Karen Osdieck

Karen Osdieck

Dana Stirling

Modern Boyhood | ‘Modern Boyhood’ is a long-term project documenting the personal journey of my children while navigating complexities of early adolescence. Childhood is a confusing time and I feel it is important for my two boys to openly explore their identity without restrictions and preconceptions. While my husband and I encourage our boys to be true to who they are, the media and societal views play a huge role in shaping our youth. Our culture is moving toward embracing a less rigid version of masculinity and accepting alternative parenting styles but it is not yet the norm. Through these images, I am examining their behaviors both innate and learned while teaching the importance of empathy, vulnerability and self expression.

Struggling with speech delays, both boys grew up knowing they were different from other children. Early on, I realized how important confidence is to their development. Crying, admitting fear and having interests deemed feminine are not signs of weakness inside our household. Now, as they venture out on their own, they are becoming aware of how they are perceived by their peers and expected male behavior. My hope is that they retain the courage and confidence to measure themselves by their own standards.

This series began as a way to hold on to this liminal state of innocence. Fading in and out of their consciousness and only stepping in when needed. It became a way to cope with my anxiety of not knowing the future and hoping I have done enough. For these moments I am invisible.

This project is ongoing. www.karenosdieckphotography.com

Wendy Constantine

Wendy Constantine

Dana Stirling

Reverie | Reverie inhabits the space between reality and dreams. One foot is firmly planted on terra firma, and the other steps through an otherworldly portal filled with melancholy wonder. This body of work is a personal fairytale, depicting a landscape of loss in a luminous, panoramic form.

These visual poems were inspired by a dream, and they make tangible the deeply buried grief that has haunted me for years. Set along the quiet and still waters of Coal Creek in Boulder, Colorado, the imagery metaphorically explores the “wintering of the soul” that comes before healing, just as spring fosters new growth and resilience. wendyconstantine.com

Lauren Taubenfeld

Lauren Taubenfeld

Dana Stirling

Oh Brother | Oh Brother, has taken shape over the course of over ten years, in collaboration with her younger brother Benny from 2005 to 2018. Lauren Taubenfeld photographed her brother Benny, as he grew from adolescence to early manhood. This extensive body of work can be viewed as a fascinating document of an always-compelling transition but on closer look, images reveal further nuances; a collaboration, a sibling bond, and at the same time a picture of his adolescence. By photographing my brother frequently and intimately over his developmental years, a sense of mirroring began to emerge, recalling something of the artist’s own adolescent self. The outcome are these uncanny portraits of her brother and self as well as a glimpse into the off-scene periods and reveal ‘in between moments’ of his everyday life. Benny’s tenacious, rebellious manner is constant as such prevails even among these photographs. www.laurentaubenfeld.com

Fred Lahache

Fred Lahache

Dana Stirling

Looking for Hamza | Hamza and I grew up together. We were kids, then teens, and we're still in touch. I remember the stories he would tell me after each summer in Morocco with his family, that time of the year we could not be together for a while. So when I first visited Morocco recently, I couldn't help trying to depict those stories, and imagine him by my side. This is the diary of the trip we never had. www.fredlahache.com

Matailong Du

Matailong Du

Dana Stirling

In Passing | In Passing is an ongoing photography project which portrays people’s daily lives in the public environment such as streets. This project is the photographer’s approach to show the importance and beauty of people and things around us. Something ordinary could be extraordinary.

Street photography could be the easiest and most difficult art format: it is extremely accessible for people photographing in the public space, but it is hard for photographers making connections between visual arts and real life efficiently. Magnum photographer Harry Gruyaert said, “There is no story. It’s just a question of shapes and light”. It is unnecessary to discover every story behind photographs and there are no stories for some photographs. For In Passing, the most important elements are shadow and strong colors.

By having those two elements, the objects in the photographs could be presented directly while coming with a dynamic arena for normal people. The body of work could fit in with current contemporary art by combining documentary photography and fine art photography. The ideal audiences for In Passing could be people who do not get involved much with visual art or people who are always in a rush and fail to slow down and discover the beauty around them. www.matailongdu.com

Maria Mavropoulou

Maria Mavropoulou

Dana Stirling

The Desire for Consciousness | These images have no titles and no captions to guide you about what to see or how to perceive their content. There is no text to recreate the missing context.

In these images it’s impossible to determine the time, the place or the circumstances under which the photo was taken as the black background deprives us from any other information that would help us locate its subject in the real world.

In this way, relocated in a virtual space, the depicted object somehow loses its “realness” and tends to represent the meaning of it, it becomes an idea and it is transformed into a symbol.

Although the operation and the meaning of a symbol are predetermined in this series I create new symbols and invite the viewer to give them meaning by reading them literally or metaphorically. In my mind these images work in coherence, like a deck of cards that tells a different story every time it’s shuffled, raising questions about how differently each one of us interprets the same stimulus and therefore how diverse interpretations can occur when meanings are not fixed but depending on the ever changing context and every individual viewer. www.mariamavropoulou.com

Paul Stein

Paul Stein

Dana Stirling

LIES | “and that certain images be formed in the mind… to remain there, resurgent” (Ezra Pound, Canto LXXIV)

Lies explores how we remember and how we will be remembered. The diptychs in this project depict how observation gives way to memory, how intention gives way to intrusion, how truth and fiction merge, and how our experiences gain a new meaning through our reimagining. Like memory, the combinations of images in Lies are open-ended for others to build their own lies.

