A Man of Many Fairy Tales, Fruits and Faces (Joshua Yospyn)
A few days ago, pigs were flying. Today, it’s tortoises. And if it weren’t for the work of Joshua Yospyn, we’d never even know it. Yospyn is a Washington, D.C. based photographer, who is entirely self-taught. Fresh and full of character, his work bears heavy influences from artists such as Nuno de Campos, Annie Leibovitz, and Richard Avedon. While Yospyn’s primary focus is portraiture, it is his incredibly amusing side projects that ultimately caught my eye. Check these pieces out, for example. I think that they are pretty fabulous!
Flying Tortoises
Flying Tortoises is by far my favorite body of work by Yospyn, and that is because it is the most wacky one. I love Yospyn’s account of where this idea originated. Here’s what he said during an interview with DC Shot List:
The flying tortoises began in the summer of 2005 after I took a picture of a farm field in Mt. Airy, Virginia. It’s this empty field with hay bales and a red barn in the background. It bored me and I thought about adding something in the foreground. So I stitched helicopter blades on a helmeted tortoise and their invasion began. In general I avoid shooting landscapes because there’s not enough subject matter to grab my interest. But if I add some turtles… One day I’d like to a make a children’s book with them. My sister is an editor and a mother, so I’d like to make it a family project.
Crushed Food
Few people can make a slab of meat look this good. In fact, few people would even try. With this off-beat group of images that features boldly colored comestibles in a palm’s grip, Yospyn demonstrates his mastery of motion and contrast. There is not much to each individual photograph, but I am a huge fan of the Crushed Food collection as a whole.
Portraiture
I must say that portraiture is where Yospyn truly shines. He brings a unique frame of reference to each of his subjects, “capturing faces and poses with something always crucial missing from the frame.” This is one of my favorites from Yospyn’s portfolio. To see the rest of his collection, stop by his website. Enjoy!
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