international group of photographers, writers, artists, filmmakers, videographers and designers

I often wonder whose life I’ve run across, when stumbling upon scenes such as these. Whose child’s portrait or life or soul has my camera just captured? Whose life consisted of sleeping in a room with one bare light bulb and one picture on the wall? What it was like to wake up in a feather bed with shadows of trees cast all around me? Someone used this sewing machine to make a child’s nightshirt, perhaps stuck their finger, drawing a drop of two of blood. I feel the spirits of those that walked these halls before me, who lived, loved, cried and died in this exact place.

And sometimes, if I’m lucky and find myself alone…. I can stop, put my camera aside and feel the souls around me. Perhaps if I’m shooting, they will allow themselves to be seen. In either case, I walk away a changed person taking a small piece of what I saw and felt with me….

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We’re happy to welcome Las Vegas photographer Gail Anderson as a guest contributor to aamora. Gail tells us: “The world is a remarkable place, filled with the mundane. I hope to share the mundane in a remarkable way.” You can enjoy more of Gail’s work on her website. She can also be found on Redbubble and JPGmag.

Aamora without pictures is like an empty room.

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Llorenç Rosanes is a photographer from Catalunya (Catalonia) and a member of aamora. He is a highly skilled and disciplined photographic artist whose photo series are thematically and artistically rigorous and always a pleasure to look at. You can see more of Llorenç’s work at jpgmag.com. Don’t miss his “accidents” series: click here and then click on the photograph.

Aamora has run out of submissions from members and guests. We need saamora.

The Miss Jean Brodie of the cha cha set, Miss Abigail Deermont stands five three in stacked heels and bouffant do. Four new trainees, including me, sit before her on a Monday morning, day one of our classes in bronze dance steps and tarnished sales techniques.

“The Cinncinati Six,” she announces, “is a strategy designed to help you sell Lifetime Memberships at the Deermont Academy of Ballroom Dance. “Who can tell me where the technique was developed?”

The guy to my left, an ex insurance salesman wearing a powder blue polyester suit, furiously flips through his Academy manual while the young lady to my right (who has chosen the dance instructress alias of Miss Toy) picks at her nail polish. Miss Deermont’s crème de la crème.

“Cincinnati?” I volunteer.

“Correct!” Miss D swirls her arms before us. “You will all become Cincinnati Sixers!” She turns on her heels and carves an arabesque in the air. “Anyone over 18 who puts a ballot in the box at the mall wins six lessons.

“And it will be your job to teach basic bronze steps while also pumping those lucky winners for information.” Her nostrils flare like a flamenco dancer’s. “You have five classes to find out all about your charges’ personal lives, then on the sixth…” she pauses, her face tango-serious, “You move in for the kill.” Miss Toy looks abruptly up from her nails as the guy in the baby blue suit starts biting his.

“You will sell Lifetime Memberships to lonely abject souls who long for the flight of terpsichore!” Miss D swoops her arms as if for take off. “It costs just five thousand dollars for a lifetime of dance lessons and Friday night socials at the Academy.” Her wings flutter and settle at her side. “And you get 5%.”

And the reality of my new job hits me like a ton of rhumba shoes.

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Fred Astaire glides into the studio in top hat, white tie and tails. Guests are arriving for the Friday night social. But Fred is not quite himself: his pants are too short and his socks are mismatched – one blue, one argyle.  Also the smooth black surface of his topper is interrupted by a glassy ebony orb. An almost imperceptible jewel in his crown, it looks like something out of a sci-fi movie, a transmitter to the Mothership or the cyclopean eye of Big Brother. It’s noticed by few, and only known in its true nature to its wearer and me. The wearer is, of course, not Fred Astaire at all but the remarkable Walter Kist in his grandfather’s best formal attire topped with his own madcap hatcam.

“Beam me up, Scottie,” I say, as Kist sashays past, shooting on the sly.

“There’s no intelligent life down here,” he counters, then aims his chapeau in my direction. I stick my tongue out at him as maracas and marimbas guide the tentative Lifers on the floor. He smiles and moves on, a soft shoe man dancing on crushed diamonds and rose petals whom no one pays much heed to despite his odd postures and wallflower poses.

