Expiration Notice: VOLUME 3 April 09

Volume 3...

We have only begun to scratch the surface here at Expiration Notice when it comes to sharing and exposing the work of photographers within our designated demographic. Unfortunately, we have reached the limits of our outreach, and in order to grow, indeed, in order to continue, we would need to expand our resources to attract the quality goods we have thus far been fortunate to publish. It's not a coincidence that most successful publications on the web (or anywhere) have the support of: a nonprofit arts organization or educational alliance, direct corporate sponsorship, the established following of a name brand artist, or the money to make up for all the aforementioned.

Fact is, we're just two guys with little more than a very real love for the medium who tried to address a particular situation, and succeeded (at least in part) in drawing attention to the fact that there is a large untapped volume of quality work out there from an ageless demographic that is vastly under appreciated. And for that we have you, our viewers and contributors to thank.

That said, our current issue provides yet another peak at some very talented and insightful photographers- un(der)heralded though they may be. We're going to take the summer off and see if we can, somehow, someway, secure the necessary resources for ensuring the continuation of your submissions- so necessary to this enterprise. Hopefully, we'll join you all for our next issue come Sept. 28.

THE PHOTOGRAPHERS:

Bill Vaccaro

Playful, soft focus and coming at you with all the verve and panache of a roadside attraction, Bill Vaccaro's photographs strike one as minor miracles in the land of eternal monochrome. But damnation is never far removed from their redemptive chorus. The clouds ominous, the figures ghost like, the landscape dark and foreboding. It's a tenuous existence of competing contrasts and possible outcomes in life's uncertain unknowns.

Noah Beil

The decisive moment is far removed in Noah Beil's beautiful, large format images which seem to suspend time and place in cryogenic contemplation. His work however, is very much about time, and transformation- and how much can be revealed, and remain hidden, right in plain view.

Tamir Sher

Too many photographers have no guts. I don't mean guts to go to battle zones, or guts to engage with peoples on the edge. Genre swapping experimentation and the guts to have a bit of fun is what I'm talking about. Too many photographers find a groove and stick, for creative types they can be, well, not very creative. Straddling Art, photography and more Tamir Sher is not afraid and as a consequence the creative juices flow..........

Greg Reynolds

One of the original idea's of this site was to not only show current work by emerging photographers, but also to show work that for one reason or another didn't get the exposure it deserved when it was first created. I'm sure that had we had the Internet and blogsphere back in the early 80's then Greg's photographs would have caused a sensation, looking as fresh and contemporary as they do.

Bill Vaccaro- Jesus Is On The Mainline

I’m what my wife calls a recovering Catholic. I have vague childhood memories of sleeping with a crucifix over my bed as a child. I don’t know what gave me worse nightmares: The sight of a man nailed on the cross or the threat of eternal damnation. As I grew older and began to question my religious teachings, I became more and more fascinated by how other people expressed their own beliefs. They are reflected in images such as a barn in rural Illinois that proclaims “Repent!” to passersby, a concrete statue of Christ off of a lonely two lane road in Western Kentucky, or that of a veteran holding a silkscreen portrait of Jesus that he picked up while on leave in Tokyo during the Korean War.

These photographs are my attempt to reconcile with my childhood memories, current beliefs, and with the wonder that I have for how others manifest their faith both publicly and privately. It began with a road trip down I-55 to New Orleans a few years ago where I first came across these public manifestations of what I see as pure religious faith in the Bible Belt. The project’s name is taken from a traditional gospel tune popularized by Mississippi Fred McDowell about what it would be like to have a “main” line to Jesus:

Jesus is on the mainline. Tell him what you want. Call him up and tell him.

While growing up in a working class Italian neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, Bill Vaccaro thought that blur was normal – that is, until his parents took him to the optometrist to correct his nearsightedness. Still, he felt more comfortable in the blur than in the sharpness. It was like a soft, really good (but well-worn) security blanket.

