04 April 2012

FotoFest 2012 | Chapter VI: Monday Afternoon



Cale Merege from his series Seekers

 Evanescence

 Feeling the glow of FotoFest now, really hitting my stride in finding simpatico space with visitors to the table. Even those whose work doesn't seem likely to stay with me still elicits useful commentary (or so it seems from my side).
  • Ryan Zoghlin - a true photographic polyglot - we worked hard to find a terse, descriptive phrase that would encompass all of his projects and interests - from objets d'oeil (sorry, Francophones) to images of automated tellers, from power plants and other less-then-desirable backyard neighbors to cyanotypes of surfers and orotones of stunt planes (he calls them "Aerotones," naturally), Ryan is wondrously inventive and productive - treat yourself to a browse around his site  link
  • Cale Merege - Seekers - concise, enigmatic assessments of humanity versus urbanity - "portraits" offering visual equivalents of estrangement, alienation, ambiguity, and anonymity within modern cities  link
  • Lisa Elmaleh - a fresh pair of eyes brought to bear on an ancient topic, the landscape of the Everglades - a la Ben Dimmick earlier this trip, and Stuart Rome (the carpetbagger from Philadelphia) last year, encountering the dilemma of visualizing overgrowth and finding resolve amidst chaos - Lisa may be seeking traces of her photographer father - she is not doing this the easy way, or even his way; she's using wet-plate collodion, and making grandly expressive silver prints  that reflect an entirely different perspective from the two elder male visions noted before  link
  • Sarah Sampedro - finally, a Minnesotan! - happy to make time at day's end for someone I know is around the Twin Cities but has made the significant effort and investment to get to Houston for the event - Sarah's multi-faceted, self-reflexive investigations into motherhood and family life are poignant and intense  link

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