Photographers

Laura Glabman: The Spring After The Storm

Long Island resident Laura Glabman's project reminds us of the devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy, in the shape of dead trees. She says: "'The Spring After The Storm' is a continuation of my 'Neighborhood Investigations' series where I look towards the familiar to find the groundwork for my shooting sprees. It takes years of gardening, pruning, and shaping to create and maintain the identity of a neighborhood. In one day, this foundation of hopes and dreams was swept away in the flood waters of the hurricane."

All images © Laura Glabman

"The dead trees appear everywhere in the neighborhood. Homeowners, who had to deal with repairing and replacing the contents of their homes, had no choice but to put fixing the exterior of their properties on hold as they recover their living space. It's been almost a year since the storm, and still my neighborhood has yet to fully recover. These photographs provide testimony that as with the change of seasons, there is hope for renewal but it will take a very long time."

Photographers | Permalink |

Paolo Woods: project STATE

Julio Jean Pierre, a host on Télévision Nationale d'Haïti (TNH), being made up a few minutes before going on air. Behind him, a bust of Alexandre Pétion, president of the Haitian Republic from 1806 until his death in 1818, one of the fathers of the nation.

I am happy to publish a selection of images from World Press Photo award winner and INSTITUTE artist, Paolo Woods. "With journalist Arnaud Robert, he tracked down Haitian society's invisibles, its absurd flaws and hidden aspects. He investigated the economic elites, NGOs, the profusion of FM radios, American evangelists. Month after month, he came to realize that all the substitution powers that had come to save Haiti were actually replacing Haitian authorities. And yet, in a country whose leaders have failed ever since it was founded, the population's desire for a State remains unaltered."

This colourful, insightful long-term project on the situation in Woods' adopted home of Haiti has been collected into a book to be published by Photosyntheses this month. Woods will exhibit at Photoville 2013 in Brooklyn, NY (September 19-29), and for three months at the Musée Elysée, Lausanne, opening September 20.

Can't make it? Enjoy this selection.

Radio Lumiere 90.9 FM. This is one of the oldest protestant radios. It has stations all over the country and is financed by the American and German Baptiste churches. Pastor Emile Alnève has just read from the Bible and is about to lead the listeners in prayer.

Radio Paradis 92.3FM. William is spinning from a building still under construction a few meters from the sea in the village of Tiburon, while his friends have come to check on him. The equipment for the radio has been paid by a 'Diaspora' - a Haitian living in the US. The radio is powered by solar panels and broadcasts ten hours a day.

The construction of 3,000 houses, 15 kilometers north of Port-au-Prince. The project, whose cost is evaluated at $44 million, is managed by the government and financed by the Venezuelan 'Petro Caribe' fund. Morne à Cabri.

Tent city on a soccer field that belongs to a church. After the earthquake, inhabitants of makeshift districts (Jalousie, seen in the background) sometimes pitched tents in the camps to benefit from NGO help. The most visible camps in public squares were dismantled. Pétion-Ville.

The American religious organization Global Compassion Network supplies houses built from grain silos, a gift of the Monsanto company. Torbek.

In Port-au-Prince's Notre Dame Cathedral, a man looks for iron to recycle from the ruins of the earthquake.

A game of dominos among police officers who are in charge of the security for the president. The losers of the game are designated as 'dogs' and forced to wear something that attracts the ridicule of passersby. Here, they are tied together with electric wire. Presidential Palace, Port-au-Prince.

The Croix-des-Bossales Market, where pèpès, second-hand clothing from the United States, is sorted, resized and sold wholesale. Port-au-Prince.

Mario Andrésol, though he left the Haitian National Police, still enjoys continuous protection supplied by the Ministry of the Interior. Belleville, Pétion-Ville.

Eric Jean-Baptiste, owner of Père Eternel, Haiti's second biggest lottery. Lottery, or Borlette as it is called in Haiti, is ubiquitous in the country and according to one estimate Haitians spend as much as $1.5 billion per year on the Borlette making it the biggest industry in the country. The son of one of Papa Doc's Tonton Macoutes, Jean-Baptiste has utter contempt for the mulatto elite that rules the core of the Haitian economy. Port au Prince.

