I just recently returned from Burning Man, the one week Arts and Music Festival in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, that I attend every year expect for one for the last 6 years. For me it has become my New Years. It’s where I take inventory of what the year before had in store, the lessons I learned, the mistakes I made, and see what I want to keep in my life, what I want to throw out and how I can improve from the year before. This year the theme of the festival was “Rites of Passage” and it couldn’t have been more appropriate since I am stepping away from it feeling that not only on a personal level, but also on a professional level I am entering a new passage in my life. So I am now coming back with a new website, new work and even a video I recently shot for the producer/Henry Strange. And further more, come October 1st I will have a photo studio in downtown Los Angeles.

Last year when I decided to leave New York and move to Los Angeles, I knew that in Los Angeles I would move away from photojournalism and concentrate on my portrait work with a focus on musicians. Also I was feeling that conceptual work was coming back into my life. After the last couple of years of documenting exactly what was there, I felt the urge to again direct and influence the surroundings, the subject I was photographing. Sp look forward to many fun and new things to come form me this year!

With this year being primarily taken up by taking care of  things concerning my family, I didn’t have the mind or the time to shoot a lot, however I was able to still sneak in a couple of shoots, and I do have some new things to show. So I would like to introduce to you my brand new website, where you can see some of the new things I have been working on:

www.skyevonderosten.com

Also I have decided that I will discontinue my blog and will bundle everything together on my facebook page. I would love it if you would “like” my page and become a fan, to get the latest news, tips and blurbs from me:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Skye-von-der-Osten-Photography/165478300841

Thank you for your continued support! Look forward to seeing your beautiful faces in front of my camera!

Skye

The most news worthy project I worked on this year, was Wafaa Bilal’s 3RDI. The artist installed a camera in the back of his head with a subdermal implant of screws, and I was there to document the process! It was very intense. My photos & videos landed on the Wallstreet journal and many other news outlets. Wafaa will have the camera installed in the back of his head, the camera will be taking photos every minute and is digitally transmitted to the website.

Early in the year I found a sign at the PEX Summer Festival and the project “YOU ARE HERE” was born. It’s been a fun ride and there is much more to come. Stay tuned on the YOU ARE HERE facebook page! Here are snippets from some new YOU ARE HERE projects.

YOU ARE HERE – NYC lives to skate. I took the sign to the Pier 62 Skatepark and let the skaters there take the sign for a ride. From young to old they live to skate!

YOU ARE HERE – goes Cross-Country. The sign came with me when I drove cross country to move to Los Angeles California. People love YOU ARE HERE wherever you go in the US!

YOU ARE HERE – Rally to Restore Sanity

YOU ARE HERE – Bohemian Carnival. Amazing circus fun in San Francisco!

I also worked on the project A WAVE OF WORDS with the New York Harbor School and the Peace Corps Fellowship Program in NYC. This was one of the most rewarding projects I have worked on. The kids opened up their soul and poured so much hard work into the project!

I also had the pleasure of portraying some really amazing people this year.

Tony Kaye - director of American History X

Marwan Nahle - Artist

Roberto Lim - Yoga Guru

This year was the first year that I took a SLR camera to Burning Man. I have to say it was an awkward experience at first and it took me a couple of days to take out my camera. There is something that makes you lose connection with the experience when you get stuck behind a big lens. But in the end I am glad I brought my baby and will bring it again next year!

Earlier in the year I went back to Mali with the film team for the documentary “MUSIC IN MALI” which is planned to be realized sometime next year. It was an amazing opportunity to go back and see other parts and facets of Mali, but also to see old friends again.

Straight after Mali was NY Fashion Week 2010, which I got to document for LOT71. I felt right at the pulse of this amazing city.

There is so much more and if you want to find out about it visit my Website or my Facebook Page or my Flickr.

I wish you all a very happy New Year and look forward to catching a lot of you in front of my lens in 2011!!

Now let’s go out and ring in this New Year!

Skye is be part of a group exhibition about popular contemporary music in Germany with the Goethe Institute, which started in Vilnius, Lithuania in Sep 2009 and will continue to tour around the world for until May 2011 where it will finish in Helsinki, Finland.

Skye’s photograph of Turkish German MC Killa Hakan, which is part of a study of the Turkish community in Berlin, has been chose as part of the Hip Hop section of the exhibition.

photograph by Uh-Young Kim.

For dates and locations please visit: http://www.goethe.de/lhr/prj/mpx/tpl/deindex.htm

Original photograph:

The project is a collaborative effort of Steve Lynch, English Teacher at the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, the Peace Corps Fellows Program through Teachers College at Columbia University, and myself, Skye von der Osten. This photographic and writing project was conceived as a means of exploring how image and words inform each other to create more powerful statements as well as to provide voice and visibility to students from populations often overlooked in mainstream media.

