Analog Forever Magazine - Edition 8 Artist Announcement!
Cover Image © Mohd Azlan Mam
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Analog Forever Magazine is proud to announce our eighth print publication (pre-order here) will be published and released in August 2023. We are excited to present to you a unique journal featuring 10 analog and experimental photographers from around the globe, each exploring various methods for using the medium we love in individual, creative ways. Inside, you will find interviews with Mohd Azlan Mam, Rebecca Pavlenko, Nadezda Nikolova, and Dana Stirling, accompanied by portfolio features of Michael Anker, Kristin Anderson, Michael Ash Smith, Fred Johnsson, Francis Baker, and Ginger Fierstein.
In addition, our staff has selected 16 stand-out images for our column Heart of the Issue, which allows us to publish single images from great artists we think you should know! Congratulations to: Niklas Hlawatsch, Amanda Tinker, Matthew Ragen, Anne Berry, Diana H. Bloomfield, Emma Powell, Anna Marcell, Kristin Randall, Kyle Lang, Heather Polley, Hannah N., Amy Elizabeth, JP Calma, Maureen Bond, Jaya Bhat, and Andy Odom!
We are thrilled to present to you this preview of the artists selected for Analog Forever Magazine’s eighth edition to satisfy your senses until you can hold this 150 page publication in your hands. Please enjoy this sneak peek, explore the artists’ websites, follow them on social media, and get ready for the eighth part of our analog photography revolution!
Lastly, we couldn’t make our publication possible without the support of our sponsors. We want to thank the following companies listed below for their support and generosity as we get ready to launch Edition 8. Please support them as you do us; we couldn’t do it without them!
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Analog Forever Magazine - Edition 8 Artist Selection
Interview: Mohd Azlan Mam
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
“Scientists, humanists, and art lovers alike value art not just for its beauty, but also for its social and epistemic importance; that is, for its communicative nature, its capacity to increase one’s self-knowledge, encourage personal growth, and its ability to challenge our schemas and preconceptions. The challenging role I play here is remaining steadfast to my artistic voice and my art convention.”
Malaysian artist Mohd Azlan Mam lives a dual life as a medical professional in Kuala Lumpur and as a photographic artist. His finished pieces are a hybrid mix of many processes contained in a single image and utilize such practices and materials as caffeinated art paper, risograph, graphite, dermatograph, ink deconstruction, photo collage, hand-tinting, and mixed media. His often eye-opening subject matter includes imagery and iconography that leaves substance and meaning up to the viewer's discretion. In this informative and enlightening interview, we dive headfirst into his methodology and creative process.
Website | Instagram
Feature: Michael Ash Smith
Boulder, Colorado, USA
“Life is simultaneously beautiful, dreadful, poetic, melancholy, and sad. How you get through it is entirely up to you.”
Embarking on a journey from corporate conformity to creative liberation, Michael Ash Smith transforms his internal turbulence into darkly captivating works of art. His compositions, often populated with ordinary people posed as anonymous models, serve as a conduit for viewers to connect with the deeper emotions lurking beneath the surface of everyday life. Each photograph, a delicate balance of meticulous planning and spontaneous artistic expression, acts as a key into the inner world of the artist, where the veil of human emotions is lifted.
Interview: Rebecca Pavlenko
Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
“Japanese gardens are designed to be a very mindful place. To me they were a reflection of the kind of quiet centeredness that I could sometimes find in meditation.”
For fifteen years Rebecca Pavlenko has photographed Japanese gardens in her home state of Minnesota and around the US, investigating how we experience the dual nature of time. As the seasons progress some elements of the gardens remain fixed, a permanent grounding force, while the living elements grow, bloom, and recede throughout their yearly cycles. A practicing Zen Buddhist, Rebecca uses the gardens as a physical metaphor for the mindfulness she seeks in her meditative practice. Her Polaroid image transfers impart a ghostly sense of impermanence to the images, as if the prints themselves have been caught in the process of coming into being or fading away, just as the blossoms in the gardens she depicts.
Website
Feature: Kristin Anderson
Alameda Island, California, USA
“As I looked at old photographs, some from WWII, I thought about other world events that must have been as or more frightening at the time, and that this was something that humanity experienced on a cyclical basis but always survived.”
Kristin Anderson, an artist of extraordinary insight, weaves a rich tapestry of history and present-day narratives in her evocative photo collage series, Generation Alpha. Through her skillful integration of images from various eras, she prompts us to confront our deepest fears, acknowledge our mortality, and wholeheartedly embrace hope in the face of a world-shattering pandemic. Anderson's remarkable artistry shines through in this profound exploration of life, death, and the powerful healing potential of creativity, offering a reflective mirror into the human soul during times of crisis.
