stories

recently, i've seen Jessica Bruah's work on 20x200, on Exposure Compensation, and in 31 under 31. her project is called "Stories," and the scenarios are self-portraits based on fictional stories. i'm a bit mixed on them, but maybe i'm just not grasping on to the stories they depict. she says that her current influences are "Tina Barney, David Hilliard, Anna Gaskell, Gregory Crewdson and Cindy Sherman." that's a lot of influences, but the 4x5 selective focus and the sense of miniaturized, fictional catastrophe here actually remind me of Corinne May Botz's project The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death.

i like the way the two images above look together though...like little proliferations of paper leaves...

the top photo is for sale for $20 through the 20x200 project.

national parks (and other topics)

Manya Fox is another photographer that i checked out through Humble Arts' competition 31 under 31.

an aside: honestly, i'm a bit torn about 31 under 31 because...well, what are women? and what does it mean to be under 31? what's so great about privileging categorization based on gender and youth?

should i support it as a form of affirmative action? let's see: it's an online competition (with a corresponding exhibition at an independent Brooklyn gallery ). have young women been otherwise shut out of the online discourse in fine art photography? i'm going to go out on a limb and say no. (not to say that women are not disadvantaged in commercial photography or in the art/gallery world in other ways.)

on the flipside, i am learning about exciting new work by emerging photographers i might not have checked out otherwise. and so are you. i think this is really great! but i've still got to say that i'd like to see more creative competition criteria. (for those tracking the identity politics: i'm a photo-taking female under 31.)

but i digress. Manya Fox! her photos glow right off my screen! her series "National Parks" is an effective mix of landscapes and environmental portraiture. they have a particular quality and palette that i can't quite put my descriptive finger on (southwesternness?), but it is distinctive nonetheless.

i liked these two photos, so i picked them (not sure why i went for the two with children). here's more. i wish the jpegs were higher resolution though; something about the resolution looks a little off/fuzzy to me.