Unless You Will // Issue 18

unless you will // Issue 18
W. Eugene Smith
“Photography is a
small voice, at best,
but sometimes one
photograph, or a group
of them, can lure our
sense of awareness.”
It takes a mountain of energy to transform Koichi Nishiyama 4
an idea you had in the middle of a sunny Nowhere
afternoon into an exhibition or book. In our
minds we have taken the images already,
we have paired them, sequenced them, Karin Bubaš 24
designed the book and the exhibition. Voila! Colour Field
What we forget is that reality takes much
longer than that. Even finding that very first
Palmer Davis 44
image might take a good little while, never
mind the complete series. So you thought In the mystical
it was all set, dusted and settled, but the realm of colour
images you take are just not working. How
often do we ponder, question, fret - wonder Thomas Jorion 56
if we should give up?
Silencio
But through experience, and often through
persistence and keeping an open mind,
we discover a different process is needed Stephen Kelly 68
to begin, and then to complete this new Qi Lihe
project. Ok, so here we are half a year
or two years later, and we finally got our
images, but where next? A Book? An
exhibition? Online?
Once again - each of these forms must be
treated in a different way. For a book, we
have to think of a different sequencing,
design and typography than for a website
or even an application.
For an exhibition one has to think about
framing a viewing experience that is
different, to say, a book. Once upon a time,
photos were only prepared for an exhibition
and in some rare cases for a book. There
are many different opportunities available
to us in today’s digital environment, but
regardless of the format, amazing images
will always be able to stand alone, in a
crowd, a book or an exhibition. And the
result will always be marvelous.
Koichi
Nishiyama
Nowhere
www.koichinishiyama.com
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There was a forest near the house 11
where I lived when I was a child.
When the forest existed, I felt a
connection with a deep part in the
world there. However, the forest
was destroyed over a long period,
and only the process of the loss
and its memory were kept in my
mind. I am now living in a place
which is a little distant from there.
When I look at the scenery in
periphery of the city where I live,
I can see a new contemporary
scenery which overlaps with the
past scenery. I keep walking and
roaming around the place until it
leads me to my destination, and
the subdued light is shining on
the space which illuminates my
memory in the past.
At that time, I realize that I can
regain a connection with the world.
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16 Finding absence in scenery is the
principal theme of my photographic
work. The landscapes have
contrasting characters which give
us an impression of warmth in
desolateness, and I find a sense of
reality in the absent and desolate
scenery. I try to figure out why I find
a sense of reality in front of such
landscapes through my photography.
The places I photograph are
marginalized areas, decreasing the
density of a city which is in a process
of construction and deconstruction.
There are almost no people in my
pictures, but it does not mean that I
am not interested in photographing
humans; I choose places where
there are traces of inhabitants.
The images in my photographs have
become sharply focused because I
would like to clearly represent the
details in the landscapes that were
captured by the camera lens. This
way of taking pictures was influenced
by a text that I remembered by
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky; “most
interesting, most frightening dreams
are the ones where you remember
everything down to the minutest
detail”.
I would like to transfer an absent
existence within the landscapes
into my photographs in order to give
a figurative sense to them on this
earth. I believe that it could add a
new value to our world even if there
is no answer to the question about
what the reality is in my work.
November 2009
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Karin
Bubaš
Colour Field
www.karinbubas.ca
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Mineral Violet Vapor

Purple Haze
28 Snowscape with Cyan, Rose and Violet
Frozen Grass Glaze 29
Snow-White and Pale Blue 31
My new body of work is entitled

Colour Field. It involves the use
of tinted smoke as an expressive
visual medium. I literally painted
on carefully chosen landscapes
of forests and snow with various
artificial hues, documenting
the results through large-scale
photographs. Thus, a wintery white
snowscape becomes a blank canvas
for violet and pink tints and an ice-
covered marsh appears dystopic as
psychedelic clouds loom above the
frozen surface.
The Colour Field project marks a
shift in my focus from the mundane
to the sublime. These misty
landscapes float somewhere near
minimalism, drawing the viewer
towards the strange fog shapes
and their juxtaposition within the
idyllic Vancouver settings. In certain
images the hues are dreamy,
while in others the smoke infusion
appears bizarre. The contrast of
the synthetic within these outdoor
settings results in unearthly
landscapes, creating mysterious
and captivating narratives.
Rose Coloured Mist Drifting
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Forest Floor and Cobalt Violet Light Hue
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Transparent Violet Miasma
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Smoke in Ultramarine Blue
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Snow Covered Branch with Cerulean Blue
36 Karin Bubaš is a Canadian artist

who lives and works in Vancouver,
B.C. She studied at the Emily
Carr Institute of Art & Design
and graduated in 1998. She has
documented the contents of her
grandparents home, photographed
women alone in epic outdoor
settings, and more recently captured
coloured smoke dancing in snowy
landscapes. Whether her pictures
show hats and furs heaped on a
bedroom floor, empty methadone
bottles, or a dimly lit park, Bubaš’s
pictures inform in a way a simple
portrait does not.
Karin Bubaš has exhibited in Canada
and internationally, most notably
in Paris, Brussels and Washington
D.C. Exhibitions have included Karin
Bubaš; A Short History of Subjects
and Objects at the Canadian Cultural
Centre in Paris and With Friends
Like These… at the Charles H.
Scott Gallery in Vancouver. Colour
Field will be on view at the Monte
Clark Gallery in Toronto, Canada in
November 2011. To All The Haters
is a book featuring her pastel
drawing of The Hills cast and
will be launched in 2012.
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38 Cloud in Cobalt Turquoise Light Tint
Emerald Green Nova 39
40 Ice Covered Marsh and Neapolitan Clouds
Frozen Forest With Streak of Magenta 41
Horizon Blue 43
Palmer
Davis
in the mystical
realm of colour
www.palmerdavisphotography.com
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As a photographer who shoots 51
exclusively in color, I always knew
my path would one day lead me to
India. At last, in 2010, I arrived in
Rajasthan, where women’s saris
come in tangerine and saffron,
where villages are tinted candy-
coated hues and destinations
like Jodhpur and Jaipur are
known as the Pink City and the
Blue City. Throughout my travels
in this ancient land, it was the
intoxicating power of color that
marked the way—luring me down
a rabbit hole to a magical world of
intense beauty and wonder.
But unlike the Technicolor
rainbow I’d seen in books on
India, the palette I discovered
there was surprisingly subtle.
These were the distressed,
sunwashed color bursts of a
parched desert region—though
no less saturated for their
timeworn patina. Like jewels in
the crown of their dusty, earthen
backdrops, they dazzled all the
more. With this series, I invite
you to enter a mystical realm of
color, where everyday moments
are painted in shades of spectacle
and delight.
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Palmer creates photographs that 57
explore the mysterious and the

