Emiliano Granado is opening an exhibition of his hot-of-the-press new series, Time for Print, at Eyelevel Gallery in Brooklyn tonight (6-9pm). Originally from Argentina, Emiliano Granado now lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, and has been fascinated with all forms of popular culture. His site is ripe with cultural phenomenons, such as Spring Break:

or Ghostbusters:

or Beauty Pagents:

and Motor Speedways:

But for the last 4 years, Emiliano has been navigating the waters of a site called Model Mayhem, a place where photographers, models, hair and makeup artists, and stylists offer their services, sometime for pay, but often for TFP: Time for Prints, to use in building their portfolios. The ironic result is that many of the “models” and, possibly the “photographers” are not of a quality that would ever make it in the real world. It’s a sad statement about people so hungry for, as Gloria Swanson so aptly put it, Their Close-up. I must add that my edit of Emiliano’s images were slanted towards a certain type of “model”, but his series does include sitters that could have a brief moment in the sun (this assessment comes from my many years as a fashion editor and hiring models…)

Time for Print or Test for Print, often abbreviated TFP, is a term used in many online photography communities describing an arrangement betweeen a model and a photographer whereby both parties invest only their time and expertise in order to advance their portfolios and improve their skills. No money is exchanged.

This body of work is a catalog of portraits from Model Mayhem shot over the last four years. Inspired by the classic work of Sander, Time for Print attempts to catalog the desire for fame, beauty, and exhibitionism in today’s Internet Age. The photographs serve as a foggy mirror to mainstream fashion, beauty, and portrait photography. The models were cast online and agreed to be photographed for no payment in their homes, at a hotel, or the photographer’s studio.

“It was important to get a sense of who they were and how they representing themselves” Says Emiliano. “One of my goals was to try to understand the fascination with Celebrity and exhibition. After four years of working on this project, and I’m still not sure I understand. My interest in other peoples’ obsession with being seen, is very much alive”.