12 Photographers Whose Work Caught My Eye At the 2016 AIPAD Photography Show

I have been criticized (by family even!) for showing expensive, out-of-reach art and antiques here on Decor Arts Now. Sorry.

Well, not sorry. I firmly believe that seeing what's at the top of the market can help you recognize a good deal when you stumble across something in your price range. The truth told, I generally don't even focus on price when I walk the halls of art and antiques shows. Obviously that shows given my recent knockdown. I look for a spark, so what you will find if you click through the slideshow in this post, is that I like to report on what moves me.

With that in mind, here are 12 photographers whose work caught my eye at the AIPAD Photography Show recently held at the Park Avenue Armory.

As is my custom, I will be sharing detail shots of their works, snapped with my iPhone as I experienced the show. I also will tell you a bit about each artist, and provide links for you to explore further. You can then deal with the messy stuff like cost on your own, if you just happen to fall in love with something. Although I am not going to discuss price, the Park Avenue Armory was packed on the Saturday I visited because there are plenty of affordable artworks at the Photography Show.

And remember, there is always Pinterest. Such a nice (free) way to save your new art favorites.....[tps_title] Niko Luoma [/tps_title]

I am drawn to the bright colors and geometry of the works by Helsinki School photographer Niko Luoma who manipulates light and light sensitive materials to create his works through multiple exposures.

[tps_title] Cig Harvey [/tps_title]

Cig Harvey began working in a darkroom at age 13 and never looked back. I am drawn to her photographs because I find them deeply optimistic. This detail is from new work by her and depicts her daughter (and reflections) in their home in Maine.

[tps_title] Samuel Gratacap [/tps_title]

Samuel Gratacap, a 32 year old French photographer, has been following the lives of refugees and migrants since 2007. He seeks to depict moments of departure and the emotions of waiting, often in overcrowded transit camps.

[tps_title]Rund Van Empel [/tps_title]

Fans on my Facebook Page and followers on Instagram know that I am currently obsessed with portraiture. Except that Rund van Empel's "portraits" are not portrayals of a real person. Van Empel uses photographs to combine fragments of various features and background imagery to create an idealized representation. He says that many people think they recognize the people in his photographs but this is impossible. He calls his work digital collages.

[tps_title]Paulette Tavormina[/tps_title]

So we all have our personal favorites, right. Obviously I like everything in this post, but someday I hope I can buy a photograph by Paulette Tavormina. She creates beautifully nuanced and detailed still lifes inspired by Old Master paintings. I desperately want one from her Natura Morta series.

[tps_title]Ysabel LeMay [/tps_title]

Ysabel LeMay also works with digital collage. She travels extensively to photograph fragments of nature---plants, animals and the elements-- and then combines them in an instinctual way to create fantastical worlds of paradise. Her smaller works can consist of 150-200 fragments, larger ones more like 300-600. She finds the painstaking process of extracting each fragment from a photograph meditative. Look closely and remember that each flower, leaf, branch and the butterfly all came from different photographs.[tps_title]Ni Rong [/tps_title]

Ni Rong came to photography later in life--she started focusing on her photography as an art form at age 49. Rong was born in Beijing China and came to the United States for graduate school where she earned at doctorate in philosophy from Tufts. This image is a detail from her photograph "In America- Winter #6," which belongs to a group of self portraits where she explores Asian-American identity and a sense of belonging.

[tps_title]Rachel Perry Welty [/tps_title]

Rachel Perry Welty works in a variety of mediums where she explores how identity is shaped and subsumed by today's consumer culture. She sums her work up succinctly: “What I am doing here is trying to comment on the daily life of one small life on this planet as it may relate to art and that is all.” To me, this example of her work is a very witty statement on the creative process.

[tps_title]Sebastiaan Bremer [/tps_title]

Dutch artist Sebastiaan Bremer is known for transforming quickly taken snapshots with an elaborate process of retouching and enlargement. Typically, he isolates an element in an ordinary photo and supersizes it. Bremer then paints on the snapshot with india ink and photographic dye. This is a detail image from a recent work in his "Flower" series.

[tps_title]Michael Massaia[/tps_title]

Michael Massaia shoots his eerie photographs in the small hours which accounts for their unworldly stillness. He photographs with film the old fashioned way. There are no multiple exposures or digital manipulation. I have long been a fan.

[tps_title]Abelardo Morell [/tps_title]

Abelardo Morell is best known for his camera obscura images where exterior spaces are projected onto interior spaces usually upside down. I saw this example at the show. Recently he has started to manipulate multiple exposures to create flower still life, but most intriguingly "still" is an oxymoron. Morell uses the many exposures to capture the passage of time (and demise of the flowers) in a single image.[tps_title] Norman Parkinson [/tps_title]

Ending with a classic, Norman Parkinson is an iconic fashion photographer who claimed he was simply a craftsman, not an artist. I disagree, don't you? Wish we still travelled in such style.