This might be the best viewer work ever sent in!

This video is brought to you by Squarespace. Welcome back everyone. We are going to once again do some viewer mail and I'm going to step out on a limb here and say something. The collection of work that I have to share with you guys is absolutely outstanding. This is probably my favorite mail time that I've done. It really is good and I'm really flattered that people think enough of me and the show to want to share their work on here. So kudos to everybody involved. So I want to get to some of these real quick. I do want to remind you guys I have two upcoming workshops. One of which is a Zen workshop. This one starts in March and uh the Zen workshop takes place over the course of four weeks. We do these online. If you want to publish a Zen, we go deep. We talk about sequencing, we talk about pairing, we talk about narrative, we talk about all the things that go into the production of a zen and how to collect and separate your work to make it stand out. And so that is coming up. I will drop a link in the show description. And also coming up in April, I'm going to be going to New York City. I have a workshop that I do called Dancer as Motif. It is a ballet photography workshop. This is one we did last year. It was awesome. I can't wait to do it again this year. There's only a few slots left. I co-e this with a friend of mine, Alexander Light, who's a wonderful choreographer, and you've seen a lot of her work that I photographed over the years uh in a lot of my ballet photography. And we're also going to be working with three dancers. And so, if you want to come hang out in New York and a loft and explore the idea of motion with the human figure, it is an awesome workshop. So, I will link up to that as well. Without further ado, let's get to some of your work. All right. So, first up is this little box of Zenes. And this comes to us from Eric Rico Michelle. Uh, this is outstanding. And I want to share with this note so you'll know what you're looking at here. He writes, "Dear Mr. Ted, I have been assembling these photographs over the last 3 years, thinking of what would work well together aesthetically, but without really knowing what the final form of the project would be. Then, while talking with a friend about making Zen, I remembered your video on Fuat Baron's tiny photo zen and realized that this format would be just right for my project. " Okay, folks. As you may remember, I save everything that is sent to me. I did this little zen called minimal and this was years ago a long This is probably at least 10 years ago. This comes to us from uh Fuat Buren and I use this as an example to show people all the time. And it's just a little zen of several spreads here. It's really cool. It's handmade. It's printed out on an inkjet printer on regular uh print paper. Uh it is awesome. And the way this is done is actually, and I'll show this to you because that's what Eric did in his work here. Uh this is really cool. So, it's printed on one page here and uh you have a layout here for all of the spreads and uh then basically you do this cut and then you're able to fold it and then it comes together as a zen. And this is exactly what Eric did. He took it a step further. I think this is so awesome. He did make a comment here that little bit of a layout change cuz it might make the fold a little bit easier. But this came out really cool. So Eric, first of all, before we get into technical details because the just technical details, your photographs are amazing. They're awesome. I really love the depth of field that you get out of these. Your subject matter is super quirky. You kind of have the urban landscape thing, but then there's the still life in here with the bathtub. And then there's other things you do in here like exploring line and shape. And you've done this over a little calendar issue here uh that really works quite nicely. We have an entire year of little zenes that are put together here. And what I love about this is not only is it very well done, but it really retains the whole aspect of what we think of when we think of Zen culture, which is something that's changed because, you know, we have modern uh technology to do print on demand now. So whether it's Blurb or whatever service you're using and those it's great. You can get good quality out of that, but unfortunately there's just a sameness to all of it. And I really love that you stepped outside the box on this project to do this. Just a little Easter egg here. There is handwriting in here. And so you get something that is very professionally printed, but then it's put together in more of a zinc culture type deal. This is also bound together with this hard card copy here and then a little sheet of vellum here. It's really well packaged. I even love the little cardboard box it comes in. Man, I really cannot say enough cool stuff about this. Eric, do me a favor, my friend. I would like to know how you got this printed if you used a printing service or if you did these yourself. Uh I would like to know a little bit of the technique because the print quality on here is outstanding. And I love the fact that you've combined a really modern, high quality print vibe to this while at the same time retaining this handwritten zen thing. This is really outstanding. So if you get a chance, do that. But uh you guys check out Eric below and if you're interested in this, it highly recommend it. Get a copy of this. Uh it's awesome. I assume Eric is selling these. I will look that up and I will link it below. Uh but anyway, Eric, thank you for sharing. This is awesome. Okay, next up we have a book. This is absolutely gorgeous. This comes to us from Yens Crower. And I'll share this with you, too, because I love that he uh put a little note in here in the envelope. And the way this works here is there's a little uh it's a winding string with a little camera on it. Very cool. So, in plain sight is a collection of photographs made over a period of 10 years from 2014 to 2024 in New York, Nice, Zurich, Paris, Palro, Istanbul, Kiev, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. And this is one of the most interesting collections of street photography that I've seen in a long time. Yens, I [clears throat]