Michel Joseph Martelly in front of the presidential palace destroyed by the January 12, 2010, earthquake. Port-au-Prince.

A borlette office. Haitians invest two billion dollars every year in these private lotteries - nearly a quarter of the GNP. They are often referred to as "banks" since the poor invest their money in them. Camp Perrin.

All images Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

Special thanks to Anna-Maria Pfab, Cultural Manager, INSTITUTE

Exhibitions, News, Photographers | Permalink |

Jose Porroche: Simple, Fun

Some light-heartedness from Barcelona-based self-proclaimed amateur photographer Jose Porroche because, why not? #BumBookends

All images © Jose Porroche

Photographers | Permalink |

Douglas Ljungkvist: Ocean Beach

Since 2009, Douglas Ljungkvist has been photographing the Ocean Beach neighborhood of New York's Fire Island, before and after hurricane Sandy. Long story short, Doug is compiling his impressive photographs into a book and his fundraiser is in the final throes. Chip in, so I can get my copy!

"This project is study of a unique place in the American landscape that appeals to my vernacular taste and sense of style and order. As a photographer I am interested in the cottages still showing signs of a bygone era when wood paneling, vibrant colors, and kitsch decorations were the order of the day. I always felt it was a race against time to visually preserve the cottages. That was based on the rapid pace of cottages being renovated and modernized to attract more potential vacationers on the competitive rental market.

But instead it was nature that pushed me to continue the project after I thought it was completed, due to the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in October, 2012. Once access was restored to the barrier island in early 2013 I resumed photographing extensively with a focus on the cottages facing the ocean and hardest hit. Since then 35 of the 39 ocean-facing cottages have been demolished. Hundreds more will need to be gutted or demolished due to the damage from standing water when the ocean and bay waters met."

Read about the history of Ocean Beach over on Doug's Kickstarter page whilst you browse which reward you're going to spring for...

All images © Douglas Ljunkvist

Photographers | Permalink |

Adam Krause: The Market Hotel

An aCurator favourite, photographer Adam Krause sent in these photos of Brooklyn's Market Hotel and some of its residents.

"The Market Hotel opened in 2008 in Bushwick Brooklyn as a venue for punk rock shows and loft style living for about a dozen. Both activities being done illegally due to a lack of permits and incorrect zoning. The owner recently decided to make it a legal venue and continue to play punk rock shows, but in order to get the building to code, its current residents must move out. These are portraits and interiors of the residents during the final days of the Market Hotel."

Thanks Adam! I love the collages!

All images © Adam Krause

Photographers | Permalink |

David Chancellor: Hunters

Xhosa huntsman with lynx # I, South Africa © David Chancellor/INSTITUTE

Elyse Weingarten reviews the extremely impressive book Hunters, a photographic essay by David Chancellor (text by Bill Kouwenhoven. Published by the good people at Schilt, March 2013)

"If I am rabid, I am equal to what is outside." Paula Fox, Desperate Characters.

  Photographer David Chancellor's book, Hunters, explores the psychology of the hunter, documenting the safaris that comprise the big game trophy industry in southern Africa. The book is divided into two parts, the first containing over a hundred full-page photographs set deep in the African wildlife; among them, portraits of hunters and huntresses posing with their prey, in the instant after the kill. It is this exigent moment - and the hope for what it could reveal - that propelled Chancellor to join hunting safaris with seasoned, lifelong hunters throughout his adopted country of South Africa, and Namibia and Zimbabwe. Each kill is a "trophy," and the rarer the species, the better.

Bow hunters in blind, Eastern Cape, South Africa

The question this book begs is "why?" Why have these hunters come all the way from their home countries to hunt animals they know to be dangerous and endangered, and come back again and again? It seems that the rush of the kill is what is being sold. The ultimate freedom is to kill, and with a hunting license, death becomes the ultimate commodity. The absence of blood on the photographed hunters, except for the occasional shirt or the ceremoniously blood-smeared face, is conspicuous. In this very lucrative business, death is sanitized.

