march
more than what meets the eye
2013
volume i
issue 30
more than what meets the eye
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keetra dean dixon editor-in-chief @keetradeandixon
robert capps
jason tanz
deputy editor @rcapps
executive editor @jasontanz
contact us should you have questions or comments, email info@transcendmagazine.com
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08 transcend magazine volume i
10
issue
30
08
letter from the editor
09
spotlight: cindy sherman
10
up & coming
11
digi head
12
photo psych: tom archibald
18
glimpse back: the vintage mugshot
26
feature spotlight: melina brescia
32
spotlight: daniel eatock
33 photo trend 34 spotlight: kehinde wiley
32
18
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09 12
26
33 11
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edi tor
this spring is bursting with new perspectives Hello Readers, The spring season is a good metaphor for this issue of transcend. Just as it brings a plethora of flowers and outdoor growth, this issue is bountiful with conceptual topics in modern photography, and new and well-known faces making an impact within the industry. As always, we aim to bring you a good mix of genres and styles conveying, exploring, and understanding the meaning of portraiture in today ’s society. Photo is our first love, but expression comes in many artistic forms. How does portraiture translate to a form of self-portraiture? We explore this topic through a detailed look at the extraordinary work of Tim Archibald who is a San Fransisco-based photographer. Archibald explores his identity as the father of a young son, Eli, who is suffering from autism. Archibald’s photo series are breathtaking and daunting all at once. He lets the viewer into his very unique world of fatherhood, which is filled with tantrums, confusion, and lots of photographs. But in the end, the photo series was not only cathartic for Archibald himself but also Eli. These days, at the age of 11, Eli has become a photographer who is now exploring his relationship with his parents by photographing them. So the tables have turned—in a very enchanting way. So, go ahead, dive in and let the magazine take you on a photographic journey. We hope to afford you a new meaning of portraiture and self.
Keetra Dean Dixon Editor-in-Chief
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spot light
CINDY SHERMAN The tantalizing sense of mystery and uneasiness are similar emotions viewers feel when they see one of Sherman’s elliptical photographs. Over the course of her remarkable 35-year career she has transformed herself into hundreds of different personas: the movie star, the valley girl, the angry housewife, the frustrated socialite, the Renaissance courtesan, the menacing clown, even the Roman god Bacchus. Some are closely cropped images; in others she is set against a backdrop that, as Sherman describes it, “are clues that tell a story.” “None of the characters are me,” she explained, sipping a soda at a cafe near the shop that afternoon. “ They’re everything but me. If it seems too close to me, it’s rejected.”
untitled, 2009
Keep up with Cindy www.csherman.com @csherman
u&c
the spirit of a conceptual performance artist BRIAN OLDHAM This twenty-year-old photographer has a knack for producing powerful, conceptual portraits that blend dreams and reality. His photographs use multiple exposures and digital sleights of hand to create dreamcapes that capture the detruitus of our subconscious like ladders to the sky, subterranean tombs, dreams of flight, and make it real. When asked where he comes up with his concepts, Oldhmam simply said, “ I come up with ideas of how I want to reimagine the world.� Although he will stay in school, Oldham has drummed up an impressive line of clients, including Harper Collins Publishing, MNSTR Brand Strategy and Digitial Stories, and Simon and Schuster Worldwide.
rose petals of lies, 2013
Keep up with Brian flickr.com/boldman @boldman
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digi head
manipulate with water DROP OF WATER AND RIPPLE EFFECT Ever wonder how to create a compelling water drop effect in your photo art? This tutorial will show you how to create a realistic water drop in 10 minutes. The basic idea of how to produce water drops is a bit complex because they have highlights, shadows, transparencies, inner shadows and inner highlights. The best thing is you can create all of those effects using the Layer Styles in Photoshop. See the full instructions on our website by visiting www.transcendmagazine.com/tutorials.
AN UNDERWATER SCENE Help, I am drowning! This tutorial, shows you how to create an underwater scene in Adobe Photoshop. To be more specific, you will create a sinking object, which in our case is a woman, plus water splashes and some air bubbles. The trick is to play with the water bubbles and splashes so your image appears as believable as possible. Also, feel free to duplicate each layer to make more visible the splash or you can play around with the opacity of each layer. See the full instructions on our website by visiting www.transcendmagazine.com/tutorials.
is anybody
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out there?
is anybody out there, 2013
by drew geoffery
photo psych
grass angel, 2013
“ neighbors, friends and were dropping hints—so others pointed, even cr something was not right archibald’s son.”
