Week 17
The work which is coming in is phenomenal and I feel I must, MUST say thank you to all those who are spreading the word and contributing. The body of work unfolding feels like a modern version of Steichen’s original Family of Man, and I can only imagine what it was like for him to be receiving by both post and courier, little packages in brown envelopes, labelled by hand and coming from lands maybe not even he heard of. To open these packages and see jewels of grain arranged on paper and served by strangers in a moment caught, a slice of life frozen, how precious.  And so here we are, brought up to date with the technologies available to us today, and each time I look on the unfolding page simply identified by a #symbol  I feel a sense of that too. The magic in that moment an image was taken by people I don’t know and places I’ve never been and yet to look and see what they looked and saw at the moment of conception between inspiration and exposure where they look down at the image before them and for an instant think to themselves “I’ve just done something incredible” – well….  to witness this shape through the mobile platform is absolutely a journey I feel privileged to watch unfold. Once again thank you.

And so with this week’s entry we add the colour, youth and electricity of this edgy young photographer Shayna Batya aka @shaynabatya. If you take a tour of her feed you’ll find nuggets of the friendly, the odd and the unreal…. The beautifully eclectic really. There’s something on the verge of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to her work. It’s that point where when winding up a Jack in the Box you think the next plink or plunk is going to set it off. The stuff she sent in to the #thehashtagofman made for a really tough choice but this pick really sums up her look and spirit. The beautifully unexpected, that Amercanised hotness that you think is cliche but then pokes you in the eye with its up to date rawness. That’s what comes to mind for this reviewer. She’s got a pretty rich following and one can see why. Looking forward to seeing more of  her work.

www.shaynabayta.com

To find out more or take part in this project read about it here.