Category Archives: Books

Book Review: “I see around me tombstones grey” by Stefano Marchionini

Posted on by

Stefano Marchionini is a photographer who has always engaged me by the range and quality of his work. Whether shooting in color or black-and-white, a very intimate and relatable quality comes across that never seems to dwindle after repeated viewings. Marchionini recently released a self-published book titled, I see around me tombstones grey, that focuses on his relationship with his parents after being away for an extended amount of time and the feeling of “home” that his parents bring to him, even when the physical locations of “home” may have changed.

The book is a strong testament to what smart editing and simple design can do to allow for images to speak for themselves and breathe. The pacing of the book is evenly spread between sequences that build to a sense of short-lived intimacy; short-lived, because as soon as one may start to feel a sense of nostalgia or love take form, a reminder of the fragility of life is suddenly thrown in. The finite quality of our relationships with those we love is a hard universal truth that Marchionini reflects upon throughout the book.

Conversely, the imagery often rejoices in the lighter and mundane moments between the photographer and his parents. An image titled, “my father in the garden,” shows Marchionini’s father working in a garden that seems to slowly engulf him despite all of his attempts at pruning. It is an action that seems important while doing but one that in the scope of things, really doesn’t matter as the garden will outlive us all. Subtle reflections like these build upon the theme of the book to guide the viewer through their own thoughts and feelings, a trip that requires multiple visits to really grasp what is being said, but is luckily made easy through the craft of the photographer.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED and please check out more of Marchionini’s work on his website and flickr.

Book Review: Chris Berntsen

Posted on by

I was driving around New Orleans with no real destination, when I passed a guy on a bicycle, he looked familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. A few minutes later, I realized it was Chris Berntsen, this only solidifies his somewhat mythical creature status. He does what I try to do, only he succeeds. He seems to constantly be in transit, he consistently makes new work, & is one of the nicest people I have come to know in recent years. We interviewed him about a year ago & since then he has had shows in Montreal, New Orleans, & Philadelphia, & released a new book “The Ritual of Nothingness.”

chris-berntsen-emptystretch-01

It come’s in a xerox cardstock sleeve, black & white with a beautifully cyan out of focus portrait, gold text scribbled across in messy cursive. As I pull the book from the sleeve, I almost immediately realize, he has accomplished in one book, what I have been trying with Empty Stretch releases for years; he has kept the ethos & feel of a zine, yet translated it into book form. Photos taped in, sporadically arranged, collaged, notes written; he has stepped right inline behind the greats of Jim Goldberg’s “Raised by Wolves” & Ed Templeton’s “The Golden Age of Neglect.”

chris-berntsen-emptystretch-03

chris-berntsen-emptystretch-02

I first got into Berntsen’s work because of his photos & videos of bands & his closeness to them & I have stayed interested in his work because of that proximity. You can look at these photos & know he cares about his subjects, some faces repeat, & you can actively see the transitions of his friends, whether physically or geographically. He has spent years with these people & this is their yearbook of sorts & I can only hope to one day produce a body of work so drenched in passion & so footnoted with care.

chris-berntsen-emptystretch-05

If you haven’t previously seen his work, I urge you to get a copy of the book, as well as take another look at his website, he is constantly adding new photos & videos.

You can email him at chris@chrisberntsen.com or pick up a copy at Dashwood Books in New York.

Saturday Fight Night

Posted on by

Biblical narratives drive a lot of my photographic work as well as its long and rich history in the arts. I took a Bible history class during my sophomore year of high school and got an in-depth look into stories from the Old Testament and more than a few of them were new to me. One in particular was a story from Genesis, where Jacob, while traveling on the road to Canaan, encounters an angel and wrestles with the angel until daybreak. Through this struggle, Jacob becomes a much more spiritual person and finds peace with God.

This seemed like such an odd occurrence to me. The story of Jacob wrestling with the angel has been depicted through art history for centuries and years later when I saw Paul Gauguin’s “Vision After the Sermon” in college, my interest in the biblical story was renewed.

“Vision after the Sermon”, Paul Gauguin, 1888

Meanwhile in my hometown of Hickory, I kept seeing these advertisements crop up on the side of the road for wrestling matches at the local National Guard Armory buildings. I was sort of interested what went on at these matches as they always seemed to hype up some of the personalities and weaponry being used. Now that my long-term undergraduate thesis project was completed, I decided to start a short project involving photographing these wrestling matches while thinking about them in a Biblical framework.

