Enrique Metinides: Nota Roja

Mexican press photographer Enrique Metinides, known as The Nino, has oft been mentioned in the same breath as American press photographer Weegee, and if you're one their subjects, which you should hope your not, its probably your last breath at that. Enrique Metinides' shocking tabloid photography of murder, car and plane wrecks, and crime on the streets of Mexico City are still life's of tragedy – sober reminders of the chaotic and violent nature of our extremely unpredictable existence.  Born in 1939 to greek immigrants to Mexico, Metinides started taking photographs in the dangerous barrios of Mexico city at only ten years old and soon started selling his them to newspapers – his first cover was published when he was only twelve.  From the 1970s to the early 1990s Metinides published his works in sensational Mexican newspapers, otherwise known at 'Nota Roja' or bloody news.  A new book by Kominek includes 100 of Metinides photographs in color and black & white.  

You can buy the book Enrique Metinides: Series here.

Faking It At The Met by Michael Barrie

CAT + I,, Wanda Wulz, Italian, 1903-1984, Gelatine silver print, 1932

What do people have against reality? Real reality, that is. I don’t know, ask Republicans, reality show producers, or long-dead 19th century photographers. You won’t get a straight answer from any of them, but at least the latter has a good excuse. And the really unreal, but often real-looking doctored images of many of these lensmen (plus some 20th century pros too) can be seen at a new exhibition entitled Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop on view now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. See more after the jump.

Audrey Hepburn, New York, January 1967, Richard Avedon, American 1923-2004 Collage of gelatin silver prints, with applied media, mylar overlay with applied media, 1967

It seems that right out of the starting gate –- photography was invented in 1839 –- early shutterbugs were tinkering with images, tweaking in the cause of art, commerce, practical necessity or laughs. Some fiddling was the result of inherent limitations of the nascent medium; the required long exposure times washed out skies, so landscape artists like Carlton E. Watkins would expose clouds separately and combine two or more negatives for a moodier, even more “realistic” look. When Matthew Brady arranged a sitting for Union General William Tecumseh Sherman & his generals and one failed to show up, Brady snapped the group without him, posed the tardy fellow later and dropped him into the shot. (Frankly, it looks it. But, hey, we’re talking 1865.) I was impressed with the 3D-ish effect achieved by a couple of small relievo ambrotypes, in which a painted background behind an image on glass pushes out the foreground without the aid of a stereoscope. Check out these early craftsman and artists who were photoshopping long before Photoshop, and with no tech support. Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop will be on view through January 27, 2013 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Avenue, New York, New York.

Text by Michael Barrie for Pas Un Autre. (Michael Barrie is a writer for the Late Show With David Letterman, he has been nominated for 20 Emmys, he has also contributed to The Huffington Post)

Grete Stern, Argentinian, born Germany, 1904-1999 Dream No. 1: Electrical Appliances for the Home 1948

Kham

Dress: Diana Matias/Shirt: Ricardo Andrez/Sweat: Maria Gambina/Leggins: Sara Maia

Kham is an editorial directed and styled by Nelson Vieira and photographed by Aloisio Brito and their brilliant creative team based in Oporto, Portugal exclusively for Pas Un Autre. Kham paints a dusty, bucolic landscape, replete with sheep and their restless herder who meanders dirt roads and jagged mountainous byways perhaps begging longingly for whats beyond the great horizon. 

Left:Dress: Ricardo Dourado/Shirt: Luis Buchinho Right: Sweat: Estelita Mendonça/Troussers: Hugo Costa/Coat: Luis Buchinho
Left:Dress: Ricardo Dourado/Shirt: Luis Buchinho
Sweat: Ricardo Dourado/Skirt: Diana Matias
Knitted sweat: Claudia Garrido/Skirt, Leggins and Shirt: Sara Maia
Sweat: Estelita Mendonça/Troussers: Hugo Costa/Coat: Luis Buchinho
Sweat: Ricardo Dourado/Short: Maria Gambina/Leggins: Diana Matias

Photography by Aloisio Brito/Fashion Stylist and Art Director: Nelson Vieira/Hair Model: Joana Castro, Best Models Stylist: Juliana Lamares with Style Master Revlon Professional products/Make-up: Tinoca with MAC products/Assistant Photography: Luisa Rodrigues

Rosewater by Charley Greenfield

Rosewater is a series shot for Pas Un Autre by Melbourne, Australia based photographer Charley Greenfield. Charley says she has "a deep, sometimes obsessive love for film, roses & of course, beautiful girls...and has been shooting film since [she] was a little 6 year old girl." The beauty and ethereality of  Charley's photographs is evident in Rosewater. See more photographs after the jump. 

