What is the mystery of photography? Why do we love the static image? What is it that these fragments of reality, frozen in time tell us? What is it about the photograph’s ability to transcend commonplace existence that has taken it from an unrecognized set of chemical reactions to the most popular and life-changing art-form the history of the world has ever seen?
Are we seeking knowledge of our place within the greater universal complexity? Or could it be that we are a conceited bunch of heretic animals in love with …

SNJEZANA JOSIPOVIC is immediately enigmatic. Her voice is such that you feel the words rather than hear them, like an animal’s growl, a kick drum in the dark, or a wave’s crash on rocks. And at the same time she’s sweet and laughs a lot, which covers for the lack of silence. Let me explain. Snjezana’s photographs are engrossing and although varying greatly in theme, content and technical wizardry, the overall feel is one of a vast inner life, bustling with behind-the-scenes activity, yet covered by an invisible veil which …

HESO contributor Arnaud de Grave interviews Charlotte Østervang about her photographic work in the Danish freetown Christiania

HESO contributor Deborah Shamoon looks at the past of gender roles in Japan to see the future of women

Polaroid cameras put pizzazz and spontaneity into any party, and make camera geeks out of all of us. In the right hands they can produce serious (and seriously beautiful) art. What’s not to like about the Polaroid?
Profit.
So says the Polaroid Corporation as it tolls the death knell of a camera that changed photography and, its corollary, how we see the world. Apparently, the ‘instant film camera’ just isn’t instant enough for the growing numbers of digital users who, in a supposed age of impatience and vaporous attention spans, want …

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died this past week, but it is not true to say that we suffered a terrible loss with his passing.
There can be no question that his passing will be noted. If not all of us collectively, I, at least, will certainly miss him. But Mr. Vonnegut described to us throughout his life the one true, terrible loss we all suffer without exception. His work was an obituary he wrote to us over and over to remind us of a thing we had already gone, …

On a recent Friday night I left Canal City Theatre here in Fukuoka with an annoying jingle stuck in my head and a fluffy mouth – I’d had my scarf, a nice felt one, stuffed in it – all the way through an aural assault in stereo. I was subjected to howling on-stage and off; the excruciating wail “Oh Mistah Bo-o-ow-Jaangu-rusu…” from a performance of Song and Dance and echoes of coughing and stifled laughter from a whole row of gaijin. Aware of the line of 1980s-esque latex-clad chorus hovering …