TALENT - American Photo · ASSISTANT EVENTS & PROMOTIONS MANAGER Vanessa Vazquez CONSUMER MARKETING DIRECTOR Andrew Schulman HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR Kim Putman CORPORATE PRODUCTION

W I N T E R 2 0 1 4 / 2 0 1 5

ON CAMPUS

RAWTALENT

BEST BOOKS OF 2014

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How Rachel Barrett’s art traces her life

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From top: A Danny Clinch portrait of punk-rock pioneer Joey Ramone, from his book Still Moving; a New York City street scene by Rachel Barrett.

W I N T E R 2 0 1 4 / 2 0 1 5

D E P A R T M E N T S

F E A T U R E S

G E A R

TWO YEARS OUT Isadora Kosofsky connects with marginalized people in various stages of life. BY JACK CRAGER

EDITOR’S NOTE Photography has changed a lot over 25 years. How will you evolve the medium next?

UNSTILL LIFE For Rachel Barrett, making art means adapting with the times. BY MEG RYAN

PREVIEW The Samsung NX1 brings serious power to mirrorless ILCs. BY MIRIAM LEUCHTER

PHOTO REALISM What will really set your work apart? Here’s how not to be a cliché. BY ALLEGRA WILDE

THE ART OF GETTING IT Celebrity photographer Eric Ray Anderson converses with his mentor, Paul Jasmin.

BOOKS & SHOWS From T-shirt typology to radioactive ruins, photo projects to check out.

PHOTO BOOKS OF THE YEAR Twenty affirmations that photos and the printing press were made for each other.

TOOLBOX The gear you need now to make the most of your photo education.

PERSPECTIVE Paul Jasmin reveals how his own mentor inspired him to shoot. BY JACK CRAGER

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MIRIAM LEUCHTER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

4 AMERICAN PHOTO ON CAMPUS WINTER 2014/2015

Editorial contributions should be sent to American Photo, 2 Park Avenue, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Submissions must be accompanied by return post age and will be handled with reasonable care; however, publisher assumes no respon sibility for the safety of unsolicited original artwork, photographs, slides, or manuscripts. Customer service: (386) 597-4375; fax (303) 604-7644. Back issues are $8.95 each ($10.95 in Canada; $15.95 other countries) in U.S. funds. Send check or money order to: American Photo Back Issues, P.O. Box 50191, Boulder, CO 80322-0191; (800) 333-8546. For reprints, email [email protected]. American Photo On Campus, Winter 2014/2015, Vol. 18, No. 2. Entire contents © 2014 Bonnier Corporation.

We didn’t plan it. But when I read through the nearly finished pages of this issue before their final polish, I recognized a theme running through them: evolution.

In our cover story, Rachel Barrett talks about the dramatic shift in her work after she had a child and stopped wandering the country in pursuit of a story. The subject of our Two Years Out profile, 21-year-old Isadora Kosofsky, recently returned to school after dropping out to immerse herself in the lives of oth-ers. And in the Perspective column, Paul Jasmin talks about having finally found his way to photography after careers as an actor, painter, and commercial illustrator. As he tells Eric Ray Davidson, one of the many photog-raphers he has influenced, “You find out where you be-long. You grow, and that’s where the work comes from.”

Photography itself has evolved during your lifetime. How much became clear to me while working on the January/February 2015 issue of American Photo, the parent magazine to this one. In our 25th anniversary issue, we celebrate the most important images of the past quarter century and point to what’s next. Look for it on newsstands starting in mid-December, or take advantage of our special student discount on one-year subscriptions at AmericanPhotoMag.com/college.

Rachel Barrett made her name as a documentary portrait shooter, but she recently turned to still life with her Specimens series, including “We All Have Kneeds,” from 2014.

Occasionally we share our information with other reputable companies whose products and services might interest you. If you prefer not to participate in this opportunity, please call the following number and indicate that to the operator: (386) 597-4375.

COPYRIGHT © 2014, BONNIER CORPORATION. AMERICAN PHOTO® IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF BONNIER CORPORATION.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MIRIAM LEUCHTER

FEATURES EDITOR Debbie GrossmanSENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jack Crager

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Russell Hart, Allegra WildeSENIOR TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Philip Ryan

MANAGING EDITOR Jill C. ShomerPHOTO EDITOR Sabine Rogers

DESIGNER Wesley FulghumCOPY EDITOR Meg Ryan

WEB EDITOR Stan HoraczekASSISTANT WEB EDITORS Jeanette D. Moses, Eugene Reznik

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GROUP PUBLISHER GREGORY D. GATTOPUBLISHER ANTHONY M. RUOTOLO

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Frank McCaffrey, Chip ParhamSALES, EVENTS, AND PROMOTIONS COORDINATOR Marisa Massaro

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SALES DEVELOPMENT MANAGERS Kate Gregory, Charlotte Grima, Kelly Martin

SALES DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR Mojdeh ZarrinnalGROUP CREATIVE SERVICES DIRECTOR Ingrid Reslmaier

MARKETING DESIGN DIRECTORS Jonathan Berger, Gabe RamirezASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Sarah HughesDIGITAL DESIGN MANAGER Steve Gianaca

GROUP EVENTS AND PROMOTIONS DIRECTOR Beth HetrickDIRECTOR OF PROMOTIONS AND EVENTS Michelle Cast

ASSISTANT EVENTS & PROMOTIONS MANAGER Vanessa VazquezCONSUMER MARKETING DIRECTOR Andrew Schulman

HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR Kim PutmanCORPORATE PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Jeff Cassell

PRODUCTION MANAGER Rick Andrews

CHAIRMAN Tomas FranzénCHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Dave Freygang

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Eric ZinczenkoCHIEF CONTENT OFFICER David Ritchie

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Nancy CoalterCHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Lisa Earlywine

CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER Elizabeth Burnham MurphyCHIEF DIGITAL REVENUE OFFICER Sean Holzman

