Detroit Wonderland

This photo was taken in the old Packard Plant in Detroit.  The factory once sprawled over 35 acres and today it’s a crumbling shell where lichen and trees have taken hold.  Endless corridors that once flowed with rivers of shiny new parts and pieces are now filled with broken glass, plaster, cement, steel and wood.
We [...]

Read Full Post »

Tales from the Motor City

Just back from the Motor City where I spent most of my time marveling at and taking pictures of the ruins — the Michigan Theater and the Packard Plant stand out — not to mention all the boarded up store fronts, foreclosed homes and tiny, lone houses surrounded on all sides by urban prairie.
Detroit has [...]

Read Full Post »

Lines in the Sand

SF photographer Sean McFarland’s Polaroid landscapes are streaked with movement, traced with the remnants of a human or a natural footprint — whether it’s a twister touching down, a small biplane scuttling above the earth or a sentimental starburst of light in an ocean sunset. His night scenes have the otherworldy dislocation of a day-for-night [...]

Read Full Post »

Suburbia

Doug Rickard (or dR as he calls himself) has gathered a striking collection of essays and photos on his website American Suburb — everyone from Eggleston and the Bechers to Todd Hido, Mike Brodie, Larry Sultan, David Maisel and lesser-known artists. The theme that runs through it all  is the loneliness and alienation of that [...]

Read Full Post »

The Last Days of W.

Stephen Wirtz Gallery is showing Alec Soth’s photo series, “The Last Days of W.“  I wrote the exhibit up for Flavorpill:
As W. heads back to Crawford for good, he leaves behind memories both pathetic and dire — flying size 10s, bungled phrases, and premature Mission Accomplished banners underscore the outrages of Abu Ghraib and Katrina. [...]

Read Full Post »

Twilight Zone

Pearls often wash up on the dashboard of my blog; among all the traffic data, I often look to see where people are coming from.  A photographer in Portland, Missy Prince, linked to my blog from her photo diary.  With the lush title Now It’s Dark, Prince’s journal features a steady stream of muted, dusky [...]

Read Full Post »

Everything in Our Apartment

This might look like a page from a J. Crew catalog, but in fact it’s a clever photographic experiment called “Sort” that appeals to the collector, the organizer as well as the photographer in me. Not to mention I love any excuse to group things visually by color (see Etsy, lynda, Crayola).
Paho Mann, a [...]

Read Full Post »

Behind the Scenes

Taryn Simon’s photo project, “An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar,” answers questions most of us wouldn’t even know to ask.
Does Playboy publish a Braille version of its magazine? Yes. Did the CIA use Abstract Expressionism to advance pro-American thought abroad? Perhaps. What happens to all the forbidden fruit brought into the US on [...]

Read Full Post »

Tear Down This Wall

With elections around the corner, it seemed appropriate to bring up Swiss artist Simone Niquille whose photographic mashups scramble the images and discourse of politics.
Her altered photos offer degraded versions of historic moments, once filled with import but now just static memories where the words and gestures of politicians break up and disappear.
In this photo [...]

Read Full Post »

Bringing the War Home

In her unsettling photo collages Martha Rosler combines domestic images with snapshots of war. 60s housewives pull the blinds back on soldiers in trenches while teenagers with cell phones yammer as explosions go off behind them. The New York Times recently published a video slide show of her work.

Read Full Post »