Category: Personal Project

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:  Luke Copping

After my family left Canada and moved to the United States, we settled in Youngstown, NY, just down the street from Historic Old Fort Niagara — the oldest continuously occupied military site in North America. Many of my early memories of living in the US involve the historical reenactors that I would regularly see at The Fort, in the surrounding park, and in the small central area of town. Especially during the large encampment weekends when reenactors would travel from near and far to descend on the fort and town in period-accurate clothing. It wasn’t unusual to see groups of soldiers stepping into a grocery store, muskets over their shoulders – to buy snacks and beer for the weekend-long party and historical festivities. As much as these reenactors valued the authenticity of their costuming and campsites, it was always an interestingly anachronistic experience for spectators like myself. One that made an impression for years to come.

For this particular series of portraits of reenactors and historical interpreters, I decided to focus on the war of 1812. However, the fort was used during the Colonial Wars, Seven Years’ Wars, and the Civil War. During both world wars, it was a barracks and training station.

The American, French, And British flags fly over the fort – the Three nations who have occupied it at one time or another as they competed for the support of the Six Nations Confederacy and used the fort to control access to the western great lakes.

I plan to return to the fort soon to create a series of portraits of reenactors specializing in the Seven Years’ War and the fort’s staff of indigenous historical interpreters.

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 Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 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

A View From The Top Of The World: Andy Anderson Scales New Heights

By Anne Telford

His latest personal project proved to be more than inspirational; it effected a change in the veteran photographer. Given his proximity to peaks in the 5,000-foot range in Idaho, it was a real commitment for photographer Andy Anderson to take on Mount Everest. Not to summit the world’s highest peak he hastens to explain, but to capture portraits of the iconic Sherpa, those sturdy individuals blessed with the constitution to thrive at extreme altitude.

His interest in the Himalayas was initially triggered when he read Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard in the late 1970s. (The book was published in 1978.) He’d always been intrigued by the elusive snow leopard and the brave and resolute Sherpa guides who lived in their habitat.  “Sherpas have always burdened the workload for mountaineering attempts on peaks over 8000 meters” Anderson states.

“Before the pandemic hit, I had my ticket, but the project was cancelled,” he explains of the journey he planned two years ago, with assistance from Pemba Sherpa and Panuru Sherpa of Xtreme Climbers who helped him set up his itinerary. The majority of the Sherpa I photographed are retired and live in high village of Phortze whose residents have summited Everest more than those from any other village in the Himalayas. Anderson also trekked to Everest’s Base Camp at 17,598 feet, where he was able to meet most of the Sherpa teams preparing for summit attempts.

While he was in Nepal in late April/early May the majority of the renowned Sherpa guides were at Everest’s Base Camp or were in the process of summiting. “Next year I’ll go back in early March, when they are preparing EBC for the upcoming climbing season” he says.

Anderson says “I’m not a mountaineer and do not pretend to be one, BUT what I’m is a photographer who is interested in other human beings and have an undying love of the outdoors AND I clearly understand the draw they feel when coming here. This project is not about me but about the Sherpa people who risk their lives to ascend these great mountains along with the “true mountaineers” who share that struggle. I have witnessed these connections between them and it’s nothing like it in the entire world”

The Sherpa migrated from eastern Tibet across the Himalayan range over 500 years ago. In the l920s the predominantly Buddhist Sherpa began a close relationship with the English from pioneering mountain climbing expeditions. This relationship with the West has both aided the Sherpa and changed their way of life. The Sherpa have a spiritual attachment to the Himalayans; they call Mount Everest Chomolungma and worship it as the “Mother of the World.”

When asked about the weather conditions, Anderson replies, “The temperature was in the mid-40s, it would rain in the afternoon, and cool down at night. We’d walk to multiple villages and meet people. I had an interpreter/porter to help with my personal items while I carried my photography gear. One day we walked about eleven miles to see a monastery and meet a Buddhist monk.” He ate a lot of soup and drank a lot of Tibetan tea—served with salt and butter. “The food was good,” he claims. “They grow their own vegetables. But remember everything has to be walked in.”