The second part of the book contains the breathtaking photo narrative, "Elephant Story," taken near a national park in Zimbabwe. Here, the thrill of big game hunting is replaced by the consumption of game meat by a local population. The twelve photographs of this series sequentially show villagers descend upon a dead elephant and skin it, collecting the flesh for meat until all that is left are skeletal remains and bloody chunks of unusable innards. In contrast to the hunters who visit and use the gaming industry as a spiritual or aesthetic gain, those who crowd around the elephant's body are just another part of the sustainability of the natural environment. They do not shy from the blood of the animal. Here, in this landscape, death is not tidy. - Elyse Weingarten

Huntress, skinners and a nyala, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Hunter and wife, game farm, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Huntress with impala, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Novice hunter with cell phone and blesbok, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Novice hunter with recovered bullet, Bray, Northern Cape, South Africa

Huntress with buck, South Africa. Winner of the Taylor Wessing portrait prize 2010, National Portrait Gallery, London

Fallen giraffe, Somerset East, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Elephant detail # II, Zimbabwe

All images © David Chancellor/INSTITUTE

David Chancellor, born in London, England, works and lives in South Africa. Many thanks go to David, to his agency INSTITUTE and to Schilt Publishing.

Books, Photographers | Permalink |

Rita Rivera: Speak English

Rita_Rivera_29.PitcherandballF.Rodriquez.jpg

Felix Rodriquez, San Francisco Giants © Rita Rivera

'Speak English! The Rise of Latinos in Baseball' (Kent State University Press. Text by Rafael Hermoso) is a new book featuring images by Rita Rivera. Rita was introduced to me by my friend and colleague Mary Engel whose mum, Ruth Orkin, Rita used to assist. Mary works hard to maintain the archive of both her parents - her dad was Morris Engel - and I'm thrilled she hooked me up with Rita and introduced me to this project about the important role Latinos increasingly play in league baseball and the prejudice they still face.

Manny Ramirez, Boston Red Sox

Here's the blurb for you baseball fans.

"'Speak English! The Rise of Latinos in Baseball chronicles how much - and how little - has changed since the first Latino played in the big leagues in the nineteenth century. By the middle of the next century, the Alous, Vic Power, and Rico Carty worked to earn their place in the game amid taunts and ridicule. Today, even established players and stars may be told to speak English in clubhouses, eliciting cringes or shrugs from individuals who are seemingly still hurting."

Vic Power

"Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig offers a foreword full of nostalgia and pride. The afterword by Omar Minaya describes his experience playing ball in Queens and being the first Hispanic general manager in baseball. Speak English! selects the stories of 45 players to illustrate the collective history of Latinos in baseball and is illustrated with photographic portraits of many of them."

Wilton and Vladimir Guerrero

"Today, more than a quarter of all major leaguers are Latino, and most began as outsiders. Globalization unearthed baseball in San Pedro de Macoris, Caguas, and Maracay. American teams looked abroad for talent and cheap wages, carving baseball diamonds out of sugarcane fields. Players in their teens left their families. Those from Cuba knew they were possibly leaving for the rest of their lives, just for the chance to play in a country still struggling with diversity in the 1950s and 1960s.

Yet many Latino players still speak as if not much has changed. Far from perfect, their no-rules journey to professional contracts has increased the risk of taking improper shortcuts. Several players were implicated recently in the use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. Others admitted to shaving years off their ages, allowing them to compete with an advantage against younger players."

Ed Figueroa, The Yankees

"The great Latino story is also one of glory, as some of the best players in major league history tell of their hard voyage to baseball's mainland. The tale is likewise one of realists, and readers will not find anything in these stories that does not exist in other walks of life. The story is not clean, but it is compelling. Like baseball, there's enough to love in it to keep coming back to it as generations learn from the ups and downs of the Latino role in baseball, and its rightful place in history."

