"… the power of the images is in their direct connection to the viewer. We remember our own schooldays and wonder what happened to our own classmates. By presenting different pupils, different schools, different year groups, Germain asks questions about contemporary educational practices and social divisions. Already we can imagine the life trajectories of some of these young people. Here are faces full of hope and promise. Here also, is the silent threat of failure. Aspiration competes with apathy ..."(via Brain Pickings)
"Local policemen recently destroyed some 1,000 confiscated gambling machines in Shunqing District of Nanchong City, China." Wired Aperture: Confiscated gambling machine bonfire (Fotos in High-Res & Fullscreen)(via Albotas)
Seine seit 2003 andauernde Bilddokumentation über Mobilfunkmasten in den USA Großbritannien, Südafrika, Korea, Italien und Portugal die als Baumattrappen in den Realraum positioniert worden sind, zollen vordergründig einem diffusen Gestaltungswillen Tribut, bei dem das Verlangen nach Befriedung im Mittelpunkt steht. Um die Gefahren von Elektrosmog über den Sehsinn zu kompensieren, werden Mobilfunkmasten natursimulierende Tarnkappen aus Plastik übergestülpt. Als idealtypische Vegetationsformen finden sie sich dann in Landschaftsräumen wieder. Das reichhaltige Angebot der Camouflagen umfasst Laub- und Nadelbäume, Pinien, Palmen und Riesenkakteen. Aus dem künstlichen Baumreservoir hat sich ein lukrativer Industriezweig entwickelt, der erhebliches Zukunftspotential aufweist und derzeit auch auf den europäischen Kontinent expandiert ...(durch FB3000 via Booooooom)
Trained on centralize perspectives, the eye struggles for orientation. The work series FROM BELOW by Michael H. Rohde does offer a vanishing point to clearly focus on. However, instead of providing a reasonable arrangement of the picture, it rather contributes to its destabilization. Rohde's utopian views of interior spaces keenly challenge our perception. The view of the room from below the floor, to be determined only by a mathematically logical concept of perception, at first appears to be easily comprehensible. But then it quickly withdraws itself into a self-contained aesthetic, dynamic in its own right and free of any structuring orientation system.(via Ignant & NC)
It is not an emotional statement. It is an examination of the choices one would face living at the poverty line. This is an ongoing project, with the first series understanding China, Japan, Nepal and Thailand. We have since expanded this project and have gone to five continents. We are not trying to compare different countries’ poverty, but rather to have a starting point to understand poverty within a country’s context. One frame. One person. One day. Everything else is left up to interpretation ...(via Junkculture)
"Fotoarbeit nach Kriterien der Conceptual Art an über 4000 semiotischen Selbstverständlichkeiten im Wiener öffentlichen Raum von 2004/06. Ein spontanes Spiel mit Proportionen und Flächen, Formen und Farben, Licht und Schatten sensibilisiert in gezielten Ausschnitten die Aufmerksamkeit für die detailreiche Schönheit und Komplexität eines wenig bewusst beachteten Bereichs der urbanen Lebensumgebung. Aus diesem flüchtigen Grundmaterial - bereits etwa 40% der Sujets sind heute nicht mehr aufzufinden - entstanden zwei grossformatige Werke, die diese Lebenszeichen einer sich rapide ändernden Stadtlandschaft im künstlerischen Kontext bewahren. ..."(via swiss miss)
Faced with sky-high property prices, living underground is often the only option for this legion of low-waged migrant workers, who make up one-third of Beijing’s estimated 20 million people. Waiters, karaoke hostesses, hairdressers, chefs, security guards, domestic workers and kitchen helpers, these basement dwellers are the backbone of Beijing’s service industry. But they have been unkindly dubbed the “rat tribe” for making a home in Beijing’s 6,000 basements and air raid shelters -- about one-third of the city’s underground space. They pay monthly rents of 300 to 700 yuan ($50 to $110) for partitioned rooms of seven to eight square meters, or sometimes, a closet-like space barely wider than a single bed. Some 50 to 100 rooms often share a single bathroom and several toilet cubicles. A chilly draft filters through the tunnels, which are also often dank and moldy in the summers ... To me, they tell the broader story of a China on the move, of the world’s biggest tide of migration, and of a generational shift to an urban income and lifestyle. Curious about this underworld, I started photographing it in 2010. If I went into it hoping to document the tough and musty lives these migrants lead, I’ve also been inspired by their spunky fighting spirit and life-affirming aspirations.(via Framework)
