Zahra Reijs - Verse Vruchten

First and foremost, on behalf of the team at Broad, I would like to say that our hearts and prayers go out to everyone during this surreal time. We like to think of Broad as a global, family-like community, and hope that we can all come together during this time to process and overcome the uncertainty and fear surrounding this pandemic.

With love, Alexa Fahlman

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As COVID-19 continues to spread rapidly across the world, life as we know it feels increasingly static. Restaurants, shops, bars, museums and libraries are closing their doors. Universities and public school systems are suspending classes. As our community spaces have shut down, and social distancing has become essential, it’s natural that we have all felt a sense of loss, loneliness and isolation. However, while we rest in self-isolation, I hope that this week’s series will remind us of the power of community–a picture of hope to look towards the life we will eventually return to once this is finally over. While we may not be able to gather in groups, meet for coffee or roam around markets, our communities remain just a FaceTime, text message, or email away.

Community is at the heart of Zahra Reijs’ photo series this week. “Verse Vruchten”, which is Dutch for fresh fruits, refers to the Blaak markt where Zahra shot her portraits of market-goers. East of Markthal (a modern foodie utopia), is the cheaper Blaak market: a huge open-air street market that sells all manner of fine foods to kitschy odds and ends. This market is a hub of culture, connection and community. Living close to this market in Rotterdam, Zahra remarks that she has always been amazed by the different styles and makeup she sees, so much so that she was inspired to compile this series.

Many of us have been to a street, open-air, covered, farmers, flea, or night market– or have at least seen one. Every culture has them; The souks of Marrakech, Tsukiji Fish Market, Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen, Grand Bazaar, and Portobello. In spite of their regional particularities and differing spatial forms,  these markets have a ubiquitous universality- public spaces of inclusiveness and heterogeneity. Markets are accessed by and accessible to everyone- they function as a public space which is both economically and socially inclusive. As such, markets are often the most socially diverse public places in communities, bringing together different ages, genders, ethnicities, and people of varying socioeconomic statuses. Here, people–especially marginalized groups–gather over the experience of food, shopping, and conversation. These are spaces in which we can freely loiter, mingle and become accustomed to each others’ differences in a truly everyday, public and improvisational space. With community spaces such as markets, which inspire social inclusion and the mingling of different cultures, we are able to grow our sense of local community based on connection, interconnection, and social interaction.

Do you think the culture surrounding the Blaak markt is threatened by the city's globalization, especially with the big Markthal Hall? Or do you think that the big hall has brought more tourism to the Blaak markt and has helped support the vendors?

Markthal is super expensive and commercial compared to the local market so not many locals go there for their groceries. Also, Rotterdam locals are quite stubborn and not very easily impressed by new big concepts like Markthal, so I guess that helps haha. The city has gotten much more busy in the last couple of years, so in the end, a lot of businesses including the Blaak markt improved their sales and become more popular. 

So, do you hope that the city will preserve the Blaak markt as a social space?

Definitely... its not just about food but it’s a social gathering as well. 

When you first submitted your photos, you pointed out that your series was dominated by female portraits. Was this a conscious decision?

I’ve always been more interested in photographing women. I can't really put a finger on why, but I feel like it has something to do with projecting a part of myself onto my portraits. It makes the most sense that I would project this onto women since I am one myself!

I’m also mesmerized by the movement of women. There’s beauty, even if it's just within a flicker of their eyes. Perhaps, as a woman, we just simply have a different connection to women than with men…

“Photography is the best excuse to get yourself into someone else's world and out of your own–that is something I'll always cherish.”

Why do you think there is such a concentration of unique characters and playful dressers at this particular market?

Rotterdam, with over 170 different nationalities, is the most multicultural city in the Netherlands! If you walk around Blaak market there is such a beautiful mix of cultures to be seen, which translates to the way people dress. I don't think they realize their sense of playful fashion/self expression as you call it; it's just the way they are...it's as pure as can be.

What was your favourite part about shooting these women?

People in Holland are pretty closed off and like to live in privacy. Some days, I can’t find anyone who wants to be photographed. Yet, those who do show themselves proudly, some still aren’t sure of how to react, but I really hope they realise how beautiful they are.

Personally, I love markets! I  think if we had more of them, society would be more colourful and accepting. Do you think markets are a way for people to re-learn community in a world which is constantly becoming more removed?

I agree! It’s becoming a rare social gathering where–for once–it doesn’t matter where you’re from, what you do or who you are. To me it also feels a bit like film photography, or writing a letter instead of a text message. I guess you could say that this way of “market-living and connecting” is more authentic than the main world we live in right now.

Send love to your community, stay healthy, and keep your Broad outlook.

Tuesday Talent - Tom McGahan

One of our deepest, most universal needs, is for a sense of identity and belonging. As such, we constantly search for ways of meaning-making and remembrance. Often times, we find meaning and identity in landscape, attaching our emotions and memories to the places we have seen and touched. Our identities, as well as our memories aren’t however, always associated with happiness. Landscapes can sometimes be associated with grief, loss, and pain. In his poignant photo essay “Landscape of Lament”, Tom McGahan memorializes the stages of bereavement—denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance—within his photographs of nature’s rural, spiritual and ceaseless landscapes.

- Alexa Fahlman

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I have the same name as my father, “but he’s not named after me’’ he would say, in his thick County Tyrone, Northern Irish accent. After a brief illness on the 21st of October 2017, my father gently passed away. In the immediate aftermath of his death, I embarked on this series of images to—in some way—try to record the process of grief and preserve the feelings and emotions that arose through each image. My father spent his later years in the home where he was born in Northern Ireland; it is a place that is steeped in tradition, highly polarized due to the division between the two main communities. It was almost a given that my father would have a traditional Irish wake. Dad was brought home and laid out with the casket open. For two days, friends, relatives, and clergy came to pay their respects, sit down, drink gallons of tea, and tell stories. It was all very social seeing long lost relatives and many new faces that would have been part of my father’s life. Even in the midst of the grief and exhaustion, it felt a very natural process—it brought death right up close, and in this, diminished the ultimate fear of death and dying.

In Irish tradition, when the body was taken from the house, Keeners would sing a lament over the body. The practice of keening — where women would gather and wail in grief at an Irish funeral—died out in the mid 20th century. In the words of Richard Fitzpatrick, keening was “letting it all out, having a good scream, coming from the feet up, a good cry, a good purging.” Grief has since become suppressed in Western culture, as we strive for happiness, death and the sadness that follows, encroach too much upon our own sense of mortality to the point that it must be pushed to one side, “Our grief now is too contained. We rely on taking anti-depressants. We go to a grief counsellor” (Fitzpatrick). *Click here if you’re interested in learning more about the keening tradition and reading Richard Fitzpatrick’s article.

Yet, different cultures have preserved their own ways of dealing with death. In the not too distant country of Tanzania, the burial traditions of the Nyakyusa people initially focus on wailing, and are followed by feasts. They also require that participants dance and flirt at the funeral, confronting death with an affirmation of life.