don't say that lightly because I think modern street photography is very difficult and presents a huge set of challenges. I think your work is original. I think it's interesting. I think your compositional sense is really cool in here. We see a lot of things that we're typically see in street photography. I love this picture with the kid with the gun and the family in here. But then you have other images in here that are very mature composition. You work from the background forward and you really bring out the figure. Other times you have images that are wonderful portraits. I love the shallow depth of field use. Everything has a dark quality to it. But what I love about your printing on here, and I don't know who you used for this, it's very well executed. Nothing ever fades too much into the shadows, which is very difficult to do with black and white photography like this. And this is something that I actually recommend to students when you have a lot of pages with white text on black is that sometimes it's really difficult to get good rich blacks out of your printing process. And like I said, I'm not sure who used on here, but whoever did it did an outstanding job. I really love this work. Some of your stuff with Windows in here is amazing, man. You should really be proud of this. There is not um one thing that I don't like about this. Everything is amazing. It's really strong. Uh really well done. I'm going to link up to Yens below. This is highly recommended, folks. This is awesome. And I appreciate the note. He just thanked me for years of being inspiring on YouTube, which I greatly appreciate. But Yens, this is awesome work. I am very impressed with this. I told you guys this was amazing today. So, I've got two magazine format pieces that I want to share with you. But, real quick, I want to give a shout out to our sponsor today who helped make these videos possible, and they are the awesome folks over at Squarespace. How easy is it to build an amazing website in a matter of minutes? Squarespace has you covered. It's dead simple. Head over to Squarespace, hit get started. You can start by using Squarespace blueprint AI and SEO tools which will give you an impressive website in no time. Something unique because you know you're not like other websites. Give your site a name. Next, you can build your homepage. We'll start with a few preset layouts just to get us going. Want to sell products like prints, books? Maybe you make a zen. Well, you can feature those on your homepage. Create a few more sections if you want. Let's also give it a color palette. There's a whole bunch to choose from. and then just get us started. We can change this all later. Next, let's select the typography choices. Welcome to your website. Everything is set up and it's all ready for you to customize. Squarespace is built on Fluid Engine, the next generation of website design. Select edit and Fluid Engine allows you to drag, place, and resize any element on the page. You can snap these to a grid. You can make them float on top of one another. You can free however you like. You can even preview and adjust how the site looks on either desktop or mobile. The layouts are independent. Of course, you'll want a portfolio for your work. Creating an image gallery is as easy as dropping a folder of images on your web browser. Once uploaded, you can drag to resort, customize the look, and Squarespace writes all of the code for you. Everything just works, and it looks fabulous. Want to sell your own prints, books, or zenes? Flexible payments allow you to make the checkout process absolutely seamless when you sell products or services. You can accept credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and in eligible countries, you can offer customers the option to buy now and pay later with Afterpay and Clear Pay. You should try Squarespace for yourself. It's absolutely free. No credit card required. Just go to squarespace. com/aop. Sign up for that free trial. If you decide Squarespace is right for you, I can save you an additional 10% on your order by using offer code AOP on checkout. That's right, the code is AOP. So, stop procrastinating. Go build your website today. And I want to give a special shout out and thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video. All right, so next up is this little scene called Loneliness. This is really beautiful. This comes to us from Dimmitri Rambowski. So, his note actually goes in a different direction because he has an iPhone app that he has built uh that deals with gallery scene in Tokyo. But real quick, I want to say a few things about your Zen here because I think this is awesome. I mean, calling it a Zen, this is more of a magazine format or a small book. Where's that line? I know it's kind of blurry, but this is really well done. I think that you and I obviously have a um mutual passion for 1960s Japanese photography. Uh there's a huge influence from Provoke in here, but also from other things. I love your compositions. Uh, this is really, really well done. It's dark, it's gritty. It's very Daido Moryama, but I do see other influences here as well. And I think this is really well done. Uh, I really love your spreads, the way you pace this, the way you move through it. Um, it is very Japan. It is very Tokyo, and it is very awesome. And I don't know if he's selling this. I will find out. You guys should get a copy. But he also has an iPhone app that he was inspired to do. He's followed my channel for years, and he had this idea. With over 80 galleries and frequently changing shows, Tokyo has many opportunities to enjoy photographs across diverse genres and techniques, as well as the opportunity to meet photographers and hear about their

stories behind their work. So, I'll give you guys the QR code. This is actually very cool because if you're ever in Tokyo and you want to go see some local galleries and see some photography and meet some people, this has it all. And it gives you little maps and all. And I think this is really cool, man. I'm definitely going to check this out because it's the kind of thing I like to do when I'm in Tokyo. So, uh, you guys, uh, check it out there with the QR code. Anyway, Dimmitri, thank you so much, and I'll link this below, too. Um, I hope your hard work is paying off, man, and thank you for sharing. All right, this is a beautiful little scene called Reclaimed. This comes to us from Matias Benninghovven. Going to read you a little bit of the intro where Matias writes, "This documentary project looks both at a troubled past and bleak future. Investigating the eerie remnants of forgotten military zones left to rot collapse in form new forms of life in the forest surrounding Berlin. Spaces once home to hundreds or even thousands of soldiers, weaponry, vehicles, and megalomaniacal military ambitions, be it of Prussian, Nazi, Soviet, or GDR origin. Structures now devoid of glory and inhabited by lush vegetation, packs of wild animals, or the occasional human vandal. Reclaim tips its hat to those man-made relics, eventually losing the slow battle against time and embraces nature's unrelenting power to take back control, exposing who really is in charge here. This was all shot on lomography lomochrome purple over about 4 years from 2020 to 2024. Matias, you have an outstanding look to this. I thought it was infrared when I first started looking at it and I don't know enough about lomochrome purple. Uh, but this is very cool and I just can't help but saying that I am reminded often, especially with images like this of the cover of the very first Black Sabbath album. It's a really cool and unique style, something you don't see very often. And I love your idea and your theme that pulls this together. The idea of uh, you know, former military installations and equipment that just kind of gone to rot. Uh, it is very interesting and I think you have a lot to say with this and I really love the lowfi look. Your cover is particularly interesting, too, because it really kind of feels like a fashion thing. Uh, but then you get into it and you realize it's a lot grittier. This is outstanding, man. Very well done. I will link up Matias's work below. I want to thank everybody for sending some stuff in. I told you guys this was going to be good today and uh I hope that I delivered on that. If you have any questions or comments, drop them below. I'll see you guys in the next video. Until then, later.