The Art of the Personal Project: William DeShazer

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  William DeShazer

The Kentucky Derby

I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. It’s the place I still think of as home. Even now living in Nashville, Tennessee I miss it. If you’re from Louisville there are three things you identify with regardless of your personal relationship to them… Bourbon, baseball (Louisville Slugger) and of course, The Kentucky Derby. In my youth I played baseball, so I saw Louisville Slugger bats everywhere. It was commonplace. Obviously, I was too young to enjoy bourbon and my parents weren’t big drinkers. But there was always a pageantry leading up to the first Saturday in May. It was akin to that anticipation of Christmas. A city came together through fireworks displays, parades, airshows, hot air balloons, and elaborate decor.

I never attended the race as a child, but I was always glued to the television with my family. Yes, we watch the race, but mainly we would take in the atmosphere and see the spectacle of it all. The hats and outfits. The cheering spectators and celebrities in attendance. It was always either the focus or secondary to the derby party we hosted in our home. So, when photography entered my life, I knew I had to be there to capture it. Fortunately, I’ve covered it every year since 2014.

They call it “The Greatest Two Minutes in Sports.” and “The Run for the Roses.” Sure, the racing aspect of it is incredible, but what always appealed to me was what’s happening outside of the racetrack. Whether it’s the backside stables that start working horses before the sun rises, the day drinkers in the infield, the gamblers looking to hit a trifecta, or the men and women dressed to the nines. Every year I’m like a kid in a candy store. It’s a homecoming for me and a reminder of the magic I experienced in my youth growing up in “Derby City”.

 

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram

 

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Jason Lindsey

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Jason Lindsey

 

JASON LINDSEY CREATES THE CAMPAIGN HE ALWAYS HOPED TO SEE

 

The inspiration for a personal project called Solar Heroes was to create a campaign that is a celebration of the people who install solar. He was aware that this was a politically charged topic when it shouldn’t be. Rather than focus on one industry replacing another, he wondered why no one was talking about how the solar industry was adding jobs. Why wasn’t anyone talking about the workers? So, Jason sought to highlight these unsung heroes. He photographed the portraits and designed the campaign as well.

 

As the title suggests, at the beginning of 2021, Jason Lindsey created a series of images that he always hoped to see, a personal project campaign celebrating the everyday heroes of the solar industry. While he didn’t set out to make an in-your-face political campaign about climate change, it undoubtedly made an impact. The Illinois Solar Energy Association tapped him to create a campaign to help pass the climate change legislation. This past week, the State of Illinois passed major climate change legislation, and we’re celebrating Jason having been a small part of it!

 

To see more of this project, click here.

 

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Gabby Jones

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Gabby Jones

 

Many families in Western society have been personally affected by divorce. In fact, 40% to 50% of marriages in the U.S. end in divorce, according to the American Psychological Association.

 

This is something photojournalist Gabby Jones has experienced firsthand. Growing up as the child of divorced parents, Jones felt a sense of resentment and instability. As the divorce was finalized, the custody agreement arranged for Jones to live with her mother. However, as she got older, she realized that she and her mother didn’t see eye to eye and were having a hard time understanding one another.

 

“She got the brunt of my wrath. I was your typical angsty, hormonal teenager; quick to judge and tough to please … Our relationship was tumultuous to say the least,” she said.

As the pandemic took hold on daily life this past year, Jones had an opportunity to mend her relationship with her mother.

The island of Saint Thomas holds a great deal of importance to Jones’ family history, but Jones had rejected that part of her family heritage. It was an important part of her mother’s life growing up, and as Jones got older, she began to realize the importance it could hold in her life as well.

 

So, when the opportunity to go visit with her mother presented itself this year, she couldn’t say no. In January, Jones and her mother spent a month together living in her great grandmother’s house on Saint Thomas.

This was the longest amount of time that they had spent together in years, and Jones decided to document it.

 

To see more on this project, click here.