I went to a few matches over the summer, incessantly taking pictures ringside in the giant concrete Armory building. The lack of air conditioning made me feel like I was one of the wrestlers because I was sweating more than usual. It being summer and all made it that much worse. There was nothing short of fun to be had at the matches and at $8 a ticket, it was more entertaining and less expensive than a movie ticket. Girls running the merchandise table defending themselves with pizza cutters, wrestlers breaking open Diet Pepsi cans with their teeth, throwing it on the ground, and dog collar matches where two opponents duke it out while being held together by a long, chain link.

The spectacle of it all fascinated me and made it exciting for me to make pictures. Maneuvering wasn’t that easy and predicting where the match would go kept me on my toes. What resulted in this project is a new zine called “Saturday Fight Night” — Gauguin’s painting seemed a lot more important to me, and the dots of harsh stage lights in the background of the pictures felt Divine in a small way. Through the elaborate drama of the wrestlers, the same lessons Jacob learned in the wilderness about humility, masculinity, stubbornness, and ultimately, inner peace and victory were exacerbated in the wrestler’s actions and faces.

“Saturday Fight Night” is a new 26-page, color laser printed zine, signed and in an edition of 25. The cover is 67 lb. grey card stock with Gustave Doré’s 1855 depiction of Jacob Wrestling with the Angel on the cover in inkjet. The book is pamphlet-stitched with waxed linen thread and measures 7.5″ x 8.5″. Pick one up at the Empty Stretch store for $10!

We Don’t Have Sun Like This

Posted on by

“We Don’t Have Sun Like This” by Andrew Weathers & Andrew Marino

The use of photography as a means to say where we are and what we’re seeing is important. How one choses to picture a scene somehow evokes the feeling of where they’re at in the final image. What the happy problem then becomes, for artists, is how to navigate through our own archives, to see through what everyone else sees on trips to find our own vision to say what we want to say.

Artists Andrew Marino and Andrew Weathers have been talking back and forth with photography for sometime now. They have a wonderful new photo book out called We Don’t Have Sun Like This. The volume showcases photographs from Marino and Weathers presented side by side, Marino’s, taken in North Carolina, and Weathers’, taken in California. The smart diptychs from both photographers play off each other’s strengths — Weathers’ eye for experimental color and Marino’s head for composition and the uncanny. Already duly aware of the North Carolina landscape and Marino’s photography, his photos felt like a bit of home to me and when placed beside Weathers’ California views, what he was seeing felt familial, too.

Weathers

Marino

The third thing that happens when two images are placed beside each other is exploited by both photographers. Where each photographer is stationed becomes slightly and delightfully disoriented to the viewer when each pairing is made. This sequence in particular caught my eye — here, light, or the underpinning concept thereof, is validated through Weathers’ craned-up camera in a flash in a chandelier. Marino seeks it out it the tall, tall cattails, each flower like a lightbulb for the sun’s electricity. Each photograph compliments and simultaneously contradicts the other. Interiors verus exteriors, night versus day, real verus fake, otherwise not making sense separately, but making all the sense in the world after every turn of the page.

Yet each photographer maintains their own voice throughout the conversation. At the end, it reads, on opposing pages, “Photographs on the left were made by Andrew Weathers in California” and “Photographs on the right were made by Andrew Marino in North Carolina.” What’s successful about We Don’t Have Sun Like This is the use of the book form as a conceptual basis for the images and where from which they’re taken. Weathers’ images felt like California to me before even reaching the end of the book and the fact that they were on the left side of the page might’ve been a subliminal clue. And all the way on the right side of the page, were Marino’s North Carolina images, balancing out the other coast.

Weathers

Marino

Weathers

Marino

Weathers

Marino

I’m starting to feel like a spoiler for this photo book. There’s just so much to discover and figuring out how and why pairings were made. We Don’t Have Sun Like This is a great opportunity to get to know two artists and friends through their conversations with photography. The photographs and sequences are challenging that make it a joy to thumb through and come back to multiple times. Andrew Weathers and Andrew Marino’s clever eyes give their viewers something deeper to discover in photography and more importantly, how it can be used. A lot of the time, pictures say more than the photographer can know.

Pick up a copy of We Don’t Have Sun Like This from Experimedia. Check more of what Andrew Weathers is up to at his website and if you haven’t seen read it already, see the Empty Stretch interview with Andrew Marino.

