ZoneZero

URL: http://www.zonezero.com

Category: Art

Issue: 1296

Content Quality: Excellent

Aesthetic Quality: Excellent

TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent

Author: Patrick Joseph

Author: Patrick Joseph The name is symbolic: 'Zone' in reference to the time-honored photographic technique known as 'The Zone System'. 'Zero' as in the nil component of binary code. The idea is to use the Web site as a place to confront the transformation of photography from the analog mode to the digital one. Semantics aside, ZoneZero takes a sensible approach to the new technology, embracing it without forgetting its subject. You won't find any of the baubles and gimmicks so common to Web design here, just good photography. The work showcased at ZoneZero consists entirely of photo essays, as opposed to mere portfolios. Numerous photographers display their musings and images in understated exhibitions, each collection exploring a theme or place through the camera lens.

The general orientation is predominantly Hispanic, with images of *barrios* on both sides of the border, from Joe Rodriquez's starkly journalistic "expose" on gang life in East L.A. to Kent Klitches' "Street kids in Mexico City". Not all of the work is so disturbing (don't miss the almost surreal "Meditations on Mexico" by Marianna Yampolsky), nor does it all straddle the Rio Grande. A few collections do focus on other places: Lars Tunbjork ruminates on the spiritual bankruptcy of an affluent Sweden; Seydou Keita's portrait studio is in Mali, West Africa; and the colorful, Almodovaresque compositions of Marcos Lopez hail from Buenos Aires, the most European city in the Americas. All the photographs are accompanied by commentary from the artist. And, thankfully, the words tend to dignify the work, rather than spoil it with a lot of overindulgent hoo haw (as is too often the case when visual artists talk about what they do).

Marcos Lopez won me over with his candid introduction to his collection,"Argentinian Pop". "This is the never ending search for identity," he writes, "in a country that was built with people that came off the ships. The tango we have inside. To reflect the double discourse of Modernity. All this I try to show in my photographs. Besides that, now I'm taking pictures for fun and to exorcise the pain because my girl left me." As I said early on, Web design is secondary here: depending on your orientation, the backgrounds are either dull or unobtrusive. For me, it's the content--the amount and the quality thereof--that make ZoneZero a winner. Editor, Pedro Meyer, deserves credit for putting the emphasis there first. With some refinements, this site could be among the very best of its kind. Overall Rating (out of 18):18