August Popkin

Statement:
Part of a larger skinhead story that I have been working on since 2003, these images of Latino skins were shot between the end of 2006 and 2007. Unlike the non-political skins featured in the larger body of work, these guys have no problem repurposing Nazi symbols to their own ends. They use them to represent the pride that they take in their own heritage. This leads to some interesting combinations of swastikas and stormtroopers next to Aztec warriors slaying conquistadors.
I shot these images in a tattoo shop owned by one of the subjects as well as at "tattoo parties" in private residences in Newark NJ.

August Popkin is a documentary photographer based out of New York City, and is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts. His work has been in several group shows, and was also published in a recent issue of Mass Appeal magazine.

maxim ryazansky

God gives us life. Government gives us freedom. We manifest our Pursuit of Happiness.

About 4 years ago a friend of mine suggested I got to the Keansburg, NJ boardwalk if I wanted to have fun and get some great photos at the same time. It was like a time warp to another world where you could play games to win cigarettes and simultaneously watch grownups in looney tunes apparel get drunk on the boardwalk while their kids went on rides that seemed to have negative thrill capacity. After spending a summer shooting the boardwalk I decided to broaden my vision to really show what it is that we as Americans do for fun and how these traditions get passed down. With that, Pursuit of Happiness was born and now it’s spread from just the Keansburg boardwalk to everything from drug marches, holiday parades, pet fashion shows to kkk family functions.

David Lang

While in Pakistan photographing the parliamentary elections in February 2008, David Lang began photographing men and women in their work environments in and on the streets of Pakistan. Creating portraits of the people and workers of the cities as he traveled David photographed lawyers outside the District Courts in Islamabad, young street children shining shoes, working on motorcycles and cutting hair as well as the truckers who pilot "jingle trucks" throughout the country as well as into and out of Afghanistan.

David Lives in Brooklyn, New York. He has photographed the effects of the tsunami in Sri Lanka, the earthquakes in Pakistan as well as the ongoing conflicts in Israel and in Afghanistan. His work has been used by the International Organization of Migration (IOM/OIM), UNICEF, the United Nations, Aid Sri Lanka, InterNews and other NGO/aid organizations as well as ABC TV, Wiesner Media and Weber Shandwick.

lucas thorpe

Airsoft

Airsoft is a military simulation game in which players equip themselves with the same uniforms and gear – shooting plastic BBs – that are currently used by military personnel and security contractors worldwide. To photograph The Green Mountain Rangers Lucas Thorpe joined them for practice sessions on Long Island; at an urban combat training center at Fort Knox, Kentucky; and during a four-day event on an island off the coast of Sweden with over 2,000 participants from around the world.

Lucas Thorpe lives in Brooklyn, NY. He is currently a Thesis year student in the MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department at the School of Visual Arts. He has been showing work in a number of Tiny Vices Projects curated by Tim Barber, at the Jen Bekman Gallery in New York, and has been published in Guernica Magazine, Dear Dave, The Journal, Ego Burger, and Wired Magazine.

contact: filmcont@lucasthorpe.com

gary ashley

These photographs are from a project by Gary Ashley about the world of Elvis impersonators. He started shooting it in 1993 and continued on and off, while working on others, until some time in 2001. Gary said that he initially started the project out of curiosity, but as time went on and he took more trips to Memphis he became obsessed. He went from being an outsider to a loyal fan, and would come back each year during Memphis Week (usually coinciding with the anniversary of Elvis' death, which occurred August 16th, 1977). Most of the photographs in this series were made in Memphis during those times, with just a handful of them coming from Las Vegas and other places.