Original article by Mhari Shaw

 

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Jared Leeds

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Jared Leeds

 

PATHWAY TO FERTILITY

My wife and I struggled to get pregnant. We are lucky enough to live in a state (MA) that covers up to 6 rounds of in vitro fertilization, and we used almost all of them. On our fifth round we were ready to consider other options because of the emotional toll, but our doctor encouraged us to try again. We had very low expectations, and possibly because of that we felt less pressure. That’s when it finally worked. For my wife, the struggle was both physical and hugely emotional. I only had the emotional part to deal with. I think it was difficult for both of us to put it out there so publicly, but time has a way of softening the hard edges of difficult emotion. Plus, we ended up with two beautiful and healthy twin girls who are now 7 years old. We couldn’t be more grateful.

 

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Mike Belleme

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Mike Belleme

Wild Roots

In the mountains of North Carolina there is an expanse of donated land inhabited by a small group of people who, for their own reasons, choose not to live as members of modern society. Tod and Talia, a couple, have been living in this place called Wild Roots for a decade, half of which I’ve documented periodically.  A belief that modern civilization was on the brink of collapse was a big part of the impetus for Tod and Talia and others coming to Wildroots, although after years of living a simple mostly primitive way of life in the woods, they find it harder and harder to fathom modern mainstream life. In July of 2015, Talia had to move away from Wildroots back to her native California due to a mold allergy. Tod, unwilling to leave his home of Wildroots for California, now needs the community to thrive more than ever in order to continue making it his home.  The homes at Wildroots are mostly waddle and daub, a technique that uses on site timber, saplings, and a clay solution along with bark or metal roofs. Although wild food harvesting is a big part of the lifestyle, the majority of the food consumed at Wildroots comes from dumpsters which they visit on their periodic trips into town, roadkill, and wild game that is given to them by local hunters. They use almost every part of the animal including eyeballs, tongue and brain. Cooking is done over a fire created using friction every morning and evening. The number of community members fluctuates through the seasons, from 2-10 or so. Talia plans to return this Winter to stay with Tod but has no plans of returning after the coming Winter.

 

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

 

The Art of the Personal Project: John McDermott

 

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  John McDermott

 

A little over five years ago my wife, who is from Germany, and I moved from San Francisco to Appiano, a small town in the South Tyrolean wine country, near the Dolomites in northern Italy. It’s halfway between Munich and Milan and two hours from Venice. There is a very beautiful lake nearby, the Lago di Caldaro, or Kalterersee in Germany (the area where we live is close to Austria and bi-lingual so both German and Italian are spoken). Every autumn Germany’s national women rowers come down for a week of training on the lake. They are hosted by some good friends of ours who own a nice hotel. I have always enjoyed shooting sports and have been on assignment to ten Olympics and nine FIFA World Cups for clients like Newsweek, Kodak and FIFA and Sports Illustrated. I’ve always been fascinated by the special beauty of sports on the water, particularly rowing and sailing. I wanted to do something for my friends and also for the athletes, so as a personal project I accompanied them in the early morning during their training to see what I could come up with photographically. It was also a great opportunity for me to “train” visually during a year when, thanks to Covid, there wasn’t that much going on. The rowers were pleased with the results and so was I. This was one of the last nice projects I was able to work on before we went back into a fairly strict Covid lockdown again where our ability to move about was restricted. Thankfully there has been a high degree of solidarity here in Italy regarding Covid and the payoff is that now we are able to live in a quite normal way again. I’m looking forward to their return.

 

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Kremer/Johnson

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:   Kremer|Johnson

 

Artist Statement

There’s a grace & beauty in diving that’s impressive to witness in person. Perhaps even more impressive than that are the moments of focus, determination, and clarity in a diver’s body, mind, and expression when they’re on the board. To the human eye, dives appear fluid & graceful. Though, most consist of an immaculately choreographed progression of awkward, tense, and violent actions which, together, create the illusion of grace. We found a great deal of humanity in those isolated moments.

This series was photographed at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center over a period of 5 visits in early 2020. The diver’s range in ability from beginner to Olympic hopefuls. Strobes were used to fill in shadows and create a more illustrated style. The Phase One IQ3 was the chosen camera for its ability to mix strobes with a 1/2000 shutter speed.

