Photographer #260: Elise Boularan

Elise Boularan, 1984, France, works with polaroids to create her dreamy and sometimes estranged images. Her work is based on a particular perception of photography of which elliptic narration, silence and quietness are key-words in her research. She strives to retrieve something muted and undefinable in her work. Her photographs are both sharp and blurred and contains the saturated colours and haze of the polaroids. In recent years Elise has been published in numerous magazines world wide and exhibited her work mainly in France but also in various European countries and the US.The following images come from the series FEmâle, Lapsus Prompta and her portfolio Portrait / Musique.

Website: www.eliseboularan.com

Photographer #259: Nathalie Daoust

Nathalie Daoust, 1977, Canada, concentrates in her photographic work on unveiling the secrets hidden beneath the apparent stability of life. Daoust first got recognized in 1997 with her project New York Hotel Story which was published as a book. Since then she traveled the world to Japan, Brazil and Switzerland amongst other places to create conceptual projects. In her series Tokyo Hotel Story she explores female sexuality and subversion of gender stereotypes. She spend several months in one of the biggest S&M 'love hotels' in order to show the "universal desire to escape reality and create fantasy worlds that often oscillate between dream, reality and perversion." The following images come from the series Tokyo Hotel Story, Frozen in Time, Switzerland and Entre Quatre Murs, Berlin.

Website: www.daoustnathalie.com
(Video in French)

Photographer #258: Kanako Sasaki

Kanako Sasaki, 1976, Japan, is a conceptual photographer who also uses video for her projects. She travels all over the world to work on her photographic stories. She often uses herself as an actor in her photographs. Since 2001 she has exhibited throughout the world. In her series Walking in the Jungle, which was created after she read the Diary of Anne Frank, she recreates historical events and mixes them with her own memories and imagination. In this way she creates situations that are not fiction, yet they are not non-fiction either. In the series Wanderlust she explored her own imaginative world, influenced by Japanese novels, her own memories and Ukiyo-e paintings. The following images come from the series Walking in the Jungle, Ukiyo 1 - The World of Groping and Wanderlust.

Website: www.kanakosasaki.com

Photographer #257: Karen Mirzoyan

Armenian photographer Karen Mirzoyan, 1981, born in Georgia is a documentary photographer and a photojournalist. He has done several series and is currently working on various long-term projects. His photostory called The Unrecognized Islands of Caucasus is divided in four parts. These different parts of his story are also edited into different chapters. Karen's multi-layered chapters create a very profound insight into stories that deal with war. He shows us an enormous diversity of the effects of war. Karen's work is strong, personal, full of respect and frightening at the same time. The following images come from the storyparts Nagorno-Karabakh Republic / Artsakh, Republic of Abkhazia / Apsny and Republic of South Ossetia.

Website: www.karenmirzoyan.com
Video on his previous project My Roads: Armenia-Turkey Border

Marsh Harriers on the move

Marsh Harriers are now reaching their peak, the early waves dominated by males.

Today several birds that came over Gibraltar were mobbed by the local gulls, providing opportunities to observe their escape and defence strategies as captured in these images.

Photographer #256: Txema Salvans

Txema Salvans, Spain, 1971, is a documentary photographer with a special interest in how we humans spend our free time. He enjoys the positive interaction he has with his subjects making it possible for him to get a look at the physical and mental spaces of leisure where everyone is looking for happiness. His series Spanish Hits (De Carretera) is a journey through the Mediterranean coast stopping at the places where entire families enjoy their leisures on a small beach between the sea and concrete. In his series Spanish Roads he focused on the suppliers of leisure. On the outskirts of the city he photographed prostitutes and other suppliers of services by the road in unhabitable spaces that are nonetheless lived in. The following images come from the series Spanish Roads, Spanish Hits and Welcome Aboard.

Website: www.txemasalvans.com

One of those mornings!

After days of cloud and strong easterlies the morning was soon sunny once the early morning cloud had dissipated. The wind was fresh from the north-west so there was a good chance that raptors would come over Gibraltar. Early indications were good - a strong passage of Swallows, House Martins, Goldfinches, Linnets and Serins, all arriving across the Strait of Gibraltar from Morocco. With them were the first Black Kites. But the day belonged to the Booted Eagles (above and below).

These eagles are now hitting their peak passage and many had obviously been waiting to get across

The finches continued to swarm. A flock of ten or so Red-rumped Swallows dashed past a metre away from me and Bee-eaters swarmed as they noisily passed north. If the day was the Booted Eagles', the Sparrowhawks weren't far behind, darting into the trees and having a go at the passing finches. There were many males in today's migration (below).

The range of species was good and included Montagu's and Marsh Harriers.

Male Marsh Harrier overhead

Some Short-toed Eagles are still coming through - their peak was earlier in the month - and the gulls still make them feel unwelcome!

And of course the Black Kites keep on coming, these are now heading for Western and Central Europe

Photographer #255: Anastasia Cazabon

Anastasia Cazabon, 1983, USA, is a conceptual photographer from Cambridge, MA. Her photography is raw, very personal and poetic. In her series From the Secret World she focused on her own childhood, especially the transitional period between the ages 9 to 15, the period when girls become aware of the world around them and how they are portrayed which brings along insecurities, excitement, jealousy and narcissism. The produced images by Anastasia revolve around the secret yet everyday lives of adolescent girls. The series Stories grew out of her fascination with fairy tales and children's folklore. The photographs are her contemporary take on the stories that have influenced her portraying characters in a state of emotional immobilization or a moment of self-discovery. The following images come from the series From the Secret World; I. Love & Rivalry and II. Transitions and Stories.

Website: www.anastasiacazabon.com

Photographer #254: Pieter Henket

Pieter Henket, 1979, The Netherlands, works and lives in New York. He is a self-taught portrait photographer who in recent years has photographed various celebrities. In 1999 he left for New York to study at the Film Academy but soon fell in love with the photographic medium. At a young age he managed to get an internship with the film director Joel Schumacher. The influence of cinema is easily noticed in his images. The Interrogation Project is a series in which he asked directors, actors and musicians how they would react to a police interrogation. He might be most known for the cover of Lady Gaga's first album The Fame. The following images come from the Interrogation Project and his portfolios Images and Portraits.

Website: www.pieterhenket.com

Denizens of the White Water

The fast-flowing mountain streams of the Iberian Peninsula, from the Pyrenees down to the Betics, are home to specialists at living amidst torrents and cataracts. No species is more at home here than the Dipper.

This amazing bird is widespread across the Palaearctic Region to the Himalayas. To the east it is replaced by the Brown Dipper. The American Dipper is the North American counterpart, reaching south to Central America. Two other species - White-capped and Rufous-throated - take over in South America. And that is it. There are only five species of Dipper in the world!

Dippers are highly specialised and adapted for taking insect larvae and other invertebrates under water. They don't dive for them but instead walk under water to take their prey, a unique behaviour among birds. The images below show this amazing behaviour...

Often associated with similar habitats is the beautiful Grey Wagtail, with its safrron yellow rump and undersides. It is less restricted to fast flowing streams but is usually found wherever there are Dippers.

Also present alongside is the White Wagtail but this species is the least specialised of the three and is often at home in other aquatic habitats too (below)

Perhaps more appropriately grey than the Grey Wagtail the absence of yellow separates this species easily from its cousin (below)