© Ken Rosenthal.Above: Seen and Not Seen, #1311-3 (2001)

Ken Rosenthal: Photographs 2001–2009  is on view at Klompching Gallery until May 19, 2012.

Over the last decade Ken Rosenthal has explored the notion of time, collective memory, fiction and cultural iconography through his use of historic negatives and photographs—specifically imagery from his own family album.  Some of the images are bleached, split-toned and blurred, techniques that complement associations that seem at once shared yet highly personal, unknowable yet familiar. Like memory, his photographs are ethereal and ambiguous.

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All photos © Larry C. Price/Redux

Photojournalist Larry C. Price became interested in documenting child labor issues after working on several magazine stories in Africa and Central America. Price witnessed firsthand the plight of children in developing countries and is currently pursuing projects that can help expose exploitation and abuse.  In December of 2011, Price traveled to the Philippines to begin the first part of an ongoing project documenting child labor in gold mines.  The global rise in the price of gold has propelled an unprecedented demand for gold. The payoff is great and children, some as young as 4, are used to pan, haul ore and even work below ground. Working with an environmental group in the Philippines, Price was able to secure unprecedented access to remote regions of the Philippine gold fields where he saw children working with picks, hammers and their bare hands. “I was overwhelmed,” he says. “I knew the situation was grim but I wasn’t prepared to see how hard the children were expected to work. Some of the young ones were carrying 50-pound bags of ore.” Price wants to continue the project and is working on plans to travel to other child-labor hotspots in Asia and Africa this year. “This is one theme that is really difficult to get a lens on. But the camera really is the best way to tell this story,” Price explains.

-courtesy Larry C. Price

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All photos © Deborah Bay. Above: 9mm Glock ball.

Deborah Bay photographed bullets that were fired into panels of plexiglass. She brought the panels in the studio and used a 120 macro lens on a Contax 645. On some of the images color was introduced by using gels or, occasionally, colored lights and glass. “Taking a cue from the cultural zeitgeist, I began thinking about ‘The Big Bang’ after seeing a sales display of bullet-proof plexiglass that had several projectiles embedded in it”, says Bay. “The plexiglass captured the fragmentation of the bullets and essentially provided a visual record of the energy released from the projectile on impact. Curious about its photographic potential, I returned a few days later with my camera and made some test shots. The bullets in the transparent plexiglass provided a way of seeing what the eye doesn’t normally see. In deciding to explore this concept further, I also was intrigued by the psychological tension created between the jewel-like beauty and the inherent destructiveness of the fragmented projectiles in the plexiglass. Many of the images resemble exploding galaxies, and visions of intergalactic bling sublimate the horror of bullets meeting muscle and bone. My interest in the project grew out of the pervasiveness of guns as cultural symbols and America’s long-held affection for guns as part of the country’s heritage. This seems particularly relevant in Texas where it’s estimated that there are 51 million firearms – two guns for every man, woman and child in the state.” – Deborah Bay

Professionals in law enforcement at the Public Safety Institute at Houston Community College fired the shots into the plexiglas used in this series.

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© Ernesto Bazan. Above: Little girl sitting on a rocking chair, Bautista, Cuba, 2002.

“While living in Cuba for over 10 years, I finally realized that throughout my professional career I had been unconsciously searching for my happy Sicilian childhood. Discovering the Cuban countryside was an unexpected return to those unforgettable years. The Cuban farmland opened new windows of opportunity for me. I made new friends while wandering these intimate landscapes. I regularly returned to visit Fidel, Miguel, Jose, Inesita and their families. I shared intimate rituals with them: eating meals together, smoking sugar-tasting cigars, sipping sweet rum as we conversed about our lives. My way of shooting changed. Taking pictures became part of our ritual together, it was no longer my main priority.

My photographs are about this very hard, simple, and yet beautiful traditional way of life. Sowing the land, harvesting crops, raising families, raising animals, killing and eating them for survival. These images give voice to a people never heard before, people that will never make the news. They convey the poetry of small things and the simplicity of farmers still living a traditional life-style.” – Ernesto Bazan

Al Campo has been graciously self-published thanks to the invaluable help and support of so many of Bazan’s students.

All Photos © John Faier

John Faier first stepped into a community mausoleum while visiting a Catholic cemetery on the west side of Chicago. Queen of Heaven Indoor Mausoleum was built between 1956 and 1964 by the Archdiocese of Chicago and contains 30,000 individual crypts. Today it is roughly 75% full. Surrounded by the pervasive scent of embalming fluid, Faier found the vast complex simultaneously beautiful and grotesque–and a time-capsule for all things midcentury. He subsequently embarked on a four-year project photographing similar mausoleums from the same time period. Faier used a large-format camera with a digital back, composing the images entirely in-camera.  “I am drawn to subjects in our contemporary society that are beautiful, absurd, and dark. And, although I am extremely interested in hyper-realism as a photographic effect, I want my photographs to place our various notions of what is artificial or natural into question. I am interested in exploring themes relating to the surreal and kitsch and typically use formal  compositional techniques to place the viewer at a distance from the subject. ‘Queen of Heaven’ allows us to contemplate our own struggles, loneliness, and mortality as filtered through the lens of the camera.” Faier’s series is on view at the Blue Sky Gallery until April 29, 2012.  – courtesy John Faier

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