The series was recognized by American Photographer and Communication Arts Annuals.

The commercial advertising community has received the series well. We’ve received dozens of compliments and potential job inquiries.

 

 

 

To see more of this project, click here.

 

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Scott Streble

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Scott Streble

 

“The vibrance and enthusiasm of drag queens yields great photos. I like to capture that energy. “

 

To see more of this project, click here.

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Patrick Ecclesine

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Patrick Ecclesine

 

2021:

I’ve been posted up in Kula, Maui and living on a farm in the countryside at the base of a volcano. I never envisioned spending any real time in the South Pacific and yet end of last year I came to shoot the gallery for NBC’s “Temptation Island”. When it was time to fly back to LA, I said forget it, might as well stay in the place that has the lowest Covid infection rate in the US. So, I’ve been hiking the volcano, surfing almost daily, training to ride the big winter waves that are certain to hit the North shore. After surfing for thirty years, I’m sad to admit I’ve never gotten a proper tube or “barrel” as they call it, so I’m aiming to make this childhood dream come to life. Been reading and reflecting… taking the time to learn how to cook, ceviche, poke, Malaysian curry, ahi salad, vegetable soup, and even handmade chocolate coconut ice cream. I’m happy to leave my heavy cameras on the shelf for the time being and have turned to the iPhone which has been a faithful sidekick during this chapter…there is so much beauty here it’s impossible to contain it within a frame, but here are a few images I’ll share.

Every day there is so much to soak in and experience. I hope you are feeling optimistic about the future…Stay positive and be well. I am certain the best is yet to come.

 

To see more of this project, click here.

 

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Eugene Richards

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s Artist:  Eugene Richards

From NPR’s The Picture Show 

The town of Earle, Ark., is disappearing.

Or at least, that’s what it looked like to photographer Eugene Richards.

In the postscript of his new book, the day i was born, Richards writes about returning to the area in 2019 after years away and noticing the overwhelming presence of absence:

No men and women picking cotton. No old folks on the porch staring out at you. No children running and jumping around. The sharecropper shacks that were here 50 years ago have vanished. Once there were four or five of them every couple of miles — tin roofs, plastic sheeting over the windows, front yards rutted with tire tracks, littered with rusted-out cars, bed springs, things that once meant a lot to someone, but didn’t any longer.

In the book, that epilogue is the only time we hear Richards’ voice. The rest of the text to accompany his photos are the first-hand accounts of six people, all of whom are Black, over 50 and most have lived in Earle for much of their lives: Joseph Perry, Jr., Stacy Abram, Lovell Davis, Jackie Greer, Timothy Way and Jessie Mae Maples. The photos capture daily life for these six as well as other Earle residents, in addition to the stark and impoverished landscape of the Delta.

Though the town may look to Richards like it’s fading, its history is very much alive. In preserving them in the day i was born, Richards ensures that these stories — of racism and segregation, of voter suppression, of homophobia, of poverty, of gun violence and police brutality — won’t also disappear.

Richards’ relationship with the Arkansas Delta goes back decades. He first arrived in the Delta in 1969 as a VISTA volunteer. VISTA, which stands for Volunteers in Service to America, was designed to be the domestic version of the Peace Corps. Richards, who is white, spent three years in the Delta working in predominantly Black communities as a social worker and a photographer, and also running a small community newspaper. He looks back on that time not in a self-congratulatory way, but as a matter of course. In an interview with NPR, he remembered, “because of the Vietnam War happening and Dr. King happening, and the assassinations all happening all the time, you took the admonitions to get involved quite seriously. And that was it. So, it isn’t something that you think about later. It became kind of natural.”

the day i was born almost came about as an accident. In 2019 Richards was working on a project about abandoned houses for a large newspaper and went back to the Delta for material. Then, he said, “I drifted over into Earle because I was curious about what the towns look like today that I remembered from a long time ago.” Following Main Street, he came to an appliance store covered in paintings of people like Huey P. Newton, Angela Davis, Malcolm X and Tupac Shakur