While some Sherpa didn’t want their photograph taken, others enjoyed it. “Hearing their stories was the most important part,” Anderson says. “I was definitely changed. It was an interesting and eye-opening experience for me.  It was the most exotic location I’ve been to in a long while.”

“To all the Sherpas and mountaineers hats off. I’m leaving a little of myself here and taking a portion of you with me, and to my wife who allows my wanderlust to go unchecked. All of the trekking and gasping for O2 was worth it. I will see you again next season to start on my documentary, until then…..Thank you. He enjoyed the experience so much he looks forward to returning next year to make more portraits, stories and hopefully a film.

To learn more about the Sherpa, Anderson recommends the 2015 documentary Sherpa, by Australian filmmaker Jennifer Peedom who had planned to follow an expedition to the summit, but instead captured the 2014 ice avalanche that killed 16 Sherpa and three others and its aftermath.

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 Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 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:  Beth Galton

Memory of Absence

So much of who we are is passed from generation to generation—our genes, our behaviors—molded by our parents and grandparents. My mother’s relationship with her mother was fraught with difficulties and these same dynamics were passed onto me. In 2017, my mother and father—who had not lived together for 50 years—died within three days of each other. I discovered many artifacts from my life of which surprised me, and I had no memory of.

In this series, I combined botanicals with objects and photographs that I found, in order to convey a sense of memory and loss. The organic and volatile botanicals serve as a reminder of the ever-changing nature of memory and emotions—an unstable and profoundly unreliable process.

My practice is to compose and photograph botanicals with the collected objects. I then print out the image and create yet another still life by layering more objects with the print and re-photograph it. This creates a further sense of the complex and layered emotions found within family dynamics.

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 Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 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:  Judy Polumbaum

Story found on NPR The Picture Show

“He’s been dead 20 years, and we are still conversing.” So writes Judy Polumbaum in All Available Light, a new book showcasing her father’s robust photography career.

Ted Polumbaum started his journalism career as a news writer in Boston in the early 1950s, but at the height of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s hunt for communists under the guise of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Ted was called in to testify. As a student at Yale, he’d been a member of a progressive student group that the HUAC had later declared subversive.

At his hearing, Ted took the Fifth Amendment, challenging the Senate’s right to call his personal life into question. As a result he was fired from his job, and blacklisted from most news organizations.

And so, he took back up a hobby from his childhood — photography. His portfolio caught the eye of LIFE, and he’d go on to do 400 assignments for the magazine, and regularly worked for many other publications as well.

Judy spent 20 years after Ted’s death combing through his archives and interviewing his friends and family members.

“One of my regrets is that I never interrogated my father before he died,” she says. The result of all her work is All Available Light, what Judy calls a “collective memoir.” It gives the reader a closeup of midcentury American history and the contemporary world through the eyes — and camera lens — of one man.

Ted, who remained a freelancer his entire career, willingly photographed any assignment LIFE gave him — whether it was the hula hoop craze, people packing into photo booths, an evening with Jackie Kennedy while her husband received the Democratic nomination in 1960, or civil rights activists protesting across the South.

“Many of his assignments were political protests,” Judy says. “Today protest photography is a beat. Back then, you know, a lot of the major media didn’t even take protests seriously. And my dad, if he heard of a protest, he would run to it to cover it. He thought these things should be documented for posterity.

Ted’s interest in progressive issues continued even after his politics nearly ended his career. He and his wife, Nyna Brael Polumbaum, were active in Boston, organizing study groups about America’s involvement in Vietnam, and events in support of civil rights.

Today, in an era where “objectivity” is a heated debate among media circles, such active political involvement may be frowned upon. But Judy makes a critical distinction: “He never claimed not to have a perspective or a point of view,” she says. “But he didn’t deliberately go about trying to propagandize. He showed what he thought was important.”

Two of his subjects were George Wallace, governor of Alabama, and Louise Day Hicks, a U.S. Representative from Boston — both of whom were staunchly against desegregation. Both were “anathema to his politics,” Judy says. “But he didn’t try to make people look bad, even if he vehemently disagreed with them. He showed them as they were.”

