NERVE DATE WITH LAURA

SEE IT ALL:  NERVE DATE WITH LAURA

To see more of Jessica Yatrofsky’s work please visit www.JessicaYatrofsky.com .

LOST IN THE FOREST

Soft focus and streaming sunlight disguise the fact that the subject in this series, whose body touches ground only once, isn’t collapsing into the embracing arms of nature. She’s walking on it, occasionally grabbing at it with her hands — the toughest skin of the body — and spending the rest of the time observing from a comfortable distance. — Will Doig

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To see more work by Kim Winderman, visit www.runonsentence.org

PAPER AIRPLANE CRUSH

these pieces of you…
2/24/2009 11:08:57 AM

tell part of the story…but not the entire story. the part that they tell is that you are beautiful. and while that’s something very general to say…this here is very specific evidence of that generalization.
the story that isn’t told is that i came to meet you through my very first posting on this blog where i left my email address and encouraged anyone in the san francisco area to drop me a line who’d like to collaborate with me on some photos. the part of the story not told in these images is that you were, to date, the only person who responded to that posting with a “i’d love to shoot with you” kind of response. i remember it well. the email was sent at 2am.
your reasons for wanting to do so were just as beautiful as you are. you can get to know someone in a very genuine and real way when stripped of our shields. thank you…for these pieces of you……..

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LOST ANGELES

I’ve been to Los Angeles once, for about three hours. Walking alone downtown, I found panhandlers in place of an urban center. Later, I drove up Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevards, past a landscape that seemed to consist primarily of donut shops, pink buildings and Prada bags.

As this gallery by Paul Jasmin reminds me, it’s often best to be introduced to a city by a local, especially if you want to view it in its natural, more complicated light. Here, a bare-chested man stares at us, James Dean-like, while wrapped in the mesh-like shadow of a chain-link fence; a smirking brunette lies in repose, swathed in purple lace and freckles; a young man lounges in his boxer briefs in front of a televised surf that he could be enjoying if only he went outside.

Most of these images — all of which were culled from Jasmin’s new book Lost Angeles — feature the impossibly smooth-skinned beauties we associate with Tinseltown. But here the city’s angels are all racked by entirely human states of mind: desire, despondency, trepidation, and doubt.  — Andy Duncan

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For more of Paul Jasmin’s  book  Lost Angeles please visit: http://www.artbook.com/3865210260.html

DRESSING DOWN

By retreating from this series of photographs and viewing it as a storyboard, its plot and process appear to be the same: the befores and durings of a studio photo shoot. Taken individually, however, many of Amy Postle¹s photographs show women simply getting ready in that brilliant, chaotically elegant way that women do.

The tugging on of fishnet stockings and knee-high boots, the search for the bra¹s back-clasp — this efficient, unruly choreography of self-preparation will never be mastered by men. — Will Doig

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For more of Amy Postle’s work, visit her website: www.amypostle.com.

DOUBLE VISION

Every expat living in Bangkok or Chiang Mai has his own set of anecdotes to trot out for fellow Westerners — stories of cross-cultural misunderstandings and confusions. But there’s a favorite among men: the time he took home a stunning woman, only to discover (or be told by friends the next day) she wasn’t born that way.

Given the international reputation of Thai transsexuals (known as katoey) for feminine beauty, it’s easy to sympathize with the bewildered bloke. Thais themselves debate who is more beautiful, “real” women or katoey. A few years ago, the promoters of the Miss Tiffany katoey pageant began staging their production the same weekend as the Miss Thailand beauty contest. These photo’s are from that colliding weekend. —Andrew Matzner

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To view more of Francesca Galliani’s work please visit: www.gallianiphoto.com

DARK QUARTERS

“It was raining one day . . . And I stopped at an intersection. All the water rushed off the roof of the car and poured down the windshield, making this wonderfully expressive scene in front of me.”- Todd Hido

These lush, oversaturated images — of rough weather, anonymous suburbs and soft, scantily clad women in tousled beds — all have that sense of an almost religious epiphany. The old car on the wet road, the TV on in the hotel room, the four cars in the driveway of a suburban house, a bedroom light on in the darkness — they all hint at something secret and important, something that can’t be seen in the light. On a clear day, telephone poles might look industrial, but in a storm they look like mystical ancient ruins. — Ada Calhoun

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Visit Todd Hido’s website at: www.toddhido.com.

BIRTHDAY GIRLS

We received these photos from Portland-based photographer Isaac White. Then we called Malice, one of the girls pictured, to ask what was going on. — Will Doig

What are we looking at here?
My thirty-first birthday party. It took place on April 15 at 10pm.

Who are these people?
Some of them are girls I work with, but they’re all friends. I’m a stripper in Portland, Oregon. Two of the girls who were there I only knew through MySpace. It was the first time we met in real life.

How many people in all?
About twenty, not counting Isaac. It was all girls, although there were a couple of girls there who consider themselves transsexual.

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BEDROOMS AND HALLWAYS

The feeling you experience after the person with whom you’ve just shared your bed and your body walks out the door is more complicated than loneliness.

This gallery by Felix Rodriguez captures that ambiguous interval in time, during which you’re trapped in recent intimacies. Although Rodriguez, who often sets up a camera in the corner of a room and leaves it for days, periodically pressing the shutter, uses his girlfriends as models, it’s only after the relationships are over that Rodriguez assembles the shots into galleries.

When viewed in this light, each image and expression can be read as a portent of things to come.The woman in this gallery seems as though she’s wondering when he’ll next visit, yet we know he’s already done so for the very last time. — Tobin Levy

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For more photography from  Felix Rodriguez visit: www.felixrcid.com

BAD BOY CHIC

Terry Richardson is a fashion photographer with the sense of humor to take the industry with a grain of salt. Fashion work is fine with Richardson, because it pays good money, the women are beautiful, and, for him, it’s easy. But what the actually prefers is real life.

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To view more of Terry Richarson’s work, please visit: www.terryrichardson.com