When Richards entered the store a couple days later, he was greeted by owner Stacy Abram, and the two struck up a conversation. Richards had a recorder, and he turned it on while Abram told him about a childhood with an imprisoned father, a job as a teenager at the cotton gin and the first days of schools integrating. Soon, Lovell Davis entered the store and told Richards about growing up as best friends with Abram, about going to school hungry, about his own time in prison after robbing a bankTimothy Way, an eccentric gay man who painted the freedom fighter portraits on the store, also showed up and shared his life stories with Richards. “So, it wasn’t like I searched people out,” Richards said. “I never thought about any kind of book at the time. But the storytelling was so direct and compelling.”

When he returned home to New York City and turned in the photographs and the interviews to the newspaper he’d been working for, he never heard any response. “You have to create your own narrative when you don’t hear from anybody,” Richards said. He figured his dispatch from Earle had fallen flat with his editors. “So, the narrative was everything sucked, and I didn’t think it did. I knew there were stories there.”

He decided to make a book of the work. “I kind of went overboard,” he said. “It could’ve been a tiny book. But the [subjects] deserve a really nice book.”

The stories are all too familiar today, mirroring incidents that have sparked national conversations and worldwide demonstrations. “It’s not only this town, it’s the world.” says Lovell Davis in the book’s epigraph.

In 1970, a group of about 150 Black residents — including Jackie Greer and Jessie Mae Maples — marched to city hall to protest the continued segregation of the schools. A group of about 30 white people showed up, supported by local police, with clubs and guns and descended on the protestors. They fired shots, grazing Greer’s head and critically injuring Maples. No charges were ever filed against the white assailants, but Greer’s husband — the Rev. Ezra Greer, who was beaten by the mob and suffered a broken arm — was charged with inciting a riot.

“In these little towns, people rose up without any support,” Richards said. “I mean, nobody was coming in from other places. It wasn’t like protests now when people come from all over. All these people stood up in their little towns, all by themselves.”

“The march, it’s mostly forgotten,” Greer says later in the book. “Earle is nothing but a little out-of-the-way place that most people haven’t heard anything about. We never did really get much news coverage. We’re too far from Little Rock. And in Memphis, unless there’s a murder, they hardly holler, didn’t bother about coming.”

the day i was born provides more than just coverage; it’s an oral history straight from those who lived through it and live through it still.

“What people went through before was not at all dissimilar. But how brave they were to be doing it all by themselves,” Richards said.

Melody Rowell is a writer and podcast producer living in Kansas City, Mo. You can follow her on Twitter @MelodyRowell.

To see more of this project, click here.

Tp purchase this book

 

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Ben Van Hook

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Ben Van Hook

 

SAVED FROM THE LANDFILL – A RAGGEDY STORY

SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE PANDEMIC MY DAUGHTER SYDNEY AND I HAVE NOTICED A LOT OF PEOPLE CLEANING HOUSE AND DISCARDING FURNITURE, TOYS, AND CLOTHES TO THE CURBSIDE. WHEN WE SAW SOMETHING INTERESTING, WE WOULD TEXT EACH OTHER THE WORDS ‘CURB ALERT’ WITH A PICTURE OF THE ITEMS. WE ENDED UP REFINISHING AN OAK DINING ROOM TABLE, VARIOUS CHAIRS, AND CABINETS THAT WERE ALL DESTINED FOR THE LANDFILL. WALKING A FEW WEEKS AGO I CAME ACROSS A SCENE OF A GARBAGE CAN AT THE CURB WITH A RAGGEDY ANN AND ANDY DOLL SITTING IN THE ROAD AT THE BASE OF THE CAN. I TOOK ONE PHOTO AND CONTINUED TO WALK. THOSE DOLLS STARTED PULLING ON MY HEARTSTRINGS, IT WAS JUST SO SAD. I DECIDED I SHOULD SAVE THEM. I WALKED BACK BY THE HOUSE, BUT ALAS THE GARBAGE TRUCK HAD COME AND GONE. THE CAN WAS NOW BACK UP BY THE OWNERS HOUSE. I STARTED TO WALK AWAY AND SOMETHING TOLD ME TO LOOK IN THE CAN. SURE ENOUGH THEY WERE IN THERE. NOW RESCUED, I DECIDED TO TAKE THEM ON A TOUR AROUND CENTRAL FLORIDA MAKING PHOTOGRAPHS ALONG THE WAY BEFORE I FIND A PROPER HOME FOR THEM. THE RESPONSE ON SOCIAL MEDIA HAS BEEN FUNNY, TOUCHING, AND POIGNANT. ONE FRIEND WROTE:

