Photographers

Claudio Napolitano

If you're going to have a rep, you'd be lucky to have one like Mollie Jannasch, of Agency MJ. She's charming, enthusiastic, unpretentious and tenacious. We met at NYCFotoworks where she showed me portfolios from the photographers in her stable and these two series from Claudio Napolitano stood out. Generally speaking, I steer clear of photos of kids, but I love Claudio's emotive fantasies.

Plus, people still smoke! A few of Claudio's dark portraits.

All images © Claudio Napolitano

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Philip Toledano: Mad Genius

I met Mr. Toledano at a shi-shi event a couple of years ago. We wore similar outfits and shared an accent. I remember being embarrassed that I didn't know his work at the time, which I discovered to be bloody clever.

Since then, he put out the moving and beautiful "Days With My Father", an incredibly personal project to which we can all relate. Then came the quite brilliant 'Kim Jong Phil' "It occurred to me that being an artist is a great deal like being a dictator." and 'A New Kind of Beauty' "Beauty has always been a currency, and now that we finally have the technological means to mint our own, what choices do we make?" and now he's further along his glittery path to world domination. Toledano is a gift that keeps on giving, for want of an appropriately terrible cliché.

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Ole Elfenkämper: Cairo

"I just went to Egypt to get in touch with the Arab Spring, the second part of the revolution and of course I didn't want to just photograph only protest. I want to photograph the people around Tahrir as well. It is interesting that so many young kids take part and during the day you see so many families on Tahrir.

Of course I was curious about the mood, one year after the first protests occurred there. I spent one week there, not enough time to go deep enough into the whole matter." Ole Elfenkämper

All images © Ole Elfenkämper

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Dirk Anschütz: Soccer

The ever-entertaining Dirk Anschütz has a new post on his Heavy Light blog about a shoot he did with his football mates (soccer buddies) 'Chinatown Ballers - The Miracle on Turf': "Some of the regular highlights of my New York existence are the amateur soccer games I play in Chinatown. Some fellow kickers and I started to get together quite a long time ago for a midweek pick-up game on a 7-a-side pitch at the edge of Barrio Chino. The game proved to be very robust and survived the cold winters, hot summers, stretches of low popularity, stretches of too much popularity, and many personnel changes for over a decade now. Even though soccer has its fair share of whiners, complainers, braggers, spoiled brats, bullies, people teetering dangerously close to sanity, as well as people that are all of the above, we managed to keep the game clean, competitive, friendly and fair." Read the back-story.

All images © Dirk Anschütz

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Sara Rubinstein

Muay Thai / Thai Boxing © Sara Rubinstein

As regular readers will realize, during the few hours I spent reviewing portfolios at NYC Fotoworks I met several great photographers. I think the vetting process serves good purpose.

Sara Rubinstein and I talked about this body of work and naturally I was thrilled when she contacted me to let me know she'd taken my advice about how to show the series. And with that, here's the story:

"Minneapolis based photographer Sara Rubinstein spent six weeks outside of Bangkok, Thailand, documenting the lives of a group of Muay Thai Boxers. Muay Thai, also known as Thai Boxing, is the National Sport of Thailand. In a culture where it is considered bad luck for a woman to so much as touch the boxing ring, Sara enjoyed the challenges of creating this series in a foreign environment. Children as young as 5 or 6 participate in this 700-year-old martial art that includes punches, kicks, elbows and knees. In impoverished rural areas, these children stand to make money for their families or camps by winning matches. A mother of young children herself, Sara hopes to return to Thailand to continue exploring this project and publish a book on the subject of young children and Muay Thai. This project, born out of a personal passion for martial arts, was a new and inspiring challenge from the typical commercial and editorial portrait and lifestyle work that Sara photographs in the United States."

All images © Sara Rubinstein

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Keith Barraclough: Cats

Longhair Oriental

Keith Barraclough is one of the warmest photographers I've ever encountered. Never heard a bad word about him, or out of him. He photographed an awful lot of dogs last year - they are great portraits but I'm a cat person so upon seeing these that he shot for Animal Planet, I had to run some. I'd like to sic one or two of these on the incessantly yapping dogs in my building.