But more than a few jaws drop at night’s end when Kist doffs his cap to dance a mad-hatter tango with me. Ignoring all proper bronze, silver or gold steps, we don’t moon like Brando, but our twists and turns and leaps comprise my last tango at Deermont’s. The next day I hand in my resignation.

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This is an excerpt of a work in progress by Marie Wilson. Marie was one of the first members of aamora. She is a writer, photographer, artist, actor, mother and muse. Originally from Vancouver, she lives in Toronto. Enjoy more of her photography at her photosite here and check out her writing, art and photography, as well as some cool links, on her new website
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Rhio9 is a member of aamora. You can see more of his wonderful work on his photo blog. **A note from aamora: Rhio9 has two books of his photography published – check them out at the Blurb Bookstore. He is generously offering a significant discount, and a signed copy, to members and friends of aamora – just ask him! ** AND… some fast-breaking news: we’ve just learned that Rhio got married 2 days ago! Congratulations Rhio and Niki!

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What do I love?  What do I hate?

What do I have to say?

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What do I want to show people?

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What am I hiding?

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These are all questions we ask ourselves at some point in our life to figure out who we are.  My experience came in my mid-twenties.  Luckily enough it was also around the same time I discovered the world of conceptual photography.  The emotional stories that could be laid out before the lens were astounding.

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The first self-portrait I took was a strange experience.  Facing yourself out of context and detached from your traditional point of view distorts your perspective.  Yet, as I continued, this realm opened up my eyes and peeled back the many masks I had set up over the years to protect myself.  It defined me, gave me purpose, and pushed the limits of who I am.

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And so my work became my journey as well as a story to play out before our eyes.

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Liz Malone is a photographer from Long Island, NY.  We welcome her to aamora as our guest. You can find more of her work on her website.

Diane Peterson and Gary Fudge have been collaborating with film based work for a wee while now. The examples are from their latest collaboration using 1950s Yashica medium format cameras running 120 film.

Gary shoots a roll of exposures in his native Scotland, before sending the roll across the Atlantic, to Diane in the States, who re-rolls the film and shoots her own exposures. Neither discuss the project leaving the results to chance and fun. In this digital world… Film lives on..!!

Gary Fudge is a founding member and co-administrator of aamora. A freelance photographer, he lives on Orkney, part of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. He loves travel and photography. And photography. Oh, and travel. He specializes in moody imagery, stormy skies, decay and dark humour.

You will enjoy Gary’s previous aamora posts by clicking here and more of his work at Flatfoot Photography and at jpgmag.com .

Diane Peterson is a member of aamora. She is an American photographer living on the northern prairies of Idaho. She tells us: “However, my travels throughout the world have given me a perspective on my surroundings and have allowed me to “dream” when creating images I like to imagine are part of my reality. Off beat,sometimes quirky images emerge from my cameras. I like to explore alternative approaches to photography; much of the work I create is fueled by fragments of an imaginary existence. I use vintage, plastic and toy cameras as well as more modern slr’s and dslr’s. I develop all my own black and white film.”

To see more of Diane’s work:

http://www.dianepetersonphotography.1x.com

http://www.papermemories.wordpress.com

2-6-2010 (Trees and Hills)

2-6-2010 (Tangle)

These images continue an exploration of spaces very rich in detail, which I began in a photo essay entitled “The Thicket”

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Alexis Gerard is a member of aamora.com. Alexis has been a passionate photographer since his twenties. He worked at Apple in the pioneering days of the Macintosh launch, then founded imaging think-tank Future Image in 1991. He founded and now chairs the 6Sight® Future of Imaging executive conference. He co-authored the book “Going Visual”, speaks widely on imaging technology, and is a member of the International Advisory Council of the George Eastman House. As a result of his business activities he had the opportunity to begin shooting digital in the early nineties and does so exclusively now. He prefers small cameras he can have with him at all times. Check out Alexis’ other posts on aamora here and see his other work by clicking here.

