Hijacked on Flak Photo

Last week Andy Adams of Flak Photo fame was in New York and we finally got a chance to chat in person. Andy is a great guy and Flak Photo is proving to be an indispensable source for great photography content.

This month Flak Photo has been highlighting work from the photo book, Hijacked, Volume One. You definitely need to get your hands on a copy of Hijacked because it is gorgeous (and because I'm in it!). If you are looking for some additional motivation to purchase Hijacked, go to Flak Photo now to get a taste of some of the work featured in the book.

Second Issue of 1000 Words

© Anri Sala

The second issue of 1000 Words Magazine is now up. The theme is "Construct" and includes work by Thomas Demand, Anri Sala, Iosif Kiraly, Richard Learoyd, Indre Serpytyte and yours truly. It also includes some solid writing by Tim Clark, J. MacNeil Miller, Chas Bowie, Michael Grieve, Pedro J. Vicente Mullor and Jörg Colberg. Take a look.

Corey Arnold on NPR

© Corey Arnold

Corey Arnold is a great photographer who manages to marry the best parts of documentary and conceptual work to produce images that are uniquely his own. He is also on my shortlist of truly wonderful people in the world. Check out this nugget of audio and visual gold he just did with NPR.

Colin Blakely and 20x200

The Seeming Impenetrability of the Space Between © Colin Blakely

I have mentioned this image by Colin Blakely several times in the past. I gushed about it so much Colin was nice enough to send me a signed print last year.

Now you can own it via 20x200. And you must own it! It really is a gorgeous image and you can't beat the price.

MakingRoom Interview

Anna and Lily, Route 17, NY 2008 © Amy Stein

MarkingRoom is an online magazine that looks at the process of making images. The magazine is run by the wonderful Davin Risk who also writes the MakingRoom blog. Davin just posted an interview with me about my ongoing Stranded series.

Yesterday's Tomorrow Today!

Little know fact. Alec Soth uses this very same flash setup

I love the Modern Mechanix blog. The blog posts scanned articles from old Modern Mechanix magazines that feature everything from fabulously eccentric DIY weirdness to fantastical glimpses of a not-too-distant, but oh so clunky, future. They have a special section devoted to photography, but idiosyncratic insanity abounds behind every turn.

Thank You Fecal Face

Never thought I would utter that combination of words, but then again I never thought I would live to see someone named Barack Hussein Obama as the front runner to be the next president of the United States. Such is the wonderful world we live in. Fecal Face is a fabulous Bay area based Web site that covers and supports emerging arts and artists. In advance of my solo show that opens this weekend they were kind enough to interview me and post some of my work.

Also, check out a recent Web feature on Luminous Lint and another interview at The Land Salmon.

The Photographs Not Taken

Herman and Amy © Lenore Stein

By now you've probably seen many posts about The Photographs Not Taken. Will Steacy has collected essays from an amazing array of photographers about the time they couldn't or didn't take the photograph. Will asked me participate and I was obliged.

My parents are both deceased. I have many objects and papers of theirs that I keep around the house to help me remember moments and stay connected to who they were. Of all the things I have, photographs of my parents mean the most to me. When I take the time to look through the old albums I see many photos of me and my dad, but precious few of my mom. She was an amateur photographer and was always behind the lens.

I began to think about those pictures and the life I am creating now with my husband, John, who is probably the most camera shy person on earth. I don't know what he did in a past life that cast his fate to be married to a photographer, but here we are are. The wife that takes pictures and the husband that doesn't want his picture taken. When I consider all the photos of John that haven't been taken it seems like a threat to the assurance of our common memory.

I know that photographs are ultimately only evidence of moments real and fabricated and that true memory is more powerful than any snapshot. But, photographs are stimulant. They are trigger and catalyst to draw out our memories. The thought of not preserving that connection to our shared life leaves me with a profound sense of loss.