The 90 students enrolled in sophomore English at New York Harbor School went through a multi-week process of having their portrait taken by me, choosing their strongest image, and then writing a poetic text that establishes a strong sense of self and place in their world. After practicing on smaller versions of their portraits, the students then committed their words to larger prints of their portraits using permanent markers. Additionally, the collection of all the student work will be published in a small book of poetry to be available for purchase online.

Please visit my website to see the other portraits and sign-up for my newsletter to be informed when the book is available for purchase.

http://www.skyevonderosten.com/#/a-wave-of-words/wow-85

These images are from the photo shoot by the Salton Sea with Anna Christine and clothing by S&G Clothing (http://sandgclothing.com/) & Kathryn Marquet (http://www.marquisfashion.com/) earlier this summer.

It was hot (112 degrees), there were flies and dead fish everywhere, and it smelled beyond bad, but the Salton Sea was definitely worth all that. There is an amazing beauty that this abandoned ghostly place holds. I would go back in a heartbeat.

clothing by http://sandgclothing.com/

clothing by http://www.marquisfashion.com/

feather earrings & hairpieces by Ariane Ahava.

headpiece by Tonya King.

For all who did not make it to Burning Man this year, I brought YOU ARE HERE to Black Rock City. Thank you for all who participated to share a little of what the experience of Burning Man!

To see more images please go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skyevonderosten/sets/72157624950657737/show/

This years Burning Man was one amazing journey. The art in my opinion was the best so far, and the music too. I had the opportunity to be out there 10 days early because I was helping build a camp. It was one of the most rewarding experience to be part of the early built and to see the city rise to its glory.

It was my first year bringing my camera, a Canon 5D to the Playa. In years past I was too scared of what the dust would do to my only work camera. Since I acquired a second work camera shortly before leaving for Burning Man, I was able to put all my worries aside and bring my old camera. I didn’t go for the zip lock method of sealing my camera, because I knew it would keep me from shooting. So I sealed all openings with duct tape and I found Rubber Sealant Tape at the hardware store and used that to seal the gap between the body and the lens. So far my camera seems very happy.

As for my experience of photographing out there, it was more than interesting. I had to admit to myself that when I shoot photography I go in my own zone and am not really part of what is happening around me. This posed a conflict, since Burning Man is all about the experience for me and about being present. Hence I shot a lot less than I expected. Even thought I carried my camera almost everywhere I went, I rarely used it and I had to take extra time out to dedicate to photographing.

I do wan to bring my camera back next year and dedicate more time to capturing the beauty that everyone creates out there.

To view a slide show of my work of the week of Burning Man please visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skyevonderosten/sets/72157624950463871/show/

For set-up week of Burning Man please view this slide show: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skyevonderosten/sets/72157625075014980/show/

I am slowly making progress on all the images that need to be retouched from photo shoots that took place before Burning Man.

These photos were taking for promotional use for DJ Lush Bunny & DJ Annomoly, which turned into a very fun and unusual photo story.

The images were taken at the Salton Sea, CA – http://www.saltonsea.ca.gov/thesea.htm.

Salton Sea is a very unique place with the strange balance between abandonment & morbidity which creates this  striking beauty.

To view more images please visit: http://skeyvdo.photoshelter.com/gallery-slideshow/G0000aywiKubLn2w/?start=

I am leaving to Burning Man today, so I won’t be editing any of the images until I return, but here is a little taste of what I was up to at the Salton Sea with Anna Christine and clothing by Sequoia & Gita (http://sandgclothing.com/) this week!

I am bringing my camera for the first time to Burning Man this year…so look out for images when I return!

Recently my friend Roberto Lim hired me to shoot some yoga photos for his new website. Roberto teaches yoga in Boston and works with Shiva Rea around the world – http://www.somavinyasayoga.net/index.html. He came up to NYC from Boston and we went on a little exploration of Yoga and the city.

The first place I took him to, which is one of my favorite places to shoot in NYC is DUMBO. We couldn’t believe our luck when we stumbled upon this wonderful mural by 303 Collectives depicting Ganesah and different elephants. The message of the mural is that in life, there are obstacles and barriers that are lifted away to result in success, and yoga can aid us in just that. Please follow this link to read more about this mural – http://dumbonyc.com/2009/05/27/water-street-art303/

We also went to the Brooklyn Bridge Park…

Last we went up town to the Flat Iron Building and Roberto showed that he could even keep his calm in the middle of hectic Manhattan traffic.