AINT—BAD

Today we bring you the work of Carole Alfarah, born in 1981 in Damascus, Syria. In 2004, wishing to learn more about the medium of photography, Carole traveled to Brussels and studied at the Contrast Photography School, focusing her work on marginalized groups and youth. In 2007, Carole began to work professionally as a photojournalist, freelancing with Syrian and regional newspapers and magazines. Since the conﬂict in Syria began, she started concentrating her efforts to tell the stories of the victims. Carole is currently based between Damascus and Barcelona, Spain.

Waiting For Hope “A Syrian becomes a refugee every 15 seconds” said the The UN’s refugee agency . After three years of a brutal conﬂict in Syria, the country has seen a third of its population internally displaced or refugees in what aid agencies say it is the worst humanitarian disaster in modern times. The Syrian refugees who managed to enter illegally to the Spanish city of Melilla report a litany of intense feelings and fears; anxiety, sadness, pain, humiliation, despair, surrender, misery and a little bit of hope. Nonetheless, the European countries still have not opened their borders to welcome these refugees from one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory. The conﬂict has forced Syrians to search for illegal means to enter to the European territories.

A long, arduous road has forced thousands of Syrians refugees who ﬂed the brutal war in their home country searching for peace and safety in Europe. They travel from Syria to Lebanon and then traverse on to Algeria in order to enter Morocco illegally. Once in Morocco, they pay local trafﬁckers to obtain fake Moroccan passports in order to enter Melilla, a small Spanish enclave on Morocco's Mediterranean coast. Once inside Melilla, they feel that they have arrived to the true safety of Europe, but they are often shocked because they have to wait many weeks and months before they can receive asylum the European Union. Syrian refugees have described their existence in Melilla as if they are living in an ‘open prison.’ Currently, they wait in limbo in order to have the opportunity to live in peace again in a new land.

In 2011, Carole received the UNICEF Prize of Arab Media Award for Children’s Rights and the Jury prize for the International photography competition ‘Femmes au Travail’ (Women at Work) organized by the association One Shot in Marseille, France. In 2013, she won a scholarship to attend Foundry Photojournalism workshop in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her work After the Bombing was presented in Angkor Photo Festival 2013 in Cambodia, and in The Baltic Photo Biennale in Russia. To view more of Carole's work please visit her website.

Andrea Bonisoli Alquati is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC. He holds a PhD in Ecology from the University of Milan, Italy. Andrea's research focuses on the ecological and evolutionary consequences of nuclear disasters, particularly in Chernobyl and Fukushima. Today we share his series Chernobyl II, which explores the aftermath of the nuclear power plant disaster in 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine.

Palace of Culture. Pripyat, Ukraine. The city of Pripyat, where approximately 50,000 people used to live before being evacuated a few days after the accident, it is today a quintessential ghost town.

Red Forest, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine. Dr. Igor Chizhevsky of the Chernobyl EcoCenter inspects a nestbox in a contaminated area of the Red Forest. Behind him is a pile of contaminated soil amassed during clean-up operations by the Chernobyl 'liquidators', who were deployed from all over Soviet Russia to conduct the operations, exposing themselves to the risks of radiation. Chernobyl II: An Aftermath in Color Almost 30 years after the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, its consequences for human health and the environment remain understudied and debated by scientists and the general public alike. The accident has long populated the imagination of the public and contributed to shape - through fear, if not through data - the energy agenda of several countries. The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is now an eerie place, a "no man's land," where human settlements decay. Radiation is an enemy that persists and an invisible one. And yet the Exclusion Zone is not a barren landscape, not the apocalyptic scenario that science fiction had envisioned following a nuclear winter. This series of pictures explores the experience of visiting the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone where I have been working as a biologist researching the ecological effects of the disaster. While samples and data are aimed at satisfying my desire for an objective understanding, these pictures respond to the need of making sense of a dreamlike journey through unusual landscapes, history, and fear.

Building of reactor 4. Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine. Two Ukrainian scientists pose for pictures in front of the building of Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The iconic building is arguably one of the most famous buildings of all Ukraine, and certainly the most infamous. It is, however, destined to disappear from sight, as the new containment is being built thanks to the effort of the international community.

Common Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus). Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine. After being captured using a mist net, a male redstart is measured and inspected for the presence of morphological abnormalities. Studies of birds in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone have demonstrated an increase in morphological aberrations and tumors in exposed birds. They have also shown that the abundance and the diversity of bird species decline in highly contaminated sites.