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teachers ome subtle, ruel—that t with tim
T
he little boy seemed hypnotized for hours by certain objects: doors, mechanical gears, the vacuum cleaner hose. He mimicked electrical sounds, knew the time schedule of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system by heart and had epic tantrums. Mr. Archibald, 43, an editorial and advertising photographer whose commercial
clients include a maker of artificial limbs and Skittles candy, remembers thinking, “I can’t raise this kid; I can’t relate to him at all.’’ The tension at home was all but unbearable. Every waking hour had to do with Eli, who was 5 at the time. Why was he this way? Why was he that way? Was he mentally ill? Should he be medicated? In retrospect, the evidence seems so unambiguous, particularly once there was a second child, Wilson, to compare Eli to. But nobody in the household had yet spoken aloud the word “autism.’’ That was the moment when Mr. Archibald decided to look for his son, in the most literal sense of the word—through the lens of his camera.
“ Myyfeeling feelingof of utter utter frustration frustration and powerless started “ M started this this project,’’ project,’’he hesaid said about“Echolilia,” “Echolilia,”aalimited-edition limited-editionvolume volumewith with43 43photographs, photographs,mostly mostlyof ofEli. Eli. about waspublished publishedininJune Juneby byEcho EchoPress.) Press.)The Thetitle titleisisderived derivedfrom fromecholalia, echolalia,aa (It(Itwas technicalterm termfor forthe thecopying copyingof ofsounds soundsand andsentences sentencescommon commonininchildren children technical whosuffer sufferfrom fromsome someform formof ofautism, autism,who whoinclude includeverbal verbalchildren childrenlike likeEli Eliwho who who attendregular regularpublic publicschools. schools.“I “Iknew knewhehewas wastuned tuneddifferently,” differently,”Mr. Mr.Archibald Archibald attend said,“and “andI Ineeded neededto tobuild buildaabridge, bridge,get getinside insidehis hishead, head,learn learnwhat whatmade madehim him said, tick.’’This Thiswould wouldnot notbe beaastandard standarddocumentary documentaryproject projectininwhich whichhe heturned turned tick.’’ hiscamera cameraon onthe theboy boyat atany anyand andevery everyopportunity, opportunity,to tochronicle chroniclehis hislife. life.Nor Nor his wouldhe hestage stageand andshoot shootstandard standardportraits. portraits. would Instead, man and boy, father and son, would collaborate, in formal shooting sessions that rarely lasted more than 5 or 10 minutes but were regularly scheduled and initiated by an object or notion that interested Eli. It was Eli’s idea to see if a very large manila envelope would fit over his head; Eli’s idea to blow into one end of a vacuum cleaner hose and hold the other end to his ear to hear the whoosh. It was Eli’s idea to see if he could curl up his body
until it fit inside a clear plastic toy box, to flatten his features with a wide rubber band, to look through the wide end of a funnel that happened to be the same circumference as his face. “He has always fetishized objects,’’ Mr. Archibald said. “They are iconic to him.’’ With a digital camera, photographer and subject could examine each image immediately. Sometimes Eli would have an idea for a more interesting pose or setting. Mostly that was Mr. Archibald’s job. He might suggest that they try the shot again at a different time of day or in a place with different light. The collaboration “satisfied something deep inside both of us,” Mr. Archibald said. “ We shared—I don’t know what—mutual respect? ’’ Light mattered. And simple settings. And contrast. And composition. Take, for instance, the photo of Eli and the vacuum cleaner hose. It was on the living room floor when he came home from school one day because his mother had been cleaning. It riveted the boy. “ This is cool,” he told his father. “ Let’s make some photos.” First, they went outside, where the light would be better. But Mr. Archibald didn’t like the image of the boy seated, tube to his mouth and ear, amid the chalk scrawling on the driveway. They moved to the backyard. Mr. Archibald noted the dark expanse of dirt and wanted to see Eli’s pale skin against that background. On an impulse, he said, he asked his son to take off his shirt. One photograph juxtaposes a page of notes Mr. Archibald took when Eli’s ailment was diagnosed with a child’s bandage. It’s meant to capture the specialness of this child, which exists side by side with the fact that he is a normal little boy who skins his knees. “I was looking for that push and pull,’’ Mr. Archibald said, “the flux between the two.’’
