Casual Transcendence: Takeshi Suga's "Sakuramadelica"

Under normal circumstances, a photographer documenting trees wouldn't exactly quicken our pulse. Though we feel we're achieving some form of weightlessness just gazing at Takeshi Suga's latest work, Sakuramadelica 2012. 

In an age of over-Instagramming, Suga's images of Sakura (or, cherry blossoms) teeter dangerously close to the iPhone aesthetic. It's the perspective--almost as if the camera was affixed to a hummingbird--that helps the work reach its otherworldliness.

Below are some of our favorite Sakuramadelica selects. And for those inspired by Suga's simple (though nonetheless beautiful) technique, hone your own in one or two of our photo classes this summer.

Here you are:

All Images © Takeshi Suga

Q&A: 3rd Ward's Max Kelly On The Flavor of Food Photography

All photos by Max Kelly

With 3rd Ward's Culinary Incubator on the horizon, food has been on our minds quite a bit (read: nonstop--someone make us something now.) Anyhow, as we yearn for that mouth-watering future, we've been busy feasting our eyes on the food photography of 3rd Ward member Max Kelly. We caught up with him to find out more about how it all began.

You can check out some of Kelly's delicious shots both below and on his new website--but first, our Q&A:

3rd Ward's John Ruscher: So how did you get into food photography?

Max Kelly: I've always known that I wanted to work in a field in which I could physically see my accomplishments at the end of a day's work. Before food photography, I worked as a camera operator on commercial film sets, and realized that while I enjoy video, still photography is where my true passion lies.

The thing I love most about photography is that it's a gateway to any other subject matter that you find you're passionate about. I'm fascinated by the mechanics of cameras, the ways in which light can interact differently with a subject, and the effects of composition on a viewer—and it's a privilege to explore my other interests through this lens.

JR: Where's the passion for food come from?

MK: I grew up in Brooklyn, in a very food-minded family that cooked and traveled often—so I had the benefit of being exposed to many different flavors and cultures at an early age. Food is a vast topic, and one which is universally shared. I'm captivated by the fact that there are infinite possibilities and variations for any dish, and that two people from different parts of the world can look at the same ingredient in totally different ways.

JR: Does food photography require a different approach from shooting other subjects?

MK: Still life photography is more focused on creating an environment than other types of photography. Sometimes, this means rearranging or adding props to a real-life location, while in other instances, "locations" are fabricated from scratch. Creating environments and choosing props that impart visual cues about a dish is a large part of food photography.

Beyond that, there is of course the factor of having a small window of time to photograph the food before the ingredients wilt, dry or otherwise lose their fresh appearance. For this reason, communicating well with your team and having a clear vision of the final product before beginning to shoot is essential.

JR: Did anything at 3rd Ward influence your work in particular?

MK: I found 3rd Ward's classes and coworking space to be a great help when I first struck out on my own as a freelancer. The Branding Your Vision class for photographers drove home the point that it's essential that your work have a unique and consistent look. It helped me create a style that was my own, and not rooted in what I thought was "popular" and "marketable". 

The Business of Photography class gave me insight into how publications hire photographers, as well as the most effective ways to get my work into the hands of photo editors and creative directors.

...and now for some of Kelly's gorgeous attempts to make you eat your laptop:

-- John Ruscher

Preview The "Violent Material" of Brooklyn Photographer, Steven Brahms

From "Violent Material"

Last March, we hosted the opening of Brooklyn photographer Steven Brahms' The Survival Project, a harrowing post-apocalyptic vision of us vs. the elements.

In the downtime from DP'ing music videos for the likes of Das Racist, Real Estate and Tanlines, Brahms has a unveiled an aggressive new body of work, exploring how little we truly know about violence, despite living in a visual culture hellbent on exposing us to it.

In the aptly named Violent Material, Brahms rounded up men in his neighborhood, provided them with a handgun and had them strike an action movie-style pose. In most images, the weapon remains concealed, heightening the sense of foreboding.

To quote Brahms on his inspiration:

In our contemporary state of affairs every action is a performance. We are inundated with an endless repetition of imagery. We find ourselves re-watching what we have already seen, whether it be another episode of ‘CSI’ or the endless cycle of conflict around the globe. The incidents we witness reveal nothing about what is actually happening. Actions are interpreted and each interpretation is different because in the telling and re-telling we don’t reveal the action itself, but an assortment of reductions and emphasis.

Presented here are a selection of images from Violent Material, as well as handful of his past work which we're just mightily fond of.

Feel like joining Brahms' ranks as a successful Brooklyn photographer? Great. We think you can do it--and we've got some classes for that.

Meanwhile, selects from Violent Material:

See the full body here.

And now, previous work:

3rd Ward Photo Instructor Jackie Snow on Nonstop Learning

I recently bought my first DSLR, and I knew I was never going to really get to know it just by reading the manual (which I didn't want to do anyway). I took photography classes in college, but that was back when people still shot with film and my darkroom skills weren't going to help me figure out all my camera's bells and whistles on my new T2i, especially if I was in a bind trying to get a shot. So I signed up for 3rd Ward's Learn Your Digital Camera class, taught by photography Jackie Snow. Not only is she a wiz at the all the technical stuff I was struggling to understand, she's a talented photography with an incredible eye for color. 

Jackie started out as a reporter at her college newspaper. "I hated the photos that went with my articles," she said. "I thought I could do a better job. So I picked a story last minute that was too far away for a photographer to get to easily and brought a camera and took my own photos. I've taken a few classes but I'm mostly self-taught. Preparing for my 3rd Ward class actually made me cement some photo knowledge I had taken for granted."

For the last two years she's been documenting Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, a project she references as one of her most gratifying. "I get to be outside, stealing cherry tomatoes and taking lovely photos. [The photos] are also getting picked up by a variety of publications so its pretty exciting to see a project I've worked on for two years in print."

Currently, Jackie's studying CUNY's Graduate School of Journalism. She aims to be a more "well rounded journalist. It would be nice to make it through that program alive," she said. "It does not always feel like a certainty." She also sees some exotic travel in her future. "I want to get published in The New York Times, and if it happened to be photos of Fiji for the travel section, I wouldn't mind."

Meanwhile, here's a couple more of Snow's shots, but get yourself over to her site for the full shebang.

-- Perrin Drumm