Pripyat, Ukraine. The city of Pripyat, where more than 50,000 people used to live, mostly workers of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and their families, was once one of the youngest city of the planet, greeted by Soviet propaganda as a model town. It was evacuated a few days after the accident, and it is today a quintessential ghost town.

Geiger counter. Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine. A Geiger counter measuring radiation levels that are thousands of times higher than normal background. Less than ten hours of exposure to similar levels would give a radiation dose of 1 mSv, which is often considered the admissible limit for the general public. 1 mSv is also the dose that the Japanese government is setting as the ultimate target of its cleanup operations in Fukushima.

Pripyat, Ukraine. An iconic sight, the ferris wheel of the amusement park of the city of Pripyat has never been used, as the park was to be inaugurated a few days after the town was evacuated, as a consequence of the disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Wall. Red Forest, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine. An abandoned building in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Radiation warning. Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine. In the middle of a forested area, a warning sign signals dangerous radiation levels.

A view of the infamous building of Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant through the mist. An iconic sight, the building will soon no longer be visible, as a new containment structure is being built through the effort of the international community. To view more of Andrea's work please visit his website.

Thomas Pearson was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1984 and grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida. After studying in the photojournalism program at The University of Southern Mississippi, he has worked for newspapers and various other clients in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. Thomas is currently working on numerous personal projects that seek to visually explore identity and landscape in the Deep South.

The Pines The Pines depicts quiet moments within somewhat pedestrian spaces throughout the Piney Woods region of South Mississippi. Made with a stream of consciousness approach and whatever camera is closest to me at the time, I refer to a visual exploration of the emotional content of my own memory which is inextricably bound to this place. This series attempts to reflect on emptiness, as well as the the inner spaces and uncontrollable forces that shape our material surroundings.

To view more of Thomas' work please visit his website.

French photographer Antoine Bruy graduated from the Vevey School of Photography in Switzerland in 2011. He was notably honored with a Young Swiss Talent Prize in 2010 and has participated in several group exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad. Antoine's work studies people and their relationship to privacy, their physical environment, and to the economic and intellectual conditions that determine them. Today we share his on-going series, Scrublands, about men and women of Europe who live isolated from civilization.

Scrublands Since 2010, I traveled throughout Europe to meet men and women who made the radical choice to live away from cities, willing to abandon their lifestyle based on performance, efficiency and consumption. The people and places depicted in my pictures display various fates which I think should not only be seen at a political level, but more importantly, as daily and immediate experiences. These are, in some ways, spontaneous responses to the societies these men and women have left behind. This documentary project is an attempt to make a kind of contemporary tale and to give back a little bit of magic to our modern civilization.

To view more of Antoine's work please visit his website.

Walker Pickering (b. 1980) is an artist and photographer based in Austin, Texas. His work is primarily documentary in nature, using photography as a means to get access to people and places that might normally be unavailable. Walker was raised in the oil fields of West Texas and the swamps of far East Texas but spent his summers at family reunions in the Deep South. Walker has since returned to the Southern and Southwestern United States on several road trips to create his series, Nearly West, which we share with you today.

Nearly West The first half of my childhood was spent in the West Texas desert oil fields, and the other half among the swamps and bayous of the Southeastern part of the state. Six-hundred miles stood between them. I grew up thinking they not only couldn’t have less in common but that I wasn’t truly from either. My ancestors hail from Alabama, Mississippi, and the like, and I spent summers as a child driving there for family reunions. I always felt like a stranger in each of these places as well, though still somehow connected to them. In the late 80's, my father’s job took him to Port Harcourt, Nigeria for two years. Traveling as a child to this unfamiliar place allowed me to connect with a culture which I’d never even considered. When I returned home, I had an altered sense of place. Over the years, I began to wander the area with new eyes, more as an explorer than an outsider. Nearly West is a journey of re-imaginings, in pursuit of something that might not have existed in the first place.

Walker's work has been exhibited throughout the United States, and is included in a number of private and public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and The Wittliff Collection of Southwestern & Mexican Photography. He is the recipient of the 2013 Clarence John Laughlin Award, among others, and teaches, lectures on his work, and photographs on commission. To view more of Walker's work please visit his website.

