Photographer #195: Tony Kelly

Tony Kelly, 1975, Ireland, lives in Barcelona and works all over the world. He makes sexually charged photographes that are so bright in colour that they resemble candies that might either be sweet or sour. His carreer started as a papparazzo and later as a warzone photographer. Now Tony is all into the fashion photography, although most of the work evolves around nude women. Tony likes to shock a little, but it needs to be a shock with a smile. Humour is one of the key points in Kelly's photography. As a photographer that prefers working on location as to a closed studio it is no wonder he is slightly in love with the plastic, sunny and "cultureless" Los Angeles. The following images come from Toy Story, El Pais Miss World and Hollywood.

Website: www.tonykellyphotography.com

Photographer #194: Sonja Braas

Sonja Braas, 1968, Germany, lives and works in New York. In her series The Quiet of Dissolution Sonja shows us various natural catastrophes, but in a way that we have never seen before. The viewer begins to wonder how she got so close to the disasters and how she continuously get's a certain serenity in her photographs. Sonja actually builds the scenes herself in a studio as idealized models of reality. In her series You Are Here she took pictures of zoological gardens and natural science museums and put them alongside images of real landscapes. This confuses the viewer when attempting to figure out what is real and what is not. The following images come from the series The Quiet of Dissolution, Forces and You Are Here.

Website: www.sonjabraas.com

Photographer #193: Ross McDonnell

Ross McDonnell, 1979, Ireland, is a photographer and filmmaker. In his series Joyrider he documented the youngsters in Ballymun, a suburb of Dublin where the infra-structure is lacking, showing the transition of anti-social behaviour to criminality amongst the young people living in the shadows of these Ballymun towers. In the series Turkana, Ross focused on the impact of climate change on the people living in the Northwestern part of Kenya. In Turkana food-aid has become more reliable than farming. The following images come from the series Joyrider, The Afghans and Turkana.

Website: www.rossmcdonnell.com

Photographer #192: Carl Kleiner

Carl Kleiner, 1983, is a photographer from Sweden. He is most known for his still-life photography. For Ikea he made the images for a cookbook called Hembakat är Bäst. The images show exactly the ingredients and quantities that are required for the recipe. Carl's photography is colorful, graphic and experimental. He doesn't limit himself, he uses materials ranging from paper to eggs and from clothes to dolls. The following images come from Ikea, X Y / Goran Kajfes and Cafe M - Beirut.

Website: www.carlkleiner.com

European Bee-eater - Bird of 2010

The bird of 2010, selected by blog and facebook followers, is the European Bee-eater Merops apiaster. My thanks to all my friends for joining in the fun of selecting this species. It has been your choice! Here is a small selection for all to enjoy...

Photographer #191: Irene Andessner

Irene Andessner, 1954, Austria, has been focusing on the self-portrait since 1988. In the beginning she realised her portraits through paintings, but from the mid-90's in tableaux vivants, photography and video stagings. She gets into the roles of various women such as the Black Madonna, Rachael from the movie Bladerunner or Marlene Dietrich. Not only women are being portrayed, in 2006 she interpreted the traditional but questionably authentic portrait of Mozart. She released the Book I Am Irene Andessner which shows her works between 1995 and 2003. I Am (present tense) because she herself gives absolutely contemporary expression to historical figures. The following images come from the series Citylights [Vienna], Ida/Artemis/Merian and Donne Illustri.

Website: www.andessner.com
(Video in German)

Photographer #190: Marco Grob

Marco Grob, 1965, Switserland is a portrait and fashion photographer. He has photographed countless celebrities, from Obama to Clinton and from Samuel L. Jackson to Jeff Bridges. His work has appeared in Vogue and Time amongst many other magazines and he has shot for clients as Nike, Tag Heuer and Louis Vuitton. Marco's portraits are stylish and classic. The following images come from his portfolio's Portraits, Portraits Archive and Editorials.

