Spring 2009 by Michael George

SPRING 2009

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EDITOR’S LETTER In the film Donnie Darko, time is represented as a translucent worm that sprouts from the chest and beckons one to follow its path – a visual destiny of sorts. When capturing an image, we slice out a cross-section of this worm and package moments inside tiny little frames. The shutter is life’s pause button, enabling us to scrutinize, reflect, and remember. With the camera’s aid, people see the world in a whole new light. We examine details and suddenly find a sense of wonderment in the world that surrounds us. Society, like time, is relentlessly sprinting forward at the pace of modern life. Every once in a while, however, we are forced to a halt. Be it social, political, or economical, our collective history is filled with periods of unrest. Unlike capturing an image, which merely gives us an opportunity to reflect, these events force us to examine the ways we live our lives. In the current economic crisis, many of us have become self-reflective, wondering where we went wrong, how we can fix it, and where we are going from here. Even the New York Times is chronicling the potential of its own demise; as photographers, we are no different.

This semester, the staff of ISO brought on a team of writers. With their help we have expanded this issue with the hope of truly initiating conversation. Since our inception we have widened our views. We have begun to question the photographic act and the place of the photographer in our rapidly changing environment. We begin with a review of After Photography, a book whose title alone is enough to pique our interest about the state of the medium. The artists we showcase all transport us to worlds outside of our daily views – from Rio, India, and Europe to the desolate roads that exist in our collective memory. The gallery presents a physical extension of our fascinated eye. And so on. I invite you to explore our sophomore issue with a critical curiosity. This conversation is not complete without your voice. Soon, ISO will be expanding its online presence, allowing our community to grow. It’s times like this that we need each other. We’re looking, listening, but most of all, thinking. We hope you are too. MICHAEL GEORGE

ISO STAFF AND CONTRIBUTORS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Michael George DEPUTY EDITOR

Corinne Rapone WRITERS

Peter Curtis Andrew Ellis Michael George Deirdre Hering Aaron Krol Corinne Rapone Sam Reiss Jenna Spitz Pey Chuan Tan Madeleine Witenberg Alison Wynn COPY EDITORS

Aaron Krol Suzy Shaheen Alison Wynn

ART DIRECTOR & SENIOR DESIGNER

Danlly Domingo DESIGNERS

Nina Culotta Alexa Lee PHOTO EDITORS

Sasha Arutyunova Jenna Spitz

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Amanda Adams-Louis Sasha Arutyunova Chris Berntsen Victoria Crayhon Peter Curtis Katie Frank Michael George Sage Grazer Todd Hido Ani Kington Kelly Kollar Lexi Lambros Peter Lucas Gabrielle Lurie Yuta Nakajima Gina Pollack Taylor Poulin Joanna Raynes Damien Saatdjian Adam Saewitz Lupe Salinas Adam Schatz Caroline Sinders Michelle Watt Madeleine Witenberg

FINANCIAL SUPERVISOR

Mia Torres COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR

Adrian Wenzel FACULTY ADVISOR

Editha Mesina SPECIAL THANKS

Irene Cho Yolanda Cuomo Department of Photography & Imaging Danny Domingo Thomas Drysdale Todd Hido Peter Lucas Michael Messina New York University Fred Ritchin Patricia Snavely Tisch School of the Arts Tisch Undergraduate Student Council Deborah Willis

CONTENTS EDITOR’S LETTER

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CONTRIBUTORS TRAVELS IN VIRTUAL REALITY

PETER LUCAS: ARPOADOR THE CAMERAMAN’S COMEDY

BY SAM REISS

BY ANDREW ELLIS

BY CORINNE RAPONE

HONEST PHOTOGRAPHY

BY MADELEINE WITENBERG

TODD HIDO: A ROAD DIVIDED

BY MICHAEL GEORGE

CHRIS BERNTSEN: NOTES WHILE BREATHING

GABRIELLE LURIE: THE RHYTHM OF CHAOS INTRODUCTION BY JENNA SPITZ

PHOTOFLO

DIRECTORY

HOW TO SUBMIT

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BY DEIRDRE HERING

BY PETER CURTIS

BY PEY CHUAN TAN

DAMIEN SAATDJIAN: ILLIERS

THE GALLERY

BY AARON KROL

A SECOND COMING OF THE THIRD DIMENSION PORNOGRAPHY: BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE CAMERA

BY ALISON WYNN

COVER Los Angeles, Damien Saatdjian INSIDE FRONT COVER A Tourist’s View, 2007, Sasha Arutyunova INSIDE BACK COVER Coney Island, Taylor Poulin BACK COVER Miyajima, Yuta Nakajima

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TRAVELS IN VIRTUAL REALITY response from the photographic community – a cacophony of opinions and uncertainty from people who are fascinated by visual culture and the act of looking. Out of this noise, NYU professor Fred Ritchin’s newest book, After Photography, emerges as a coherent, composed analysis of the vastly different possibilities of the medium.

After Photography by Fred Ritchin The medium of photography – that strange, mutant offspring of science and art – has long been a weed in the art world’s garden. It proliferates relentlessly, creeping over the fences built to contain it. Like an invasive species, photography thrives in any context it can – be it journalism or fashion, art or science – making use of all available resources to fuel its growth. Technology enables photography to extend perceptual capabilities, thus establishing a symbiotic relationship between the expansion of photographic contexts and a demand for further technological development. As this conversation gains momentum, photography is propelled into the realm of the digital. Most people remain apathetic to this change, as they allow the daily tide of images to wash over them and accept the various conveniences digital technology provides. However, this “digital revolution” has provoked an enormous

Ritchin’s exploration of digital photography’s potential is thorough and presented in a clear, open-ended manner. He guides his readers the way he teaches his students – engaging them without overpowering their ideas. Ritchin’s prose conveys an encouraging rather than definitive tone, allowing readers space to consider his message on their own terms. The book begins by addressing a few of the various changes the digital age has spawned and cites interactions on YouTube and MySpace as examples of the new platforms of interaction created by digital technology. Ritchin’s attitude is both hopeful and realistic as he stresses the importance of taking responsibility for our world and emphasizes the capabilities of digital media as a powerful tool. Ritchin presents abstract ideas about the shifting nature of our perceptions of reality alongside concrete examples of the technologies that provoke these changes, such as the newly developed digital mapping and photo-stitching tools Gigapan and Photosynth. These programs digitally stitch together different photographs to create a panorama of a scene, essentially turning many individual photographs into a larger image. The panoramas are then displayed on a website, such as Gigapan.org, where

by Alison Wynn different users can create and comment on snapshots within the larger image, pointing out what they find notable. Such programs, Ritchin posits, have vast potential as vehicles for the exchange of ideas across time and space. For example, one could click on a snapshot taken from a Gigapan in order to learn more about the selection – why the women in a picture of a foreign marketplace carry baskets on their heads or why the roofs in Cairo are covered by satellite dishes. Essentially, such tools have a great potential to cultivate tolerance and understanding. However, Ritchin also acknowledges their power to isolate, creating closed communities within the virtual world – groups of people who are able to associate only with others who share their perspectives. After Photography provides us with the information and tools necessary to move confidently forward in the digital world. Ritchin’s discussions of the possible applications of digital media to communication, journalism, politics, art, science, social change, and memory conclude with the open-ended statement that “photography (or hyperphotography) may, as always, be seen as a confirmation. Or an exploration. A question or an answer. Or not. Or both.” It is now up to us to decide what happens next. ■

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PETER LUCAS AN INSTALLATION BY PROFESSOR PAUL OWEN

ARPOADOR: SUNDAY EVENINGS IN RIO DE JANEIRO BY SAM REISS

ISO SPRING 2009

Marking the end of another day, the sun sets slowly across the horizon. This moment is so fleeting that it is nearly impossible to grasp, and recordings leave only a faint residue of the past. In his series Arpoador: Sunday Evenings in Rio de Janeiro, Peter Lucas captures the conversation between daily life and nature’s timelessness. During the eight years examining this space, analyzing its effect on him, Lucas produced this nostalgic series of photographs.

