Loves Category

When she’s not teaching math to sixth graders, creating jerking animated GIFs or compiling tactile collages, chances are Austin-based photographer Abbey Lee Sarver is packing her bags and planning her next getaway.

The 26 year old graduate of Philadelphia’s Tyler School of Art credits the internet with inspiring her and strives to capture with her camera the infinite wonder of the natural world.

“I have been moving around a lot since graduating from college,” Abbey tells us, “And the nomadic mindset and lifestyle is a big part of who I am. I’ve gone from living in a soap factory in Philadelphia to a few different farms in southern Oregon and a place called the Solar Ark in northern New Mexico. I ended up in Texas. I tried settling down in Albuquerque because I am so drawn to the geography of New Mexico and the desert, but Albuquerque sort of sucks as a young creative place.”

Amongst intimate images of her friends and loved ones lie Abbey’s greatest visual feats: images emphasizing human’s infinitesimal presence on Earth.

“I have been working with landscapes, often with a lone dwarfed figure somewhere thrown in there. The idea of drowning one’s ego. It feels so good to realize how inconsequential you are, when all your life you’re bombarded with the feeding of your ego. I started that formula when i was in college and had access to 4×5 cameras. I took lots of photographs in the strip malls in the northeast. The idea that the most expansive space out there is a parking lot. Then I drove out to the west a few times and realized there is large enough natural space that has the power to squash anxieties. I can’t get enough of the western US. Right now I’m looking for a space to make more work—I want to buy a camper or trailer to put in my backyard and use it as an art studio. That way if I want to move, it won’t feel like I have to pack up everything and restart.

I am currently trying to settle down more to make larger works and take my art more seriously. I found Austin, TX to be chill enough to stay for a while, but there is no mountain here for me to escape to so I might have to move again soon.”

Dusdin Condren is one of the rare cases whose lack of an education in photography is evident in his work—in the best way possible. There is nothing contrived or formal in the New York photographer’s grainy and raw analog images of people lost in the wilderness and absorbed in their own melancholy.

We spoke to Dusdin recently about his surprising career shift and the affect the internet has on his work.

When did you start taking pictures? What was it about the medium that made you want to pursue it?
I started taking pictures when I was in graduate school in California. I was doing lots of reading and writing and proposing and defending, focused on some pretty arcane subjects (early 20th Century Russian / Soviet theatre) and spending most of my time in libraries and dark little rooms. In order to relax in my free time I wanted something that was totally non-verbal, an activity that was both immediate and required very little analysis – and this was how I saw photography at the time. I had been interested in cameras for a while but had never been serious about them, then I came across a couple cameras in used stores—a Canon FTb and a Polaroid 100—and I ordered a Holga online. I started experimenting with these, taking walks and shooting and later taking portraits of actor friends and I really got into it. I loved the tactile, physical experience of making the exposure, but probably loved the process of getting the film developed, scanning, editing and “putting it up online” even more. So around late 2007 I gave up on my PhD and gradually photography became the main thing I thought about. Now it’s my primary pursuit and has been for the last couple years.

What would you say is the biggest influence on your work?
I have no idea what my biggest influence is, other than “the internet”. It comes from a slew of things: location, what I’m reading, other artist’s work (especially if I know them personally), conversations with friends, working closely with my girlfriend, particularities of the cameras I’m attracted to. But this process of influence is a pretty imperceptible thing most of the time—it’s hard to look at myself and see it happening. I feel like so much of what I do is really situational. The other night I was walking home late from the subway and came across a dead cat on the edge of the sidewalk—it looked really healthy, as if it were just sleeping, except that there was a trail of blood leading from it back out into the road and as I got closer to it I saw that one of its eyes was dangling out onto the sidewalk. I stood next to it for a while, not sure what to do, feeling terrible and then realized I ought to call the sanitation department or whoever it is that is supposed to take care of dead animals. It’s embarrassing to admit, but it kind of shook me up, and I don’t think it was because I would hate to see something like that happen to my own cat, but for a lot of other, bigger reasons that I’ve been mulling over since then. My impulse wasn’t to take a shocking photo of the dead cat—clearly I don’t have anything nearly so grim in my work right now—but unplanned moments like this tend to have a big bearing on my aesthetic, whether it happens consciously or unconsciously.

What do you like to do when you’re not taking pictures?
When I’m not taking pictures, I read a lot and I spend a lot of time on Netflix. I’m usually reading two or three books at a time because I’m a little disorganized. Right now I’m reading John Berger’s “About Looking”, Paul Virilio’s “Art and Fear”, and I just finished “The Spy Who Came In From The Cold” by John Le Carré. I also translated a book by Leo Tolstoy that was published last year.

