Photojournalism Now: Japan

Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts

June 26, 2015

Friday Round Up - 26 June, 2015

This week a look at three incredibly powerful photo essays including Arnau Bach’s seminal work, Suburbia, plus Bruce Gilden hits the Paris Metro, Australians on show at PhotoIreland and Auckland Festival of Photography’s inaugural charity auction.

Photo Essays:
Japanese American Internment Survivors
Paul Kitagaki Jr

During WWII more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned in camps in the USA. Dorothea Lange, amongst others, photographed many of those detained in California. Photographer Paul Kitagaki Jr’s family was amongst them. 70 years later he has revisited those original photographs, tracking down others pictured and where possible shooting them in the same location as the original images. Kitagaki also interviewed his subjects about their experiences. It’s an emotional series that reminds us the human toll of war extends far beyond the battlefields to impact those who through their ethnicity are fated to be called enemies. To see more images and read the full story visit Mother Jones

Dorothea Lange also photographed Kitagaki’s family. Above, his grandparents Suyematsu Kitagaki and Juki Kitagaki are with their children, Kimiko (11yo) and his father Kiyoshi (14yo) in Oakland, California. They were interned in the Topaz Internment Camp in Utah in 1942.Below: In this photo Paul Kitagaki Jr. (far right) is pictured with his father (centre) and aunt Kimiko (second from left) at the same location as the original photograph.

Above: This iconic image by Dorothea Lange features 70-year-old Sakutaro Aso and his grandsons Shigeo Jerry Aso and Sadao Bill Aso. They were deported from California in 1942. Bill (below right) told Kitagaki, "When I look at the picture, I can see my grandfather realized that something terrible was happening and his life was never going to be the same again. That was the end of the line for him”.

Shigeo Jerry Aso and Sadao Bill Aso (C) Paul Kitagaki Jr

Above: Helene Nakamoto Mihara (left) and Mary Ann Yahiro (center) taken by Dorothea Lange in San Francisco 1942. Both girls ended up in Topaz Internment Camp in Utah. Mary Ann, pictured on the right below with Helene, and her mother were separated and never saw each other again.

Girls in Justice
Richard Ross

“Been here two months for a violation. They make me take out all the studs they can. But the one in my throat and in my cheeks are implants. I ran away from placement. It was a group home with 65 kids in Critinton, Orange County.” 15 year old.

American photographer and academic Richard Ross has been working on his long term project to document the juvenile justice system in that country for the best part of a decade. After photographing detention centres in more than 30 states Ross has no doubt the system is failing these kids. He hopes his photographs can shine a light on the plight that a growing number of American teens face.

“I should be a sophomore but I have no credits for school. The last grade I completed was eighth. My mom visits. She isn’t a parent; she’s a teenager in a parent body.” 16 year old.

Girls make up the largest number of juvenile detainees in the system and some are as young as ten. Ross, who is a professor at the University of California, has published a second book on the project - Girls in Justice - that specifically focuses on this group. Many are in detention for minor offences, and carry the scars of emotional and physical abuse often at the hands of their families. Others have nowhere else to go.

Ross photographs the girls to obscure their faces. “If you see a face, you can say, ‘well, I’m glad that’s not my kid. But if the face is obscured, it could stand in for anybody’s kid,” he says.

“I was four months when I first came in the system. My mom didn’t have a house; she lost it. I’m here with my sister, but my sister’s now with a foster family. If it works out, she gets to stay. But she told me it’s not gonna work out and she’ll be back to see me.” 11 year old.

“They took me from my mom at age 12 because she’s had drug problems. She was beating me, and I was molested by her friends. I think I was born in Asheville, North Carolina, but at this point I don’t really live anywhere.” 15 year old.

“My mom is deceased. Drug overdose. I stayed with my auntie until I was 11 in Compton. She was abusive, verbally and physically. I went to maybe 15–20 foster homes.” 16 year old.