Heather Sten received her BA in Photography from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA in 2013. She is currently living and working in New York and pirouetting between New York and Los Angeles to work on personal projects or when she is in need of acceptable Mexican food. In 2013, she voyaged through the American South for the project Before The Rain, curated as a fictional story based upon extemporaneous themes borne out of a long drive through strange and unfamiliar landscapes. Today we feature her series, Before The Rain.

Before The Rain In 2013, I voyaged through the American South for the project Before The Rain, curated as a fictional story based upon extemporaneous themes borne out of a long drive through strange and unfamiliar landscapes. The work is intended to explore discomfort of the uncanny and the sublime cautiously and thoughtfully, tethered by certain elements; going beyond what is normal, but the feeling is still familiar. My imagination is underpinned by a sense of wonder in a new mythology in American landscapes, overgrowth and neglect of the surrounding objects and vegetation, the fragile sense of nostalgia, and the quietness that takes over.

To view more of Heather's work please visit her website.

Ashley M. Jones is a Florida-based large format photographer practicing within the broad genre of social documentary photography. Jones received her MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and her BA from the University of South Florida. Her current body of work, Frogtown to Victory, is her attempt to comprehensively document the current state of Savannah’s Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard corridor through long-term documentation. Photographs from her series Frogtown to Victory have been featured in numerous publications including American Oxford, LightLeaked, One One Thousand, New Landscape Photography, Incandescent, IMPRINTS Magazine, Ticka-Arts, and ToneLit. She is actively exhibiting nationally and internationally in both group and solo exhibitions.

Interstate 16 Flyover: Earl T. Shinoster Bridge, 2012.

Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, 2012. Frogtown to Victory The mass production and relative affordability of the automobile in the early 20th century resulted in considerable changes to our nation’s infrastructure and the need to intersect highway systems with urban neighborhoods. As a resident of Savannah, I am fascinated by the rich history and historic architecture of the city. However, there is a stark division between the restored and legally protected buildings within the central National Historic Landmark District and the struggling, run down neighborhoods that surround it. I am specifically interested in the at-risk neighborhoods along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the ways in which they have been impacted by the construction of the Interstate 16 flyover.

602 W. 31st Street, 2013.

2510 Montgomery Street, 2013. This elevated section of Interstate 16, the Earl T. Shinholster Bridge, held it’s official ribbon cutting in 1967. The construction of the interstate coincided with several other large-scale urban renewal projects including the construction of Kayton and Fraiser homes south and east of the flyover. It intersects with the Westside of Savannah in the historically African American “Frogtown” neighborhood—a neighborhood that has been on the decline since the interchange was completed. In 2010, I began photographically documenting the homes, businesses, and churches in the area immediately surrounding the flyover. My documentation has since expanded to include neighborhoods south of Frogtown and extending several blocks south to Victory Drive. This area includes Cuyler-Brownsville, a neighborhood similarly impacted by connection of 37th Street to I-16. My photographs depict the current state of this community and the architectural structures that remain to provide an understanding of the historic and contemporary context of this community. I am further exploring local movements to renew and revive Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the neighborhoods immediately impacted by the Interstate.

1509 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, 2012.

701 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, 2012.

608 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, 2012.

Map of 1898, 2013.

Map of 1916, 2013.

409 W. Taylor Street, 2013.

Map of 2010, 2013.

1902 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, 2012.

Disconnected Jones Street at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, 2012.

1018 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, 2013.

502 W. Victory Dr., 2013.

Interstate 16 Exit Ramp, 2012. Additionally, Jones was recently awarded the Imaging Spectrum Award for the 13th Annual Joyce Elaine Grant Photography Exhibition as well as Second Prize in the Daily Life and Culture category for the Professional Women’s Photographer’s 38th International. To view more of Ashley's work please visit her website.

Andrew Querner is a self-taught photographer currently residing in North Vancouver, British Columbia. His pictures reflect a personal response to shifts and phenomena in the socio-cultural environment. Employing a documentary style, he is interested in exploring the lyric capacity of images to engage themes found at the intersection of identity, locality, upheaval, and history. In 2013, he was named a PDN 30 New & Emerging photographer. Today we take a look at Andrew's series titled, Lone Star.