VICE PRESIDENT, INTEGRATED SALES John GraneyVICE PRESIDENT, CONSUMER MARKETING John Reese

VICE PRESIDENT, PUBLIC RELATIONS Perri DorsetGENERAL COUNSEL Jeremy Thompson

E D I T O R ’ SN O T E

WORK IN PROGRESS

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sadora Kosofsky’s approach to docu-mentary photo projects involves total immersion. “It seems that I spend more time with my subjects than friends

and family,” says the Los Angeles–based photogra-pher. “Time and commitment are essential to earn and develop trust.” While she documents stories as an observer, she feels that the process is also one of self-discovery. “It’s important to show that you, too, are as vulnerable as the subject in front of your lens is. You have to accept that certain realities about

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DISPATCHES FROM THE FIELDBOOKS AND SHOWS 8 PHOTO REALISM 10

MIXED EMOTIONSIsadora Kosofsky connects with marginalized subjects in various stages of lifeBY JACK CRAGER

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Above: Jeanie and Will, from The Three.

yourself will show through in the project.”Now 21, Kosofsky took up the camera as a teen-

ager, not long after the death of her grandmother, who raised her. “I began to travel around Los Ange-les to various retirement and nursing homes,” she recalls. “I found solace in photography as a way to alleviate loneliness—and my subjects feel less alone through our relationship and the creative process.”

Her time with elderly subjects led to her first major series, The Three: Senior Love Triangle. “I was photographing at an assisted-living facility,” she says. “As I watched Will and Adina drop Jeanie off at the gate, I related to her separation from them.” She befriended the trio and discovered that they relied on each other for emotional support, sharing an unorthodox intimacy while living in different facilities. The series earned her the 2012 Inge Morath Award, a grant from the Magnum Foundation to support the completion of a long-term project.

Kosofsky’s next series, This Existence, was even heavier, focusing on a pair named Rosie and Adam. “They were a couple for 20 years despite their 20-year age difference,” Kosofsky says. “When Rosie was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, Adam be-came her primary caretaker.” Her series poignantly

T W O Y E A R S O U T

From top: An image of Jeanie from The Three; a shot of David’s fiancée and child sharing video visita-tion in Vinny and David.


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documents Rosie’s final days and Adam’s grief.In striking contrast to her work on senior citizens,

Kosofsky’s Vinny and David: Life and Incarceration of a Family focuses on a pair of young brothers. “I was photographing in juvenile detention centers,” she says, “and I wanted to step outside the institutional setting and create a more personal story.” Her images of the troubled youngsters, one of whom is a father himself, reflect a blend of empathy and hard-time realism.

This project shifted both Kosofsky’s career path and her academic plans. Her self-imposed “Two Years Out” began abruptly. “I turned 18 the first week of at-tending university, the same time I received approval to photograph in certain domestic youth correctional facilities,” she says. “Around this time I met Vinny and David, and I couldn’t imagine returning to school when I felt that my life’s purpose was to tell their story. So I took off from school for two years to shoot. But I have recently returned to university [at UCLA], where I am a Gender Studies major.”

Kosofsky also recently completed the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass in Amsterdam. “I’m shooting a project about developmentally disabled adults,” she says. “I identify with the emotional spectrum in the lives I choose to document.” AP

From top: Vinny’s mother Eve cries about a custody

ruling in Vinny and David; Rosie sits in a hospital,

from This Existence.

B O O K S & S H O W S


Delving into what he calls the “aesthetics of de-struction,” Kander documents hidden cities and missile test sites in the former Soviet Union, secret military zones that were not visible on any map until well after the Cold War and are now eerie, desolate ruins (above). In regions bordering Russia and Kazakhstan, hundreds of nuclear weapons were tested (and the effects on nearby civilians duly documented) before the sites were closed around 1989; the book’s accompanying app includes maps and a timeline. Kander writes that the ticking on his Geiger counter while photographing reminded him not to linger, but the pictures have a haunt-ing formality. “These images do not make beautiful what is not,” notes Will Self in the intro. “They ask of us that we repurpose ourselves to accept a new order of both the beautiful and the real.”

RUINS By Nadav Kander Hatje Kantz $100

BACK IN THE U.S.S.R.Nadav Kander discovers haunting remnants of atomic explosions

WHAT REMAINSMuseum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL, Jan. 26 – Mar. 22, 2015 mocp.orgThis show gathers the work of four artists— Leiko Shiga (at right), Barbara Diener, Pao Houa Her, and Jon Rafman—who examine displace-ment within unstable sociopolitical climates. Themes include memory, loss, separation, a long ing to feel rooted in a place, and the continuity be-tween past and present.

F I L T E R

Clockwise from top left: Kander’s “The Aral Sea I (Officers’ Housing)”; Sultan’s “Dad with Golf Clubs,” 1987; Lee Friedlander’s “Grand Canyon,” 1992; a pair in T; an image from Leiko Shiga’s Rasen Kaigen series.O

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LARRY SULTAN: HERE AND HOMELos Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, through March 22, 2015 lacma.org In a radio interview on NPR in 1999, Larry Sultan described photog-raphy as an exterior form of memory whose greatest truth is to leave a trace of what has been. A decade later, in 2009, the pho-tographer passed away, leaving behind profound traces of American life through extensive explo-rations of home, family, labor, and suburbia. This retrospective includes more than 200 photo-graphs from five major bodies of work, including his seminal Pictures from Home on his parents’ post-retirement domestic life.

T: A TYPOLOGY OF T-SHIRTS By Susan A. Barnett Dewi Lewis $40This volume culminates Barnett’s five-year journey throughout the U.S. and Europe shooting people from behind. Her study of the T-shirt combines fun (if odd) portraiture with sociological commentary, reflecting a boom in graphic self-expression among primarily young subjects during economically uncertain times. Much of the book’s charm stems from its photo editing, which juxtaposes optimism against gloom, tolerance opposing hate, aggression next to warm fuzzies, and the demonic by the divine (above). The sheer diversity makes for a dazzling mix.

