Amy Stein

Amy Stein must have paid attention to her kindergarten teacher when he/she told her to share because she knows how to share. Some artists like to keep their process or technique a secret. Amy Stein is a somewhat rare breed of artist who lets people of interest in on how she creates images. Annie Leibovitz and Chase Jarvis are also good artist to look into if your thirsty for more insider secrets.

Amy talked about her "Stranded" series and told us how she had grander plans but due to time, money and other limitations she had to be creative while compromising with natural forces against her. The end result is a wonderful series of people stranded on the side of the road. Some might question the pictures she chose to use but all together it is a cohesive body of work. Ultimately you can tell she is making conscious decisions with her work rather than letting things happen. Her work is very posed but posed so well it even confused National Geographic when they took a look at her "Domesticated" series. Amy let us in on how she likes to tell her version of the truth with her work by combining bits and pieces of true stories from the locals and mending it together in her mind to make something new. Amy has a fantastic talent of really getting to know people and their specialties. She uses the knowledge to find people to work with on her creation of images.

Amy is a great example of an artist who isnt afraid to tell secrets and it shows in her work.



Her website: http://www.amysteinphoto.com/

Spray Graphic's Mini Mini Art Show

Spraygraphic held it's Mini Mini art show in Tempe, Az March 2009. I myself submitted a piece to this show or rather project and must say I enjoyed the process. A community project involving artists from all around the world were welcome to submit work as long as it fit into the 4in x 4in space. Here are some pictures from their blog. Thanks for putting the show together!



Above: Piece I submitted. Made its way from VA to AZ.

SameTime 1:04

SameTime 1:04 is a spin off from the locally popular SameTime 7:15 project. Everyday a group of four people take a picture at exactly 1:04 pm.

Being inspired is an amazing thing. Being inspired to actually do something is even better. Like what you see, how about make your own. A few VCU students choose to do that and SameTime 1:04 is the result.

I wish the project had a better space than blogger. Some web development would go a long ways from keeping it from blending into the abyss of the internet. I think the layout of the images is too spread out and keeps me from viewing weird oddities of 4 people taking a picture. The added footnote of the images also takes me away from the image. I can for the most part tell whats going on in the images and don't the extra information. For the images I am unsure of what's going on, the text ruins my imagination. I'm afraid for the sake of being slightly different it led the project to some downfalls. Aside from the layout and the added text I am happy to see the project continued by a different group of people that opens insight into a different demographic of emerging photographers.

Imitation is flattery. I believe this project will lead each person involved into finding things they like about the work and things they hate, but it will be a journey for them and the experience is invaluable. The journey is somewhat personal and I am unsure of how much the imagery interests me but I enjoy the fact that people out there are striving for more and creating something.