Lukasz Wierzbowski. Born 1983. Photographer currently living and working in Wroclaw (Poland)

FJORD: What is it about shooting primarily women that attracts you?

Lukasz: It’s all about a certain kind of attitude. Ability to play roles and improvise in a very natural way. It’s easy and challenging at the same time. I worked with male models on couple of occasions in the past and liked the whole experience but working with woman is based on a different kind of chemistry which makes it more exciting.

F: How would you explain your photography to someone who hasn’t ever seen your photographs?

L: Imagine being in-between thoughts, being interrupted in the middle of the sentence or taking a breath. I’m trying to capture the state when everything is on hold, filled with unspoken emotions.

F: How do you gain inspiration for your work? where do you look for ideas?

L: Everyday life is probably my biggest source of inspirations. Going out with friends, walking around town, meeting new people. I don’t plan my sessions in advance, I like to work on the location and go with the flow, that’s why I’m very often inspired by my surrounding and people around me.

F: What are your favorite websites?

L: It’s really hard to tell. I have some kind of love/hate relationship with the internet. I’m that kind of person who just likes to seat around in coffee place, reading a book or looking through a pile of magazines instead of looking at a computer screen. On the other hand being able to share my work and discover other people’s art is priceless and sites like: tinyvices.com, shanelavalette.com/journal/or iheartphotograph.blogspot.com are definitely one of my favorites.

L:  I can’t even imagine how my future is going to look like. This year was pretty awesome so far so I will be grateful for whatever happens. Besides I’m not very good at making any kind future plans…

Anna Shelton is a photographer and musician from Portland, Oregon. She’s lived a migratory past with roots in Florida and Ohio, touching down in New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado. She tries to do a little bit of everything, while possibly sacrificing doing any one thing well. She is currently working on her first photography show titled, “I Hear A New World”.

FJORD: How do you gain inspiration for your work? Where do you look for ideas?

Anna: Usually the urge to photograph coincides with wanting to explore a new place. It makes jumping in the car and heading  somewhere, no matter how mundane, just a little more interesting. Lately, I’m drawn to unusual forms in nature. I never planned on photographing so many landscape shots, and sometimes I worry I’m working within a tired genre, but I enjoy the challenge of taking a subject that’s been put through the wringer, and trying to pull something unique out of it. Luckily, I live in a beautiful place with varied terrain, and feel a deep love for the nature that surrounds me, and I’m hoping that comes across in the photos.

F: What are your favorite websites?

A: Wow, a question I’m having a hard time answering. I love books… over-sized, cumbersome photography books from the library. The library has turned me on to some amazing stuff, and it’s so great to be able to sit with these books for a month or two and really soak it all in. I do look at a lot of blogs, and I think they’re very interesting and  inspiring, but I find that I never look at any particular one for too long. I’m sure that has more to do with my short attention span than with the quality of the blogs.

F: What informs your work outside of photography?

A: I’ve always been endeared to older things/places/people. It all adds up to character, history being revealed, a forgotten story. I like old cars, flea markets, thrift stores, records, small towns; I even called Bingo for a year at a nursing home because I loved hanging out with the residents. I’m also a musician, and have been working on and off in record stores and playing since I was 16; it’s kind of like breathing, so I imagine it subconsciously plays a little part in everything I do. 

F: Do you have any suggestions to help new and emerging photographers gain exposure? How did you initially start to promote yourself and your work?

A: I have to say Flickr has been the most encouraging tool, hands down! I started putting images on Flickr because I felt like I was taking pictures all the time only to throw them in a box to collect dust. When I started uploading images, they kind of took on a life of their own. Flickr also gives me an awareness of themes within my work; I can give/receive feedback, and generally hang out in an environment with other photo geeks. It seems along the way, some people have noticed and that’s been tremendously rewarding. I’m having my first real show here in Portland in March, with 10 pieces. I didn’t even have to present my work; they recognized it from a blog, which used photos from my Flickr page. 

Kyle Cook is currently a fourth year photography student at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His work is diary-based and he tries to shoot what’s in front of him as much as possible. All of his work is personal. His primary influences are Ed Templeton, Ryan Mcginley, Barry Mcgee, Dash Snow, Arron Rose, and Gary Winogrand.

“Photography is a form of print making and I intend to exploit that.  I do not want to follow the traditional form of presenting single images although some of them may be able to stand alone. I feel that by doing so that projects a specific opinion, thought, and view from the photograph placed on the viewer. By producing a large body of work with different sized images, allowing the viewer to travel from one image to the next but never in the same order as another viewer. The photographs can be exceptional or mundane but all equally part of a chaotic whole which we perceive as linear. I intend to follow a similar scheme as a musical symphony. A symphony is perceived by people as linear; when read as sheet music. When preformed it is a gathering of eloquent sounds, that all fall into place from many musicians, to be heard by hundreds of ears as one piece. Every note different, and each played slightly differently all joined to form something extraordinary. “

FJORD: I’m really interested in your idea of creating a “chaotic whole” comprised of disparate images that are both “mundane” and “spectacular”. What, in your opinion, makes an image mundane? What makes an image spectacular?

