Both Sides of the Table: Photography Portfolio Reviews Do's & Don'ts (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781956313208)

Debe Arlook (b. 1962) is an award-winning Los Angeles-based artist crossing the boundaries of conceptual and documentary photography. Originally from New Jersey, she attended American University in Washington, DC, and graduated with degrees in film and media arts and psychology, which inform her photographic practice.

Inspired by her dedication to personal growth and spiritual practices, Arlook's projects express the porous boundaries between human and mystical experiences. She blends multiple photographic styles using landscape, conceptual, and documentary photography to communicate these observations.

Arlook is the recipient of the 2024 Working Assumptions Grant and the Klompching 2024 People's Choice Award. She is a FRESH 2024 Finalist, Critical Mass TOP 200 Finalist 2024, 2021; FOCUS Photo L.A. Finalist 2023, 2019; Critical Mass Top 50 Finalist 2022; CENTER Social Award Honorable Mention, 2022; and LensCulture Summer Open Finalist 2022. Her work is widely published and exhibited in museums and galleries in solo and group exhibitions in the US and Europe and in numerous private collections. Features include those in LensCulture, Feature Shoot, All About Photo, Lenscratch, Fraction Magazine, Strange Fire, L'Oeil de la Photographie, and Frames Magazine. Arlook is best known for her project one, one thousand . . ., an unconventional documentary revealing the impact lifelong dependency has on a mother and son, as well as Witness and foreseeable cache, both focusing on the experience of meditation seen through a study of America's sublime landscape. Books and catalogs include Memory Orchards: Photographers and Their Families (Candela Books), california love--a visual mixtape (Cali Editions), Perceive Me (Edition One Books), HUQ: I Seek No Favor (for the fiftieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, fifty artists and thinkers respond to the decision overturn).

In 2016, she founded Arlook Printing Services, providing boutique assistance for fine-art photographers, including project development, portfolio preparation, and exhibition planning. Arlook is a mentor and consultant for emerging and established artists. In addition to leading lectures and presentations, she teaches teenagers and adults and conducts multigenerational workshops based on creating a personal visual language and trusting one's artistic journey. She has been on faculty at the Los Angeles Center of Photography since 2021. Arlook is a contributing editor for PhotoBook Journal (an international virtual magazine) and an advisor with Pasadena Photography Arts (PPA educates and promotes established and emerging photographers worldwide) and Open Show Pasadena (a global platform that offers photographers at all levels an opportunity to present their work online and in person in thirty-one cities and fifteen countries).

To learn more about her, visit www.debearlookphotography.com.

Eric T. Kunsman (b. 1975) was born and raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. While in high school, he was heavily influenced by the death of the steel industry and its place in American history. Exposure to the work of Walker Evans during this time hooked Eric into photography. Eric had the privilege of studying under Lou Draper, who became Eric's most formative mentor. He credits Lou with influencing his approach as an educator, photographer, and contributing human being.

Eric holds his MFA in book arts/printmaking from University of the Arts in Philadelphia and holds an MS in electronic publishing/graphic arts media, a BS in biomedical photography, and a BFA in fine art photography, all from Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York.

He is a photographer and book artist now based out of Rochester. Eric works at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) as an assistant professor in the Visual Communications Studies Department at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) and is an adjunct professor for RIT's School of Photographic Arts and Sciences.

In addition to lectures, he provides workshops on topics including his artistic practice, digital printing, and digital workflow processes. He provided industry seminars for the highly regarded Printing Applications Lab at RIT. His photographs and books are exhibited internationally and are in several collections. He currently owns Booksmart Studio, which is a fine-art digital printing studio specializing in numerous techniques and services for photographers and book artists on a collaborative basis.

Eric's work has been exhibited in more than thirty-five solo exhibitions at such venues as Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, Wyoming; Hoyt Institute of Fine Art, New Castle, Pennsylvania; Los Angeles Center for Digital Art; and numerous university galleries. His work has also been a part of more than 150 group exhibitions over the past four years, including exhibitions at the Center for Photography, A. Smith Gallery, SPIVA, San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, Spartanburg Museum of Art, Atlanta Photography Group, CEPA Gallery, Site: Brooklyn, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, and many more.

Eric was named one of ten B & W photographers to watch of 2018 by BWGallerist; was a winner of Dodho Magazine's B & W Best Photographers of the Year in 2019 and a finalist in 2022; won the Association of Photography (UK) Gold Award for Open Series in 2019; was a finalist in Top 200 Critical Mass 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022; was a finalist in Top 50 Critical Mass 2022; was a Top 15 Photographer for the Rust Belt Biennial; and was a Lensculture B & W Jurors' Pick 2021. His project Felicific Calculus was also awarded a Warhol Foundations Grant through CEPA Gallery in Buffalo, New York. Eric's work has also been published in magazines such as Bloomberg Businessweek, LensWork, Dodho, B&W Photography, Analog Explorations, All About Photo, Black+White Photography (UK), and Dek Unu, along with online articles by Analog Forever Magazine, Catalyst: Interviews, Texas Photo Society, and others.

There's no "given formula" for what demands Eric's focus as a photographer. Eric is as drawn to the landscapes and neglected towns of the American Southwest as he is to the tensions of struggling rustbelt cities in the US Northeast. Eric is attracted to objects left behind, especially those that hint at a unique human narrative, a story waiting to be told. Eric's current work explores one of those relics: working payphones hidden in plain sight throughout the neighborhood near his studio in Rochester, New York. Associates suggested they signified a high-crime area. This project has shown Eric something very different.

To learn more about Eric, visit www.erickunsman.com.