17 RANTS IN 4 MINUTES by Leela Stalzer

I took this picture by trying to take a photograph of ordinary objects made beautiful. I like its simplicity and the contrast between the lights and darks. The main detail is on the salt and pepper shakers, but there's enough texture showing on the table cloth and enough shadow on the wall in the background that it does not look bland. One problem with it is that it might be too centered. A first glance, the picture looks really serious, but it seems comical when I remember the subject is a pair of salt and pepper shakers.

JOE by Samantha Kelly

When I took this photograph, I was driving around the Town of Ulster where all the stores are with my mom. I wanted to capture the essence of the kinds of people I'm surrounded by. I wanted to capture people how they are naturally without the fake smiles that people normally show when they know there's a camera. This was one of the first photos I took and I was kind of nervous about taking pictures of strangers.  The minute I went to take the picture one of the gentlemen said "Smile Joe, she's trying to take your picture." Even though the older man to the left did shoot me a smile, to me it was a genuine smile. When I look at this photo now, his smile to me isn't faked at all because there was a camera pointed at him. 

THE FAILURE OF THE MODERN BREAKFAST by Justin Conley

"... the postmodern irony of 'The Failure of the Modern Breakfast', a fully avant- garde conceptual work, a total abstraction from beauty. Here my camera was used entirely as a tool, not unlike the hammer I used to pound the nails into the wood. Within the theme, the title becomes a comic element to the overarching mise- en- scene. The composition and placement of the objects is not careless, per se, but it is impossible to call it beautiful. It is harsh and industrial, full of right angles, like the wood and nails of the subject. The food items add another comic element in their over- the- top characteristics. The meat has been nailed into the wood, peanut butter is slathered onto the plank next to the toast, an egg is cracked onto the upright plank with the yolk having run down the length, etc. There is also a comic irony in the biblical imagery of the three spoons, covered with KFC side dishes and condiments.

"It is worth noting that the ugliness of the food might lead one to misinterpret the image as a critique of the food industry; however, further assessment proves this is not so. This is not red meat; rather, is is harmless breakfast items mixed with anemic looking refrigerated leftovers. The title also cannot support this interpretation. In the placement of the objects with the workbench materials, a textural element is added, with the wood compared to the slimy yolk, the grainy toast, the paste- like peanut butter, chewy meat, and the silver of the spoons. Beyond these analytic artistic qualities, at a literal level, the content of the image, with its nonsensical object placement, looks like the creation of an insane person. In the framework of postmodern irony, this rejection of rationality has a quality of comic negation (in a bold sense, within this context, eating a piece of meat would be to say 'yes', whereas going insane and nailing it to the wall would be to vehemently say 'NO!'). It is for this humor that I believe 'The Failure of the Modern Breakfast' to be a successful work of avant- garde conceptual art, in that we can not only think and appreciate, we can also laugh, if only cerebrally."

SILENT SETTINGS by Melissa Merczel

The day that I took this photograph I was walking around the  neighborhood on the Rondout which is known for its incredibly beautiful historic houses. Old architecture is something I have recently been inspired by and I've been working with it in other mediums, so I decided to try it with photography as well. Another theme I enjoy working with is the concept of home. This photography is a snapshot of someone's home; more than just a house , a place to sleep at night, but where they keep all of their tangible memories where they go to think and collect themselves away from the rest of the world. I would like to print more photos from this series and somehow combine them with my bookbinding endeavors to fully develop my thought process.