Shelf life: The Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward 2009

Not everyone with a brush can paint a picture, and certainly not everyone with a camera can take a photo. As Charlotte mused in Lost in Translation: “I tried taking pictures, but they were so mediocre. I guess every girl goes through a photography phase. You know, horses… taking dumb pictures of your feet.”

The Magenta Foundation (magentafoundation.org) has been encouraging emerging photographic talent for the past five years, publishing a compendium of winners each year to bring attention to their talents. The 288-page, leather-bound fifth volume, Flash Forward 2009 (Consortium, $40), features the new and also revisits the past—checking in on how the program impacted the careers of previous winners. Images range from the spontaneous and photojournalistic in feel to more staged looks at society and culture, and yes, there are even a few horses, though their translation here is far from mediocre.

Select winners will also have their works on display at the Lennox Contemporary gallery (12 Ossington Ave., Toronto) from October 8 to 25.

Click on the images below to view a gallery of photos from the book.

More Celebrity