Ted’s politics made him popular among perhaps an unlikely audience — his children’s friends. “My brother and I used to joke that our friends just purported to be our friends — they really wanted to come over and talk with the old man,” Judy says laughing.

Her friends had more conventional parents, Judy says, so “they wanted people to talk to, and my father loved to talk with young people and talk politics. He was a great conversationalist. He was a philosopher and a poet and a terrible punster.”

In researching and writing All Available Light, Judy has been able to keep those conversations with her father alive — and share them with a new generation.

Vanessa Castillo photo edited this story.

To see more of this project, click here

To purchase “All Available Light” 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 Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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.

Top Photographers to Raise Funds for the Ukrainian Red Cross

By Anne Telford

Andy Anderson has a heart as big as the great outdoors, a favorite subject of the award-winning Idaho-based photographer. So it was no surprise that the news of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would inspire him to take action. In his typical down-to-earth fashion, Anderson relates, “I was sitting in my man shed on a Saturday night having a glass of wine, and thinking about Ukraine, wondering what I might do to make a difference and I called my friend Max Hirshfeld.” That was one of five calls Anderson made that night. In a testament to the power of long relationships, within an hour Images for Humanity was underway.

The two photographers conceptualized a non-profit organization that could raise funds for causes close to their hearts. Photographers make human connections, both with their subjects and with those who view their images. Both men have traveled the world for work and understand there is no language barrier to a photograph—it speaks all languages.

Max Hirshfeld explains, “Photography is a core driver of our emotions and central to who I am as a human. It’s easy to see the unspeakable unfold in front of us through the media, send in a check to assuage our helplessness, and then go on with our lives. But when Andy reached out, I replied immediately with a resounding ‘yes’. In a matter of days his extensive network signed on, and our team got to work.

“Ukrainians fleeing west struck a personal chord in that my mother and her family had done the same — in reverse — after Poland was invaded in 1939. Images of innocent people leaving their homes with nothing more than the clothes on their backs was a vivid call to action, and I knew we could martial support within the photo community and the larger audience through our networks and social media.“

Once curators Meghan Benson, Amy Feitelberg, Mary Healy, Laurie Kratochvil, and Allyson Torrisi were brought onboard, they got down to business, lining up a stellar group of renowned and emerging photographers to donate prints.

“I am honored to be a curator for Images for Humanity,” says Laurie Kratochvil, former photography director of InStyle and Rolling Stone. “The outpouring for Ukraine is so encouraging and photographers around the world have been very generous. I encourage everyone to see the incredible images we are able to offer from donations from renown and emerging photographers.”

“It all comes down to past relationships,” Anderson explains. “These are relationships I’ve had for 20+ years. The photo editors and directors of photography, they are the unsung heroes of most magazines. They are the ones that orchestrate the visual complexity. I worked with all those people in the beginning of my career.”

And to keep it real, everyone stepped up to donate services and time. “We have a hundred thousand dollars of web design that has been donated. There’s a big pro bono effort involved, not just getting the photographers together but marketing, social media, production coordination,” he adds. Lyle Shemer and Penn Li, creative leads at Meta Design, are responsible for Images for Humanity’s website and branding.

Given the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ukraine, IFH is raising funds for the Ukrainian Red Cross as its first philanthropic effort as a newly-formed 501 (c) (3). Thanks to the generosity of these world-renowned photographers, including Anderson and Hirshfeld, Ruven Afanador, Kurt Markus, Herb Ritts, Mary Ellen Mark and Albert Watson—among 100 others—IFH is offering an archival, unsigned print with each $250 donation. One hundred percent of the profits will go to the Ukrainian Red Cross. Only ten prints from each photographer will be available and each comes with a commemorative Images for Humanity label.

If this inaugural effort is successful, IFH hopes to raise funds for other worthy causes both at home and abroad. “I want to be remembered as a good person. It means more,” says Anderson. One of the preeminent commercial photographers working today, there is no question that Anderson will be remembered, not only for his honest and profound images but for his big heart and willingness to help address the pressing issues of the day.

To view works that are available for a donation, visit Images for Humanity’s website https://www.imagesforhumanity.org.