A self-taught photographer, Bill suppressed his blurry memories by shooting photos with cameras with tack-sharp lenses sporting names such as Leitz, Nikkor and Zeiss. Then he saw his first toy camera photos. He was hooked. He picked up a Holga and, later on, a Diana clone called a Windsor that he affectionately named Princess Di. He shoots almost exclusively with toy cameras, medium format view cameras, and obscure (and not so obscure) film cameras modified with homemade shift-tilt lenses culled from cheap loupes, crappy magnifying glasses, and battered enlarging lenses, bellows torn from old Polaroid cameras, used extension tubes, and gobs of black gaffers tape.

Bill's work has been featured in publications such as SHOTS, Light Leaks, Love, Chicago, and Other. His photos have also appeared online in File Magazine, Flak Photo, mooncruise.com, and in the Rearview section of the Chicago webzine, Gapers Block. He holds bachelor and masters degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo and currently makes his home in Chicago, Illinois with his wife and son.

Noah Beil- Mountain As Monument

The intense bombing of World War II left the streets of many European cities clogged with the remains of demolished masonry buildings. In Berlin alone, over 45 million cubic meters of debris were cleared during post-war rebuilding efforts. After intact bricks were recovered for reuse, with much of the manual labor performed by women, waste materials were transported to distributed collection locations and piled into hills known in German as Schuttberg or Trümmerberg. Today, these debris hills in Berlin are difficult to distinguish from naturally occurring features as they have been landscaped into parks with manicured grass and densely vegetated sections. They provide an opportunity to study mankind’s reshaping and repurposing of the landscape, as well as the effects of natural reclamation on anthropogenic terrain alterations.

Noah was born in Spokane, Washington, and has lived in Pennsylvania, Upstate New York, and Rhode Island. He received a BA from Brown University and is currently based in Oakland, CA. His landscape and architectural photography explores mankind's interaction with the earth's surface. Utilizing geographic information systems, satellite imagery, and GPS technology, he examines intentional and accidental alterations of the landscape, explores spatial relationships between landforms, vegetation, and structures, and compares natural and artificial landscape features.

Tamir Sher- Masters On 45

It's always been natural to express myself with a camera and I'm always surprised how the medium keeps changing and refreshing itself from its very inception. From this perspective I realize that the digital era is very primitive.

For me there is no hierarchy between daguerreotype and digital contemporary photography. One day I can take my medium format camera and use it like a 35mm camera hanging on my neck for a family event, and another day I can use my small digital camera on a heavy tripod to work on a project in my studio.

I work simultaneously on my projects. The circle works are images from a new work in progress called "Masters on 45." I took my old record player and decide to use it in my work before I threw it away. I placed reproductions of paintings by the old masters and my son's super heroes on it and took pictures at various speeds. I investigated how the low-tech record player connects and mixes old and contemporary master paintings with the digital era- creating new representations.

I was born 1966 and raised in Israel and currently live in Tel Aviv. I still have b&w prints that I made in the dark room since I was 8 years old. I've taken photographs all my life, it is simple as that.

Greg Reynolds- Jesus Days

‘Jesus Days’ is a pictorial memoir of a time in my life that I had preferred to forget. After a period of twenty-five years, I began sifting through dusty Kodachrome and Ecktachrome slides that revealed how I saw the world around me while I was a closeted gay man in a Christian Organization that believed homosexuality a horrendous sin to be avoided at all costs. At this time, I did not see myself as a photographer, but merely as someone who chose to record their observations on film.

Prior to coming out as a gay man and moving to New York City to obtain an MFA in Film from Columbia University, Greg Reynolds worked eight years as a Christian Youth Evangelist. From 1975 to 1983, Greg traveled to American College Campuses in Indiana and Kentucky, working for an American evangelical movement called InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. As a Staff Member and Area Director, he counseled Christian students, lead Prayer Meetings, spoke and participated in missions in Central America and evangelism projects in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida during Spring Break, where Christian students would confront partiers and sunning vacationers on the beach with the message of salvation through Jesus Christ.