Website | Instagram
Interview: Dana Stirling
Queens, New York, USA
“That’s why art is so important: it allows people to express their pain, struggle, or sorrow in a way that not only helps them heal but potentially can make someone looking at it think about their own struggle and face it in their own way.”
In Dana Stirling’s series, Why Am I Sad?, she explores the joys and challenges of photography as a tool for healing. “Photography is a burden because it becomes an impulse, a need, a want. When I am not able to photograph it makes me doubt and question myself. I start comparing myself to other artists and their practice and/or success. Maybe I am not doing enough? Maybe I need to do more? Maybe what I am doing isn’t right? I love photography, and I love to take pictures so when I don’t: it is all I can think about.”
Website | Instagram
Interview: Nadezda Nikolova
Oakland, California, USA
”My art practice is an extension of my spiritual practice, and my spirituality gives context to my visual language and ideas.”
With a soul deeply rooted in nature, Nadezda Nikolova's photographic journey is a spiritual testament to her respect and reverence for the natural world. By leveraging the transformative power of wet-plate collodion, Nikolova crafts images that echo her inner spiritual response to the grandeur of Earth's landscapes. Her series, Elemental Forms, serves as a sacred dialogue between the artist and nature, prompting viewers to reflect on their own spiritual relationship with the world around them. It is a compelling fusion of artistic innovation and spiritual introspection that resonates with the divine beauty of our planet.
Feature: Fred Johnsson
Hamburg, Germany
“I think that artists have an important task in our society. They can offer an alternative outlook on the world. They invite us to see things in a different light and offer a different interpretation. This does not mean that their perspectives are correct. It merely is an additional possibility, a different impulse for a different, better world.”
Fred Johnsson is a self-taught instant and digital photographer from Hamburg, Germany. As an autodidact, he developed his creativity and technical photography skills over the last forty years by exploring various camera techniques, attending workshops, taking part in competitions and exhibitions, and reading photography and art books. He re-discovered Polaroid a couple of years ago and presents us with his latest body of work, Escapism, steeped in humor and whimsy.
Website | Instagram
Feature: Francis Baker
Oakland, California, USA
“The freedom of what can be done, what can be expressed, even what can be done wrong, attracts me. Actually, the more that can be done wrong probably attracts me the most. Right now, it’s subverting gelatin silver paper using the print-out process. Tricking black-and-white paper into thinking it’s color continues to push me forward.”
Francis Baker is an artist living and working in Oakland, CA. For almost 30 years, Baker has been engaging with alternative process photography exploring themes of social justice, inequity, homelessness, mental health, the human condition, consumerism, and its continued impact on the environment. Baker's recent project, My Plastic Life, focuses on society's plastic consumption as an object lesson of how human behavior is the dominant influence on climate change.
Website | Instagram
Feature: Michael Anker
Althuttendorf, Germany
“I have many fond childhood memories of this landscape. When I come back after a long time many things feel the same as they once did. Not much seems to have changed.”
In his series, Heimaterde, Michael Anker returns to the land of his childhood seeking to revisit and relive the memories of his childhood in the farmlands and wilderness of the Oderbruch region of Germany. Spending his early years on his grandparent’s farm, learning to fish in the waters of the Oder River, passing long summer days in a countryside with few people and even fewer cars, those years in the Oderbruch were imprinted on his psyche, and the place continues to call him back. This work is about place but also about the way people inhabit that place; the history of his family is firmly intertwined with the history of this place, he cannot investigate one without encountering the other.
Website | Instagram
Feature: Ginger Fierstein
Oakland, California, USA
“I feel the act of creating is to exert some amount of control. Being in control of something, anything, as a young person feels like an escape from whatever burdens you.”
Ginger Fierstein's narrative is one of finding refuge in the transformative act of creation. From an early age, the act of creating served as an escape and a form of control, allowing Fierstein to carve out her own path amidst life's unpredictable chaos. This theme resonates throughout her work in Dusk Studies, where the organized chaos of natural spaces serves as both her muse and a personal haven. Uncover the hidden depth and detailed composition of her images, where the seemingly random patterns reveal a calming symmetry, a Fibonacci sequence, or a protective canopy. Join us as we examine the soothing allure of Fierstein's visually engaging work and the catharsis it offers the young artist.
Website | Instagram
“In this edition, we venture to the outskirts of the photographic medium to participate in enlightening conversations with artists who wield the camera as a tool to explore topics as diverse as Zen Buddhism, humor in art, Platonism, Freudian philosophy, climate change, mental health, and natural spirituality. And that’s just the start. Each page is an invitation to gain a new perspective or to kindle curiosity about these complex subjects.
I hope that through these conversations and featured works, you will experience the transformative power of photography as an art form, as a medium of communication, and as a vehicle for understanding our world and ourselves.”
- Michael Behlen, Founder
Analog Forever Magazine
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