Cool Hunting
Ohio-born Israeli Rachel Papo began photographing female soldiers in 2004. Having worked as a photographer in the Israeli Air Force for two years during her mandatory military service, Papo had experienced first hand being “plucked from her home surroundings and placed in a rigorous institution where her individuality is temporarily forced aside in the name of nationalism” as she describes it in her artist's statement. The project is titled Serial No. 3817131 from the author's own military service.
These images show the homogenizing effect of military service of young people. For young women it can be especially contradictory with competing demands from society to appear gentle and feminine with the necessity of adapting to the rigors of a regimented survival.
“In striving to maintain her gentleness and femininity, the soldier seems to be questioning her own identity, embracing the fact that two years of her youth will be spent in a wistful compromise,” writes Papo.
According to Papo's website, a book published by PowerHouse will be released this spring. Click images for detail and see more after the jump.
An interesting contrast is Jerusalem-born photographer Steve Sabella's images of occupied Palestinian lands. A professional freelancer who shoots photos for the United Nations, Sabella maintains a website bringing images of daily life from Palestine to the outside world.
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With photographs and interviews by Jonathan Torgovnik, the book and exhibition "Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape" is a collection of personal accounts of thirty female survivors of the Rwandan genocide that took place 15 years ago. Subjected to sexual violence by members of the Hutu militia groups, these women all bore children as a result, and many were exposed to HIV and...
Edward Burtynsky photographs a world changing for the purposes of industrial development. His most recent book, China, is a glimpse into the massive social and economic transformation currently underway as China tries to join the ranks of more industrialized nations. Burtynsky says that “these images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and...
Acting like a reverse paparazzo, Sammy Davis Jr. used his position within the Hollywood elite to collect images for his own personal viewing. Rarely without a camera at hand, Davis snapped pictures of his famous friends, as well scenes from his private life. Perhaps more significantly, he also captured huge historical moments from his role endorsing political campaigns and as a key figure in...
Following the wild success of his first NYC solo show earlier this year, photographer Peter Sutherland is doing what he does best and hitting the road for an encore solo show opening at the Hope Gallery in L.A. this weekend. Sutherland, who's also a documentary filmmaker, is as interesting himself as the subjects he chooses. A Chameleon-like style—though his lumber jack beard is consistent—and...
Part concept, part traditional monograph, Cameron Martin's "Analogue," published by Ghava{Press}, is an engaging study of man's relationship with nature and his shifting notions of the sublime. At its heart, the book is a compelling amalgamation of grand landscape imagery that includes appropriated advertisements, travel snapshots, found images and studio photos, juxtaposed with Martin's own haunting paintings of barren landscapes. Eschewing the typical devices of...
Curiously, for someone releasing a retrospective photography tome, Elizabeth Peyton doesn't consider herself a photographer. But throughout the painter's two-decade career, photographs have played an integral role in the genesis of her intimate, expressive paintings (which were the subject themselves of a recent major retrospective at NY's New Museum). Particularly with her early paintings, the final product came from the snapshots she incessantly took....