In some images violent clouds whip the sky, stirring the waves into frenzy; in others, a gentle haze blankets the horizon and lulls the world to sleep. The links between these epic skies are human figures, standing on the edge of the world, facing these forms of the infinite. Some of the figures gaze at the striking scene before them; others are involved in their own moments of play. Lucas reflects, “For years I was working in Rio, and I would always fly home on a Sunday night. And for

many years, I would spend my final moments in Rio on top of the rock. It led me to my feeling that Sundays are very different. There is a type of lingering on the rock, people not wanting to leave, it has a melancholy.” Drawn into a moment at the end of Sunday evening himself, Lucas is and has been one of the figures on the rock. Arpoador stands as a gathering point in Rio de Janeiro – a rock at the edge

of the water that Lucas describes as having “loric power, [which] dissolves all differences and hierarchies.” In the images people swim and relax by the rock with no apparent power plays. Lucas describes this transitory moment of peace as “a beautiful kind of model.” On the surface these idyllic images offer a form of escapism. The silhouetted figures help to draw the viewer in. Despite the contemporary setting of the series, the images stylistically conjure a classic and more

serene past. This world is a calm and peaceful contrast to the chaotic urban environment. The tranquility of the imagery evokes a powerful and more complex sensation found deeper – something more primordial and vast. The power of this rock gives it strength akin to the immensity of sea and sky. Lucas says, “Whenever the land meets the sea, [it] evokes the great archetypes – the melancholy of loss, the end of a summer day,

the ephemeral nature of beauty.” The series focuses on the transitions associated with these archetypes. The space and time associated with the series may be physically limiting; however, by repeatedly focusing on the concentrated power, Lucas is able to “lose [himself], just merge and flow with that space.” There, one can find the sweet joy of human freedom and the tragic lull of the setting sun. The images in Lucas’s series examine coinciding emotions: the nostalgia

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of what is lost and being lost and an awareness of only the present – “not conscious of past or future.” The images are epic in the way they use the power of the natural world as a representation of the unknown and simultaneously of a functional, controlled state. Placing the human forms, participating in simple but important activities, against this backdrop, allows the viewer to relate the human experience to looking at the sky, looking into the sun, and

facing the edge of the abyss. Yet, while on the surface, these moments depict day-to-day activities, they at once become a web of complex and paradoxical emotions. Lucas’s work typically focuses on moments that are taken for granted. He describes a previous project in which he photographed his sons at the ends of many consecutive summers. Watching his children grow led him to conclude that our view of the

world is contingent on experiences from childhood. Lucas says, “I lived vicariously through my children when I watched my two boys lose their childhood; by then I began to understand my own childhood.” His projects examine the experiences that profoundly change us, yet their fleeting nature makes them elusive and difficult to examine. These experiences provide a glimpse at a concept nearly too circular and shifting to fully comprehend.

The images of Arpoador are deceptively acute. Lucas describes the activity on the rock as being a “limited lexicon of activities.” This, tied to the unique location, offers us the opportunity to take a step back and to examine daily life from a new perspective. Although every image features similar activities, each image is completely unique—nature has altered itself. “After two years I’m only just starting to understand the rock,” says Lucas.

To each individual the series may generate a different response. Lucas describes how he grew up with limited access to the sea and that visiting it is a powerful experience. His series expresses this sensation through the way it examines moments that are often overlooked. He is using a grain of sand to express an entire ocean. Lucas documents those observing the dying day, those photographing the moment and each other. By examining simplistic acts and

fleeting moments that are lost once forgotten—only to reappear as brief memories—Lucas is able to present what is subtly profound. The human figures are stationary, and the world is constantly shifting. To merge with time and space is an ultimate form of transcendence—a glimpse of this transcendence is found in the brief moments that wash over us with the power of a crashing wave. ■

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THE

CAMERAMAN’S COMEDY “Hold on!” barks Sheriff Rake Murdoch, extending a gloved hand toward the horizon. “That’s a whole bunch of bandits.” “That is a whole lot of bandits,” I confirm, gesturing with my plastic six-shooter. “I didn’t see them at first because they were behind the bushes, but now, I see them. And that one was behind” – at this point the Sheriff lets out a powerful chortle that dislodges his false mustache from its bearings – “a dustball.” For the record the word at the tip of my tongue was “tumbleweed”. This is the world of Blazing Cowboys, the unscripted comedy program that traces its origins to a basement in Baltimore County, Maryland, when three scrawny college students returned to their suburban hometown over winter break and decided to bust out the old video camera. Our inspiration The Most Extraordinary Space Investigations (MESI), a Channel 101 program that ran for six fiveminute episodes in 2005 before its cancellation, has a simple premise: Dan Harmon, Sevan Najarian, Justin

Roiland and Sarah Silverman play the space investigators, charged with the formulaic task of recovering X object from Y planet guarded by Z villain. (Readers discouraged by this rubric’s carefree flexibility should refer to Episode #4: “Your mission is to go to Planet Sideblock,” proclaims Harmon, brandishing a familiar orange box, “and retrieve another one of these. Yes, we need three of them.”) Forethought begins and ends with this framework: all dialogue is improvised onscreen, and no props, costumes or sets are allowed save those that can be collected from the various homes in which the show is filmed. Oh, and sobriety is forbidden. The Channel 101 website advertises the program as “a marijuana induced experiment… heroically committing to its anti-production value.” And as much as MESI may appear to be a direct descendant of the home videos rotting in the basement of every suburban child who grew up in the era of the camcorder (I personally am immortalized as an eleven-year-old “Cereal Killer” wearing a Cheerios box over his head), the show is experimental. It exists in the grand old

by Aaron Krol

“so bad it’s good” comedic tradition of Plan 9 From Outer Space or Batman & Robin; but unlike its distinguished forebears, MESI conspires with the audience in its laughably poor execution. The investigators know, of course, that it is impossible to willfully construct a “so bad it’s good” experience: the only thing funny about the genre is the sense that a disastrous accident has just been deliberately presented as a polished piece of cinema. So they place themselves in a position to perpetrate a disastrous accident and then film it. This lands the cameraman in a curious situation. His job is not to recreate a director’s vision (MESI does not even credit a director or producer), but simply to capture something that exists externally, to be present at the right moment to transmit spontaneous events from set to viewer. This task is foreign to televised sensibilities except, perhaps, documentary television – a telling parallel. The task of the cameraman in a documentary is, after all, to minimize his artistic role in the presentation of his material and to interfere as little as possible with what goes on in front of the camera. As much as the execution of an

individual shot may entail any number of aesthetic considerations, the heart of the documentary is the focus on what is being filmed over how it is being exhibited: it is this disavowal of artistic involvement that gives credence to the documentary’s claim to portray the truth of its subject. MESI’s revolutionary promise is to apply this documentary perspective to comedy (until now, a necessarily deliberate sphere of art). Plan 9 From Outer Space may be funny, but because it does not mean to be funny, it should not be categorized, as MESI should be, as comedy. Approached from another angle, an improv comedy show cannot claim, as MESI can, to be accidental: it is simply regular, artificial comedy fabricated very, very quickly. MESI has found the unexpected middle ground between these two efforts in the direction of documentary comedy. Because the investigators are in no condition to make anything as sophisticated as a joke, they cease to be artists and become subjects, another aspect of the environment that the camera seeks to capture. It is an essential conceit of MESI that the actors are trying their best to advance the plot, and that the audience is simply privileged to see their mistakes: “I can’t feel anything!” bellows Harmon. “Wait, then I’m angry.” The genius of the program is this sense of privilege – our own awareness of the camera and its ability to place us within a genuine setting. What we see is less a show about space investigators and more the process of producing such a show – the reality of a few foam sheets and a tinfoil joystick behind the artifice of intrepid adventures cruising through the great beyond. It would be an exaggeration to claim that, in producing Blazing Cowboys, my colleagues and I were conscious of the documentary nature of our

enterprise, but certainly an instinctive understanding that MESI’s real achievement was to highlight its lack of creative engagement in its material colored our own effort. Two major reflections on our forerunners prevailed: first, that where MESI fell flat was precisely in those places where it sacrificed its documentary sensibility in an attempt to make premeditated jokes, as when it was revealed that Roiland’s penis had been replaced with a vagina. (It’s about as funny as it sounds.) Second, that the greatest moments of MESI were, conversely, the most truthful, the most revealing of the environment in which the show was filmed regardless of how they related to the storyline. A favorite was Jimmy Kimmel’s inspired guest appearance in Episode #5: “You went into a prison,” he muses, “you went from prisoner to prisoner in their cells and said, ‘You want a free strip of candy buttons?’ Every one of those motherfuckers would reach out and yank it right in.” The natural lesson we drew from this appraisal was that anything MESI planned in advance, Blazing Cowboys had to invent in front of the camera. This determination to do everything by the seats of our trousers led to some refreshingly unexpected footage. We may not have been able to anticipate what mistakes would occur in dialogue, but we could anticipate that they would abound. But a fight scene so poorly choreographed it ends with an actual punch to the face – an image with which we as artists had nothing to do. (My cohort’s first comment after peeling himself from the cabinet: “You better have gotten that.” A tacit acknowledgement, I like to think, that the cameraman’s job was far more important than anyone else’s.) But our most important innovation was to keep the camera rolling as long as possible. It would be absurd to claim that any program can offer a