You can see more of Richard Ross’s work on juveniles in justice on the website Juvenile in Justice
Read the full interview with Ross at Slate.com

Suburbia
Arnau Bach

Spanish photographer Arnau Bach spent four years photographing the inhabitants of Seine-Saint-Denis, one of the most populated, and poverty stricken areas of Paris. Here 1.5 million people live in close quarters. Unemployment and crime are high and hope for a better tomorrow faint. On his website Arnau says, “This work seeks to reflect on the lifestyle of youth in these ghettos: their gregarious existence and their love for hip-hop culture, the lack of opportunity and the absence of social services and recreational facilities which leads them to stay idle in the streets. Beyond the harshness of their social codes, youth culture rebels as an act of resistance against of a present where they don’t have much to gain and even less to lose.”

To see more of his work click here

Bruce Gilden
Paris Metro

Through October, RATP, the world's fifth largest public transport company will feature photographs by Magnum Photos' Bruce Gilden in 16 of its subway stations. The theme of the exhibition is urban mobility in the five cities where the RATP group operates: Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Manchester, New York and Paris. Gilden’s 41 photographs will be on display in multiple locations totaling nearly 300 images.

All Photos: (C) Bruno Marguerite RATP

PhotoIreland
Dublin

Australians have a strong presence at this year’s Photoireland which kicks off on 1st July in Dublin for a month. Melbourne’s Katrin Koenning continues her European tour with an exhibition of new works; the Australian Centre for Photography presents Island - Australia a group show curated by Claire Monneraye that features a range of genres from street photography to documentary and fine art with works by Markus Andersen, Katelyn Jane-Dunn, Charles Kasprzak, Kristian Laemmle-Ruff, Jesse Marlow, Raphaela Rosella, Chris Round, David Maurice Smith, Juliet Taylor and Wouter Van De Voorde and; the Asia Pacific Photobook Archive will also present a selection of books from its collection. To find out more visit the Festival here

Auckland Festival of Photography

Charity Auction

On Tuesday 30th June, the inaugural Auckland Festival of Photography Charity Auction will be held at 6.30pm at Webb’s at 23-25 Falcon St Parnell. You can bid on photographic works by emerging and established New Zealand photographers. There’s 55 photographic works up for grabs. Check out the catalogue here.

April 10, 2015

Friday Round Up - 10 April, 2015

This week on Friday Round Up new exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney, plus the 2015 Getty Grants for Editorial Photography round is now open.

Photos of the Week:

Lynsey Addario - India's Insurgency

National Geographic

Coal worker Ajay Marijan carries a load from an open-pit mine to a waiting

truck in Bokapahari, Jharkhand state (C) Lynsey Addario

At an ad hoc restaurant, men prepare breakfast for workers clocking in for the

morning shift at the coal-based Jindal Tamnar thermal power plant, in the

Raigarh district, Chhattisgarh (C) Lynsey Addario

Exhibitions:

Melbourne

Polaroid Resurrection
by FilmNeverDie

This group show at Melbourne’s Photonet is part of the global ExPolaroid Exhibition Festival being held in 40 cites around the world. ExPolaroid began in France and is held annually in April. This year there are 57 events. Melbourne’s FilmNeverDie is run by a group of film enthusiasts who sell a range of photographic film types and hosts forums for those who are keen to know more about the medium. Polaroid Resurrection is the first exhibition by FilmNeverDie.

Photonet Gallery
15a Railway Place
Fairfield
Until 22 April

Rob Love - Timeless

Melbourne based Rob Love uses extended shutter speeds to capture these painterly images of water. Made in camera without the aid of computer manipulation, Love’s images are both abstract and documentary in their capacity to at once demonstrate the power of nature and its ethereal beauty. Love produces single prints rather than limited editions and his work is held in collections in Australia and the USA.