THE PLOT THICKENS Fraenkel Gallery,San Francisco, CA, through Jan. 21, 2015 fraenkelgallery.comFraenkel Gallery cele-brates its 35th anniver-sary with an unorthodox exhibition comprising nearly 100 photographs spanning three centuries. Accompanied by a 250-page catalog, the show juxtaposes found imagery from various periods by anonymous photographers with work by such mas-ters as Lee Friedlander, Helen Levitt, William

Eggles ton, Katy Grannan, Nan Goldin, and Ralph Eugene Meatyard. Many of these photographs are being exhibited here for the first time.

he pressure to define yourself as a photogra-pher is no doubt in the back of your mind (or the very front) as you

prepare your final projects or portfolios and possibly head out to make your way in the professional photography world. Naming your genre or area of subject expertise, as your teachers and mentors likely will advise, may make sense to you. Indeed, you might think all photogra-phers must place their work in a niche that potential clients can latch onto. “I’m a fashion photographer,” for instance, or still-life, or landscape or, the worst, fine art (more on that later).

But in his fantastic book, Zag (find it at liquidagency.com/zagbook), Marty Neumeier suggests that when trying to brand ourselves or our businesses, we don’t go far enough in saying what we do that is truly unique. In my talks to photo classes, I repeat his suggestion to try to complete this sentence: “I am the ONLY photographer who __________.” This will be impossible if you think in terms of overused genres.

I posed this question to one client, a fashion photographer who was rethink-ing her marketing. Her response: “I am the only photographer who takes graphic, colorful fashion images from a neurotic woman’s perspective.” You know what? This was exactly what her best work looked like, and she was able to capitalize on that clarity with her image selection, the look and feel of her marketing mate-rials, and her shooting.

Now, I don’t suggest you turn your statement into a tagline. Just knowing it for yourself will help you clarify your brand and your career goals, and it will go a long way in helping you edit your own work.

Of course, you actually have to orga-nize and name departments on your site. So here are some practical suggestions for doing so while demonstrating your unique strength.

YES: 1. Have a main menu item called Portfolio, containing your best, most relevant work. If a viewer looks at only one thing on your site, it’s this. 2. Consider another main section of Projects, with a submenu of six to 10 different ones. Whether you’re looking

for commercial assignments or a gallery exhibition, this is your chance to show how you can stretch conceptually and shoot all the way around an idea. These mini portfolios (15 to 25 images each) can be collections of similar subjects, bodies of personal work, or specific projects with a beginning, middle, and end. Title them poetically and meaningfully. 3. If you must use genre buzzwords, use them to show that you speak the lan-guage of the market. Create a menu item called Categories and include submenus for still-life, documentary, fashion, and the like. Keeping these more mainstream and commercial images separated will prevent them from “infecting” the purer iterations of your vision in the Portfolio and the Projects sections.

NO: 1. Don’t call anything on your site “Per-sonal.” Doing so sends the message that everything else is... What? Not personal. 2. “Fine Art” is not a category. I know, you’re trying to say you want your work to be shown in a gallery. Trouble is, nothing about this so-called genre says anything about the images. 3. Don’t equate credibility and volume; it only muddies your vision. Nothing brings a beautiful, original portfolio down faster than padding it with weaker images in an effort to impress potential clients. Instead, keep your more utilitarian work in the Categories section.

These suggestions should allow you to organize your work in a way that anyone looking at your images can understand. Without getting mired in generic descrip-tions, you will be able to develop and ex-plore new directions in your photography and your career goals. Because you are the only photographer who __________.


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IF YOU MUST USE GENRE BUZZWORDS, USE THEM TO SHOW THAT YOU SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF THE MARKET.

A L L E G R A W I L D E

C O N T I N U E T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N :

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The cofounder and chief operations officer of Eyeist, the online portfolio review service (eyeist.com), Allegra Wilde is a picture/visual strategist, creative director, and consultant to artists, photographers, and other art-based businesses. She has served as an MFA mentor for the Digital Photography program at the School of Visual Arts and as a visiting instructor at Art Center College of Design, FIT, and many other university photography programs, where she has regularly critiqued graduating students’ final portfolios.

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UNSTILL LIFEFor Rachel Barrett, making art means adapting with the times. BY MEG RYAN

ife changes, and with it, so will your art. “It’s called an art practice because you

have to practice it,” says Rachel Barrett, 33. Earlier in her career, she criss-crossed the U.S., docu-menting cooperative, back-to- the-land communities in Bolinas, California, and upstate New York, as well as roadside markets and oddities at points in between. After the birth of her child in March 2014, she traded many of her travel-heavy projects for new ideas she could explore locally. Working in her home studio in Brooklyn, New York, she’s creating a series of still lifes called Specimens.

“This work is still very new, so a lot of it feels more like an exercise,” Barrett says. She sets weekly milestones for herself, such as completing one or more photo-graphs or generating new ideas. One of the first images she made in the series “has a lot of purpose and significance,” she says. It’s my daughter’s umbilical cord shaped into a heart, a crystal from a dream catcher my best friend made for me upon my wedding, and the wishbone from the chicken my hus-band and I had for dinner the night I went into labor. But I’ve shifted, simplifying many elements so others take on more significance.”

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From Rachel Barrett’s series Specimens: “Orange You Glad,” 2014 (left) and “Taste of Rainbow,” 2014 (opposite).

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Above: “Shira,” 2012, from Wassaic, a series depicting a cooperative community in upstate New York. Opposite: “Ties That Bind,” from Specimens, 2014.

It’s a shift that parallels the one she’s experi-enced in her entire approach to her work, balanc-ing her personal projects with freelance editorial and commercial photography as well as teaching. And it’s a shift that’s often easier said than done. “In school, things feel finished when they may not be, and in many ways you work in a bubble,” she says. “Trying to make your life as a photographer is a juggling act. You can only learn to time man-age and prioritize by actually doing it.”

Indeed, Barrett has found that making photo-graphs isn’t just a part of life but integral to it. After graduating from New York University with a BFA in photography, she made her way into work-ing in independent film; her own photography fell by the wayside, but the hiatus was brief. “When I picked up my camera and started shooting again, I knew I needed to rededicate myself to photog-raphy,” she says. “But I needed the structure and discipline of school to help me.” So she enrolled in the School of Visual Arts, receiving an MFA in photography, video and related media in 2008.

