"When I was a child," writes Michael Marcelle in the forward to his upcoming monograph Kokomo, I thought there were monsters on the beach, waiting beneath the dunes, between the reeds. I would walk along the shore with my family, looking over my shoulder for a sign..." In 2012, Hurricane Sandy swept these dunes away, destroying Marcelle's memories of his hometown on the Jersey Shore. Already into his career as an art and editorial photographer, the devastation the storm caused to his childhood memories floated into his work, a series of photographs that lie somewhere between memoir and science fiction.
While many photographers at the time covered the storm's destroyed landscape with an opportunistic or documentary lens, Marcelle folded its consequence inward. "The subjects are my immediate family," writes Marcelle, "caught in states of transformation and mutation in a ruptured, alien landscape." He recently teamed up with photography wunderkind Matthew Leifheit to publish the work under Leifheit's new imprint: Matte Publications, and they've launched a Kickstarter to help fund it. In advance of the campaign, I spoke with Marcelle about his obsession with horror and its metaphor in his work. Make sure to watch the video at the end of the interview to learn more.
In 2010, the Hartford Art School launched a unique MFA program in photography, distinguished from the traditions of Yale, Columbia, SVA and Cal Arts and other photography MFA canons. It stands apart through its limited-residency structure: summer-long intensive on-campus sessions, combined with travel components in the spring and fall in cities like Berlin and New York City. Students have access to a wide range of critics and lecturers throughout the year, including Alec Soth and Lisa Kereszi.
I emailed with founder Robert Lyons, and faculty members Jörg Colberg and Michael Vahrenwald to learn more about their philosophies on photography education, and what's moving them right now. We've also included some of our favorite photographs from the 2016 graduating class.
For the past few years, Seth Olenick has been hitting up New York City's annual Comic Con at the Javit's Center. The comedy, punk rock, and pop-culture obsessed photographer has been drawn to the fantastical, and ridiculous costumes. He's among hundreds of photographers who flock to the convention in search of gleaming pageantry, but this year something else caught his eye: heroes and villains on their smoke breaks. Here are a few of our favorites. If you like these, check out Olenick's gigantic book of comedian portraits: Funny Business and follow him on Instagram.
Last week we learned the sad news that Behold, Slate's photography blog, and one of our all time favorites had posted its last piece. If the buzzword "influencer" could be used sincerely to describe a photography blog writer, it couldn't more accurately epitomize David Rosenberg, the mind behind Behold's editorial direction. We've spoken to countless photographers whose work exploded after being featured on Behold by Rosenberg and staff writers Alyssa Coppelman and Jordan Teicher, and I can personally attest to seeing my own work take off after Rosenberg wrote about it. I'll never forget the knee-shaking feeling of receiving a call from Fox News asking to interview me after reading his piece. So I reached out to David to learn more about what drives his love for photography, and a bit about what's in store for the future. We've also included some of our favorite photographs from past Slate features, like Kevin Horan's series ChattelI above, and Corinne Botz' project Bedside Manner below.
This weekend marks Printed Matter's annual New York Art Book Fair: a glorious, highly curated, jam packed, sweaty gathering of some of best mainstream and independent art book publishers. Hosted at New York City's MoMa PS1 in Long Island City, it's filled with frequent book signings, people watching and an opportunity to spend a downpayment on way too many photobooks (which you should.) We hope the renegade book appropriating bootleggers Flat Fix are back for an attack. Oh, and there's also the Independent Art Book Fair happening close by in Greenpoint, which is worth a walk over the Pulaski Bridge. Below are some of our anticipated favorites, in no particular order.