Photojournalism Now is on holidays until 19 January, 2018

Dear subscribers

(C) Steve Schapiro - David Bowie The Man Who Fell To Earth

Just a quick note to let you know that this week's post on our new site  -  Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - is the last for 2017.

Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up will be back on 19th January 2018. If you haven't come over to the new platform, please click here to subscribe.

Wishing you a happy and safe New Year.

Cheers
Alison Stieven-Taylor

Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - 24 November, 2017

This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - the recipient of the 2017 Bob & Diane Fund Grant. Also, Chinese photographer Lu Guang's exhibition 'Bloodwood: photographs of exploited African forest' on show in Shanghai, plus 2018 FotoEvidence Book Award with World Press Photo is open for entries. (Apologies for the earlier glitch with the new site, which I'm working to remedy).

Grantee: 2017 Bob & Diane Fund

Christopher Nunn

British photographer, Christopher Nunn is the recipient of this year’s Bob & Diane Fund, which is dedicated to promoting awareness of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Nunn’s ‘Falling into the Day’ was chosen from the 67 entries received from 22 countries.

One of the Fund’s judges, National Geographic Director of Photography, Sarah Leen, said, "Christopher's work puts me in the shoes of a person who has Alzheimer’s. I can feel the isolation and loneliness with the progression of the disease. This work is very tenderly done."

Nunn photographed “David” over a number of years, but says it was only in 2009 that David’s behaviour began to change; it was the onset of Alzheimer’s and Nunn’s photographs captured the last years of David’s independence. “David had lived an incredible, productive and full life, and I slowly watched all this disappear,” said Nunn.

Gina Martin, who started the fund in 2016 in honour of her parents, said “The visual stories of patients and caregivers can humanize what is, in fact, a very cruel and dehumanizing disease. My hope is that the work funded today and in the future will have a profound and lasting effect on people, persuading them to support and advocate for a cure”.

To find out more about the Bob & Diane Fund click here.

(C) All photos Christopher Nunn

Exhibition: Shanghai

Lu Guang - Bloodwood: photographs of exploited African forest

In this series, Chinese photojournalist Lu Guang continues to focus his lens on the devastation of the natural world at the hands of progress and rampant consumerism.

Jean Loh, owner of the Beau Geste Gallery in Shanghai, and a close friend of Lu Guang says the Chinese photojournalist's work exposes "the impact of China’s fast and furious development in the poorest and most turbulent places in the world, namely the African rainforest. (It) deserves that we stop and pause and think about our identity as members of the one club: planet earth".



















 

Until February 23, 2018
Beau Geste Gallery
210 Taikang Rd,
DaPuQiao 卢湾区
Shanghai Shi China 200025
(C) All photos Lu Guang

Entries Open: FotoEvidence Book Award with World Press Photo - Deadline 15 December, 2017

The annual FotoEvidence Book Award with World Press Photo is open for entries from documentary photographers who are working in the humanistic tradition to bring to light violations of human rights. The winning project will be published in FotoEvidence's catalogue of books dedicated to long-form visual narratives. The FotoEvidence Book Award with World Press Photo winner and two other selected finalists will be exhibited during the World Press Photo Exhibition 2018 in Amsterdam in conjunction with the launch of the book.

To find out more visit FotoEvidence.

Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - 3 November, 2017

This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up a group show opens in New York, Gabriela Herman launches her book The Kids: The Children of LGBTQ Parents in the USA and Australian  Leila Jeffreys at Olsen Gruin. Next week Photojournalism Now comes from Washington and the 2017 World Press Photo exhibition.

Exhibitions: New York

The Photocloser - Group Show

On Wednesday night Frank Meo, aka the Photocloser, launched his inaugural exhibition with a group NYC show featuring the works of Donna Ferrato, Ron Haviv, Salem Krieger, Ken Hamm, Robert Ripps, Mara Catalan, Doug Winter, Maddi Ring, Patricia Gilman, Danielle Kelly, Shravya Kag, Bruce Byers, Ethel Wolvovitz and Bob Zahn. I popped in for a few minutes to see the work and say hi to Frank. Then it was off to the next opening. New York is awash with photography exhibitions.... 

(C) Ken Hamm

(C) Ethel Wolvovitz

(C) Bruce Byers

(C) Salem Krieger

Until 4 December
Paulaner 265 Bowery NYC

Leila Jeffreys - ORNITHURAE VOLUME 1

(C) All images Leila Jeffreys

I reviewed Leila Jeffreys' Conversation with a Cockatoo a couple of years ago and absolutely loved the way she captured the personalities of these iconic Australian birds. In her collection - ORNITHURAE VOLUME 1 - Jeffreys once again creates portraits that sing with individuality and vibrancy. It was fantastic to discover the Olsen Gruin gallery, which is the New York iteration of Sydney's Olsen Gallery, in New York and to view this work in an extraordinary space. The works are also presented beautifully and at a large size, are extremely impressive. 

