This is a photograph from the series Satellites by Jonas Bendiksen, in which Jonas travel for several years around the old Soviet Union, capturing the world that the tabloids have now forgotten about. He captures great scenes of survival in the fringe countries of the old Soviet Union spanning from Eastern Europe to Central Asian and over to Siberia.
This is one of the many photographs from the series 'Afghanistan: Chronotopia' which is one of my favourite series from Simon Norfolk. This is because of three reasons, one being how hard hitting his photographs are, two his meaning behind this series and thirdly his love for large format cameras. This series for me is incredible thanks to the meaning behind it, Norfolk takes something from art as early as the Renaissance and give it a modern twist using a very political, social and economical matter that is common in today’s world. That is the war on terrorism and the invasion of Afghanistan. He takes the view of beauty and romance behind the painting of ruins from the Renaissance era and uses this to show this key event in the modern world, by turning this ideological view upside down. The ruin before you has not been excavated to show the old world in all its glory but instead shows the modern world in its most periling and destructive form. The ruins of what would have been the hub of laughter and bliss is now just a skeleton in a bleak landscape. This is thanks to almost 30 years on constant conflict in this once beautiful country. The only salvation for the modern world in this photograph is the lone balloon seller, which thanks to international help is allowed to sell something that was banned from the streets of this country for many years. These two juxtapose really well together to create one of my favourite photographs of the last ten years.
Robin Friend grabbed my attention with his series called "West Country". This series for me is a visually dramatic collection of landscape photographs that show the beauty of nature and how mankind is slowly destroying the world around us. By keeping it to a small area in England than doing hard hitting pieces on stories we all ready know, Friend still makes this series just as powerful as any other. Over all I enjoy looking at Robins Friends work as they are brilliantly composed and have a story and meaning to them.
This is Sam O'Hares stop motion film called The Sandpit. O'Hare over 5 days and 2 evenings photographed everyday life of New York City, from the helicopter tours to the workmen at the docks, from the yoga trainers under a bridge to people meeting for coffee. This stop motion video is visually stunning, beautiful, a great documentation of everyday life in a busy well known city and just a joy to watch. As said before Sam O'Hare spent 5 days in several locations using a digital camera to capture the hustle and bustle of city life. He took an astonishing 35,000 photographs to create this masterpiece and during post production added a tilt shift affect to every photograph. 