The process of grieving is said to come in five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. However, these stages never come in order—sometimes in reverse and sometimes all at once—but within these stages are glimpses of fond memories, and deep love that seems to become stronger, and takes on a deep seat within us.

These images where recorded using a large format camera, and only one exposure at each of the location; they were all taken during the first year after my father’s passing. The process was both arduous and cathartic, I wanted to bring it up close, almost like at ‘the wake’, to expose the myriad of emotional landscapes I found myself in. Words themselves cannot express the emotions that arise during from grief; this collection of Landscapes is my Keen to my father.

Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.

-C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Sayan Hazra - Bengaluru - Growing Fast

Bengaluru, known as India’s Silicon Valley, is the center of India's high-tech industry. The city is also known for its green parks and nightlife. Bengaluru has topped a ranking of 131 world cities based on their ability to change, innovate, and adjust to constantly evolving circumstances. This would not have been possible without Bengaluru being considered as the most important Indian city by technology companies. The ranking was published by investment management firm Jones Lang LaSalle ( JLL ) in Jan, 2019 and it tracked a wide array of metrics to assess socio-economic and commercial real estate momentum including a city’s GDP, population, corporate headquarters, foreign direct investment, rent absorption, transparency and more. Bengaluru has a huge population of 12.95 million and out of which migrants cross more than 6.5 million. This is due to both inter- and intra-state migration. This immigration is majorly triggered by the rise of the IT job market, and other businesses related to the economic and socio-cultural growth that accompanied it. 

The economy of Bengaluru is an important part of the economy of India as a whole and contributes over 87% to the economy of the State of Karnataka, accounting for 98% of the Software Exports of the State. The city is home to a wide range of heavy and light industries, as well as high-tech and service industries including information technology (IT) and electronics, telecommunications, aerospace, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, food processing, automobiles, banking and finance, mining, steel, and cement production. India's software export industry, in particular, has grown rapidly after economic liberalization in the 1990s. Companies here have a huge cost advantage - an English-speaking, highly-educated workforce that is available at less than a quarter of the wages paid in the US or Europe. The technology sector is a key driver of both real estate and economic momentum, and is propelled not only by the large dominant tech firms but also by a robust start-up culture (There are currently 1,301 registered start-ups). 

“I prefer to work remotely. That gives me flexibility to work from anywhere in the world. I left my stable MNC job because it did not give me enough monetary growth within a short span, unlike start-up companies” says Pragyan (30), a software engineer who migrated to Bengaluru after graduating from an engineering college in Orissa. The ensuing influx of people from other countries, and a rise in wealth, have contributed to a metropolitan city culture. Bengaluru has emerged as a shining spot for real estate investors, with the city offering a sound return on investment and assured rental income. Shopping Malls are also mushrooming. Further, Bengaluru has an active night culture, and is home to over 800 clubs and bars; in fact, the city is referred to by many as the ‘Pub Capital of India’. “People do not need a reason to get drunk; in today's world it is perfectly crafted cocktails that everyone needs at a party. I have seen people moving from straight drinks to cocktails,” says Karthik (34), city based mixologist said when asked if he saw a change in the pattern of alcohol consumption in Bengaluru. 

The city has also been successful in drawing high levels of foreign direct investment, along with structural reforms. This encourages foreign real estate investors who are interested in India's favourable growth dynamics. Lokendra (37), who resides in a Villa community, and is a passionate marathon runner and technology geek, shares his view: “A sense of community is better when you stay in Villa-Society than that of apartment. Villas are expensive though. One can even have his own small garden and individual Villa”. However, as Shirley (48) notes, “Bangalore was kind of a suburb; one could see only green lands everywhere. One could enjoy a pleasant climate. But now it is a concrete jungle consisting of housing complexes, technology parks, villas, shopping malls. The climate is also changing.'' 

Shirley is an architect by profession and owns a construction company. She has been witnessing the city growing since her birth. She is very passionate about biking and owns 4 bikes - two BMWs and two Harley Davidsons. In fact, Biking, Cycling, Camping, Trekking are becoming popular among the people of this city. “ My dream is to travel the world - so I travel twice a year. I spend my weekends cycling between 100-150 kms.” says Jimmy (55), a Vice President of a telecom company, who has resided in the city for the last 20 years. Co-living and co-working spaces are redefining the previously separate concepts of 'home' and ‘work-place’. The tech savvy young population is highly dependent on mobile apps for their daily activities, and are also particular about their health and fitness. They prefer to consult with gym-trainers and health coaches. Mariam (43), who has done modelling for 400 ads & TV commercials over the last 20 years, is now a health and nutrition coach; “I do workshops and talks on how to use easy health hacks to navigate and manage our busy, stressful urban lives. I do raw food and plant based cooking workshops as well as organic tours and clean eating management sessions.”

Sayan Hazra is a visual storyteller based in India who investigates rapid changes of our contemporary world focusing on sociological and environmental stories. Visit his site to see more of his projects.

Maksym Rudnik - Sluzewiec Racetrack

Maksym Rudnik’s series is a visual story about the Sluzewiec Racetrack in Warsaw- Poland’s main racetrack. I caught Maksym during a spare moment away from his current project in Athens (stay tuned!) After a quick email exchange, I was lucky enough to find out more about the racetrack’s significance to Poland, its history and the relationship between animal rights and sport.

The country, Maksym notes, has a long history of horse racing which can be dated back to 1777. However, during the communist era, Polish horse racing became severely limited, when gambling and large social gatherings were made illegal. Despite these sanctions, the Sluzewiec Racetrack (the only long-term running racetrack in communist Poland) continued to operate, it was called by racegoers an ‘icon of freedom’ – distant from the everyday reality and rules of communism. Maksym’s photographic narrations reveal a post-communist nostalgia, reflected by the faces of elderly man who have been coloured by their histories. Although the betting pools have since slowed, the ritualized gathering of regular racegoers within the Warsaw racetrack recreates the same camaraderie of times long past.

- Alexa Fahlman

Can you tell us more about the racetrack?

Back in the day it was a huge entertainment for many people. The grand opening and main race held in the middle of the summer is very popular among Warsaw citizens. Yet, during ordinary race weekends there are not that many visitors. The people attending are mainly older people who take a chance and bet on small amounts of money in order to hopefully win some. I visited this place during a couple of race weekends to document the races. During the week in the early morning hours I went to the stables and barns which are nearby to portrait some of the people working there with horses and the jockeys taking their time to practice with their horses. It is a magnificent place surrounded with trees yet it is almost in the very centre of Warsaw.

What do you think it is about the racetrack that people love?