Structure and self-discipline have served her


CLOSE-UP

Rachel Barrettrachelbarrett.netLives In Brooklyn, NYStudied At New York University, BFA, 2003; School of Visual Arts, MFA, 2008Awards Include PDN’s 30, 2011; Tracey Baran Award and Fellowship, 2011; 1st Place, Camera Club of NY’s National Competition, 2010; PDN Annual

(Personal Work), 2010; Tierney Foundation Fellowship, 2010Clients Include Alba, andnorth.com, Bloomberg Businessweek, Calypso St. Barth, Culture, Edible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn, Jason and Strivectin, Kmart, Popular Mechanics, Tablet Magazine, The New York Times

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AMERICAN PHOTO ON CAMPUS 17

A portrait of Meghan Shea, who at age 18 invented a low-cost water filter, for Popular Mechanics, October 2013.

well in her career, but her interest in other people, and the interplay between individual and place, are equally essential to her work. Her earlier projects explored the dynam-ics of communal living and connection to the land. “Bolinas is a place where time stands still,” Barrett says of her 2009–10 series documenting life on a cooperative in Northern California. “And photographs are a place where time stands still. So my intention was to create an expression of experience.” This idea of the individual interdependent with community, she says, helps to propel the creative process. “Even if your process is incredibly solitary, you need peers who are equally engaged to help you move your work forward,” she says.

Even Specimens has its origins in re-lationship, though of a different kind. “In most of these images I’m using objects that don’t belong to me. That led me to think-ing about my relationship to objects, with myself as a collector and organizer,” Barrett says. “Making the early images led me to where I am [with the project] today, with much more purpose and intention. I’m still figuring it out.”

Allowing an idea to change is all part of the process, an important lesson Barrett took away from her graduate studies: “Don’t dismiss an idea before you try it out, because although it may not ultimately work, it may well lead you on to something great,” she says.

As a student, Barrett says, it was easy to think of work and art as separate from the real world, but in fact, she’s found, they are an essential part of life. And when they operate in tandem, it can lead to new projects or opportunities, like making books or, importantly, getting hired. Her series chronicling the end of the independent New York City newsstand as they were replaced with uniform kiosks throughout the city from 2006 to 2012 is in postproduction and being shopped around to publishers. And her thoughtfully intimate, nature- and light-filled aesthetic has drawn numerous commercial and editorial clients.

“In 2009 I was out in Bolinas working on that project, and took a day trip up to Point Reyes. We were shopping at the Cowgirl Creamery and this amazing woman—

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to get in the door without one. “Sometimes a cli-ent really wants me to make work like I normally would,” Barrett says, pointing to her portrait of Meghan Shea for the October 2013 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine as an example. “Other times I’m there to help actualize an existing vision.”

Whether making still lifes at home with her baby nearby or shooting an editorial portrait, Barrett sees whatever she creates as a piece of a whole creative existence. “I’m doing what was so exciting to me about photography when I first began making pictures 20 years ago,” she says: “looking at familiar things in a new and unfamiliar way, how these things look when photographed, and, always, the magic of the light.” AP

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“Broadway and Murray Street, NW corner, August 30, 2011” from The NYC Newsstand.


Shorty, of Shorty’s Produce, next to the Creamery—saw my camera and started talking to me,” Barrett says. “It didn’t take long before she picked up the current issue of Culture magazine and said I should contact the editor, Kate, who used to be at Cowgirl, and gave me her email address. When I came back home the following week I sent an email saying that I’d love to work for them. It was a few months before I heard back. The photo editor told me they had been holding on to my email for when they had shoots in New York, and they hired me repeatedly for really fun stories.”

The moral of the story, she says, is that while a distinct personal style rarely gives a photographer total control over a project, it’s next to impossible ©

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Photographic education keeps the art of photography alive; it nurtures creativity, unleashes imagination and upholds the fact that images are a meaningful art form and an important part of our culture and history.

The Sigma University is created and designed to ensure that all students, educators and schools have access to the equipment they need to get the most out of their education.

Through the University every Sigma product is specially-priced, making it easy and affordable to use high performing, high quality equipment during the learning process and long after.

Our goal is to support the future of photographic language and craft by putting the best tools available in the hands of those on this journey and encouraging them to engage with the world in a meaningful way.

Please check Sigma-University.com for program details.

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PHOTO BOOKS OF THE YEAR


Proof that photographs and the printing press were made for each otherCONTRIBUTORS: LINDSAY COMSTOCK, JACK CRAGER, RUSSELL HART, JEANETTE D. MOSES, MATTHEW ISMAEL RUIZ, AND MEG RYAN

THE SOCHI PROJECTby Rob Hornstra | aperture | $80Over five years, Hornstra and writer Arnold van Bruggen traced

the construction of the Olympic Village for the Winter Games in

Sochi, Russia—which had been a beach town (with an adventur-

ous tourist trade, as seen in the cover shot, at right)—and the

environmental havoc it wreaked on surrounding communities.

DISCO NIGHT SEPT 11 by Peter Van Agtmael | red hook editions | $55 This book’s ironic title derives from a roadside sign in the cover shot, alluding to the blithe disconnect of many Ameri-cans during the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Magnum photographer Van Agtmael documents the U.S. wars of the aughts in striking depth and detail. His text veers from dia-ristic entries to firsthand accounts; it accents vivid imagery on the battlefront and in the barracks. Van Agtmael also captures key moments in the U.S., from grieving widows to warmer homecoming scenes, such as the shot above of Specialist Raymond Hubbard playing Star Wars with his kids, now that he’s home after losing his leg to a mortar shell in Iraq.

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TESTAMENTby Chris Hondros | powerhouse | $45Before his death in 2011 in Libya at age 41, Hondros was a daring

and prolific war photojournalist, but what shines through here is

his humanity: He portrays glimpses of heroism amid chaos and

hope among ruins, all with a storyteller’s gift for yarn.

