Hotel Fire, Las Vegas, Nevada, 2008

Photo © Thomas Prior

As an art director it's great to have visual stimulation to get my creative juices flowing so I always look forward to seeing the Flak Photo of the day from Andy Adams. If you haven’t seen the site yet, it's a photography blogzine featuring contributions from an international artistic community and is well worth checking out. Here Andy talks more about the site and we feature his current 10 picks from Flak Photo. 

Swimmer, Aspen, Colorado, 2007

Photo © Shane Lavalette

Mb: Can you tell us about the conception of Flak Photo?

Well, I usually describe the site like this: "Flak Photo is a daily photography website featuring distinctive work from an international community of contributors. The site promotes interesting visual approaches to seeing the world and celebrates the art of exhibiting quality photography online." That's a pretty solid definition of the work I'm doing with Flak Photo, but the conception has its roots in blogging, online magazines and continuing trends in talking about contemporary photography.

I starting getting excited about the emerging blogosphere about five years ago. At the time, I was working as an editor with Flak Magazine. Not long after that, I began working at a historical photo archive, digitizing vintage photo collections and publishing and promoting them online. I knew I wanted to learn how to blog and was particularly interested in the work that Brandon Stone was doing with Photoblogs.org - basically developing a community of photographers who were blogging their photographs. I've been fascinated with magazines as long as I can remember and I love the Internet, so as I spent more time with digital imaging and web production, it was a natural transition to begin publishing contemporary photography online.

I do make pictures of my own, but I've always been drawn toward curating photography so I knew my aim would be to build a site that showed the work of other photographers. Since launching Flak Photo, I've expanded the "photo a day" format to highlight new series work and recently published photography books. I'd like to think that Flak Photo provides a place for photo artists to share their work with a wider audience. The site seems to have developed a following and is read by many photographers, galleries, publishers and editors, so I always hope that artists who show their work on flakphoto.com have an opportunity to get their pictures seen by someone who's interested in discovering more of their photography.


Rhonda and Chantelle, Perth, Western Australia, 2007

Photo © Graham Miller 

Bird's Nest, Buffalo County, Wisconsin

Photo © Keith Taylor

Mb: You have a constant stream of beautiful images on the site. Are you continually sent images from photographers, or do you look for new material yourself?

First off, thank you! My review process is a combination of both approaches. I maintain an open submission policy with the site, so photographers who read the blog share their work with me on a daily basis. I'm always interested in discovering new, exciting photography and (obviously) love looking at pictures, so I spend a good amount of my time exploring new work online and in print. When I see something that seems like a good fit for Flak Photo, I'll contact the artist and see if they're interested in contributing and most of the time it works out.

I've been fortunate to review on a handful of photography panels, too, so have been sharing some of my favorite pictures from those experiences on the site. In fact, Flak Photo's winter schedule is compiled from two reviews I did this fall. I just rolled out a new feature which highlights a selection of images from forty photographers who participated in Photolucida's Critical Mass and I'm also showing work from four young photographers I juried for the ONAEBA Festival of Photography in Japan.

Oakland, California, 2007

Photo © Thomas Broening 

Untitled (Concave Glass Window), 1970s

Photo © Lynne Cohen

Mb: What have been the high points of running the website?

Really, the best part about publishing Flak Photo is that it provides opportunities for me to collaborate with photographers whose work I admire. I enjoy contributing to the conversation that's occurring in photography blogs and am constantly energized by the burgeoning online photography community. I've been showing new work on flakphoto.com six days a week for the past two and a half years, so have established relationships with hundreds of photographers from around the world.

I've also begun to partner with photography organizations to coordinate "group show" features that highlight work from new series, book projects and gallery exhibitions. This year, Flak Photo showed work from 3030 Press' New Photography in China, Humble Arts Foundation's 31 Under 31: Young Women in Art Photography, Hamburger Eyes Photo Magazine's Inside Burgerworld, the Photographic Resource Center's EXPOSURE: The PRC Annual Juried Exhibition, Center's Review Santa Fe 2008, PhotoShelter's ELEVATION 2008: Student Competition, the Art Director's Club's ADC Young Guns 6, Big City Press' Hijacked, Volume One: Australia & America, and David Wright + Ethan Jones' Pause to Begin.

I think one of the exciting parts about Flak Photo is that it's taken shape as a result of the open communication afforded us by email and the Internet. More and more photographers and photography organizations are using the Web to talk about their work, so what I'm doing is a natural extension of that. I hope the site is playing some part in shrinking the gap among the online creative community and providing new opportunities for discovery.


Nanshan, Guangdong Province, China, 2006

Photo © Dustin Shum 


Papaya, 2006

Photo © Kathryn Parker Almanas

Mb: Is running Flak Photo a full time job? Do you have any other projects in the pipeline?

Flak Photo isn't a full-time job at the moment. I spend my days working at an arts organization where I live in Madison, Wisconsin and publish the site when there's time in-between. I'm also working on a handful of photo / web projects when I'm able. Partnering with artists to promote their work online is an important part of my focus with this project and I'm developing some new ideas for how I can expand the site's coverage of series work, photography books and gallery exhibitions. I'd also like to show more photographers from outside of North America and am beginning to brainstorm approaches to merge Flak Photo's online / offline presence. We'll see what happens...


Jenna, Queens, New York, 2007

Photo © Keliy Anderson-Staley

Mb: Do you have one great image that sticks out in your memory from all the Flak Photos you’ve featured?

Oh, man - it's impossible to say! I've shown over 600 photographs on the site and they've all caught my eye at one time or another. I'm including ten of my recent favorites here, which should give you a hint at my aesthetic sensibilities.

Untitled #3, Murmansk, Kola Pensinsula, Northern Russia, 2005

Photo © Simon Roberts  

Andy Adams is the editor of Flak Photo, a daily photography website that has featured distinctive photography from an international community of contributors since July 2006. The site promotes interesting approaches to seeing the world and celebrates the art of exhibiting quality photography on the web. *Available online at www.flakphoto.com. 

Thanks so much to Andy Adams for spending time on this interview and compiling such great images for the factory!