To learn more, view the full list of participating photographers and prints available, and donate, visit Images for Humanity’s website, and follow the organization on Instagram at @ImagesForHumanity.

Here a small selection from the collection of images and the rare opportunity to own a print from an amazing collective of some of the world’s top photgraphers.

Doug Menuez, Tequileros Making Tequila, Mexico, 2001

Ed Kashi, Trolley Bus, Crimea, Ukraine, 1993

Frank Ockenfels III, Lilah,  2021

Joe Pugliese, Marian, 2015

Matt Sayles, Havana, 2014

Max Hirshfeld, Chicago,  2015

Vincent Dixon, Blue Boy, Pushkar, 2013

Rina Castelnuovo,  Morning Prayers,  2005

Posted by APE contributor Suzanne Sease

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

CRACKS IN THE ICE

As I look to the future, to the world that my son will inherit, and to the forest where I live that may soon be on fire, climate change and the immediate impact on the environment constantly weighs on my mind. To research this devastating phenomenon, I acquired a series of educational glass slides to examine and consider. Each revealed a vintage photograph of glaciers, now disappearing or already gone. I shattered the glass negatives to call attention to this loss and fragility of our planet, but also to echo an experience with my newborn son’s first four month’s stay in the Neo-Natal Intensive Care or his 20 surgeries and six years of 120-hour a week home nursing. Cracks in the Ice is a metaphor for the precariousness and vulnerability of those I love. It is also a way to speak to the profound loss from global warming and a planet under siege.

The “Cracks in the Ice” project was inspired by my 15-year-old son, Björn. During one of our many daily chats, he asked about Climate Change and what the world will look like in the future. I realized I had only murky visions of that future myself and could not give him a clear answer. His precarious start to life and surgeries makes him crave stability. As a father, I hated that I could not provide much clarity for Björn and knew I needed to explore this idea with a photography project. “Cracks in the Ice” was born.

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 Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 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:  Grace Chon

HEALER: Experience the Healing Power of Dogs

The images in HEALER offer an opportunity for people to stop, breathe, and open their hearts and minds as they connect with the eyes of the dog. These photographs create a pathway for people to quiet their minds and breathe while simultaneously receiving the penetrating, soothing, and unconditional love of a dog.

So many of us feel that we can’t slow down and stop the anxiety and chatter in our minds, even for a few minutes. I wondered, could viewers access stillness and a sense of calm if they connected with the eyes of a dog and just breathed? Could they feel the incredible love and healing that I know dogs are here to gift us through their unique and individual energies?

Viewers are guided to connect with the dog’s eyes, breathe slowly, and to listen for the messages of love the dogs are sharing with them. Feedback has been pouring in from people as they engage with the work – messages of love, hope and pure acceptance! It’s been profound to hear about the experiences people have had – from crying, to feeling they’ve been to a therapy session, to truly feeling seen and understood.  A common response is “Wow, I can’t believe this worked!” One high school counselor shared that in lieu of therapy dogs, she’s been using the HEALER images with students in crisis.

In these tumultuous times, many of us are looking for ways to find moments of peace and healing. It is my deepest desire to offer people these opportunities, even for a few minutes, by engaging with the beautiful healing energy of dogs through this photo series.

To see more of another healing 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 Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 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:  Sandro

Jessica Lange: Icons of Progress

Jody Quon, the renowned photo editor of New York Magazine, was inspired by a series of work I did with John Malkovich a couple of years back. Jody contacted me soon after she saw the Exhibition “Malkovich, homage to the Masters” and asked me to think about a series of important women that have changed the world. I fell in love with idea and was given the opportunity to work with the world-class actress Jessica Lange.  I re-created iconic images of Mae West, Simone de Beauvoir, Frieda Kahlo, Gloria Steinman, Georgia O’Keefe, Janis Joplin, Marlene Dietrich, and Diana Vreeland with Jessica impersonating and playing the role of each iconic woman. This work came to me from a personal project I did, again emphasizing the importance of doing personal work. From this project and the Malkovich Homage to the Masters project, I was commissioned by David Lynch and the SQUARESPACE Group to do a film for David Lynch Transcendental meditation foundation. I know personally I continue to get hired Nationally and internationally because of my long history of doing personal projects. I feel Art Directors and Creative Directors are looking for photographers and Directors that have their own ideas, not just people that can execute their ideas. The power of the personal project not only feeds my heart and creative soul, but it continues giving back in terms of commissioned work.