Sphynx

Siamese

Korat

Abyssinian

All images © Keith Barraclough

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Don Whitebread

Dragon's Blood Grove

Khamis Benisa'ad Farm Workers

Superb photographer Don Whitebread sent in a series of photographs he took in Yemen last year. When you're done here, head to his website. I am loving his Star Tracks series (one of which just won a Silver Award in the Black and White Magazine Single Image Issue.)

Shibam Street Game

Khalilla Bokshan Palace Hotel

"In 2010, before the current protests, I was able to photograph throughout the surprisingly diverse and traditional country of Yemen with the help of a friend who lived there. Sana'a, Yemen's capital, is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.

Despite some serious research, Yemen was unlike anything I imagined. The landscape that I came to photograph was much more visually diverse, and historically richer than I expected. The people and culture of Yemen are firmly but comfortably locked in centuries-old traditions. I found the Yemeni people to be hospitable, confident, and apparently unenvious of the lifestyle much of the rest of the world embraces.

I have chosen to include both color and black and white photography in this series. The natural and urban landscapes of Yemen lent themselves easily to my usual style of black and white work. This was the photography I had in mind when I went to Yemen. The precarious cliff-top towns of the Yemeni highlands are surrounded by hypnotic patterns of terraced farmland. The strangely shaped Dragon's Blood Trees, and the cliffs and dunes of Socotra Island rival anything photographed in the parks of America. After a few days in the cities and villages of Yemen, it was clear to me that the images capturing the lives of the Yemeni people had to be in color. We are familiar with the vintage appearance that attempts to enhance much photography of the Middle East, but the lifestyle of Yemen needs no enhancement."

Images from the series have been exhibited and published, and two are currently nominated for an international Photography Masters Cup award. Don is now working on a book with writing by his friend who lived in Sana'a, before he was arrested and deported during the height of the protests.

Serious Dominos in Shibam

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The Stanley Kubrick Collection

Police Athletic League Boxing

The fortunate folk at VandM have partnered with the Museum of the City of New York on exclusive, editioned prints selected from Stanley Kubrick's wonderful negatives archive. Shooting for Look Magazine from 1945 - 1950, when he left to pursue film-making, Kubrick produced a bunch of stellar stills.

Available to the public for the first time, at $250 for an 11x14, you might be able to treat yourself.

The majority of the proceeds go to the Museum.

All photographs by Stanley Kubrick, courtesy of VandM, where you'll find lots more info.

View the special full-screen feature.

Magazine, News, Photographers | Permalink |

Christopher Auger-Dominguez

© Christopher Auger-Dominguez
Styling: Amy Auslander. Jacket: Stella McCartney. Guitar: Squire Mini by Fender.

Christopher Auger-Dominguez has embarked upon this fabulous personal project, Vinyl Idols, which I of course fell in love with when we met at NYC Fotoworks.

"Each image will be a reproduction of, or inspired by, famous album covers in rock and roll. "Jimi Hendrix" was inspired by the album Radio One."

I have been talking about #Hendrix a lot lately in my work with Baron Wolman. Baron doesn't like the question of who his favourite subject was, he says it's like asking a parent which is their favourite child, but when pressed, it's Hendrix: his amazing style and presence always shone.

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Kevin Steele

NYC Fotoworks vet all their potential portfolio review attendees and this does change the dynamics slightly for a reviewer. We can expect a certain level of work experience and practiced professionalism. At my first review for them recently, there were a few photographers whose work I really enjoyed and I hope I was able to impart useful knowledge to each of them.

Of all the great shots Kevin Steele showed me, Mount Rushmore made me beam. Kevin's a rock climber too, of course! and all his work has that edge of exhilaration. Hey, if you can climb rocks, why not take breathtaking rock climbing photographs.

Go and enjoy some vicarious thrills.