Mel Kadel

Mel Kadel used to skip school in Pennsylvania where she grew up. She went to art school in Philly, moved around some and then ended up in a log cabin with her partner Travis Millard in the hills of Ecko Park in LA and is now represented the Richard Heller Gallery. We had the pleasure of meeting her when we were down there for our show at BLK/MRKT last year and was instantly impressed with her personality that along with her work has a very relaxed understated confidence about it.

FOTOGASMA – Mitch Dobrowner

http://www.mitchdobrowner.com/

Photography by Mitch Dobrowner

Wayne Martin Belger: Pinhole Photography

About the Artist:

Wayne Martin Belger is an Arizona based artist/ machinist who creates unique pinhole cameras to take photographs. His operation is basically a one-man show, undertaking everything from constructing the camera, to processing the film and even building his own frames. After conceptualizing a photographic series he sets out to build the pinhole camera using materials that range from the practical such as aircraft grade aluminum to the absurd, the heart of a child who died at birth. His subjects range from Californian body builders dealing with AIDS to mothers during childbirth. Belger’s photographic pieces are never snapshots; rather, they require precise manual exposure control, 4×5 film, and a tremendous amount of patience. Most of Belger’s images follow a particular theme in relation to the camera created to capture them

Artist Statement:

Born February 11 1964 in Pasadena California to two very understanding middle class Catholic parents, I remember the days when mass was done in Latin. Magic language, magic practices, and magic altars with their own ritualistic traditions are intriguing at 5 years old. Not knowing Latin, I relied more on visuals to receive the communication. The priest was using beautiful sacred tools and potions that were subject-created to bring me into communion with the subject. As the Priest has made his tools of gold and silver and Blood and Body to be in direct relationship with the subject Jesus, I create my tools of Aluminum and Titanium and Blood and Body to be in direct relationship with the subjects they are created for.

The tools I create and work with are pinhole cameras. With pinhole photography, the same air that touches my subject can pass through the pinhole and touch the photo emulsion on the film. There’s no barrier between the two. There are no lenses changing and manipulating light. There are no chips converting light to binary code. With pinhole what you get is an unmanipulated true representation of a segment of light and time, a pure reflection of what is at that moment. With some exposure times getting close to 2 hours, it’s an unsegmented movie from a movie camera with only one frame.

The creation of a camera comes from my desire to relate to a subject. When I choose a subject I spend time studying it. Then I start visualizing how I would like a photo of the subject to look. When that’s figured out, I start on the camera stage of the project by collecting parts, artifacts and relics that relate to the subject. When I’ve gathered enough parts and feel for the subject, I start the construction of the camera. I create the cameras from Aluminum, Titanium, Copper, Brass, Bronze, Steel, Silver, Gold, Wood, Acrylic, Glass, Horn, Ivory, Bone, Human Bone, Human Skulls, Human Organs, Formaldehyde, HIV+ Blood and relics all designed to be the sacred bridge of a communion offering between myself and the subject. All to witness and be a tool of the horrors of creation and the beauty of decay presented by the author light and time.

Themes in his work:

Survival and death are recurring themes in Belger’s work. His future project may include portraits of Holocaust survivors. Employing this concept, his subjects would be photographed using a split cam that exposes the 4×5 film in two parts. A portrait of the survivors would appear on the top two-thirds of the film, while a close-up of their identification number tattoo would be displayed below. The pinhole camera used for this project would include a cross worn by Hitler’s wife, Eva Braun. The relic is already in Belger’s collection.

Projects:

Heart Camera

Designed to take photos of soon-to-be mothers who are at least 8 months pregnant, and explore Belger’s relationship with his twin brother who died at birth.

4”x5” camera made from Aluminium, Titanium, Acrylic, Formaldehyde and an infant human heart.

Still a work in progress, this project documents mothers who are at least eight months pregnant. The 4×5 pinhole camera created for the project contains the heart of a child who died at birth. The heart, donated by a gallery owner who found it among a collection of old anatomy equipment, is preserved in a sealed compartment at the rear of the camera. Despite its chilling reminder of the risks of childbirth, Belger says he was surprised by how well the mothers took to the Heart camera.

