THINGS WE LOST..

Red Cardigan. Military hospital Germany.
Shoe. Salton Sea 2006
Shoes. Auschwitz Memorial. Anon
Chris Jorden. Katrina's Wake.

Seeing David Zimmerman's excellent series 'Last Refuge' (see below and here) reminds me of just how moving, and at the same time disturbing, images of discarded clothing can be. My first guess is that we always think the worst if we stumble upon something not easily discarded, like a pair of pants, or an undergarment, or heaven forbid, a small single shoe (gloves, hats and scarf's don't count). But why wouldn't we think automatically of a disastrous scenario when often the pictures we are presented with are just that (see above).

As so much photography is about story telling, it comes as no surprise that so many photographers make projects on such strange and mysterious subject matter as that of a rotting pair of pumps or an old string vest.

Clothing as Artifact: David Zimmerman’s ‘Last Refuge’

David Zimmerman

Untitled (last refuge 194), 2011

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Though he’s spent over a decade photographing at-risk landscapes, some of the most unique topography photographer David Zimmerman has seen is found in the folds of fabric.

Zimmerman, a landscape photographer based in New Mexico and New York, began his project Last Refuge, in which he photographed piles of clothing and remains from an off-the-grid community, almost by chance. As the economy took its toll on broad swaths of American life, Zimmerman increasingly saw groups of people who had either lost their jobs or houses, and were, as the photographer describes, “increasingly desperate to survive.” These aren’t drifters who might be expected to live a transient lifestyle, he says, but teachers, firefighters, musicians and other blue and white-collar professionals.

Though sleeping on out-of-the-way dirt roads and parking lots is nothing new for Zimmerman—he’s lived and worked out of his camper truck while on the road, throughout 15 years of making images—the increasing number of people doing the same thing caught his attention. ”It really startled me, to be honest with you,” Zimmerman says, despite having read countless stories of similar communities who were often functioning without electricity or running water. “It didn’t sink in entirely what [was] going on out there, until I saw it for myself.”

As Zimmerman spent time talking to and even photographing members of these marginalized communities throughout the American southwest, it wasn’t their portraits or their poverty that resonated with him in a visual sense. Rather, it was their clothing. ”Whether it’s [being] homeless, or lacking a car,” Zimmerman says, “the clothes end up being the very last thing that you and I and they will own. When it absolutely becomes desperate, that’s the final thing that we will own.”

And so the piles of leather jackets, sweaters and coats—found at a 20-person community in northwestern New Mexico—form a descriptive landscape of their own. The entire series is actually shot on the roof of one man’s house, a retired firefighter in his seventies that came to live out in the desert about 25 years ago. He built his shelter underground, and used abandoned clothing to insulate the “roof” of the structure which now litters the desert floor.

Isolated from their surroundings as well as their former owners, the images of clothing are stark reminders of life on a subsistence level, and seem to encapsulate the difficult trajectory of the lives of their owners in their tattered seams and frayed edges. So what began during trips to photograph the natural landscape morphed into a project spent documenting its human counterpart—“the human aspect of the landscape is just as important for me as the physical landscape itself,” Zimmerman says. Last Refuge becomes a sort of typology of different textiles representing a human “dilemma,” as the photographer calls it, as well as a visually isolated reminder of what’s left to lose. ”That’s how it spoke to me, as opposed to just being about one person,” Zimmerman adds. “It was a very big problem, a nationwide problem.”

Last Refuge is on display at Sous Les Etoiles Gallery in New York from Dec. 8-Jan. 28.

David Zimmerman was recently shortlisted for the Terry O’Neill Tag Award, and won the Sony World Photography Awards L’Iris D’or Grand Prize in 2009. More of his work can be seen here.

Related Topics: color photography, David Zimemrman, documentary photography, Last Refuge, New Mexico, photography, Topography

Read more: http://lightbox.time.com/2011/12/06/clothing-as-artifact-david-zimmermans-last-refuge/#ixzz1gm46JfaU

THE MODERN ALTERNATOR.

So I have once again been nominated for the Prix Picket award this year (more info here). It really is the biggest deal for a photographer like myself even to get nominated. The competition is fierce and it may be easier for me to Wrestle a Rino than win the prize. The good news is that this years theme is Power, and that's something I have been looking into for the past several years. You can see a little of the project here.

Tuscany B Side.

Very interesting work by Filippo Brancoli Pantera which you can see here. I love the mix of urban and man made, well I would wouldn't I..

His Tuscany's B Side is quite excellent and its about time someone stepped away from the misty vineyards and pointy trees..

Stay Hungry..

As the weather grows colder and everyone gets sick, its so very easy to cuddle up and hibernate. But the air is crisp and clear making it excellent for night work. The simple process of night photography can bring with it some problems. After chatting with a student the other day hungry for the night all the little tricks I have picked up over the years started to pour out and I thought I would list three of my top tips here for you all to enjoy over your crumpets.

1. Don't take a camera out of a warm place and into the cold ie, a house, or a car. Always have the camera the same temperature as the outside (along with film if you are shooting it). This way you wont be wiping condensation from your lens which may also leave smears and give you flare on the lens. You may also get condensation on the rear element and may not see it. Of course this also works the other way around (hot to cold). That lens has to be spotless..

2. Despite night photography being quite popular since its creation (think Aget, Steiglitz) no camera is designed to work at night. An open shutter facility is often an afterthought for most cameras and never intended for ultra long exposures. A mechanical film camera will always be the best choice for long exposures, period.

3. There is no magic formula for night photography and a lot of it can be trial and error. But with a little practice you can develop a technique of sorts. But that my friends is up to you..

A bit of a random mix I know. But I haven't got all day, just the night..