NSEW FILM SHOOTERS COLLECTIVE
“Those who tell the stories rule society.” - Plato It’s easy to see a book like this and think it’s a book about film photography. True, all of the photographs were shot on film, but that’s not what brings us together. We’re brought together by our need to tell our story regardless of what corner of the globe we’re in.
Film Shooters Collective NSEW 2013
For this first collection of photographs our members were asked to tell a story from their corner of the world. Some are personal, some scratch the surface, but all of them are heartfelt testimonies of what it’s like to explore the world as an artist and most importantly as an individual.
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Contents
Cody Thomas..............................1 Portland
Emilia Buggins..........................23 London
Dean Hahnenberg....................45 Knoxville
Brian Richman..........................73 Fort Worth
Kevin Lim....................................5 Singapore
Cara Farnell...............................27 Tacoma
Stephen Ateser...........................49 Seattle
Brett Takemoto..........................77 Pleasanton
Huda Al Abdulmughni..............9 Kuwait
Daniel Keys................................31 London
Xue Rui.......................................53 Shenyang
David Sorich..............................81 Chicago
Phillip Dygeus...........................15 The Hague
Nigel Clarke...............................37 York
Phuong Nguyen........................57 Chicago
Daniel Wirg책rd..........................85 Gothenburg
Valerie Lear................................19 Toronto
Garrick Fujii..............................41 Los Angeles
Deborah Candeub.....................65 Arlington
Ella Ordona................................91 Seattle
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Khalik Allah...............................95 New York City
Shannon McClatchey..............117 Seattle
Vanessa Simpson.....................141 Reno
Max Marsiglietti......................101 Modena
Syafi Riduwan..........................121 Singapore
Andy Kennelly.........................145 Pasadena
Moby Howeidy........................105 San Francisco
Cameron Kline........................125 Tokyo
JC Griffith................................149 Cincinnati
Jason Kim................................109 Troy
Daniel MacDonald.................131 Fair Oaks
Staci Kennelly..........................153 Los Angeles
Nick Susatyo............................113 Sydney
Mohammed Chakiri...............137 Oslo
Sara Chars & Kristin Havercamp..................157 Minneapolis
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Cody Thomas Portland, Oregon, USA
Last summer I hopped on a Greyhound bus with as much camera gear as I could take. I wanted to capture the glow of the dry summer grass in contrast to the beautiful sparse trees of hillside farmland and derelict man-made objects. My intention was to document what I remembered summer looking like. My hope is that these images are timeless landscapes that my grandfather and I can look at with nostalgia.
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Singapore is an ever-changing city-state that always welcomes the new and fancy. As a result, old buildings give way to new ones; there simply isn’t enough space for everything. Despite the new buildings, the old structures are important pieces of my childhood. As more and more of Singapore’s old buildings are planned for demolition, I have tried to document them before they’re gone. That is: I hope to capture memories of childhood before they become abandoned and demolished. I do not want the curtains to go down on them before they receive their due credits.
Kevin Lim Singapore
My affinity for symmetrical objects and compositional elements is an extremely important part of how I see beauty. Symmetry in architecture conveys and reinforces important ideas and beliefs. This is evident in places of worship from the Egyptian pyramids to European cathedrals and churches. My work focuses on the symmetry I find in the buildings and structures that I come across, be it at home or abroad.
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Huda Al Abdulmughni Kuwait
At a young age I found myself gravitating towards the art of portraiture. I found the candid rawness of the human face to be extremely moving, especially when combined with the chaos of their urban surroundings. I believe good portraiture creates a humbling and intimate experience for the viewer, as one is granted for a brief moment a glimpse into the private spheres of another’s life. As a Kuwaiti photographer, I used my portraits to capture the fleeting history of Kuwaiti culture; a traditional culture which is slowly fading with the extreme modernisation and westernisation of the society by the younger generation. In the brief moments of the ‘souk’ (market), I find the history of the Kuwaiti culture still surviving within the four narrow walls of some of the oldest surviving stalls. These merchant men have watched over the ever evolving souk, whilst retained their age-old methods, ever constant in an ever advancing society. While conversing with them, I find the simplicity of their mannerisms inspiring, their stories entertaining and thought-provoking. I try to capture the modesty of their lives through my encounters, in the hopes that my camera can somehow portray their narrative along with their image.
