memFIX + lovebooth

[ Crosstown at Cleveland and Overton Park ] Pop-up shops, food trucks, artists market, barber's station, new bike lanes, skateboard ramps, climbing walls, live music, an outdoor movie... a great neighborhood in the making. Way more than I could fit on one roll of film.  Here are a few shots I was able to get on my Nikon F camera. Our very own Melissa Sweazy created the LoveBooth to raise money for the Church Health Center and of course to spread some much needed love. The most popular component of the LoveBooth was the Love Advice offered by kids age 6 and under inspired by the Charlie Brown/Lucy psychiatic advice booth. Not sure how much their love life may improve but it certainly got smiles on everyone's faces.

Let the Cat Out of the Bag!

[University of Memphis]  This weekend, all 100 tiger sculptures were unveiled as part of the University of Memphis's Centennial Anniversary celebration.  All of the participating artists started with the same shape, but from there the creativity was unleashed. These will remain on campus throughout 2011, and then will be displayed at various locations around the city.

Whole Flickr slideshow from the event here.

SUBMISSIONS + FIRST FEATURED

Thanks to everyone who has shown such great support for this blog and to those who have submitted their work so far.  In the spirit of the collective effort, we are asking to see your best street photography of Memphis in order to see the city and its people from as many angles as possible.  Although street photography as broadly defined is photography of the public realm, we wanted to also describe what we consider great street photography. The first and easiest way to illustrate what we are looking for is referencing the work of great street photographers, past and present, that inspire us.

[ Inspiring Photographers for Street Photography ]

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Robert Frank

William Eggleston

Yanick Delafoge

Eric Kim

Charlie Kirk

[ Other Resources ]

In-Public

Smashing Magazine

[ Key Ingredients ]

We want to be inspired by you. The photos that will most likely get featured do not have to be technically perfect. Needless to say they can be digital or film, color or black and white. They just need to move us with certain key ingredients such as nice composition, interesting subject matter, emotion whether it be humorous or distressing, and capturing the perfect moment, Henri Cartier-Bresson would call the “decisive moment.”  Capturing that decisive moment in many ways takes luck and patience. This is the reason great street photography is so difficult but rewarding and also why we’ve made this a collective effort.

[ Submitting ]

To make it easier for all the contributors to see and “vote” on your submitted work, we’ve created a Facebook Submissions Page. You may upload your photos to the wall with the photo date, location, and contact info.  Even if your work is not featured, the wall will have enough viewers to see your work that it may fit someone else’s need in another way. Go here to like the page and submit. If for some reason you are not on Facebook (no judgement here), just email me sophorn [at] hotmail [dot] com, and I can post the photos for you. As a side note, I may come across great photos on my own that I will feature with the photographer's permission so you are welcome to send suggestions of any Memphis street photo you find exceptional.

[ seen ] 

FEATURED PHOTO Valerie June /  Java Cabana Cooper-Young / 2010 Cooper-Young Fest / Raising money for her new cd / Memphis as a true music city really does have musicians performing in the streets regularly. Thanks to local photographer Amanda Hill for submitting this great photo.

LINKS Amanda Hill - Web / Twitter / Facebook / Email: contact [at] amphotography [dot] us / 901.652.0432

We look forward to your submissions.

MEET TOMMY

Today, we introduce you to the one and only Tommy Kha.

THE SCOOP Born and raised in Memphis, Tommy is receiving his BFA in Photography in just two weeks and has just been accepted to Yale University to pursue his MFA in Photography. He’ll be studying under great photographers/artists such as Tod Papageorge, Richard Benson, Philip Lorca diCorcia, and Gregory Crewdson. Here’s what he says about his work:

I believe whenever I'm photographing that I am performing for it, others are performing for my camera, even buildings! Documentary, staging and performance are important to my work because I believe in multiple ways to approaching truths and realities because I am multifaceted. I'm Chinese but also American and I'm from the South. Whether my work speaks of one or another, what I want my photography to confirm and subvert is the cultural differences that we have inherited.

PHOTOS The photos shown above are taken from several great collections he’s documented for his BFA work, friends, and Live From Memphis. They truly look like scenes from a movie.

SPECIFIC TO SEEN MEMPHIS His genuine love for Memphis will bring him back often enough to contribute incredible photos for this project. Although he doesn’t necessarily call his work street photography, he’ll approach it with a documentary style and will look to works from Goldin, Alec Soth and Amy Stein whenever he’s photographing people and landscape.

LINKS Web / Blog / Twitter

MEET SEAN

Today, we introduce you to the highly respected Sean Davis. My introduction to Sean was through our mutual friend Billie Worley, who said, “I can’t believe you guys don’t already know each other. His work is amazing.” I soon became a part of his fan base. The respect, especially within the artistic community, is well-deserved.

THE SCOOP Speaking of having a cinematic eye, Sean spends most of his creative time looking through a movie camera. He is a camera assistant on film and television projects here in Memphis. Some notable projects he’s worked on include Craig Brewer's “Black Snake Moan” movie and $5 Cover MTV series, the 80's punk rock movie recently shot in Memphis “Losers Take All,” and “Memphis Heat.” As he is working on these projects, he naturally takes the on-set still photographs, providing behind-the-scenes documentation and interesting portraits of the crew who are usually behind the camera.

PHOTOS The photos shown above were some of the ones I discovered when searching for the perfect images that represent the genuine vibe of Memphis. Some of these images have also won over the editors and followers of the Commercial Appeal’s Capture Memphis photography site.

SPECIFIC TO SEEN MEMPHIS Sean’s ability to capture candid shots and his passion for architectural and landscape photography make him ideal for this project. Though he has some nice camera gear, he’ll also surprise us with some amazing shots with his iPhone photography using the Instagram and the Hipstamatic filters.

LINKS Web / Blog / Flickr / Twitter

MEET DIRK

Today, we introduce you to the always inspiring Dirk Olsen.

THE SCOOP It’s hard to get the scoop on the nicest, most humble person there could possibly be. Dirk never wants to talk about himself. He wants to know about you, and I have to give him credit for how much I’ve learned recently about photography and modeling. He'd rather talk about his work, portrait photography, creating beautiful images of people, and how rewarding that is helping people see the beauty in themselves. Always wary of labels, he does agree the one label that can be used to describe his work is edgy, which speaks to his vision to producing work more forward than most people are used to seeing. This is one of the main reasons I’m excited to have him still here in Memphis rather than some other much more urban city shooting for this project. One more interesting piece of information about Dirk is that he worked as a model while getting into photography. Friend and fellow photographer/contributor Melissa Sweazy says this about him - “Having once been on the other side of the camera as a model, Dirk possesses an artist's gift at putting his own subjects at ease and the craftsmen's ability of elevating the beautiful to the sublime.” / You can read more about his published work here.

PHOTOS Although most people who know Dirk are familiar with his studio controlled lighting portraits, Dirk has immense talent in shooting with natural light in locations such as those shown above – Cooper-Young, Downtown Madison Ave, Midtown, and Shelby Farms.

SPECIFIC TO SEEN MEMPHIS Based on the shots taken for LuvMud shown above, you can expect to see his street photography to focus on people, catching the right moment and their emotion. You will probably find him shooting the streets of midtown and downtown.

LINKS/DETAILS Web / Email [ dcophoto at gmail dot com ] / You can say hello to him Wednesday through Saturday at Memphis Photo Supply.