Colour Factory
409-429 Gore Street
Fitzroy

Until 2 May
Artist Talk; Saturday 18 April, 2pm

Sydney:

Jane Brown - Black Ships

hand print,17 x 21cm courtesy of the artist and Stills Gallery, Sydney

Australian photographic artist Jane Brown’s latest series, Black Ships, is named after the term used by the Japanese in reference to Western water crafts approaching Japan’s shores and dates back to the 16th Century when Portugese fleets painted the hulls of their ships with pitch. Black Ships became symbolic of the opening of borders.

Black Ships is Brown's first exhibition at Stills Gallery and draws on this symbolism through the use of various visual tropes – “pathways and bridges to reflect the idea of a journey, bandaging and wrapping symbolic of past wounds, walls and fences figurative of boundaries and cultural isolation, nature and decay referencing the Japanese concept of mono no aware (mortality and a pathos for the transience of things)”.

“Ultimately, Black Ships is a travelogue that looks to the strange machinations of history, and at the same time, a reflection on contemporary Japan...More broadly it is an articulation of curiosity, seeking out points of difference from home – the peculiar, the beautiful and the unfamiliar.”

hand printed, 17 x 21cm courtesy of the artist and Stills Gallery, Sydney

hand print, 17 x 21cm courtesy of the artist and Stills Gallery, Sydney

Stills Gallery
36 Gosbell Street
Paddington
Until 2 May

Grants:
Getty Grants for Editorial Photography

In 2015 there are five Getty Grants for Editorial Photography on offer valued at $10,000 each. The Grants are designed to celebrate and support independent photojournalism. Applications are open until 13 May and winners will be announced in September, 2015.

Judges for this year are photojournalist Lynsey Addario, Jon Jones Director of Photography Sunday Times Magazine, Matthias Krug, International Director of Photography Der Spiegel, Romain Lacroix, Director of Photography Paris Match and Jean Francois Leroy, Director General Visa pour l’Image.

(C) Giulio di Sturco

Last year’s winners were Giulio di Sturco for his body of work titled Ganges: Death of a River; Juan Arredondo for Born in Conflict; Jordi Busqué for his award-winning portfolio, The Mennonites of Bolivia; Krisanne Johnson, for South Africa's Post-Apartheid Youth and; French photojournalist, William Daniels for his CAR in Chaos body of work.

(C)Krisanne Johnson

In Brief:

Defending Gallipoli: A Turkish Standpoint

Until 3 May
Monash Gallery of Art
860 Ferntree Gully Road
Wheelers Hill

March 06, 2015

Friday Round Up - 6th March, 2015

"The story of women's struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights" Gloria Steinem

This week Friday Round Up celebrates International Women’s Day (March 8) by featuring the work of a diverse group of female photographers – Darcy Padilla, Mary F. Calvert, Farzana Hossen, Katie Orlinsky, Stephanie Sinclair, Louise Whelan, Nicola Dracoulis, Fatemeh Behboudi, Viviane Dalles and Shiho Fukada. Plus Christina Brown who was the first UK press photographer at the turn of the last century.

Darcy Padilla
The Julie Project

Based in San Francisco, Darcy is a multi-award winner who after internships with the New York Times and Washington Post, chose the precarious life of a documentary photographer. More than 20 years on her commitment to what can only be considered a vocation is unwavering and best evidenced in her long term story The Julie Project which she began in 1993 and pursued for 21 years. In this story Darcy chronicles the life of single mother Julie Baird whom she met when Julie was living on the streets; a poverty stricken teenager, strung out on heroin, and suffering from AIDS. This story is not only the portrayal of one woman’s struggle with the hand dealt her, but also a profound commentary on the lives of those living on the margins.

Mary F. Calvert
The Battle Within: Sexual assault in America’s military
Part 1: The Hearings. Part 2: The Survivors

American Mary F. Calvert has invested years pursuing her story about sexual abuse in the US armed forces. The numbers cited are horrific – in the last year alone 26,000 women were raped and sexually assaulted in the American armed forces. Mary says “most military rape survivors are forced out of service and many are even compelled to continue working with their rapists”. Mary’s project is split into two parts – the Hearings (only one in ten cases reported goes to trial) and the Survivors, many suffer MST (Military Stress Trauma) – ‘depression, substance abuse, paranoia and feelings of isolation’. Suicide rates are also high.