RAINFOREST by Lewis Blackwell | abrams | $60 This book makes a powerful case against deforestation by showing the fabric of the natural world: the intricate pat-terns, resourceful use of sunlight, dynamic relationships, and existential wisdom within the flora and fauna inhabiting these unbroken ecosystems. “We need to recognize that our lives are a part of a greater living community on Earth,” Blackwell writes, “the vast wonder of which rainforests represent with their extraordinary diversity, richness, and mystery.”

WHAT IS A PHOTOGRAPH?by Carol Squiers et al | international center of photography | $50This catalog surveys artists including Mariah Robertson (above), Eileen Quinlan,

James Welling, and Matthew Brandt, whose experimentation moves beyond mere

aesthetics. These works expand our perception of what we call photography: con-

templating the banality in everyday objects, reflecting the increasing ubiquity of the

image, using alternative processes to transform the medium, and sometimes blurring

the boundary between still images and other media to manipulate the picture plane.

#SANDY edited by Wyatt Gallery | daylight | $40 After Superstorm Sandy struck the Eastern seaboard, social

media became a hub of the relief effort. This striking book collects

iPhone images of the storm from 20 pro shooters who leveraged

their Instagram networks for the donation of time and money to

the cause. The book’s proceeds go toward continued relief.

PHOTOGRAPHER’S PARADISE: TURBULENT AMERICA 1960-90 by Jean-Pierre Laffont | rizzoli | $55French expatriate Laffont dogged the big stories that came to

define modern America—from anti-establishment chaos to battles

over gay rights, immigration reform, and other social issues that

still vex the nation. In images more about the streets than poli-

tics, he fearlessly shot with an outsider’s fascination, making this

volume a personal testament to our country’s difficult growth.

OFFICE ROMANCEby Kathy Ryan | aperture | $30Ryan snapped this collection of iPhone photos in and around her

workplace—where she’s director of photography at The New York

Times Magazine—and then posted them to her popular Insta-

gram feed. Many images examine the play of light and shadow

around the office building (as at right), while others artfully

home in on the accoutrements of work: sticky notes, computer

monitors, X-acto knives, and of course, people. In her intro, Ryan

writes that she’s not a photographer; we’re not buying it.

MELTING AWAY: OUR ENDANGERED POLAR REGIONS by Camille Seaman | princeton | $55As monolithic structures carved

by light and shadow, the melting

polar icebergs Seaman shows us jut

out from the landscape, serving as

both a showcase of grandeur and a

compelling call to action.

EDEN AND AFTERby Nan Goldin | phaidon | $100Goldin brings her visual style of intimacy and candor to

the worlds of children and child rearing—in all their in-

nocence and complexity. She depicts pregnant women in

the glow of expectancy, live-action scenes of childbirth,

breast-feeding rituals, and the hijinks of unpredictable

kids with unabashed frankness and joie de vivre.

NEW YORKby Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao | aperture | $95Using several shots taken with medium-format film that he

scans and combines, Liao creates digital panoramas that offer a

fantastic and larger-than-life view of the city that never sleeps.

22 AMERICAN PHOTO ON CAMPUS FEBRUARY 201322 AMERICAN PHOTO ON CAMPUS WINTER 2014/2015

THE NINETY NINE AND THE NINE by Katy Grannan | fraenkel gallery | $65Grannan’s portraits of the homeless and destitute show

how capitalism, addiction, and illness leave many behind.

Yet this collection also offers insight into the lives of

people on the fringe of society (as in the anonymous shot

at left) and the beauty lurking within weathered bodies.

KURT COBAIN: THE LAST SESSIONby Jesse Frohman | thames & hudson | $45Little did Frohman know, when hired to shoot Nirvana

for the London Observer in 1993, that its leader would

self-destruct within months. Here we see Cobain’s com-

plexity: defiance, charisma, playfulness, and anger bound

up in a shaggy persona behind goofy oval sunglasses.

NEGATIVE: ME, BLONDIE, AND THE ADVENT OF PUNKby Chris Stein | rizzoli | $55As cofounder of Blondie and longtime partner of Deborah Harry, Stein was the group’s

shutterbug, documenting their rise from underground punk rockers to global new-wave

stars. This collection gathers candid views of Harry and her bandmates with lots of

unruly company—from Iggy Pop and Joey Ramone to Joan Jett and Chrissie Hynde.

HORST: PHOTOGRAPHER OF STYLEby Susanna Brown | rizzoli | $75Horst P. Horst’s brilliant oeuvre gets lavish treatment here, with

sections on fashion, nature, nudes, and editorial shoots, plus entire

chapters devoted to muses Marlene Dietrich and Carmen Dell’Orefice.

For artfully statuesque glamour, nobody did it better.

MUSICby Deborah Feingold | damiani | $30Feingold’s anthology brings together 40 years of her intimate, often improvisational

portraits of music icons. Early images of James Brown and Prince blend with more recent

color portraits of Keith Richards, Tina Turner, and Madonna. The photographer’s gift

is capturing her famous subjects at total ease, presenting them as people above all else.

U.S. MARSHALSby Brian Finke | powerhouse | $35Spurred by

an old friend’s

new vocation,

Finke captures

federal law-

enforcement

officers in both

crime-busting

action and

quiet portraits

with his crisp

visual style.

MY RULESby Glen E. Friedman | rizzoli | $55Friedman captures the golden eras of skateboarding,

punk rock, and hip-hop with an emphasis on raw

energy and attitude. My Rules is an intimate history

from the top of the pool and the edge of the stage.

P H O T O B O O K S O F T H E Y E A R

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STILL MOVINGby Danny Clinch | abrams | $50

Clinch was there: in prison with Metallica, at the blackboard with Kanye West, in the

studio with Eminem, on the road with Lucinda Williams, near a fan eruption for Iggy

Pop (above), next to a couch with Beck and John Lee Hooker—you get the idea. There’s

no mystery to why stars love him: He makes everyone look cool, onstage or off, and his

access allows him to capture tender moments, like his shoot with a nervous Chris

Whitley or a pensive Eddie Vedder surrounded by lyrics in the studio. And several

photos—like the two-page gatefold portrait of Tupac Shakur, gracefully saved from the

book’s gutter—are truly iconic. Clinch is called “my patron saint of new rock dreams”

in the book’s foreword, by a dreamer named Springsteen.