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 Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 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:  Emanuel Hahn

Emanuel Hahn (he/him) is a Los Angeles-based commercial and documentary photographer/director. As a Korean Third Culture Kid growing up in Singapore and Cambodia, he developed an interest in storytelling, especially on topics of identity, culture, diasporic experiences, and the question of what it means “to belong”. His deep observational and listening abilities have led him to tell the stories of the coffee farmers in Colombia, Chinese grocery store owners in the Mississippi Delta, the Korean Uzbeks in Brooklyn, and most recently the Koreatown community in Los Angeles through his photo book Koreatown Dreaming.

To see more of this project, click here

To purchase this beautiful book, 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 Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 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

Six years ago, I and my wife, Claudia Brose, who is from Germany, moved from San Francisco to Appiano, a small town in the far north of Italy, close to the Dolomites. Claudia has her own company, the IF/Academy, which organizes photography events and workshops, mainly for clients from Germany and Switzerland, including an annual four-day Summer Academy with a group of top photographers at an historic winery. During the rest of the year several 3-4 day workshops are offered for smaller groups of 5-8 people.

A few years ago, we traveled for the first time to Naples (Napoli in Italian) for Claudia’s birthday and we were impressed by the energy and warmth of the historic southern Italian city. In recent years the IF/Academy has offered workshops in Venice, which were successful. But we always had the idea to return to Napoli one day to do a workshop there. Two years of Covid restrictions placed that idea on hold. But this year we were finally able to offer it and the idea was so well-received that we ended up doing two workshops, back-to-back, in March. We made a scouting trip a few weeks before, to shoot, make some local connections and plan what we would do and where we would go during the workshops. The theme was to be Street Photography and Napoli is a street photographer’s absolute dream location. It is a city which is a non-stop theater of life with a population and culture that is warm, open, and vibrant. And fun. Very, very rarely does anyone object to being photographed, especially if you are just friendly and kind in your approach. The sensory stimulation in Napoli is intense and more or less constant, so much so that at times it can be overwhelming, and you may feel the need to retreat to a quiet space for a while. But at the end of some long days of shooting, always traveling light, with a minimum of gear and walking, a lot, we usually returned home with a very good and diverse selection of images.

So… I fell in love with Napoli. It’s a wonderful, sometimes difficult place, with a long history. It has a glorious past but a not-so-glorious present, thanks to lots of poverty and years of neglect. The well-documented history of organized crime and its grip on the city, as well as the popular, long-running TV series Gommorah, about the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia, have also not put the city in the best light. It’s a chaotic and dirty place for sure, and more than a little run-down in many places. But the people win you over, cheerfully and admirably just improvising and getting on with life in spite of the obstacles. Napoli definitely has its more prosperous neighborhoods, like Vomero, Posillipo and Chiaia. But the really interesting places are elsewhere, in historic areas like Spaccanapoii, Rione-Sanità and the Quartieri Spagnoli, those crowded, poorer neighborhoods of narrow alleys and busy streets where life is largely lived loudly and out in the open. Napoli, and Neapolitans, are unfortunately frequently looked down upon by much of the rest of Italy, especially by those from the more prosperous north of the country. Although I suspect many of the city’s critics may have never even been there and are just repeating what they’ve heard, the common belief that it is simply wiser to avoid Napoli if you can.

Two things you see everywhere are motor scooters and pictures and murals of Diego Maradona. The Argentine soccer legend, who died prematurely in 2020 after a long period of post-career drug and alcohol addiction and personal turmoil, in the late ’80’s and early ’90’s led the local professional soccer team to unprecedented glory, winning two Italian championships and the UEFA Cup. He will always be revered almost as a saint in Napoli for having brought respect and dignity, nationally and internationally, to a city that had rarely ever received much of either. The week after his death the gigantic San Paolo soccer stadium in Napoli was renamed after him. The ongoing veneration of Maradona probably explains a lot about the city’s collective psyche.