photo psych
“they are ic All the pictures are set at home, in El Sobrante, Calif., a working-class community in the East Bay, quite charmless with its unlandscaped lawns and commercial strips lined with muffler repair shops and the like. Why only at home? “That’s where the tension was; that’s where I was trying to be a parent and feeling I was doing such a bad job of it,’’ Mr. Archibald said. The world will soon enough impinge, Mr. Archibald fears, when Eli, now 8 and in the third grade, hits middle school. For the moment, “quirkiness is accepted by the other kids,’’ he said. “There is no social big boot to crush him yet.’’ Mr. Archibald said Eli finds nothing embarrassing about the book, despite what he acknowledged might look like “feral” images to some viewers, including a number in which the boy is unclothed. “There is no adolescent body consciousness yet,” Mr. Archibald said. His wife, Cheri Stalmann, objected to the project at first. She worried that Eli was being exploited to serve her husband’s need to make sense of his own suffering. Eventually, however, Mr. Archibald said she grew enthusiastic as she saw Eli’s pleasure in the work and the results. When the book was published, the rest of the family celebrated. Eli seemed uninterested at first. Then he asked for his own copy, to keep in his room. There, happily thumbing through it with his father these days, Eli will come upon photos taken as long as three years ago. “Oh, I forgot about that one,’’ he says to his father. “Look how cool it is!”
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iconic to me.”
a collection of archibald’s work from 2013: “red balloon,” “cone face,” and “babydoll stroll”
photo psych
the vintage mugshot
“special photographs� taken by the new south wales police department photographers between 1910 and 1930
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thugs, thieves, hookers & killers by jojo mitchell
glimpse back
below: joseph messenger, 1921 right: alice clarke, 1936
M
any of the worlds vintage mugshots—that date back as far as the 1900s—are housed by the Historic Houses Trust of New York City and Sydney, Australia. These high-sought after images are of excellent quality, beautifully composed and in many cases, quite artistic. They are inspired to not only the modern artists but also the modern collector. Many of these photographs are accompanied by a description of the criminal and the crimes they have committed. For instance, take Joseph Messenger—shown above—who was arrested in 1921 for breaking into an army warehouse and stealing boots and overcoats to the value of 29 pounds 3 shillings. The following year, when this photograph was taken, he was charged with breaking and entering a dwelling. Those charges were eventually dropped but he was eventually arrested again later that year for stealing a saddle and bridle from Rosebery Race course. Later in life, he was active in inner-Sydney underworld through the 1920s, and he appears in the NSW Criminal Register ( July 16, 1930 entry no 171) as a seasoned criminal and gang affiliate.
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glimpse back
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glimpse back
page 22 & 23: tom bede, 1928 tom “silent” richard, richard’s brother, ross walton, 1934
“this man refused In 1990, the Historic Houses Trust was able to rescue a remarkable collection of NSW Police forensic photographs from a flooded warehouse in Lidcombe. Created between 1912 and 1964, the archive contains approximately 130,000 glass plate negatives depicting crime scenes, police activities, mug shots and forensic evidence, making it possibly the largest police photography collection in the southern hemisphere. The Historic Houses Trust has the job of conserving, repackaging, digitising, researching and cataloguing the archives contents, for which original record systems have been lost. Major exhibitions featuring the archive have travelled widely, including Crime Scene and Femme Fatale and two books have been produced City of Shadows and Crooks Like Us by Peter Doyle. Ongoing discoveries from the archive are regularly displayed within a dedicated in the Archive Gallery at the Justice & Police Museum. The current exhibition is Collision: Misadventure by Motorcar which depicts car crashes and traffic accidents between 1920 and 1960 as well as the changing streets of Sydney, developments in automobiles and the increasing involvement of police in traffic management. The pictures shown here are from a series of around 2,500 “special photographs” taken by the New South Wales Police Department photographers between 1910 and 1930. These “special photographs” were mostly taken in the cells at the Central Police Station, Sydney and are, as curator Peter Doyle explains, of “men and women recently plucked from the street, often still animated by the dramas surrounding their apprehension.”
