sunrise to close the shutter, and the image was burned, reversing the tones of the landscape. It was a failure in that he did not capture the image he hoped for, but it turned into a much more significant perspective: one that changed his outlook on photography.

He explains this on his website: “The intense light of the rising sun was so focused and powerful that it physically changed the film, creating a new way for me to think about photography.”

Since his first, accidental, burnt photograph in 2003, McCaw has spent years trying different methods and timings to make this series. His favourite results can be found in a photobook titled Sunburn released last year

For more of McCaw’s work, please visit his website.

-Rudayna Bahubeshi

Photo Friday with Olivia Locher 

Olivia Locher’s photos are vibrant, sometimes bizarre, but always full of feeling. That may sound vague, but have a look at her photos and you might understand what I mean. They’re thoughtful, perplexing, free, beautiful, and sometimes look like daydreams mixed with reality. Locher’s photographs are inspirational and her passion for the medium is palpable. At only 21, Locher’s work has been exhibited and published dozens of times, and last month she won the Conscientious Portfolio Competition.

On her range and high volume of work, she states:

“I believe that it is crucial to be constantly producing while also conditioning technique. I set up little shoots for myself at least twice a week to stay in practice. Making photographs is something that feels very natural to me, it has been the best way to express my ideas. All of my individual images start from a single idea and once I have it I let it dictate everything. To find the best ideas you have to go deep within yourself. To do this I practice transcendental meditation twice a day, every day, and by doing so I believe it keeps the ideas coming.”

Find more of Olivia Locher’s work here.

-Rudayna Bahubeshi

Photo Friday with Tim Flach’s More than Human 

English photographer Tim Flach  thins the line between animals and humans with a stunning series called More than Human. He captures panthers, pandas, gorillas, and other animals, and demonstrates that they exhibit a depth of emotion that we may not have expected. These photos beg the questions of how different, if at all, are we from these animals. How different is the look of a bat when threatened and the expression we may have when on guard, or a baboon’s gaze of inquiry and our own expressed curiousity?

Flach further humanizes these animals by taking them out of the environment we are used to seeing them in and bringing them into a studio. Perhaps as any new subject, the animals express discomfort in this unnatural environment, and he placates them with music and by adjusting the temperature. There is a careful and patient process to these portraits because, as we may expect, the subjects are unpredictable and don’t take to direction in quite the same way.

As stated on the artist’s website, there is also a playfulness to these photos:

“Tim Flach’s bestiary evokes pathos, humour and an unmistakably intimate human empathy. Not only do we begin to find supposedly repellent creatures charming, but discover a sympathetic vulnerability, an unexpected lightness and humour in their gestures and attitudes, as if putting on a performance for our benefit in a readily accessible comedy of manners all their own.”

Find more of Tim Flach’s series here.

-Rudayna Bahubeshi

Photo Friday with Caleb Charland

Caleb Charland’s work is the quintessential pairing of photography and science. The Maine artist is inspired by the mysteries of day to day life, and presents his drop-jawed viewers with stunning art and physics lessons. Many of the experiments exhibited in his photographs may be familiar to us from elementary school, a time where we were perhaps less equipped to appreciate the beauty of nature’s order. Through his work, Charland reminds us of science’s wonders, and surprises us with images that are even sometimes difficult to discern.

In his artistic statement, he notes that he is interested in how we measure and understand our place in the world. Simultaneously, I think Charland reminds us of the beauty of things in which humans have no part, other than playing spectator.

On his site, he includes an Einstein quote that can help us better understand the motivations behind his work, and the fascination we all have with the intersection of art and science:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

You can find Caleb Charland’s work here.

-Rudayna Bahubeshi

Photo Friday with Namsa Leuba’s Ya Kala Ben (Crossed Look)

Namsa Leuba is a young Swiss-Guinean photographer based in New York. Shortly before relocating to New York to enroll at The School of Visual Arts, where she received a one year scholarship, she received a BA in Photography in Lausanne.