“Don’t be too quick to give them a new home. Their new journey and story are only beginning. Like so many older objects, tossed in trash in a wasteful nation when a thrift charity store could have taken. This brings many feelings up. Like many older people disregarded. This roadside trash also makes me think of America’s homeless or those at the edge of homelessness.”

I FOUND AN ANTIQUE TOY CHEST ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD TODAY. IT WILL NOW SERVE AS THEIR TEMPORARY HOME WHILE WE CONTINUE TO EXPLORE. IT’S INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT RAGGEDY ANN HAS BEEN AROUND OVER 100 YEARS NOW AND BOTH HER AND ANDY WERE INDUCTED INTO THE NATIONAL TOY HALL OF FAME IN ROCHESTER, NY. IN THE EARLY 2000’S.

 

To see more of this project, click here.

 

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Dawoud Bey

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Dawoud Bey

Original article can be found here.

 

July 11, 2021, 6:01 AM EDT / Updated July 11, 2021, 8:12 AM EDT

By Bianca Brutus

Dawoud Bey was given his first 35 mm camera at age 15. Several years later, in 1975, he’d begin one of the most influential careers in photography. Bey’s latest exhibition, “Dawoud Bey: An American Project,” captures the progression of four decades of communities in America. The exhibition, now on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, comprises 80 works and eight series.

Born in 1953 in Queens, New York, Bey used Harlem as the inspiration for his art at the start of his career. The interest stemmed from his family’s history in the neighborhood. His parents met at church there, and it was home to many family and friends he visited as a child.

Bey’s documentation of Harlem from 1975 to 1979 became a part of his “Harlem, USA” series. In a number of street portraits, Bey captures residents living their everyday lives. Bey gives no names or narratives to his subjects; instead, he lets viewers interpret his images.

The experiences of underrepresented communities are the basis of Bey’s work. Black communities across the U.S. are arguably his most consistent subjects.

Work by the late Roy DeCarava, the first Black photographer to receive a Guggenheim fellowship, inspired Bey’s use of black-and-white prints. DeCarava also primarily photographed lower-class African American communities. In an interview with Vogue in April, Bey said: “He was making photographs through his own poetic visual language, insisting on the beauty and complexity of Black people and making photographs that were equal to that. He became the earliest model for me.”

After exploring Harlem, Bey captured other parts of New York in the 1980s. His series “Street Portraits” explores his own neighborhood in Brooklyn. He exhibited his ability to produce shots with Polaroids and highlighted the connections he established with his subjects. That later influenced his shift from small-format street photography to an intimate studio environment.

From 2002 to 2006, Bey shot “Class Pictures,” a series exploring American youths in various social and human dimensions. High school students wrote short texts to go along with their portraits. Bey urged students to reveal something about themselves that people would not otherwise know. In 2010, he told ArtsATL in an interview, “I am just trying to create this kind of conversation of the human community with itself, using young people as a catalyst for that conversation.”

Bey’s work fosters dialogue about recollecting history in a contemporary manner. His series “Birmingham: Four Girls and Two Boys” in 2017 was a tribute to the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1963. The project presented portraits of current residents of Birmingham — children the same ages as those who died, accompanied by adults who were the ages the children would have reached had they lived.

For Bey, weaving past and present imagery felt imperative as Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old high school student, died while he was putting together the series. “That Trayvon Martin, a young Black boy, could be killed for no reason while walking home suggests that the past doesn’t stay in the past,” Bey told Vogue.