Word about his project spread fast, with expecting mothers now contacting the photographer to set a date. So far Belger has photographed portraits of 30 women. He’s even been invited to photograph the women giving birth. Belger is able to capture only one frame, about a ten-minute exposure, and begins to expose the film just before his subject gives birth.

Untouchable HIV Camera

This 4×5 camera was designed by Wayne Martin Belger to photograph individuals suffering from HIV. It is made of aluminum, copper, titanium and acrylic. HIV-positive blood is pumped in front of the pinhole to create the effect of a #25 red filter.

Belger uses the HIV camera; which contains sealed vials of blood donated by an HIV-positive friend to capture portraits of individuals suffering from the virus

He has already captured portraits of AIDS victims in San Francisco. Belger says that 13 of the 14 individuals he’s photographed for the project are very muscular, citing the steroids they use to treat AIDS as the cause. He plans to expand the project, hoping to travel to South Africa and Calcutta this fall, creating a geographic comparison of people with HIV and AIDS. “Where you live has so much to do with your survival,” he says.

Yama (Tibetan Skull Camera)

The latest camera is named Yama, the Tibetan God of Death. Yama is made from Aluminium, Titanium, Copper, Brass, Bronze Steel, Silver, Gold, Mercury with 4 Sapphires, 3 Rubies (The one at Yama’s third eye was $5000.00), Asian and American Turquoise, Sand, Blood, and 9 Opals inlayed in the Skull. The film loading system is pneumatic. A 300psi air tank in the middle of the camera powers 2 pneumatic pistons to move the film holder forward and lock it into place. The switch to open and close the film chamber is located under the jaw. Yama’s eyes are cast from bronze and silver with a brass pinhole in each. A divider runs down the middle of the skull creating two separate cameras. A finished contact print mounted on copper is inserted in to the back of the camera to view what Yama saw in 3D.

Belger says that every metal part of the camera was assembled by hand. The $240,000 asking price includes a gold Burmese temple case and an elaborate steel and wood table made with materials from India.

In Tibetan Buddhism, Yama will see all of life and Karma is the “judge” that keeps the balance. Designed for two photo series. First series is of his interpretation of the modern incarnation of Southeast Asians deities. Second will take place in the Tibetan refugee cities of India, a home coming through the eyes of a 500 year old Tibetan.

The skull was blessed by a Tibetan Lama for its current journey and Belger is working with a Tibetan legal organization that is sending him to the refugee cities in India.

Yemaya (Underwater Camera)

4”x5” underwater pinhole camera made from Aluminium, Acrylic, Brass, Sea creatures and pearls. An altar to the Santeria Goddess of the ocean, Yemaya, is inside the back of the camera.

Dragonfly Camera

Designed to study and photograph time segments of children.

4”x5” camera made as an altar for a 9 year old girl that passed away. Made from Aluminium, Steel, Acrylic, Insects, and other relics.

Third Eye Camera

Designed to study the beauty of decay.

4”x5” camera made from Aluminium, Titanium, Brass, Silver, Gem Stones and a 150 year old skull of a 13 year old girl. Light and time enters at the third eye, exposing the film in the middle of the skull.

Sons of Abraham (9/11) Camera

Designed to study the Passions of Abraham by capturing images of Imams, Priests, and Rabbis holding a Koran, Torah or Bible, in front of a Church, Mosque or Synagogue. Different man, different book, different building.

4”x5” camera made from a solid block 6061 T6 Aircraft Aluminium inlayed with a piece of the Bible from 1860, a piece of the Koran from1960 and a piece of the Torah from 1880. The jagged piece of metal in the front of the camera with the pinhole in it was once part of a support beam holding up the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

Roadside Altar Camera

Designed to study beautiful altars created at points of tragedy.

A collection of Roadside Altars from the US and Mexico all shot with the Roadside Altar Camera. All titled by their GPS location. The total collection is around 200 photos.
All are toned 11”x14” gelatin silver prints.

Deer Camera

Designed to study the core ritual of the hunt and man’s arrogant separation from Nature.

4”x5” camera made from Steel (3/4” plate found in the desert near Mexico), Brass (parts from an 1800’s gold scale and bullet shells), Bronze, Copper (Bullets), Aluminum, Antler and Ivory (carved hand from a 18th century Christ figure).