magical in the everyday. His pictures
evoke a sense of place and time and
tell a story. Whether the setting is
natural or man-made, an expansive
landscape or an intimate space, it
is always a personal interpretation,
viewed through a prism of memory,
dream, myth and desire.
His photographic eye has been
developed over a thirty-year career
as an award-winning advertising
creative director at Young &
Rubicam, Ally & Gargano, Darcy
Masius Benton & Bowles and other
Madison Avenue agencies. Palmer
took his first photography class at
age sixteen and has been immersed
in images ever since. He went on to
study photography and filmmaking
at Hampshire College, California
College of Arts and Crafts, N.Y.U.
and The International Center of
Photography, where he is now a
member of the faculty. He has
written and edited documentaries
for National Geographic Explorer TV
and The Discovery Channel. Widely
exhibited and collected, Palmer
Davis is a photographer, teacher
and writer who lives in New York
with his wife and three sons.
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Thomas
Jorion
Silencio
www.thomasjorion.com
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Thomas Jorion (b. 1976, lives in Paris) photographs urban ruins
and condemned buildings, spaces that no longer serve the
purposes for which they were built. His work explores the built
environment in a state of entropy, inviting viewers to reflect on
the relationship between the material and the temporal.
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Thomas Jorion’s photographs lavish 81
in the play of light and shadow, of

artifice and nature. The spectator
can’t help but be drawn in. Looking
at these images, one goes beyond
merely contemplating the subject
and begins to truly “understand” it.
We experience a sense of freedom
before these images of constructed
spaces whose original function has
been lost, as when a dimly lit concrete
ceiling riddled with holes conjures,
remarkably, a starry night’s sky.
An impenetrable spirit emanates
from these pictures that seem to
come from another dimension. But
which one? The photographer’s
deep investigation into these spaces
reveals their mysterious nature, which
becomes it’s true raison d’être. For
don’t all mysteries keep one guessing,
reflecting? This is what Thomas
Jorion’s photographs suggest, the
dreamlike nature of places that no
longer serve the purposes for which
they were built, the uncanny aesthetic
of sites that are no longer familiar.
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Stephen
Kelly
Qi Lihe
www.stephenjbkelly.com
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Qi Lihe district sits on the outskirts
of Lanzhou in Gansu Province,
north western China and is the
most destitute area of this heavily
polluted industrial city. It is home
to thousands of Muslim migrant
families who have left their
homeland within the Linxia Hui
autonomous prefecture and arrived
into the city, searching for job
opportunities and ultimately,
a better life.
For hundreds of years the Hui and
Dongxiang Muslim minorities have
farmed the arid land surrounding
their ancestral villages. In recent As poor rural farmers living 93
years though, desertification has on the edge of society, the

forced this once workable landscape majority struggle to gain official
to begin a dramatic change, Lanzhou residency from the local
impelling many modern day farmers government. This means they
and their families to migrate to the cannot visit hospitals for the most
provincial capital in order to survive. basic medical care and they have
Life for these migrant families in Qi very little hope of job security
Lihe remains extremely difficult, as and therefore, no regular income.
they live in abject poverty. Economic Many of the children of the
and educational marginalization has district are unable to attend local
greatly impacted on the community, schools, as their parents cannot
as its residents are unable to enjoy afford to send them.
the same privileges as the majority As desertification continues
Han residents of the city. to swallow up the countryside
of Gansu Province and rural
communities continue to disperse
to the bigger cities for survival,
this pattern of economic and
environmental migration will
continue. Existing ecological
problems will be compounded
and the desperate plight of these
people will continue.
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100 Born in Cumbria, England in 1983,
Stephen spent his early childhood
in West Africa and the Middle East
before moving to Hong Kong where he
lived for ten years. Stephen returned
to the UK to study, gaining a degree in
Documentary Photography from the
University of Wales, Newport.
Stephen has pursued personal and
assigned projects throughout China
and his work has been published and
exhibited internationally. Stephen is
the recipient of a number of awards for
his work, including the Gareth Jones
Memorial Travelling scholarship, the
Observer DavidHodge Photographic
Award and the Made in China award
at Lodz Fotofestiwal, Poland.
Stephen lives and works in Hong Kong.
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Front image Thomas Jorion Back IMAGE Karin Bubaš Please note no image in UYW can be reproduced
without the artists prior permission. All images are protected by copyright and belong to the artist.
www.unlessyouwill.com // hello@unlessyouwill.com

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Unless You Will // Issue 18

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unless you will // Issue 18

Mineral Violet Vapor

My new body of work is entitled

36 Karin Bubaš is a Canadian artist

explore the mysterious and the

in the play of light and shadow, of

years though, desertification has on the edge of society, the

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