How does the place that you live affect the pictures you take?
Location plays a big part in the photos I take. Before moving to NYC, I hadn’t lived in any one spot for longer than three years at a time since I was a kid. And now I’ve been here for five years. New York is really complicated—sometimes it feels like a pretty inspiring place to take photographs and other times it feels completely oppressive and limiting. There’s nothing like traveling or living somewhere else temporarily to reinvigorate my work. In the last several years I’ve gone for short stays in places like Kraków, and Berlin, but have also gotten into the habit of taking little trips to Long Island, Upstate, Massachusetts, wherever—because a very disproportionate amount of my best work happens when I’m traveling. I think it has very little to do with the specifics of those places or how picturesque they may be—it’s much more to do with disarming myself, decalcifying my vision, something like that. Feeling out of place or unsteady, feeling alien, I think, usually makes for an interesting way of looking. My work is a pretty equal combination of formal, studio-style work and stuff taken from the course of daily life and I think that, on both ends of that spectrum, trying to find a healthily alienated place to work from always makes the photographs better.

What are your favorite people, places and things to take pictures of?
Speaking generally, my favorite person to photograph is the person who isn’t very comfortable being photographed. A lot of portrait subjects don’t necessarily relish having to sit for photographs and I like working through that atmosphere of awkwardness or anxiety to find something essential and intimate. But if we’re talking about specific people, my favorite person to photograph is my partner Carolyn. That’s a totally different thing because she is quite comfortable in front of the camera—I’m lucky not only to live with a person who is willing to be photographed over and over again and often when she’d probably rather be doing something else but more importantly, a person who can look at my work, whether she’s in it or not, with a pretty sharp editorial eye. My favorite place to photograph right now is inside other people’s apartments. The concept of ‘feeling alien’ applies here as well. I have a portrait shoot this weekend at what is purported to be a “cool apartment on the Upper West Side” and I couldn’t be more excited.

At just 20 years old, Californian art student Ryan Halliwill is new to the world of photography, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at his intimate, sun-drenched homages to Hollywood.

“I started taking photos about two years ago when I got a film camera from a Church rummage sale,” Ryan told us. “I have always liked photography mainly because it’s easily accessible. Over the years though, I have tried to become more aware of the many capabilities of photography so I can create better images.”

Ryan’s images of the Hollywood Hills, beaches and Disneyland—all iconic west coast visages—are contrasted with his shots of the impressive natural monuments that surround him. These photos of forests, lakes and mountains are then juxtaposed in his portfolio with the inherently man-made collages he creates with photographs and clippings.

When I’m not taking pictures I love making collages and going on adventures around town or in the country side. I live in a somewhat rural area so its fun to go out towards the Mountains and foothills to just walk mindlessly on the trails.

There are many things that influence me including spiritual human contact, the future, nature, how objects move in space. But the biggest influence is probably the mysteries within a society or culture. We live day to day in our culture and think we understand it but yet there are many things that we overlook and never fully comprehend.

In the portfolio of Shanghai-born, New York-based artist Shen Wei, you will see his perspective on his native China, strong self-portraits of the artist—usually completely nude—and disarming images of residents of both China and the United States in varying states of undress. The latter—a series called ‘Almost Naked’—examines the relationship people of all ages and creeds have to their sexuality, sentiments that are precisely and gently captured with Shen’s camera.

A graduate of New York’s School of Visual Arts, Shen has seen his work featured in publications like Aperture and The New Yorker, and in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection. We spoke with Shen about his work’s focus on the human body and his relationship both to his own physicality and sexuality and to his home country.

When and why did you start taking pictures? What was it about the medium that made you want to pursue it and call yourself a photographer?

I never owned a camera until I moved to the United States in the year 2000. Photography and fine art was a completely new concept for me. I was instinctually attracted by the art surrounding me, things I had no chance to see when I was living in China. I started my study of photography when I took my first photo class at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. I was fascinated by the process of photography, both mechanically, physiologically, and of course, artistically. I was drawn into the idea of capturing the reality, the details in life and time. It is still an abstract feeling of why I want to be an artist. I think I just want to follow my heart to do what I love.

Can you tell me a little about the series ‘Chinese Sentiment’? What was your relationship to the country like before you worked on this series? What is it like now?