I have been warned many times over to be wary of pickpockets, thieves and tricksters while in Napoli. While they surely exist, in truth I have never encountered any. I have had only positive experiences that make me want to just get up every day and go out to make more and more pictures of this enchanting contradiction of a city. And to return as soon as possible so I can do it all over again. My desire to do a street photography workshop here has now evolved into an ongoing personal project. It feels almost like a mission at times. I want to give this place its due, I want to reveal it as it really is, or at least as how I perceive it to be. And in so doing bring more awareness, if not respect and dignity, to this complicated but always magical place.

To see more of this project, check out my Napoli Street Photography video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzQ0sWtFK24

My portfolio: www.mcdfoto.com

Instagram: @johnmcdermottphoto

IF/Academy: https://if-academy.net

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 Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 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:  Nia MacKnight

Family heirlooms central to Indigenous photographer’s reflections on identity : The Picture Show : NPR

Photographer Nīa MacKnight never met her great grandfather John B. McGillis, but she did have a window into his storied life as an Anishinaabe man in early 20th-century America: a steam trunk where he stowed away undated photographs and stray objects such as an address book, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and a single eagle feather. McGillis lived through decades of oppressive actions against native peoples by the U.S. government, and MacKnight says that in a world where he couldn’t fully be himself most days, this collection reveals how her great grandfather worked to reclaim his identity.

“I was filled with joy to be able to hold his personal items,” MacKnight writes in a Q&A with NPR. “I was also haunted by the fact that the only photographs that he left behind marked a time of trauma and violence that Native Americans faced due to assimilation policies.”

Like many Indigenous people his age, McGillis was forced to attend federal boarding school for Native American children. He also fought in WWI and later secured a position at the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs where he worked towards improving employment opportunities for Indigenous people. MacKnight’s family recounts a man who spoke his tribal language in the company of friends and relatives, while learning the language of the white dominant culture to expand opportunities for his people in his professional roles.

Using her skills as a documentary photographer and interviews with relatives and family friends, MacKnight is piecing together McGillis’ history and reflecting on questions of identity and self-determination that persist to this day. She shared some insight into her process with NPR.

What story do you hope these photographs tell? 

It is my hope that my Great Grandfather’s story will invite viewers to expand their perceptions of Indigeneity, and further acknowledge the diverse contributions of Native Americans within the framework of American history. Contrary to dominant Eurocentric narratives, Indigeneity did not vanish when the United States was founded. Instead, folks like my Great Grandfather applied their Indigenous knowledge in a new way to carve out spaces for his people. His story ultimately conveys the creative tactics used by our ancestors for survival, and the fight for self-determination that Indigenous people still face today.

How do you decide which objects to photograph and how to construct each photograph? 

Initially, I sifted through the hundreds of photographs in this trunk to piece together the different chapters in his life. As I began interacting with the images, I noticed the photographs that he left behind conveyed his life post-boarding schools. I discovered letters and diary entries that expressed the obstacles he faced as a Native American man navigating a rapidly shifting world in the early 1900s.

I felt that the intensity of the modernization of the times and the use of natural textural elements in the background conveyed the duality of my Great Grandfather’s experience. It was also important for me to photograph this project in the South Bay region of Los Angeles, also known as Tongva Territory, where my Great Grandfather spent his last days before transitioning to the spirit world.

Would you say this has been a personal project for you and in what way? 

This project started out as an inquiry into my relative’s life and evolved into experiences of deep inward reflection and healing. I was confronted with the violence and trauma that my Great Grandfather experienced at the time as an Anishinaabe man forced to leave his ancestral homelands due to federal assimilation policies. However, the contents of his trunk that he left behind embody a spirit of resistance through images of growth, change and joy. His efforts to reclaim his identity through the trauma that he endured is inspirational and serves as a reminder of the importance of sovereignty through storytelling.

Tell me a little about one or two things that have surprised you since you started this process?

In order to further understand the impact that my Great Grandfather left on his relatives, I reached out to multiple relatives about their memories of him. I was surprised to find out aspects of his personality through various family stories that are not conveyed in the contents that he left behind in the trunk. One relative reported that his exceptional hunting skills were what helped the family get through the Great Depression.