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Phillip Dygeus The Hague, The Netherlands
I am Swedish but live in The Netherlands where I work as an international lawyer with the United Nations. My passion is film photography and during my years as a photographer I have realised what draws my photographic attention are ‘glimpses’. It may be a glimpse of a person’s chance glance or gesture, of structures, of lines or objects lining up in striking compositions, or of contrasts between colours, shapes, and shadows.
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Valerie Lear Toronto, Ontario, Canada
I am an expat and I suffer from chronic homesickness, a sort of neither here nor there feeling that underlines everything in my life. Photography allows me to express this homesickness and constant yearning for home.
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Emilia Buggins London, UK
I have been familiar with this place since I was a child. My father and grandfather always used to take me here, and it’s a place I want to share with my family. It’s very strange to go back and see how the landscape has changed. Now that I’m removed from it by living in London, I notice just how beautiful this place is. Ever-changing, representative of the power of nature and the fact that nothing ever lasts - soon to be lost to the sea.
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Cara Farnell Tacoma, Washington, USA
That magical time and space in which the road is your home. After leaving one home to travel far away and across the space of days to another, nowhere have I ever felt freer than in the space between. The road was my home for 12 days. I was able to stop at three U.S. national parks and one state park. This collection of photos symbolizes that freedom: the awe, expanse, wonder, and lightness of it all. I am curious about the connection between what we feel when we look upon these unbelievable natural wonders and how that translates to the image created by the photographer. I question whether or not that feeling and gravity felt by the photographer can be communicated later to the viewer of the photograph. Though I’m left to think it cannot, and that some of the impact is undoubtedly lost in translation, there I am, still trying. But as we all know, you can’t capture freedom.
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On the 17th of February, 2013, I packed a suitcase with enough clothes for a week, my camera and some film, my laptop, and got on a train to London. I had just received the news that I was to start working full time at an art retailers. Five months and five days later I finally moved into my own room. After 145 nights of sleeping in six different beds, two sofa’s, a futon, and a mattress, working nine hours a day, five days a week, and living out of a suitcase in a cupboard, I was struck with an overwhelming spectrum of conflicting emotions.
Daniel Keys London, UK
This project is a photographic autobiography of this transitional period into regaining full control of my life.
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Nigel Clarke York, UK
When I first visited the remains of Wistow Mine in the UK, it was abandoned but remained intact. It wasn’t until it was partially demolished that I felt compelled to visit with my camera. Walking around this site is fairly creepy, but the everyday remnants of hard working people who had spent years working at this site left a big impression on me. Using 4x5 to record as much detail as possible, I wanted to create a contemplative body of work that echoes with the sounds of a working coal mine and hence the Listen project was born.
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Garrick Fujii Los Angeles, California, USA
The Great California is an exploration through the natural landscapes from the peaked sand dunes of Death Valley to the calming shores of the Pacific coastline. While only a fraction of the beauty that is the wilderness of California, it is a glimpse at the natural surroundings that are often overlooked.
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Dean Hahnenberg Knoxville, Tennessee USA
I’m as straightforward of a photographer as they come. I don’t work in a series or attempt to keep myself to a set theme; I prefer to offer my sense of the world as it presents itself. My work is almost exclusively in black and white large format film, which works best to convey my point of view. I shoot landscapes, as that’s what’s so readily available in my beautiful, adopted state of Tennessee.
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Stephen Ateser Seattle, Washington, USA
I am drawn to images with a certain feeling of tension. Most of my photographs are the result of remaining perceptive to this feeling and attempting to record it from my own perspective. Photography gives me the opportunity to create fleeting images of these now distant memories and share them with others who will reach their own conclusions based on their personal experiences. The visceral response the viewer feels overshadows “the what�. I try not to know too much about what I am attracted to. The subject is fleeting, but the human response is forever.
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Xue Rui Shenyang, Liaoning, PRC
The city of Miaoli lies northwest of Taiwan. To me, it represents a transition from Taipei City’s prosperity in the north and Taichung City’s peace in the south. Miaoli is a traditional and peaceful place, and people who live here are both simple and nice. I have tried to capture Miaoli’s simplicity in these pictures, and I hope to convince others that Miaoli is a great place to be.
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Phuong Nguyen Chicago, Illinois, USA
Looking back on my pictures from the past three years, I feel as though they’re mere remnants of a dream that I had unconsciously drifted through. The more I photographed the world around me, the more I felt my own concept of self dissolving as well. The conviction I had in my identity and everything I believed in was gradually chipped away with every roll of film I developed; but eventually I found myself, and the world, again. This is the concept that unifies my work so far: with every shutter release, I grasp for moments from the continual flow of time that carries me closer and then further away from people and things I love.