In recent years, Bey has stepped away from portraiture for landscape photography. “Night Coming Tenderly Black” (2017) depicts historic stops along the Underground Railroad in grainy black-and-white prints. The link between African Americans and oppression presents itself in society both figuratively and literally.

For Bey, a professor of art at Columbia College Chicago, “An American Project” furthers dialogue about social, racial and economic disparities prevalent in history with photography.

 

To see more of this project, click here.

 

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Slav Zatoka

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Slav Zatoka Blue Lens Factory

Earth – Chi

             On March 11, 2011 at 2:46 PM, Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures in northeastern Japan, sound the automatic alarms in schools, factories, tv stations, radio stations and on cell phones. The message says: Major Earthquake. You have 32 seconds to seek shelter. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake strikes off the coast, triggering a towering tsunami that reaches land within half an hour. The quake was so strong it actually shifted Earth’s axis and moved the coast of Japan about 16 feet southwest and 3 feet down. NASA reports three day later that the earth axis shift that happened as a result of Tohuku Earthquake may have shortened the length of each day on Earth.

Water – Sui

The earthquake itself had a death toll of around 90, but the tsunami that followed it, resulted in in catastrophic damage to Northeast Japan and nearly 20,000 deaths. One of the cities I visited twice after 3/11 events was Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture. It’s situated 100 miles north of Sendai and it’s famous for world’s biggest and most expensive breakwater ever built. A mile long, 207 feet deep and jutting nearly 20 feet above the water, the quake-resistant structure made it into the Guinness World Records. It took three decades to build, and it cost nearly $1.6 billion. Unfortunately, the 9.0 earthquake in 2011 generated waves that were larger than the breakwater. The breakwater not only crumpled under the 30 feet tsunami waves, but it is also said to have deflected the wave north of the Kamaishi bay, making it even more destructive to the communities inland. If you watched the news that weekend you most likely saw the horrifying images of the wave entering the Kamaishi bay with buildings moved like cardboard boxes and cars, boats, debris and power lines floating inland in a massive, steady tide, destructively coming inlands. Most of that footage was filmed from a terrace like trail that stretches on the hill side of the city. Kamaishi’s Buddhist Sekiozenji Temple, situated further inland with a scenic cemetery on a hill remained untouched. The Great Tohuku claimed 1069 souls in Kamaishi, damaged 5000 homes and damaged 97% of the local fishing boats. The city also mentions a survival rate for children of 99,8% (5). Local teachers attribute this low rate to the disaster mitigation education program, launched several years ago, which prepares students for disasters like the Great Tohuku. One of the principles of this training is not to trust the expert’s knowledge entirely and always rely on your judgement of the unfolding disaster events. The other two principles state: act according to training and adapt, and finally, take initiative and evacuate despite no obvious signs indicating an imminent disaster. Kamaishi High School students took that initiative and evacuated their building and assisted with evacuating Kamishi Elementary school on the way to safety. Kamaishi was supposed to be safest place in case a major tsunami. The world’s largest breakwater unfortunately could not save the city. The highest wave recorded on March 11, 2011, was over 40 feet.

Fire – Ka

             The Great Tohuku Earthquake was not the first one to be as destructive: July 9, 869, Sunriku, over 1,000 deaths, May 20, 1293, in Kamakura, major military base at the time, 23,000 deaths, September 11, 1498, Nankai Fault, 31,000 deaths. December 31, 1703, Edo, over deaths and 100,000 tsunami casualties, May 8, 1847, Nagano, almost 9,000 deaths and nearly 70,000 buildings destroyed, September 1, 1923, Tokyo, 140,000 deaths, January 17, 1995, 6,443 deaths.

Earthquakes in Japan strike daily. In my first visit to Japan in 2011 I experienced three earthquakes, all of them over 4 in the Richter scale. I live in California and have experienced a few in the Southland but never so many in such a short period of time.