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scene completely unadulterated by the process of transforming it into art – the business of editing footage afterwards necessarily entails a value judgment on the part of the editors regarding which moments are most “important”, and even the cameraman’s unavoidable decision to point the camera in one direction and not another implies artistic involvement. But MESI’s frequent cuts in the course of dialogue – particularly in the spaceship scenes, in which different actors were placed sequentially in front of the same set to give the illusion of multiple cockpits – seemed to us a gross betrayal of the show’s claim to spontaneity. What, after all, could be more artificial than stopping the camera and giving a performer time to think of what he’s going to say next? The Blazing Cowboys solution was to keep all actors in any given scene on set from start to finish, and not to stop filming until dialogue petered out completely. (This decision was made easier by our urgent consciousness that we were becoming less funny with every passing moment we spent offscreen.) Similarly, cuts made to these shots in editing were used primarily to remove gaps in the conversation, not to skip ahead to what we considered the funniest lines. The distinction is crucial, for to treat actors as subjects is to allow them to react naturally to the course of the dialogue and to showcase the first things that come into their heads. The topic of Blazing Cowboys may be life in the Wild West, but the truth the camera discovers is two teenagers at a kitchen table tossing back empty shot glasses: “I wish I knew what he was doing with all that moisture and money,” I say. “What could a man do with all that moisture and money?” growls Murdoch. “He could make a whole bunch of wet money!” ■

ISO SPRING 2009

A SECOND COMING OF THE THIRD

Photography by Katie Frank

DIMENSION by Andrew Ellis

With beam splitting digital projection, Ray Ban-style polarized viewing glasses, and almost 5,000 3D movie screens nationwide, three-dimensional cinema may just have established a secure place in today’s movie market. The trends alert us that something has changed. Last year, six big budget 3D films were released in the U.S. and 2009 will hold at least ten. Such an emergence may seem unlikely to some; however, a revolutionizing technical introduction is nothing new to cinema. Silent to talkie, black and white to color, visual effects to CGI – Hollywood has made leaps and bounds to maintain the thrill in the movie-going experience. As the industry overcomes technical difficulties in shooting and projecting stereoscopically, 3D cinema promises to be an equal competitor to 2D films. As with any form of progress, there are proponents for both change and stasis. There are those who argue to leave cinema as a pure form, and those who argue to advance cinema closer to the perceptual experience. Today, we stand on the forefront of a shift, and the wheels are already turning. We might as well begin to accept and welcome what’s to come. Theatre attendance has been in steady decline over the last ten years, and

studios are not going to stand by the wayside. In a 2007 interview with TIME Magazine, the co-executive chief of Imax Richard Gelfond said, “In 2D there are now so many ways to see a movie. Cinemas compete with DVD, pay-per-view, iPod downloads and television, and the gap between a film’s cinematic release and its wider distribution is getting smaller.” As theatres sell fewer tickets, we can view the induction of 3D as two things: primarily, a gimmick to boost waning ticket sales, and subsequently, a new resource for an aesthetically engaging art form. Aside from the threats of portable media, the home theatre experience has been gaining ground in quality-control for years. As sixtyinch plasmas with BlueRay players fall within the average consumer price range, it’s no wonder we aren’t paying twelve dollars to see a movie. Furthermore, the fluffy romantic comedies, cheap-thrill action flicks, and formulaic animated films have lost their spark, so 3D has come to the rescue. However, this isn’t the first time it’s been around. After its development in the mid-1800s, stereoscopic cinema had its first chance with Hollywood in the 1950s. Dozens of movies were released, and the public finally caught a whiff of the flashy

future of cinema. But unfortunately, it wasn’t pleasant. It wasn’t the glasses that bothered people (perhaps a few senior viewers were bothered by a little eye crossing here and there, but the experience was generally painless). It wasn’t the price either (who wouldn’t pay a few dollars extra to have a knife fly out of the screen?). The reason 3D movies couldn’t hold their place in Hollywood back then, strangely enough, was that the movies were sub par. With few exceptions the movies were written in a rush to push a 3D product, created by directors who pulled cheap gimmicks, and shot by cinematographers who had worked in only two dimensions their entire career. Studios even shifted films already half-shot in 2D, such as Edward Ludwig’s Sangaree, into a 3D film. Warner Brothers and Universal pushed so quickly without proper knowledge of how to incorporate the technology that they doomed 3D’s potential in the market. People grew sick of the movies, and the silver screen’s third dimension lost its appeal. Learning from the erroneous first attempt, studios, directors, and cinematographers are now embracing 3D for the long haul. Today, they are employing different strategies for the audience of a new technological era. Theatres no longer need two carefully

Please use attached 3D glasses to view photographs properly.

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calibrated projectors with two prints to show a film, so audiences aren’t wearing the cardboard blue and red glasses anymore. RealD, the leader of 3D projection technology and creator of the aforementioned Ray Ban-style viewing glasses, focuses on style as well as practicality. Such marketing tactics build this premature technological push to light. Studios are in it so that they don’t go out of business. 3D features the appealing dimension of depth. Over the years 2D has been forging the illusion of depth through the manipulation of perspective, lighting, and focus. Orson Welles was the champion of this technique in his film Citizen Kane, in which he and his cinematographer Gregg Toland achieved a near three-dimensional effect with their utilization of extreme deep focus. Notably, the pair utilized illusions of depth to tell their story, rather than to distract viewers from the lack of a story. 3D introduces a seemingly tangible depth to the frame in a manner that comes easier to filmmakers, but we have yet to see a 3D film with half the artistic value of Citizen Kane. Once the technique is used to tell a story, not just to sell a story, the Hollywood system will take a turn. Only time will tell if this trick-ofthe-mind cinematic experience will actually catch on. Personally, every time I walk out of a 3D movie, I think to myself, “That was cool,” or “I liked

when the ball flew out towards me.” I seem to observe, rather than experience the effects. While Henry Selick’s Coraline, for example, utilizes hand crafted 3D stop motion animation for a colorfully imaginative tale, it hasn’t become a sensation. The story is magical and the images are stylized and beautiful, but within the confines of a normal-sized screen, the impact is lost. On a screen designed for 2D, the 3D perspective is too distant to remain engaging. Beautiful stories embraced by 3D will be the factor that audiences hang on to for the long run. For now, we just need something big. Screens that fill our peripheral vision, like Imax or Cinoramma, will be the answer to creating a fully captivating 3D experience. Not only Hollywood blockbusters, but televised sports events and theatrically-presented concerts will utilize this new technology. There will always be stories that can be told better in two dimensions than in three, but if audiences believe in this technology and – more importantly – throw money at it, we will eventually see stories told better in three than in two. There is beauty within a two dimensional film that three dimensions have not yet achieved (like the elegance of a shallow depth of field), and when the medium falls within the grasp of the artists rather than the studio, the grace in a new art form will be discovered. For now, enjoy the Jonas Brothers 3D Concert Experience. Awesome. ■

OPENING

Coral OPPOSITE (clockwise from top-left)

Avocado, Ricecake, Orange, Scarf

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PORNOGRAPHY:

BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE CAMERA by Corinne Rapone

Picking up this month’s issue of Playboy, I realized that the realm of pornographic photography extends far beyond its glossy pages. The naked body is an awkward sight. Aside from the airbrushed beauties gracing the pages of Playboy, what was once depicted as a natural and desired form in art has now become a social taboo, circulating largely through porn magazines and questionable websites. What has made this widespread dissemination possible is the easily reproducible medium of photography.

pornography began its underground production almost in line with the invention of the daguerreotype. At their inception these images were a treasured luxury – the precious daguerreotypes were made as unique and personal images, with models elegantly poised and lit. However, by the mid-1850s, photographic production began to establish its foundations in the art of mass reproduction, thus sending the quality and craftsmanship of graphic photography into a decline and thrusting pornography into a trend of irrepressible dissemination.

