Seeking safety

Refugees are worldwide problem that shouldn't stop at any nation's borders, so when I received an email by Sara Forrest I was more then interested to have a look at her images. She shot her series "New roots for refugees" only a couple of weeks ago where she concentrated on a group of female refugee farmers and their families (from Somalia, Burundi, Sudan, Burma, etc.) who have been resettled in an urban section of Kansas City, Kansas in the United States. Her purpose of the project was to create awareness for refugees new to the US, to focus on urban agriculture and community based markets and to highlight the beautiful and enduring spirits of these female refugees. Her images are perfectly exquisite still life's and her colors present us with the essence of vulnerability.

A big thank you

I am just thrilled. I got to know Joost a tiny bit over emails after he subscribed and in the process I learned he was a big ipad fan... so I asked him to tell me about his experience with UYW. I have been looking into making UYW ipad friendly, but hmm can't really afford one at the moment... so he made this for me. Thank you Joost - I am touched. It gives me a great indication how it looks and what I need to change. It is amazing and I am often blown away by technology and how fast it moves. In 1989 I started a typical typesetter apprenticeship with lead type and no computers.... Do you have any idea how long it took to change the smallest thing? Forever.

Greatest act of bravery

I was intrigued when I received some images from Jonathan Cherry, so I went to his website and really enjoyed his "Blue Watch" series. “The difference between a man and a boy is, a boy wants to grow up to be a fireman, but a man wants to grow up to be a giant monster fireman.” Jack Handy.

I could stand on a beach until the end of time

I came across Douglas Ljungkvist's "Ocean Beach" images a while ago, but never got around to posting them. His soft, opaque and subdues colors are delightful, they capture the qualities of immediacy & spontaneity well.

Space, Air, Light, Silence

I take every opportunity I can - to explore the mountain at the end of our driveway. These trees have been here for 100's of years and will still be here, long after I have moved on - looking the same - but different.

Past perfect

So how absolutely amazing are Josef Schulz's "Uebergang" images? Actually all of his images. Firstly I wanted to showcase his "terraform" series, but then, well how could I go past these ones? I used to love stopping at this little huts/rooms, show my little passport and be off on a new adventure with languages I didnt understand, but got to eat pasties and drink wines I loved... Anyway I am getting a little side tracked here... “Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.” ( Peter De Vries) I know sometimes I feel like a big happy hippo, ohh isnt this nice and this and what about this etc, but you know, for every ohh I also look through 100's of website, well which frankly aren't, so when I do find a great one, my heart skips a beat and I believe again.

Eternity

The other day I received a subscription for UYW by Virginia Woods-Jack and we started a lovely email dialogue. It still amazes me how easy it is to meet new people, learn about their passions, hear about their new projects and generally get a feel of who they are... A few days later I received these images from her "Gazing" series. Of her work Virginia says: "Interacting with our reflection is usually a function of brushing our teeth, combing our hair, shaving etc. I wanted to know what would happen if we actually stopped and looked? What would we see and how would we feel about what we saw? I decided to place some parameters around these works namely a time period was important element as well as an unbroken time period. I asked the subjects to look at themselves in a mirror that they would most often look at themselves in for a period of roughly 5 minutes. This is long enough to go past the initial awkwardness and not too long so as to loose interest. I shot one roll of film, 12 frames. At the end of the shoot I asked them to write in a sketch book any thoughts or feelings that may have arisen whilst looking at themselves. Every individual had their own experience however, there were some similarities in the age groups and sexes with how they actually interacted with their reflections. My observations of how they behaved however, didn’t give any clue to the thoughts and feelings they revealed in their writings. Their words went beyond the surface and opened up the person behind the gaze. The hand written texts, the way they wrote on the page all became integral to this project the words and the pictures complementing and enhancing one another. This marriage of image and words builds pictures of fragility, strength, time of life, self awareness and blissful ignorance of self."

The Instrument of Instruments

Today I came across Per Volquartz's "Instruments of death" series and loved them instantly. How often do you get to see close ups of a Hornet, Missile or a propeller? When you are able to strip away the reason why these instruments have been built in the first place - you can see their outstanding design and beauty.

UYW Issue 9

"I like to have a thing suggested rather than told in full. When every detail is given the mind rests satisfied and the imagination loses the desire to use its own wings." (Thomas Bailey Aldrich) With this in mind I would like to introduce five amazing artists.

Graham Miller
Alessandro Imbriaco
Sadie Wechsler
Michael Werner
Ben Huff

Click here to view the new edition.

Degrees of precision

Unable to leave the house has the advantages of being able to sort out ones emails. I do not know how I could have missed Gianpaolo Arena's, but I was more the delighted to come across it again. These images are from his series "the right distance".