Shadow & Light Monthly #60

Shadow & Light is a list of curated photography stories, features, techniques, news and inspiration that I’ve come across this month.

In this edition we see the Troubles in Northern Ireland through the eyes of a Japanese photographer and look at what may be the most beautiful film set pictures ever taken. We revisit the birth of skateboarding in 1970s California and look at the best of fine art photography with the Hasselblad Masters 2023 winners.

So, with no further ado, I give you this month’s Shadow & Light Monthly. Go grab yourself a cuppa and enjoy this month’s selections below. Please let me know in the comments what you think.

Pick of the month – Akihiko Okamura’s Outsider View of Northern Ireland

Japanese photographer Akihiko Okamura first visited Northern Ireland during the formative phase of the thirty-year conflict, and his images capture, with understated eloquence, a sense of reality as shifting and unstable, both not quite real and all too real.

In 1968, Okamura moved to Dublin with his family, prompted by a plan to explore the Irish roots of President John F. Kennedy. From there he made numerous trips north of the border, documenting occasions of historic significance, such as landmark civil rights marches, while also attending to people and places on the margins of the era’s main events.

You can see more of Okamura’s incredible images over on Aperture.

Additional reads

The Medium Format Photos for Fallout Might Be the Best Set Pictures Ever

I absolutely adore set photography (If you like this you might like the Flipboard Storyboard on cinematic photography and film I curated as part of my Flipboard residency) so this article really caught my eye this month.

Movie set photography is often directors with their arms over an actor or a view of the camera crew, but photographer JoJo Whilden’s pictures for Fallout take a different approach.

Taking the unusual approach to shoot her photography on a Hasselblad 500cm camera, Whilden’s incredible medium format film photos very much look as if they are part of the Fallout world; an Amazon TV series video game adaption set 200 years after an apocalyptic nuclear exchange.

“Using the Hasselblad for a more retro portrait-type feel was a no-brainer. The series itself was shot on Kodak film stock, so it was an obvious creative choice to go with Kodak Portra film stock.”

The resulting images are absolutely stunning. Head over to PetaPixel to see more.

Dreamy Photos Show the Birth of Skateboarding in California in the 1970s

In the mid-1970s, skateboarding had started to develop into the sport recognised today by the Olympics and photographer Hugh Holland was lucky enough to be right there in California when the exciting new scene was emerging.

In four short years, he documented the rise of the sport before it became officially sanctioned and permanently changed by commercialisation, brand sponsorships, and safety precautions like helmets and knee pads. In hindsight, this time period held a wild and free innocence that Holland captured beautifully.

Head over to PetaPixel to read this feature in full and see more of Holland’s wonderful images.

And Finally – 2023 Hasselblad Masters Winners Show the Best in Fine Art Photography

Hasselblad has announced the winners of its prestigious Hasselblad Masters 2023 competition featuring six categories including Landscape, Architecture, Portrait, Art, Street, and Project//21.

I particularly loved the work of Chinese photographer Weimin Chu who won the Landscape category with their series, “Tibetan Landscape from the Train Window.” The images show traditional Chinese landscapes integrated with modern development and industrialisation, and Chu creates frames within frames, using the train carriage interior as part of the composition, taking viewers on a journey through time and place.

Visit Hasselblad Masters 2023 to see all the winners.

Until next time…

I hope you enjoy the articles above. Don’t forget you can follow my Shadow & Light magazine over on Flipboard if you’d like to see more of what I’m reading if you like what you’ve seen here.