Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Inherent in this civilization of consumption and technology is the waste and destruction of the vulnerable earth. The mythic world we create in our photographs mirrors our world, where nature is domesticated and controlled. The scenes we depict however, display futile attempts to save or rejuvenate nature. We portray these attempts within our work by inventing machines and contraptions from junk and obsolete equipment.

These contraptions are intended to help the character we portray to jump-start a dying planet. We patch holes in the sky, create rain machines, chase storms to create electricity, communicate with the earth to learn its needs. Within these scenes, we create less refined, less scientific, more ritualistic and poetic possibilities to work with nature rather than destroy it.

Wearing the black suit, we attempt to represent the archetype of the modern man. We want to represent as aspect of civilization beyond just ourselves. In our images we become characters who are inventors, scientists, caretakers and fools. We place ourselves not as omnipotent observers, but as part of the process of our own image making. Thus we attempt to present a focused, compelling, point of view. We attempt to draw the viewer into the scene without dictating a message or the outcome of the myth presented.

The nature of our images and the process of their construction are the interdisciplinary, embodying aspects of theater, sculpture, painting and photography. Our work begins with the construction of sets and props. These objects are photographed in staged scenes within damaged or constructed landscapes. We manipulate the photograph via darkroom techniques and mixed media. This allows us the opportunity to enhance or subdue elements within the scene.

The image is altered further by paints and varnishes. None of the images are real in the factual sense, but they are treated as precious talismans of a lost moment, a documented super-reality, whose message, like that of all myth, transcends the small realities of the day to day world. ~ Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison.

More at: http://www.parkeharrison.com/

Julia Fullerton-Batten

The viewer looks at the image only casually, but then is impelled to look at it closer. Not once, not twice, but several times. The now animated viewer finds his curiosity increases with every examination. He sees more nuances in the content, he admires the subtlety of the colours and queries how the photographer has achieved that stunning cinematic effect. Here, we are talking about pictures taken by multiple award-winning photographer, Julia Fullerton-Batten.

Her fine-art images have hung in galleries throughout the world, from Abu Dhabi to China. Her images are held in permanent collections in The National Portrait Gallery, London and the Musee de l'Elysee, Lausanne, Switzerland, and her first book 'Teenage Stories'. She is profiled in many international professional and popular photographic magazines.

Julia Fullerton-Batten was born in Bremen, Germany, her mother German, her father English. She spent her childhood in Germany and in the USA before moving to the UK in 1986. At school-leaving age she decided to enter a career in photography. She has not looked back since. After graduating from the Berkshire College of Art and Design, she assisted for five years, where she learned her craft the hard way and began to develop her own unique photographic style.

When still assisting, a series of pictures she shot during a trip in Vietnam won her a series of awards, based upon which she was signed up by a German agent. Within a few weeks, the agency gave her her first job, a large scale assignment in Australia. This propelled her into her professional career. Since then, she has shot many commercial and editorial campaigns for big name agencies and journals. With this work, too, her images have won many international awards.

More at: http://www.juliafullerton-batten.com/

Phillip Toledano

Phillip Toledano was born in London to a French Moroccan mother, and an American father. He believes that photographs should be like unfinished sentences. There should always be space for questions.

Phillip’s work is socio-political, and varies in medium, from photography, to installation. 

His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The New York Times magazine, The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, Wallpaper, The London Times, The Independent Magazine, Le Monde, and Interview magazine, amongst others.

More at http://www.mrtoledano.com

Ville Kansanen

Ville Kansanen describes his own art as a a kind of seepage of ideas that never manifest themselves in relation to social or personal interaction. Perhaps in general it is a very honest conversation with myself about many puzzling and painful things that I'd rather not utter verbally but am relieved to put into imagery.

What is your biggest success in your PRIVATE life and ART life? 

My biggest success in my private life is finding my wife, Alexandria, who keeps me whole, loved and sane. In my art life my greatest success is being true to myself even if it hasn't always yielded desired results. 

Is there something weird, mad or secret about you? What makes you different from others? 

We are all unique flowers. I don't know... I think I have rigid code of morale in making art which veers more into engineering than creating, that a lot of other artists don't possess.

What do you do as the first thing in the morning? 