Interview: Alex McTigue

Posted on by

Alex McTigue had this way of just popping up. Scrolling through page after pages of photos & one catches my eye, Alex’s. A link from from someone’s website, Alex’s. A small brown covered zine on the bookshelf of one of my best friend’s, Alex’s series Anywhere But Here. Every time I saw some of these photos or held his zine, I found something new. In Empty Stretch style I forced some questions upon & thankfully, he pleasantly answered them. Do enjoy.

Empty Stretch: Age/ Location/ Favorite things in life?

Alex McTigue: I live in Brooklyn NY, and my favorite things in life are reading and throwing fireworks at people.

ES: How did you get into photography?

AM: I think at some point every hardcore kid or skateboarder tries photography. Some just make it out a little sooner.

ES: Your portraits come across as informal but not stolen moment, while also using the space to inform the viewer of the subject’s personality. How much of your work is set up, so to speak, or directed?

AM: They are all set up in terms of the person is aware that I am photographing them. But otherwise they’re pretty much your usual youth exploitation photographs. Especially with these photographs, not much is directed, not by me at least.

ES: Your series/ zine “Anywhere But Here” if not only by the title, seems to very much be about anonymity, yet the photos are very intimate. Were these planned situations & people or just photos that seemed to work together & convey a sense of nowhere?

AM: All of these pictures were taken on a trip a few years ago between NYC, Chicago, and Austin. I think this was the easiest collection of pictures to think of as finished because there was a very finite amount of time to choose from, and didn’t leave the option to keep going. The trip was planned, more or less, but the situations… who knows. When you spend that much time with a few people, intimate situations are bound to happen. At the time a lot of friends started traveling or running from/for whatever reason, and listening to prodigy I finally realized you can run but you can’t hide forever.

ES: Most of your work is black & white, but there are a few color images through out, do you prefer one over the other?

AM: I think black and white photographs are truly beautiful. But as with everything, certain times dictate certain decisions. If I had my choice I would just be able to write and call it a day.

ES: Do you photograph & then group them & form a series that way, or do you plan ahead what you are looking to photograph?

AM: I guess when I take pictures, they just pile up until something gets done with them. There is no real order, except like I was talking about earlier with a clear beginning and end of something.

ES: I have seen your zine all over the place, friends bookshelves & stores all over the country, is that the way you like your work to be viewed & if so, why? If not, do you prefer galleries or web viewing, etc.

AM: I would much rather a lot of like minded people be able to see and relate to the things I make than a few art world people. I have always been interested in zines and DIY outside of art, I don’t see why it should be any different when relating to art. Thats the beauty of self-publishing, you can do whatever you want whenever you want. Make as many as possible and give them away. Nobody is worried about cost effectiveness when nobody is making money. Plus, looking at something tangible like a book or zine is much more intimate and physical than looking at someone’s tumblr or flickr. I get so much more out of the experience that way, so I assume the same goes for others as well.

ES: Finals words?

AM: These are some great photographers to check out.

Chris Bernsten, Andrew Kenney, George Underwood, Reggie McCafferty, Nelson Offley, Vinnie Smith, BSVIV books

Please find more of Alex’s work on his website & tumblr & if you find a copy of Anywhere But Here, do yourself a favor & pick it up.

Mediations #1-4

Quote

Posted on by

Empty Stretch is proud to announce our new zine series, Mediations! The series came to being as we met many wonderful photographers over the past year and have always enjoyed hearing the personal elements and stories behind the works we love. In fact, we loved them so much we thought we ought to share those stories with the world through a small well thought-out zine.

Mediations One: Where’s The ‘æ’ Key? by Nathaniel Grann - Take a look through the land of the Danes, as Grann mixes some of his own personal writings and images with that of the wonderful Hans Christian Anderson.

Mediations Two: Have You Ever? by Theo Erbenius - Follow Erbenius throughout his travels, as he relates his imagery to his own personal struggles. A trip of self reflection and running away from the things we fear most.

Mediations Three: My Country by Ahmed Hayman - Hayman delivers a personal depiction of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution through his understanding of the historical events within the context of what it means to Egyptians, like himself. MABROUK!

Mediations Four: In Arms Reach by John Edmonds - Finally, Edmonds presents us a look into the Parisian lifestyle that one doesn’t typically find. The series goes beyond the normal bounds of diary photography, leaving the viewer demanding for more of the beautiful and relaxed imagery Edmonds presents.

Even Olive can't keep her paws off them!

Even Olive can't keep her paws off them!

All four zines are sold as a bundle at the low price of $18 which includes shipping and handling within the United States. International orders are available but please email, emptystretch@gmail.com, to set up the order.

Purchase here.