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Arlington has been undergoing a wave of growth since the late 1990’s. Today, most of the modest houses that I shoot are homes proportional to their plots and to their original neighbors, but are worth far less than the land upon which they sit. More often than not, when they are sold, they are sold as tear-downs. Many of the homes I have shot in the past two years are already gone.
Deborah Candeub Arlington, Virginia, USA
The Housing Project can be seen as a historical document of the way Arlingtonians have lived for generations, as a series of literal portraits of homes, or as a more figurative exploration of the meaning of home.
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Brian Richman Fort Worth, Texas, USA
I am a British ex-pat, living in Fort Worth, Texas. This town has a long, storied association with cowboys and the Wild West: a history that goes back to the very earliest days of the Conquistadors and Vaquero activities in the very earliest days of European colonization in the Americas. This rich tradition is often kept around in the way we might keep, and think about, museum pieces: for example, the cowboy’s image and practice is kept preserved in Fort Worth’s Stockyards. With these measures being used to preserve the wild west’s history, it is easy to get the feeling that the great American cowboy is a dying breed—or at least we are all beginning to forget about them. Yet, while it is true that a 21st century cattle rancher will be more likely to ride about the ranch on an ATV or 4-wheel drive vehicle than on a horse, they are still here. Cattle, and the tools needed for keeping them, are still not all that uncommon. All one has to do is look for them, and that is exactly what I have tried to do with my photos.
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Brett Takemoto Pleasanton, California, USA
In general, my photography is a stream of consciousness, flowing due to gravity alone. In my professional life as a dentist, I am not afforded the luxury of disorder, mood, or indifference. An affinity for travel and vintage film cameras has resulted in a body of work mostly consisting of urban, geometric landscapes devoid of the human element.
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David Sorich Chicago, Illinois, USA
My work explores the ancient and constant struggle between humankind and nature. Humanity is in denial about its place in the natural world, and will go to great lengths to forget that they are simply animals. My work attempts to reveal the layers of abstraction between the two, by showing that the effects of humanity on the environment in which they live are part of the natural world.
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Daniel Wirgård Gothenburg, Sweden
I’m trying to catch the good light whenever and wherever I can find it: close to home, close to my three daughters. My kids are fascinating subjects, and they’re so used to me taking pictures I can catch them without interrupting what they’re doing. Through them, I hope to convey the kind of warmth and quirkiness I find in my own home— here in Gothenburg, Sweden.
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Ella Ordona Seattle, Washington, USA
Conversation is pointless. Words become rocks in my mouth instead of the intricate shapes I intend them to be. There is another avenue of dialogue that I’m more comfortable with: perching on the edges of conversation and listening with my camera. I make images with the remnants of these dialogues. They’re secrets offered up in dark rooms by strangers, stories that friends & lovers never meant to tell me. They’re the half-said sentences that got stuck in the back of my throat. They hold back the relentless ache that a migratory childhood has gifted me with. When something stirs in my stomach and I’m compelled to fall into old habits of walking away, I breathe deep. I press the shutter release. I stand still.
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I am a Mind in communication with various intelligences over the starry far flung creation; A geometric thinker extending myself beyond the littleness of a body, beyond a fearful world, and beyond illusion.
Khalik Allah New York City, New York, USA
Photography is appealing to me because it is a form that emphasizes the now. Photography represents a break in time in which the now encompasses both past and future. It is a suggestion for our minds to remember the proper function of memory, which is to remember the present. In that sense photography is a healing mechanism. It suggests silence. Healing is predicated on the undoing of the past in the present, and the release of the future from the repetition of the past. For an instant, in the street with my camera, I deny my misinterpretations and allow my mind to receive the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of Life. There is no fear behind my camera, that is how I know it is my place.
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Max Marsiglietti Modena, Italia
Italy’s culture is and has been the product of disparate languages, ethnicities, and traditions. With this in mind, the newly elected Italian government created a new ministry—the Ministry of Integration—to help bring “new Italians” (or, Italians that were born in countries different from Italy, and their children) and “traditional Italians” closer to one another. My goal in these images was to document how Italians live and work at different latitudes. I had the following questions in mind: was the original process of integration (in the 1800’s) successful? Do we have something to learn from it that could help us better integrate “new” and “traditional” Italians?
