Women Photographers: What's 30 Under 30 Trying to Say, Exactly?

I just looked at the photos selected for the 30 Under 30 Women Photographers, put together by Photo Boite. The intro to the exhibit writes, "Photography, whether we like to admit it or not, is by and large a male-dominated arena where the 'looking' is a masculine act, and the subject is feminine, playing the role of 'looked' and admired mainly for their outward appearance. Photography, then, has been a mirror for conventional gender roles in western society."

Sure, duh, but browsing through the small galleries put up for each artist on the site, a selection of work that is supposed to be representative of these women's aesthetic ranges, their subject matter interest, their skill, etc., I'm a little disappointed to see that a large percentage of the photos on the site are, well, the same photo. Artist after artists seems to favor young, beautiful, long-haired models for their shoots (woa, men would never do that!), romantic, sun hazed lighting, flowing skirts and nests of taffeta in fields, orchards, by time-stained windows and rippling water. Haven't we seen all this before? Does the Victorian-era aesthetic need another comeback? And in such force! Some of the photos veer towards the urban, but again, waify girls in tat shops, looking hot and badass - it's like the bad sister that left her good sister in the field to mope. C'mon.

If the idea of singling out women photographers is to give them a chance to show the world how they see the female form in front of the camera, then the implications are worrisome. Just like for men, to many of these female photographers, women apparently are at their best lounging around in sun dappled nooks, looking languorous and pretty. If the idea is just to showcase some talented female photographers, who are underrepresented in the industry, then why choose so many that do work that looks so similar? Of the 30, there are few outliers whose work is noticeably different - Olya Ivanova has what looks like a series of portraits of Russian youths, Jocelyn Allen has a more conceptual series of portraits as part of her portfolio, Aislinn Leggett has what look like historical montages, Nina Cuviller has travel photography - while the rest are stuck on a romantic, some with a slightly absurdist Joel-Peter Witkin-esque twist, aesthetic.

I obviously don't know who submitted and whether different work was overlooked or the whole thing attracted a self-selected group of similar work that doesn't exactly push the envelope in terms of the photographic tradition or the female form. But I do know that there are women out there making photography that, to me, is fresher, more interesting, more exploratory. The Humble Arts Foundation, for example, also puts together an annual exhibit of women photographers where the work is varied, seeking, more thought-provoking, etc., even if most of it doesn't become my favorite, either. It's not that the artists featured in this 30 Under 30 are bad - a lot of the work is clearly done by technically proficient hands and is aesthetically nice - but I'm not sure what it's representative of. Is this a good sampling of what women under 30 are up to in the photography world? I hope not.

Back in Laramie.

Back in Laramie. On the drive from the airport, Lu said the skies out here are like a Rorschach test. We looked out the windows. This, she said, examining the empty plains, is the opposite of a good restaurant. And then again, later, peering at a brilliant sky that looked like it was reflecting off of smooth rolls of aluminum, its light oozing out of slits between rolls, she said that she could not perceive physicality, only the misery and desperation that the sky seemed to hold. W.G. Sebald, writing of St. Sebolt's miraculous lighting of a fire using icicles, writes, "This story of the burning of the frozen substance of life has, of late, meant much to me, and I wonder now whether inner coldness and desolation may not be the pre-condition for making the world believe, by a kind of fraudulent showmanship, that one's own wretched heart is still aglow."

I slept 7pm to 7am today and when I left the house, I seemed to float between the physicalities of the real world, perceiving but not participating. I felt it a board (bored?) game on which I floated involuntarily. Here, the polite service people always ask questions about your day and constantly I fail to recognize that I am being spoken to, and do not answer. I stay hush on the plains.

New Life Has...

Old Life Had Summers.

BadLands, South Dakota

On Photo Process

"I have long expressed concern at how a vast majority of Photojournalism is incapable of representing process; whether it be the process leading up to or underpinning the event being covered or the process of assimilation, appropriation and communication of the real by the photographer. Perhaps this has something to do with Photography or the single-frame’s inability to represent time. Perhaps because for journalists objective reality is not only attainable but can manifest itself through the veracity of the lens - the ‘incontrovertible’ photograph. Or perhaps because in process there is no real end product… just a set of propositions."

- Edgar Martins

from How can I see what I see, until I know what I know?

The Nutcracker, Laramie Style

Ah, Christmas. The roommates have been glugging eggnog, the neighbors have put up their inflatable snow globe on the frosty lawn, and the snow won't stop coming down in Laramie. Too, I prayed to the ballet gods and they delivered: this year is the quadrennial performance of The Nutcracker. The local paper says "this year’s production would continue the resetting of the ballet in 1890s Laramie with new scenic drops and Western-style costumes." I was kind of thinking of act I of this episode of This American Life as I was eagerly rushing over to the theater.

Mostly it wasn't so bad. The backdrop of one act was an over-sized, macro Christmas tree with one ornament that was not immediately identifiable (it looked kind of like a mouse skull), the dancers had trouble landing their pirouettes, Mother Ginger was slinging whiskey atop her hoop skirt, and there was a strange lack of dancing throughout the first act. But in a way it was beautiful because it was clear that every hobby school in town got to participate - the gymnastics school, the ballet school, the choir. Everyone up on stage helping make this once-in-four-years extravaganza as amazing as it could possibly be.

I got to reminiscing about my own Nutcracker days. A. and I used to dance every dance there was. We had to set up our costumes backstage instead of in the actual changing room so we'd have more time to rearrange ourselves during breaks. I did cartwheels when I got nervous. My favorite dances were the Spanish and the Arabian. The Arabian costume resembled Disney's Jazmine's attire, a little bead strewn top, opaque purple underwear and transparent, billowing, chiffon pants. Once, in my changing frenzy, I forgot to put on the opaque underwear and danced the whole thing, to an audience of chuckling Jewish grandmothers and parents, in just my see-through pants.

Back in Laramie: during the Grand Pas de Deux, a ring went off that sounded like the loudest cell phone in the world. Before starting, the ballerinas had done a cute little intro that kindly told us to turn off our phones, so the interruption seemed extra obnoxious. Then more loud ringing. We finally figured that it was probably a fire alarm. People started shuffling out while the curtain drew closed. The ballerinas kept spinning un-assuredly until the curtain completely shut.

Outside, it took the firemen 10 minutes to arrive. Tutu'd girls pulled on leg warmers, the angels in nurse hats stood chatting in a circle, the matrons from act 1 held doors for the exiting audience. K. twirled on the patch of ice we claimed as the firemen finally strode into the non-burning building.

We decided to go home. At home things smelled a little smoky. Turns out C. forgot to turn the oven off.