The history of pornography is largely hidden behind closed doors – or rather underneath your older brother’s mattress. While erotic imagery finds its roots in painting, literature, and lithography, the pornographic representations familiar to us today were made possible by the growing popularity of photography and mechanical reproduction. Photographic

As photography emerged as an art form, there was a sense of anxiety within the community to define the medium’s artistic significance. Torn between the attachment to painterly representation and the drive towards a new form of expression, photographers look towards the unique quality of the medium to recreate fine detail and an inherent representation of the truth (an

argument that has yet to be resolved to this day and never seems to get old within the photographic community). The ability to record fine detail is what seems to have turned the nude into the naked, at once transforming a beautiful representation of the bare body into a rather ugly and awkward form. Unlike painting, which supports a careful masking of the genitalia and the magical elimination of body hair, photography made the appearance of these gritty details inescapable. With long exposures the elegant forms of the painterly models were nearly impossible to attain. The resulting awkward and revealing poses were socially regarded as an obscene and mysterious branch of photography. The demand for pornographic photography brought about two types of erotic images. The first established an image constructed solely to reveal the genitalia (more commonly known

as the “beaver shot”), which gave way to the inherent subjectification of the physical body – the disappearance of the woman’s face and more specifically her gaze. On the other hand, the second type of imagery marked this gaze as the central focal point. This image allowed women to confront men as “real” women, both receiving and returning the gaze of the viewer. Thus the subject establishes an interactive sexual relationship with the viewer. It is here that photographic pornography escapes the fantasy world and enters into an ambiguous domain between what is real and what is imagined. It is this type of photography that propelled pornography through the 20th century. With a growing acceptance of graphic imagery and its rise through mainstream culture came an ever more blurred line between the nude as art or the naked as pornography. Through the 1950s came an increasing confidence in the power of the female

body. By assuming different roles and costumes, the pin-up models of the 1950s created an air of personality around them, each woman playing along to create an illusion of intimacy with the individual viewer. Yet as the photographic medium advanced significantly through the growing ease of reproduction and the introduction of color film, pornography became even more accessible through the circulation of these images. Reproducible magazines included large-scale centerfolds, saved as mementos from teenage years. It was here that sexuality and visual culture became implicated through the stimulation provided by fabricated images. Yet as these images became more popular – even in underground passing – society quickly began to assimilate these images of open sexuality into the media. A language of female sexuality is embedded and defined within the modes of pornography. As visual culture

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began to accept an open conversation with sexuality, so did society. As pornography adapts itself to the contexts of contemporary society, we can see how these images have begun to mirror the trend in gender roles outside of a visual culture. The woman is placed in a number of different roles rather than remaining as the submissive and unflinching form of late-19th century photography. The camera often serves to disconnect the depiction of sexual fantasy from the reality of human sexual behavior – maintaining these images in a safe realm of the fantastically superficial. Yet while pornographic imagery is still kept largely hushed, it is our growing accessibility to these images, especially with the possibilities of the Internet, that has enabled sexuality to become a comfortable and often humorous topic of conversation. ■

ISO SPRING 2009

HONEST PHOTOGRAPHY

The hood of my winter coat wrestles with leaves as I move out of the way of children running in front of me, pointing and yelping. Moving past them, I wander into a cave with glass boxes in fake stone walls. In front of me is a small orange frog. I pull out my ruler and tilt it against the window. My camera is heavy. Its resistance to this entire endeavor is clearly felt as the strap digs itself into my neck. I know it would rather I turn around right now and walk out of this zoo. It is getting older and losing patience, and at this point, it expects more of me. I convince myself that I am doing the assignment. My professor said twelve inches. He said we could see the title however we wished – it didn’t have to be an intimate picture, necessarily, just something twelve inches away. I wind the film, hoping that the mechanical sounds will

inspire or at least calm my nerves, but all I hear is the Nikon whining softly. I bring the glass to my eyelashes. All I see is fog. I pause, my eye staring at the inside of a cloud. When I first got the assignment, I didn’t think I would be standing in this rainforest exhibit in the Central Park Zoo, staring down amphibians through fogged glass. I had a plan. Weeks earlier, we had been sitting across from each other on my crimson comforter. He had rested his head on my wall. The golden glow of my night-light brushed against his eyelashes and etched delicate, thin shadows into my sheets. I wanted to take pictures of him. Twelve inches. A foot. He was a foot away, a foot close. I paused. I knew once my fingers held the weight of my camera, any facades would have to fall away. Once I placed him in

by Madeleine Witenberg

my frame, my feelings would come into focus for me, for him, and for anyone else who looked at the pictures. We would see each other more clearly--he would see right through the lens that was pointed at him, right through me. I reached for the camera but he grabbed my hand. I saw the images though. I felt the film spinning across my eyes as they took him in. It all ended though between him and me before I could take that picture. Missed words, lost minutes, and the crimson comforter, the delicate sheets, and his warm skin disappeared fast – faster than they had arrived. Although I breathed a sigh of relief – glad that I didn’t have the pictures as evidence for what was or what could have been – the vulnerability still felt real. In fact, it seemed at fault. So there I was, ready

to take a picture of anything as long as there were three inches of glass between it and me. No words, no connection, just a picture. I wanted to make the rules. I didn’t want to get close to something again, declare my affection for it and have it drift away. But as resolute as I was to just take some pictures, I didn’t. It could have been the kids with noses and lips suction cupped to the glass, or maybe it was their parents knocking until the snake moved for their entertainment. Or maybe I just knew anything I took would be a waste of a frame. I got back to my room. There, tangled in the crimson sheets and lodged, forgotten between the wall and the bed, was the tattered piece of fabric that had cradled my head since I was born. The pieces began to fall into place. I laid it

out on my sofa, but it seemed to deserve more than the standard, blue, dorm fabric. I pulled my sheets off my bed and laid them under the blanket. As I advanced the film, I saw my own image spinning in front of my eyes. Every time I released the shutter, the tips of my fingers came alive again. I quickly ran back to my room, shoved the comforter aside into a dusty corner and pulled out a box of my notebooks and of my old polaroids from under my bed. I dumped them onto the blanket – letting my own reflection swirl in a pool of my ink and pieces of where I had been. The lens soaked it all in. The feeling returned to my limbs as I remembered what it was like to be hungry for images, to have a vision and to run after it. I showed myself parts of myself I had forgotten or, rather, neglected.

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As I was reintroduced to the person behind my camera, I began to see photography differently. Although I have heard numerous times that photography manipulates reality, there seems to be a certain honesty to it. I had thought the camera distanced me, separated me from the world I was looking at; I was the observer and the world was my subject. But when I press my eye against the viewfinder, it looks into me, and it projects me. And although that vulnerability may at times be terrifying, it seems there is no other way. There is no use hiding behind the camera because, thankfully, it will always give me away. ■

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TODD HIDO

A ROAD DIVIDED BY MICHAEL GEORGE

The road embodies ideas of travel, exploration, and discovery— elements that make up the soul of a curious photographer. From Stephen Shore to Ryan McGinley, road trips have long been a tradition in the photographic process. Roads bring photographers out into the American landscape where they become free to explore the quirks and detritus littered throughout. Though many have used it as a path to their subject, Todd Hido sees the road as a subject all its own. A Road Divided is a series of images shot through the windshield of a car. Some details are sharp while others melt into abstract fluid forms. This visible separation distances the viewer from the specificities of the landscape, exemplifying the universality of the subject. As a teenager driving across the flat and endless landscape that is Florida, I relished in those moments of solitude when the road felt infinite. I would peer to the left at the travelers moving in the opposite direction. I was always heading toward others’ destinations, and they were always heading toward my starting place. For me, being on the road was a search for meaning, traveling through space and looking for answers, a promising destination.

What we don’t see is that the endless search for peace, home, and a common experience is realized in the very search itself. MG: I’d like to start with something a little basic. How did the series begin? TH: I remember clearly I was scouting around for places that I was going to go back to and photograph at night. I was looking around, stopped at a stop sign, and all of a sudden this water kind of rushed in front of my window off my roof. I remember thinking, “Wow, that is really amazing. I should take a picture.” So I got my camera, which was sitting on the front seat, and took a photograph. The picture sat on my contact sheet for quite some time because I was focused on my night shots at that point – shooting mostly what became my House Hunting series. But then every so often, I would go through my contact sheets, and I remember finding this image and thinking, “This is something very interesting,” and printing it. That’s how a lot of my series begin. Something just sort of happens, and it leads to many others. MG: The series is titled A Road Divided. Why?

