Seasons of Solitude ©Lou Raizin

Lou Raizin’s series, Seasons of Solitude is wonderfully desolate, lonely and filled with nostalgia. His images remind me of home in winter storms or on long February days.

To all, I wish you a briliant 2009, filled with good things, good thoughts and good people.

©Anna Tomczak

©Donald Woodman

You can see more of Anna Tomczak’s work here and Donald Woodman’s work here.

Today, after 60 years of production, Polaroid is stopping the manufacturing of types  669, 667, 664, 690, and 600. If you haven’t heard of them by now, there is a Save Polaroid community that has been created. Check them out to see what you can do or simply to share your stories about the memories captured with Polaroid. And if you want to share them here as well, I would love to read them.

So…dear Polaroid, thank you and hope to see you again one day.

Farmers ©Anna Rackard

Anna Rackard’s Farmers series is captivating. She brings us on a journey through rural Ireland to capture the hardships and beauty of women farmers. I love the repetitiveness of her work, the subjects postures, emotions and tones, it’s a wonderfully thought out series.

©Aaraon Ruell

Hope you are all enjoying the holidays and that you’re stuffed from food and drink and that your cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling all day. I think Aaron Ruell’s work is appropriate for today. He brings us back in time to cheeky style and witty outfits with a touch of humor and wonderful design, Aaron takes us on a trip of colours and reminiscence.

Nos Vies Invisibles ©Yann Orhan

Yann Orhan’s work is absolutely stunning. His series Nos Vies Invisibles are delicate pieces of work. Orhan bings us on a familiar journey, capturing snipets of daily life. His work is a combination of poetry through pictures and sensitivity through muted colours.

©Jackie Nickerson

I’ve been an admirer of Jackie Nickerson’s Faith series for a while now. Her subjects are consumed in their life and unaltered by Nikerson’s pressence -  It’s as if she was a Mary statue with a camera. There’s a sense of politeness and a delibrete absence on the photographers part. As a photographer should, she captures her subjects and their environment in essence and truth. The portraits of this series are as equally captivating.

After Hours ©Peter Baker

Peter Baker’s series After Hours takes familar and mundane places and awakens its ghosts and makes them eerie and desolate.

This image is also quite fitting for today’s official first day of winter and for today’s huge dump of snow on Montreal. Get your snowshoes out!

Afghanistan 1996 - Mourning a brother killed by a Taliban rocket ©James Nachtwey

James Nachtwey and Simon Norfolk take their cameras to war, not exclusively, but a lot. Both have an “eye” (though I prefer the word “brain”) that can, and usually does, turn the horror they witness into beautiful photographs. Both turn these beautiful images into objects (prints) that are also beautiful. They both show their work in private and public galleries (as well as in the traditional press, on the internet and in books.)

Both have been criticized for this…..turning horror into beauty and hanging it on walls.

(Of course, these aren’t the only two photographers/artists whose war work is beautiful and exhibited. I use them here as a case in point.)

At last year’s New York Photo Festival, in answer to a question about how war and beauty go together, Norfolk used the phrase “beauty is a tactic”.

The idea of turning war photos (or any photos of human suffering) into beautiful commodities raises all kinds of issues.  But this one phrase, “beauty is a tactic”, neatly tips the discussion into more positive territory.

I believe that beauty reaches farther into the human psyche than almost anything else. I also believe that these photographers photographs have a certain quality that elevates them, that makes them worth, somehow, more than standard press photos of carnage, mayhem and horror; press photos that get consumed in one sitting and are thrown out with the garbage the next day.

In order to get people to look and to react to the state of the world these days new tactics must be employed. Beauty is one of them.

Kosovo 1999 - Imprint of a man killed by Serbs ©James Nachtwey

Afghanistan: Chronotopia ©Simon Norfolk

Israel/Palestine: Mnemosyne ©Simon Norfolk

About Tony Fouhse:

USER ©Tony Fouhse

Tony Fouhse is an Ottawa based photographer. USER, his series of portraits of crack addicts has been been criticized for being beautiful. He will be exhibiting the latest USER images in Ottawa, at Gallery La Petite Mort, in May, 2009  and at IPS Gallery in Montreal in June, 2009.

You can take a look at Tony’s work on his website and you can keep up todate with his news and views at his blog.

True Norwegian Black Metal ©Peter Beste

Peter Beste’s series on Norwegian heavy metal music is ironically very poetic. Heavy metal is not a genre of music that I’m inclined to listen to and would possibly leave me to have stereotypical judgments towards the scene. However Beste’s extensive work on Norwegian black metal extends to express very creative and artistic subjects. There are some clichés but for the most part Beste takes the heavy metal scene beyond it’s typicalities. Check out True Norwegian Black Metal over at Peter Beste’s website.

© Rich-Joseph Facun

Rich-Joseph Facun is a captivating documentary photographer. He has an impressive list of portofolios on his website, a wide range of subjects and all equally stimulating. I had a hard time picking a single image, there are many stunning ones to choose from.  This shot is from his series Sonoran Desert.