Website: www.marcogrob.com

A wagtail for all seasons

The marshes and other wetlands of south-western Iberia are home for many birds, some migratory and others less so. It so happens that there is always one species of wagtail exploiting the diverse and abundant insect life that thrives in small pools, ditches and flooded fields. Now it is the White Wagtail that abounds in these habitats.

they arrived in September and October and will depart in February and March

they head back north into north-western Europe and do not breed in these lowland wetlands. Come February and March it is the Yellow Wagtails that arrive from the south, Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa, to breed in these same places.

By the time they have finished raising their young and are migrating south once again, its cousins from the north return and fill the empty space.

Photographer #189: Nirrimi Hakanson

Nirrimi Hakanson, 1992, Australia is a very young photographer who started with photography at age 13. She is very productive, which is visible when looking at the various websites she has, including her weblog filled with amazing images and personal stories of her photographic life. Nirrimi has already done the winter campaign for Diesel in New York. Her work is fresh, youthfull and sexy, but at the same time they are very mature and professional. The following images come from her portfolio's For Love, For Living and For Money.

Website: www.theroadishome.com

Photographer #188: Francesco Giusti

Francesco Giusti, 1969, Italy, is a freelance documentary photographer. He made documentary work in many countries, from his homeland Italy to Congo, and from Haïti to Egypt. For the series Sapologie he photographed members of the SAPE (Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes). These men dress with a refined and unique style and bring some glamour into their humble environments. In the series Hotel Industria, which was also published as a book in 2006, he focused on ex-industrial areas on the outskirts of Milan that were transformed into shelters by illegal immigrants. The following images come from the series Sapologie, Hotel Industria and Agadez.

Website: www.francescogiusti.com

Photographer #187: Mikael Jansson

Mikael Jansson, 1958, Sweden is a fashion and celebrity photographer. He has shot campaigns for clients as DKNY, Dior and Calvin Klein. He also shoots fashion editorials for Vogue and Interview magazine. Celebrities as Rihanna, Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes have appeared in front of his camera. Next to his photographic work Mikael also made several commercial video's. The following images come from the portfolio's Fashion Images, Fashion Images 2 and Celebrities.

Website: www.wilsonwenzel.com

Bird of the Autumn - The Results

Adding your comments in this blog, facebook and by email gave a clear winner - the Bluethroat. Thank you all for giving your views!

Second place went to Cory's Shearwater

Barbary Partridge (above) and Wheatear (below) took joint third.

Photographer #186: Maxwell Snow

Maxwell Snow, 1984, USA, is a young photographer who's works are not always easy to digest. For his project It's Fun to do Bad Things he made three series, one on latin gang members from downtown La, one on the Ku Klux Klan and one on Black metal musicians from Scandinavia. Earlier this year he presented his series Jesus is Showing me Amazing Things. Each image has it's own story, from burning skeletons at a KKK gathering to an image of a girl who had been locked in her room for many years by her parents. The following images come from the series It's Fun to do Bad Things, Jesus is Showing me Amazing Things and Its Only Castles Burning.

Website: www.maxwellsnow.com

The Charming Goldfinch

The Goldfinch is an abundant resident bird whose numbers are largely augmented in the region of the Strait of Gibraltar during migration and in the winter. Its beauty and colour matches, in my opinion, that of many tropical passerines.

Goldfinches are the second most numerous passerine migrant crossing the Strait of Gibraltar. Only the Swallow is more abundant. The migration is most pronounced in the autumn when tens of thousands arrive in late October and early November, many crossing south to spend the winter months in Morocco. 

But many remain on the northern shore of the Strait where they are a dominant component of the bird community of pastures where they feed largely on the seeds of thistles. Here their density averages around 7 birds per hectare, giving a clear indication that the region is a main wintering area.

Most of the wintering Goldfinches come from western Europe, principally France, the British Isles, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland but a small contingent comes from further east. These are birds from Russia, the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy and Yugoslavia. 

Their long bills are specialised for probing into thistle heads from which they can extract the most difficult of seeds, inaccessible to most other finches (above and below).

Come March, these birds will join others coming from Morocco to return back to their breeding grounds, leaving the local breeding birds behind. The phenomenon of the Goldfinch migration and wintering in the Strait of Gibraltar is another of those hidden secrets that this rich land reveals to those who venture into the fields of places like La Janda...