Horse racing is spectacular; whether through the visual subtleties of the jockey’s uniforms, or through the horses themselves - monumental, tall and very beautiful.. There is a gambling aspect as well - it seems exciting to bet and have a chance of winning even if it’s a small amount of money. When it comes to older people, this excitement is historic. In Poland during Soviet Union occupation, there were not many entertaining activities and people were very limited in different aspects of their lives. This particular racetrack acted as a kind of icon of freedom during occupation. People were able to gather during race weekends which was not legal (people gathering) back then and they were able to decide how to spend their money - win some, or loose some. 

Is there a lot of controversy over the racetracks in regards to animal rights, etc? Do many people believe that racing should be banned?

There were some controversies but really minor. I really enjoy horse racing and am amazed by race horses - the way they look, their movements and their grace . On the other hand, I’ve been a vegetarian for many years and am aware of how harmful these races can be for them. It remains a long discussion when debating about the current state of animal freedoms. Personally, the best would be to see wild herds of horses somewhere in the mountains, but as far as I know these horses couldn’t be taken into the wild after having lived as a race horse.

The photos in your series all feel very nostalgic, as if they were taken decades ago. Did you create this mood on purpose, or is it simply a result of the racetrack’s history coming out in the photos?

Most of my work is nostalgic, the colours, the subjects I choose. I think the fact that it’s analog from the beginning to the end makes it nostalgic too. This particular subject came along perfectly when it came to fitting my aesthetic. Old spectators, kind of retro jockeys uniforms, barns where the horses live - they are all a little bit of the past, I was just lucky enough to capture it.

Gabriella Achadinha - Lugar do Paraíso - Madeira

Meaning 'wood' in Portuguese, the island - located in the Atlantic, between Morocco and Portugal - was created by a volcanic Hot Spot which has left its one quarter exposed, and subsequently inhabitable. Paradisiacal, the island is a hotbed of natural beauty - fauna, flora, towering mountains, a brilliant of blue ocean and the juiciest of fruit produce. Renowned for its hospitality, the Madeirenses radiate a warmth; an approachability, with their laughs and chats marking the alleys of Funchal. From the chillier steep forested slopes of Gaula to the sunny seaside of Calheta, this photographic series aims to capture the stillness of the island. The contemplation felt in its landmarks of natural lushness. A simple yet enticing place, somewhat captured in a moment of the past that invites a slow pace.

Valerii Konkov - Monchegorsk, a city among beautiful mountains

Monchegorsk is an industrial city on the Kola Peninsula, whose life is centered around a metallurgical plant. Translated from Sami Monchegorsk means: a city among beautiful mountains. The city is surrounded by several hills, in the depths of which deposits of copper and Nickel ores have been discovered. In the 1930s, the construction of a factory began here, and a city began to be built around it. Now Monchegorsk plant is part of the financial giant «Norilsk Nickel». Unfortunately, people in cities like Monchegorsk don’t have many job options at hand. That’s why most of the population end up working in dangerous factories that poison the air with industrial emissions, causing several respiratory diseases such as asthma, pulmonary fibrosis and even lung cancer. The government wants to keep harmful emissions a secret and people receive threats for what they want to tell about what is happening in the city.

Alexa Fahlman - A Print Publication for the Digital Age

Over the past few years, there have been whispers that “print is dead.” As a fresh English grad with clichéd literary aspirations, this caused me slightly more anxiety than anticipated. When I moved back to Vancouver from the UK, a lacklustre literary career certainly felt emphasized. Compared to other cities, Vancouver is small, and its literary marketplace is even smaller. While major cities like London and Toronto have the population to support independent bookstores and boutiques, Vancouver seems to struggle when it comes to sustaining its niche market. As a result, the past digital decade has ushered in a new era of publication: hyper-relevant, digital outlets which give you easily digestible articles to read during your commutes to work. Overwhelmed with unread articles, disposable clickbait, and digital overload, I  began to get the impression that these iterations were true, print was in fact dead, at least in Vancouver. That is, until I met Gergo. 

Our first encounter was at a backyard buli (a Hungarian party) in 2018. It was a few months before I  was set to go back to the UK to finish off my degree. Just off of Main Street, the sky boasted hues of blues and pinks at 7 pm, beer taps were overflowing, and a variety of Costco birthday cakes (I counted at least 4) were being served. There I met Gergo, immediately introduced to me as ‘family’, and the creative mind behind BROAD. Pretending as if I hadn’t been regularly captioning my posts with #broadmag, I asked Gergo a bit more about the magazine, and how he got into photography. After some habitual small talk, I  learnt that he was born in Hungary and had immigrated to Vancouver as a teenager. He explained how at first, photography was just a means to document and process his experience, however, as he started to work in photography, it quickly became his dream job, he tells me, “it was no secret that I  wanted to make this dream of mine, into something real someday.”

How did BROAD mag come about in the first place?

Gergo: BROAD started on a sleepy winter morning when something inside my head told me: “you will start a magazine today.” And I did! That morning, I signed up for a new Instagram account and called it BROAD––I wanted it to be large in scope. One thing I knew was that I wanted to make a magazine about the things that were interesting to me and could make a positive change in an increasingly shitty world. I felt alone and kind of powerless online in a sea of never-ending content ready to be consumed. I was on Instagram and wondered: why are we all sharing these images? What’s the real use of it? How can we connect it to make something more meaningful out of it? So, BROAD started as a platform to collect inspiration and ideas from around the world. As we built on this concept, we started to foster and attract a community of like minded people. 

The following summer, almost a year to the day we first met, I got a message from Gergo asking if I’d be interested in writing for the magazine. His words verbatim were, “I’m about to make this into a real magazine. My goal is to have a platform where we all do what we love and what we are best at.” As a long-time follower of BROAD, I was ecstatic to say the least, so, this was an easy job to accept. Within the first week of October, Gergo and I had our first official BROAD meeting to go over the proofs and talk things over. He mentioned that he had always loved to collect and make magazines as a kid, “I would staple together a bunch of letter size sheets and filled them with drawings, comics or whatever I could think of at the moment.” Throughout our talk, I was reminded of print’s essential power as a medium–the way magazines hit you at a subconscious level, how they almost effortlessly engage our emotions and senses. I thought about my own collection of magazines, in particular, a collection that started when I  was around ten years old. I  was walking around the neighbourhood with my mom when we saw “FREE”  sharpie’d  in bold onto a big box of National Geographic magazines. After we took them home, I  spent most of my days pointing out my favourite photographs, making collages, and reading through decades of stories. On rainy days, reading these magazines made me feel like the whole world was in my basement––before social media, it was a means to feel connected to a world that felt otherwise unreachable. Documentary photography quickly became my way of translating the experiences of others from around the world; my favourite issue from April 1970 had a white tiger cub on its cover, “White Tiger in My House” by Elizabeth C. Reed, photographs by Donna K. Grosvenor. Stacked underneath was another issue from 1997, where A.R Williams and Vincent J. Musi followed the daily routines of Montserratians who lived under a volcano. There was a certain kind of feeling these magazines evoked, they weren’t necessarily trying to be timely, they were instead focused on the authenticity of human experiences- making them tangible, collectible, and shareable.

