Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - 25 August, 2017

This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - my musings on the 2017 Ballarat International Foto Biennale which opened last week and FotoEvidence and World Press Photo join forces.

Musings:
Ballarat International Foto Biennale

Last Friday I headed to Ballarat for the launch of the 2017 Ballarat International Foto Biennale. The festivities kicked off on Friday night with the opening of the blockbuster David LaChapelle exhibition at the Art Galley of Ballarat. The festival has clearly pinned its hopes on this show with the city's mayor revealing they hoped to attract 50,000 this year to the festival when the last one in 2015 drew an audience of 15,000. You have to admire their ambition and I hope it is a success. But with pretensions to such grandeur, there are some concerns with the festival that need to be aired.

In general I was underwhelmed by the core program, and thought the use of venues could have been better. In particular the Tell exhibition in the Mining Exchange seemed swamped by the size of the venue. And the exhibitions in the little ante rooms or alcoves in the Exchange were so poorly lit and presented that they might as well have been hung in the bathroom - in fact the lighting was better in there! There are some highlights of course. Ich Werde Deutsch (I become German) is an interesting show, and the Post Office Gallery is one of the better venues. Also the group show Rearranging Boundaries has an impressive international line up of documentary photographers, but the lighting of the show was disappointing and I was particularly irritated by lamps clamped to the top of photographs.

So let's cut to the chase. The biggest problem I have with this year's festival is that it promotes a facade of international standing, but underneath is wracked by amateur practices. There, the elephant in the room is now visible!




This is especially evident in the hanging of the Martin Kantor prize (above a photo I took of one of the finalists). With a first prize of $15,000, it's no measly photo comp. It was revealed to me today that 18 of the 27 finalists have penned a letter to the festival organisers to complain about the way their work was treated. Hung on industrial wire fencing, without any covering, you could see the backs of images, as above. The lighting was awful, and there was no information about the photographs save for a few scrappy pieces of paper marking the numbers and names, which we were told to give back as they didn't have enough. It was amateur hour! And knowing the efforts and expense photographers went to in order to put forward their best work, framed and delivered, it is no wonder the majority of entrants were furious.

This amateur approach is also evident in the lighting of the fashion retrospective Reverie Revelry which featured the amazing work of the late Robyn Beeche and Bruno Benini amongst others. I was horrified at how badly lit this show was, the high ceiling fluorescent lights throwing an awful, flat cast over the dim room. I've seen Beeche's work before and it is transformational when handled properly. I was also one of the last to interview her before her untimely death and know she would have been incredibly disappointed.

It is difficult enough for photography to hold its head up in the art world without these kinds of impediments. For all the bluster of the festival and its new direction, some money should be spent on curators who have training and know how to hang and light a show. Curating is an art in itself.

And lastly, there is the trend for festivals to charge photographers several hundred dollars to enter the Fringe. These photographers pay for the privilege of hanging their works in cafes and businesses where it is virtually impossible to view them with any semblance of sophistication or respect and that is infuriating. This grab for money at the expense of the artist is an age old rort and quite frankly photographers deserve better.

One Fringe exhibitor confided that the venue where their work was to be exhibited was less than cooperative, charged them the full rate for catering (they were encouraged by the festival to hold an opening), plus there was no hanging system and no lights. After the festival had taken their money there was no help forthcoming either. It's no wonder that after that experience, this unnamed photographer won’t be exhibiting at the next festival.

I'm always hopeful that things can change. Let's see a festival in the future that is more about celebrating the actual photographs and showing respect to the photographers, than talking a good game and coming up short.

News:
FotoEvidence and World Press Photo join forces

It was announced yesterday that FotoEvidence and World Press Photo Foundation will collaborate on the annual FotoEvidence Book Award which will be known as the FotoEvidence Book Award with World Press Photo.

As a previous jury member for the FotoEvidence Book Award I am very excited about this collaboration and the opportunity for even more people to see this important work. It's great news!

The annual FotoEvidence Book Award recognises one photographer whose work demonstrates courage and commitment in the pursuit of social justice. From 2018 the newly named award will see the winner and two other selected finalists also exhibit their work during the World Press Photo (WPP) exhibition in Amsterdam where the winner’s book will be featured. Additionally, the book will be shown at various other WPP events around the world.

This is a great achievement for Svetlana Bachevanova the publisher of FotoEvidence who has worked tirelessly to bring these important stories to publication.