What happened in Fukushima as a result of the 3/11 tsunami is a separate story. On My way to Kamaishi I actually made a stop in Fukushima to witness and document one of the anti-nuclear demonstrations. The nuclear crisis and the clash between the Japanese people and their government resulted in a worldwide movement to pressure governments to eliminate the nuclear power entirely. According to Associated Press, the Japanese government decided in April of this year to start discharging the radioactive water back into Pacific Ocean. The idea has been fiercely opposed by fishermen, residents and Japan’s neighbors.

 Wind – Fu    

            On July 5, 1997, the Central European Flood hit southern Poland and my tiny studio apartment I shared with my high school buddy was gone, together with our books, music collections and all my negatives, transparencies and my darkroom. It was a huge blow, but I was not even there to experience the horrific events. I was in London on my summer break. I moved on. The city rebuilt and it’s a vibrant college town and a local finance and industry hub today. The flood had a death toll of about 50 and it was one of the costliest disasters in history. Prior to going to Japan, I also did a story about post Katrina New Orleans parish, called Resurrection Parish, published by a local Orange County paper.

There was definitely something personal in my decision to go to Japan in 2011 but there was certainly nothing impulsive about it. I try to self-assign at least one visual project a year and I also happen to have been on flight benefits, so after 3 months of preparations, scouting online, a list of contacts in Japan, I was ready to go. 3 months seems a lot I had to negotiate time with my family, kids, and my two businesses. My plan was to reach one of the cleaning camps in Tohuku and a letter I got from a longtime friend and my former boss eventually helped me to do volunteer work in a photo cleaning site ran by Caritas Japan.

Among a dozen of photographers, I met in 2011 in Japan, I need to mention Ken’ichi Kikuchi of Kamaishi. Ken’ichi was a huge help navigating around his neighborhood. He lost his studio and house to the tsunami. I met him while photographing the Buddhist ceremony commemorating the victims of 3/11 in Kamaishi. When I mentioned I was staying at the Caritas camp and was helping with photo cleaning, he told me that most of the professional portraits that I may come across in the recovery process, may have been taken by his father’s studio. I visited Ken’ichi a year later and keep in touch with him ever since. We share a love of photography, bourbon and jazz. He rebuilt his studio and home.

I did my best to try to remain respectful with my camera. During first 3 months after the 3/11 disaster Northeastern Japan was flooded with photographers. The many temporary shelters that were set up in Tohuku quickly got tired of photographers wanting to interview and photograph the tsunami victims. It wasn’t just independent shooters trying to score some stock images but also weekenders from Southern Japan driving to Tohuku to take a selfie in the disaster area. I decided not to sell any images as stock and put together a Blurb book hoping to raise money to help photographers like Ken rebuilt their studios.

Also, what’s worth mentioning here is that the Ganbare spirit in Japan is stronger than anything. The Airbnb owner in Tokyo told me that everyone he knows regularly scheduled weekend cleaning trips to Tohuku. I spent one day in a clean-up headquarters in Kamishi and their groups of workers, teachers, friends and individuals who all volunteered to come to Tohuku and spend a weekend cleaning up. Helping their fellow Japanese rebuilt their lives.

Void (Aether) – Ku

             In an excellent book: “Ganbare, Workshops on Dying” by Katarzyna Boni and translated by Mark Ordon, soon to be available in the U.S., Boni describes the fascinating world of Japanese mythology and Ryujin, the dragon king, sea god, the master of tides and the grandfather of the first Emperor of Japan. If people were dragons, they could escape the tsunamis, but they are not. Everyone I spoke to accept the tsunami as a force of nature you should not be angry with. Kamo no Chōmei, a Japanese poet compared people to a sea foam, a surf that only last a moment.

On my last day in Kamaishi, on my second trip to Japan, Ken’ichi takes me on a morning walk to Sekiozenji Temple. It’s a weekday and he just finished a real estate job few blocks away. We stop by his father’s grave and then for a moment in front of six Jizo statues wearing red bibs, Buddhist statues made in the image of Jizo Bosatsu, guardian deity of children and travelers. He invites me over to his new house in a new neighborhood of temporary housing units built by the government. I meet his wife and two sons. The city is largely rebuilt. They seem to have some problems with the raising water levels that continue to flood the city. Something they hadn’t experienced before. Their sons are getting ready for school language competitions. His wife is going back to work the following week. We share a laugh as I try some phrases in Japanese and then we spend a memorable evening photographing Tiger Dance rehearsal on a temple parking lot and head to a local jazz club with a huge wall of vinyls, a barman with an expert knowledge of the Marsalis family and an impressive selection of bourbon.