TH: I feel that the first thoughts of this work were about when things come apart—about what divides people—but in the end there are always two ways you can take. It is up to you how you look at it. MG: The images are, sometimes noticeably and sometimes not, shot through the windshield of a car. Many times, the windshield is smattered with water droplets and sheets of ice. The effect reminds me of old techniques like rubbing Vaseline on the camera lens to create a tilt-shift blur. Do you find yourself using the windshield as a canvas – constructing these layers onto the painterly image? Or is it all a natural effect, completely dependent on the weather and conditions? TH: It’s a little bit of both. Initially, it starts with just the weather and conditions, and I’m just driving around, and it’s raining, and stuff happens on the window, and I just try and shoot that. I think, over the years, I’ve been able to get control over my technique, and in that particular sense, it would seem like a canvas. I’m definitely able to figure out where I want things and how I want them. I’m shooting with a handheld Pentax 6x7, and all of the pictures are made when I’m

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stopped. I let the rain accumulate on the windshield and continue shooting as it adds up. Then I’ll clear it and start over again. That’s pretty much the process. Like any photography there’s a humungous amount of luck involved in it. I think, as a photographer, because chance is such a key element of photography, it’s your job to make chance work for you. I’ll shoot many different pictures, and I know which images to pick. That’s really what it comes down to—you shoot and then you edit down, and you curate it into something you really like. MG: The series, like many of your images, has an explorative and introspective mood. When you venture out on these journeys is there anything you’re looking for either in the image or in yourself? In that same sense, what attracts you to these desolate roads? TH: I think that absolutely, there’s an introspective feeling to my pictures. I feel like that comes from when I get to just go out and look around, check things out. I really enjoy that process because there’s a real freedom to picture making, and when I’m looking for subjects, whether it’s a house, a landscape, or even a portrait, I’m always looking for something that feels familiar to me. Something from my past or something that I know a little bit in some way or when I see something that I recognize as a place from my history. There’s a certain quality

of memory and familiarity to the places that I take pictures of and in the feeling that my photographs evoke. MG: The weather is a prominent subject throughout the series. Does this bear any special significance? Is it simply to control the emotional weight of the image? TH: There’s something about the mood that a cloudy day (and nighttime and in my earlier work) that evokes something that I’m really interested in. I would say yes, definitely the weather has significance. I rarely ever go out and photograph on a sunny day. I’ll do portraits on that kind of a day because that just means brighter light on the inside, but I won’t go out and shoot in the blue sky. That kind of thing is just not what I’m interested in. There’s a mood to a blue sky as well, but it’s not the mood I’m currently looking for. The weather does definitely infer an emotional weight in an image, and there’s something about a rainy day that you just can’t beat in some way. MG: The murky results from shooting through the windshield give an antiquated coating to the images. They feel like the nostalgic memories of a seasoned traveler. What are your thoughts on this? Do you feel like the images speak to the past? TH: I guess there’s a sense of

longing and loss to my work, and there’s something people just kind of recognize from their own history in it. One of the things about my pictures that I think works and sometimes sets it apart from other people’s work that we see these days is that there’s a real emotion to my work. I think my work is psychologically driven instead of being driven conceptually. I certainly don’t sit down in my studio and think of an idea and then go out and photograph it. I’m the kind of photographer that prefers to respond to what I’m seeing and that’s how I work. That is how I have always worked. MG: What do you hope, if anything, people take from experiencing the emotional responses that your images evoke? I know you said your series are not driven conceptually, but do you have any specific goals for this series? TH: My goal is to express myself and to connect with others. This is a statement I wrote in graduate school—I think it still fits: As an artist I have always felt that my task is not to create meaning, but to charge the air so that meaning can occur. MG: In one of the more recent images, you include a human presence. This contrasts with the feeling of isolation of the rest of the images. What was your

intention with this portrait? Was it also reliant on chance? Do you feel that it adds to the rhythm of the series?

they are often empty, but they are about things that have happened there. Not literally of course. But in a roundabout way.

TH: No, this person was not there by chance. I had her stand there. That is usually how I direct my portraits. I say “just stand here” or “try leaning here,” and I just let gestures and expressions naturally occur. I think much of my work has always had a “human presence” in it. All my images of places are somehow to me about people. Yes,

MG: When you set out on a journey to take photographs do you have any sort of trajectory or is it more of a meditative exploration? Have you ever gotten yourself lost? TH: You unfortunately can’t get lost these days. I have tried. A road always leads somewhere—and they

mostly are all connected. MG: Music is a big player in affecting a person’s emotional outlook. When encapsulated in a car, it’s usually just you and whatever is vibrating from your speakers. While driving do you listen to music? If so, what? TH: I actually always listen to talk radio when I am driving and shooting. I like the conversations I hear. ■

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OPENING #3235 from the series Roaming, 2005 PAGE 27 #6426 untitled, 2007 ABOVE #6097 from the series A Road Divided, 2008 OPPOSITE #4155-A from the series Between the Two, 2007 All photographs courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery. http://www.brucesilverstein.com/

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NOTES WHILE BREATHING

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CHRIS BERNTSEN

“For them it was normal; for me it was amazing.” CHRIS BERNTSEN

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FEATURED ARTIST:

by Deirdre Hering

CHRIS BERNTSEN Even the most loyal New Yorker isn’t immune to the allure of European cities. For Tisch alum Chris Berntsen (’08), the ancient architecture of Paris and Barcelona served as the backdrop for a period of post-graduate reflection. His time in Europe provided a chance to gain perspective of the non-academic variety (and not to mention plenty of narrow, sinuous streets to navigate on his skateboard). But perhaps most poetically, these cities represented a halfway point between New York and Russia—the former his home and the latter where his partner Ana was then residing. His selfpublished ‘zine entitled European Journal chronicles

their reunion and journey from Paris to Barcelona in the autumn of 2008. An intriguing synthesis of text, street photography and bedroom scenes, the ‘zine is documentary, social criticism, and romance all at the same time. European Journal defies classification as “travel photography” and instead remains simply, as Berntsen refers to it, “a collection of small thoughts.” DH: How has your work changed, if at all, after leaving an academic environment? CB: I feel that my work has changed greatly since leaving school. The academic environment gave me so much to think about conceptually and ethically that will always stay with me. However, upon graduation I was able to focus on my individual approach and interest in photography aside from the thoughts presented in an academic setting. I feel that I don’t need to justify as much why I take photographs, but rather it is just part of my everyday life. DH: Were you traveling as a visitor or a photographer? It would seem to me that your academic training could either help or hinder your photography abroad. Do you find it difficult to simply document what you see, as the typical tourist does? Does your knowledge compel you to draw from your technical know-how and imbue each image with meaning? CB: I think, for me, the two are inseparable. I brought my camera with me nearly everywhere. There are times I wonder if I am doing something because I want to photograph it or because I want to do it, and traveling was no different. I take photos like every tourist with a camera does. Susan Sontag discusses the idea of tourist photography as a need to prove to yourself and others that you existed somewhere, did something, and that the smiles on our faces in those photographs prove how fun it was. Knowing this makes shooting it almost humorous at times but won’t dissuade me from doing it.

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DH: It has been my experience that the typical young American romanticizes Europe; the beauty of your photographs affirms that idealization. After spending a period of time abroad, do you think that idealization is justified? Or is it because, as visitors, the ugliness and banalities are either hidden from us or ignored? CB: I do agree that Europe is idealized both generally and specifically within my images. In my case I was not working there, I was not living in one place for more than a few weeks, and I never needed to deal with day-to-day responsibilities. My experiences in Europe were privileged and unsustainable, and the photos reflect that. I had the opportunity to be a flaneur the way CartierBresson was around the world. Europe has its ugly sides – for example, the treatment of immigrants that resulted in the Paris riots not too long ago. For me, Europe was much harder to critique because it had less pre-fabricated suburbia, strip malls, and fast

food restaurants like the U.S.; their environmental vocabulary was different. We almost make it too easy here to see through the façade that exists everywhere. DH: The text that accompanies your images criticizes the rampant consumerism that has come to define American culture. Did you have those sentiments specifically in mind as you took the photographs or is that a theme that revealed itself to you upon review of your work? CB: The writing in the ‘zine was done after having the time to reflect on the differences between here and there. While looking through the negatives, I remembered small moments that had inspired the photographs. For example, on a sixteen-hour bus ride from Paris to Barcelona, I spent an hour trying to take photos of gas or food islands and suburban sprawl. It wasn’t until I looked at the contact sheets that I realized I was searching for an American landscape in Europe. I looked for something I knew,