What sort of photographs inspire you? How do you go about choosing submissions?

Gergo: I find inspiration in simplicity and a photograph’s ability to convey a story with very minimal elements. Photographers who can do that definitely get my attention. There is a massive amount of talent in the BROAD community and it’s always a joy to dig into it and find the gems to show our audience. When I’m choosing submissions for a topic I look for many different things. Sometimes the image content is so powerful it needs no commentary at all, often it’s the synergy between a well thought-out series of images and the writing accompanying it that grabs me. The submissions that get our attention are the ones that have a strong cohesive look and an interesting concept that shines through clearly. If it can also make me smile that’s definitely a plus!

Regardless of BROAD’s online success, Gergo maintained that nothing could beat the experience of print, a sentiment to which I readily agreed. Living in an information-saturated world, we scroll, we refresh, we bookmark articles––that we say we’ll eventually read but never seem to––and become trapped in a never-ending cycle of internet fatigue. BROAD’s first printed issue is a response to this exhausted pattern, a collective effort to publish visual culture for the digital age. Here, we embrace the beauty in the ritual of reading a magazine, which forces us to slow down, reject online transience, and smell the paper. With these aspirations, BROAD is not a photography magazine, at least not in your traditional sense. Although it’s photography based, BROAD endeavours to rediscover the connections between cultures in an ever-changing and increasingly fractured world. Photography is therefore, the lens through which our contributors use to translate their global experiences across political, linguistic and cultural borders.

WATER VOL. 1

With the climate crisis on everyone’s mind, it seemed essential to take water––a resource which has become increasingly commodified, privatized, and marketed to us––and analyze it from a more human perspective. Whilst access to safe, clean water is a fundamental human right, it continues to be polluted, wasted and treated with unconstitutional disregard. The water crisis in Flint, Trudeau’s unfulfilled clean-water promise to Indigenous communities, and the overarching inaccessibility to safe drinking water around the globe, are all normalized into isolated issues which only affect the so-called “global underdogs”. With the media’s division between “us” and “them”, apathy and disaffection become inherent responses to the crises around the world. As activists and organizations lobby for change, this issue of BROAD aims to show how artists, photographers, and tinkerers can also participate in this political discourse. By bringing an international community together, we’re able to see the intersections of these issues, and how we’re all affected and inter-connected on a larger, global scale. While our goal isn’t to be strictly didactic, we do hope our readers will learn a few new things, and feel motivated to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle.  In vol. 1, we learn from Geoffrey Wallang that in his hometown Shillong, India––one of the rainiest places on the planet––a lack of adequate water-supply infrastructure forces locals to purchase water in order to bathe, drink and perform everyday tasks such as laundry . And as Zindzi Zwietering documents ‘Day Zero’, we’re able to analyze how class struggles are exacerbated by the city’s water restrictions. The social commentary of these articles, combined with their brilliant photography, act as a microcosm for the diversity of our relationships with the world, so if you want to know more, go purchase your own copy!

How has it been watching BROAD grow from instagram to physical print?

Gergo: It’s been a lot of work but a lot of fun as well. It takes a fair amount of dedication to keep things going with such a large project, and you also need a fair amount of humility to ask for help when you’re stuck.  First off, we received an overwhelming amount of submissions to our open call, which made me realize people were taking this really seriously. I spent weeks and weeks sorting through it all and very slowly the arc of the content finally started to crystallize. Then came gathering and preparing all the content which took way longer than I initially anticipated. I realized I was doing work that is normally done by an entire editorial team so it was very slow going initially. Now that we are launching the first issue we have developed a small but driven and amazingly talented editorial team so the next issue should come together a lot faster. During the making of this I have connected with people in all corners of the globe and made quite a few friends along the way. Which is definitely the coolest thing to come out of it so far for me! I am very proud of the work we’ve put together.

A few paragraphs ago, I  mentioned my existential doubt over my ambitions of venturing into the publishing world. This magazine’s title, BROAD, encompasses my outlook after months of working with Gergo and the team. Having read what the contributors have said about the ways in which something as simple as water connects us together, I find myself feeling more humbled, and distinctly closer to other people. A printed magazine has an archival quality, if I ever feel alone, BROAD is right in front of me, with its empathic pages, ready to remind me that I’m not. I  hope when you’re reading the magazine, you’ll feel the same too, and will agree with me when I say that print is not dead, but a way towards a better future. 

Gergo Farkas is the editor-in-chief of BROAD, VOL. 1 - WATER SINGLE ISSUE IS NOW AVAILABLE TO ORDER .

Alexa Fahlman is a copy editor, writer, and photographer for BROAD.

Tomaso Clavarino - Bye Bye Land

Tomaso’s on-going photographic essay “Bye Bye Land” is a stunning visual survey of the rapid urbanization taking place in the Jordanian capital of Amman. Whilst, Amman has been historically regarded as the major city of the East Bank, it passed the first decades of this century not as a modern city, but as a provincial trading centre characterized by its rural and nomadic cultures. It wasn’t until 1946, that Amman, with its new position as capital of Jordan, expanded into the booming, overcrowded urban centre it is today. Within recent years, Amman’s rapid population growth and continuous influx of refugees from nearby war-torn countries has gone through unprecedented growth, reaching a current estimate of 4 million inhabitants, with 50% of agricultural land being reconverted into urban areas. In a rapidly modernizing and industrializing area, Tomaso notes that the city’s expansion has been both abrupt and chaotic, leaving behind old cement, scarce green areas, inadequate infrastructures and almost deserted neighbourhoods. Moreover, impulsive developments has led Amman to become the most expensive city in the Middle East, surpassing Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha. And yet, the city’s urbanization still doesn’t live up to its inhabitants’ expectations in terms of livability, breathability, and transportability. With that said, Tomaso’s high-contrast photos, tell a “Tale of Two Cities”– a story of Amman’s unsustainable modernization, social stratification and urban segregation.

- Alexa Fahlman

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“The irony is that there is increasing modernization going in in a city where entire neighbourhoods receive water only once a week. This modernization is taking away the only few resources still available to the population. Jordan, in fact, is one of the most water-scarce countries worldwide. According to the UN, with fewer water reserves and no changes in the development system, the country will run out of water by 2025.”

“Those living in poor and older neighbourhoods are unhappy with the situation due to the lack of resources, skyrocketing prices and limited infrastructures such as aqueducts. Of course all these issue have been exacerbated by recent urbanization, especially the lack of resources: more houses, means more water, more energy, and less soil for agriculture.” 

“From what I've seen I think that these development will lead to a wider gap between the rich and poor, and without a real investment plan for infrastructures, I don't know what the future of urbanization will look like…but I can’t imagine it will be sustainable.”

Dale Rothenberg - Flags of Convenience

Dale Rothenberg spent four years working as a musician on various cruise lines. His passion for photography combined with his fascination with the cruise industry paved the way for this extensive project and his transition to building a career in photography. Flags of Convenience is a captivating look into the international cruise industry and life on the lower decks.