Lone Star Universal Outreach Foundation is a Canadian humanitarian organization working to serve vulnerable children and their communities in Liberia, West Africa. In the winter of 2014, we collaborated to make a photographic document that not only recorded aspects of their core mission in the areas of childhood education and economic development but considered scenes that reflected on the nation's psychology in the face of its ongoing transformation.

To view more of Andrew's work please visit his website.

Ari Gabel is a working photographer whose main concentration deals with the documentation of the vanishing faces and stories held within countless individuals across the American landscape. Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Ari Gabel nurtured the ability and importance of photography into a lifelong passion of his, which came to fruition during his four years at the Ringling College of Art and Design. His work is both a balance of research and shear instinct, allowing him to explore the environment around him and establish a common understanding of the land. His use of analog cameras is not due to the rarity of it's existence in modern times, but for the quality it posses and the personable connection it creates with the subject.

Good River Good River documents life in the Ohio River Valley. I set out to document an area of the country that has gone through significant cultural and socioeconomic change. This is a part of the U.S. where individuals’ collective livelihoods and lifestyles have been, and are, currently dependent upon certain industries--particularly coalmining. Generations of Appalachians committed their lives and passed on an “identity” of working in the mines, becoming culturally bound to the coal industry. As the nation began to look at alternatives to coal as a resource for fuelling cities and towns, the nation forgot the people who dedicated themselves for generations to the industry. These people were, and still realistically are, unequipped for a different way of life. My goal with this project is to document these stories in an unbiased manner, and in doing so, breakdown preconceived notions about who they are as humans.

To view more of Ari's work please visit his website.

Yijun Liao, raised in Shanghai, China, is an artist currently residing in Brooklyn, NY. Yijun is a recipient of NYFA Fellowship, En Foco's New Works Fellowship and was a selected winner of LensCulture Exposure Awards and Magenta’s Flash Forward Award. She was a Honorable Mentionee of New York Photo Awards and a finalist of ITS Photo Award. Yijun is currently a darkroom resident at Camera Club of New York. She has done artist residencies at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace program and Woodstock AIR program at CPW. She also holds a MFA in photography from University of Memphis. Today we featue Yijun's series, Memphis, Tennessee.

Untitled (woman), 2008

Shear Envy, 2008 Memphis, Tennessee (2006-2008) In 2005, my first adventure outside of China took me to Memphis, Tennessee, where I lived for three and a half years. I went to Memphis without the least idea of what it is like. I now think that I was super lucky in choosing Memphis as my destination among a long list of unfamiliar American city names. Memphis has a unique beauty that is untouched by time. It allowed me to have a glimpse of the city from the past and fueled my imagination of an America of another time. It occurs to me later that my vision today is deeply influenced by the landscape of Memphis. To me, this group of photos is more like a diary both visually and emotionally.

Stop, 2008

Untitled (man), 2008

Dry Cleaning, 2008

Lorraine Motel, 2008

30% OFF, 2008

Disco, 2008

Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium, 2008

Think God, 2007

Office, 2008

China Doll, 2007 Additionally, Liao’s photographs have been exhibited internationally, including Arario Gallery (NY), kunst licht Gallery (China), VT Artsalon (Taiwan), Kips Gallery (Korea), The Running Horse Contemporary Art Space (Lebanon), NordArt (Germany), Pingyao International Photography Fest (China.) To view more of Yijun's work please visit her website.

Eliza Lamb is a native of Richmond, Virginia. She is a graduate of both the Savannah College of Art and Design and Columbia University, where she is currently pursuing her doctoral studies. Eliza is a photographer who believes in the art of finding the images that surround her. She uses a manual medium format film camera and shoots exclusively with found light. Her photographs have been featured in exhibitions and publications nationally and internationally and have won numerous awards and accolades. Eliza currently lives and works in New York City. Today we feature her series, Hopewell. My Hometown.

Hopewell. My Hometown. The event of going home is a complicated one. Although I moved to Hopewell as a child, it has never truly been a place that I could relate to or feel a part of. In fact, my earliest intentions were to leave as soon as possible, and although I did just that, I cannot deny the soft spot in my heart that it still occupies or the pull back that still consumes me. The story I present here is less about a town and the people that live in it and more about my relationship to it - a marrying of both the frustrated teenager I was, and the sentimental adult that I am.

