Vice Photo Show

Last weekend was the opening of the 2008 Vice Photo Show in Culver City, which consisted of 3 separate exhibits. The first exhibit I saw were images by the late Australian social-documentary photographer Rennie Ellis of work he made in the 70's and 80's. I had never heard of Ellis before and feel like a bit of a schmuck about that since his biography says he has produced 17 books and his pictures are amazing. The images conveyed to me Ellis's sincere interest in people and the backyard adventures that being a photographer can bring. There was a cool group show curated by Tiny Vice's Tim Barber called 'Riddles'. This group is made up of ambiguous images by a variety of known and unknown photographers. The 3rd exhibit was another group show of 3 Japanese photographers. This work was more intense than the others, as it seemed to deal with women's roles in Japan. The images consisted of fetishized blind folded women, in addition to the ever popular sexualized Japanese school girls.
I look forward to going back when it's not so claustrophobic and sweaty.