Dinner. Village of Zorin, Exclusion Zone, Chernobyl by Donald Weber

Forest. Exclusion Zone, Chernobyl by Donald Weber

Rocky Mountain greetings collectors! It's Sara Distin, writing from Colorado. The Eagle River is running high and loud as the sun is melting off all the snow — I'm trying not to get distracted from the task at hand, so first things first: tomorrow is the last day to vote for 20x200 in the Webby Awards. Please help us win! It's easy: register, click on your confirmation email and vote! You can find us in the Art category, under Entertainment. We've all cast our own ballots, which is good because, as per usual, Team JBP is scattered across the country.

Jen's on her way to NEXT in Chicago and headed straight for The Merchandise Mart to meet Jeffrey Teuton and arrange Sarah McKenzie's paintings, which include two brand new works that were not featured in her recent show at the JB Gallery. If you're in the area and want to swing by the fair, drop J+J a note at info at jenbekman dot com and they'll hook you up with some free passes!

In spite of these events and all our adventures near and far, none of us are as far flung as today's edition-maker; Canadian-born photographer Donald Weber usually calls Kiev and Moscow home. The first time I wrote about Donald's work was right after he entered Hey, Hot Shot! at the end of 2008. He had won a Guggenheim Fellowship the previous year and before that the Lange Taylor Prize and a World Press Award, so we all knew who he was. We were, frankly, a little stunned and completely thrilled that he had entered HHS! Since then, via iPhone emails from Eastern Europe, we've talked about books, planned an exhibition, asked and answered a few Qs and As, and finally, worked out the details of these editions. It's been a long haul!

Way back at the beginning, as I wrote on the HHS! blog, Forest. Exclusion Zone, Chernobyl immediately made me think of one of my favorite books, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and the father and son sifting through post-apocalyptic woods in their search for the very basics for survival. As I read more about the photographs, whatever rang in my gut that linked the two works proved true. Weber's been documenting the people living within the 40 kilometer ring around the city of Pripyat, known as the Zone of Alienation or the Exclusion Zone, evacuated immediately after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Since the explosion, an assortment of outcasts have returned to the area, favoring rural lifestyles over the industrial pace in the rest of Ukraine.

It may be because we idealize the pastoral life that Weber's characters, like the father and daughter preparing rabbit in Dinner. Village of Zorin, Exclusion Zone, Chernobyl appear to have stepped out of a 15th Century painting or novel. Donald's work is steeped in literature and a sense of history with strong narratives arcing throughout; it's clear he's read his Dostoevsky. Where fiction seeps into the real lie revelations that are difficult to enunciate but impossible to hide once illuminated by the camera. In this case, as Weber writes, "it's the curse of power, and the wounds it inflicts on those who don’t have it."

Weber's life also seems to be one straight from a book, led by chance and circumstance and the belief that all will work out in the end. After a stint as an architect with Rem Koolhaas, he marks his decision to become a photographer by a series of decisive moments, among them the collapse of communism, a high school teacher telling him he was a terrible photographer, and sliding across the top of a Chevy after being hit on his motorcycle. This combination of political, personal, and physical experiences resonates in all of his photographs; spend some time on his website and you'll see what I mean. It's powerful, poetic stuff — classical, elegant images from worlds not so far away from our own. It's as if Weber, like McCarthy's father and son, is here to bring us stories of the future and from the past to the present — to carry the fire.

Jen will be back tomorrow with all her fire, and more editions from another fantastic Hot Shot!