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shot what I saw, and realized the difference between the two meant more than a failure on my part to take a good photograph. I enjoy adding text to my work because it allows for a specific reading of the images or provides further interpretation to images that by themselves may not be that interesting. It adds a layer of time and reflection that a pure image may not contain. DH: Your photographs don’t shy away from the ordinary; juxtaposed among photographs of intricate iron work and a glittering chandelier are images of squat, white-washed buildings and a gentleman purchasing neck ties. But somehow, there is still something distinctly European about them. What do you think makes the things a native considers “everyday” stand out to a visitor, specifically an American in Europe? CB: As a foreigner to Europe, I had the opportunity to view Europe with a different set of thoughts and

experiences. The everyday that existed in Venice was seeing caskets carried in procession to a boat that brought the deceased to their grave. For them it was normal; for me it was amazing. Likewise, seeing old folks get off the water taxi at the island where many Venetians are buried presumably to see a husband, wife, or sibling was very moving for me but most likely the norm for locals. The fact that something was new to me is what made me photograph a lot of what I did. I imagine that the exoticizing of any culture would make that culture see itself from a new perspective. DH: The series of images seem to be as much about your own personal traveling tale as it is about the places and architecture you photographed. The intimate images mixed in with the street scenes provide the viewer with a glimpse into your most private moments. Do you ever find it disconcerting to be the subject of your own work? CB: I think that photography should be thought of more from the perspective of the photographer than it generally is. Often a photograph is taken, and we discuss the subject and details of the people or situation being depicted and forget that somebody with thoughts and a life of their own took the image. My interest in mixing traditional street photographs and intimate moments was to provide that sense of humanity and accountability to the images. I want the viewer to look at the work and feel the thought process of one person without needing to categorize the work as personal documentary, street photography, documentary, fine art, etc. I embrace the idea of photographers being a part of their work in a more literal sense. I don’t mind putting my lifestyle out there for people because it’s what we expect from our subjects. I enjoy that accountability and submission to my own camera. DH: Similarly to European Journal, you played a major role as a subject (albeit indirectly) in your senior thesis Straight Edge, a project documenting the subculture of the same name. Was the project complicated by your transition from an objective observer to an active member of the community that you were documenting? CB: The transition from newcomer to being socially immersed in the straight edge community made photographing in a journalistic mode difficult. I couldn’t

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see the journalistic photos I had set out to make anymore because the people stopped being just “straight edge” to me; they became complicated human beings. Eventually, I re-focused the project to fit my inside perspective with the expectation that “straight edge” will emerge naturally within the images. My goal now, rather than defining straight edge in a manner that a critical essay might do more succinctly, is for the viewer to feel what this moment is like for us members of the straight edge community. DH: What is it about the straight edge community that motivated you to document it photographically – the colorful personal aesthetic of its members or the ideology behind it? CB: My motives for photographing the straight edge community are very personal. Briefly defined, straight edge is a subculture within the punk community that lives a drug and alcohol free lifestyle, largely in reaction to the perceived substance abuses within youth and mainstream America. Having been straight edge since

I was fifteen years old, yet living largely outside of the community, I started to feel the need to search out and explore what I was missing. My camera was my passport in many ways into people’s lives – people that have become many of my closest friends. DH: A self-published ‘zine is an interesting and deeply personal way in which to share one’s work. What about this project made it conducive to self-publication? What are the merits of self-publishing as opposed to other means of sharing your work? CB: The intimacy of ‘zines reflects the environment in which I want my work to be viewed. There is a beautiful history of using ‘zines as a tool of personal narration. Besides, this work is really just that: two young people’s travels around Europe. The modesty and freedom of expression that a self-published ‘zine allows gives me the latitude to make exactly what I want to make. ‘zines are precious, and this time was precious for me. Hopefully, the experience of finding and reading this ‘zine will contain that same sense of appreciation. ■

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ILLIERS

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DAMIEN SAATDJIAN

“I think it’s better when you aren’t looking for a photograph and you just stumble upon one.”

DAMIEN SAATDJIAN

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by Peter Curtis

DAMIEN SAATDJIAN Although Damien and I are friends, and I enjoy spending time with his photographs, talking about his work was a bit of a challenge. Damien’s pictures are almost designed to defy conversation. They don’t directly examine a concept or document an event. Damien glibly calls them pictures of nothing. More seriously, he describes his process as “documenting an atmosphere.” The photographs on the following pages, some of which were in his senior thesis show, were edited from an archive of roughly two years of shooting that parallels Damien’s everyday life.

DS: I rarely go out looking for photographs. If I see something I find interesting, I stop for a moment, compose, and shoot. I think composition is important, but I try not to overthink when I take pictures. The impulse is automatic, but the click of the shutter is not. PC: But some photographers shoot automatically– DS: –like Winogrand– PC: –yes.

PC: This edit of pictures was taken over a fairly long period of time, in different countries, and in different cities, yet is very cohesive. To what extent does this cohesion describe your process? DS: I think part of that cohesion is that you’re looking at an edit I’ve made. I shoot a lot and then edit for cohesion. But also, when I take photographs, I’m not trying to say anything; I’m looking for a feel. There is a time of day I like to shoot – I don’t like to shoot when it is bright out, I don’t like poppy colors. Atmospherically, I think, there is a level of cohesion. I limit myself when I shoot and then edit from there for a feel or sentiment.

DS: Yeah, I don’t do that. I try not to think, but I do end up thinking a lot. And for a lot of the pictures, just because the lighting is really low, I have to pause. I have to hold my breath and stand still. PC: This atmospheric element is perhaps most important to your pictures, but your work has definite subject matter. What are you drawn to? DS: I don’t know if I am drawn to specific subjects. I shoot anything I find interesting, be it the light in a room or a random composition of shapes. I think the sentiment throughout all the pictures may be the same, regardless of the subject matter.

PC: What would you describe that sentiment as? DS: I don’t know. I don’t want to call it melancholic ‘cause that’s kind of sappy. But there is a sense of isolation or mystery outside of the frame. Things end up looking like still lifes. I like to think about the moments I photograph as ephemeral, but when I photograph them, things seem to stop. So the picture feels both ephemeral and eternal. PC: Compositionally, your work is similarly paradoxical. Your photos always look natural but not haphazard—as if they have been almost subconsciously organized. How do you compose?

PC: I can’t help but notice in the edit for your senior show there was a photo of a dead rabbit and another in a church. On paper they have a pretty weighty symbolic importance. DS: The subject matter isn’t necessarily important. If I photograph a crucifix, it’s not because it has anything to do with god or religion. There is something that interests me about the object – but not the object as a signifier, the object as an object. The dead rabbit doesn’t, for me, have anything to do with life or death. It’s simply a still life. Subconsciously, I may be thinking of it. I don’t know.

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And of course, because all the work is open-ended, people add to it what they will.

based – I’ve wanted to shoot in LA, but it’s difficult for me to do while I’m in school.

PC: But even though your images don’t talk about life and death or any other large theme, their tone allows viewers to think beyond the picture.

PC: You approach your influences similarly.

DS: When I shoot, I’m not trying to illustrate a concept. I’m not really thinking of where I am going with the photographs. I think what I see is beautiful, so I take a picture. Whatever the subject matter is not important; it is the beauty I see in the scene. I think those layers of meaning can be there if you want them to be.

PC: Specifically?

PC: You shoot your life, generally.

PC: You shoot much like Cartier-Bresson’s idea of a journalist—someone who keeps a journal of what they perceive.

DS: Yes, I don’t separate what I shoot on a daily basis from any projects. PC: Do you avoid anything specific in projects? DS: I don’t know if there is anything I avoid. I have ideas for projects, but most of them are location

DS: Yes, I look at a lot of film and painting.

DS: Ad Reinhart, Yves Klein, Mark Rothko, JeanFrançois Millet. I take screen shoots every time I watch a film I like. Something that interests me is how you can get the entire feel of a film in about twenty images.

