Photo News – Three days left to make a pledge for Tal Shpantzer’s crowdfunded The Petal Project

All images © Tal Shpantzer 2014

“Reinforcing the relationship between natural forms, underlines the essential inter connectivity of all beings.” Tal Shpantzer

After a long break, a time for some R ‘n’ R, I wanted to let you know about a crowdfunded project The Petal Project by Tal Shpantzer. The Petal Project is an ongoing portrait photography series shot in Greenpoint Brooklyn, NY studio, from 2010 to present. Tal has set up a crowdfunded campaign to make this record into a first edition printed photo book with a run of 500 copies and it has just three days to go (2 July).

Tal Shpantzer is a fine art portrait and fashion photographer who says of the work: “I am captivated by the dialogues that emerge through each woman and petal portrait. A raw and unpretentious moment can reveal complexities, evoke imagined histories, and hidden truths.”

“The project began with a portrait of a friend. Exhibiting this first Petal Portrait in a Chelsea gallery, people immediately responded to the provocative expression of femininity, inner power, fragility, strength and sensuality I was able to capture between woman & petal. I decided to continue with a series, restaging that initial photo with different women and flowers.

“I began photographing women around me that I found inspiring: friends, family, colleagues.  As the project grew, a mosaic emerged; an increasingly dynamic and diverse group of women brought their individually unique presence to each sitting creating a rich and complex dialog… Each Petal Portrait has been an empowering and collaborative experience. ”

The series is rooted in her own experience with the reconfiguration of personal memory after a yearlong period of amnesia. Her work in photography and image-making has been published and exhibited nationally and internationally, and featured in HBO, MTV, TOPMAN Generation Magazine, Rolling Stone, Italian Vogue, Creem, Kid- In & W Magazine. The Petal Project has been chosen to be in the Saatchi online Curated Collection. You can find out more on her indiegogo website page The Petal Project.