Through Leuba’s work we can watch her explore her unique heritage, and witness the way it influences and inspires her art. This is most apparent in a series titled, Ya Kala Ben (The Crossed Look). In her biography she writes, “For two years her research focused on African identity through Western eyes.”

With her knowledge of Guinean cosmology and rituals,Leuba tries to combine elements of Guinean spirituality with her own aesthetic perspective.In Ya Kala Ben, the artist alters the meaning of sacred Guinean statuettes to consider construction and deconstruction of the body, as well as religious symbols. In her artistic statement on the series, Leuba explains how she problematizes the meaning of these statuettes through her representations:

“These objects are part of a collective that they must not be separated from, or risk losing their value. They are not the gods of this community but their prayers. They are integrated in a rigorous symbolic order, where every component has its place. They are ritual tools that I have animated by staging live models and in a way to desecrate them by giving them another meaning; an unfamiliar meaning in the Guinean context.

In recontextualizing these sacred objects through the lens, I brought them in a framework meant for Western aesthetic choices and taste.

This photographic eye would make them speak differently. Throughout my fieldwork, I had to deal with sometimes violent reactions from Guineans who viewed my procedures/practices as a form of sacrilege. Some were afraid and were struck with astonishment.”

Learn more about Namsa Leuba through her website or blog.

-Rudayna Bahubeshi

Photo Friday with Matt Eich’s Carry Me Ohio

“Most of the time I make pictures because it seems like the only way to articulate thoughts that are still forming, that I have not yet found the words for.”

An extensive photo essay produced over six years, Matt Eich’s Carry Me Ohio,  alternates between hope and despair. The complexity and depth of emotions contained in these photographs are difficult to explain. At once, we are presented with utter poverty, illness, and violence, then we find intimate family moments, second chances, and small victories.

The young, Virginian artist began the project as a photojournalist student at Ohio University, and pursued the project throughout his university career. Over the years, he gained the trust and friendship of his subjects, and it shows: some images are so delicate and private, the viewer feels like an intruder. It’s apparent  that Eich became so close with his subjects they entirely forgot his presence.

In his statement on the project, Eich explains that this now impoverished area of Southern Ohio was once a rich mining community between the 1820s and 1960s. Once the mining corporations stripped the area of its resources, they left, taking  of the families’ sources of income along with them. In an interview, Eich concisely articulates this as a pattern throughout America when he states, “The American Dream in many ways was built on the backs of these people that are largely forgotten, and that’s not just in Ohio, but that’s something you can find in any state that you go to.”

When we consider the consequences of mining companies that fully extract an area’s natural resources, we usually lament the environmental destruction this causes, but Eich reminds us of the damage this brings to families and communities. He explains the lasting impression this has caused in the closing lines of his statement on the project:

“Poverty is more than the lack of monies; it is the deprivation of opportunity and has a lasting emotional resonance for the individuals who live within its grasp. These images strive to remember a forgotten place and a unique time in American history.”

You can find the rest of the photo essay here.

-Rudayna Bahubeshi

Photo Friday with Ryan McGinley

35 year-old American photographer Ryan McGinley takes the kind of photos that make one want to quit the city and run amuck in the wild. The photographer is known for his portraits of nude models, and for staging shoots in gorgeous natural landscapes across America.The images are like chapters to a story about youthful energy, freedom, love, and escape—themes that are largely created by the vulnerability that nudity imposes.

The artist stated in an interview, “Yeah sometimes we were naked all day, and there was an instant bond. When you’re naked you can’t hide anything, and you become very close with people incredibly quickly.”

The young artist stole the spotlight almost a decade ago with his documentary photographs of the youth of New York, and has since moved on to more conceptual work. He produces both commercial and fine art photography all with a distinctive and unmistakable style. You can find more of his work on his website.

-Rudayna Bahubeshi