Friday Round Up - 13 September

This week on Friday Round Up the winners from this year's Visa Pour l'Image Awards plus an eclectic selection of exhibitions on in Melbourne and Sydney that demonstrate the diversity of photography and the ingenuity of artists to push boundaries in the pursuit of creativity. Have a great weekend wherever you are.

Visa pour l’image - Part Two
A host of prizes were awarded under the Visa banner again this year. Here are the highlights:

Canon Female Photojournalist Award 2013
Mary Calvert, The War Within: Sexual Violence in the US Military. This project will feature at next year's Festival and my interview with Mary will be published here in the coming weeks.

News Award supported by Paris Match
Laurent Van Der Stockt, Reportage by Getty Images, for his coverage of the conflict in Syria for Le Monde

Feature Award supported by Languedoc-Roussillon Region
Noriko Hayashi, Panos Pictures, for Unholy Matrimony in Kyrgyzstan, exposing the plight of the extraordinary number of young women who are kidnapped and forced into marriage. 

ICRC Humanitarian Award supported by SANOFI ESPOIR Foundation
Sebastiano Tomada, Sipa Press, for his reportage on the conflict in Syria with specific focus on the injured and the medics.

Lifetime Achievement supported by Le Figaro magazine
Don McCullin, Contact Press images

Getty Images Grants for Editorial Photography
Launched in 2005, the goal of the Getty grants program is to enable photographers to bring attention to significant social and cultural issues, as well as to take new and inspiring strides in creative work. This year's recipients are:

Matt Eich - Sin and Salvation in Baptist Town

Samuel James, Cosmos, Oil in Nigeria

Marco Gualazzini, LUZphoto, M23-Kivu, DRC: a region under siege

Tomas Van Houtryve, VII, North Korea

Eugene Richards, War is Personal

ANI-PIXPALACE Award  

Paolo Marchetti, Cité Soleil, Haïti

Visa pour l'image continues until 15 September in Perpignan, France.

Australia 

Exhibition:

Barat Ali Batoor - The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan

Barat Ali Batoor is a young Afghani refugee who risked his life when he climbed onboard a rickety wooden boat in Indonesia late last year bound for Australia. He fled his homeland after the Washington Post published his photo essayThe Dancing Boys of Afghanistan, which exposes the practice of men who enslave young boys to be their "wives". Drawing the ire of those in powerful positions, it was no longer safe for Batoor to stay in Kabul.

Batoor is one of the lucky few. He survived the ordeal at sea, managed to stay out of the clutches of the Indonesian prison system and finally was granted asylum in Australia. He arrived in Melbourne in May ready to start his new life, but ever mindful of those he had to leave behind. 

His mentor, legendary photojournalist Tim Page has curated Batoor’s first Sydney exhibition.

All images (C) Barat Ali Batoor

Until 5 October
10 x 8 Gallery
Level 5/ 56-60 Foster St, Surry Hills (Sydney)

Exhibition:
Andreas Smetana – Passion and Passion
Smetana's Passion and Passion: A transparent view of man explores "the duality of passion through longing and suffering, and the appetite of desire for life". This is Smetana's first exhibition for 14 years and the works were shot in various locations around Australia over a 12 month period.

All images (C) Andreas Smetana

Until 29 September
Black Eye Gallery
3/138 Darlinghurst Road,
Darlinghurst (Sydney)

Exhibition:

Michael Corridore - Tangents
Accomplished photomedia artist Michael Corridore says his series Tangents is "about re-interpreting what we see from differing perspectives and synthesizing those components of our observations and memory information into a two-dimensional image". Using subtle hues, monochromatic elements and bursts of vivid colour, Corridore's collection is eye-catching in its abstraction.

All images (C) Michael Corridore

Exhibition:
Paul Blackmore – New Beirut
Another awarded Australian photographer Paul Blackmore will exhibit a small selection of images from his series New Beirut, which depicts a city and its people in celebration. This series delivers a new take on Beirut shifting the perception of a city torn by civil war to one of beach parties and glamour.