‘Chinese Sentiment’ is a complicated personal journey for me to not only reconnect with China, but at the same time rediscover China and retrieve my memories of China. It is indeed my dreamy nostalgic ballad of China. I moved to the United States in 2000 when China began its economic boom. I felt very much disconnected from China when I was studying in the US. Every time when I read and saw something about China in the newspaper and on television, it seemed like everything was changing so fast and so dramatically. It made me want to explore and travel in China and to see the change with my own eyes. I have enormous curiosity about this new modern China as well as the authentic and traditional China in my memory. Making this project is a life-changing experience. Growing up in Shanghai I have never imagined I could travel so far and so deep within China, to see the people and the life that is extremely remarkable in its beauty and touching feeling.

After working on ‘Almost Naked’, what can you tell us you learned about the differences between expressions of nudity and sexuality in America and China?

Obviously the expressions of nudity and sexuality are very different in America and China. Because of their differences in history, culture, education, and many other elements, the contrasts are remarkable. Chinese are much more humble, conservative and cautious, while Americans are open-minded and more casual about nudity. This was particularily true at least with the models I had associated with. I had many great experiences working with models from both countries. For me, everyone is different and intriguing in their own different ways. Beside the cultural differences, everyone has their own story to tell and that is what makes the experience of doing ‘Almost Naked’ so remarkable for me.

Leslie Kirchhoff‘s lifestyle—that of it we see shared on her blog and Flickr account, at least—is the very definition of enviable. The 20-year-old photographer divides her time between Paris and New York, where she studies fashion and media at NYU, all the while working as a photographer and art producer at Vogue.

The Gen Y equivalent of Garance Doré, Leslie’s images capture perfectly the romanticism of being young in two of the world’s greatest cities. Whether she’s capturing the streets of SoHo, the cafés of Paris or the indistinguishable balconies that populate both her homes, her pictures exude a sense of style and sophistication. Despite her occupation, though, fashion is not technically essential to her images.

“Both [fashion and photography] influence each other I suppose,” she told us. “And sometimes neither influence each other. I honestly don’t put a ton of effort into how I dress sometimes, and sometimes my photos have nothing to do with fashion.”

For Leslie, whose talent for capturing visuals also extends into video, her surroundings play a huge role in both her pictures and her career.

“New York City is very photogenic. Everything from the streets to the buildings and parks, to the inside of apartments. And there’s such easy access to other people that are involved in it too, like models and stylists and other photographers.”

Despite her clinical introduction to photography—fulfilling an arts credit requirement in high school—20 year-old Samantha McKee‘s approach to her craft is filled with passion, experimentation and playfulness.

I went into the class with nothing special in mind except for the need to acquire a passing grade. But once I started with photography, I never wanted to put down the camera. There was something special about capturing a specific moment in time that moved me and made me pursue the craft. My basic need to pass the high school course was overridden with a much higher need to capture a little bit of the world and pin it down.

The Seattle native is studying at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where the visages she’s met with each day outweigh her fascination with capturing people in intimate portraits.

The place I live always affects the pictures I take. When I am at home in Seattle, I tend to take lots of photos of people and animals. But when I am away at school in Scotland, I love to take photos of the landscape. The history behind every little piece of building or sloping hills is so significant that I can’t help but snap away at them. I love taking photos of landscape and animals because you get to see the beauty of the world printed out for you and you get to hold onto that forever.

The story of photographer Alana Paterson‘s childhood is one that is just as engrossing as the works she produces as a result of it. The current resident of Portland, Oregon grew up on a small island off the west coast of Canada with her immediate family—and no-one else. Her connectedness to her environment is evident in the picturesque portraits and landscapes she captures, and her camera rarely ventures indoors.

“Where I’m from plays a huge role in how and what I communicate as it does for everyone; whether you’re from the jungle or the desert,” she tells us. “As someone from the pacific north west has an affinity to natural spaces, I’m from the western gulf islands so from day one it’s all I’ve known.”

A graduate of both Emily Carr and Lesley Universities, Alana’s work is like a visual journal, intimately documenting the places she goes and the people she meets, with little of her experiences left out.

“A lot of my life is present [in my work],” Alana explains, “The only parts missing are the boring bits, like updating websites and emailing clients, being stuck in traffic. Also the ones that are just too beautiful or meaningful to catch on film. They exist and it’s hard for me—and I would guess other photographers of the same genre have the same problem—to let go of some things I see, not always being frantic to get an image or spoil a beautiful moment with a camera. I’m learning that you can’t capture it all and to be okay with that.

