Justin Critch - Various

I'm not always fond of photomanipulation and most of the time I don't consider it interesting enough (even when there is a real technical virtuosity) to be published here, but some from this Canadian photographer called Justin Critch (but in deviantArt under the name of Scary Jesus are real visual shocks and overcomes the artificiality of their production. Among them, some have not been very manipulated and they are the strongest. This should be an indication for this artist that he doesn't need to load his images with too much effects. My faves above. His site here.

Lucas Samaras - Various works

About Lucas Samaras, born in Greece in 1936 and living in New York since childhood, Wikipedia says "The primary subject of his photographic work is his own self-image, generally distorted and mutilated". Nothing to add. Except there is something of Molinier in his obsession with his image. Sure I would have had the same monomaniac one if I had go on photographing in my twenties. But I didn't, and he did, and he's now a well-known artist and I'm nobody. That's life and there's nothing wrong with that. Most of his well-known pictures, some being posted above, have been shot between 1973 and 1976. But there's more recent, in particular the one with him younger in the background. If I chose to post his work tonight, it's because this tored apart feeling is exactly the one I have and this is a nice visual equivalent. Here where to see his work worldwide.

Renee Cox - Yo Mamma

Renee Cox is a Jamaican born artist (in 1960) bringing back black womanhood in contempory imagery. She never hesitated to be provocative but actually it was less provocation than inability of society to face her images. Here I gathered some good definition shots I could find on the net from her series Yo Mamma. Actually few pictures are in enough good quality to be posted here and on her site, she protects very strongly the rights to use her images in precluding to download them. Not sure it's a good way to act but it's her choice. Her site to see much more of her work here.

Simen Johan - Evidence of Things Unseen

Born in 1973 in Norway, then going in Sweden during his childhood, Simon Johan went in New York City at 20, a rather (unfortunately) classic path for a contemporary artist. Between 2000 and 2003 he realized this fascinating series called Evidence of Things Unseen in which he provides a rather disturbing view of childhood but oh so trusty to the way children sometimes live their environment and how they can show interest in things adults consider as filthy and disgusting. Playground in dirt could be a title. I'm not digging all of his other work but this series is to my eyes one of the strongest ever done in photography. His site here.

Barefootliam - Nudes and angst

His name is Liam Quin, his pseudo Barefootliam, he's Canadian, aged 48 and he does a lot of various-style pictures, but here's a series of self-portraits depicting isolation, abandon, self-humiliation, constraint, cold, loss of freedom, a thrilling series with a modesty of effects that shows the strenght of photography to provide metaphysical visual equivalent of inner despaired feelings when in the hands of someone knowing his subject. His deviantArt here. I'm not sure he will be OK that I post these pictures, but I refuse to ask for permission since I'm no more a kid (and it was long ago). So, if he asks, I'll remove them but I think he'll be wrong cos' this work warrants to be shown next to official and recognized artists.

Corwin Prescott - Journey to the end of the night

With George Pitts, Corwin Precott is my favorite erotic photographer and I think no-one with the smallest notion of what is erotism could deny that his work is of great quality. Influenced by Jan Saudek (but who is not?), his imagery is actually completely different since here it's sexual excitation that seems to be expected by the author, without the poetic, provocative or sordid semantics that always put a screen between possible erogenous power of images and viewer in Saudek's work. Here, porno chic imagery is served by a truly strong scenography, model postures, colour and textures of the pictures. If I had to do this kind of erotic stuff, sure that it would be such a work I would dream of to be able to achieve. Moreover, Corwin Prescott now uses gif to animate his pictures. Here what he says about that: "I’m pretty excited about these gifs, and hopefully can find a gallery place to showcase them with projectors in the near future. Rather than make them from video stills like a lot of the ones I see, I decided I wanted to make them from still photos. Each of these is a 25.2 megapixel file or around the size counting cropping, so they could be blown up to something like 40x60 pretty easily, which would be pretty exciting I think to see all the tiny details. I dunno what do you think?". Personally I think it's really a new way to make us enter in the visual world of the artist. His blog here. To see the gifs in full size, open them on another page by clicking right on your mouse. It deserves it dear scoptophilian.