 

Until 12 November
Olsen Gruin
30 Orchard St
New York, NY 10002
T: + 1 (646) 613-7011

Book Launch: New York

The Kids - The Children of LGBTQ Parents in the USA

Gabriela Herman

Brooklyn photographer, Gabriela Herman, whose parents split up after her mother came out, has created a book The Kids: The Children of LGBTQ Parents in the USA featuring the stories and portraits of 75 children who were raised in LGBTQI families. Over seven years Herman worked on this project traversing the US taking portraits and gathering anecdotes from her subjects. Last night she held a signing at Aperture and there were a number of those pictured in the book in attendance, along with an enthusiastic and rowdy crowd!

(C) Gabriela Herman

Savanna raised by her mom and step mom: "My high school was an art school in Tempe, Phoenix, which is a good half-hour drive from where my town is. I would carpool with a good friend of mine, and her mother, surprisingly enough, is very conservative. It’s very strange to me that I love these people so much, and yet their mind-set can be very different from mine. She knows my parents. She loves my parents. We’ve been friends since second grade. So we were driving to school and we were listening to the radio, and I think it was the beginning of gay marriage becoming legal. They were read- ing this email that this woman had sent to somebody on the radio station, saying, “Who we need to worry about are the children of these gay people.” That was her email, and it was like, “We need to make that a priority. We just can’t let them be raised by these people.” And I got so angry, and they said, “If you have any comments, please call in—we want to hear you.” And I kept calling and calling, and my friend and her mom were like, “Keep doing it! Keep calling!” I finally got through, and I just went off. I couldn’t even tell you what I said. I was like, “I am a child with gay parents, and I am truly appalled at this email. No one needs to feel sorry for me. My parents are amazing.”

(C) Gabriela Herman

Zach was raised by his two adoptive moms: I was born in New Orleans. My mother was sixteen. Patricia— she’s Vietnamese. My father, Charles, was seventeen. He was black and Spanish. I was adopted by Barbara and Kim, so I have two moms. As Americans, we’re pretty quick to put people in a box or judge them, whether it’s about having two moms or what your race or ethnicity is. I had less trouble with having two moms and more issues with finding myself in terms of race and ethnicity. People said stuff about my moms, but I made it clear that if you want to talk smack . . . I called people out the first couple times. The first time that I had a real issue with having two moms was in third grade, because prior to that, everyone was like, “Oh, my God, Zach is so lucky. He has two moms. I’m so jealous.” I think for little children, that whole concept of being lesbian or gay, it’s like, “Whatever.” Honestly, I feel like sometimes parents worry about that too much for their children. They’re so afraid of what the world has in store for them. At that age, I remember people used to ask, “Why are you black and they’re white?” or “Why are you Asian?” I remember saying, “I’m adopted.” For a lot of kids, for what they understood of adoption, that was good enough for a long time.

Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up 27th October, 2017

This week Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up comes from New York City and features a brilliant exhibition by Debi Cornwall - Welcome to Camp America, Inside Guantánamo Bay - at Steven Kasher Gallery, as well as Flint, a story by LaToya Ruby Frazier who was a keynote speaker at Photo Plus Expo in New York yesterday.

Exhibition:
Debi Cornwall - Welcome to Camp America, Inside Guantánamo Bay



Debi Cornwall, Compliant Detainee Media Room, Camp 5, U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, 2014

“My goal in making this work was to invite people to look at Guantánamo again after almost 16 years. Most of us have stopped looking,” says Debi Cornwall whose first New York solo exhibition - Welcome to Camp America, Inside Guantánamo Bay - opened last night at Steven Kasher Gallery.

Welcome to Camp America, Inside Guantánamo Bay, is described as “a vivid and disorienting probe into the U.S. Naval Station on Cuba known as “Gitmo.” Cornwall was given access after eight months under strict conditions including the requirement to process and print her medium format film on the base, under the watch of military censors.

Labelled by former President Barack Obama as the place where “we tortured some folks”, Guantánamo Bay through Cornwall’s lens questions the so-called war on terror and “examines the compromises we make between decency and fear in the post-9/11 era.”

Welcome to Camp America, Inside Guantánamo Bay is a fascinating expose segmented into three bodies of work: Gitmo at Home, Gitmo at Play and Gitmo on Sale. The exhibition comprises 29 large-scale colour photographs as well as formerly classified documents.