A Good Deal Just Got Great

Perry, Route 80, Kentucky 2005 © Amy Stein

Humble Arts Foundation is currently offering 20% off the price of their limited edition print selection. That means you can now get an even better deal on already ridiculously low priced prints by some great photographers. And, you will be supporting the fabulous work of the Humble Arts Foundation in the process. If you've always wanted to buy one of my photographs, now all you have to do is pony-up $300 for Perry, Route 80, Kentucky from my Stranded series. You better hurry and buy now, there are only three left!

UPDATE: Perry is now sold out, but photos by great photographers like Rachael Dunville, Dina Kantor, Corey Arnold, and Sarah Sudhoff are still available.

The Drawing Project

The first drawing available from Jason Polan's The Drawing Project

I am beginning to think that Jason Polan does not sleep. He produces amazing work at a ridiculous clip and manages a vast array of creative enterprises including the Taco Bell Drawing Club and his blog, The 53rd Street Biological Society. Now you can add The Drawing Project to his restlessly expanding portfolio. What is The Drawing Project, you ask? Jason says,

"I am starting a new project. There will be a drawing posted everyday. The drawing will be available for you to see and possibly have. The first person to request the drawing (send an email to art@jasonpolan.com with your name, the address to send the drawing, and the drawing number) will receive the drawing in the mail. The artwork will be posted on this website.Once the drawing has been claimed it will be noted within the post on the website. Each drawing on the site will be labeled on the reverse and limited to 1. There will be all different drawings (the first one is of a frog). I hope you enjoy the project. It begins right now."

New Stranded Photos Added to Google Map

Lori and Ron, Interstate 5, Oregon © Amy Stein

I've added some new photographs to my Stranded Google map from my most recent road trip through northern California and Nevada, southern Idaho, and Oregon. I really believe there are some winners here.

I am thinking about making another Stranded trip in the next couple of weeks. This time we may be hitting the highways of the Midwest looking for broken down motorists. I will keep you posted.

Art on the Cheap

© Younga Park

Jen Bekman has finally launched her new online venture, 20x200, and I quickly scooped up a $20 print by Amy Ross. It will be interesting to see how hungry the masses are for art in large editions at low prices, but I know I will keep coming back for more.

These days the Internet is chock full of opportunities to purchase photography by big names at well below market prices. Aperture and Blind Spot are the big names in cheap(ish) prints, but you should also check out the inventory at SF Camerawork, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, and The Photographers' Gallery.

Also, I would not be doing my duty as a working photographer and fan of Humble Arts Foundation if I didn't mention their limited edition prints collection, again. You can pick up a small-editioned print from my Stranded series for the ridiculously low price of $375. The print, Peri Route 80 Kentucky, was one of five photos from the Stranded series recently purchased by the West Collection, so what are you waiting for?

The big Wall Street collectors may be hurting these days, but that shouldn't stop us hoi polloi from getting into the game and start building our own collections.

Behind the Scenes of a Crewdson Shoot

© Gregory Crewdson

Boston.com features a photo and text slide show behind the scenes of a recent Crewdson shoot in Pittsfield, MA. With massive budgets and a crew of over thirty that includes grips, a lighting team, interns, models, firemen, and police it's spooky how similar your typical Crewdson shoot resembles one of my shoots.

Smart guy award goes to Pittsfield local, Robert "Skube" Skubel, who Crewdson cast to be in one of the eleven photographs he will be making during his time in the town. "Skube" was savvy enough to ask for a print instead of a model fee.

One Man's Garbage Can Project

© Jonathan Gitelson

The fabulously creative and altogether wonderful human being that is Jonathan Gitelson just launched his latest masterwork, The Garbage Can Project. You have probably seen Jon's previous work like the brilliant The Car Project or his clever posters. The Garbage Can Project was born from his need to explore the mysterious motivations behind the continued theft of garbage cans outside his home. Says the Git:

The project began because of the frequent theft of the garbage carts in front of my apartment building. In December 2005 I began to keep a daily photo diary of the carts and of any unusual material left on or around them. In October 2006, I began filming the garbage carts twenty-four hours a day.