DS: Yes. Sometimes, I go out because I really feel like photographing and usually get nothing. I think it is better when you aren’t looking for a picture and you just stumble upon one. Proust writes that sometimes a small experience can trigger a memory

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you haven’t thought about in years. If you try to force a memory, it will never come. You just have to be receptive and attentive. I think that’s the best way to photograph – following intuition and allowing yourself to form impressions of your surroundings. PC: Many of your pictures speak to that method; though often not explicitly, you get the sense that there is an experience connected with the photograph. Is there a personal narrative connected with this work? DS: Well, for example, when I was in France, I made an effort to visit my family more than once. And while I was there, I asked to photograph my grandmother’s house. PC: And there were several pictures in your show from those visits. DS: Yes, and I think I subconsciously channel that experience into photographing, but I don’t think it is important to know “this is the bedroom where my mom grew up.“

PC: Talking about how personal these photographs are reminds me to ask a kind of obvious question. You always print your photographs small. Does it have to do with conveying a notion of your work as precious? DS: I’ve always printed small (11” x 14” or smaller); this makes them precious but hopefully not in a cutesy way. I want people to experience the images slowly. One of the reasons I like Ad Reinhardt is that you have to spend time with his paintings to enjoy them. Someone like Pollack doesn’t interest me because the payoff is almost instantaneous. You have to spend time with more subtle work to understand their nuances. ■

OPENING Amsterdam PAGE 39 Noyers-sur-Cher (top), Paris (bottom) OPPOSITE Gérard (top), Still Life (bottom)

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THE RHYTHM OF CHAOS

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GABRIELLE LURIE

“It’s fascinating to watch everyone interact in non-linear ways.”

GABRIELLE LURIE

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by Pey Chuan Tan

GABRIELLE LURIE As photographers we often try to make sense of the world on our terms, in our own ways. Sometimes, the photographic process becomes a filtering lens of both the earthly and the sublime. It captures our impressions, creates tangible markings of abstract thought, and breaks them down into layers of personal significance. For Gabrielle Lurie this desire to explore the unfamiliar culminated in The Rhythm of Chaos. Equipped with a 35mm Leica M6 Rangefinder and the sheer anticipation of visiting Asia for the first time, she spent approximately six months exploring India and challenging her personal threshold. The twenty images that represent the

series were sifted from nearly two-hundred rolls of film and demonstrate the photographer’s intimate mission to make sense of the irregularities she observed as a foreigner. “I was totally overwhelmed the minute I got to India, but at the same time, I could tell that there was a rhythm to the place,” says Lurie, who will graduate from the Department of Photography & Imaging this Spring. The photographer, who elected to do a study abroad program with the School of International Training, lived mainly in New Delhi for half a year from January to June 2008.

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“I wanted to study art history in a place that was culturally rich and free from the loom of the Western world,” she says. “The program was perfect for me, as it took me to a city that was totally different from what I was used to.” Though she kept an open mind and did not carry any preconceived notions of India, Lurie found herself face-to-face with culture shock in the initial stages. She describes the heart of New Delhi as “sheer chaos.” Congested streets were filled with vehicles, humans, and animals, all of which were moving around in random arterial fashion. Overwhelmed by the attention she received as a foreigner, Lurie admits that it took almost two weeks to settle into the new environment. “Every morning, you get into a little rickshaw, and it feels as though everyone on Broadway is staring at you,” she exclaims. “And it’s just a lose-lose situation

because they stare at your Western clothes, but if you wear Indian clothes they laugh instead.” Fortunately, the city provided a wealth of photographic opportunities. There is the haphazard manner in which different elements of the city work together to create a constant sense of commotion, and there are rare moments of quiet during which the shopkeeper sits down to read the paper or the rickshaw puller naps precariously on his two-wheel cart. “If you walked down the street in New York, people are pretty much standing or walking straight, but in India, people are on so many different planes,” Lurie recalls. “There are people sitting on the ground or bending over washing something. Water’s spraying out of nowhere, someone’s on a bamboo ladder, and it’s fascinating to watch everyone interact in nonlinear ways.”

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The Rhythm of Chaos reaches into the culture of India with a sensitive, compassionate eye. Images of sprawling settlements, trash, and even flocks of birds circling the sky provide the context for the chaotic appearance of the populous country. At their best Lurie’s photographs open our eyes to the subtle sense of rhythm that underwrites the civilization. Naturally occurring patterns – like the imperceptible slowness of water trickling across the pavement or the zigzag shadow that falls upon the steps leading to the River Ganges during a late afternoon – provide contemplative asides to the urban hubbub. This irregular rhythm of life weaves relationships between structures and landscapes, humans and animals. “You see shapes and shadows, but you don’t realize what it is at first,” says Lurie, pointing at an image of a herd of buffalo in a river. “Then you slowly make out the forms of buffalo emerging from the surface of the water.”

Lurie believes that photography illuminates your vision and invites people to understand your perspective – important because “no two people see the world the same way.” “My camera gives me a purpose – or at least a reason to explore my curiosities and anxieties,” she says. “When I felt out of place in India, I reminded myself that I was there with my camera and took pictures instead of lingering in discomfort.” During her stay in India, Lurie also traveled to Bodhgaya, a pilgrimage site in the Indian state of Bihar, and immersed herself in Buddhist meditation. She admits the process taught her to be more mindful of her body and the way she related to people. It also had an impact on her photography. “Meditation really helps you define your relationships and the way others perceive you,”

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Lurie affirms. “It made me much more deliberate in my shooting process and more aware of what I was framing, as I’d consider the impact of the image on viewers.” The set of images that make up The Rhythm of Chaos are not necessarily about a traveler making her mark on the world. Rather, they reflect the introspective eye of the photographer, navigating her way through the unknown and coming to a quiet understanding with the world at large. What she has ultimately discovered is that people and places are not all that different in the end. Contrasts in beliefs and practices can always be made, but a shared sense of humanity prevails. “Everywhere you go, it can seem like the world is turned upside down, and then there are elements that make you think, ‘Well, actually, everyone’s the same,’” she says. “So yeah, I guess that’s what my

work is about: finding your own rhythm and order in everything.” For Lurie the process of exploring new frontiers continues in her work. Her next project takes her to Flushing, Queens, where she will document the lives of a family of illegal immigrants. Struck by how people in India would constantly leech on her in the hopes of coming to America, she hopes that this series will flesh out the cultural dichotomy and inner struggles of the Indians who have successfully migrated. ■

OPENING Birds PAGE 44 Water Buffalo PAGE 45 Haircut OPPOSITE Bicycle Shadow ABOVE Tiger Safari

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THE GALLERY

spectacle Introduction by Jenna Spitz

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Grand Canyon Lexi Lambros

It’s not every day I see a pink gorilla playing the upright bass on a downtown subway platform. So when I did, I took a picture. I’d like to say that what I captured was a true photographic spectacle, but it’s never as easy as that. It was the sound that drew me close – a warm rhythm plucked by fuzzy fingers – and the crowd that revealed the source. I joined the group of listeners and donated a dollar. When I went to take a photo, the gorilla rose to the occasion. For one shot, she arched

her back and pointed her masked chin toward the ceiling. For another she cradled the oversized instrument in furry arms. Just as my train rumbled into the station, we shook hands like business partners cutting a deal – she got my dollar, and I got a shot to remember. In New York it is common to witness the uncommon. Wild sights wander through parks and loiter on street corners. Some evade the camera lens, and some come running at the sound of the

shutter. The thrill of confrontation can be what makes the image worthwhile, and as Magnum photographer Abbas suggests, “Get a good pair of walking shoes,” which is especially good advice if the subject is running after you. It’s as complex to photograph the scope of spectacle as it is to successfully write about it. The who, what, and where can be laid out, but the quality of the real experience – what sends our heads for a spin – is lost in translation more often than not.