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Moby Howeidy San Francisco, California, USA
Each day I photograph there is only one thing I aim to accomplish, and that is making sure each photograph genuinely depicts the beauty in the subtleties of my life and those that play a significant role in it. This collection of photographs represents all of the people and places that have shaped me as a whole and the memories of days gone by. For me, photography is an exercise in building an awareness for the nuances of my surroundings. Part of this exercise is also understanding that I cannot interfere with what is playing out in front of me, for it will destroy the allure that documentary photography has. I want those that view my work to feel like they were there with me in that moment. Present within each photograph is a love for the subjects and a yearning to experience that moment once again. There is a certain relatable quality within my photographs, such as the unique yet common experiences of basking at the beach, sitting at the park, or spending countless hours at the local skate park. I am infinitely fascinated by the idea of taking a glimpse into another life by simply viewing a still photograph.
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Jason Kim Troy, New York, USA
I am an American-born Korean and have lived in the state of Nebraska for nearly all my life. After graduating from high school in the summer of 2013, I was given the chance to visit South Korea with my parents. These photographs visually define a link that connects my identity to two places that are considerably different and difficult to compare.
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I have been exploring street and documentary photography for a while. I see it as one of the most challenging genres in photography. With my love of travel and my background in psychology, I found it important to see people as they really are, wherever are, and to appreciate imperfections that are present in our daily life. I try my best to reflect this in my photographs. The people I photographed are, generally speaking, the people I see in my everyday life. Sometimes I get to know them, sometimes I don’t, but I always try to anticipate moments that would come my way. I brought my camera everywhere while I lived in Sydney, as well as times spent on road trips outside the city. The photo (girl looking) was taken while trekking in the Blue Mountains. To me, this is a practice – a practice of patience, learning to see, and learning to blend in with the moment.
Nick Susatyo Sydney, Australia
On another subject, I came to photograph stray animals sort of by accident. One time, I travelled around Asia and lived in Singapore for a few months, and I was quite surprised at the interactions between people and stray animals – it’s almost appropriate to say that stray animals are a part of the street scenery. This was one thing that no one told me about, but it was something that I discovered, and that I immediately wanted to record.
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Having grown up in a relatively young metropolis like Los Angeles, I have always had a fascination for cities with architecture of a certain age. New York City, for example, is one of those places where some neighborhoods never change; the interiors may get renovated, the businesses might turnover, but the buildings are a testament to a bygone era. I moved to Seattle in the midst of a building boom – where older structures are being torn down to make room for their modern replacements. What catches my eye as I pass these old buildings, many in a state of dilapidation, are integral elements unique to a certain time period of urban architecture. There’s something beautiful and elegant in the simple graphic design of a window or fire escape, the patterns and texture of brickwork, the sinuous lines of exterior pipes, and other industrial hallmarks that will soon be lost or relegated to some random book on late 19th or early 20th century architecture. It’s ironic too, that Bauhaus Books and Coffee – a beloved café and Seattle landmark - with its image of Walter Gropius as you enter, will soon be torn down to make way for a new apartment and retail development despite vociferous protests.
Shannon McClatchey Seattle, Washington, USA
I purposely choose to shoot with a lo-fi Holga camera. The vignetting, light leaks, and other unknown variables that contribute to the ‘imperfectness’ of the image seem to resonate with the architecture. Documenting the changing ‘façade’ of the Seattle urban landscape, I wander with my camera to capture it all before it disappears.
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In this modern day and age everything around us becomes sophisticated to an extent that a simple task becomes too much a chore. Technological advancement is so quick, everyone is finding it hard to play catch-up. My work revolves around simplicity, as in the simplicity of life. There was a time where humans depended very little on technology, where life’s pace was slow, where everything was... simple. I find that the simplest of times is when people are often the happiest. I have placed an emphasis on capturing moments that do not reflect modern advancements, as I feel these interfere with the theme I’ve set out. Having been born and bred in a relatively modern and fast-paced city, it is without doubt that experiencing a rural, backwards country would enable me to compare what is defined as simplicity in both contexts.
Syafi Riduwan Singapore
I focused on people and objects of their everyday life, what revolves around their day to day dealings. I wasn’t set out to be a photographer, but my ability to connect with people and an eye for detail, thanks to education, have enabled me to engage in these photos.