Exhibition:

Heidi Romano – Frozen Water
This series of images is an exploration of “abstract, frozen landscapes” that Romano has discovered in trays and cubes of ice, a simple idea that has translated into a collection of photographs that conjure thoughts of polar caps, icebergs and frozen habitats.

Tangents, New Beirut and Frozen Water are all showing until 5 October

Edmund Pearce Gallery
Level 2, Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Melbourne
Wed-Sat 11am-5pm

Friday Round Up - 6 September

This week Friday Round Up is all about Visa pour l'image, the international photojournalism festival held annually in Perpignan, France. Now in its 25th year, Visa still attracts the best in the business.

Report on Visa pour l’Image – Part One 
Alison Stieven-Taylor 

Perpignan, France: More than 1400 people involved in the industry that is photojournalism – photographers, editors, agencies, journalists et al are here in Perpignan to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Visa pour l'image. Such a large crowd defies the notion that the industry is in decline however, this very topic is top of mind for many here. This year there is a real understanding that change is here and I’ve had many discussions along these lines.

There is still an unwavering commitment to the function of photojournalism in bringing issues to light that may not receive media attention in the course of daily news coverage, but there is also a sense of how this material will be communicated in the future in light of declining publications and budgets.

Yet there are more young photojournalists here than ever before, many who have come not only to pitch their work to the dwindling number of photo editors, but to also see their heroes – yesterday’s session “Photographing War” facilitated by Rémy Ourdan and featuring Don McCullin, John G. Morris, David Douglas Duncan, Patrick Chauvel and Yuri Kozyrev drew a packed house. Paolo Pellegrin, one of Magnum Photos’ most highly awarded members, whose oeuvre contains some of the most iconic images of the human condition in times of conflict, told me it was “an historical moment”. He sat on the floor along with many others to hear the stories of these men who are renowned for their skills in visual storytelling. 

In my interview with Jean François Leroy, the director general of Visa and its creator, he told me he had received more than 4000 submissions from photojournalists for this year’s programme. While he laments the fact that some of the submissions from young photojournalists lacked storytelling – a photo essay is not just a handful of random pictures, it must have a narrative otherwise it doesn’t fulfill its role to communicate – he was amazed at how much work is being made especially when much of it is self-funded.

Self-funding is nothing new, but this year there is an air of exhaustion from those who have been in the business a long time. Change is here, but it is without a solution, and it is impacting every aspect of a profession that has relied on the traditional media formats as its conduit. This was the topic of my thesis, "Has the Critical Mirror Shattered?" which I completed this June, and it is a subject that I continue to explore. My conclusion that photojournalism will in the future sit outside the traditional media environ gathers further momentum when I see the thousands of visitors to Perpignan who line up for the exhibitions and solemnly walk through ingesting the powerful messages these images deliver. There is clearly an audience. The key now is to discover how to work with that audience in a broader context.

When I asked Leroy about the role of the photojournalist as a witness, and the need for that witness to have an audience he said “look at the number of people who come here to see the exhibitions. There is an audience, the problem is that the media isn’t interested in these pictures anymore”. McCullin said the same thing. Celebrities and sports stars fill our pages in print and online. We are living in an age of trivia. 

Don McCullin

If the number of thinking people outweigh those who live vicariously through celebrity, will the pendulum swing and the media come back to creating worthwhile content? Will still photography have a place or will moving image, short sharp visual sound bytes, become the new norm? These are some of the questions being debated here in Perpignan.

Clément Saccomani, the editorial director of Magnum Photos told me last year he was “very optimistic”. This year while his optimism is no less, he is now more curious as to the future. He concedes he is working harder to maintain the business, right now it is not about growth. He tells that a photojournalist on a recent assignment used a Go Pro camera as an experiment. That short video drew more attention from the media than the stills, and in fact aided in selling the still images - there was little interest initially in the photographs. When the video was published on Le Monde thousands saw it, but when it went viral that number grew exponentially. Of course there was no income attached to the huge number of views on YouTube. And so the digital dilemma continues.

A Visual Feast 
Moving on from the business of photojournalism, and the exhibitions this year are no less extraordinary than in the past. Like a kid in a candy shop, choosing which ones to see is almost torturous and most days I’ve run between interviews and exhibitions crisscrossing the cobblestoned alleys of this southern French town.

