Jason Lowry - Publisher Administrator

It's been too long since I've written anything in the present moment photography blog. For those familiar with our obsession, promoting the Intelligent Eye and considering the importance of being present when engaging our environment, you are probably okay with the long delay :). The art at Stark-Magazine is incredible and there are so many examples of art reflective of what we discuss.

I'm confident the artists here understand the importance of our art, not just as something we do, but reflective of how we live. We engage, we create, we share as a community and not just a Stark community, but as an art community throughout the world and time. Stark has never been about dominance or profits or popularity and yes, some will argue certain photos get more attention than others, but it's not the attention that matters most. The best art is reflective of our personal experiences, the vision or story we wish to share, our personal creativity. We are simply living this moment and enjoying what we do...

Thank you to all engaged here at Stark-Magazine, whether it's one photo or hundreds or maybe sharing words. Our connective involvement, no matter how long it lasts, allows us to learn from each other. Best to all.

• Special thanks to the team here at Stark-Magazine, those behind the scene and our volunteers, Danilo, Benoit, Kuki, John, Andy
• Opportunities for artists | IE13 Contest, Start a personal project
• Search the community
• Support Stark-Magazine with a Pro Membership | 25% of profits donated

Featured Exhibit

We are testing a new feature, projects.  If interested, you can create a personal project using the below link

http://stark-magazine.com/projects

You will see a button "Add Album".  Click to create the project - you can add a description and title, please include your name in the title.    Don't hesitate to get in touch if needed.

Jason

a few examples of the Intelligent Eye over the past week

© Mariano Belmar Torrecilla

© Fabienne Collard

© Dragos Ioneanu

© Jeff Mercader

© Silvana Rogazione

IE.13 As you may know or figured out at this point, we are obsessed with promoting the Intelligent Eye or vision within photography so we've created a new opportunity for artists to share their understanding of the Intelligent Eye. Of course, there are many Photo Contests each year, but we want to do something a little different. We are looking to capture and promote artists reflecting the ability to recognize and seize on an unusual moment or experience. Many factors are important in our artistic creativity...composition, etc...but the ability of an artists to see or to demonstrate vision and storytelling is difficult to master, at least in our humble opinion.

We were careful to consider the appropriate person to judge such and effort and we determined Michael Freeman was a perfect match for the objectives of this contest. Mr. Freeman is an international photographer and author publishing more than 100 books to include a recent publication focused on vision. His expertise in every area of photography makes him well qualified to judge such a contest.

meeting | © Radosveta Georgieva 

We are excited to publish a special issue of Stark-Magazine featuring a winner and selected artists participating in the contest.

There are many great sites and artists and art thriving on the web. However, we are confident this contest will result in published images demonstrating something challenging and often evading modern photography, present moment vision.

LEARN MORE - VISIT CONTEST SITE

One of the most widely published photographers worldwide, Michael Freeman has worked for most major international magazine and book publishers in a long career. A leading photographer for the Smithsonian Magazine for three decades (more than 40 assignment stories), Freeman has also published more than 120 books on subjects as varied as Angkor, Sudan, ethnic minorities in Southeast Asia, the Shakers, and contemporary Japanese design and architecture. His 50 books on the practice of photography are standard works, and have sold almost two million copies in more than 20 languages. His contribution to teaching is the photography courses at the UK’s Open College of the Arts, now to degree level in the national curriculum. London-based, Freeman travels for half of each year on shooting assignments, principally in Asia. His latest large-format reportage book is The Tea Horse Road, the result of a two-year exploration of one of the longest trade routes in the ancient world, between China and Tibet.

Introducing Ruben Redondo | evidence of a creative and intelligent eye | all art is © protected

Experience more of Ruben's art

I get the question on occasion, who are you, what do you do, where do you live, why Stark-Magazine….

The truth or answer I like to give, nobody important or special, just here in a brief moment enjoying this experience and our unique abilities as humans to imagine and to create. Stark-Magazine may have been more of an accident than determined worry or direct effort to create something special. I’ve tried many different communities and honestly, enjoyed them all. There are so many creative artists and my favorite of the many communities, Art Limited, has some great people creating great art.

Our small effort has never been about replacing or dominating or eliminating the many other great communities. Rather, there was an opportunity to refocus on what we call the Intelligent Eye, an opportunity to focus more on the creative abilities of artists, to celebrate those abilities and efforts and what has resulted, is extraordinary. We don’t focus on those details of what makes an image, “not acceptable”. Rather, we accept there is no right or wrong, there is only each individual and their perception of their own experience and how they choose to create. I do see the importance of being present as we engage, to clear our thoughts and to accept our environment as it unfolds. However, even this doesn’t suggest something as being done right or wrong.

The past year has been exciting and the creative works being shared in the online community are stunning, unexpected and special. Not because of me, but because of the artists willing to share, to create. I am just a simple man from North Carolina sharing in an experience with great friends throughout the world. I’m not extremely social, but I do love to share my creativity with others and more importantly, I love to share the creative works of others in order to promote what I consider to be some of the great photographers of our time, just my humble opinion.

You will not find a community of artists fighting with words or expressing dominate egos or telling you what’s wrong with your art. The focus here is on creative expression through photographs and occasionally a few words to help express that creativity. There is no effort here to get rich or take advantage of artists. We just want to go to offer something simple, but beautiful in the process. Importantly, we only exist because of the artists willing to share.