Flags of Convenience

Interview with Dale Rothenberg

 It’s surprisingly quiet to watch a ship weighing 150,000 tonnes depart from a city of seven million people. The port lets out a faint siren as its robotic gangways fold into themselves. The bow thrusters and propellers rumble under the control of the Captain and his officers on the bridge, and the live band on the ship’s aft decks is playing a familiar song. Four decks below them, the deckhands are putting away the mooring lines that fiercely gripped the ship to the dock.
    But the city is silent. No one comes to watch the ship leave. Hong Kong’s new cruise terminal, a sterile structure of glass and metal, sits at the end of the old Kai Tak Airport runway. The departure is nothing like the oil paintings depicted; there are no crowds on the dock with handkerchiefs, or tugboats escorting the ship to sea. This scene is romanticized by the old passenger lines like Cunard and Holland America Line, commemorated in the old photographs and paintings littering the hallways of their modern sixteen-story behemoths. Actual on-board museums display curated timelines of ship design, celebrity activity, accidents and sinkings, the pressures of war, and the globalization of the maritime industry.

As long as ships have existed, they have represented the wealth and power of nations. Used as tools of discovery, trade, and war, they have acted as the overreaching hands of countries across bodies of water. The flags hanging off their sterns indicated the interests of the ship’s owners, the laws it followed, and the country it represented.
The exceptions to this rule for various reasons date back thousands of years. Greek sea-traders would operate on behalf of Roman merchants. English shipowners re-registered their ships with the Spanish flag in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to gain access to trading in the West Indies. American ships flew Portuguese flags during the War of 1812 to avoid conflicts with the British. And during World War II, the American Government re-registered ships with the neutral Panamanian flag to continue aiding European allies.
The US-Panama relationship is mostly responsible for the modern flagging system. Its roots stem from a handful of significant events in the early twentieth century.

How did you get involved in working on a cruise ship and what made you want to document the working life aboard?

I have a background (and a degree) in piano performance. Some of my older friends had gotten jobs as musicians on ships, and it seemed like a fun and steady gig. My first contract on a ship was four months long in the Caribbean, and a photography project wasn’t on my mind for any of it. I spent my time performing in musicals and cabarets, jazz sets, and dance parties. The entire contract felt like one long party with the entertainment team and the production cast; we rented booze-catamarans in St. Maarten, swam up to the pool bar in Mexico, and had fishermen catch and cook us seafood on the private beach for crew members in Haiti. It wasn’t until my third contract, when I found myself on a ship with very low morale, and the glamour of the daily drinking and partying had worn off, that I realized the potential of a project like this.

How long did you work in the cruise industry? What made you leave?

I worked on ships from 2014 to 2018, though not continuously. I am currently working towards a master’s degree in visual arts, after which I may go back and continue working on this project or a sequel to it. I spent last summer working on land operating bus tours for the ships calling in my city, and I am really interested in exploring more of the port-side operations and local structures of tourism.

I was doing a lot of work in commercial and editorial photography overlapping my time working on ships. I’m incredibly grateful to the studios and photographers I worked with for allowing me the opportunity to disappear for a few months at a time. Working as a freelancer was indispensable to supporting myself while working on this project.

Two Neo-Panamax ships in Nassau, Bahamas. 2016.

Most modern cruise ships carry between two and six thousand passengers, and a third of that in crew. The economies of scale allow them to efficiently operate in Caribbean ports, quickly sailing out of Florida with mostly American tourists. The ships are divided between the hotel department (mostly upper decks) and the deck department (mostly lower decks). The public spaces and hallways have secondary exits leading to hidden crew stairways, all of which lead to the lifeboat deck.
Carnival Corporation (Carnival, Costa, Princess, Holland America, Cunard, P&O, AIDA, Seabourn), Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, TUI, Pullmantur, Azamara), and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd (Norwegian, Oceania, Regent Seven Seas) control a combined total of nearly eighty percent of the global market share. The ships are built in European shipyards - STX in Finland, Chantiers de l'Atlantique in France, Meyer Werft in Germany, Fincantieri in Italy - and every few years the ships migrate back to Europe for drydock repairs and renovations. They are too large to fit in drydocks in the Americas, but instead are designed around the constraints of the Panama Canal.
The old canal’s limiting dimensions were referred to as Panamax, but a new set of locks opened in 2016 with a much larger carrying capacity, known as the Neo-Panamax specifications. This new addition allows for some of the largest ships to easily transfer from their traditional Caribbean routes to Alaska, Australia, and Asia. Meanwhile, the Neo-Panamax canal is reshaping the shipping industry, with many recently-built Panamax ships being laid up for scrap in favour of larger ones.

What was daily life like on board?

It can be very different on every ship, and it’s very dependent on your job. Many crew members, myself included, have to share a room with a complete stranger. The cabin about the size of my bathroom at home. There is usually no window in the cabin unless you are an officer of rank. Services for crew members, including medical attention and the HR desk, are limited. The food in the mess hall can be hit or miss, depending on the ship, or where the ship is located, or even who is in charge of the budget for food. Sometimes the crew mess is separated, and the staff and officers eat in separate areas. On some ships, staff members have privileges like eating in guest areas, going to the spa, and sitting in guest venues at night ordering from the bar. This varies depending on the cruise line, depending on what the captain allows, and sometimes even depending on your boss. There is no such thing as a weekend on ships, only sea-days and port-days. The amount of work can vary depending on the job, but most people working on ships average over twelve hours a day, every day, for four to ten months at a time.

Maybe I’ve painted a bleak picture, but there are a lot of positive elements of onboard life too. Many cruise lines offer a free spot on tours to crew members, in exchange for a written report on the contents of the tour. Many ships have bicycles available to borrow for crew members to use in port, and offer money exchange services at-cost in many different currencies. There are free exercise classes in the gym after-hours, themed parties once or twice a week, and a lot of the crew has the opportunity to get off the ship every time it’s in port. I won’t argue that this is a responsible method of tourism, but I think it’s interesting that cruise lines are able to use this element of the job as an incentive for employment.

The crew are housed below the passenger decks, and often below sea level. The hallways are narrow and winding, easy to get lost in. If the upper decks resemble a luxury hotel, the crew quarters are a warship. Watertight and splash-tight doors guard the hallways and are remotely closed from the bridge; they can trap you just as easily as they can save you. Instructional videos prove their ability to take off an arm or a leg or a finger.
The main amenities - cafeterias, bars, religious spaces, rec rooms, training facilities - are usually placed along the main crew corridor. On some ships the corridor is called the I-95, on others it’s called Burma Road (when soldiers were crammed into every conceivable space on requisitioned liners, it was so hot that it reminded them of Burma). Life as a crew member is driven by a few social events per week, nightly trips to the crew bar, and a deep realization of the mantra work hard, play harder. A smartphone app designed for crew members counts down the days left of a contract on a digital dial. The app is glanced at during breaks throughout the day, and occasionally before going to sleep at night.
A severe social hierarchy exists within the ship’s company, confining groups by rank and nationality. The younger, lower-ranking officers especially seem to enjoy restricting the amenities of the staff and crew. Each department eats at their own table; the officers’ mess is separate from the staff mess, which is separate from the crew mess. The largest ships have the most cliques, but also provide more entertainment and resources for crew members.