Once a thriving port during the Civil War, Hopewell hasn’t seen its heyday since. Today, it struggles to keep its economy afloat and the local grocery stores in business. Unlike many American cities, Hopewell isn’t on the decline. In fact, it has been about the same my whole life - a small, unchanging factory town in central Virginia. It is a city that seems to make futile attempts to re-establish itself but somehow slips tiredly back into what it was before. This is a place where trying seems to count as much as doing, traditional southern values still rule, and optimism is born but seems to fade away quickly in the southern heat.

I’ve often wondered why this parcel of Virginia seems to be standing still and unchanged. Now, years later I’m finding that I might just be looking at it all wrong. Maybe my lens of success doesn’t matter here, maybe it’s not even right. Maybe all that some people, some places need is simplicity and continuity – maybe they don’t need the next step and maybe they don’t want it. Maybe here hoping is enough.

To view more of Eliza's work please visit her website.

Jessica Auer is a documentary-style landscape photographer from Montreal. Her work is broadly concerned with the study of cultural sites, focusing on themes that connect place, journey and cultural experience. Her first book, Ummarked Sites, received several mentions as one of the top ten photography books published in 2011. Jessica is a co-founder of Galerie Les Territoires in Montréal and teaches photography at Concordia University. She is represented by Patrick Mikhail Gallery in Ottawa. Today we take a look at her series titled Re-Creational Spaces.

Las Vegas, Nevada, 2005

Niagara Falls, New York 2005 Re-creational Spaces Since 2004, my fascination with tourism has led me to photograph popular destinations. Images from this project show how landscape has been preserved, altered or commodified for sightseeing. This on-going series invites the viewer to consider the historical and cultural significance of these places as well question the tourist’s role in observing these sites.

Machu Picchu, Peru, 2007

Iguazu National Park, Argentina, 2007

Uxmal, Mexico, 2007

Icefields Parkway, Alberta 2007

Yellowstone National Park #1, Wyoming, 2007

Glacier National Park, British Columbia, 2007

Bear Butte, South Dakota, 2007

Death Valley, California, 2010

Schynige Platte, Switzerland, 2010

Bessegen Ridge, Norway, 2010

Skogafoss, Iceland, 2011 Since earning her MFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University in 2007, she has exhibited her work in galleries and museums in Canada and abroad, including The Canadian Centre for Architecture (Montreal), VU Photo (Quebec City), Patrick Mikhail Gallery (Ottawa) and Newspace Centre for Photography (Portland, Oregon). She is the recipient of several awards including the W.B. Bruce European Fine Art Travel Fellowship (2011) and the Roloff Beny Prize (2005). To view more of Jessica's work please visit her website.

Samantha Friend was born and raised in Brookfield, Illinois where her three most prized possessions were cake, Seinfeld and going to the zoo. She is currently studying for her BFA in Honors Photography at the School of Visual Arts in NYC and is grateful everyday to be living inside of a big apple. Below she shares her ongoing collection of environmental samples entitled Swatches.

Swatches A collection of abstracted environmental samples that work together to create an entirely new space than which they were taken. This project seeks to put forth serious photographs extracted from somewhat childish places. Through exploring a particular area of a material or surface, this investigation focuses predominantly on the contemporary state of New York's zoos in their unique, and vast exterior. In doing so, these pieces consider the notion of an off season. Defined as a time of year when business in a particular sphere is stagnant, I hope to capture this quiet moment and shed light on the inherent reality that although interest dwindles, things have yet remained the same. The result of this collective abandonment, are these small, mutable clues, containing whispers of a environment.

To view more of Samantha's work please visit her website.

Clementine Schneidermann was born in 1991 in France. She studied photography at the Applied art school of Vevey, Switzerland and is now undertaking a Master course in documentary photography at the University of South Wales, Newport. Clementine works on many long term projects and her work is selected for the Ideastap/Magnum Photos Award 2014. Today we feature her series, Love Me True.

Billboard, Memphis

Little Girl, Elvis Presley Boulevard Love Me True What moves me is people’s eccentricity. I don’t care if they are young or old, I just like them to feel different and want to be noticed. When you walk down the street, you will always notice a different hair cut, or an unexpected pronounced make up on an old lady. This artificial look could be interpreted as self-confidence but it is often ambiguous and underlies a king of insecurity. In my most recent projects, I have been looking for people who yearn to be someone else. They might be burlesque dancers or Elvis Presley fan; they all have this deep desire of escape. Living in Switzerland for three years, where everything is so standardized and clean made me realize my attraction for the quirky and the extravagance. All I was seeing was blank faces, wealth and emptiness. In my work, I attempt to look in people’s weakness and fragility.