"Juvenile-In-Justice documents the placement and treatment of American juveniles housed by law in facilities that treat, confine, punish, assist and, occasionally, harm them. The project includes photographs and interviews with over 1,000 juveniles and administrators at 100+ facilities in 30 states in the U.S, as well as facilities in Canada and Mexico. The children’s identities are always concealed, either by photographing them from behind or obscuring their faces. America’s heavy reliance on juvenile incarceration is unique among the developed nations of the world. Approximately 90,000 young people are in detention or correctional facilities every day in the United States. The project documents group homes, police departments, youth correctional facilities, juvenile courtrooms, high schools, shelters, Montessori classrooms, CPS interview rooms, and maximum security lock-down and non-lock-down shelters, to name a few ... Prior to Juvenile-in-Justice, there was no comprehensive directory of images cataloging the American juvenile justice system. This project is now the primary source for these images, all of which are made available to facilities, advocates, and non-profits ... My products are unbiased photographic and textual evidence of a system that houses more than 100,000 kids every day"(via Raw File)
“Vom Bleiben“ in collaboration with Daniel Schulz, documents the moment in which the night at the techno club is over and the visitors have left the location. It is the moment in which the traces of the event become visible. The cleaning-lights illuminating the room evoke a sense of awakening in the visitors. When the clubs close at daytime, we enter their rooms and the battlefield that has been left behind. As soon as the last visitors have left and the cleaning-light has been turned on, we start to photographically record the present scene and atmosphere. The moment before everything is put back in order exists only for a short time. Due to the long exposure time technically required, we artificially extend this moment, the time of exposure matching real time. We have set ourselves the task to document the often only temporary existence of techno clubs over a longer period of time.(via KFMW)
Magnum photographer Larry Towell planned to embed with the Taliban last year when the Afghan contact he was using was forced to flee the country ... While Towell still wanted to embed, it was too dangerous for several reasons. First, Western journalists are often seen as propagandists for the U.S. military. Also, the Taliban self-funds their war, and kidnapping for ransom has become more common, he said. Many of Towell’s friends and colleagues, along with local journalists, encouraged him to find a well-tied local to take his place. The journalist he used “talks to both sides,” providing rapport with the insurgents ... The images are “just portraits of insurgents, just to give a glimpse of the other side,” he said ... The images give the rebels a “voice and a place.” Taliban members usually have covered faces. This set of photos is unique because of the confidence shown by these men, Towell said. “They’re not ominous; they’re not all wrapped up looking sinister,” he said. “(Some) just look like kids.” This glimpse into their camp humanizes the insurgents when the “media dehumanizes (the) enemy during war.” As Towell spent time “driving through history” on his visits to Afghanistan, he wished for a glimpse into the past when locals might easily welcome him into their homes. “I wish I knew Afghanistan before the wars,” he said, “when you could go anywhere. … There was a time. I wish I was there.”(via Glaserei)
This project is about teenage girls and young women at a transitional time of their lives, alone in the privacy of their own personal space and surroundings: their bedroom, a womb within the outside world ... I initially started this work focusing on teenage girls in the United States and eventually expanded the project to include girls from the two worlds I am most familiar with, the two worlds I experienced myself as a teen and a young twenty year old: the United States and the Middle East. This is how this project became very personal to me. I became fascinated with the similar issues girls at that age face, regardless of culture, religion and background, as they learn to deal with all the pressures that arise as they become consciously aware of the surrounding world wherever this may be.(via KFMW)
Heavy metal is a phenomenon. Although this musical genre is still ridiculed by many, it is currently more popular and successful around the world than at its supposed peak in the 1980s. Today, so-called metalheads can be found worldwide. No matter who they are or where they come from, they are united by heavy metal across borders, generations, genders, religions, and social classes. The photographes have been taken in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, Switzerland and the USA.
"Moebius Redux - Ein Leben in Bildern" erzählt der Ausnahmekünstler Jean Giraud die Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner Arbeit, unterstützt von Künstlern, die ihn begleiteten und wieder verließen. Zu ihnen gehören der Filmemacher Alejandro Jodorowsky und der Comic-Künstler Philippe Druillet, der Schweizer Künstler H. R. Giger und "Marvel"-Comics-Legende Stan Lee, aber auch Bewunderer wie Jim Lee und Mike Mignola als Vertreter einer neuen Comic-Generation. Sie geben nicht nur Einblick in ihre Zusammenarbeit mit Giraud, sondern auch in eines der eindrucksvollsten Künstlernetzwerke unserer Zeit. Der Dokumentarfilm lässt sich inspirieren von der faszinierenden, grenzenlosen Bildsprache Girauds. Seine Comic-Kreationen erwachen zum Leben und ungewöhnliche Aufnahmen von Paris, Los Angeles und der mexikanischen Wüste schlagen eine visuelle Brücke zwischen Girauds Leben und seinen Bilderwelten, begleitet vom elektronischen Soundtrack der "Kraftwerk"-Legende Karl Bartos ..."(via Progolog)