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Doyle suggests that, compared with the subjects of prison mug shots, “the subjects of the Special Photographs seem to have been allowed—perhaps invited—to position and compose themselves for the camera as they liked. Their photographic identity thus seems constructed out of a potent alchemy of inborn disposition, personal history, learned habits and idiosyncrasies, chosen personal style (haircut, clothing, accessories) and physical characteristics.” Photographed by the Sydeny Justice and Police Museum, Alice Clarke was an entrepreneur who took advantage of restrictive liquor regulations, which forced pubs to close at 6 p.m. As a “sly grogger” she sold high-priced alcohol from a private residence. Clarke’s arrest came weeks after the legislation was introduced. She awas at the mature age of 42 when she was arrested. The photograph of the three men—who were identified as Tom “Silent” Richard, Richard’s brother, and Ross Walton (no. 132)—was apparently taken in the aftermath of a raid led by Chief Bill Mackay on a house at 74 Riley Street, ‘lower Darlinghurst.’ Numerous charges were heard against the men arrested. It was a house frequented by ‘reputed thieves.’ The precise circumstances surrounding the picture of Tom Bede are unknown, but Bede is found in numerous police records of the 1910s, 20s and 30s. He is variously listed as a housebreaker, a shop breaker, a safe breaker, a receiver, and a suspected person. A considerably less self-assured Bede appears in the NSW Criminal Register of August 29, 1928 (no. 203). His convictions by then included ‘goods in custody, indecent langauge, stealing, eceiving and throwing a missile. To learn more and see the full collection of mugshots available, visit the Historic Houses Trust at www.hht.net.au.
to open his eyes.” glimpse back
melania brescia’s portraits & poetry stitch the story of her
kingdom tle
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untitled, 2013
by sarah davis
“finger music,” 2013
spotlight
i want to hide the truth, i want to shelter you, but with the beast inside there’s nowhere we can hide no matter what we breed, we still are made of greed. this is my kingdom come.
M
elania Brescia is a young, up and coming digital photographer from Málaga, Spain which is on the southern coast. She does
mostly self portraits, but from time to time incorporates other models whom are mostly her friends and her boyfriend, Luis. No matter the subject, she undoubtedly has the ability to use lighting in all her images to evoke emotion and an energy. As an artist, it is beautiful to see how she is able to let go and photograph her insecurities and personal life, turning it into something soft, beautiful, mysterious, gripping, and at times downright bizarre. What is photography for you? I’m not saying that it is “everything ” because I’d be exaggerating but it consumes a big part of my life. It’s the only thing that can make me feel good no matter what. I don’t need others to make me feel good about my photography because I feel very inspired and confident about my output. Interestingly, photography is the only area in my life where I don’t need reinforcement and accolades; I just know it’s right. What really makes me feel best when I take a picture, and then look at it and say “Oh god, I love it.” Which aspects of your pictures make them stand out as yours—more exactly, what is your signature? Well, I think I’m very young in this to have a signature but I hope my use of light. It’s weird because I’ve been always very obsessed with light, sometimes more and other times less, I don’t know alot about it, but I think I move well with the light, I love to play with it, I love it. How do you set up your work? I usually don’t need to set up my work because it’s usually just for myself, but when I have some client I usually ask what they want, if they had a vision. I am very spontaneous. I always look for inspirations and I ask alot of seemingly tedious questions so I can understand what is in their “mind’s eye” as I like to put it. And if the photos are for a magazine, I always look for friends, stylists, designers, and models that knows what they have to do, and I’m so lucky to have
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a sister who knows makeup perfectly. This network of support really helps me a lot—I’m very grateful to have them. Tell us a story about one of the people you have photographed that made you want to take their picture. For now I have been lucky to photograph people close to me—people I love or people who I appreciate. When you know them, you’re in confidence, and everything is much better, you will always want to take their picture. And I wait afraid the day I have to photograph some model I’ve never seen before in my life, but I’ll do it. When did you start taking pictures? I started over two years ago, I was studying art, and many people around me had a camera, so, I got curious and I decided study photography so my dad bought me my first camera. It was a Nikon, and it changed my practice forever. It also changed how I see the world. Being a photographer, you are always looking, searching—and even spying—for that moment to capture. I can’t stop think outside the frame. What is the message of your photos, what do you want to communicate or accomplish through your work? Well, I never considered to give any message with my pictures, but little by little, I saw that I transmitted something to some people, without realizing it, that some people know a lot of me just watching my work, I’m still confused, I don’t know if thats good or not, I mean, I don’t know if I like that some people know me just for some pictures or if I hate the others that can’t see that I transmit something more that a face, a girl, or something bright.
parts of briescia’s body of work from 2012: “all ten,” “lonely throne” & “snow white is dead,” 2013
spotlight
red eye, 2013
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when you feel my heart, look into my eyes, it’s where my demons hide.