The McCullin Retrospective – The Impossible Peace - curated by Robert Pledge of Contact Press Images New York, fills the cathedral spaces of the Église des Dominicans. This is the first time McCullin has exhibited at Visa, and the retrospective features not only his conflict images, but also his street photography, particularly his study of the homeless in the UK. McCullin said he is now too old in body to trek the streets of London with camera in hand, but that street photography was something he had greatly enjoyed. “Young photographers don’t need to leave their homeland to find conflict, it is in their own communities, they just have to look," he said.

McCullin Retrospective


(C) Don McCullin

In the labyrinth of Couvent Des Minimes the walls are hung with works by numerous photographers. “Pashtun Women – Second Class Citizens” won Sarah Caron last year’s Canon Female Photojournalist Award. Caron’s exhibition reveals the hidden world of Pashtun, a Taliban stronghold in Pakistan, where extreme religious views and cultural traditions oppress women relegating them to the shadows. 

(C) Sarah Caron

(C) Sarah Caron

John G. Morris’ exhibition Somewhere in France, Summer ’44 also hangs here along with this year’s World Press Photos collection, Muhammed Muheisen’s Life Goes On, and Andrea Star Reese’s disturbing Disorder revealing the inhumanity of Indonesia’s mental health system. And Australia’s Vlad Sokhin features with his exhibition Restaveks, which I wrote about on Friday Round Up – 19 April. In all there are 14 shows within the Couvent. 

(C) John G Morris


(C) John G Morris


(C) Vlad Sokhin

Not all the exhibitions portray the death, destruction and misery of humanity. Éric Bouvet’s Burning Man documents the bizarre festival of the same name held annually since 1986. In 2012 the Burning Man, now held in Nevada, attracted 60,000. I’m interviewing Éric later today to find out more about the motivations of those who attend this event premised on the radical self. 

(C) Éric Bouvet

Sara Lewkowicz, a young photojournalist I featured earlier this year on Friday Round Up - April 12, is also here with her exhibition Shane and Maggie: A Portrait of Domestic Violence. Donna Ferrato, a photojournalist of international standing and a veteran in the industry, said Sara’s images are shocking in the way that good photojournalism should be. Sara is this year’s winner of the Rémi Ochlik Award and also a newcomer to Getty Images Emerging Talent pool. I’m also interviewing Sara later today. 

(C) Sara Lewkowicz

So that’s it for today’s post. As you can see from this small selection of images diversity is the key word. Look out for next week’s Friday Round Up for Visa pour l’image Part Two coming to you from Berlin. Until then au revoir!

Friday Round Up - 30 August

This week Friday Round Up comes to you on the eve of the opening of Visa pour l'Image in Perpignan, the international photojournalism festival held annually in France. This year Visa celebrates its 25th Anniversary. Next week I'll be posting from Perpignan, but on today's Friday Round Up Sydney photographer Louise Whelan launches her book 'New Settlers' that celebrates Australia's multiculturalism, New York-based Australian photographer Kisha Bari makes her debut at this year's Photoville Festival with her documentary project 'How Sandy Hit Rockaway' and Kerry Pryor's 'Sight Unseen' is on show in Melbourne. Plus my feature interview with the inimitable Tim Page can be read by clicking on the Feature Articles tab at the top of the blog. Have a great weekend wherever you are. 

Book Launch:

Louise Whelan - New Settlers

Click on the image for launch details.

Look out for my interview with Louise in tomorrow's Weekend Australian magazine (31 August). The book is available from T&G Publishing, click here for details.

Exhibition:
Kisha Bari - How Sandy Hit Rockaway

An Australian photographer, now based in New York, Kisha Bari has spent the past ten months documenting the residents in New York’s Rockaway Peninsula, which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy last year. Her photo essay is included in this year’s Photoville Festival and will be displayed alongside the other 32 shipping container photo exhibits that comprise the Festival, which opens on 19 September. Kisha will also be part of a discussion panel with The Museum of New York about photographing Hurricane Sandy on 22 September.