 

 

To see more of this project, click here.

A film to compliment the project, here

 

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Caesar Lima

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Caesar Lima

 

Proving that beauty is indeed more than skin deep, Caesar Lima’s Unusual Beauty Project concentrates on models and even regular day to day individuals that have rare skin conditions, such as Congenital melanocytic nevi, or CMV, which involves visibly pigmented proliferations on the skin, and Vitiligo, discolorations on the skin caused by depigmentation.

While Lima’s lens is focused the topic on the skin conditions and unusual birthmarks, the intent is not to show them for how different they are, but rather to celebrate the beauty in the unusual.

 

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram here

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Ryan Dearth

 

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Ryan Dearth

 

India is a place of extremes. The streets can bustle in a way that can overload the senses of an outsider. Yet, amidst the robust movement and activity, vignettes of quietude are blanketed by an unwavering attitude of optimism, generosity, and warmth.

 

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram

 

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Andy Anderson

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Andy Anderson

 

MY TOWN SERIES

I have lived in a small Idaho town for almost 30 years, it’s a town full of wonderful authentic hard-working folks. I love my town, but Covid 19 has affected all Americans in some way and has put undue hardships on us all. My work as a photographer always has me traveling out of state, that’s changed for me and most people for the time being.

Photography has always been my safe place, it helps me communicate, it helps me with the human connection, the connection that binds us all and since I cannot travel. I thought I would reconnect with my town and the people that surround me through photos. So, over the next few however days, weeks I’ll be posting portraits of these wonderful humans. They all have a place in OUR world and hopefully it will make you pause and think about this strange period and how that is affecting your community and the people that surround you and hopefully we will never pass this way again. Here is a link to follow this series on LinkedIn.

(I shot all these with the proper safety precautions, alone and kept my 6)

 

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram

 

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Antoine Repesse

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Antoine Repesse

 

Born in Lille in 1979, Antoine Repessé is a self-taught photographer. While working initially in public institutions, in 2012 he cuts loose and started freelancing. He joined the photo agency Lightmotiv where he produced for major press agencies including Le Monde, Elle, Marianne, L’Express, Géo, Causette. At the end of 2015 he left the agency to join the collective Views Co.

 

Early on he took on personal projects around photojournalism inspired from socio-political issues. His travels from Lille to Romania, resulted in the production of “Bienvenue chez les Roms”, to India, and Mali with the NGO Acauped took him to further horizons.

 

In each of his projects, Antoine Repessé immerses himself and distances himself from the mainstream. Rather than freezing the person in front of the camera, he freezes his relation to the person. His photos relate moments, encounters, and social relations. They question the representation of the other in his/her own reality or in a real staging, which is directed to be better questioned. This specific work translated into the following photo series: “Jump Around” or “Le grand saut”, in collaboration with the association L’Entorse.

 

His latest project, “365 Unpacked” is the result of all of the above. The questioning of a major society issue: the production of waste on a daily basis, crosses the reality of the image.

 

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram

 

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

 

The Art of the Personal Project: Kahran and Bethancourt of Creative Soul

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

 

Today’s featured artist:  Creative Soul/Kahran and Bethancourt

The Afro Art series is a recognition and celebration of the versatility of black hair and its innate beauty. The purpose of this series is to illustrate the story of our royal past, celebrate the glory of the here and now, and even dare to forecast the future. With this series, we aim to empower children of color to embrace their natural curls and the skin that they’re in. This viral series has gained worldwide attention and has been featured on the BBC News, CNN, CBS News, Teen Vogue, Glamour Brazil and more.

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram

 

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram