I really suck at blogging.  Tumblr, however, is way cooler.  So that is where you can find me now.

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I finished Volume 2 of my Wanderlust books early this winter.  This one focuses on 4×5 images created this summer in the Faroe Islands for my “Home” project.  I love creating these books because it allows the work to live in another form.  It is not as formal as a large book project or gallery show, nor does it have quick expiration date of a blog post.

Volume 2 is a 15-page screw-post bound book measuring 8×9 inches.  The book includes 14 Epson ink jet images on Moab Lasal Photo Matte paper with captions, an artist statement and a personalized note.  The spine is double-bound in black book cloth tape, and covers are 8×8 inch plexiglass.  The front cover is hand screen printed with the title, and both are attatched to the book with two black rubber bands.

The idea behind the cover was to deconstruct the the book form by making the cover an element separate from the content within.  The cover is not just a page that you flip past, but something that you actually have to interact with before experiencing the images. And it looks pretty great.

I sent 45 of these books out to various photo editors and art directors, and I have a small number available for purchase.

The editions and prices are:

Wanderlust Volume 2: The North (edition of 20) – $40 (Plus shipping and handling)

The book is signed, numbered, and comes with a personal note.

Wanderlust Volume 2: The North (special edition of 5) – $120 (Plus shipping and handling)

The book is signed, numbered, includes a personal note, and comes with a print of “After the Slaughter”, shown below.

The print is 7×9 inches printed on 8 1/2×11 inch Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta paper. The print is signed on the back and is in an edition of 5.

Shoot me an email at ben@benjaminrasmussenphoto.com if you are interested. Proceeds from sales of this volume are going directly towards the production of Wanderlust Volume 3: The East.

Here is a preview of the book.

And some more details:

Front view:

Back view:

With cover removed:

An inside spread:

Artist’s statement:

Also, Wanderlust Volumes 1 and 2 are featured in the February issue of PDN, with a great article by Conor Risch.

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Most of the people I photograph are strangers.  I initially know nothing about them, but through the photographic process we learn little things about each other.  What I discover about them is different from what I learn about a friend or aquaintance.  I don’t find out much about their political beliefs, or what kind of food they like, or who they are attracted to. Instead I learn what makes them laugh, how their eyes look when they are thinking, and the the way their bodies interact with the environment around them.  When I am under the dark cloth of my large-format camera, I can examine someone’s face and stare into their eyes in a way that you can’t do in regular life.  It is, in some ways, a really intimate knowledge.

However, one of my favorite aspects of working on my “Home” project is going through this process with people I know well.  My Faroese family are very special to me.  I grew up far away from them and would only come back once every four or five years.  But whenever I would visit, they would quickly make me a part of their lives.  I was cared for and loved in a way made this foreign place–so different from the remote Filipino island I lived on–feel like home.

When I return now, the generations have shifted.  My grandfather died years ago, and my uncle fills his place.  They share the same life history of years out at sea on fishing boats, and the wisdom that comes from watching the the world around them change rapidly as the Faroes became a part of modern Europe post-WWII.  My nephew, Noah, reminds me so much of myself at his age. He lives in Italy, and when he comes back to the Faroes, his best friend is his older cousin David.  David is patient with Noah as the younger boy works to keep straight his three languages, just as my older cousins were with me. Boas, my cousin Hedvig’s son, is the kind of kid I always looked up to when I was young.  He is bold, adventurous, and bright. I was able to photograph him on his first day of school, decked out with his Manchester United backpack and anxious about beginning a new phase.

These images are precious to because of the time with family they represent and the conversations they allowed me to have.

My uncle, Grímur Rasmussen, recounting his fishing career trip-by-trip. Above him is a painting of Klaksvík, the town where he has lived his entire life, painted by his aunt, Frida Zachariassen.

Noah and David lay in the grass while playing on the island of Svínoy.

Boas and Hedvig go for a swim in Old Hoyvík.

Boas waiting to leave on his first day of school.

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I disappeared from the blogging world for the past couple of months while I immersed myself in some new projects. One of those was creating the first of what will be a series of handmade artists books based around explorations of place.  The 15 page screw-post books were sent to a number of editors I have met with, worked with or whose publications I admire.  They are the result of a lot of thought and conversations about how I want to present myself professionally.

Up till now, I have focused my promotional energies around the goal of selling potential clients on the idea that I am the right photographer for them. I have looked at myself as the product, and have promoted my work as something that could meet an editors needs. I have chosen images for email and print promos based on what I think the client would like to see, based my correspondence on what I think they would like to hear, and my meetings on trying to close the deal. When I would talk with editors and art directors, I would even use my “salesman’s voice”, developed over two soul-crushing summers of selling books door-to-door during college.

I hate it. I hate taking something that I value and simplifying it into a sales pitch. But in the last several months, conversations and interactions with some art directors and photo editors that have changed my perspective. I have started to see the power of forming a creative relationship with someone so that we can make beautiful and important work together.  That is what photography is supposed to be about, right?

That is where this project came in. I decided that instead of making generic postcard promos and shotgun blasting them at everyone I could, I would pursue something that was much more personal to me.  I wanted to do something that took commitment and creativity and not just a a pile of stamps and an address list service. I took the my marketing budget and invested it in bookboard and cloth, and a pile of paper and glue.  I learned bookmaking and screen printing and made 20 screw post books for 20 photo editors and art directors.

This is the result.

I don’t know what the response will be or if it will be a success business-wise, but I really don’t care.  This process has influenced the way I think about what I do and made me a better artist.  It has shifted me from wanting to gain clients to wanting to build creative relationships.

The inside cover and first page.

Mural outside the town museum. Chugwater, WY

Open view.

Soda Fountain. Chugwater, WY

Joshua Hoffman spread.

Cattle graveyard. Chugwater, WY

Artist’s statement and personalized note.

The pile.

The rest of the full edit of the images in the book can be seen here.

If anyone is interested in doing something similar, here are some great resources.

Bookmaking – “No Plastic Sleeves” has great instructions and was a huge help.  I spent a lot of time searching online for what I wanted, and when I finally opened up this book on my shelf, it had exactly what I was looking for.  The supplies can easily be found online or at a local art or paper shop.

Screen printing – I had a screen printing place in the neighborhood, Indy Ink, burn my screen, and was able to pick up the rest of the materials at a local art shop.

Paper – Moab Paper makes great pre-drilled and scored papers in lots of sizes.  I used their 8×9 inch Lasal Photo Matte 235.

-b

Denver has been blanketed in snow this past week.  The cold, wind and slush was best described by a friend who said that it made her feel like she had been out snowboarding all day.  As someone who actively avoids that feeling, my natural instinct has been to hibernate inside, curled up around a space heater and waiting for summer to come.  But I finally pushed myself outside to explore, and this is what I found.

Alleyway, Baker neighborhood

Parking lot, Baker neighborhood

Decorated tree outside of church, Baker neighborhood

Cold squirrel, Washington Park

Cold Lady Liberty, South Broadway

Neighborhood Christmas tree, Baker Neighborhood

Defiant squirrel, Washington Park

(We had a face-off, and I am a bit ashamed to say that he won.)

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For Christmas, Abby and I packed up our little rosemary Christmas tree and headed north to her family in Chugwater, Wyoming.  One of the great things about being married to a student is that I end up taking a break when Abby does.  We spent 11 days up there and I did nothing but read, eat and hang out the entire time.  I can not remember the last time I had 11 days off.

I am back in Chugwater right now laying the ground work for a new project that I will post about soon.  In the meantime, here is some of my white Christmas.

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I love living in the American West.

My family moved to the Philippines when I was a one-year-old, and I lived there until I finished high school.  I spent most of that time on a tiny island in the south of the country.  The tropics is what I know.

To me, the West is exotic.  It is a place I am excited to explore and discover.  The culture, color palette and Americana that exists here is something I never knew of when I lived in Asia.  Hollywood missed it in its films, somehow simplifying those in the West as either cowboys or simpletons.  However, here is a depth and a texture to life out here that is so different from anywhere else I have been.

These images are from the last couple of months of life.  Some are from going to visit family over Thanksgiving, and others are from day trips with friends. Some are just from walks around my neighborhood in Denver as I try and fight my fast-growing photographer paunchiness.  This isn’t really the beginning of any body of work; just some frames from several rolls of film I finally took to get processed.  But it is a commitment to dedicate my energy for wandering and exploring to the areas around me.  I will be in the West for at least the next two and a half years while Abby finishes graduate and law school.  I realize that I will not get to truly “know” the West in that time, but I am excited to get acquainted with it.

This is the beginning of my ode to local wanderlust.

Elk at home. Outside of Estes Park, CO.
Abby at the Corn Palace.  Mitchell, SD.

Security at the Corn Palace.  Mitchell, SD.Halloween.  Denver, COFallen tree.  Rocky Mountain National Park, COAfternoon in Five Points.  Denver, CO
Abby.  Rocky Mountain National Park, CO

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I have decided to do a photographic round-up of 2010, even though it feels forced to call these 15 images the “best” of anything. Not all of them are powerful storytelling pictures, and some of them will not stand the test of time.

However, they represent the people and places that have caused me to grow as a photographer and as a person.  They are not groundbreaking as images, but they have all been groundbreaking for me.  What I love about being a young photographer is that the growth process is so visible.  I can look back and see how I have grown as a story teller and aesthetic communicator, as well as where I have been stagnant.

I am not yet the photographer that I want to be, but I am closer than I was a year ago.

“The view from a fishing boat” – Off of the coast of the Faroe Islands

“Pilot Whale Kill” – Klaksvik, Faroe Islands

“Good Friday penitent” North of Manila, Philippines

“Coming out on deck” Off of the coast of Norway

“25 Mysteries Catholic Lay Missionaries” – North of Manila, Philippines

“Dr. Reefer” – Boulder, CO

“Coffee break” – Faroe Islands

“Dan Kirkbride feeding cattle” – Chugwater, WY

“Sheep walk” – Svínoy, Faroe Islands

“A Kyrgyz and his Yak” – Ghaz Khan, Afghanistan

“A Wakhi mother” – Gaz Khan, Afghanistan

“Naropa University garden” – Boulder, CO

“Migrant workers” – Palisade, CO

“Guðrun & Guðrun Vest” – Tórshavn, Faroe Islands“Abby’s” – California Nevada border

This was a busy year for me.  I was in the Faroe Islands for three months, Afghanistan for one month, the Philippines for two weeks, roaming around Scandinavia for another two weeks, and in Wyoming for about two months.  Squeezed in there were four trips to New York, two weeks following the Colorado River, and quick jaunts to Florida and North Dakota.  Altogether it left me with only about five months at home in Colorado.

This year marked my entrance into the U.S. photography market, with some great clients like the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education. There was also some nice recognition, like being selected for the American Photography 26, the Critical Mass Top 50, and the Eddie Adams Workshop.  One of the the year’s biggest privileges has been telling the stories behind my images, which NPR and Daylight Magazine gave me a forum to do.

I have some awesome projects planned for 2011, and am excited to see what the next 12 months will bring.  A big thanks to everyone for their support, especially my wife Abby, who is the most affected by my traveling and also the most supportive of what I do.

-b

This summer I shot stills for a joint TV and print campaign with Tryggingarfelagið Føroyar in the Faroe Islands for their 70th anniversary.  The commercial was done by the folks at Covboy Films, and it is so simple and beautiful.  It is included at the end of the post.

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There are few things less sexy than safety vests, but late this summer I shot a campaign for a Faroese insurance company, Tryggingarfelagið Føroyar, that tried to change that.  Trygging had partnered with the awesome Faroese fashion designers Guðrun & Guðrun to create a different kind of safety vest for their customers.  It was a fun shoot with two great models and my favorite art director.  Below is a making of video.

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