Gergely, musician from Hungary.

How did you make the transition to photography from your day job on the cruise-liners? 

It’s really uncomfortable to have a camera out in most crew areas. The place I found most useful was the crew deck, an outside area of the ship reserved for crew members. Usually this is on the bow (which is too windy to be useful for anything while at sea), but it can be in other “unusable" spots like just behind the funnel, where the ship’s exhaust and pollution accumulates. This is a place where crew members can smoke, relax, and feel the expanse of the ocean after a long day of working in an enclosed environment. When the ship is in port, it’s useful for sightseeing. I found it possible to photograph both candid and staged portraits here. Often, I would find it easier to engage with crew members from different backgrounds in this space, because it felt very separate from the work environment.

Galley workers on break. New Zealand, 2018

Can you share some of your most memorable moments (good or bad) from one of your contracts? 

I kind of have to mention the eleven hours I spent in early 2016 questioning if we would live or die as our ship, carrying about 4,000 passengers and 2,000 crew members, was tossed about in hurricane-like conditions off the coast of North Carolina. When the storm first struck, I was in a crew area where tables and chairs were shifting from one side of the room to the other. Water was pouring down staircases, the ship was listing continuously at fourteen or fifteen degrees (it feels a lot more severe than it sounds), and we were ordered to stay in our cabins for the duration of the storm. After it was all over, we spent three days limping back up to New York. The incident was covered by national news networks and we could see their coverage from the TV sets in our cabins. The internet, normally an expensive package, was unlocked in all guest areas so that guests could communicate to their families back home that they were safe. But they didn’t make the crew wifi free. I remember groups of forty or fifty crew members would be crammed into the small areas at the bottom of the main guest staircases, trying to get onto the guest wifi.

When we got back to New York, the captain was replaced. When I say New York, I really mean Bayonne, New Jersey. While docked there, work was done externally with divers. We suspected one of the propellors wasn’t working, because we had been traveling at about 8 knots per hour, which is very slow, and the ship’s wake wasn’t coming off of the stern evenly. I don’t know the full extent of the damage caused by the storm, but there were some elements of the top deck including glass barriers and weather monitoring instruments that were repaired or replaced. On the inside of the ship, once everything was cleaned up, it was eerily quiet. There were no guests on board, just background music. I wasn’t allowed off the ship, because I needed to get my passport stamped by an immigration officer, so I spent the days wandering through deserted guest venues with robotic bartenders and animatronic screens. It felt extremely dystopian. Our next cruise was shortened by two days because of the chance of encountering similar weather, and we had a norovirus outbreak so we soon found ourselves back in New York, spraying and wiping down every guest cabin for two days. In cases like this, even the musicians are out there in hazmat suits.

Deckhands repaint the hull of MV Boudicca, an older ship, while docked in Madeira, Portugal.

The World is an exclusive ultra-luxury ship owned by its residents. By living on it for most of the year, they are able to use the ship as a floating tax haven. Bergen, Norway. 2018.

In your essay you mention the ship named “The World” which offers year around living for the affluent with the added benefit of essentially living on a floating tax haven. Is this a growing trend? Where do you think this leads the industry? 

The World is an anomaly. I’m not sure if there will be more ships like it in the future, but I don’t think it is a trend. Something that is much more concerning to me is the retirees who live on ships part-time or full-time. To replace the nursing home model with a cruise ship, relying on low-paid Filipino labor and the ship’s medical team, seems like a dangerous shift. This is still abnormal, but as the cost of labor rises in the US and other developed nations, I can imagine a scenario where more retirees live on ships full-time.

The lowest decks of cruise ships have low ceilings, and are filled with technical equipment.

Do you think the cruise industry can become sustainable or does it only work because they are able to skirt labor and environmental regulations around the world?

There is a lot of progress that can be made to make the industry more sustainable. There are ways to engage with local communities that are not being considered. The industry is poised for significant growth in the next twenty years, and I think continuing on this trend without pressure from governments and environmental groups to correct these problems would be dangerous. Norway, my current home, is doing a lot to raise environmental standards for ships operating within the fjords and to limit the overall cruise traffic; unfortunately, it's a global industry and the cruise lines will just move the ships to emerging markets that can’t afford to turn away tourists.

I am worried about the day I suddenly find myself prohibited from every working on ships ever again. I know that I paint a critical picture of the cruise industry, but it’s not my intention to misrepresent or reduce things to be entirely negative. Each ship is its own complex little world, and the industry is a way of survival for many thousands of workers. It’s a bit of a reflection on American culture, but also steeped in this kind of transatlantic nostalgia. I am absolutely fascinated with it, and I can’t wait to go back.

Dale Rothenberg is a visual artist, photographer, musician, and amateur cruise industry expert. His background in music is what led him to working on cruise ships and documenting his experience. He currently lives in Bergen, Norway, where he is working towards a Master’s Degree in visual art.

Yana Pirozhok - My Dad is a School Bus Driver

East of the European Plain, and in the Western slope of the Middle Ural Mountains, is the Russian region of Perm Krai . It’s Uralic etymology indicates what life is like living within Russia’s rural foothills, a “far-away land” on the geologic “edge” or “verge” of nature. The region is scattered with small, homely villages such as Markovo, Taz Russky and Taz Tatarsky. Each morning the local children wait for Yana’s father– a school bus driver who will take them to their high school in the larger village of Kylapovo. In 2018, Yana first conceived this series as a photographic essay about village schoolchildren. However, as her photography brought her back to her parents’ village, the project became largely focused on her father, in an attempt to further understand him, see his life, and to ultimately confront the emotional distance between her, and her childhood in Perm Krai.

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My Dad is a School Bus Driver

All my life I have lived with the feeling that my father has never loved me or has not loved me enough. My childhood trauma had manifested into my complex of a “disliked daughter”. However, there came a moment in my creativity, when I realized that through photography, I had a chance to deal with my inner demons. It turned out to be very personal, and painful at first, but ultimately a liberating experience about my difficult relationship with my dad. My dad is a school bus driver. He is a pensioner, but still has to work. He goes to small villages, collects children and takes them to school for classes. 

I made several attempts to persuade him to take me with him to work, but my father refused, he’d tell me, “you’d better find a proper business”. This turned into a month of long conversations with him. For the first time in my life, I sincerely tried to open up to him in complete honesty, explaining why this was important to me, why I left architecture for the sake of photography, and what this strange–in his mind–practice means to me.

“No.” Said dad, “and that is the point.”