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Bruce Gilden epitomizes the spectator-photographer, elbowing his way to the front of the crowd to get on top of his subject for the prize-winning shot. His Coney Island series exhibits real-life caricatures – overweight Russians in skimpy swimsuits, haggard old ladies in hornrimmed glasses – but that’s not all that his work entails. His angles, his proximity, close enough to smell saltcaked skin and funnel cake breath, all deliver a stand-out photographic performance. They’re grotesque and satirical and frankly spectacular. We’re all drawn by the Coney Island effect, a booming voice announcing yet another act. Some spectacles occur only once, and some seem as if they’ve always been there, soaking in the spotlight. Over five million visitors crowd above the Grand Canyon each year with cameras snapping and videos recording. I visited in 2008 and took a Holga camera with me, which I used to make orangey double exposures and light-leaked portraits of shrubbery. As hard as I tried, I was disheartened photographing a landscape that’s been overexposed by stock photography – a natural wonder turned billboard. I had seen it sized down in so many reproductions that the original could not feel large enough. There is something distinctly special about the Grand Canyon, an element Immanuel Kant calls the “Sublime” – a limitlessness that frustrates and captivates all at once. Tisch senior Lexi Lambros restores this power of place in her diptych landscape in her series …Playing

God. Her vantage point and patient precision catch the canyon in an unlikely moment. Whether due to the hovering clouds or the sugary snow or the miniature crowd teetering on the plateau, it is an image worth gathering around. Photograph-viewing is often as solitary a practice as photographtaking. These days, I click through online portfolios more often than I see work in print, and much more often than I see it in the public sphere. My experience of viewing is individual, the reaction solely mine. Standing in a crowd overlooking the Grand Canyon, I was grounded in a collective experience. We looked out into the great abyss with the awareness of a herd, our ears pricked and eyes bulging in an attempt to take it all in. A crowd can give silence an overwhelming presence. Paul Fusco’s series RFK captures the intensity of grouped spectators. Standing by the tracks of the train carrying Kennedy’s coffin, his subjects are rooted deep like stakes in the grass. They stand with purpose – partly to mourn and to salute their leader, and partly as unintentional symbols of collective grief. They become specimens examined closely from above, spectacles under a microscope. In Fusco’s case the conditions fell into place. He didn’t expect to see the crowds, but once he did, his instinct was to photograph them. He worried that the Kodachrome film he was using, too slow for a moving train, would ruin the spectacle of what

he saw. But when he saw the film, Fusco was amazed by the results. A break from static documentation, the images stir like triggered memory, focusing soft and selectively. Today, I followed a jittery ragtime tune to the southwest corner of Washington Square. I reencountered the bass-playing pink gorilla, this time accompanied by a yellow chicken on banjo and (I kid you not) Cookie Monster himself on xylophone. As I fell into place within the crowd, I heard a man behind me ask, “Is this really happening?” The level of stimulation in this city travels so far off the charts that I have trouble believing it myself. I end up saying “only in New York” as if it’s the single explanation. There are so many images to be taken, printed, and passed around to show what we’ve seen with our own wide eyes. There is no end to the looking. Cookie Monster tapped through scales with a certain nonchalance, and the pink ape moved with feminine flair. The chicken perfectly mimicked his fluttering banjo strum, and the crowd stood dazed and charmed at the sight. As I listened to the Brooklyn-based Xylopholks, I felt lucky to be exactly where I was. The spectacle belonged to us – the players, the spectators, and the city. I have no photographs to show for it; my camera never left my bag. I chose to experience the spectacle, to live it without photographing it, but if I had, maybe it would serve as proof in case you didn’t believe me. ■

Swarovski Mercedes-Benz, Osaka Yuta Nakajima

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Hanoi Sage Grazer

Cats in Jerusalem Adam Saewitz

Looking In Gina Pollack

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IMAGE MISSING

To Fly Michael George

Vogueing Amanda Adams-Louis

Hula Hoop Amanda Adams-Louis

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Untitled Victoria Crayhon

Falfurrias, Texas Lupe Salinas OPPOSITE Wayne Coyne...Bubblevision Adam Schatz

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Ferris Wheel (Berlin) Joanna Raynes

New York Damien Saatdjian

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My Motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Room Caroline Sinders

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Sunday in Bellavista Ani Kington

Alam Adam at Home, Brooklyn Kelly Kollar

Obamarama Michael George

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Kevin and Rodrigo looking at a bat Ani Kington

Tableau Michelle Watt

Fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Father Michelle Watt

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Untitled Peter Curtis

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66 PHOTOGRAPHERS

COLLABORATIONS

PORTFOLIOS

GALLERIES

AGENCIES

www.rachelhulin.com/blog

RACHEL HULIN It's no surprise Rachel Hulin used to get PAID as the blogstress for Photoshelter's Shoot the Blog! Now self-sufficient, her blog continues to deliver hilarious quips and insight on photographic happenings.

willsteacy.blogspot.com

WILL STEACY “A collection of thoughts, dreams, memories, and works in progress” by NYC writer and photograper (and Tisch alum) Will Steacy, the same man behind The Photographs Not Taken blog.

www.thenarrative.net

THE NARRATIVE See the world through the eyes of Matt O’Sullivan as he captures the nuances of the street and his daily life (don’t forget to read the titles).

PHOTOFLO The Big Picture www.boston.com/bigpicture/ This boston.com blog represents “the way news should be delivered” in images that are large enough to really see what is going on. Exceedingly varied and always interesting, the Big Picture is sure to quench your visual

Strobist

RESOURCES

Magnum Blog blog.magnumphotos.com The blog of Magnum Photos.

Square America www.squareamerica.com Snapshots and vernacular photography (like an online flea market).

After Photography Blog

www.afterphotography.org/ The After Photography Blog continues the conversation points explored in Fred Ritchin’s latest book.

www.moo.com Turn your photographs into postcards, stickers, or greeting cards. Give it time though, they ship from the UK.

What’s the jackanory?

Moudy Elkammash www.elkammash.com Work by an NYU photographer in New York and abroad over the last couple years.

www.whatsthejackanory.com Blog of photographer Andrew Heatherington. www.flakphoto.com

FLAK PHOTO Flak Photo “celebrates the art of publishing contemporary photography online.” Andy Adams, the site’s producer and reason for its success, has a keen eye for up and coming work. In addition to singular images, the website also features new book projects, series work, and other slices of visual culture.

A Photo Editor www.aphotoeditor.com What’s going on in the photography world – from the perspective of a photo director (Rob Haggart).

PHOTOFLO

www.strobist.blogspot.com/ Who needs a lighting class when you have the Strobist?

thirst.

moo.com

PHOTO BLOGS

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ISO DIRECTORY

DIRECTORY ARUTYUNOVA, Sasha sashaface@gmail.com www.ispoketoosoon.com (954) 822-3243 BERNTSEN, Chris cwb217@nyu.edu www.chrisberntsen.com CRAYHON, Victoria victoria@victoriacrayhon.com www.victoriacrayhon.com CULOTTA, Nina cmc590@nyu.edu CURTIS, Peter peteracurtis@gmail.com www.petercurtis.net DOMINGO, Danlly danlly@danllydomingo.com www.danllydomingo.com (562) 537 -9465 ELLIS, Andrew andrewmichaelellis@gmail.com www.andrewmichaelellis.com (818) 601-5541 FRANK, Katie klf273@nyu.edu GEORGE, Michael michaelgeorge@nyu.edu www.inceptivenotions.com (239) 898-1799 GRAZER, Sage sagegrazer@nyu.edu (310) 435-9300

KINGTON, Ani anikington@gmail.com www.anikington.com KOLLAR, Kelly kmk363@nyu.edu www.kellykollar.com KROL, Aaron ald331@nyu.edu

SAATDJIAN, Damien damien@nyu.edu SAEWITZ, Adam ads390@nyu.edu www.adamsaewitz.com SALINAS, Lupe lupe.salinas@nyu.edu

LAMBROS, Lexi lexilambros@gmail.com www.lexilambros.com

SCHATZ, Adam als458@gmail.com www.schatzattack.smugmug.com/other (617) 548-3961

LEE, Alexa al1560@nyu.edu

SHAHEEN, Suzy suzyshaheen@gmail.com

LUCAS, Peter peterlucas@nyu.edu

SPITZ, Jenna jennaspitz@nyu.edu

LURIE, Gabrielle gabrielle.lurie@gmail.com www.gabriellelurie.com

TAN, Pey Chuan pct226@nyu.edu (718) 708-0551

NAKAJIMA, Yuta yuta.jima@gmail.com www.yutanakajima.com

TORRES, Mia act307@nyu.edu www.miatorresphotography.net

POLLACK, Gina ginapollack@gmail.com (323) 371-2500

WATT, Michelle mw1298@gmail.com

POULIN, Taylor tap278@nyu.edu (281) 851-1210 RAPONE, Corinne corinne.rapone@gmail.com (609) 202-6082

HERING, Deirdre dlh309@nyu.edu

RAYNES, Joanna jer397@nyu.edu (207) 730-2269

HIDO, Todd www.toddhido.com

REISS, Sam sam.reiss@nyu.edu

WENZEL, Adrian awenzel@nyu.edu WITENBERG, Madeleine mjw413@nyu.edu (310) 892-6233 WYNN, Alison akw267@nyu.edu

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HOW TO SUBMIT

This project was initiated by students in the Department of Photography & Imaging and the Gallatin School of Individualized Study and funded by The Tisch Undergraduate Student Council, the Department of Photography & Imaging, and various individual donors. All NYU Students are invited to contribute.

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