Wood Camera

Designed to study distance.

The Wood Camera is made from Wood, Aluminum, Copper, Steel, Acrylic, and Insects. Most of the camera parts were found in Death Valley, CA. The camera has an interchangeable front plate used to float objects in front of the pinhole. With pinhole photography the focus is infinite. Objects which are a quarter-inch in front of the pinhole are just as in focus as objects 20 miles away.

Classic Camera

4″x5″ Camera made from Aluminum, Steel, Insects, and Turn-of-the-Century Cameos.

A Conversation with Stephen Shore

Stephen Shore – American Photographer known for pioneering the use of color in art photography.
Stephen Shore is considered one of the most important figures in early color photography. His 1982 book, Uncommon Places, elevates seemingly ordinary scenes of everyday life – a highway billboard, a drive-in church chapel – and imbues them with meaning. That seminal work has inspired countless photographers and has had a profound impact on contemporary fine art photography.

JC: After the 1970’s color “revolution” in the fine-arts community – if we want to call it that – the introduction and spread of digital photography appears to be at least equally important. I’d be curious to learn how you view the impact of digital photography.

SS: I’m going to give you a long-winded answer. I guess I see how photographers work as influenced by, among other factors, the cost of their processes. In the 1970s, when I started using 8×10 color, it cost me more than $15 every time I took a picture (film, processing, and a contact print). Simple economy led me to only take one exposure of a subject. I knew I couldn’t economize by only taking pictures that I knew would be good – that would simply lead to boring, safe images.

But, I could decide what I really wanted to photograph and how I wanted to structure the picture. This was a powerful learning experience. I began to learn what I really wanted. Digital is the opposite of 8×10. I see digital as a two-sided phenomenon. The fact that pictures are free can lead to greater spontaneity. As I watch people photograph (with film), I often see a hesitation, an inhibition, in their process. I don’t see this as much with digital.

There seems to be a greater freedom and lack of restraint. This is analogous to how word processing affects writing: one can put thoughts down in writing, even tangential thoughts, with a minimum of inner censorship, knowing that the piece can be edited later. The other side of this lack of restraint is greater indiscriminancy. Here’s a tautology: as one considers one’s pictures less, one produces fewer truly considered pictures.

JC: For digital photography good editing would thus be even more important than for film photography. Do you find that for you as a teacher editing has become a more important topic? And do you feel that with digital photography becoming ubiquitous, skills such as editing or composing images are getting somewhat neglected?

SS: I once had a student at Bard College, where I teach, who was taking portraits. The results kept disappointing him, so each week he took more and more pictures. Still he was disappointed. Finally, I assigned him to make only one exposure the next week. The picture was excellent. His problem was that he was replacing really coming to terms with what he wanted in his pictures with quantity. If an artist doesn’t work with conscious intentionality, sometimes no amount of editing helps. There are other times (and this was one of the points of my previous answer) when the lack of self-censorship that digital can engender allows for intuitive energy being communicated.

JC: It seems to me that the “digital revolution” is multi-faceted. On the one hand, we are witnessing the addition of new means to proliferate and share photography, with the Internet playing the dominant role. The popular photography site Flickr has been brought up as especially important. To me, it’s not quite clear what impact Flickr really has, though, because it seems that depending on how you view it you arrive at different conclusions. For example, from the perspective of the stock-photography market Flickr appears to be quite revolutionary. However, if you’re a photography “amateur” (a word that I am not very comfortable with), Flickr might “just” be another way to show your holiday photos – instead of inviting your friends for a two-hour slide show you send them the link to your Flickr site. Seen from your perspective, what does Flickr have to offer?