I waved my hand and went to make meat dumplings with my mom, running through my head, wondering what to do next and that maybe, it would all be okay if nothing came out of this. The next day, he told me, “tomorrow, Yana, get ready for work, get up at 6 am, you cannot be late, I arranged with the school principal, you are allowed to shoot anytime and anything on the school grounds.” A wave of conflicting feelings hit me: I was very ashamed that I did not believe in him and gave up, and very happy because my father made an effort, and tried to understand and accept me for who I  was and what I wanted to do. 

I went with him to work all week, and those were some of the best and most beautiful days in my life. We drove through fields and pastures, and at some point, dad suddenly took interest in my project and started to “supervise” it–this actually rather bothered me, but it was at the same time very touching. He’d slow down the speed of the herd of cows or fields with bales of hay and shouted at me to the salon bus, “Yana, shoot! Beauty!” And I shot and laughed.

When he found out that I wanted to take a couple of shots of the school cafeteria and cooks, he told me “wait here!” And quickly left to negotiate on the chef's caps , “they have to be beautiful! it's for art! ”
“Well, paaaaaapa”, I moaned, “it's a documentary photo, paaaapa, you can't intervene here.” But I was happy because I saw such a sympathetic father. During the day, he went to the senior boys (secretly for me) and asked them not to hide when they would smoke at the school, because “Yana takes pictures of life, everything should be real!” Not only did this project help me overcome my traumatic memories of the village school through observing the children and talking to them, but it also allowed me to mend the relationship with my father, bond with him, get to really know him, open myself up to him, and realize, importantly, that if someone can’t express their love, it doesn’t mean they don’t love you.

Bob Hambly - Somewhere in Between

That murky area where things are ambiguous, even uncomfortable, is where my eye tends to go. I don’t like referring to it as a state of transition – that implies that the existing status is temporary and unworthy of appreciation. Actually, situations can often be at their best during these incidental phases. Extremes such as new or old, attractive or ugly, liberal or conservative, are convenient classifications, however, much of what we experience falls somewhere in between – too nebulous for easy categorization. When choosing what to photograph, I don’t see illegible billboards or lonesome towns or discarded ice machines. I see unconventional beauty. Is something most notable when it is first built or thriving? Not necessarily. Change provides variations, iterations – all of which contribute to an ongoing story. The photographs that make up this volume of work capture those incidental phases and explore the curious sensation of being placed somewhere in between.

Joseph Horton - Terrain Vague

When we think of Britain, our imagination often takes us to the countryside, an inspired vision from the classic works of Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy. Historically, popular culture has imagined, portrayed and represented the countryside as a symbol of Britishness. The foundational myth of the rural idyll (the romanticized construct that rural areas are timeless, apolitical, and lack conflict) has emerged as one of Britain’s most powerful identificatory tropes. However, the countryside, as an idyllic pastoral retreat, something both real and imagined, is in fact astonishingly varied beyond its portrayals.

Joseph Horton is a British photographer and artist currently based between London and Bristol. His series “Terrain Vague”, is a rebellion against the rural idyll myth. In these images, Joseph takes the traditional pastoral motif and subverts it to explore the liminal spaces and temporalities that exist within the British countryside. When creating these images, he was concerned about representing the countryside “in a way which didn’t play into its’ contemporary idealised portrait, but sat somewhere beside it; this area is post industrial and it is picturesque but it is also both.” Here, Joseph observes the cultural implications of the idyllic representations of the countryside, as he documents the areas surrounding the road that joins England and Wales, and also serves as an unofficial border between rural and industrial South Wales. As you scroll down, you’ll see how this road, much like Joseph’s photography, reflects the complexity of the British countryside’s coexisting identities.

- Alexa Fahlman

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The British countryside has been regarded as a retreat for many, seen as an escape from the constructed urban environment and a place of contemplation. However, this reflection is not wholly relatable as for its inhabitants these spaces present conflict between ideology and reality. Along our border lands two coexisting identities can be found, creating a space which is not easily defined. Formerly attributed to the hardships of industrial closure the south Wales landscape sits alongside traditional pastoral visions associated with Britain. The divide is a ‘trunk’ road which joins England and Wales, whilst forming an unofficial border between rural and industrial South Wales. Its creation has been continually developed since the early 00’s and has seen further development with the help of European funding. Interested in exploring the complex social and cultural identity of this road I sought to inject a contemporary view of reflective and open imagery which, in my view, can be seen in documentary photography today; lyrical, ambiguous and ‘post-truth’. 

Working within a political landscape, as photographers, the creation of work for the cause of political comment versus that which speaks within political climates is a hard discussion to disentangle. This, for me, is where photography allows us to begin to unravel the complexities of cultural and political identities. The project attaches an ambiguity toward its subjects, one that gives space to think and from it, we find a balance between evidence and lyricism; it is in this dialogue that the work was made. The area in question is a web of rural, non-rural, urban, suburban sectors all of which have boundaries which blur into each other. Who we are and how we think these places look still remain and are easily found but if you look closer at their makeup and the surrounding spaces you get a sense of the messy truth which builds this picture. Attracted to the political and cultural notions attached to the road I looked to its surrounding space finding solitude in a transitory environment. So the work has become more of a reaction to that, seeking out scenes in the world which represent this feeling. It does not serve to illustrate the roads completion and history, but to explore how it as an object can talk about our relationship to travel and the micro climates that build our complex rural spaces. 

The project can be seen as an investigation into national/cultural identity and a quickly changing landscape but more deeply it is a reaction to ‘landscape’, and specifically how it has been historically represented. It is important that representation from across our country is understood with the depth and understanding that transcends pictures of fields. Those areas which carry the most weight are often the most overlooked, hidden in the everyday and familiar. The amazing thing about the UK is our ability to intermix so many cultures and opinions in such close proximity and have them influence each other in a strange osmosis, this is kind of where the 'divide' and 'joins' complexity comes in. I never wanted to make a work with a myopic range, I wanted to talk about how all these elements come together to build this part of our country and how each opinion, culture and 'landscape' when understood and taken with sincerity can help us form a better understanding of our political landscape. Whilst it’s a very complex element to the work, it is something that I am continuing to disentangle through the imagery. 

Michele Vittori - Telepath

At the beginning of the 60s the first civilian telecommunications space station in Italy was inaugurated in the Fucino plain, in Abruzzo, thanks to which the first satellite television transmissions of the most important international events were carried out, including space missions and in 1969 the live television broadcast of the moon landing, laying the foundations for the birth of the information society. On April 30, 1986, through the antennas of the Fucino teleport and a project by the University of Pisa, the first connection was made to the American Arpanet network, forerunner of the network of networks, the Internet.

Italy is among the first countries to enter the digital age, which will bring enormous social, economic and political changes in just a few years. This series aims to connect the man, the territory and  the technological development of mass information, also using archive  material, to build an imaginary between reality and perception…

Claire McIntyre - Brooklyn Masculinity

Tuesday Talent is a new series on Broadmag edited by Alexa Fahlman. Every Tuesday we will feature a submission sent to us through our site that speaks to the current cultural and sociopolitical landscapes that shape our experiences around the world. This series is about showcasing the dualistic nature of photography, what one might call its “double exposure” – the superimposition of the photo and its meaning creates a single image with an underlying narrative just waiting to be seen and told.

