Portraiture: the Paradoxes and Politics of Looking - Essay by Rebecca Horne Paradoxes lie at the heart of great photographic portraits. We know a photograph can’t actually "capture" anything essential about people in the photographs. More often what we are seeing is powerfully influenced by context, our own biases and preferences and those of the photographer. Intellectually, we are aware that we can’t know a person from simply looking at them, much less from a mute photograph. Another paradox in portraiture is connected to our basic humanity—the fact that how we look is not how we feel. Who is doing the looking is important too. My professor, photographer Dawoud Bey was the first to really impress upon me how formal portrait photography could be both artfully disruptive and socially important. Bey’s book of portraits—published by Aperture—Class Pictures, is one I've gone back to again and again. Muholi has collapsed the role of the subject and the photographer into one, directing and simultaneously offering herself up intimately. —Rebecca Horne
Good Things Come Together - Photographs and text by Jordi Pizarro This great portrait photography series was selected as a finalist in the LensCulture Exposure Awards 2015. Discover more inspiring work from all 31 of the winners and finalists. In Kodinhi, a small town in southern India, good things come in twos. Each year, a veneration ceremony is held in the small Christian church, where hundreds of identical twins congregate in celebration of their "double identity" at the feet of St. They say that our memories are the architecture of our identity. We live in an age of digital photography where the perfect-quality image is often void of time. The pictures allow you to linger in a mysterious place between fantasy and reality. —Jordi Pizarro
Call for Submissions: Photos Taken at 'Magic Hour' Woman on a balcony, Tripoli, Lebanon © Vianney Le Caer “Magic Hour” is typically defined as the first and last of the day, when the sun approaches the horizon, casting an indirect and ineffable glow over the earth and its inhabitants. For our latest group show, we’re not looking for a subject or a place; instead, we’re looking for an elusive and enchanted moment in time. Send us your photos taken during “magic hour!” This group show will be curated by Alison Zavos, Editor-in-Chief at Feature Shoot. To submit, email up to five images (620 pixels wide on the shortest side, saved for web, no borders or watermarks) titled with your name and the number of the image (ex: yourname_01.jpg) to fsgroupshow (at) gmail (dot) com with “Magic Hour” in the subject line. You may also submit via Instagram simply by following @featureshoot and posting your images using the hashtag #magichourfs. Deadline for submissions is March 10, 2016. Squarespace is a Feature Shoot sponsor.
Behnaz Babazadeh -Self-Portraits -Burqas Made of Candy Gummy Bears Fruit by the Foot Years ago, a young lady named Behnaz Babazadeh showed up to her school in the United States wearing a burqa. Her mother had told her she didn’t have to wear it and even feared the other children would mock her for it, but the child likes her hijab and decided to wear it anyway. When she arrived at the doors, the security guard told her she would not be allowed inside unless she removed the fabric from around her face. Many years have elapsed, and Babazadeh is now a photographer, but that moment will remain imprinted in her mind forever. In response to the denial of that connection, as seen in much of the Western media coverage surrounding the burqa, Babazadeh creates Burqaphilia, in which she drapes her own body in burqas made of candy. Here, the Western fixation on sugary confections meets the Middle Eastern tradition of the burqa, which can be traced back to centuries before the garment was tied to religious ideals. Cotton Candy Sour Worms via TED
Poetic Landscapes Marry the Earth and the Female Body The White Sands of New Mexico stretch for hundreds of miles in either direction. As the sun sets over the dunes, the once-burning sand cools, bears only the footprints of three women. London-based photographers Eleanor Hardwick and Rachel Hardwick and Seattle-based Chrissie White sit bundled together for warmth until daybreak, when they can set out once more across the empty terrain. For their book Celestial Bodies, the trio embarked on a 28-day road trip throughout eight of the Western United States. Leaving behind the city streets, they set out in their Subaru, traversing more than 10,000 miles of open land and fickle weather. They slept where they could, in motels and in tents. They were lost countless times, their plans thwarted by fate and artistic impulse. Says Eleanor Hardwick, “Photography became the torch that guided us to these places where we could play.” Purchase Celestial Bodies here. All images © Chrissie White, Eleanor Hardwick, and Rachel Hardwick
Tomasz Liboska - Polish Re-Enactors Krzysztof with daughter, Wehrmacht soliders Marek, Native American On the outside, these Polish houses look unremarkable, but step inside, and you’ll find a Roman legionary from the First Century C.E., a samurai from medieval Japan, and a soldier from the armed forces of Nazi Germany. At least that’s what photographers Tomasz Liboska and Michal Jedrzejowski discovered when the embarked on a journey through space and time as resurrected by the country’s many re-enactors and hobbyists. The photographers held no interest in capturing the stereotypical shots of historical role play enthusiasts at fairs and festivals. Becoming a warrior of any kind, explains Liboska, is a true labor of love. Once the clothes are put on, the re-enactors become someone else entirely. When asked about the political and social implications of the costumes, Liboska stresses that these activities are “not controversial at all” when the whole picture comes to light. Robert, Roman legionary solider Jozef, Cowboy
Aaron Tilley - Anxious anticipation Adrenaline, explains writer Jordan Kushins in Issue 19 of Kinfolk Magazine, settles in not while we find ourselves in the midst of crisis but the moment beforehand; it’s the anticipation, not the actual event that gives us a chemical high. To illustrate this phenomenon, London-based photographer Aaron Tilley teamed up with set designer Kyle Bean to create In Anxious Anticipation, a series of images meant to induce our bodies into mimicking a primitive and instinctual flight, fight, or freeze response. Rather than pursuing the obvious images associated with the anxiety hormone, Tilley chose to translate the effects of adrenaline in pristine still lifes. The word “still life” itself might not in fact be accurate in describing these pictures, in which inanimate objects are frozen precariously in the exact moment before some horrible and irrevocable event. All images © Aaron Tilley and Kyle Bean for Kinfolk Magazine
George Popescu - Mauritanian Desert Train One is free to travel on top of the iron ore train that crosses the Sahara desert from the mine at Zouérat, in northern Mauritania, to Nouadhibou harbor, on the Atlantic coast of West Africa, as seen on 1st of September 2015. The travelers, usually traders that transport food and live animals, have to endure strong winds and temperatures that can reach 50 degrees Celsius in the summer, during the 20-hour trip. A donkey is loaded using ropes while other two donkeys wait to be boarded on top of a train loaded with iron ore that crosses the Sahara desert from the mine at Zouérat, in northern Mauritania, to the Nouadhibou harbor, on the Atlantic coast of West Africa, as seen on 1st of October 2015. It’s free to travel for the traders that transport food and livestock, but they have to endure a 20-hour trip with periods of strong wind and temperatures that can reach 50 degrees Celsius in the summer. Passengers without tickets ride open-top in the train wagons. All images © George Popescu
Portraits of Adolescence - Hellen van Meene Dutch artist Hellen van Meene is widely known for her distinctive style of photographic portraiture and her exceptional use of light. In her timeless photographs, young women and men are depicted as if they were under some sort of spell, stuck between their vulnerability and discomfort, as well as a latent sense of solemn grace. When we look at her work, wordlessly, we are plunged into the lives of these strange yet delicate characters, captivated by their silent stories. What is the hidden secret behind the subjects' postures and facial expressions? Are these ambiguous, yet intimate, moments masterfully staged, or unself-conscious poses? We first discovered her work thanks to the insight of the LensCulture Insider (and GUP Magazine Editor-at-Large) Erik Vroons. Below that, we have also included a short interview that we conducted with van Meene ourselves—an interview which touches on her photography, her style, and, of course, the eternal challenge of making strong portraiture. Interview