Greg Schmigel

Greg Schmigel

May 2012

Imperfect Strangers: An Exhibit of Mobile Street Photography

For Greg Schmigel, there’s something very special and unique about capturing street photography. According to Schmigel, “It’s real, it’s true slices of life as we see it—and many times, slices of life as the rest of us miss them.”

Schmigel’s photographs take a quick, candid look at everyday moments —the lives of the people and strangers that he encounters on the street or in public places.

Schmigel believes that 90% of photography is about what the photographer sees with his or her own eyes. The choice of camera that he or she uses makes up for the rest. All of Schmigel’s photographs are created with a simple handheld mobile device—the iPhone.

Schmigel insists that he is not an iPhoneographer. Rather, a street photographer who happens to use an iPhone as his primary camera of choice.

Visit Schmigel’s website at www.justwhatisee.com.

Rachel Manley

Nin9 logo

May 2012

False Impressions

As a foreigner living in Tunisia, Rachel Manley often found irony in her surroundings. When the revolution came, she found truth in so many ways.

False Impression was started a little over a month before the Jasmine Revolution happened. Now known as the Arab Spring, the long-ruling president was overthrown and the former ruling party was dissolved, leaving the population in a state of uncertainty. Although she did not intend to for her work to be poltical, it was inevitable that “the delicate time of transition of the recovering nation (influenced) her body of work.”

Visit Manley’s website at www.rmanley.com.

Zachary Jackson

April 2012

Getting Ugly

Zachary Jackson’s work stems from a fascination with human reactions, both mentally and physically, to ideas of stress and tension. Referencing his own experiences as well as those gathered from interviews with others his work creates a dialogue for these, often unrecognized, occurrences.

Recently Jackson has begun focusing on the rigidity and stiffness that can occur as a reaction to a stressful environment. Using cast plastic and screen-printed fiberglass, he is capturing the unseen manifestations of tension as it relates to our personal space.

Each piece is a conglomeration of several different ideas of stress. Often during conversations it becomes apparent that bases of tension cross paths between multiple individuals. The evidence of the evolution of stress between different people can be seen in the differences between my pieces. Jackson’s collection of anxieties grow daily as he continues conversations with others as well as attempting to make sense of his own relationship to anxiety.

Visit his website at www.zacjackson.com.

Tomomi Nitta

April 2012

Infinite Set III

Infinite Set is a series of works depicting female forms floating in a space of nothingness. It is impossible to completely and precisely understand the body and mind—even our own. Enormous number of cells, knowing their roles, support life by continuously repeating birth and death, while our minds create rich and endless worlds of emotion and imagination. Nitta expresses existence as an unstable cluster drawn from an infinite set, or as something that goes beyond the boundaries of being a cluster. She also wishes to show the uncertainty of existence—the existence which is as obscure and unreliable as our recognition and memory.

Nitta was born in Nara, Japan and has studied at the University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Corcoran College of Art + Design, and Tama Art University in Tokyo, Japan, where she received her B.F.A. She has had multiple shows in Japan including the Yuka Tsuruno Gallery, and the Tokyo International Airport where she showed Infinite Set I and II.

Please visit her website at www.tomomi-nitta.com.

Miori Inata

Nin9 logo

April 2012

The Ise Shrine of Japan

In 2001, Inata witnessed the tragedy of 9/11 from her apartment window. These grotesque acts of terrorism made her contemplate what elements are behind the directions human beings choose, which paths the Gods around the world direct us as individuals. Inata wanted to stand in places of prayer to understand this path of life. She visited many holy places around the world, taking photographs of each location with the pursuit of finding answers.

During her visit to The Ise Shrine of Japan, Inata came to the realization that human beings have been supported by nature itself and that the deep reverence for nature has fostered a quiet feeling of deep understanding; a sense of harmony and peace. Since this conclusion, Miori Inata has been photographing of the Ise Shrine as her primary subject for her work.

To view more of Inata’s work, please visit her website: www.mioriinata.com