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Just Not Kosher combines cooking and cutting-edge images

Neither Rick Pushinsky nor his father, Steven Morris, are chefs. Pushinsky is a professional photographer with 10 years experience doing editorial shoots for the likes of The Sunday Times Style, Vogue and the FT. His father is an optician. But that didn’t stop them from putting together a series of 21 recipe cards – a three-course meal for every day of the week – inspired by the family’s Ashkenazi heritage, adapted dishes from dining in foreign restaurants, and Morris’ “60 years of making a mess in the kitchen”. Pushinsky’s bright and playful photography pairs up with his fathers’ recipes and stories, and he’s also added in relevant family photographs. A flaming crêpe falls before a bright yellow backdrop to accompany a recipe for Crêpes Suzette, for example; a sliver of sea bass draped delicately over a towering structure of fennel represents, well, Sea Bass on Fennel. The more artistic representations are the ones that stand out, and they were also the most tricky to set up.

31 October 2017

Zsolt Ficsór finds beauty in everyday Budapest

At 28, Zsolt Ficsór is part of this new generation, using his collective, MAMA Photobooks, to help promote local artists’ self-published work. In October Ficsór brought MAMA to Photo Book London at The Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, for example, while in September, he was invited to take part in the five-day Magnum workshop at the Capa Contemporary Photography Centre in Budapest. Lead by celebrated Magnum photographers Antoine d’Agata and Matt Black, this workshop was a masterclass in developing his style of urban documentary photography, he says, which stems from his fascination with “interacting with this surreal and unreal world that we are living in right here here, right now”.

31 October 2017

Shooting the Bitter Summer on Bari's Canalone Beach

Puglia’s undulating coastline on the Adriatic and Ionian seas offers respite to locals during the summer months, when temperatures can rise above 40°C in southern Italy. August in particular is a time when whole extended families flee to the region’s coastal spots to escape the prolonged, infernal heatwaves. But Puglia’s medieval hill towns, teetering on clifftops overlooking sparkling water, are out of reach to millions of Italians in the grip of economic hardship and many Apulians seek relief closer to their own doorsteps. Photography duo Jean-Marc Caimi and Valentina Piccinni had been working together in Puglia on two projects focused on environmental issues before deciding to make their latest work, Bitter Summer, documenting holidaymakers on a makeshift beach in Puglia’s capital Bari, the largest port city in the Adriatic.

30 October 2017

New show Catharsis makes the private public

“Her project talks about the identity that the state wants women to project in public,” says Vivienne Gamble, director of Seen Fifteen and now curator of the show Catharsis for Belfast Exposed. “She comes from a family where they didn’t have those rules behind closed doors at home. She was conflicted about having this public-facing image, and this different, much more relaxed and liberal, private existence.” She’s talking about Shenasmenah, a project by Iranian-born photographer, filmmaker and curator Amak Mahmoodian included in the three-person Catharsis show.

20 October 2017

Eva Roefs finds everyday magic on the Flemish coast

Eva Roefs has an affinity for capturing bizarre moments in exceptionally mundane situations. The young Amsterdam-based photographer grew up in south Holland in a small town called Loosbroek, and says the monotonous surroundings spurred her search for the absurd as soon as she started photographing at age 13. A decade on, Roefs’ latest series West Flemish Coast applies her signature ethereal stylings to documentary subject matter. “I started thinking, ‘Why go to Australia, Canada or South America when beauty can also be found at my neighbour’s house?’” says Roefs. “So I decided to go to Belgium, where people have smaller holidays that aren’t particularly fancy. It’s just family, the sea, food – not very good food – and animals, all together. It’s not at all like going to surf in Australia or going to Dubai to see big buildings. It really is the root of holidays and how they began.”

20 October 2017

Tom Wood, Ken Grant, Alasdair McLellan, Corinne Day, and more in a star-studded show on Northern style

Preconceptions and stereotypes about Northern England are so entrenched that it can be hard to know how they got there, but curators Lou Stoppard and Adam Murray hope to change that this winter with a show examining how photography, fashion and art have developed in the region over the last century. And in doing so, they hope to demonstrate – and celebrate – North England’s immense influence on global culture and style. Running from 08 November-04 February at Somerset House, North: Fashioning Identity continues a show that Stoppard, SHOWstudio’s editor-at-large, and Murray, academic and lecturer at Manchester School of Art and Central Saint Martins, exhibited at  earlier this year. Featuring over 100 works, the exhibition includes fashion photographers such as Alasdair McLellan, Corinne Day, David Sims, and Glen Luchford, but also documentary photography dating from the 1930s to the present day.

20 October 2017

Louise Dahl-Wolfe's definitions of modern style

100 works by legendary fashion and portrait photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe are going on show at The Fashion and Textile Museum from 20 October-21 January 2018. A Style Of Her Own features over 100 photographs shot from 1931-59, celebrating work that helped define the image of the modern, independent woman, and inspired photographers such as Richard Avedon and Irving Penn. Born in San Francisco in 1895 to Norwegian parents, Dahl-Wolfe studied art history and design at the San Francisco Art Institute, taking up photography in 1921 and going professional in 1930 after meeting Edward Weston and Dorothea Lange. A leading contributor to Harper’s Bazaar between 1936 and 1958 (where she worked extensively with influential editor Carmel Snow, fashion director Diana Vreeland, and designer Alexey Brodovitch), Dahl-Wolfe is credited with having invented the idea of the ‘supermodel’, and creating distinctive styles for models such as Suzy Parker, Jean Patchett, Barbara Mullen, Mary Jane Russell and Evelyn Tripp. She is said to have kickstarted actress Lauren Bacall’s Hollywood career, after shooting her for a Bazaar cover in 1943.

17 October 2017