Winner: Critical Mass Top 50, 2011
Wirschern Sisters' Christmas Dinner. 2011
Light Display. 2011
Happy Birt Jesus. 2011
Beyond the glowing green and red lights, past the shimmering silvery tinsel, around the fragrant pine boughs, another Christmas lingers, a Christmas of contradictions.
This Christmas is complex and at times, uncomfortable. It’s awkward and sometimes bleak. But it is also sincere and celebratory, colorful and creative.
This is the Christmas I capture in this first chapter of a photographic exploration of the biggest event on the American calendar. I grew up in a secular home and at times felt like a Christmas outsider, never connected to the holiday’s religious importance, or its more extreme cultural trappings. But in these photos, I become a Christmas insider, working to discover and reveal what holiday magic, or mania, compels so many to devote thousands of hours to hanging lights, to carving and painting figurines, to building miniature villages, to converting their homes, yards, garages and cars into monuments to merriness.
Initially inspired by the absurdity of a five story inflatable Santa who appeared to be guarding a tree lot, I have launched this survey of uniquely American Christmas traditions. “Christmas in America” is an unvarnished examination of the ways people mark the holiday’s meaning.
My apologies for the lack of news and blog posts. I have been traveling for a six weeks for portfolio events, show openings, and university guest lectures. I am proud to announce that Christmas In America: Happy Birthday, Jesus is a winner in Photolucida’s Critical Mass 2011. As I previously wrote, Critical Mass is an annual juried project competition and always a great source of inspiration. Over 200 international gallery owners, curators, publishers, and editors serve as jurors creating a unique level of exposure.
This year’s is no different. I am discovering photographers and projects not before seen, inspiring me with new narratives and a fresh aesthetic. Winners come from all corners of the globe and explore a wide variety of subjects with unique opinions and point of view. Below is a brief selection of work from fellow winners who I was unfamiliar with until now. I feel honored and excited to be in the same company.
Evgenia Arbugaeva
Tiksi is a small village located on a shore of Arctic ocean in Russia. It was built in USSR by people who believed in the future of the Arctic and were coming here from all over the country: scientists, explorers, the military. I was born in here and after fall of Soviet Union my family, as most of the population left Tiksi. But I could never forget this place with it’s vast tundra blown off with winds so strong that if you are a little girl it can easily pick you up and bring to places. My playground with stars during Polar night, lighthouse in a blizzard… This year I came back to my home village for the first time in twenty years. It was a journey to surreal childhood memories. Some people say that Tiksi will be closed in near future because it doesn’t serve a purpose anymore. Before that happened I wanted to capture this special place “in the middle of nowhere.
Playground #1
Playground#10
Playground#4
My new project is called Playground. The Netherlands have several training facilities where members of the Fire Brigade, the Police Force and the Ministry of Defense are trained and prepared for a wide range of possible scenarios. Within the boundaries of these grounds it’s all just practice or ‘play’. Outside of them however, things are a lot more serious. My aim was to capture these facilities and the people who are trained there. GHOST TOWN Training facilities like these have a very basic and functional design. Factories and houses have been recreated to make training conditions as realistic as possible, but unlike a real town they are completely devoid of any personal decorations or human touch. This makes for a completely surreal atmosphere like that of a ghost town. PROCEDURE I employed quite a static approach using a large format camera, a tripod and a cherrypicker, to position myself over the terrain. My aim was to get the best possible perspective on ‘the game’ inside a broad view of the training facilities. Light conditions were crucial in all of this, which meant I did not always get the desired result right away and in some instances had to return to the same position several times. I originally started out photographing at a training facility for industrial fire fighting in Rotterdam. These first images were framed in such a way as to create the illusion of reality. After gaining access to more and more of these types of facilities I gradually started distancing myself from the exercises that were taking place in front of me. I named my project Playground to emphasize the fact that different services get to practice various scenarios in a controlled environment without any real threat to the safety and lives of their personnel. This project addresses much more than just a few training facilities in The Netherlands. It is about risk-analysis, conformity in groups and my personal view of that hidden world.
Crosby, Liverpool. 5 and 7 April 2008. High water 12 noon, low water 9am
Harbour, Berwickshire. 22 August 2005. Low water 11am, high water 6pm
Perranporth, Cornwall. 29 and 30 August 2007. Low water 12 noon, high water 8pm
‘Sea Change’ is a study of the tides round the coast of Britain. The views in each diptych are taken from identical positions at low tide and high tide, usually 6 or 18 hours apart. I am interested in showing how landscape changes over time through natural processes and cycles. The camera that observes low and high tide side by side enables us to observe simultaneously two moments in time, two states of nature. Recent landscape photography has often focused on human shaping (and reshaping) of the environment – agriculture, urbanisation, globalisation, pollution. Even when this approach is critical and committed, it also serves to emphasise, even glamorise, humankind’s power over nature. I’m interested in rediscovering nature’s own powers: the elemental forces and processes that underlie and shape the planet. The tides are one of these great natural cycles. I hope these photographs will stimulate people’s awareness of natural change, of landscape as dynamic process rather than static image. Attending to earth’s rhythms can help us to reconnect with the fundamentals of our planet, which we ignore at our peril. ‘Sea Change’ also comments on climate change. The tide floods in and quickly recedes again, but rising sea levels will flood our shores and not recede for thousands or millions of years. Many of the views in these pictures may have disappeared in 100 years’ time. ‘Sea Change’ is an example of ‘comparative photography’, where two or more images show development in time (or other dimensions). The ‘rephotography’ of Mark Klett, and Nicholas Nixon’s portraits of the Brown sisters, are well-known examples.
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The series Glow explores the modern landscape we inhabit and the artificial light present within it. This bright, artificial and homogenous environment manages to seduce us with its strange, dream like quality – sheltering and comforting us from the darkness surrounding us. We may have breathed life into it, but for many of us this artificial light has always reassuringly been there, living almost independently of us, powered by a seemingly infinite energy source. It lives and breathes. Constantly consuming and growing, twenty-four hours a day. How can we take its presence for granted when we face increasing certainty within our own lives?
This was my first year to enter Critical Mass and have been very grateful for my recent success in the emerging fine art photography market. Congratulations to the winners who I recently had the privilege to meet and personally review their projects, Marry Ellen Bartley, Chris Cappy, and Mitch Dobrowner. A special thanks to Mary Virginia Swanson for her guidance, support and eternal enthusiasm.