Kyle: I don’t necessarily think that an image’s subject matter has to be the driving force to make it spectacular. I have began to like images that are color casted, and beyond reproduction from a capturing standpoint. So I guess a spectacular image is something that sits with me, something I can stare at for a long time. And a mundane image is as important as a spectacular one because many of those amazing images might not seem so amazing if there is nothing to compare them to. One can not exist without the other. And this is how they all work together as a whole.

F: Why is it important that your point of view does not overpower the viewer if your work is diaristic?

K: I don’t want my point of view to overpower the viewer because a diary can relate to anyone regardless of how specific it is. I believe that everyone can find something that they could connect with on some level. Some work is really spelling it out for a viewer, and some might not, but it still usually has something to say. I think it would be really awesome if when I present my images together that someone could look at them and travel between them not looking at the same combination or path of images as the next viewer. I guess the work is diaristic but only because of the way it is created. I just wanted to incorporate photography in everything I do. One of my teachers here at the School of Visual Arts, brought up something interesting to me about how you could be a photographer your entire life, and still have only spent less than a day photographing. What he means by that is if you add up all of the times a photographer presses the shutter and creates another image that it is very few. Obviously there is much more involved in that, including preparation and waiting even for that moment sometimes to press the shutter. But I thought he had an interesting point. I thought that a photographer can document his/her entire life, and some stranger could look at it and still have no idea who I am. So my images are diaristic but not entirely fact.

F: You mentioned that presentation is a vital part of how you want viewers to experience your work. Do you feel that you have changed the style of work you do based on the way the internet has changed the way we view photography?

K: I mainly use my website as an easy way for people to just check out some of my photos and get an idea of what my work is about. I love looking at websites and it’s how I find out about so many photographers and current work. The website is definitely extremely effective for any kind of exposure as an emerging photographer. But I don’t think that my website could be what I want it to when it comes to final presentation. I think it’s fun to put photos in a space even if you’re not hanging them on a wall in any traditional sense. The online world of photography is an incredible way to view and connect with many other artists. I think that books are also a really rad way of getting stuff out there. I love the idea of having a book and being able to hold it even if its only a material form of what we see on many websites.

F: How do you gain inspiration for your work? Where do you look for ideas?

Visit Kyle Cook’s website here

Shannon Taggart is a freelance photographer based in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA in Applied Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work has appeared in publications such as Blind Spot, TIME and Newsweek. Her photographs have been shown at Photoworks in Brighton, England, The Photographic Resource Center in Boston, Redux Pictures in New York and the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles. Her work has been recognized by the Inge Morath Foundation, American Photography and the Alexia Foundation for World Peace, among others.

I asked these spirit figures if I was seeing them or if I was seeing what was in my own brain. They answered “both.” - Eileen Garrett, twentieth century medium

Spiritualism is a loosely organized religion based primarily on the belief to communicate with spirits of the dead. I first became aware of Spiritualism as a teenager after my cousin received a reading in Lily Dale, NY. The medium revealed a strange secret about my grandfather’s death that proved to be true. Since then I have been deeply curious about how someone could possibly know such a thing.

The photographs presented here are part of a five year project on modern Spiritualism. My intention is to document this religion’s practices and to illustrate what it means to be a Spiritualist. The pictures are also meant as a meditation on mortality and the precarious line between life and death. They are an attempt to examine how the individual experiences the spiritual uniquely. Finally, they are an effort to manifest the unseen, to pose the question - “What if?”

FJORD: How do you feel the Internet has affected the way you work? Have you changed the style of work you do or the way you present your work based on the way the Internet has changed how photography functions?

Shannon: The internet has not changed my style but has changed my process. The ability to publish new work and immediately receive feedback from varying sources is amazing. It is like holding an open critique. Having access to such a dialogue is invaluable for every stage of a project. I also use my site as a tool to sequence and edit. Putting my photographs together for the web is an important step for me, it’s illuminating.

F: How do you gain inspiration for your work? Where do you look for ideas?

S: It is very different now than when I first started photographing. It used to be that my inspiration was totally dependent on finding certain happenings to photograph. I have always been drawn to photograph ritual and/or any type of visceral experience. I would do research and spend a lot of time gaining access to very specific situations. Currently, I am inspired by the idea of having the shoot itself be the catalyst, allowing the act of photographing itself to be the ritual.

F: What are your favorite websites?

S: Right at this moment - http://www.agencevu.com. So much incredible work! I could spend days there..

F: Where do you see your work going in the next year and in the future in general?

Visit Shannon Taggart’s website here

Li Hui has been photographing since 2008, when she started shooting with her first SLR film camera. Her work is very feminine, quiet and emotional. She maintains a childlike curiosity about exploring the world.