Hear a wonderful random story of what I've mumbled in my sleep just minutes before, for instance

singing: "Every morning when I wake up - and I put on my make up" - which is strange because I don't wear make up. 

What is the best and the worst song in your iPod (mp3 player)? 

It goes in cycles! But right now the best is 'I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire' by The Inkspots and the worst is 'The Cellar' by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis (that song makes me antsy as hell, it's from The Road OST) 

Lot of people ask what would you change if you could, but I am insterested in the opposite. What would you NEVER change in your life? 

My marriage. 

What makes you HAPPY and what makes you ANGRY? 

When I find that short relaxed moment of not worrying or thinking about anything makes me very happy. Disloyalty and pettiness makes me angry. 

What superpower would you have and why? 

Temporary self-cloning: I'd have ample assistants whenever I needed them and rigorous debates on topics we all agree on. 

What is the most beautiful thing you have ever witnessed? 

Mono Lake, California, on a winter's morning. 

What’s your scariest experience? 

Glasgow.

Name something you love, and why. 

I love the photography of Charles van Schaick because it is all created by an unassuming genius. 

Name something you don’t love, and why. 

There's too many things to mention... I am big on complaining. Right now, I have qualms with valet parking, I think that I drive my car well enough to park it myself - and I'll do it for free. They can show me the vacant parking spot and stay the hell away from my steering wheel. I'll tip them for that. 

If you could pick any place, anywhere, where would you like to wake up tomorrow and why? 

I'd like to wake up 20 years from now, wherever that is, just so I could have a little bit of a distinguished gray tint in my beard. 

What are you looking for now in your life? 

The next thing to get excited about.

More at: http://www.vikaphoto.com/

Martin Stranka

"Martin Stranka's work exists in that space between dreams and waking, those split seconds when a person has a foot in both worlds. Light like the first rays of twilight filtering through a curtain when even the dust seems to glitter with some sort of hidden purpose or meaning. The language of stillness. 

The solitary sound of your own footsteps echoing down the streets of a deserted city. And on every building the flickering image of a silent film like faded memories. His images. So personal yet somehow universal they seem like your own memories. Your moments. And maybe they are."

/Stephen Pierce, USA/

Meet Me Half Way (Martin Stranka)

I believe we all know the moment, when we wake up early every morning, the bell is ringing and you dont know if is it real or still a dream. Its really just a short time, when your mind is confused and thinking: Am I dreaming, or is that my hated alarm clock? These few seconds are so incredible and amazing. Even though we have experienced these moments many times, even though we have find it so familiar to us, we are still always confused by these few seconds. That is what I try to put into my art. I want the viewer to ask: Am I dreaming?

Rejected (Martin Stranka)

Then try to imagine an early evening sunset. The last rays of sunlight. Everything is suffused into orangish shades. Light is coming through your curtain. You can even see the particles of dust slowly floating through your room. Thats the magic moment. Light. The most powerful tool for an artist. 

And I Keep Falling (Martin Stranka)

I use many synonyms for stillness in my titles. Serenity. Tranquility. I'm not exactly sure why I find myself using this imagery. I live in a loud capital city. I listen to loud music. I work in a noisy job. Perhaps that's the answer, why I run into my calm, inner world. Stillness, it gives me a place where I can decipher my thoughts, read my own mind. A place where I understand all the pictures in my head. 

But I Would (Martin Stranka)

Many people have asked if I am involved in films because my pictures seem like movie scenes. As if they were cut from a film. They look like our own faded memories. Something what we all have lived through. My other imagination. My other dream.

Between Light And Nowhere (Martin Stranka)

Have you ever had a feeling that somehow you have seen that scene already? Do you find these moments somehow familiar? Deja vu? We are all human and we all live in the same world, true. The same physical world but at the same time a different inner world. When I take photographs, I try to materialize my thoughts and dreams into the conscious state. Many people tell me they have found themselves in these pictures. They say it feels strangely familiar. Photographs as mirrors? Yes, they should be a mirror of our souls, dreams, reality. 

Hope (Martin Stranka)

And maybe they are... just usual things at unusual moments. So personal yet somehow universal they seem like your own memories. Your moments.

More at: http://www.martinstranka.com