Alex Masi Bhopal Second Disaster FotoEvidence Book Award 2012

My article on Bhopal Second Disaster by Alex Masi, the 2012 FotoEvidence Book Award winner is on Le Journal de la Photographie today - please click here to read the article

(C) Alex Masi

(C) Alex Masi

Cover: Bhopal Second Disaster Alex Masi

Friday Round Up - 26 October 2012

On this week's Friday Round Up two new exhibitions for Melbourne, the inaugural Photoreporter Festival (France) and The Aftermath Project Grant - to read these stories in full please click on the tab "Friday Round Up"

(C) Davide Monteleone

(C) Maggie Diaz

(C) Ray Cook

Alexia Sinclair Cover Story Pro Photo

My feature article on the hugely talented and very lovely Alexia Sinclair is the cover story for Pro Photo October/November 2012 - out now!

Alexia is a fine art photographer and digital artist and her Regal Twelve and Royal Dozen series of highly complex images depict some of the most ruthless and fascinating royals and aristocrats dating back two millennia, in rich, sumptuous and fantastical style....

Lewis Morley In Interview

"Lewis Morley - The Reluctant Photographer"

An interview

Alison Stieven-Taylor (C) 2012

On a sun-drenched Sunday morning in Sydney in May this year I had the opportunity to sit down with photographer Lewis Morley in his home to talk about his latest book, I to Eye... please click on the Feature Articles tab above to read my interview with the very lovely Lewis.

Lewis and I at his home in Sydney, May 2012

Friday Round Up

On this week's Friday Round Up the winners of the W. Eugene Smith 2012 Grants and the FotoEvidence 2012 Book Award, VII Photos Incarceration Project, a spotlight on Aleppo, Syria, and more...

Please click on the tab above "Friday Round Up" for all the details.

Bhopal Second Disaster Alex Masi

Tomorrow's Lovers Christian Blanchard

Winner W Eugene Smith Grant 2012 Peter van Agtmael

Interview with Viviane Dalles - Terra Nullius

My interview with French Photographer Viviane Dalles is now posted on the Feature Articles page on this blog. 

Earlier this year I spoke at length with Viviane about her new body of work, Terra Nullius, the title of her latest book and exhibition about the Australian outback. Please click on the "Feature Articles" tab above to read the story.

(C) Viviane Dalles - Terra Nullius

Friday Round Up

On this week's Friday Round Up two photo essays - one from John Stanmeyer, VII Photos, on the Yida refugee camp in Sudan and the other from London-based photographer Karen Robinson on the Roma of Romania. Sydney's Head On Festival, the largest annual photography festival in Australia, calls for submissions, and Brussels' Second Life Festival is on again this month.Please click on the tab "Friday Round Up" for full details.

(C) Karen Robinson - Roma in Romania

(C) John Stanmeyer Yida

International Day of the Girl Child - Today

Millions of girls every year are forced into marriage. Please help stop this archaic, cruel practice.

As a daughter, sister and mother, this topic is close to my heart. 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.

"I was given to my husband when I was little and

 I don't even remember when I was given 

because I was so little.

 It's my husband who brought me up"

 Kanas (18 at interview) - 

Photograph (C) Stephanie Sinclair 

from Too Young To Wed

At Visa pour l’Image this year in Perpignan, France, photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair won the prestigious Visa d’Or feature award for her eight-year photographic study of child brides in Yemen, Afghanistan, Nepal, Ethiopia and India. Sinclair along with agency VII and the UN Population Fund have launched an interactive website – Too Young To Wed - to support and promote the International Day of the Girl Child and to encourage greater awareness of the plight of millions of innocent young girls forced into marriage and a life of servitude and abuse. Sinclair is also a grantee of the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. She is one of a number of photojournalists who are focused on bringing the stories of these tragic, girl children to the world.

From the Too Young to Wed website - "So young are some girls that they hold onto their toys during the wedding ceremony. Usually these girls become mothers in their early teens, while they are still children themselves...Protect girls' rights. End child marriage".

"Today, there are more than 67 million brides who were married as children. That's nearly double the number of girls who attend school every day in North America and Western Europe combined."

Knowledge is power. Share this information today with those in your own community. The more people who stand against child marriage the greater the likelihood for change. These girls need our help, for they have no voice of their own. Please visit Too Young To Wed and take action today. 

(Above) “Nujood Ali was 10 years old when she fled her abusive, much older husband and took a taxi to the courthouse in Sanaa, Yemen. The girl's courageous act -- and the landmark legal battle that ensued -- turned her into an international heroine for women's rights” from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. © Stephanie Sinclair. Yemen, 2010.

Louise Whelan's At Our Table on Le Journal de la Photographie

My story on award-winning Australian photographer Louise Whelan's exhibition At Our Table is on this week's Le Journal de la Photographie

Louise has been busy photographing more than 180 different migrant communities living in New South Wales for the All Australians project. At Our Table is an extension of this project, celebrating culture through food.

(C) Louise Whelan

Friday Round Up - 5 October 2012

It has been another big week in the world of photojournalism and social documentary photography. On this week’s Friday Round Up find out who won the Open Society Foundation’s grants for social justice or human rights photographic projects, view Sean Gallagher’s Pulitzer Center project on the climate crisis facing the Tibetan Plateau, discover why Magnum Photos is embracing the online platform, and which books have been shortlisted in the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards 2012.

Please click on the tab Friday Round Up to read this week's post.

Enjoy the weekend wherever you are :-)

David Alan Harvey's (based on a true story)
a finalist in the
Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards 2012

"At Our Table" Photography Exhibition Louise Whelan 4 October

Award-winning photographer Louise Whelan's exhibition, "At Our Table", opens on Thursday 4th October at The East Village Hotel, 234 Palmer Street, Darlinghurst at 6.30pm.  "At Our Table" is a celebration of Australia's multicultural society through the sharing of food and will be opened by Joanna Savill, director of Crave Sydney International Food Festival. Congratulations Louise!