“My work never shows faces, because I think this is a way of communicating with the viewer. The photos remind us of our common feelings, secrets, past memories or magical dreams. The people in my pictures are not supposed to be unknown faces, but the viewer him- or herself.”

FJORD: How do you feel the Internet has affected the way you work? Have you changed the style of work you do or the way you present your work based on the way the Internet has changed how photography functions?

Li: When I began taking pictures seriously in February 2009, I  regularly uploaded them online. I’ve always been focusing on my own world, so it’s hard to change my style, but I think some people on flickr have helped me to find my own way.

F: How do you gain inspiration for your work? Where do you look for ideas?

L: I get a lot of inspiration from coming-of-age movies, all sorts of paintings and animals. When I take pictures, I have to listen to music to get into a certain state of mind. I think I wouldn’t be able to exist without music.

F: What are your favorite websites?

L: I don’t really have any favorite websites yet, but I collect interesting images on tumblr.

F: Where do you see your work going in the next year and in the future in general?

Visit Li Hui’s website here

Helena Kvarnström was born in Sweden, raised in America and currently resides in Toronto, Canada. Her work has been exhibited internationally and in 2005, her novella and photography book, Violence, was published by Lazyline. She is interested in stillness, hidden threats, and ghosts within natural environments.

FJORD: Many of the titles of your photographs refer to the places where the images were taken. Are the places significant to the content of your imagery?

Helena: Place has always been very significant for me and a way of cataloguing experiences and memories.  I emigrated from Sweden to the US as a child, moved around the US, then to Canada, England and Canada again.  Every memory I have is first identified by location, like “when we lived in London” or “when we lived in the brown house in Chicago,” so that is why I name the places where the photographs are taken.

F: What is your connection to the natural environments in which you photograph?

H: I photograph primarily public park spaces in Southern Ontario, which are places I like to go hiking with my dog and they are some of my favourite places in the world.  There is nothing better than being in a forest or a lake.  I think maybe I am especially drawn to photographing them because I grew up with all this Swedish folklore in which forests and lakes are these kind of magical places, but also dangerous and unknown.   When I go to other places I seek out other natural environments, partially to photograph and partially just because I love being in them.

F: I noticed that there is a lack of human presence in many of your images in nature.  Does human presence transform how you view the space?

H: Most of the time when humans are in photographs they become the most important thing in the picture and often that isn’t what I want to be talking about.  Humans can disrupt the way I see natural spaces as so fantastic and mysterious and powerful by making them seem smaller, more ordinary.  However, I have started to introduce human figures into the natural spaces and create relationships between the human and the natural environment, but I think it’s difficult to maintain a focus on the tree or the water or whatever when there’s a person in the photograph because we’re so obsessed with other humans and what they’re doing that we stop paying attention to other things.

F: How do you feel the Internet has affected the way you work? Have you changed the style of work you do or the way you present your work based on the way the Internet has changed how photography functions?

H: I started building websites and posting photographs online in 1997, when I was seventeen years old.  It’s always been a part of how I work and I don’t know exactly how my style might be different without it.  In some ways, when I was younger, it probably made me much more self-conscious and insecure because all these strangers were watching me grow up, personally and artistically, online, and that makes you so vulnerable.  For a long time my photography was so autobiographical, it was my diary, and it wasn’t healthy for me to keep showing it to anyone who happened across my website.  I had to really re-think what I wanted photography and the internet to be for me and move toward less explicitly confessional work.  At the same time, I have received so much encouragement and made so many connections on the internet, both in terms of professional development and in showing me what photography can do for people emotionally.  Because the internet and my website have always been primarily social and personal rather than professional spaces, I don’t edit my online portfolio as tightly many photographers do.  I have photographs up that I would never put in a show, that I know aren’t the strongest images, but that have meaning or contain memories for me.

F: How do you gain inspiration for your work? Where do you look for ideas?

H: Nature, personal experiences, phobias, stories I read, songs.  Other artists also inspire me greatly.

F: What are your favorite websites?

H:

http://butdoesitfloat.com
http://sentamemory.com/ - Kim Winderman
http://yuulabenivolski.com/ - Yuula Benivolski, who is an incredible artist and a model in many of my photographs.

F: Where do you see your work going in the next year and in the future in general?

H: I am hoping to do more work with models,  do a series of photographs about water and I have some trips planned to photograph new environments.  My partner and I also recently made a digital video project and I want to experiment more with video work.

Visit Helena’s website here

Margaret Durow has been photographing since 2005, when she started taking snapshots of her friends. Her photos are still very personal. Most are filled with memories from her life or various worlds and feelings from her head. She is currently attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she plans to study botany.

Alexander Binder was born on Halloween night, 1976 in Black Forest, Germany. He is a self-taught photographer and has a degree in economics. Both his photo and his film projects are characterized by a fascination for the mystic, the spiritual and the occult.