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The Neighbors by Arne Svenson

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Controversy is always something that can help promote your work. Because of all the commotion around the photo series The Neighbors it manages to come across my table. And that’s why I’m sharing it with you. So in a way the saying, bad publicity is good publicity worked for photographer Arne Svenson. In his series he pointed the camera at the apartment building across from his studio. It shows us snippets of the lives lived in these stacked living spaces. A series of anonymous lives lived behind the windows of downtown Manhattan.

The photos have a painting like quality. The framing of the windows mimic that of paintings. And they remind me of the works of Edwards Hopper. Moments captured in a wonderful composition. It leave much to the imagination. The subjects aren’t recognizable. The artist allows us to create our own story. A theatrical way of looking at ordinary life. It also reminded me of the series Windows by Michael Wolf.

Read about the controversy of being secretly photographed and putting the work up for sale here. I can understand the feelings of being photographed in your private homes. It does raise some privacy questions but overall the work doesn’t seem to be about those specific neighbors. It shows a stage we can recognize. If I was Arne’s neighbor I would ask for a print. Not sue him for making such an interesting series.

Arne Svenson’s website: arnesvenson.com

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Arne Svenson’s website: arnesvenson.com

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Vertical Horizon by Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze

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Cities are growing and growing. More and more people move to the big city to achieve their career goals and chase their dreams. Because of this growth the landscapes of places change. If you have ever been to a major city you will recognize Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze’s series Vertical Horizon. The photos show us a different look of Hong Kong’s cityscapes. The lack of a true horizon due to all that growth shows us a new vista. A vertical one. Look up with Romain and be part of his journey between the geometry of Hong Kong’s urban environment.

Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze’s website: www.rjl-art.com

The book on amazon:

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The Little Prince by Matej Peljhan

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In this series, called The Little Prince, Slovenian photographer Matej Peljhan lets a 12-year-old boy with muscular dystrophy play again. He lets him do things he wouldn’t be able to do in real life because of his muscle disorder. The boy, Luke, is walking, skating, sporting and even breakdancing. The photographer has made this kid a kid again through this wonderful series.

I’ve seen and even used this style of creating a scene by laying the person, or in my case a baby, down on the floor. It opens up all kinds of possibilities. On PforPHOTO we have seen this technique before in the series Honkey Kong.

Matej Peljhan’s website: mate.1x.com

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Drive by Shooting by Johnny Tergo

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Google Streets eat your hearth out. Photographer Johnny Tergo combined the mapping style of google with the drive by shooting we know out of those certain neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Which happens to be the photographers home town. Tergo drives around in a car tricked out with strobes. He shoots LA’s pedestrians. Some photographs look to be straight from a hollywood movie. His strobes help to achieve this effect. The side mirror of the car can be seen in each image. It reminds us of being in a car. Looking at people whom we come across as we drive along the streets of Los Angeles. The series is called Passenger Side Window. The complete series now consist out of 62 photographs. Visit his website to see the complete set.

I am Constantly seeing interesting people whom I have the urge to photograph while driving past them on the streets. I built a series of interesting images of people on the street without the individuals knowledge, just as I saw it before me. I accomplished this by building a custom rig in my truck that is made up of generators, strobes, a digital capture station with remote fire capability and of course a mounted camera. This method also allowed me to light the images without having to set-up a series of lights for each individual portrait. In essence I built myself a driving studio.

In this series I seek to explore the interplay of environment and the individuals that occupy the space.

Johnny Tergo’s website: johnnytergo.com

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Not only for Santa and Chuck Norris Anymore

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Beards. You see them everywhere now. It’s not only for santa and Chuck Norris anymore. The beard can be shaped and trimmed to match your preferred identity. A way of expressing yourself. And of course for men who don’t like to shave. It’s a time saver too.

Photographer Joseph Daniel Robert Oleary shot men with facial hair in the series called of Beards and Men. He shows them wearing their own clothes and with some accessories to give us a sense of who they are. An exploration between facial hair and what it means to be a man in our “contemporary society”. The photographs are wonderfully lit. The vignette really pulls you into the photograph. To the subject. And the colors are rough and dark. Not just the subject breaths masculinity the style of photography does too.

Visit his website to see the complete set (a total of 48 beards).

Joseph D R Oleary’s website: www.jdro.com and www.ofbeardsandmen.com

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VIDEO: Beijing Silvermine – Thomas Sauvin

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Beijing Silvermine is a unique photographic portrait of the capital and the life of its inhabitants following the Cultural Revolution. It covers a period of 20 years, from 1985, namely when silver film started being used massively in China, to 2005, when digital photography started taking over. These 20 years are those of China’s economic opening, when people started prospering, travelling, consuming, having fun.

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Exploding Street Style Fashion Photography

The art of Fashion needs to be covered. And photography is perhaps the perfect way to capture and share those new styles and trends in fashion. And with social media and fashion blogs on the internet it’s easy to reach a large crowd fast. The editors and photographers of these blogs swarm around the fashionable people attracted by Fashion Weeks held around the world. Chasing them, photographing them and in a way consuming their fashion styles to be shared among their hundreds or thousands, perhaps millions followers.

The short documentary created by Garage Magazine is called Take My Picture that explores this explosion in Street Fashion Photography.

When we set out to make this short, our intention simply was to observe the phenomenon of fashion bloggers and street style stars. As we started to review the footage, two salient trends became apparent: fashion editors frustrated by the ensuing commotion outside of shows, and the rise of “peacocking” street style stars as a result of the proliferation of blogs. This film examines these themes from both perspectives. – GARAGE MAGAZINE

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