SS: One aspect of the “digital revolution” that I find interesting is the ubiquitousness (existing or being everywhere, esp. at the same time; omnipresent: ubiquitous fog; ubiquitous little ants) of cameras. That, coupled with new means of transmission of images, is leading us into an interesting age. A person can email a few pictures taken in an Iraqi prison to a friend and within a day they are all over the world. We can witness the Ukraine’s Orange Revolution from the multiple perspectives of the participants. When Time magazine illustrates the London Underground bombings of 7/7, they don’t have to rely on photojournalists covering the aftermath – they can use cell phone pictures taken by the survivors. The means of transmission, particularly the Internet, mean that everyone now has a public voice. Just as I described digital photography as a two-sided phenomenon, so is this public voice. On one hand it bypasses the visual conventions imposed by the editors of traditional media. It also bypasses the financial constraints of traditional media. Excellent work, perhaps even the most groundbreaking work, can get an audience. On the other hand, when everyone has a public voice, we see how many people just don’t have anything interesting to communicate.

JC: … which then brings up the question of whether the digital revolution really makes things easier – or whether the pool of photography gets so large that it is actually getting harder to find the excellent work you were talking about?

SS: We may see the reintroduction of an editing/curating process: people building sites or tagging work they find interesting. And then we are back to still another duality: editors/curators both bring their insight and impose their limitations. But, people will find their way to what interests them. It’s the same with blogs. Some I find fascinating. They’re very smart. They provide not only greater access, but a new type of public dialog and communication. On the other end of the spectrum of what can be encountered, others are inane or self-indulgent. We find what interests or stimulates us.

JC: The second, very important aspect of digital photography is that it opens up many new ways to create photography, which previously would have been very hard to achieve, if not impossible. For example, photography can be constructed on the computer, a process that changes our perception of what photography really is and that, at the same time, might open up new avenues for artists. Or maybe not? Does digital photography offer something new, or is it just simply providing a new, somewhat more convenient (or inconvenient?) way to take photographs?

SS: There have for decades been artists who have made composited photographs (from Henry Peach Robinson to Jerry Uelsmann) and other artists who have used photographic processes as part of a print making technique (from Hannah Hoch to Robert Heinecken). Digital makes some of this easier and perhaps offers new possibilities. The success of work such as Barry Frydlender’s rests partially on the seamlessness of the compositing and the believability of the image. While we all understand how a photograph is a distortion of the three-dimensional world flowing in time in front of the camera, we all also accept a certain kind of literalness of the straight photographic image.

Familiarity over time with how digital possibilities erode that literalness may alter the very believability that the success of composited images rests on. On another note, I’m particularly interested in digital Type C printing for straight color photography. It allows me to control contrast and tonality both locally and globally in a way not possible with traditional Type C printing.

JC: I was intrigued to learn that you have been producing small editions of self-published books. What is the impetus behind this?

SS: Ever since I first saw Ed Ruscha’s small books in the late 1960s, I’ve loved artists’ books. (Download Shore’s “Flohmarkt” iBook PDF.) Print-on-demand technology allows me to produce books with ease. I like the basic structure of these small books: the individual images are not intended to stand alone, but are seen as a part of a complex whole. I enjoy availing myself of commonly available technology. Finally, my book project allows me to explore many different visual ideas and explore a variety of directions.

–Jörg Colberg is founder and editor of the fine-art photography blog Conscientious. He works as a research scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The fear of Social Exclusion

Mark Burnett (he producer and creator of reality TV mega-hits Survivor, The Apprentice, The Contender, and Rock Star) has made millions by capitalizing on people’s need for social approval. (Social exclusion relates to the alienation or disenfranchisement of certain people within a society. It is often connected to a person’s social class, educational status and living standards and how these might affect their access to various opportunities. It also applies to some degree to people with a disability, to minority men and women of all races, and to the elderly. Anyone who deviates in any perceived way from the norm of a population can become subject to coarse or subtle forms of social exclusion.)Says Burnett, “You try to tap into emotion. Social exclusion is a massive fear for people.”

“In Survivor, I’ve tapped into death and rebirth,” he says. “When someone’s flame is extinguished and the lighting goes from orange to blue, it represents death. The rebirth is when the tribe lives on without that person. That’s why [host] Jeff [Probst] always ends by saying, ‘See you tomorrow.’ I deal with all those human touch points of emotion: camaraderie, attraction, integrity, sportsmanship. Machiavelli said it best, that being a leader and making hard choices is difficult. People won’t love you, but the trick is to never make them hate you. That’s the essence of Survivor. You’re figuratively killing others, and then asking them, for their pains, to give you a million dollars.”