- Alexa Fahlman

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This week’s feature is Claire McIntyre! A visual artist and photographer who explores social anxiety, conditioning and constructs through photography. In this series, Claire documents Brooklyn’s masculinity through portraits of her tinder matches.

Here, the intimacy of the subject’s portrait bleeds into its juxtaposed cityscape.

Masculinity, as a concept has been fuelling my photographic research. What fascinates me about the world we live in is the multitude of cultures, mindsets and actions spread across the globe. As society takes shape, social constructs have developed over time. I am in a phase of mass questioning; what are these boxes society created and put each individual into, and how we do, or don't, follow the norms of these social constructs? Are we, as individual human beings, able to truly think for ourselves, or do we inevitably follow some sort of social guideline no matter how alternative and off the grid one may think to be?

In this series I wish to open up the conversation regarding the concept of masculinity; what it means to men today and how they engage with it, navigating through the pressures of social conditioning. Through this photographic series I’ve interviewed my male Brooklyn subjects, asking them to reflect upon their upbringing and if they felt compelled to act accordingly. To my surprise, they answered with an awareness that was indeed attributed to the roles which they took on.

Social constructs and conditioning keep on shaping behaviour, and for the most part, people don't even question their beliefs, doings, actions or reactions. I wish to engage with my subjects, and viewers, inviting them to reflect. Photographing this process is my way of opening up the conversation, and encouraging us all to take a step back from our patterned life and habits, and take the time to actually think about our attitudes in regards to what we consider “the norm”.

François Ollivier - Friday Feature

Theses images are from different bodies of work, including commercial assignments.

They represent well the way I see things and how I try to document what's happening in life, memories (past or to be created) or the places I live or visit. 

I trust providence (albeit not the divine kind) and patience.

François Ollivier is a documentary, editorial photographer based in Montreal, Canada. Visit his website to see more of his work and follow him on Instagram.

Michael Gessner - Masse

Michael Gessner’s upcoming book, “Masse” was conceived over 4 years as a sociological exploration of mass behaviour in the digital age, to invite contemplation on the myriad ways in which individuals are monitored – and in which they monitor themselves – as they transition through the blurred boundaries between the digital and the physical. The book is available for pre-order through drittelbooks.com

Leah Frances - American Squares

From 2013 through 2019, I explored America’s real and imagined images of itself through the lens of my camera. As a Canadian-born photographer raised on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, my early proximity to the United States along with a steady diet of mid-century American cinema instilled in me a fascination for commonly-held concepts of “Americanness.”

Now living in Pennsylvania, I hold a deep interest in identity—its roots, and its perceptions within a culture and across time. Photography, as my vehicle through this exploration, allows me to focus on small, striking moments and to create images that carry a persistent, quiet optimism. I find that the way I choose to frame the content of my photographs: to leave out what I want but also to include what I want can create a sort of displaced experience, an alternate reality both for myself, as the photographer doing the composing, and for the viewer doing the looking. The resulting image becomes a portal, allowing for a flexible experience of time.

Leah’s book, American Squares is available for pre-order from @aintbad.

Karol Pałka - Edifice

“For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man—when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back.”

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Edifice is a visual journey back to a time most people would like to forget. Pałka documents buildings that have survived the Communist regime, which years ago rolled over Central and Eastern Europe. The photographs show the interiors of the Polana Hotel, a closed holiday facility once owned by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and the now disused office building for the management of the Nowa Huta Steelworks, a fine example of Socialist Realism, once visited by Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro.

Karol Pałka builds the Edifice in the title to tell a story about power and its impermanence. The Edifice provides shelter, security, peace, and at the same time, gives a sense of strength. However, the feeling is just an illusion, and the power - contrary to what those who wield it think - is not given once and for all, but only for a moment. The spectre of demise is near, lurking just round the corner, just behind the cold and thick walls of grandiose ideas.

Karol Palka (1991) is a Polish photographer graduated from the Krzysztof Kieslowski Film Department in Katowice University and Wajda School in Warsaw. Currently has been pursuing doctoral studies at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. Member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers. His works has been awarded at New East Photo Prize 2018, Lensculture Emerging Talent Awards 2017, PDN Photo Annual 2016, La Quatrieme Image - Young Talents 2017, IPA Awards, and published in magazines such as British Journal of Photography, The Calvert Journal, GUP Magazine, L’Œil de la Photographie.

Follow Karol on Instagram and view all of his work at http://karolpalka.com/

J.W. Fike's Photographic Survey of the Wild Edible Botanicals of the North American Continent

Since 2007, I’ve been creating a photographic archive depicting North America’s rich trove of wild edible flora. By employing a system that makes it easy to identify both the plant and its edible parts, the images function as reliable guides for foraging. 

Beyond functionality, I try to construct images that operate on multiple levels theoretically and perceptually. Upon longer viewing the botanicals begin to transcend the initial appearance of scientific illustration – they writhe and pulsate trying to communicate with you about their edible parts while hovering over an infinite black expanse. To achieve a layered aesthetic the photographs are meticulously crafted and constructed. I photograph multiple specimens of the same plant and combine the best elements from each to create an archetypal rendering. By judiciously rearranging, scaling, and warping I can vivify the plant and turn the ground into infinite space. 

This work offers a dose of something palliative for the ills of alienation – a sense of connection to a certain place and a certain ecosystem. With this goal in mind, I plan on continuing the survey until I’ve amassed an expansive enough cross-section of the botanical life on the continent to mount biome-specific exhibitions anywhere within the continental United States. I hope the photographic survey can serve as a historical archive during an era of extreme change, and provide viewers all over the country an opportunity to feel a type of numinous bond with their landscapes that will encourage health, engender wonder, help identify free food, and most importantly, inspire greater concern for environmental issues..

Echinacea

Ground Cherry

Oxeyedaisy

Plantain

Sheepsorrel

Sunflower

Marsh Mallow

Mayapple

Solomonsseal

Wapato

Tatum Shaw - Plusgood!

According to the future laid out in George Orwell’s 1984, the English language will be decimated and reduced to only a small list of government approved words known as Newspeak. There is no beautiful, no marvelous, no wonderful. If something is deemed better than “good,” it’s simply referred to as “plusgood.” 

These images were conjured as a way to take refuge from dread, with a desire to seek more goodness in the everyday. For me, this feeling of “better than good” can be traced back to specific memory blips from boyhood, centered around my Nana’s pool in the warm hug of the Georgia sun. This series is an ode to my own happiness, a celebration of the moments when it was first discovered, and the moments today where it still shines.

Follow Tatum’s new work on Instagram and check out his website for an in-depth look at his work.