Thursday, July 22, 2010

Phil Toledano

I've been looking at the work of Phil Toledano for the past few days. He's that rare combination of commercial and fine art photographer that I see too few of. I have great respect for anyone who can live with the day to day rigors of assignment photography and still find the time and energy to produce work destined for books and galleries.

His project work has a remarkable breadth. Days With my Father is deeply personal. Bankrupt and The United States of Entertainment are quite political. And Phonesex and A New Kind of Beauty are really social commentary. There are others, as well.

His assignment work is slick and funny and creative. And extremely well crafted.

Well worth a look.

3 comments:

  1. Some of his work reminds me of your work; particularly his phonesex series. It reminds me of your s&m series.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, I guess that's what intrigues me about his work. He seems to have a wide variety of interests from the movingly personal like the series with his father to the phone sex work and then all the commercial stuff. The breadth is rather stunning. I suppose I feel an affinity with someone whose work takes them in so many unusual directions.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Did you see the video on his phone sex project on youtube?

    ReplyDelete