Each morning I view the footage from the previous day, creating digital video clips of any instances of people interacting with the carts. It has turned out to be surprisingly compelling seeing what can happen in a day in the life of a garbage cart.

The site has all of the data that I have collected since December of 2005 and it will be updated every day with new videos and photographs.

I still have no idea why people keep stealing our garbage carts, or what possible uses they have for them. I hope to uncover this mystery as The Garbage Can Project continues.

Keep checking back to his site for updates. And, if you are the one currently stealing Jonathan's garbage cans, keep it up you beautifully trashy muse.

Found Stranded Photo

Found photo via cigarettesandpurity by way of Big Happy Funhouse.

Stranded Google Map

© Amy Stein

For the Road Trip show at Mixed Greens Gallery I have put together a Google Map of my Stranded series. 61 photographs from the series are marked on the map to show the location where the pictures were taken. My hope is that this will lend more geographical context to the photographs and highlight the breadth of the Stranded series. I will continue to add images to the map as I take more road trips across the US.

Natural Disaster as Visual Metaphor

On Gallery Hopper, Todd Walker points to an award winning anti-smoking campaign that uses Robert Polidari's Katrina photos to make a visual metaphor to the body of a smoker. As Todd mentions, the whole idea of tragedy as art is off-putting to begin with, but this campaign takes it down a rung on the good taste-ladder.

The effectiveness of this campaign relies on the target audiences' lack of knowledge about the origin of the photos. They are merely photos of dirty and upturned homes, not controversial images from ground zero of the greatest natural disaster in the history of the US. In making the choice to compare the flood ravaged homes of the working poor to the body of smokers, the creatives made the choice to negate the experience of the individual homeowners and all the residents of the Gulf Coast affected by Katrina.

Don't get me wrong. Cigarettes are a major public health problem and I am a fan of innovative campaigns that manage to break through the clutter to address individual use and expose the evil nature of the industry. But, this campaign trades a disaster for a problem and in the process manages to devalue both.

Am I overreacting or does this rub you the wrong way, too?

I Have Arrived

© Amy Stein 2007

Awards, shows, publications, print sales... All hollow rewards while you wait patiently for the true measure of art world success, a mention on Modern Art Obsession. Today, I feel like I have been actualized. MAO finally mentioned me and my work!

Pro or Con?

© Amy Stein 2002

An interesting discussion about my Women and Guns series is taking place on the bulletin board, TheHighRoad.org. The site says that it is "dedicated to the discussion and advancement of responsible firearms ownership." Ignoring the thread about the quality of the photos (they kick ass, thank you), the members of The High Road can't seem to decide if the photos are anti-gun. Do you see a bias in the photos or is their debate and confusion a product of our current red vs. blue, with-us-or-against-us social discourse?

This Blog Thing

I started this blog thing a year ago mainly as a means to post periodic updates about my emerging photography career. At the time I was knee deep in grad school, so I wasn't so much emerging as abiding. Over the months I started posting one-off photos and work that didn't quite make it into the portfolio. I also began to write a little less about my favorite subject (me!) and a little more about shows, other people's work, politics, and other random bits that struck me as worthy of a lonely shout out into the tubes of the Internet.

One thing I've learned over the last year is that writing daily content is hard work. I do have some Web creds -- back in the day I was Executive Producer for a political Web site called Policy.com -- but my writing muscle has atrophied a bit and finding the time to gather my thoughts and consider words is no easy task these day. (Another thing I've learned is that if you want to increase your site traffic overnight, write about Britney Spears.)

So, what's the point of this ramble? Well, given my original ambitions and my deeply latent skills as a writer, I find it amazing that anyone actually reads this blog, let alone the hundreds of people who apparently read it daily. I am blown away that people far cooler than I like ArtKrush would put this site on their list of favorite photography blogs. Or that people far more established in the ways of photography have decided to make this site a habit. What's more amazing is the community of similarly minded people I have managed to tap into because of this site. I have met some truly fabulous and talented people who are writing, snapping, creating, doing, and sharing amazing things all over this globe.

Crazy.

All because of this blog thing.