Rosewater Art Direction & Photography by Charley Greenfield. Model: Shona: Make-Up: Kim

Love Land Invaders

Love Land Invaders is brought to you by the ingeniously creative minds of Cologne, Germany based artists Lagoi & Lace. Inspired by "entertainment and pop/music culture, Japanese culture, nudity and porn, fashion, design and art," Ralph Lagoi and Kate Lace create surreal worlds with vibrant, luxuriously psychedelic palettes that contain a certain pop art poetry that is half cartoonish and half brilliantly absurd, but that collectively represents a broader philosophy of freedom, love and art. Love Land Invaders, one of their latest, wildly inventive photographic stories, was shot in Japan's stunningly decorated love hotel rooms and includes specially designed masks, jewelry, clothing and ribbons. Even the artists themselves posed for the photographs – transforming themselves into elaborate characters with names like "Miss Takehito Quadruple," "Mister Hyde Dobuita Speertraeger," "Mr. Seiuchi Sivuch," "Shika Shika Chan" and "Miss Ayanami Oenshi" who each represent different ideals of beauty - like the the beauty of dark elegance, the beauty of a gentleman, the beauty of play, the beauty of wilderness, and the beauty of pink. Its the kind of blatant campiness that can make one overlook its originality, but if you see if for what its worth you'll notice its extremely original artistic merit as a bold statement on the glossy, hyper-surreal, absurdity of post-modern contemporary art. It brings to mind the the balloon statues and installations of Jeff Koons and art of Murakami as larger than life statements of a philosophy that Lagoi and Lace call Luxurious Pop. 

Be sure to visit the psychedelic world of of Lagoi & Lace to see much more mind-blowing imagery.....

England Uncensored

How they drink, how they fuck, how they love – UK Uncensored is Peter Dench's Matin Parr-esque type of seaside freak show and penultimate survey of British culture. Even if Peter Dench's biography is an unrelenting reminder of his Britishness, his photographs are a reminder of a certain unrelenting brilliance.  Painterly, yet journalistic, Dench's photographs capture a society  and a country with the power to take over the world or shrink backwards and digress into infants too drunk to stand or be appropriate in public. "England has never exactly been glamorous. Many of the English still insist on embarrassing themselves, wearing laughable clothing, eating terrible food and behaving inappropriately." See more photos after the jump.

You can buy the book England Uncensored here.

Frieka Janssens' Smoking Kids

Beligum based photographer Frieka Janssens' series of children smoking is a stark reminder of the perverted glamour of something that once deemed a symbol of cultural cool, but what is now as good as poison. Janssens says, "A YouTube video of a chainsmoking Indonesian toddler inspired me to create this series, "Smoking Kids". The video highlighted the cultural differences between the east and west, and questioned notions of smoking being a mainly adult activity. Adult smokers are the societal norm, so I wanted to isolate the viewer's focus upon the issue of smoking itself. I felt that children smoking would have a surreal impact upon the viewer and compel them to truly see the acts of smoking rather than making assumptions about the person doing the act.....The aesthetics of smoke and the particular way smokers gesticulate with their hands and posture cannot be denied, but among the different tribes of "Smoking Kids," - Glamour, Jazz, and The Marginal - there is a nod to less attractive aspects, on the line between the beauty and ugliness of smoking." But not to worry, these kids weren't actually smoking.  Much more after the jump. 

September: RENO – The Biggest Little City In The World

Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part nine: September: Reno – The Biggest Little City in the World. 

