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Posted: 16 Oct 2015 07:29 AM PDT
  “Nothing is too serious and every day is just a game,” says Slovak photographer Kata Sedlak of summertime for her two young boys, Oliver and Alan. Boyhood is a chronicle of their play, an examination of the secret language that exists just between the pair of them. Oliver and Alan, in some ways, are foils of one another; Oliver, the eldest by one year at five, is introspective and imaginative, while his brother craves action and adventure. Oliver is fair-haired; Alan has darker locks. But despite their physical and psychological contrasts, the boys are—in their mother’s words—“inseparable.” Boyhood was photographed at the photographer’s home in Piestany, Slovakia, where she lives with her husband, two sons, and daughter. It is, she explains, just one of many vignettes she’s collected of her children’s early years, beginning with a maternity leave from work many years ago. All three of her children understand that the camera is in some ways an extension of their mother; they take it for granted, although this summer, Oliver revealed is own aesthetic ambitions; he was, she admits, the force behind the image in which he stands, silhouetted and drenched, against the darkening sky. Sedlak’s collaboration with her children won’t end, she insists, until the youngest, Alan, grows up. She knows time moves quickly—acknowledging that she has about fourteen years left—but still she cherishes every moment she’s allowed to be a part of their fanciful and curious universe. Seeing them at this age transports her back to her own girlhood; it’s a time when everything is new and nothing is frightening, the one era in our lifetimes in which the entire world seems, as the artist puts it, “small as a button.”            All images © Kata Sedlak The post A Mother Captures the Fleeting Moments of ‘Boyhood’ in Slovakia appeared first on Feature Shoot.  |
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Posted: 16 Oct 2015 06:48 AM PDT
 Royals  Star Wars For his latest photo project, British photographer Alan Powdrill – known for capturing human nature’s quirks and offbeat observations – has focused on the individual competitors of the Soapbox Races. The event, which took place in London this summer, saw over a hundred homemade cars compete in a downhill race. After shooting the images on a Hasselblad H4, Powdrill applied his Photoshop editing skills to seamlessly place each racer onto a backdrop to match their respective theme. An image entitled ‘Space Travellers’ shows space-suited astronauts beside their homemade rocket crafted from foil, and levitating on tiny golden tires. In ‘Royals’, we see what appears to be the Queen perched on the back of a limousine in union jack boxers with Will and Kate standing close-by cradling a plastic baby. In ‘Star Wars’ a grey haired Luke Skywalker sits proudly in the helm of his spaceship race car as Darth Vader, R2-D2, and Obi Wan look on bearing lightsabers against a backdrop of pylons and extra-terrestrial terrain. By shooting each racer individually, the photographer encourages us to appreciate each car, costume, and theme, which he effectively brings to life in every frame. Powdrill’s series The Soapbox Racers is also humorous in that it toys with our own grown-up fantasies of cosplay. The stiff poses, fill-in flash and reworked backdrops heighten the sense of theatricality, and each subject seems to play their part with just the right degree of seriousness to offset, or perhaps intensify, the silliness.  Trains  Pitstop  Laurel and Hardy  Dragon  Police Mob  Space Travelers  Plane All images © Alan Powdrill The post Theatrical Portraits of Soapbox Racers in London appeared first on Feature Shoot. |