Another relative described him as a deeply loving man who loved being in the company of his family. I was also surprised at the creative ways that my relatives connected, despite our geographic distance, to share stories about my Great Grandfather John B. McGillis. This project demonstrates the power of intergenerational storytelling, and the ability of our ancestors to transcend place and time.

Special thanks to Kevin Locke, Sheridan MacKnight, Winona Flying Earth, and Thelbert Milligan for contributing their knowledge about the life of John B. McGillis to this project.

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram @nia.macknight.

NPR Writer elizabethgillis

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 @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 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:  Dan Goldberg

When someone works well with others, it’s a plus. Fueled by collaboration, Dan Goldberg takes it up a notch, gaining steam by working with talented artists to share ideas, pushing each other forward. Inspired by food stylist María del Mar, this project is a lesson in slowing down and telling a simple story. Together they worked with prop stylist Andrea Kuhn to create an image series of deconstructed salads from the seventies. It was a trip down memory lane for everyone on the team. This trio found such success in the process that it lit the fire of ideas for future projects. Please gather around and take in all that is Seventies Salad. 

Capturing food brings back emotions and memories. It’s something I always knew but was more profound on this shoot. We shot these salads, with everybody putting in their two cents about which salad had the most memories from childhood. This project reminded me of cooking with my grandma in her kitchen. For this reason, I put the cigarette and the lemon squeezer in one shot. While each of these triggered childhood memories on set, everyone responded with their own once we posted them.

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 @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 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:  Tom Hussey

COWBOYS

“If you’re ridin’ ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it’s still there with ya.”  Cattle have grazed land along the Texas coastline since 1749 when 3,000 settlers drove the first herd across the Rio Bravo. Fence lines divide the acres of open land, but time disappears watching the wranglers at work. Being one with your horse, tending the cattle, the dogs and the land is a hard way of life but satisfying. Texas cowboys are the ultimate in classic Western heroes.  Cell phones may have replaced Colt 45’s, but the traditions and stories of the rugged range are still timeless.

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 @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 Dyer

My love for photography comes from seeing what something looks like when it’s photographed.  The camera sees differently than the human eye.  Different lenses see differently from each other.  Shooting color (at least for me) is not the same as shooting black & white.  Placing the frame of a camera and freezing a bit of time and space creates something new, something different from what was photographed. That something has its own rules and esthetic: a transformation that I find intoxicating.  A photograph has no narrative ability so it cannot tell you what was happening at the time the shutter was released.  The photograph must exist on its own, justifying itself by the intrinsic elements that it is composed of.  Whenever all those elements are in complete balance, a photograph becomes something more, something mysterious, something fascinating.  The best photograph is an enigma that asks more questions than it answers.  Whatever that dynamic is, I can’t get enough of it.

Acting on a Whim

Bob Dylan has a song called, “Love Minus Zero”. He says he thought of the title before he wrote the lyrics. I did something similar. I thought of the title, “Edge of Texas”, before I tookthe photographs. I’m not the most analytical of photographers. What good ideas I have mostly tiptoe in unannounced and tap me on the shoulder. In the fall of 2018, it occurred tome that it might be interesting to see how people live at the very edges of our state. Culture, geography, accents, demographics…all differ a great deal from East Texas to West Texas. From the Rio Grande to the Oklahoma border. So, in February of 2019, I set out to drive theperimeter of this huge state. To find things to photograph. I’ve been a commercialphotographer for many years. My clients would give me parameters for what they wanted photographed. For “Edge of Texas” I would be my own client. I’d try to satisfy myself. No one else. I would follow my nose and take photos of what drew my interest. This would not be adocumentary where I felt obligated to take photos in every small town. If I saw something interesting, I’d shoot. I realized early on that this endeavor couldn’t be done all in one long trip. I divided my touring into what I call legs. I started south on Interstate 35 to Laredo on my first leg. I had no idea what I would shoot or if I’d find anything to shoot at all. I walkedaround downtown Laredo for most of a day, limbering up my photographic muscles,shooting what caught my eye. Then I headed west along the Rio Grande to Eagle Pass, to Big Bend, along what must surely be one of the most beautiful drives in America, FM- 170, the Texas River Road. Finally, to El Paso. From there I drove back to San Antonio to take a look at what I’d shot. For me, getting the photos on a big monitor is where I find out if I’ve beenwasting my time or not. The second leg was to Laredo again, then along HWY 281 to LosEbanos, where the state operates the last hand-pulled ferry across the Rio Grande. Down to Brownsville and Boca Chica, where the Rio Grande flows into the Gulf of Mexico. North to Kingsville and back to San Antonio. The third and fourth legs were much the same. Corpus to Newton, Jasper to Selfs, Powderly to Pecos. Young people with guns on the banks of the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, Big Tex Muffler Man in Conlen, an interesting ranchgate near Ft. Stockton. When I finished my trip, I did a rough edit of the 3,000 or sophotographs I’d taken. I put the best 200 shots together to see how everything held up. I’m happy with the result.