Felipe Alou, San Francisco Giants

Albert Pujols, St.Louis Cardinals

Luis Tiant played with Boston Red Sox

Photographers | Permalink |

Stephen Tomasko: Congratulations

Stephen Tomasko stopped by to see me in my offline world at ClampArt and told me his good news: his project 'First Place and our Congratulations' was awarded an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for 2013. Here are some new images from the series, and a link to my previous post.

Photographers | Permalink |

Sheila Turner-Seed: A Photographic Memory

This is just wonderful, you're all going to love it and fund it. Watch the video - it features the delicious Bruce Davidson.

Short version from Rachel Seed, whose mum died in the same year that Rachel was born:

"I am making a documentary film, A Photographic Memory, that revisits some rare interviews and films that my late mother, Sheila Turner-Seed, produced in the early 1970's with ICP's Cornell Capa called 'Images of Man.' She interviewed Henri Cartier-Bresson, W. Eugene Smith, Lisette Model, Don McCullin, Bruce Davidson and several others, and Cartier-Bresson often said it was the best interview he ever gave. I have revisited those photographers still living and am weaving together our interviews in a posthumous collaboration."

Rachel with her mum, Sheila, 1979.

Long version from the press release:

In the early 1970's, filmmaker and journalist Sheila Turner-Seed interviewed several influential photographers and produced, with International Center of Photography (ICP) founder Cornell Capa and Scholastic, the 'Images of Man' series: eight audio-visual programs that paired a photographers' images with their philosophies and motivations in their own words. Her roster included Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, W. Eugene Smith, Lisette Model, Cornell Capa, Roman Vishniac and Don McCullin. Of Turner-Seed's interview with Cartier-Bresson - a notoriously elusive interview subject - Martine Franck, Cartier-Bresson's widow, said to Rachel in their 2011 interview, "The final result certainly was one of the best.... not so much interviews, but she managed to get Henri to talk about the way he photographed and to talk about his photographs. That was quite an achievement."

After Turner-Seed's sudden death in 1979, her husband, Time-Life photographer Brian Seed, sent the raw film materials to ICP for safekeeping. In 2012, Rachel, now in her 30's, rediscovered the work, which had been sitting like a time capsule at ICP, and digitized more than 70 reels, hearing her mother's voice for the first time since she was young while uncovering her rare interviews with the photo moguls.

Rachel has since traveled to France to interview Cartier-Bresson's widow, Magnum's Martine Franck (who passed away in August 2012); spent the day with Bruce Davidson in his Upper West Side studio; caught up with Don McCullin at his War/Photography exhibit opening in Houston and filmed National Geographic's William Albert Allard at work and at leisure in Afton, Virginia.

In 'A Photographic Memory,' outtakes from Turner-Seed's interviews are revealed for the first time, woven into a posthumous mother-daughter collaboration with Rachel's follow- up photographer interviews, reconnecting the women through their shared passion for photography.

From May 21- July 2, 2013 'A Photographic Memory' will hold an all-or-nothing fundraising campaign on Kickstarter with a goal of $25,000. Funds will support the completion of film production, including Seed's upcoming interviews with contemporary photographers that will bring Turner-Seed's legacy to new audiences.

Rachel being photographed by Martine Franck.

Photographers | Permalink |

Dima Gavrysh: Soldiers of Zerok

Dima Gavrysh is a blast from my agency past, one of many photographers who I ran into through being at my day job, ClampArt. Dima has a completely and wonderfully different photojournalism life than that with which I associate him. Graduating from Rhode Island School of Design in 2012, Dima has been photographing multiple projects around the globe, including collaborations with Doctors Without Borders and the United Nations Population Fund. Dima has also been embedded several times with the US Army in Afghanistan. Here are some of his Soldiers of Zerok, "a portrait series exploring personalities of the US soldiers stationed at a remote combat outpost on the Afghan-Pakistani border."