Graceland Too, Holly Springs

Amelie, Graceland

Street, Memphis

Girl In A Diner Restaurant, Graceland

The Feet, Elvis Presley Boulevard

Tourists With The Plane, Graceland

Recording Studio, Graceland

Mattie, Memphis {image 11}Tags, Elvis Presley Boulevard

Souvenir Shop, Elvis Presley Boulevard

Elvis Impersonator, Jerry Lee Lewis Bar

Local Artists, Memphis

Paul Mcleod, Graceland Too, Holly Springs

Street, Memphis To view more of Clemetine's work please visit her

Matthieu GafsouMatthieu Gafsou lives and works in Lausanne, Switzerland. After university education and recieved a Master's degree in History and Film Aesthetics, Philosophy and Literature, he studied photography at the School of Applied Arts in Vevey between 2006-2008. Today we take a look at his photographic survey of the city Chaux-de-Fonds.

About the Indefinite Photography always implies a relationship between a body – the man with a camera – and the world. Even today, photographic gear remains heavy and cumbersome, an impediment. Landscapes, too, are related to the body: we are wandering somewhere about the world when suddenly, without any perceivable signal, reality emerges with force and becomes an image. Landscapes, wherever one might be, are disorienting. In front of a landscape, we are no longer somewhere. A landscape imposes itself through over-exposition, through endless scrutinizing. Matthieu Gafsou’s pictures constantly bring us that exact moment when the image happens. They are not, or not mainly, thematic. They do not pinpoint a reality that has been categorized or fixed. On the contrary, what they show is a state prior to any concept, prior to what we would call “house”, “street”, “ground”, “sky”. They remain on the surface: a place where, on a scopic, phenomenal level, all things happen as soon as the eye meets the world.

Rather than drawing guidelines for a “sociological” approach (by which these pictures have evidently been marked – fashionable classifications come to mind; the fallow, the postmodern, the staged, the uncompleted, the virtual), it seems preferable to dwell on the temporal tragedy they so violently lay bare. Pale, bland, discolored, this violence is made all the more powerful. What we are seeing is the sharp point of a tragic spectacle; the tip of a present which will never happen. The images capture this non-existing present, this absence inscribed in everything that lies beneath the blaze. Big, monotonous skies serve as a screen to Matthieu Gafsou’s journey; a backdrop for the drifting remains of a staged and standardized nature. It is because of the gap suggested by these remnants of nature that today’s world - ever poorer visually, ever more homogenous, ever more atopic - still seems so interesting, that it still offers so much to discover.

For the sake of a nature that lives and acts within him and urges him to keep moving, Gafsou unrelentingly widens the divide between excess and emptiness, (fake) beauty and ugliness, order and disorder. Let us not be mistaken: the hyperrealistic aspect of his work – which makes it so absolutely contemporary – must not be considered as purely aesthetic; it makes the artist’s critical and political viewpoints stronger, and reinforces the fact that through his photographs, he calls on our responsibility towards the visage we give to the world, day after day. Michael Jakob

Since 2006 Matthieu Gafsou has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Europe and the United States. He received in the 2009 the famous "Prix de la fondation HSBC pour la photographie" and was selected in 2010 in the exhibition reGeneration2, organized by the Musée de l'Elysée (Switzerland), which presents photographers of tomorrow's coming from the whole world. To view more of Matthieu's work please check out his past feature here and or visit his website.

Rachel Boillot (b. 1987) grew up in New York and Singapore. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Tufts University and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Rachel spent the following two years working as a photographic archivist for the Boston Housing Authority. Additionally, before returning to graduate school, she taught photography at My Life, My Choice, helping victims of sexual exploitation tell their own stories. Rachel is currently enrolled in the MFA|EDA program at Duke University and will graduate this May. Her photographic work explores the American home and socio-cultural landscape. As the recipient of a post-graduate fellowship, she will continue to photograph in North Carolina and Tennessee this upcoming year.

