SCOTT GORDON BLEICHER PHO(BLOG)GRAPHY

A few behind the scenes snapshots and one alternate look from a recent shoot with Sharon Van Etten at The Metropolitan Building in Long Island City.

Art direction by Christine Be.

Two final selects from the shoot can be seen in the Musicians portfolio on my website, here.

Sharon’s debut album, Because I Was In Love, is available on iTunes and her original, eponymous self-release is available through her online store. Sharon’s moving, soulful voice and intimate lyrics are offset by her softly strummed acoustic guitar, and are accompanied by a trembling organ on standout track For You, the video for which can be seen at Pitchfork.

I’ve had the opportunity to see Sharon perform in small, dimly lit rooms around Brooklyn. If you happen to see her name on a flyer for an upcoming show or in the concert listings of, say, The Village Voice, don’t hesitate to see her live, to hear her voice- equal parts longing and lamentation, fill the space around you and in your heart. As you can tell, I’m a big fan.

Sharon can be seen on tour this fall with Toronto’s Great Lake Swimmers.

I’ve recently self-published a magazine through MagCloud entitled Tokyo Juxtaposed. The issue contains juxtapositions of photographs that I took while aimlessly wandering around Tokyo (dérive, anyone?), many of which can be seen in the Travel portfolio on my website.

I’ve included a few extra diptychs in the magazine in order to ensure its limited edition collectibility. In theory.

Click on the cover below for a preview of Tokyo Juxtaposed and for information on how to purchase a copy.

You know you want one…

New design, larger images, direct link to the blog, and new Japan portfolio.

sgbphoto.com

During my recent trip to Japan, I spent some time browsing the photography aisles of a few fine art book stores in Shibuya. My knowledge of contemporary Japanese photography was quite limited prior to my trip although I was fortunate enough to see an excellent retrospective last year at the International Center of Photography on this very topic.

It also seems that doing a basic internet search does not yield many solid results other than a long, phonetically challenging, alphabetical list of names on Wikipedia and photoguide.jp that, upon first glance, seems quite daunting to dive in to.

The best source that I have found is the well written and regularly updated blog, Japan Exposures.

One series of images that has stayed with me from the ICP exhibition is Asako Narahashi’s half awake and half asleep in the water- it’s subject drifting further from the shore, a hypnotic meditation which is able to balance a surreal buoyancy with an oppressive sense of aquaphobia:

A contemporary photographer’s work that I was introduced to in Tokyo and greatly admire is that of Nakano Masataka, specifically his Tokyo Nobody series, with its desolate streets and empty intersections capturing an otherworldly stillness and commenting on the impermanence of permanence. With the tranquility comes a slight sense of unease, of trepidation- I am left not thinking of the moment captured but of the moments prior to and post, wondering what happened and what will happen next:

The inverse voyeurism of Masataka-san’s Tokyo Windows series is also of note.

There seems to be a tangible sense of searching and longing to the contemporary Japanese photography that I am drawn to, even a slight sense of melancholia, of isolation. Like trying in vain to capture a fleeting moment that will not come to pass again, trying to impress stasis upon inertia.

Maybe this, in some way, is representative of the dichotomy that is modern day Japan- pre-war traditions, rigidity, and isolationism trying to strike a balance with post-war reality, modernism, and cultural assimilation, especially in regards to the work of the venerable and prolific Daido Moriyama:




In any case, the mood and message is most certainly subjective, but I feel that I can learn from the raw emotion and textured aesthetic inherent to much of contemporary Japanese photography in relation to the often calculated geometry, didacticism, and minimalism that I tend to favor in my work.

In regards to my study of said topic, I am most certainly at the tip of a very large iceberg, or shall I say, at the tip of Mt. Fuji.