Peru has a very rich precolumbian history, of which literally thousands of archeological and mortuary remains speak, especially along the narrow desert strip of the Pacific coast. Huaqueo means looting and comes from Huaca, which in Quechua means “sacred place”, though today any ancient ruin or cemetery is called Huaca. Most of the precolumbian cultures that flourished in the river valleys of the coast of Peru since 3000 B.C. have buried their dead in ‘everlasting’ tombs, often mummifying the corpses of the important and noble people and clothing them in extraordinary richly woven textiles, as well as wonderful jewelery made of gold, silver and copper, and giving them all kinds of ceremonial ceramics and pots full of corn and beans and peanuts and coca leafs for their long journey through the ‘valley of the death’. The extremely dry conditions of the desert have preserved bodies and objects in an astonishing way.

It is known that precolumbian tombs have been looted ever since the Spaniards arrived (some say, that it was already a custom during the Inca period). The fact is, that the people of every village in every valley of this vast country have turned to the huaqueo, whenever there was a drought or any other reason for their crops to fail. And, of course, there has been ever since an international mafia that buys all these objects, mostly incredibly cheap and sells them for exorbitant prices to private collectors, maybe even to museums. There are though always people who exclusively dedicate themselves to the huaqueo – the huaqueros. They are considered by law as criminals and are naturally people from the underworld, full of gruesome stories of encounters with the dead. Some of them die in prison, some of strange and aweful diseases.
But, while the traditional huaqueros are supersticious and careful, and work only during nights of full moon and dig with ordinary shovels, the modern huaqueros have no scruples. They have modern equipment and use bulldozers and work in full daylight when ever allowed. The archeological contexts are thus being totally destroyed.

Not that I am too interested in all this. I never liked the principle of mummifying the dead and maintaining necrophilic relations with the past. But an archeologist from Cambridge and friend of mine, who has studied a certain area of the lower Ica valley, has asked me to make a photographic registration of all the mortuary remains, before the whole context was destroyed. So, during 3 days I toured the region and visited over 20 sites in company of an ex huaquero – son of one of the most famous huaqueros in the region, who has accompanied his father since he was 7 years old and since 1986 is a carpenter by trade. What I found was most dramatic. The cemeteries of at least half a dozen precolumbian cultures, all of them along or on top of the arid hills on the north side of the valley, have been looted over and over again.

The first thing a huaquero is after, is gold and jewelry. Gold, as we all know, is a fever. So, in order to get it, they desperately excavate the mummies and tear them apart, often breaking valuable pottery and textiles in the way. Later, sometimes after many years, they, or other huaqueros come back to the same tombs and scan them for the previously discarded pieces of ceramics and textiles and other objects, depending on the dictation of the market. Of course, where bulldozers have been used, there is nothing but mountains of dust and bones. So this business seems never ending. And still today one can find intact tombs – the dream of every huaquero and archeologist in the country.

Claudia Lüthi is an amateur photographer who lives in Lima, Peru. She is a founding member of aamora. You can see Claudia’s previous aamora posts by clicking here. You can also find her in JPG Magazine and in el lente de la coneja .

Aamora acknowledges and thanks:

Michael Van der Tol for conceiving and producing”Portrait of Dreams”, the aamora members and guests who made the portraits, and their subjects who so generously shared their time and their “dreams”:

Chandra, photographed by Diane Peterson
Sarah, photographed by Catharine Amato
Crystal, photographed by Aaron Schwartz
Alexis, photographed by John Linton
Stefan, and Ronnie, both photographed by Ronnie Ginnever
D.A.Windle, photographed by Marie Wilson
Sheralee, photographed by Alexis Gerard, and
Quinna, photographed by Maura Wolfson-Foster

The song “Brake” is by Canadian artist Melissa McClelland from her “Victoria Day” album.

(If you would prefer an alternative to viewing the slide show in the window above, try viewing it by clicking here.)

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Michael Van der Tol, a founding member of aamora, was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 1959 and currently lives in Stittsville, Ontario, Canada. He is primarily self-taught in photography and has been sharing what he sees for the last 10 years. His photographic work focuses on rural and urban landscapes. You can see more of Michael’s work here and enjoy his blog here.