The Postmistress’s Daughter, Harker’s Island, NC

Sandra Burning her Mother’s Letters, Jigger, LA Post Script In 2011, the United States Postal Service announced 3,653 rural post offices would close. A disproportionate number of the condemned are located in the South. Several thousand locations have since been added to this list of erasure as the Postal Service struggles to cement its foothold in an increasingly digitized world. The fate of the rural post office remains unclear. Growing up in America, I had scarcely thought about the post office. Its ubiquity in the American landscape rendered it nearly invisible to me. In Post Script, I explore how the post office embodies the identity of place.

Cottonport, LA

Postmistress Ida, Sherard, MS The post office serves as town center in rural communities. Often acting as a town’s sole address, this location embodies the numerical identity of place. Without its presence in the landscape, a ZIP code is lost, yet residents remain anchored in place. In spite of post office departure or a vanished code, the home stands. Attachment to land lingers, rooted deeper than digits. I was initially intrigued by the dilemma of the Postal Service because of the parallel to my own field. Like the letter, the analog photograph seems threatened at present. Though photography flourishes, the transition from analog to digital has rendered aspects of my own practice obsolete, even entirely extinct. As remains of the analog world coexist with the emergent digital technology, this moment of change begs consideration.

Panther Burn, MS

Sherrill, AR Upon reflection, I realized the similarity between photographs and letters. From the moment the envelope is sealed, or the shutter clicked, both objects bring messages from the past. As the object arrives, it brings this past into our presence, whispering across distance. As each takes flight, the sender relinquishes all control. Their very message relies upon the grasping interpretations of a recipient. Both are full of gaps, filled with mystery and the struggle to communicate across time and space. This is a work about post offices. It is also a work about place. In this case, many different places in the rural South but, more importantly, the very notion of place; how we name it and if we can claim it.

Jack, Postmaster and Sheriff, Stockton, GA

Gifford, SC

David at the Old Post Office, Acme, LA

Old Post Office, Athol, KY

Pence Springs, WV

Farrell, MS

John, Derma, MS

Bennett, NC

Marty’s Place, Teachey, NC

Post Office Window, Calypso, NC To view more of Rachel's work please visit her website.

Colin Snapp was born on Lopez Island in 1982 and received a BFA in film making from the San Francisco Art Institute. While attending SFAI, Snapp spent his summers teaching youth filmmaking seminars in Washington state. Upon graduation, he spent a year living in Portland, Oregon teaching art at Harold Oliver elementary school. He currently lives and works in New York, NY. Today we take a look at his work, Emblem Series.

Emblem Series In this grouping of pictures Snapp presents 15 images from his Emblem Series, a new selection of works derived from an ongoing photographic index. Started in 2008, this series developed as a desire to reinterpret the backdrop of advertisements that surround us. Incorporating the environments in which these emblems are embedded, Snapp offers the logos a new meaning, one that deals with divisions of associative realities—specifically, how one often becomes overly comfortable with such visual archetypes. The majority of the images in the Emblem Series were made while traveling, lending a certain everyday narrative to the project that is indicative of Snapp’s interest in using photography and video as tools to re-contextualize the contemporary landscape.

Colin has traveled extensively throughout Central America, Australia, and the Mediterranean working on documentaries on subjects ranging from architecture to immigration while assisting for National Geographic Traveler, Maha Productions, and BBC News. Snapp has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Mexico City and Berlin. To view more of Colin's work please visit his website.

Today we share the series, Colors, by Yoshinori Mizutani. Yoshinori was born in 1987 in Fukui, Japan and graduated from the Tokyo College of Photography in 2012. He is a double recipient of the Tokyo Frontline Photography award and has also been awarded the Ivan Vartanian Japan Photo Award. Yoshinori has exhibited in Tokyo, Paris, and New York. Yoshinori currently lives and works in Tokyo.

Colors Sometimes photography without content is enough. Sometimes the lack of context gives depth to the picture, a resonance, gives us space to examine the banality of the subject and the beauty inherent in it. Yoshinori Mizutani gives us this space, his pictures reflecting on the mundanity of the everyday, transforming it, giving us a glimpse of his relationship to the surfaces, color and textures that surround him. It is breathtakingly understated work; a door, a tree, an empty street, an escalator, all given the same treatment, a careful studied and contemplative series of pictures whose subject matter is not as important as the vitality of the thing itself; the elegance of geometry, the luminosity of light, the vibrancy of color and the texture of the object. In many ways, Mizutani makes images that encapsulate the age of now, their characteristics specific to this moment in time. Moray Mair

To view more of Yoshinori's work please visit his website.