Farzana Hossen
Lingering Scars

Based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Farzana’s photo essay “Lingering Scars” portrays women who have been horrifically scared from acid attacks and other horrendous acts of violence often perpetrated by their husbands and other male relatives. “There are scores of new acid attacks and burn victims arriving everyday at the hospital. In addition to disfigurement of the face and body, some have permanent loss of eyesight; some will never be able to eat with their mouth…In Bangladesh, reports of violence against women is on the rise…and is sanctioned by both society and the state…in the name of culture, tradition and religious practices, women are usually forced to live with their abusive spouse to maintain social norms”.

Katie Orlinsky
Bought and Sold in Nepal

A native of New York, photographer and cinematographer Katie Orlinsky focuses on contemporary social issues and her investigations have taken her all over the world. Her photo essay Bought and Sold in Nepal exposes the trafficking of women who are sold into servitude. In Nepal the social devaluation of women, coupled with endemic poverty, has seen tens of thousands of young girls and women smuggled from their homeland into India where they end up enslaved the red light districts of India’s teeming metropolises such as Mumbai.

Stephanie Sinclair
Too Young to Wed

In more than 50 countries millions of girls as young as six years old are still forced into marriage with adult men. These girls face a life of abuse and torment. Uneducated, marginalized and persecuted by the families into which they are married, child brides lose their chance to be children free to play and explore, they lose the opportunity to better themselves and are denied basic human rights. American photographer Stephanie Sinclair has made this story her life’s work and her powerful body of work allows these innocent young girls to have a voice.

Louise Whelan
African/Australians

This series of portraits is the next installment in a project that Sydney photographer Louise Whelan has been working on for several years; documenting the multiplicity of nationalities that make up the face of modern Australia. These portraits feature people from Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan and South Sudan, encapsulating the diversity of Australia’s African migrant population.

In this series Louise has combined both her documentary practice as well as her fine art portraiture, creating real depth in the narrative. These portraits are rich, not only through Louise’s masterful use of colour, but in their celebration of the courage of those who have left behind everything they’ve known to make a new life.

Melbourne photographer Nicola Dracoulis’ exploration of nine young people living in Rio’s favelas is gripping. Shot in 2006 and 2013 in this series of portraits Nicola revisits the same people seven years apart capturing both the changes in individuals and their habitats.

In this poignant black and white photo essay, Iranian photographer Fatemeh Behboudi has photographed Iranian mothers who still mourn the loss of their beloved sons who never returned from the Iran Iraq war in the 1980s. She says many of these mothers believe they communicate with their sons in their dreams, so deep and ever present is their grief.

In 2012 while French social documentary photographer Viviane Dalles was in Australia she worked on several personal projects including this story of a young refugee, Farkhonda, who came to Australia with her family when she was ten years old. Twelve years later at the age of 22 years, Fakhonda completed her studies at University and planned her return to Afghanistan. Viviane documented her life in Australia and also visited Farkhonda in Kabul, where she is now employed with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Afghanistan) in Kabul and active in working to help her people.

Shiho Fukada
Japan’s Disposable Workers: Lost in Global Unemployment

Japanese photojournalist Shiho Fukada's work on Japan's Disposable Workers highlights the plight of those who work without security, in temporary jobs where they are considered "disposable". But this label extends beyond to the workforce to their personal lives where many live in isolation and poverty shunned by wider society. At a time when the economic models around the world are failing and governments and businesses have forgotten that people should come before money, this photo essay is a sobering reality and perhaps even more poignant given its setting - Japan - which has in the past been admired for its values, which are being lost to that country’s economic meltdown. Shiho is a Pulitzer Grantee.

Suffragette 1909

In a career that spanned 36 years, Christina Broom took around 40,000 photographs focusing on social issues such as the Suffragette processions as well as images of the First World War. She also covered general news stories.