Kisha has kindly shared a selection of her work in words and pictures with Photojournalism Now. It is wonderful to see that those who are still living with the aftermath of the Hurricane are given a chance to tell their stories long after the disaster has fallen from the news headlines. Kisha's photographs are compassionate and thoughtful. She has created a strong body of work.

Week 1 - Gerald Silvester

Gerald Silvester shows me the water mark on his house on Beach 36th st. He’s glad he evacuated as the water level came above the height of his two children. He lives in a single story home. He and his family stayed at his sister’s house in Brooklyn.

Gerald and his wife came home to find everything destroyed. There was almost a foot of sand inside and the water had even overturned his refrigerator, which he found in the middle of his living room.

Week 2 - Gene Burke 

Gene Burke has been a resident of Rockaway since he was 6 years old. He saw the hurricane and waves approach and devastate his neighbourhood. Gene has seen many hurricanes sweep through the peninsula. "This was bigger than Donna!" he says. He lives on the 7th floor of a building on Beach 76th St.

".... that night, the water came. I saw the ocean. And the waves about a mile out, three quarters of a mile out, were actually rolling on top of the other waves. This was a monster! And I saw it come over the boardwalk..." 

With an overturned vehicle in the background, Gene tells me that he is looking after a friend who suffered a heart attack only a week before the storm. Neither of them have anywhere else to go. "We have no water, no electric, no food, no medical supplies. I mean, I can't think of one thing positive. Climbing steps with no emergency lights. Ya have to feel ya way up 5, 6 7, 8 flights."

2 Months - The Epifanio Family 

There are good people in the world and some not so good people, but upon meeting the Epifanio family in Bell Harbor, you understand that there are just some down right phenomenal people. Jim Epifanio left his job as a transmission mechanic in the Bronx over 12 months ago to care for his 92 year old father, Joe, a war veteran and ex-New York City Police man. He required 24 hour care. Jim’s mother, Mary lives with them also. Joe passed away just three weeks ago.

Jim’s wife, Denise teaches special needs children, but due to New York City Public School cut backs, she no longer has work. However, Denise’ mother, Anna, lives with them also. Anna had a stroke three years ago and suffers from dementia and alzheimer’s. Anna also needs 24hr care.

The light of the family is their 17year old son Ryan, who was born with Cerebral Palsy. Although he cannot walk or communicate with words, Ryan’s gentle and happy demeanor is what holds this entire family together. Ryan also needs constant care.

3 Months - Hazel Beckett 

74 year old Hazel Beckett lives alone on Beach 69th st. A retired nurse from Jamaica, she spent the night of Hurricane Sandy with her brother who lives on higher ground. “The place was all topsy-turvy!” she explains upon arriving home to find her basement apartment completely underwater with her freezer and washer/dryer turned on it’s head. The water rose a foot up into her first floor.

She recently had a new heating system installed in her home of 37 years. In the weeks without heat, Hazel would put red bricks on her stove on a low flame 24 hours a day to heat her house. Hazel has called out to a number of aid organizations and is currently awaiting volunteers to help remove the wooden floors of the first level of her home as it has now been enveloped by black mould.

10 Months - Mary Leonard 

Growing up in Rockaway, Mary Leonard is now a part time resident of Breezy Point. All her family live in Rockaway. One of her brothers lost his house in the Breezy fires and another has only just been able to move back into his home. All her many nieces and nephews also live on the Peninsula and were affected by Hurricane Sandy. Her love for the ocean and Rockaway is complete. After surfing her local Rockaway break for her whole life, 60 year old Mary hated the ocean after Sandy hit. She couldn’t even go to the beach after witnessing the devastation that her beloved ocean had caused. Now, after 10 months, she has just started surfing again.

Photoville runs 19-29 September. 

To view more of Kisha Bari's How Sandy Hit Rockaway story click here.

Exhibition:
Kerry Pryor - Sight Unseen

Melbourne photographer Kerry Pryor has travelled to Ethiopia numerous times with her work for Eyes for Africa a non-profit organisation that funds cataract eye surgery for people in extreme poverty and remote areas of the country. In this series of nine portraits Kerry captures the moment before the patient is to meet with the surgeon. She says, “It’s an anxious time waiting to see the surgeon as many people have never even been treated by a doctor before”.