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 @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 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 Goodwin

I love working on personal projects, especially when they’re part of a series that I can fully explore. It just gives me so much freedom and a chance to play around with unusual ideas and techniques without having a concern for what the commercial value might be. Oftentimes a series like this one starts off with an idea that I’ll daydream about for a week or so until I’m ready to talk a friend or family member into helping me out. I have a group of muses that I tap into for favors like this and the crazier the idea is the better they like it.

What makes this series somewhat different is that I’ve kept coming back to it over the past 8 years with new ideas and lighting approaches. I don’t want to give away too much in terms of technique (the idea has already been knocked off by others), but I will say that it’s a pretty elaborate set. One thing I’ll share is that since my “models” are under water it’s not always easy to communicate with them on what I’d like them to try, so sometimes after a little coaching I’ll give them the cable release and let them shoot the portraits when they feel they are at their photogenic best!

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 @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 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:  David Black

“People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.”
—Bret Easton Ellis

Los Angeles could be described as Surrealism in full sunlight.

The physical debris of Los Angeles—sooty palm fronds littered along crooked sidewalks, a maze of intertwined freeways, electric LED sunsets—is reminiscent of Ray Bradbury’s “city of the future.”

As a follow up to Cerro Gordo, David Black’s debut monograph from 2017, The Days Change at Night explores the paranormality of everyday life in Los Angeles. Part two of an LA trilogy, Days Change picks up where Cerro Gordo left off, evoking the early 1980s punk aesthetic projected in Alex Cox’s Repo Man—a city on edge of an existential threat.

The images present a cyclical, day-to-night narrative, using the city’s landscape as a depository of our collected dreams. These visual glitches suggest the point of view of a passenger in a fast-moving car, racing past on LA’s expansive freeway system, capturing the stark polarity of the city’s opposing forces: light and dark, commercial and artistic, micro and macro—and they fuse together to pose questions about illusion, mortality, and truth.

As Raymond Chandler famously wrote, “A city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness.”

To see more of this project, click here.

Purchase 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 @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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 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:   Angelica Edwards

This mother wanted her son to have photos to understand her breast cancer journey

Photographer Angelica Edwards met Keyla “Nunny” Reece when she took an assignment to cover a story about hospital parking fees for her student newspaper at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In 2015, Reece, of Hope Mills, N.C., felt a lump in her breast, got it checked out and was told it was a benign cyst. Two years later, she felt an additional lump, this time under her armpit, while simultaneously experiencing skin blotches and extreme back pain.

In June 2017, doctors diagnosed Reece with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. It had spread to her ribs, lungs, spine and pelvis.

After the initial photo assignment, Edwards contacted Reece to see if she would allow her to document her journey.

Reece was excited to share her story. She said she wanted her son, Ryan, who was 10 years old at the time, to be able to look back and understand what his mother went through as he got older, and she was no longer here.

Originally this NPR story ran in October for Breast Cancer Awareness month and takes an intimate look at Reece’s breast cancer journey through pictures.

To see more of this project, click here.

Angelica Edwards is a photographer based in Chapel Hill, N.C. Follow her on Instagram @angelica_edwards2

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 @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

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.