“My favorite things to shoot are people I love—as cheesy as that sounds. I like to shoot the little idiosyncrasies that make up who they are, the little things you can’t notice about a person untill you have spent a lot of time with them.”

Currently, Alana is working on a long-term project that she’s been working on for the past three years: a series on the organic farm where she spends her summers working. While it often means her career as a photographer is put on hold while she’s immersed in this world, it enables her to actively pursue something that makes up so much of her life.

“It can be really hard being out there knowing I’d have way more photographic work if I was living in Vancouver or able to travel more. But it’s also a really great job I’m lucky to have and growing is something I’m passionate about. I guess that project is where the two halves of my life can meet.”

Nineteen year-old science student Sabrina Melanson has amassed, in the two years since she first picked up a digital camera, a huge following online of people appreciating her specific and prolific look into what it means to be a teenage girl today. Montreal-based Sabrina’s milky white skin features in many of her images, as do signifiers of ballet, flowers, animals and other ideas surrounding traditional feminine energy. For Sabrina, photographing herself and the world around her is her way of sharing her single view on both of these things.

“I started [making pictures] because I was tired of the way the people around me viewed the world,” she explained to us. “I wanted to try to change their perspective, bring light to the small little treasures in life. With my camera, I was able to do that.

“My favorite person to take pictures of is myself. That sounds so bad, but I deal with social anxiety and I feel most calm when I’m alone. I also find it a whole lot easier to take pictures of my ideas for they are clear in my mind.”

Sydney-based photographer Sarah Louise Adamson‘s work is tied inherently to the human condition, having been initiated as the result of a negative side of humanity and existing as a way to explore it.

“I never had a huge passion at a young age for photography, film or any of that,” she told us, “I transferred from beginner’s French to art late in high school because the teacher was a mad creep so maybe that helped a bit. I think it is more my interest in people and capturing them that is more my fascination rather than the art itself.”

The 24-year-old, who is also a graphic designer and musician, has busied herself exploring the nature of people and how we exist both alone and with each other. Her ongoing series ‘Let Them Smoke’, particularly, is a response to what it means to live in the contemporary world.

“[It] began as I was thinking about all the disasters, man made and natural, that were going on. It seems every second week there was something major going on. As I kept thinking about it, and as I was reading the bible, the idea was clear to me that humanity is so fragile, and that our fragility doesn’t change. I think that I was only aware of our human condition when it was magnified through a disaster but I guess I wanted to explore that at any moment anything could happen. That idea could then make us reflect on the way that we view ourselves, that perhaps we aren’t as in control of our lives as we thought.”

It was from visiting tourist spots while living in San Francisco that New York-based photographer Justin James King came to create And Still We Gather With Infinite Momentum, a series that depicts tourists visiting great sights on the west coast, which have been blacked out from the images, so all that is left is their experiences encountering nothingness.

“I’ve always been interested in the way people move through and around a given space,” King—who arrived at photography after using the medium to capture the sculpture work he was creating at the time—told us, “I used to visit heavily touristed spots around San Francisco, watching the way people gathered at certain designated “scenic viewing areas.” I would watch the way they all wanted to stand in the same spots and sometimes there would be subtle competition to get to those perfect viewing angles–not dissimilar to finding the “best” seat in a movie theater.

“I started thinking about how different their experiences must be from each other, both personally and culturally. I tried to imagine what they might be seeing (and thinking), and thought about what I was seeing too as I looked out at the same landscapes. My conclusion was that I didn’t “see” the landscape at all, but what I did see was solely an interpretation and a projection of that interpretation. The possibilities seemed infinite. If the way we see and understand the world is shaped by our individual experience then it is impossible to truly see the landscape without the filter of culture and history.”

When it comes to his influences, King cites Ingmar Bergman’s Persona as one of his earliest connections with film as a relative of photography. The film, he tells us, made him “simultaneously aware of both the limitations and the possibilities in a frame of film. Scenes where the director allowed the image to get completely out of focus and abstract—just light and shadow—are still very memorable.”

Another driving force behind his work is controversial Australian photographer Bill Henson, who selected King’s work for an exhibition called ‘Capture the Fade’ at Sydney’s Paper Mill Gallery in late 2010.

“I was honored when Bill Henson selected my work for the ‘Capture The Fade’ show. He’s someone whose work consciously uses space to allow for possibilities. It’s those possibilities that make some viewers uncomfortable with his work, because whatever they decide to see and project about themselves and the world influences their interpretation. I wouldn’t say he’s a direct influence, but his ability to allow for self-projection and a sense of mystery is something I hope to have in my own work.”