a collection of portraits from her series called “sparkling dead” from summer 2013
don’t get too close, it’s dark inside, it’s where my demons hide.
spotlight
photo trend
self portraits addressing deeply personal issues There is an existing new trend that has emerge among photographers around the world. Here are four that caught our eye.
depression
Art is often times an outlet for emotional expression—something 20-year-old Christian Hopkins knows too well. The young photographer uses it as
phobia
a coping mechanism for depression. “I have been suffering from depression for more than the past four years and it has manifested itself throughout that period in many ways, photography included.”
obessity
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While on spring break 10 years ago, Jen Davis decided to turn the camera on herself. But at 5-foot-4 and 260 pounds this was not an easy thing to do. “ Originally, I wanted to see what the outside world saw.” This image, titled “Pressure Point,” was the beginning of a self-portrait series chronicling Davis’s evolving relationship with her body.
lonliness
One of our favorite young photographers, Alex Stoddard, continues to expand his collection of creative images, offering a litany of inspiration for his peers and the pros alike. The 19-year-old photographer manages to produce engaging narratives with each image, inviting viewers to see his deepest, darkest fears like heights.
Laurel Nakadate is known for powerful video and photographic works in which she, her subjects, and the viewer are entangled in an unsettling dance of seduction, power, trust, tenderness, loss, and betrayal. Her latest series entitled “Surrounded But Alone” reveals a different side of Nakadate—a single, lonely, and emotional artist.
spot light
DANIEL EATOCK Using his background knowledge as a graphic designer, Eatock uses a rational, logical, and pragmatic approach to making work. He has an ongoing interest in proposing and finding solutions to problems long before the question has been asked. He enjoys shaping the question. Currently, he works with museums, galleries, television and cinema, design, advertising, and education. Trained and based in London, England, Eatock has each of his design students at the Royal College of Art create a typographic self portrait. Based on the form of one’s thumb print, the results are quite astounding. Keep up with Daniel www.eatock.com @eatock
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brian, 2012
on view
kehinde wiley: hip-hop meets classic european portraiture He’s a brilliant renaissance technician with hip-hop subject matter. His latest work focuses on young black men in a sadly familiar posture: Down. But in a world where bad is good, being down is not always such a bad thing. Public perception of black male youth has arguably changed since artist Kehinde Wiley began painting his formal portraits in residency at New York’s Studio Museum in Harlem in 2000. Part of Wiley’s process was lifting his subjects straight from the street and rendering them with sneakers, track pants, tank tops, and team caps-in the visual
blurring the boundaries between traditional and contemporary modes of representation and the critical portrayal of masculinity and physicality as it pertains to the view of black young men. Initially, Wiley ’s portraits were based on photos taken of young men found on the streets of Harlem. As his practice grew, his eye led him toward an international view, including models found in urban landscapes throughout the
language of classic European portraiture; the result wasn’t so much brashly iconoclastic as brilliantly inclusive, a mash-up of museum treasure and the urban life outside of its gates. What remains so surprising about these works today is that the 31-year-old Los Angeles native’s black males remain a rarity in the fine-art world, despite their prevalence, even dominance in pop culture. Wiley may have redefined portrait painting for a new century, but he’s still cutting his own path in a field that purports to be progressive. Wiley ’s practices have changed in the last decade and the results are increasingly visible. His recent show at the Studio Museum in Harlem called “ The World Stage” took him all over the globe, from Lagos to New Delhi, to cast his models from the street and capture them in poses representing a larger world. His solo exhibition “Down” opens at Deitch Projects in New York City this month; “Down” features eight large-scale paintings of black youths based on iconic images of fallen warriors in art-from bullfighters to Christ. By applying the visual vocabulary and conventions of glorification, wealth, prestige, and history to subject matter drawn from the urban fabric, Wiley makes his subjects and their stylistic references juxtaposed inversions of each other thus forcing ambiguity and provocative perplexity to pervade his imagery. Wiley’s larger-than-life figures disturb and interrupt tropes of portrait painting, often
world—such as Senegal, Dakar and Rio de Janeiro, among others—accumulating to a vast body of work called, “The World Stage.” The models, dressed in their everyday clothing—most of which are based on the notion of far-reaching Western ideals of style—are asked to assume poses found in paintings or sculptures representative of the history of their surroundings. This juxtaposition of the “old” inherited by the “new”—who often have no visual inheritance of which to speak—immediately provides a discourse that is at once visceral and cerebral in scope.
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