The parings start from the assumption that photography is a tool for visual thinking, then ask us to think about these questions:

· Memory: While there might be consistency in how images are made, and cohesion in how images are exhibited, how are images linked in memory to summarize and catalogue the arc of a life? What is the difference between the visual truths we immediately experience, and the explanatory lies we subsequently fabricate? Since we are deluged with exponentially more visual images than we could ever shoot personally, how do we mentally curate (retain, retrieve, and reframe) all this visual information in a process that creates both complementary and dissonant dialogues between images?

· Mortality: How will we ourselves – our quotidian lives and the images we create – be appropriated and remembered by others decades from now as part of the long tradition of memento mori art? Anyone regarding vernacular photographs has the somber knowledge that virtually all the people in those photographs are deceased.

· Appropriation: What are the boundaries for “taking” a picture and what does it matter who shoots? Are my visual experiences limited to the camera in front of my eyes and the creation of a new image, or are they equally defined by my appropriation of an existing image from others or myself and the adding to it of new visual meaning?

Lies answers these questions by engaging in the practice of vernacular photography. Rather than seeking what is disturbingly odd in vernacular images, Lies builds on what is profoundly ordinary in them. Lies does not treat vernacular images as insufficiently resonant, and therefore needing to be treated as a canvas for collage or inserting the artist’s identity. Instead, Lies explores the abundant meanings inherent in vernacular images, and the equally implicit meanings outside the frame of these images. Lies gathers images separated by decades of time and hundreds of miles of space, and creates a narrative moment between them in the photo album that constitutes memory. Of course, these vernacular narratives are lies, living outside the intended memorialized moment by these anonymous photographers. Yet it is through such lies, through the extractions and sequencing of experiences through memory, that we create meanings for our lives. paulsteinalibis.com

Jacob Moss

Jacob Moss

Dana Stirling

One Arm Dove Hunt | One Arm Dove Hunt is an ongoing documentary project about people with Ectodermal Dysplasia, a rare genetic condition that I also have. Over the past two years I have travelled through more than 25 states, met with and photographed individuals with various forms of Ectodermal Dysplasia. The photographs explore areas of intersection, similarities, differences, the ways we view ourselves and the way we think about ourselves in relation to other people. I ask what does it mean to be part of a community defined by a medical condition? How does that impact an individual’s sense of self? The portraits depict a diverse array of individuals from across the United States who happen to have ectodermal dysplasia, and the journey that brought me to them.

Through my travels, landscape becomes a subject. The emphasis on texture in my landscapes references the condition that links myself and my subjects. One Arm Dove Hunt is an exploration of self: how one moves through the world looking different; how one develops because of and in spite of having a rare medical condition; and how important community and connectivity can be to establishing one’s place in the world. www.jacobimoss.com

Omer Kaplan

Omer Kaplan

Dana Stirling

218th Bayside, Queens | I found Gayle on Facebook when I was looking for people to photograph. I felt like she had an interesting story and I’ve never photographed someone her age. I met Gayle and her partner Chuck next to their place at Dunkin Donuts in Oakland, Queens. Gayle and Chuck live together, but they couldn’t get married because she is on the other end of her disability pension. They have a close relationship and it seems like Chuck would follow Gayle anywhere.

Gayle collects stuff because she is afraid to become homeless again. Throughout her childhood, she was abused by her dad and has developed anxiety. She is currently working on a book and a documentary hoping to support other people who are dealing with similar issues. Something in the experience filled my soul with ripples of memories coming from a dream childhood.

I miss them. There was something comforting in their presence. They are full of life and refreshing. We all deal with the same feelings. It does not matter how old we are, our background, nor gender. We speak different languages, but we know how to listen. As I moved towards the door, they followed me and said goodbye.

I smiled to myself, Wondering when will be the next time I’ll Come by. www.omerkaplan.net

Andy Richter

Andy Richter

Dana Stirling

Louise B. Moore | My grandmother’s acute mind, clever wit, humility and selflessness are aspects of her being that I hope to embody in my own life. She was dedicated to serving others, with love, in her speech, thoughts and actions.

Between us, the conversation was honest and never forced. There was a tranquil, natural quality about the way time passed when we were together. Her presence grounded me, in a manner that one with many years of experience can. Sometimes we would listen to old-time music on her porch and sip wine in the afternoon sun. In the evenings, we watched Wheel of Fortune or the Twins play baseball on television. We played cards or scrabble, and she typically won. We dined around town, hoping to taste something new. With age, rather than closing down and becoming more rigid, she grew ever more open to life.

She frequently talked about her years as a young woman, of life out on her own for the first time. She told the story of meeting my grandfather at work by offering to share her Popsicle with him. She spoke of the war and separation. And, about the move to St. Paul to begin a new life and family in Minnesota. It was as if these moments happened yesterday, they were crystal clear in her mind.

I would tell her my latest ideas and share my pictures with her. She told me about her recent bridge game with the ladies. I massaged her stiff, tired feet by the fireside. She always drove and made sure I got to the airplane on time. Oftentimes, we simply sat there…in silence, present, together.

Louise moved on recently, as autumn turned to winter…she was in her own home, surrounded by her family and much love. A 93-year life of integrity, independence and vitality, released.
These photographs are my memory, moments in time together. www.andyrichterphoto.com