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

Feast of colors
the people, the music, the unity
and so much love in the air
This is the Real Tel Aviv.

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Ariel Shelleg makes his first appearance as a guest photographer at aamora.

Ariel (Eric) Shelleg. 24 yo.
Born and living in tel aviv, Israel.
Freelance Director\photographer\editor.
Mostly making video art and music videos, short film projects and portraiture.
Filmography student @ “minshar for Art”, tel aviv, Israel.

You can see more of his work on Flickr or Facebook. And if you’d like to experience more of the atmosphere at the Tel Aviv Gay Pride parade, we highly recommend you check out Ariel’s video.

Cairenn Russelo, who initiated this project and collaborated with other aamora members John Linton, Rhio9 and Maura Wolfson-Foster, tells us:

“The object of this project was to intuitively exchange an image (of any subject matter) with another photographer, not knowing what image was to be shared with me. The result… juxtaposed subjects sharing a very similar vision.

I choose these photographers – John, Maura and Rhio, feeling I knew their work and their (sometimes) quirky visions – anticipating an intuitive connection in subject matter. I met all three photographers on JPGmag.com.”

Cairenn and John collaboration

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Cairenn and Maura collaboration

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Cairenn and Rhio collaboration

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Check out more of Cairenn’s contributions to aamora here.

And Maura’s here.

And don’t miss Rhio’s here.

Flexible Transformation

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Art Deco Shadow and Light

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Flow of Reality

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Gothic Shadows

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Ripple in Space

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Shadows Cast from Easter Island

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Welcome James Ford as our guest at aamora. We asked him to tell us something about himself:

“I have a BFA degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio with traditional printmaking as a major.  I also have a MA degree from SUNY Oswego with a major in digital photography/photoshop and art history study in surrealism.  I worked in custom color labs and communication companies when I was younger and have taken photographs for many, many years.  I have also been employed by SUNY Oswego for the past twenty-five years doing the same and soon to retire.  I explore, search, record and present images of my daily life in the fine art tradition.  My creative universe is expanding and I welcome it with open arms.”

You can enjoy more of Jim’s work by clicking here.

When I was in San Diego preparing for Artwalk, I frequented a thrift store called Pat’s Corner in the North Park area. I struck junk gold there. A lot of the pieces I did for the festival used various objects found at Pat’s.

The place was a maze, part of it was organized and somewhat presentable and other parts looked like modern history upchucked and no one bothered to clean it up. The yard out back had the larger bits of broken antiquity that had been pulled gracelessly off the sides of houses and somehow ended up in Pat’s corral. Overseeing it all, Pat sat in the middle of the store like a glorious queen of tarnished dents. The several times I was there, I never saw her out of her throne.

Her throne. A humble chair slightly raised and surrounded by a world of junk unimaginable. I would not be at all surprised to find Jimmy Hoffa’s dentures under an old Mad Magazine on the floor next to a cookie tin full of forks. From atop this post she’d size up your finds and, with the arbitrary mathematics of thrift store pricing, would arrive at a dollar amount you could never argue with. This price wasn’t made up, it was pronounced with sage-like certainty and was usually rounded off to a fiver.

My last time in there I talked to her for a bit. She seemed to approve of the artistic madmanship I planned for the items I bought. She would only let me take a picture of her hands which I admire.

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Help us welcome Kreddible Trout to aamora as a guest artist. He is a photographer and artist living in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Check out more of his work on his website, his blog and on jpgmag. And help us congratulate him on his very recent marriage!

“My practice focuses on producing imagery using mail art and pinhole photography to examine the role of the `stranger` in society and why we are interested in people we don’t know. These images show chance encounters and intimate double exposure visual portraits of people who have not met in person and only meet by the mediated gaze of the pinhole camera. This relates to the way we interact remotely with others in the information age.”

“These images were a result of me sending a call out over the internet for people’s mail addresses. When I received the participant’s addresses, I sent them a pinhole camera disguised as a parcel and asked them to take a portrait of themselves and send it back to me. Then I took a portrait of myself. The resulting imagery is a ghostly spectral trace of two faces with their physiognomic features merged.”

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We welcome Jamie House to aamora as a guest artist. Jamie is a socially engaged, practising photographer who uses pinhole cameras. He collaborates with people worldwide, from established artists such as Jo Babcock and Justin Quinnell to emerging talents. Jamie use the collective power of mail art to realise his ideas and empower people.

Jamie’s latest project “Stranger” is a collaborative pinhole photography project that examines the role of the stranger in society, collaborating with people across the globe. Jamie has used pinhole photography and mail art in previous projects such as his Pinhole Parcel Project where he constructed cameras disguised as parcels and posted them around the world, mapping the world with light.

Jamie is a conceptual Pinhole Photographer and also a camera Obscura builder. He tells us: “I recently built England’s largest camera Obscura.

