Category: Photography

In his picture series “One Wheel Bad“ London-based photographer Spencer Murphy portraits members of a motorcycle gang and quad drivers who come together around London to do stunts on streets and industrial areas.

Spencer captures the riders as the outlaws as they are: stunts, street wear and masks show the lifestyle of this subculture with its specific features. The photographer focuses on on the riders’ individuality in his portraits but still grasps the group dynamics among them. In this series Spencer crosses the tough look of the riders and the meager environment with a soft, fading tint that he added to the photos. Another interesting contrast results from the flashy colors of the vehicles and clothes facing the dreary backgrounds. Spencer wanted to depict the riders scene of London to demonstrate that this kind of subculture exists. Getting in touch with a motorcycle gang was frustrating in the beginning as many attempts failed. This experience has taken Spencer out of his comfort zone. When he nearly was about to give up he got to know one member of the group who took him to a gathering. After a while he got familiar with more riders who agreed of being photographed.

Set among the wild olive trees on a remote agricultural state in southern Mallorca, the project of designers Mariana de Delás and Gartnerfuglen Arkitekter is a unique space for grooming in the middle of the barley.

The ‘Grooming Retreat‘ was designed for a client, who – after living the life of a young urban professional – decided to come back to her hometown and take care of the family agricultural legacy. The structure is supposed to provide an unusual spot for personal cleaning. Based on the study of benefits to the animal from such rituals, the designers intended to create a space that would allow the client to take her time and step away from the madness of contemporary times. A fortress-like structure, it offers a serene space for one person to take care of the body hygiene. A beauty spot on the top, it also features a water tank and a horse station at the ground level. De Delás describes that such a private, intimate space among nature can help its user to gain self-confidence and reduce the stress of the everyday life.

Based in London, UK, fashion photographer Sarah Blais is interested in capturing the unexpected, looking for the novel sensations of everyday life.

Represented by MINK MGMT, Sarah Blais has realized numerous editorial projects for fashion brands and magazines. She started to take photographs to capture the quiet beauty of everyday life and that’s what she still wants to convey with her work today. Blais has also worked as the art director for some time. Through that experience, she started to look at an image from a different angle, focusing on its context and composition. However, although her style has developed over the years, Blais’s work never ceases to show the extraordinary beauty of the ordinary life.

This self portrait series by Delaney Allen make an unusual not very traditional approach to portraits. Delaney never reveals his face, camouflages with different fabrics, hiding behind bubble gum or banana and blurred pictures which make us curious to reveal what is hidden behind.

Delaney started taking these photographs in 2011, some of the shots are very thoughtful, nicely prepared in color and composition, others are just randomly made on the spot. He was fascinated by how they can relate at once to both pattern and design and become almost a sculptural element. Normally we like to identify ourselves with others, creating our self-conciousness. As Delaney says ‘We tend to identify ourselves through others- I am her son, their friend, his girlfriend. But how do we find ourselves when we are alone?’ Reveailing through concealing. Confusion and Loneliness. He took the identity from the photograph but still, his photographs seem immanently personal.

All images © Delaney Allen | Via: Trendland

Illustrator Henrietta Harris creates beautiful pictures using watercolour and gouache. Her skilfully hand-drawn hands, faces, brains, glaciers seem to float away from each other, reminding us of those moments when your body is present but your mind drifts to far away places. Although her work uses traditional techniques, her beautiful portraits retain a modern subject matter and style. Henrietta has developed the timeless style that can only be achieved by having occasionally dipped one’s paintbrush accidentally in one’s coffee, but also combines tradition with less hazardous digital methods, all of which has resulted in an extensive, mutable, and memorable body of work.

All images © Henrietta Harris

The portrait series ‘American Girls’ by photographer Ilona Szwarc, is about girls in the United States who own American Girl dolls. We girls all remember playing with dolls or barbies when we were kids and when Szwarc first came to the US the phenomenon of the American Girl doll immediately caught her attention.

For her it was photographically a beautiful image; girls with their sculptural representations, their twins, their avatars. But soon she realized that their design embodies contemporary cultural values. They were conceived to be anti-Barbie toys, modeled after a body of a nine year old. American Girl dolls play a crucial role for girls in the moment they are forming their identity, they offer an illusion of choice, of individuality and can be customized exactly as their owner. With her ‘American Girls’ Szwarc examines how culture and society conditions gender and how it invents childhood, because this product somehow defines and categorizes American girls. Branding behind the doll perpetuates domesticity and traditional gender roles. She says: ‘Gender becomes a performance that is again mirrored in the performance of my subjects for the camera.’

All images © Ilona Zwarc