LAKES AND RESERVOIRS by Matthew Brandt | damiani/yossi milo | $75 Though hardly a brand-new topic, the question What is a

photograph? regenerated sparks in 2014, underpinning a

major ICP exhibition and catalog (page 21). At the center of

this discussion is Matthew Brandt, who just brought out his

own stunning monograph of experimental imagery. Brandt

has taken Los Angeles–based conceptualism in the lineage of

photo-driven artists like John Baldessari, Robert Heinecken,

and James Welling back to the land for this series: He makes

photographs of bodies of water throughout the western

United States, then soaks the C-prints in liquid specimens

collected from the sites depicted. The result is a psychedelic

blend of lovely, surreal chromatic aberrations.

MINOR WHITE: MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SPIRIT text by Paul Martineau | getty | $40White left a rich legacy as teacher,

editor, poet, and critic, but it’s his

mid-century photos that transcend

time. Here we see a complex artist

who revered formal elements of

light and shadow while subverting

common thought about subject mat-

ter, extolling spirituality in art while

grappling with his own sexuality.

For more Books of the Year, see the November/December 2014 issue of American Photo or visit americanphotomag.com.


THE ART OF GETTING IT

Opposite: A recent portrait by Eric Ray Davidson of model Leela for Trendi magazine in Finland. Above: An image by Paul Jasmin of model Annie Morton, shot outside the Pink Motel in Hollywood.O

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Is artistic vision innate or developed? Commercial photographer Eric Ray Davidson and his mentor, Paul Jasmin, ponder the possibilities.

Paul Jasmin and Eric Ray Davidson met and bonded in Jasmin’s photography class at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, in 2001. Jasmin began his illustrious career in fashion and glamour photography at the behest of his friend and mentor, Bruce Weber [see Perspective, page 34]. Davidson has established himself as a successful celebrity photographer. Here the mentor and mentee discuss portraiture, artistic growth, and how to foster the right chemistry with your subject.

Eric Ray Davidson: I used to split time between New York City and Los Angeles, but now I’m in L.A. full-time. Let’s talk about the differences between New York and Los Angeles for photographers, especially when they’re just starting out, and how it changes as you go.Paul Jasmin: You find out where you belong. You have to grow, and that’s where the work comes from. Davidson: I don’t know how much stuff originates in L.A., but it does seem like, with the increase in celebrity content, there’s just so much shooting out here. I guess the key in New York is establishing yourself.Jasmin: The thing about New York is, there are too many photographers there. In L.A., if you’re smart you can get to the right people and show them your work. Art direc-tors and editors kind of like someone who has their own turf and is not too accessible, not right there with the crowd.

Davidson: Once someone has their degree, what’s the best simple advice going into the wild, into the real world? Does going to New York really make a difference?Jasmin: Well, I think that technology has kind of screwed up that equation because now you can do everything online. I mean, you can make your pictures look good on...

Davidson: On the phone.Jasmin: You can always make them look good, and you have to know how to edit. You just have to validate yourself. I think that’s why it’s so important to look at those maga-zines. And I say those—you know the ones, the cool ones—because you’ve kind of realized where you want to go. The same as if you wanted to be an actor and you only saw



T H E A R T O F G E T T I N G I T

Left: A recent portrait by Paul Jasmin. “You always look for somebody who has the right posturing,” Jasmin says. “Now, there’s a posture that I love.”

Above: A Baxter photo for a story in Popular Science about the privatization of space travel in the future.

song “Rose’s Turn,” she says, “Ya either got it or ya ain’t.” You either get it or you don’t. And if you got it and you get it, then you learn to edit.

Davidson: But if you have the foundations of something, how do you put yourself in a situation where you can grow? I’ve always found that one thing I was never afraid to do was fail repeatedly, to learn how to do things right by doing them

really bad TV. Well, you’d end up being a bad actor. And you have to know the world that you want to go into. And the only way that you can know that is to go to New York and talk to those people. And when you talk to those people you realize, I’ve got to have my shit together. And I have to know more than they think that I know. You know?

There is a great line from the show Gypsy that Ethel Merman had. And it really says it all. In the

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Above: Eric Ray Davidson’s shot of actress Keira Knightley. “Someone gave her a cup of hot water with lemon and I was like, ‘Oh, perfect. Bring it with you,’” Davidson recalls. “It was a case of just reacting and using the space around you to your advantage.”

wrong. Early on I did a lot of stuff wrong but I was never afraid to go there. I remember in one of our first classes together, I did something for an assignment and you loved it! And I did something the next week that was horrible. And you said to me, “I wish you’d never shown me that thing from last week.” [Laughter] And it was true.Jasmin: There’s a difference between making one thing that’s awful and not having it. Some people don’t have it, and never get it. You have to have style. You look at an early book of Avedon’s work or at Irving Penn’s sense of style, or Map-plethorpe’s flowers. Everybody takes those pic-tures with them; you realize what style is. Either you get it or you don’t.

Davidson: There are many talented photogra-phers who have a hard time getting in the door. How important is being persistent, ballsy, tough?Jasmin: It’s really important. Somehow you’ve got to get in that door, but you don’t want to be obnoxious. Well, what you can do is send them one incredible image. “Oh, wow!” People remember that. And if you put it online—a lot of art direc-tors, if they see something there, it’s the same as if you sent them that picture. It’s a moment.

A lot of young people don’t even realize when they’ve taken one incredible photograph. I have nine people in my [photography] class. And recently I said, All of you have taken a good picture. And none of you know it.” And I said, “That’s a real problem.”


Above: An image from Project Astoria, a series of mise-en-scènes depicting an imaginary colony, created by Todd Baxter and his wife, Aubrey Videtto.

Left: Eric Ray Davidson’s portrait of actress/model Nola Palmer and musician Gambles (Matthew Daniel Siskin).


Davidson: What is your motivation to continue to teach the class? What does being an instruc-tor do for you? What’s exciting about it?Jasmin: To find someone who gets it.