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I’ve been an explorer at heart since I was a child. Memories of reading maps and playing in the woods until well after dark are often in my mind, but it wasn’t until late in my twenties that a strong sense of wanderlust came over me.
Cameron Kline Tokyo, Japan
After moving across the country in search of a new beginning, I realized that while I was gone, life at home continued and the world would not wait for me. Coming home for the holidays is a reminder that the life you remembered has been mothballed somewhere and a reflection on the authenticity of memory.
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It Is Never Not Now. This Zen-esque aphorism serves as a catalyst for a wide-ranging and on-going series of photos of my family, mostly made at or near our modest suburban home in Fair Oaks, California.
Daniel MacDonald Fair Oaks, California, USA
The choice of my firstborn daughter, Tallulah, as subject and muse for this collection is simultaneously the most obvious and potentially the most profound. In her I see reflected some of my own primal ingredients, which makes me feel these images are at least partially a form of self-portrait. But ultimately they are an attempt to record her divine essence coalescing towards the momentous fruition of maturity... the archetypal gesture of Life discovering Itself manifest and seizing the opportunity to Be.
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Mohammed Chakiri Oslo, Norway
I’m a nomad, a traveler, a seeker, a finder. In my pictures, I want to share the vibrations I pick up in my travels. I took these pictures during my travels across the United States—in New York, in D.C., in San Diego—with pro skateboarder Quim Cardona. In each image I’ve tried to communicate contrast between the subjects and their surroundings: each subject stands out from, or does not fit with where they are. I’m learning to find just this kind of contrast in every corner of the world and capture it on film.
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Vanessa Simpson Reno, Nevada, USA
I am a geographer by training with a deep love and appreciation for photography. The collection of photographs I have chosen to share here are the hybrid of my geographic and photographic experiences. These photographs were taken along the Pacific coast, the desert playas of the Great Basin, and the Sierra Nevada Mountains—all within four hours or less of my home, and each offering a unique geographic and photographic experience. Stopping, seeing, feeling, breathing and capturing the landscapes and urbanscapes of the western United States helps me to connect more intimately with my world and at the same time share it with others.
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Andy Kennelly Pasadena, California, USA
My goal is to use my camera to explore life; I want to discover myself through my images and shape my understanding of the world. Through this never-ending journey of discovery I hope to build new relationships, find new opportunities, and, most importantly, go on new adventures. I capture the unknown and unobserved, chasing the light within the shadows and telling the stories that might otherwise remain untold. In these pictures, I tried to capture rarely-viewed, exotic scenes and present them in an intriguing way—allowing the story of the landscape, skyline, or waterway to speak in vivid detail.
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JC Griffith Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, I often heard people say, “I wish I lived somewhere else.� At first I agreed with them, but as I got older I realized that there are some pretty great things going on in Cincinnati. We have a considerable amount of things to be proud of in southern Ohio: the big city and miles of fields, diverse people, and a great but mostly unnoticed music scene. Cincinnati (and all of the Midwest for that matter) really isn’t given the attention it deserves, and so I tried to give it that attention through the photographs shown here.
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Staci Kennelly Los Angeles, California, USA
My life is full of contrasts: the ups and the downs, the joys and the sorrows, the mundane and the extraordinary. I try to live in a real and meaningful way while holding these contrasts. My desire is to capture the beauty in the middle of life’s messiness. I want to invite the viewer to discover these contrasts with me: the soft and the harsh, the still and the moving, the round and the straight, the empty and the full. My hope is to capture the dance of this tension through my photography.
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We enjoy the mysterious quality film elicits and the opportunities it provides for experimentation, especially as a duo. For this project, we worked together to expose a roll of film in two historically, culturally, and geographically different places of the world: Minneapolis, Minnesota and Bern, Switzerland.
Sara Chars & Kristin Havercamp Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Our intention was to see how each shot taken influenced our content and composition in unique and different ways. After development we got to see our photos mixed with that of the other’s experience, the cities’ cultures, architecture, and people. These elements, particularly the contrasting architectural structures, create a juxtaposition of the historical and contemporary confined within the same plane. The layers compete for dominance of foreground space causing other areas to subside. These photos metaphorically represent the inevitability to experience something new and formerly secondhand without bringing part of what is already embedded in you. This may be a subconscious influence, but it still prevails and for this, everyone is predisposed at varying degrees of which everything else is relative.
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