July: Here, There, and Everywhere

Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part seven: July: Here, There, Everywhere. Photographs from Venice, Paris, and New York with a smattering  of self portraits and a visit to Hebrew summer school.

June: Lost Weekends and Love At First Sight

Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part six: June: Lost Weekends and Love At First Sight. Take a trip to Brooklyn to see the So So Glos, who we featured in the first issue of Autre, and then to the Berkshires – North Adams, Massachusetts – where Wilco curated the Solid Sound Festival at an old electrical sprocket factory.

May: The Month of Solitary Sunshine / Summer is Almost Here

Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part five: May: The Month of Solitary Sunshine / Summer is Almost Here. This time Adarsha takes us to New York City and Coney Island.

March : Rebel Walk – Los Angeles, CA

Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part three: March : Rebel Walk – Los Angeles, CA which includes behind the scenes photographs of Aaron Young's contribution to James Franco's Rebel where a replica of the car the killed James Dean was dropped from an 80 foot crane in a ditch and motorcycles were crashed along a lonely stretch of highway.

February : Nostalgia for the Light – Los Angeles, CA

Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part two: February: Nostalgia for the Light – Los Angeles, CA. "I am a February baby. The month of my birth. The month of my new born existence; every year. Its my sacred time of unraveling and unveiling. I did't take a lot of photos that month, just shots of people and the streets of LA on black & white. I listened to this song every day."

January: The Fool of Illusion – BIG SUR

As the end of the year nears we'll all undoubtably be taking a look back on our lives during last twelve months. Luckily, photographer and Autre creative director Adarsha Benjamin has visual documentation. During the next twelve days we'll be rolling a out a series, a retrospective of sorts, of photographs by Adarsha Benjamin and a specially selected song for each month of her life in 2011. Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part one: January 2011: The Fool of Illusion – BIG SUR.

LOWLIFE, a Memoir by Scot Sothern

California, 1986–When I pulled off the freeway into San Diego, I had a single twenty dollar bill in my wallet. My car, a 1973 Toyota station wagon, rattled my teeth and died in idle. At stops I had to divide my right foot: heel on the brake, toes revving the accelerator. I had barely enough gas to get back to Los Angeles. See more after the jump....

On El Cajon Boulevard I drove slowly and studied the street walkers. In their eyes I could see desperation-induced madness, premature death. In my eyes they could see my craving for the nasty little secret I kept from friends and family. I could give my twenty dollars to any one of these women. I could buy a quick sex fix and she could buy enough crack to put a smile on her face for an hour or so.

In the passenger seat, belted and buckled, frail and beautiful, my four-year-old son, Dashiell, slept curled around his best friend, a pillow-sized stuffed facsimile of Hulk Hogan. It was Sunday night and my weekend with my little boy was over.

When we arrived at his mother's house, Dash awoke. He cried and clung tightly, arms around my neck. He didn't want me to go. His mother Sylvia, my ex-wife, was happy to see me go, but first she wanted money. I made lame excuses. She called me a jerk and pried our son from my embrace. I took my twenty dollars and drove back to El Cajon Boulevard.

Cruising nighttime byways for an adrenaline high, Scot Sothern first patronized the marketplace of curbside prostitution on a prurient whim. Diving to the murky depths of sexual obsession he resurfaced five years later, shell shocked, and without excuse. While there, trusty Nikon in hand, Scot snapped what he saw: full-frontal X-rated realities, fine-art documents, black and white, pathos and pizzazz.

LOWLIFE is an illustrated diary of dysfunction; the confessions of a befuddled baby-boomer maintaining a precarious connection to propriety and fatherhood while side-tripping into noirish infatuations. These stories and images, shot mostly in Southern California between 1986 and 1990 record the existence of the many disenfranchised Americans, men and women, hawking body and soul for the price of a Big Mac and a fix, struggling in a culture that deems them criminal and expendable.

On view starting November 5 (on view until December 3) at the Drkrm Gallery in Los Angeles presents Lowlife Photographs and Literary Vignettes by Scot Sothern with an opening night book signing of Lowlife the book, a limited edition monograph published by Stanley Barker UK now publishing.