Davidson: And to be in a position to find some-one who’s excited about photography? I know for me personally, there was a point in school where

I was beaten down by the process, the competi-tion, the hostility, which comes with being an art-ist. But you reminded me that photography was a thing to love and to nurture and grow, and that was something to follow. Is that the kind of expe-rience that you’re looking for with your students?Jasmin: There’s always competition. And now it’s getting tougher. But the other thing is—and by the

T H E A R T O F G E T T I N G I T

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way, this is why there are so few good film direc-tors—you have to fall in love with the person you’re taking the picture of when you’re shooting them.

Davidson: You have to connect. Does that excite you when it happens? I find that whenever I go to give a little talk at a class—or when I was TA-ing with you and working with you closely—it’s very exciting to pass forward excitement. And it’s therapeutic, But it’s hard to always be positive because of all the bullshit we have to put up with.Jasmin: I’m real masochistic to keep doing that class. [Laughter] But I realized, how else would I meet people like you? How else would I be in con-tact with people not of my age? Most of the people my age are so frickin’ boring.

Davidson: What are you excited to shoot now?Jasmin: I have a show in Art Basel in Miami, and I have to do three new pictures. There’re a lot of oldies but goodies, and those sell now, but I need new ones. And I found a subject yesterday—it took me almost three weeks to find the right boy and the right poses. So it’s, it’s harder for me now. But he has the posture I want. And you really need that.

Davidson: You need someone with the right kind of body awareness. Sometimes, I find, it’s certain actors—they just have incredible awareness of their form. One of the best I ever worked with so far is Eddie Redmayne. He just knows how to sit, how to stand, and how to move and his body.Jasmin: I think he’s fabulous. And that’s why he’s such a good actor.

Davidson: One thing I noticed, when we worked together, was how the environment that you cre-ate on set fosters the right kind of creative energy, which leads to the right kind of art. Let’s talk about the importance of creating an environment where everyone’s in a good mood and in a good place.Jasmin: You have to do that. Then you can just wander through that environment. I’ve learned that from Bruce [Weber] and others. Not everyone can afford to have the entourage that Bruce brings on his shoots. But he creates, in the food and the environ-ment—people are just in bliss to be there. He creates that and then he goes in and sneaks a picture.

Davidson: A lot of it is the details on set. It’s impor-tant for people to feel like they’re eating great food, and the music is good, and the studio has good light, and it’s a good environment. But it’s also observing people and picking up on their nature. And you can get better and faster at making those decisions. I’ve recently found my way into photo shoots that are, you know, five minutes, seven minutes. And in some ways I love it because there’s no fuss. There’s no thinking. But you find that moment.Jasmin: It’s finding the right people, it’s editing, and it’s casting. And in fast shoots, it’s the intimidation. Somehow in 10 minutes you’re going to break that person down to where they’ll give you the real deal. That’s the picture you want. But you can’t tell them what to do. You have to let them do it.

Davidson: I think my fastest shoot I ever did was with Keira Knightley in Toronto. I was supposed to get her and Benedict Cumberbatch together. She ended up showing up first and I wasn’t supposed to get a single shot. But I did. And we were in a very nondescript hotel room, but the room attached to it was chaos. It looked like a tornado had hit it. There was furniture everywhere. And so I had maybe three minutes to shoot there. And after I took that photo, something about it resonated with me.Jasmin: She’s never looked as fabulous.

Davidson: And it was fun. It’s just reacting and using the space around you to your advantage. Sometimes your space—don’t try to make it some-thing else. Make it an extreme version of what it is.Jasmin: It’s fabulous. And if you know that you did it and you picked that, that’s the name of the game. It’s all about emotion. Emotion—I think it’s the most important word in photography. AP

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P R E V I E W S A M S U N G N X 1

G E A R

hile Samsung loves to proclaim how serious it is about its NX line of interchangeable-lens compact cameras, the company should probably just let

its new NX1 do the talking. This camera is built for imaging power and speed, whether you’re shooting stills or video.

Consider its 28.2-megapixel back-side illumi-nated (BSI) CMOS sensor—the largest BSI sensor ever offered in any camera—and its hybrid auto-focus system that covers 90 percent of the frame and samples the scene at 120 frames per second, and you’ll start to get the picture. The camera also boasts a tilting 1.04 million–dot Super AMOLED monitor, as well as an OLED electronic viewfinder with a super-short refresh rate of 5 milliseconds. It captures full-resolution images in bursts of up to 15 fps with continuous AF and metering, in addition to Ultra HD 4K video. And its weather-resistant magnesium-alloy body connects wirelessly to other devices using the latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard.

Samsung has pushed to make the NX1 compat-ible with all the latest technology, not just Wi-Fi. For instance, you can use Bluetooth 3 to keep in constant contact with your smartphone and then engage Wi-Fi merely to transfer images and video to your phone, so you won’t drain your camera

Shown with Samsung’s new 50–150mm f/2.8 ED OIS lens, the NX1 brings speed and robustness to this compact system.

W


WHAT PHOTOGRAPHERS NEED TOOLBOX 32

DSLR KILLERSerious power in a mirrorless ILC BY PHILIP RYAN

battery by constantly feeding power to the Wi-Fi antenna. The NX1 also includes a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 connection, along with a micro HDMI jack that can output a clean signal to record video to external recorders. You can record 4K video to an SD card in the latest H.265 HEVC codec at either the digital cinema 4096x2160 standard at 24 fps or the UHD 3840x2160 pixel count at 30 fps. Normal 1920x1080 HD recording at up to 60 fps is also an option.

To show off just how powerful the processor in the NX1 is, Samsung created a baseball shooting mode. In the viewfinder you can see an image of a batter, with bat extended, superimposed on the scene—align this over the player you want to photograph, and the camera will monitor the frame so that you’ll get a perfect image of the bat striking the ball every time. It may help you land a job on your school’s sports desk, but otherwise it seems more fun than useful.