“Many of the patients you see in this exhibition have walked for miles, too poor to afford shoes, quite frail and exhausted by the time they arrive at the clinic. When they present to the doctors they have usually had cataracts for some time and their vision is very poor and they rely on the help of a family member to guide them."

“Cataract surgery is the difference between night and day and patients can usually go home within 24 hours with restored vision. The work Eyes For Africa performs is life changing as was my journey to Ethiopia”.

Until 7 September
Edmund Pearce Gallery
Level 2, Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Melbourne
Wed-Sat 11am-5pm

Friday Round Up - 23 August

This week on Friday Round Up a new book by Rennie Ellis, Paul Batt's exhibition opens in Melbourne, Ballarat International Foto Biennale's opening weekend, Oculi Collective, new articles in Pro Photo and more. Have a great weekend wherever you are.

Book:
Rennie Ellis – DECADE 1970-1980

This long awaited publication from one of Australia’s most celebrated social commentary photographers was launched in Melbourne last Tuesday at Mossgreen Gallery, South Yarra. Many of Ellis’ contemporaries packed the Gallery to hear filmmaker Paul Cox share tales of his friendship with Ellis. Susan van Wyk, Senior Curator of Photography, at the National Gallery of Victoria also spoke of Ellis’ contribution to the genre.


(C) Rennie Ellis

The collection of images in DECADE captures the dichotomy of 1970s Australia and the black and white images reflect a period of creative exploration and cultural anarchy. Published by Hardie Grant Books in association with the State Library of Victoria, DECADE 1970-1980 is available in bookstores nationally and online.

Festival
Ballarat International Foto Biennale
Last weekend the Ballarat International Foto Biennale (BIFB) kicked off its fifth installment amidst the wildest winter weather Victoria has seen this year. Yet the gale force winds and biting cold didn’t deter hundreds from turning out for the opening weekend where the red wine flowed and photography lovers feasted on a truly brilliant showcase of exhibitions. Here are a few photographs that encapsulate the opening weekend courtesy of Marty Williams. 

Elisabeth Zeilon, Sweden with her exhibition Passion Paris


Erika Diettes, Colombia with her exhibition Sudarios (Shrouds)


Festival Director Jeff Moorfoot


Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and Alison Stieven-Taylor


Photographers Michael Coyne (L) and Philip Quirk


Filmmaker Paul Cox launches the John Cato Retrospective


Youngho Kang with on of his self-portraits from 99 Variations

Congratulations to Festival Director Jeff Moorfoot and his fantastic team for pulling together a diverse collection of exhibitions. There are core programme and fringe exhibitions to enjoy. Download the programme here. On until 15 September.

Articles:
Pro Photo Magazine – Head On & Reportage
My reviews on Sydney's Head On Photo Festival and Reportage Documentary Photography Festival feature in the current issue of Pro Photo magazine out now.

Exhibition:
Paul Batt – A Single Line
Melbourne photographer Paul Batt’s exhibition, A Single Line (Untitled China series 2012) is currently showing at Edmund Pearce Gallery in Melbourne. Batt says of his project, that it is “a photographic investigation of China's rapidly altering landscape. The intention of the series is to explore the Chinese people's tentative shift from a communist to a capitalist system, as seen through the resource hungry push to modernise the countries rural and urban environments”.










(C) All images Paul Batt

Until 7 September
Edmund Pearce
Level 2, Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Melbourne
Wed-Sat 11am-5pm

Photographic Collective
Oculi - Australia

(C) Lee Grant Seoul, Korea

Oculi counts in its membership a number of contemporary Australian photographers including several whose work has featured on this blog -- Lee Grant, Claire Martin, Nick Moir and Andrew Quilty. You can check out the other members and view their work on the Oculi website. Each month Oculi features a slideshow of its members’ work. Check out August’s offering here.

Award
5th Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award

This is one of the richest awards in the industry with a grant of 50,000 Euro to fund a reportage project on a specific topic. This year the theme is Iran. Deadline is September 30. Click here for entry details.