Jamie’s work is currently exhibited in Goa International Pinhole show, travelling to New Delhi, Mumbai and Goa.

For an interview with author of the Pinhole Camera, Brian Krummel in Hub magazine, click here.

We are pleased to have Claudio Parentela as our guest. Claudio is an artist working in a wide range of media.  The pieces above are all untitled mixed media on cardboard (24 cm x 34 cm) created in 2010. We highly recommend that you enjoy exploring more of Claudio’s work by clicking on the links in his biography below.

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Born in Catanzaro, Italy where he lives and works, Claudio Parentela is an illustrator, painter, photographer, mail artist, cartoonist, collagist and freelance journalist. He has been active for many years in the international underground scene. He has collaborated with and been featured with  many, many zines and magazines in Italy and around the world. To see more of Claudio’s amazing range of work, check out his websites here and here .

Staying at Disney World, I got up at 4am with the family to drive to see the launch of STS-131. The shuttle lifted off the pad right before dawn, and and as the sun rose, it created a gorgeous, scrolling backdrop of deep gradated colour upon which it illuminated the clouds of alumina compounds left by the solid rocket boosters.  These clouds drifted and shifted and twisted in a kind of divine cursive script hanging in the sky, lasting for over an hour, in which ghostly letters and signs and sigils could just barely be discerned. The clouds were much more impressive than the launch, and I found it highly symbolic of modern attitudes that the brief roar of the shuttle was seen by millions, while the long, quiet glory of the clouds was all but ignored.

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Aamora welcomes Steve as our guest. We asked him to tell us about himself:

“In the words of Ralph Wiggum, I “like stuff”. I am a classic dilettante, interested in pretty much everything I come across. It has only recently dawned on my that I may not live long enough to do all the things I want.

Artistically, I have found it particularly satisfying to express and communicate with photography and writing.  My goal with photography is to find situations in the physical world that have a unique voice, and then and attempt to drag them across the semiotic chasm to share with others.  My goal with writing in much the same, but I draw from my imagination instead.

I live in Woodbridge, Ontario. I am a dual Canadian/Italian citizen, and I love to explore the areas where those two cultures overlap — and where they don’t. In my day jobs, I am the co-founder of both XE.com Inc. and Wifarer Inc.

I am also a pilot, and have been particularly interested in flight since childhood. I’m excited about the possibilities of mixing flying and photography.

And in my mind’s eye, I am always sixteen, bounding down the stairs to rush out into the world to explore, to invent, and — always — to learn.”

(Steve didn’t tell you, but we happen to know, that he was a torch bearer for the Vancouver Winter Olympics.)

downtown St. John’s

Old World Charm

St. John’s from the harbour

boats in the harbour

the four sisters

looking out from the harbour to the North Atlantic Ocean

I’m Lyndon Keating from St. John’s,  Newfoundland.  About 4 years ago I bought a point and shoot camera and began taking pictures.  I’ve been teaching myself as I go, learning from my mistakes, and treated myself to a dslr. Advice from a couple of experienced photographer friends of mine has also come in handy.  I learn new things everyday.  There’s a lot of beauty to Newfoundland.  It is a great classroom.

Throughout most of my working life I have done just about everything, from baking to driving. Up until a couple of months ago, I was a steel bender.  You put sheetmetal in a bending press, grab the handle and lift.  It required a good eye for angles.  Backbreaking work.  But recently, my photography has sort of taken off . I had my first exhibition at a local art gallery. I got an award.  I’m honoured to be here on aamora.  No more steel bending for me, I hope. A career in photography would suit me just fine.

Here’s a link to where I won a photography prize.  And I’d be pleased to have you look at some of my work on Flickr.  I’d sure welcome any comments you might have, and will be looking forward to seeing all the great work here on aamora. And any time you want to come up to St. John’s for a visit, I’ll share a few glasses of Screech with you and show you around. The icebergs come by in June, if you’re planning.

These images were first taken from HD video I shot with a very low shutter speed and moving the camera around for motion blurs of neon on Fremont street in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I then pulled frames out of the video stream that I felt worked well as abstract stills.

I then compiled them back together into this slide show with a slight Ken Burns motion effect.

The original set of frames can be seen in the “vegas blur” gallery here.

(Music: “That’s My Name” ~ Steinski)

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We’re always pleased when Skip returns to aamora. His photography is remarkable for its beautifully vivid color, incisive composition and varied locales, including Mexico, Guatemala and South Africa. You will be well rewarded by checking out Skip’s work at skiphunt:visualartist .

Daily, I witness the random act of hand-holding while wanderlusting through my store windows. I am (unfortunately) not always available with camera ready to capture all who venture by – though my heart giggles seeing so much Love goin’ round.

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