In addition to the camera, Samsung is bringing out a 50–150mm f/2.8 S ED OIS zoom lens, a 75–225mm full-frame equivalent on this APS-C-format system. As part of the company’s premium S series, this $1,600 lens is weather sealed and promises a higher level of image quality than lower-tier glass; it also includes a custom focus limiter to avoid distract-ing the camera’s autofocus system with extraneous elements in the frame. AP

N O T E W O R T H Y S P E C SSENSOR 28.2MP APS-C-format BSI CMOS SENSITIVITY ISO 100–51,200AUTOFOCUS TTL Hybrid with 209 contrast and 205 embed-ded phase (153 cross-type) focus points SHUTTER 1/800–30 sec MEMORY SD/SDHC/SDXC card slot VIEWFINDER OLED EVFBURSTS 15 fps up to 25 RAW (12-bit) shots MONITOR Tilting 3.0-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen with 1.04 million–dot resolutionVIDEO Records at up to 4096x2160p24; H.265 HEVC; micro-HDMI output DIMENSIONS 5.5x4.0x2.7 in. (140x102x66 mm) WEIGHT 19.4 oz (550 g) with battery BUY IT $1,500 body only; $2,800 with 16–50mm f/2–2.8 S ED OIS lens; samsung.com


NEW YEAR, NEW GEAR

T O O L B O X

1

4

6

1 H I G H - C L A S S C O M PA C TAlthough the Fujifilm X100T shares much with the earlier X100S, including its 16MP X-Trans sensor and fixed 23mm (35mm full-frame equivalent) f/2 lens, just about everything else has been improved. The biggest change is the revamped hybrid viewfinder—its 2.3 million pixel display now has a Digital Split Image manual-focus system that makes it more like a traditional rangefinder. The button layout is more versatile, the AF system more robust, and film emulation choices more extensive. BUY IT $1,300; fujifilmusa.com

3 R U N A 5 KIn the camera world, the race is on to cram 4K video capture into every new model. The problem, however, comes in editing such massive files, which is where Apple’s new 5K iMac comes in. The 27-inch, 5120 x 2880 screen is enough to fit a full-res 4K video file with enough room left over for editing tools to surround it. It’s configurable up to a 4.0 GHz quad-core Intel i7 processor and uses a 1TB Fusion Drive as well, so it has enough firepower to push all those pixels around. BUY IT From $2,500; apple.com

6 E V E R Y D AY H E R OWhen GoPro announces new cameras, the top-of-the-line models with massive resolution and fancy features get all the fanfare. But the humble Hero, the new entry-level model, is one of the most interesting cameras on GoPro’s roster. It shoots 1080p video at 30 fps (or 720p at 60 fps), just like the older HD Hero2. But GoPro shrank its size, got its weight down below 4 ounces, and added features like Auto Low Light mode. BUY IT $130; gopro.com

2 D I G I TA L D A R K R O O MYou’ll find many plug-ins to help make digital photos look like they were shot on film, but VSCO makes one of the best. Its newest pack of presets, VSCO Film 06: The Alternative Process Collection, mimics the look of some familiar film stocks such as Kodak Portra and Ilford HP5 when they’re pushed, pulled, or cross-processed. It works with either Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom without making you launch another program. BUY IT $120; vsco.co

4 G E T I N T O T H E A C T I O NThe smallest camera in Sony’s lineup, the Action Cam Mini still has quite a bit of photographic firepower. Its 11.9MP sensor can capture 1080p HD video at 60 frames per second for silky slow motion. The Zeiss lens covers a 170-degree field of view, and built-in wireless lets you live-stream events as they happen. It even comes with a Live View Remote you can wear around your wrist to preview and review your footage without having to bring your smartphone into precarious situations. BUY IT $350; store.sony.com

5 F I L M W I T H A H U EWhen Lomography announced a limited run of purple-tinted film, it sold out in a hurry. Now the company promises a limited run of LomoChrome Turquoise XR film for pre-order, to be delivered in April. The company will make just 5,000 rolls of 35mm and 120 color negative film in ISO 100–400. Prints will come back from the lab with a serious blue-green tint. It’s not for everyday shooting, but it seems like the perfect thing to throw into a Holga for something a little different. BUY IT $60 for 5 rolls; shop.lomography.com

7 F L A S H Y P H O T O G R A P H YBetween the radical design of the Pentax K-01 and the wide array of colors available for its entry-level DSLRs, Ricoh never shies away from interesting-looking cameras. Its new Pentax K-S1 is no different, with a variety of colored lights in the grip and behind the controls of this slightly modified version of the archetypical Pentax body shape. Despite the light show, though, the K-S1 is still a solid DSLR. Its APS-C-format 20.12MP CMOS sensor can be cranked to ISO 51,200, its shutter speed goes up to 1/6000 sec; and its 11-point autofocus system includes 9 cross-type sensors. BUY IT $650 body only, $700 with 18–55mm f/3.5-5.6 Pentax-DA L smc lens; us.ricoh-imaging.com


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Paul Jasmin is a re-nowned photographer, educator, and mentor (see our feature begin-ning on page 24). But he began his career as an actor, appear-ing in films including Psycho and Midnight Cowboy. Jasmin later pursued painting and commercial illustra-tion. “I always used to take Polaroids for the fashion illustrations I did,” he recalls. “I went to Paris to study art, and Bruce Weber was the person there who liked my pictures. Bruce said, ‘Why don’t we do something together for Italian Vogue?’ And so that’s the first [photo job] I did.” Jasmin consid-ers Weber his mentor, although he notes, “Bruce is younger than I am. But it’s impor-tant to have those people in your life.” Inspired by Weber’s innovative approach to fashion photography, Jasmin took up that genre in the 1990s and perfected his own painterly style. Jasmin’s celebrated series featuring mod-els Tatjana Patitz and Mike Campbell for Marie Claire included the quiet shot at left. “This was one of the first fashion shoots I did,” Jasmin says, “and I realized, ‘Wow, it’s emotion!’ That’s why I like that picture— because I got her to the point where she was still up for it and he was so cool. That kind of emotion you can’t draw. That’s why I keep taking pictures: to find emotion.” —JACK CRAGER

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