Sara Macel is an artist and photographer born and raised in Spring, Texas and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media at the School of Visual Arts in 2011 and her BFA in Photography and Imaging from New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 2003. Her work has been widely exhibited and is held in various private collections, and in public collections including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Harry Ransom Center, and at the Center of Photography at Woodstock. Her first monograph, May the Road Rise to Meet You, was published by Daylight Books in 2013. In addition to her freelance work, Sara currently teaches photography at SUNY Rockland and is currently an artist-in-residence at the Wassaic Project in upstate New York.

In the Company Car in 1981, Spring, Texas, 2009

Plane Over Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 2009 May the Road Rise to Meet You For the past forty years, my father has traveled around America as a telephone pole salesman. May the Road Rise to Meet You is a pseudo-documentary and biography of his professional life, recreated as a collaboration between father and daughter to create a visual document the life he has led separate from our shared family experience. In popular mythology, few professions are as emblematic of America as the traveling salesman. As the Internet and outsourcing make this once ubiquitous occupation obsolete, May the Road Rise to Meet You explores the life of a businessman alone on the road. On a larger scale, this project explores the changing nature of the road in American culture and in the history of photography.

In the Drivers Seat, Cut and Shoot, Texas, 2009

The Towering Figure, Huntsville, Texas, 2011 The project opens with an old family snapshot of my father at the age I am now in his first company car and ends with him as an old man sitting on a hotel bed an entire career compressed into one long business trip. As we move through the images, following him from the car to a plane to the hotel and on, the viewer perspective shifts back and forth from his point of view to mine looking at him. Some of the photographs are from our travels together. Others are staged based on stories he told me. And interwoven in the sequence are hotel notes he wrote to himself and saved over the years. In the same way that a family photo album functions to present an idealized version of a family history, these photographs tell the story of how we both want his life on the road to be remembered.

Where He Waits For Me, George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston, Texas, 2009

After the Rain, Houston, Texas, 2010 We were traveling north on I-45 through Texas, when I asked my dad what it was like dealing with customers. He told me: There's that old saying that you don't know someone until you walk a few miles in their moccasins. It was in that spirit that I put myself in my father size 10 boots. What I found in chasing this enormously elusive male figure is that I can never fully know my father or what it is like to be a man alone on the road.

House of Pies, Houston, Texas. 2009

Behind the Wood Treatment Plant, Jasper, Texas, 2011

Charlie, Dad, and Larry, Jasper, Texas, 2011

7:00 a.m., Denny's Breakfast, Spring, Texas, 2010

Parking Lot, Spring, Texas, 2010

Foggy Runway, Will Rogers World Airport, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 2009

Terminal C, George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston, Texas, 2011

View from the Pool, Comfort Inn, Little Rock, Arkansas

Dennis, Anthony Macel, Hitchcock, Texas, 2010 Sara also was recently named a winner in Magenta Foundation Flash Forward, Top 50 Photographers in Photolucida Critical Mass Award, winner in the New York Photo Festival Invitational, and finalist in FotoVisura Spotlight Awards. In 2012, Sara received the Individual Photographer Fellowship Grant from the Aaron Siskind Foundation. To view more of Sara's work, purchase your copy of May The Road Rise To Meet You, available in our shop and visit her

Aleksey Kondratyev was born in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and currently lives and works in Detroit, Michigan. He received his BFA from Wayne State University in 2014. Aleksey is the co-editor and founder of Stand, a photographic journal showcasing the work and thoughts of various contemporary photographers from all areas of the world. Today we take a look at his series, Fabricated Adventures.

Fabricated Adventures Eighteenth century romantic painting provided a new perspective of the natural world through its depiction of the sublime. Distant and dangerous landscapes were tamed and brought into the proximity of safety -- inspiring fear, but only fictitiously through representation. The sublime allowed for an escape from the ordinary and mundane. In the same way, this idea is present in in modern time, in the form recreational spaces which emulate a natural environments. Remote landscapes and environments are domesticated and romanticized through fabrication. Waterfalls, beaches, and forests all become representations of an idealized landscape far removed from reality. As we live in our present environments, our experience is determined and limited by our time in history, climate, and physical geographies. The recreational spaces in this body of work provide a temporary escape from these limitations and from the reality of one’s present physical and geological surroundings.

To view more of Aleksey's work please visit his website.