Shelbie Dimond (interview)

I can’t thank enough to Shelbie Dimond for let me share you her recent work among some words about it. I love her pure and strong vision of the world and you should definitely check her portfolio!

Dan Oara

Hailing from Timisoara, Romania, Dan Oara is a contemporary photographer currently living and studying in London. Already trained in industrial design and cinematography, Oara has a strong sense of structure and composition within his work. Oara previously studied Film in Bucharest, and the influence of moving image is clear in his work. His portraits resemble the drama and flair of movie stills, with some strange, enchantingly static quality. The personalities of his characters rise to the surface and we, the audience, are given an immobile moment in time.

Oara's work has a simplicity and a purity – a directness which challenges and provokes the viewer. He primarily uses natural light in conjunction with colour to create beautiful images full of attitude, personality and stories. One of his main concerns is to bring out the personalities of his subjects, to help them understand different aspects of themselves through photography. There is a deep intimacy found in his photographs – a relationship between subjects, photographer and audience – and also the careful balance of vulnerability and strength. This tight rope of two polarities gives his work an emotional power that can't be disguised.

"I wish more people felt that photography was an adventure the same as life itself and that their individual feelings were worth expressing. To me, that makes photography more exciting,” he said once. There is something of Oara in every image he makes. Each painstakingly composed and lit photograph tells us something of the visual adventure he is creating.  

Text by Clare Taylor.

Natalie Kaplan

In a time full of political and economical conflicts all over, it’s time to stop and think if we’re living our reality as we really want to. Since long time ago, Art has been considered as a way to escape or avoid some immediate circumstances or even as a simple interpretation of what we consider a “quotidian life”. But nothing could be further from the truth: for people like Natalie Kaplan, Art is the reality (or many) itself. Her language tell us about a world full of absences, but not necessarily in a material way. She uses photography to show presences at the same time she hides them with a very subtle and seductive narrative. Her work is an excellent opportunity for let Art transform our lives so we can keep a critic attitude against impositions of all kind.

Fooooooam

I had the placer to participate with the guys from Superbia for the Romanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture. Our part (in collaboration with Alina Bradu and Silviu Medesan) was a webart project that would take the Internet language and apply it to the context of the show: brand new Romanian suburbia and how that affects on urbanism. Taking an expansive metaphor, we called our project Fooooooam and its a sort of virtual walking that includes animation and photos and it's on continuous evolution. I'd love to read some feed-back!

Dream tourist

You sleep until late. You wake up and float to the kitchen, being careful not to hit your head with the door frame. While you take your breakfast, you see some pictures in the coffee table and you recognize yourself on them. Smiles. Coffee sips. You love summer photos.

You skim through the pictures and suddenly stop, alarmed. What is this little character doing next to you in that photo? Why is he walking? Why is he smiling? You run to find a magnifying glass and confirm his presence in those improbable spaces. More coffee sips. Outside, the birds sing a tune. Is gonna be a long day.

Rafael Bonilla Jr.

At first, parallel worlds might horrify us for their familiar look, but after a few moments of meticulous attention is easier to recognize ourselves there. The images I've found in Rafael Bonilla Jr.'s Melting castle provide contrasting feelings that can be from repulsion to total admiration, but never -and here I'm pretty sure- indiference. He's got a fascinating spirit of experimentation with digital spaces and unusual narratives that surprises to the upside.

Christopher Schreck (interview)

Christopher Schreck is an talented American artist that experiments with video and colors in his images.

MIRE: WHERE WERE YOU RAISED? DOES THIS PLACE LOOK LIKE YOUR PICTURES?

Christopher Schreck: I was raised in the suburbs of Chicago and moved to the city when I graduated high school. Although a lot of my photos are taken here, I actually don’t think they evoke Chicago much at all. My photos are almost always some subtlety or detail in my surroundings that I happened to find interesting, and I usually don’t like to offer much context for or in the images. So it doesn’t really matter where I am; Chicago is just where I spend most of my time. Personally, I think images are often stronger for not being obviously tied to any one place or situation – it opens things up for both the photographer and the viewer – so ultimately, my photos don’t look like my city because I don’t want my photos to look like anywhere.

Bogdan Mesesan: New ID

I had a very nice chat this evening with Bogdan Mesesan about his recent project New ID. In his own words: "I made a proposal about how should look the photos on new Id's for Romanians, since the majority of the western Europeans believe that Romanians=Thieves."

The project was made in collaboration with the IMAGO free theater group, apropos a note that was distributed in some trains in France. Loved the simplicity of the photographer and the powerful, ironic effect of his images.

Matt Mawson

Interview with the photographer Matt Mawson.

Could you start with a brief thematic introduction to your work?

I guess I'd be classified as a street photographer because I work in the street. I work in a spontaneous and intuitive way, with half a mind on composition and the other looking for a full framed and uncropped picture. My goal is to achieve an image with a combination of strong emotional content with interesting composition and interesting light. However, I also strive for ‘happy accidents’, when something unplanned happens in the frame –like a person walking in front of the lens. That can often make a picture into a good photograph.

The Vulture: Rhiannon Adam Vs Omar Zingaro Bhatia

This time, we present Rhiannon Adam's polaroids to dialogue with Omar Zingaro Bhatia's small poem.

I felt a complete abandonment of my senses. I was turning away from familiarity. I marveled at such a description of my own crooked soul. I emancipated my self  from the fear of punishment and reveled in such freedoms.

What would people think of a man so divorced of his morals? Would they think me an animal? I hoped so. I closed my eyes and an image came to me of a man tearing flesh from bone. What species, I couldn't say.

The green eyes of my reflection twinkled at the thought of such cruelty. In a way, I was innocent in my desires, I had become simplified. 

Hunting and killing meat, eating meat and putting meat into meat.

Rhiannon Adam (1983) is a young British photographer and illustrator, originally born in Cork. In the other hand, Omar Zingaro Bhatia (1986) is a Scotish artist and writer that always appears on time and in full Sabbath attire.


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Milica Kolaric

Early morning in the universe. The life is getting up, opening up the windows. Outside, the noise, the waste, the strength, Belgrade the most beautiful, Belgrade the whore, the only place where Milica Kolaric’s pictures belong to.

Gabriel Sosa

Gabriel Sosa has a kind of awkward humor that once you start to enjoy, will turn you into a participant of the same grotesque adventure. His camera might be aggressive but is always assertive.

Emrah Karakurum

Even we’re the same age, one of my greatest masters -not only in Art, but in life- is the photographer Emrah Karakurum. Same hitting Istanbul streets, trying to cross Hungarian border without visa, cooking the best yogurt soup ever or just talking about American movies, all his stories will start in completely calm for progressively acquire a huge epic tone.

Agata Janicka

Agata Janicka (1984) is the curious artist type. Her big blue eyes are always open and however she receives as many influences as she can, she will filter all this information with a surprising ability of synthesis. Her images have some innocent and bizarre touch at the same time.

Maartje Jaquet

A whole world is watching us but is only evident when we can erase the border between rationality and meaningless. Then the concepts as we know them, turn into the most absurd -but logical- findings. Just the simplest walk to the corner shop could transform our perception of the world; is just matter of change the sidewalk.

Voinovitch Stefan

I enjoy Stefan Galka-Sudau's -a.k.a. Voinovitch- photographs in almost every sens: they have the serenity of the artist that make his work outside money demands, isolated and for himself. His diaries are full of people and objects that are transformed into pure love testimonies.