Photography

The Verge on AI in photography with the release of the new Google Pixel:

An explosion from the side of an old brick building. A crashed bicycle in a city intersection. A cockroach in a box of takeout. It took less than 10 seconds to create each of these images with the Reimagine tool in the Pixel 9’s Magic Editor. They are crisp. They are in full color. They are high-fidelity. There is no suspicious background blur, no tell-tale sixth finger. These photographs are extraordinarily convincing, and they are all extremely fucking fake. 

Some of the examples they offer:

These were created in-camera. No additional software or skills required.

The conclusion of The Verge's article? We're fucked.

Caleb Stein's, Down By the Hudson, a series of b&w photos taken at a watering hole in Poughkeepsie, NY, explores the camaraderie and simplicity a gathering place engenders by simply being.

The full series, including gallery shots and accompanying text, is on Caleb's site.

Anecdote Alert

The image of the soaped-up boy reminds me of people I encountered on a weekend drive as a teenager. I was camping with some friends at a lake. There was a cliff with a rope tied to an overhanging tree. Locals would emerge from the water "clean," after soaping up, swinging, and letting go. One child, who couldn't yet have been 10, forgot to wipe his palms on his shorts before grabbing the rope. The excess Sunlight stymied his grip and he plunged into the shallowest part of the lake, just that side of the rocks. When I think of it, I see him strike stone and break — some times his head, some times his arm, most often his leg — complete with crack!, or blood, depending on what's been struck. It's an overwhelming "memory" that I have to remind myself didn't happen. He was fine, though a bit shook. I don't doubt that what he saw bursting through the water — the horrified looks on the observers' faces — is burnt into his brain the way the reverse has settled in mine.

That whole weekend was one of the strangest of my youth, and none of it in a good way.

James Mollison's extraordinary series, Where Children Sleep, offers portraits of kids and their "bedrooms" from places around the world. So much to think about these, especially when contrasted with one another. Equality, opportunity, privilege, burden, culture. Fantastic stuff.

The entire series of 56 diptychs can be viewed on Mollison's website.

Santa Monica

Back home
I dream of the water
beyond the break
and wake older
angry at borders
that keep me foreign
and dry.

Did my wretched ancestors
who walked inward
abandoning shorelines
and settling centered
fear the power
tides gift me?

And will my absence
pull from both coasts
to my landlocked city
salt water so deep
as to drown
their evil
guiding star?

— July, 2017, Toronto

Your Call Pulses Through Me With A Glorious Dynamism

I've felt this wave before,
in Havana and Piles, too. 
You were with me, then,
and the water senses your absence.
I lay back and conspire with the tide.
The sunlit Santa Monica sky turns black and star-pricked.
I drift, whispering your name,
until I feel your faint but unmistakable touch.

— December, 2017, Santa Monica

Nick Tauro Jr has a series of refracted photos taken in Paris.

More on Nick's website.

Plenty more on his website.

Magdalena Wywrot's forthcoming Deadbeat Club title, PETSKA, looks to be fantastic.

Full details on the title are on the DeadBeat Club site.

Gil Rigoulet has an almost overwhelmingly fantastic trove of photos taken in the 70s and 80s in Napoli, Chicago, England, Quebec, and France.

The street was the best window and I plunged my camera uncomplicated by traveling North America, and Europe from east to west. No obligations, no command, just to see the world around me.  

Phenomenal work. See more, including his landscapes, Polaroids, self portraits, and more on his site: GilRigoulet.com

The Burn My Eye Photography Collective has some superb street photography categorized by theme. I've provided credit when it's been shared.

Plenty more on the Burn My Eye website.

Canadian photographer Maureen O'Connor's work is always one of the highlights for me of the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair. If I don't find her booth on my own meanderings, I make a point of seeking it out. I can't leave until I've seen her new photos.

All of the animals in her pictures are live — there's no taxidermy and no posing. The creatures, which to my understanding live in rehabilitation sanctuaries, are brought to the abandoned buildings and allowed to explore.

You can see all O'Connor's work at maureenfaithoconnor.com. The above are all from the Threshold series, but the Inclusion, Departures, and Cuban series are also excellent.