Tag: photography
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A Pervert’s Guide to the Apocalypse
The bold white title reads “Cool Photos”. I dutifully open the email to find yet another link to yet another photo essay from yet another intrepid, probably amateur photographer who has schlepped their medium format through the crumbling halls of Detroit. Or was it Pripyat again? Or some (now) generic computer generated image of the…
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The Learned Pig presents…
As a pig-themed entity, we generally prefer to shun anything relating to human kitchens. You never know when you might end up inside a sandwich. But, having made an exception last year for the inaugural Literary Kitchen Festival, we thought we’d do so again for its second instalment – taking place this October down in…
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The Death of a Beautiful Subject
The Death of a Beautiful Subject is a multidisciplinary project by artist Sophy Rickett, which takes as its starting point a series of butterfly photographs taken by the artist’s father. As in previous projects, Rickett examines issues around collaboration and ownership, and encounters between humans, each other, and the natural world. Quiet and poignant and…
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Finite and Alive
It’s rare for me to write about artists whose work I have never seen face to face. It’s hard to respond through a screen to something created to be viewed up close. But that’s not to say it’s not possible. Besides, however near your nose is to the glass, there is always a distance between…
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The Decomposition of Cetaceans
Working as a whale-watching guide offers many perks. I get to see live whales regularly, photograph them, and share the joy of encountering these giants. Over the last two years I have dedicated much time to working with cetaceans in Húsavík, northern Iceland. But there is one thing that can dampen the experience for many…
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Washing Hands
About twenty years ago I met an Irish girl. She had grown up in the countryside on a farm and, when she told me about her childhood, it sounded like something out of Ryan’s Daughter. Quite the contrast to my own city childhood, growing up in London. These photographs are inspired by a story she…
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Ghost Town Luxury
Jing Jin City is a luxurious not-quite ghost town in the north of China. By 2004, some 3,000 luxury villas had been constructed about an hour’s drive from Beijing, along with golf courses, entertainment complexes, a museum, a temple, two colleges, and an 800-room Hyatt Regency hotel. By 2020, 300,000 people are expected to live…
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Forensics: The anatomy of crime
What kinds of death need investigation? A criminal death is one that “didn’t happen naturally”, according to a Baltimore detective in 2012 documentary, Of Dolls and Murder, on show now as part of the Wellcome Collection’s exhibition, Forensics: The anatomy of crime. Once natural causes have been eliminated, the detective continues, that is when “you…
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Wash your mouth out with soap
“Wash your mouth out with soap!” my mother would exclaim. I remember irresistible mud pies as a child, of voluptuously slopped soil, clad upon and between sticky fingers like chocolate in a fascinating entwine of desire and disgust. I desired what disgusted me, and was disgusted at my own desire. Outside the immaculate interior home,…
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Eating Meat
In nearly every case, something died for you to go on living. Even a vegan or raw food diet requires suppressing some forms of life. With no exception, the lives of microbes, insects, plants, and indeed, a great many animals, are at stake each time we take a bite. Whether we like it or not,…
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The Weight of Stone
The Weight of Stone (2014) is a body of work about the former mining town of Kopparberg in Sweden. Kopparberg used to be a sprawling mining town from the 17th century until the mid-1950s. The last mine closed in the ’60s amid an already failing economy and high unemployment, which is still the situation today….