Debi Cornwall, Comfort Items, Camp 5, U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, 2015


Debi Cornwall, Liberty Center Band Room, U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, 2015


Debi Cornwall, Recreation Pen, Camp Echo, U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, 2015 


Debi Cornwall, Murat, Turkish German (Germany)
Refugee counselor

Held: 4 years, 7 months, 22 days
Released: August 24, 2006
Charges: never filed
Containerdorf, Refugee housing

Bremen, Germany, 2015


Debi Cornwall
Anonymous Chinese Uighur (Albania)
Held: 4 years, 7 months Transferred to Albania: May 5, 2006 

Charges: never filed

Tirana, Albania, 2015

Debi Cornwall 
Hamza, Tunisian (Slovakia 2015) 

Held: 12 years, 11 months, 19 days 

Cleared: January 12, 2009 

Transferred to Slovakia: November 20, 2014 

Charges never filed

By the River Hron, Slovakia, 2015

Panel Discussion:
Saturday 28 October 2.30pm to 5pm 

Steven Kasher Gallery and the Center for Constitutional Justice will host a panel discussion with Debi Cornwall, J. Wells Dixon and Mark Fallon. Moderated by ICP's Fred Ritchin. The panel will discuss Guantánamo Bay, art, and social justice. The event is free but seating is very limited, please RSVP here. 

Exhibition on until 22nd December
Steven Kasher Gallery
515 W 26th St.,
New York

All images courtesy of Steven Kasher Gallery.

Social Issues: 
LaToya Ruby Frazier - Flint



At Photo Plus Expo in New York this week I attended the keynote speech Women in Photography featuring Sue Bryce, Barbara Davidson and LaToya Ruby Frazier. I was particularly taken with Frazier's expose on Flint, Michigan where the horrendous poisoning of that community's water is literally killing its residents. Others have tackled Flint also, including Matt Black as part of his extraordinary Geography of Poverty.

The photo (below) is from a feature in Rolling Stone magazine and shows the difference between the water in Flint and the water in Detroit, both cities of Michigan. (Photographer unnamed)

(C) LaToya Ruby Frazier

I hadn't heard Frazier speak before. She gave a powerful, inspirational discussion on the power of photography and the passion that drives her was evident in her voice. Here are some of her images featured in Elle magazine's feature on Flint, a feature that Frazier said was unexpected; she never thought a women's fashion mag would have any interest in social issues. It ran over 12 pages.

Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up 20th October, 2017

This week Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up is coming from Los Angeles. I'm in the US to conduct research for my PhD on photography and social change. As well as doing interviews, and archival research, there are some amazing exhibitions to see in the City of Angels - Photography in Argentina 1850-2010 and Havana Youth. Plus PDN Photo Plus opens in New York next week Thursday 26th October.

Exhibitions:

Los Angeles
Photography in Argentina 1850-2010
Contradiction and Continuity
Comprising 300 works from 60 artists, “this exhibition examines crucial periods and aesthetic movements in which photography had a critical role producing - and, at time dismantle - national constructions, utopian visions, and avant-garde artistic trends.”

Casa de Moneda de la series Bruma/The Mint from the series Mist. (C) Santiago Porter. 

Tape Project: Sidewalk 1, 1971 (C) Jamie Davidovich

Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers during their customary march) (C) Eduardo Longoni

Obelisco/Obelisk 1957 (C) Javier Agustin Rojas

El rapt de Guinnard (The Kidnap of Guinnard) (c) Leonel Luna

The J. Paul Getty Museum
Until 28 January 2018 

Los Angeles
Greg Kahn - Havana Youth

American documentary and fine art photographer Greg Kahn's show Havana Youth at the Annenberg Space for Photography reveals complexities of the young people of Cuba as they grapple with their history and the dawn of a new era.

All images (C) Greg Kahn

Until 4 March, 2018
Annenberg Space for Photography

Seminars: New York
PDN Photo Plus Expo

Next week in New York PDN Photo Plus Expo and Conference opens on Thursday. There is an amazing line-up of world-class photographers giving seminars and talks. These caught my eye:

• Art and Advocacy: Using photography to promote positive change with speakers Clay Cook, Joel Caldwell, Michael Bonocore and Peter Dering
• Photojournalism Outside the Box with VII featuring Ashley Gilbertson, Chris Morris, Gary Knight and Ron Haviv
• What Photo Editors Want Right Now with Ahmed Fakher (Rolling Stone), Caroline Smith (Topic), Jacqueline Bates (The California Sunday Magazine) Joanna Milter (The New Yorker) and Toby Kaufman
• Today’s Women in Photography and Film with Barbara Davidson, Latoya Ruby Frazier, and Sue Bryce.

Conference: October 25-28
Expo: October 26-28 

Javits Convention Center New York

Photo Plus New York