Os Gemeos' "Miss You"

My friend Jack Muramatsu of Daily du Jour asked me to cover the Os Gemeos show at Prism Gallery for him on Saturday night, because he couldn't make it. It was truly stunning, so make sure to check it out at Daily du Jour, and don't miss the opportunity to experience it in real life if you can!

Erratic Photography: Steve McCurry

Today I'll show you Steve McCurry, a documentary photographer whose vision is so penetrating that it's extremely difficult to choose just five images to represent his work.

Red Boy, India, 1997

Though he is most famous for a 1985 National Geographic cover photo of an Afghan refugee girl, he has taken dozens of other photos that are just as compelling. He focuses on the human consequences of war and poverty, and has a unique talent for capturing a sense of the human spirit. You can read an interview with him here.

Fishermen, Weligama, Sri Lanka, 1995


Mother and Child at Car Window, India, 1995


Caretaker at the Tha Promh Temple, Angkor, Cambodia, 1999


Dust Storm, Rajasthan, India, 1983

Erratic Photography: Corey Arnold

This week's photographer is an Alaskan commercial fisherman named Corey Arnold. He worked as a deckhand on a Bering Sea crabber for seven years, and now runs a wild salmon gillnetting operation.

"Nakeen"

He chronicles the desolately magnificent lives of commercial fishermen as they confront the wild ocean around the world. His first book, Fish-Work: The Bering Sea, was published in 2010.

"The North Sea"

He says, "Fishing definitely gets serious. But at the same time, it can be so mundane, time creeps super slow... Sometimes it's grunt, grueling factory work in the coldest environment with the longest hours every. So you gotta joke around to make it more interesting. That's definitely why I wanted to add some humor to the photos." His next show, "Wolf Tide," opens at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica next Saturday, February 25th. You can read more about him here.

"Kitty and Horse Fisherman"

"Purse Seine Guardian"

"Throw Down the Mountain"

Erratic Photography: Alvaro Sanchez-Montañes

Today I'll show you a photographer from Barcelona named Alvaro Sanchez-Montañes.

A couple of years ago, after hearing about Namibia's spent diamond mines, he went there to document the vacant homes that were being reclaimed by the desert. He captured a haunting, poetic reminder of the impermanence of all things, or as he puts it, "the beauty in the abandoned, of the useless, or the time passing by."

He also has an evocative series of landscapes he photographed in Iceland entitled "Landnemar," which is Icelandic for "The Settlers."

Andrew Hem: Dreams Towards Reality

So I've been hinting about a project I've been working on of late that has forced me to take a brief hiatus from posting interviews — and here it is. I've been writing and editing a book of my dear friend Andrew Hem's work, a gorgeous monograph which will be released this summer by Zero+ Publishing.

Dreams Towards Reality is an exploration of the work of Andrew Hem, whose introspective, otherworldly paintings describe realities one step away from our everyday waking life. What if our thoughts flickered across the surface of our skin like ephemeral silent movies? What if spirits walked among us, trying to find their path? What if there were no racism, and even the most outlandish people were accepted? What if the children of his native land had been allowed to live in peace and thrive?

In addition to a survey of Hem’s recent paintings, this volume includes selections from his early work, graffiti, sketches, murals, sculptures and collages, as well as photographs from the extensive travel in Southeast Asia and South America that has informed his vision. With an in-depth essay by Amanda Erlanson that examines how Hem’s Cambodian heritage, urban upbringing and innate empathy merged to open his unique window into the invisible territories of the human spirit, this beautifully produced monograph is a fascinating view into the soul of an artist.

Erratic Photography: Jonas Bendiksen

Today I will show you the work of Jonas Bendiksen, a Norwegian photographer who has spent the last decade or so traveling to far-flung places to photograph people who live on the margins of society.

"Villagers collecting scrap from a crashed spacecraft, surrounded by thousands of white butterflies, Russia, Altai Territory."

I bought his book Satellites when it came out in 2006, and the volume has since become quite sought-after and valuable. At the age of 20, Bendiksen set out to photograph life in the outlying areas of the Former Soviet Union. More recently, he has visited slums around the world to document the surprisingly rich lives of the people who live there, and collected the photographs in a book entitled The Places We Live. He says, "I love working on stories that get left behind in the race for daily headlines — journalistic orphans. Often, the most worthwhile and convincing images tend to lurk within the hidden, oblique stories that fly just below the radar." You can read more about him here.

"Scrap-metal dealers wait for a rocket to crash, Kazakhstan."

"Abkhazia, Black Sea beach."

"Santosh Lohar home, Mumbai."

"Wedding lights, Dharavi slum, Mumbai."

Save Ludwig!

Achtung! Allison Sommers' beloved hedgehog Ludwig is in need of an operation to save her life.

She has a tumor that is blocking her digestive system, and Allison is desperate to save her.

If you would like to help, there are a few ways you can go about it. On her blog, she has listed several original artworks she has on hand and is offering at discounted prices. If you buy one of the available pieces that Allison has at Thinkspace, they will give 100% of the proceeds to Allison. You can buy a print or a copy of her book of sketchbook drawings, Flotsam. And if you just want to chip in a few bucks, you can do so at the donation site one of her friends set up, Save Ludi. See if there's anything you can do, even if it's just to spread the word — the little fella is Allison's muse and she would be lost without her.

UPDATE: We've raised the funds for Ludwig's operation! Best of luck to Allison and Ludi!

Dabs Myla's Rooftop Romp

Last winter, Dabs and Myla spent a week at my office turning our ugly rooftop enclosure into a cartoon wonderland. Here's a time-lapse video we made of the dynamic duo at work.