She says: “We at FotoEvidence are excited about our partnership with the World Press Photo Foundation because of our shared commitment to excellence and new initiatives in documentary photography and photojournalism. After seven years and sixteen FotoEvidence books, we expect the FotoEvidence Book Award with World Press Photo to expand our reach to a worldwide audience, strengthen our mission promoting social justice, and increase our support for photographers who demonstrate courage and commitment in the pursuit of human rights.”

Lars Boering, managing director of the World Press Photo Foundation also commented: "We’re delighted to be working closely together with FotoEvidence on the book award. The World Press Photo Foundation is expanding all areas of its activities, and as part of that we’re more committed than ever to promoting visual journalism that addresses social justice. We understand that photo books which address these topics occupy a special but challenging place in the photo book market, and we want to bring this work to our large global audience. The FotoEvidence Book Award with World Press Photo will build on the commitment of Svetlana and her team and help to further our joint mission.”

Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - 24th February, 2107

This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - Poulomi Basu wins the 2017 FotoEvidence Book Award and the Bronx Documentary Center showcases 38 independent photojournalists who covered New York's activist culture from 1980-2000.

Award:
2017 FotoEvidence Book Award Winner
Blood Speaks: A Ritual of Exile by Poulomi Basu 

Anjali Kumari Khang is 12 years old. " I am not happy. I do not want to get married. I hope my husband gets a job in a foreign city. Then I can come back to my mother's home and stay for as long as I want to." Child marriage is rampant in the north eastern district of Nepal. Girls are seen as a burden and an additional mouth to feed and are often married off at a very young age. However, it is also a popular belief that villagers often marry off their girls before their menstruation starts, as it is believed if they do so, then their immediate family will got to heaven. Einerwa Village, Saptari district, Nepal.

Born in Calcutta, India, Poulomi Basu describes herself as a storyteller, artist and activist. Her work largely focuses on issues that effect women in isolated communities and since 2013 she’s been investigating the causes and consequences of normalised violence against women in Nepal. You only have to read the stories (and please take time to do so) in order to understand the horror these women endure every month, as violence is directly related to the menstrual cycle. The only reprieve may be during pregnancy!

Blood Speaks: A Ritual of Exile deals with the root of this violence which stems from the Hindu belief that women’s menstrual blood is impure. Poulomi says, “Hidden, under-reported and unresolved, these women are untouchable and, as a result, this violence takes the form of ‘exiles,’ a way to keep menstruation shrouded in mystery and taboo, a weapon to shame women into subservience.” 

A goth, a space of exile by the river. Ujjwali, 48, who was living her exile there told me, "The good men understand what the women are going through, that it is difficult for women when they have to stay out of the house but there are many men who are stupid and illiterate and they don’t want to understand. They beat their wives, call them bad names and obligate them to stay out of the house in the goth. The ones who are educated and understand want their wives to stay at home but its mostly women who make other women stay out."

Saraswati, 16, must live in a closed dark room with her three day old baby because she bled after childbirth. They will be there for 15 days. Not only is Saraswati not allowed to clean herself, she must cook her food in the same tiny dark room even if it means choking her newborn baby with smoke. After childbirth she developed serious health problems. Because of staying in the goth and rarely being allowed to step outside, her legs are now swollen to a point that she can barely walk. She suffers from serious stress disorder and often has breakdowns. She barely spoke a word to me. Nepal, 2016.

"My name is Tanka Thapa. I think I am 25 but you can say what you want. It has been about 10 years since I came to this chau in Basti. My husband lives in India. It has been almost 2 years since I saw him." Tanka sleeps in a hole in the wall during menstruation while observing her ritual. According to her "Chaupadi is a tradition that we are not allowed to sleep at home so we have been told. All the women in the family have to stay in chau. It’s a little better now. Earlier I used to stay out in the open with no shelter." She appears very nervous and uncomfortable and expresses low self-esteem. She mentioned a few times in passing conversation that she is ashamed of herself and is dirty and ugly. She asks me, "Why are you here? No one has ever come to talk to me or spend time with me.” Tanka's self esteem is totally crushed. Basti, Achham. Nepal, 2016.

Devi Ram Dhamala, traditional healer. 59 years old. Traditional healers often use extreme verbal and physical abuse to heal young girls who are ill during menstruation or at other times, believing they are possessed by evil spirit. Surkhet district, Nepal.

A goth, a space of exile by the river. Ujjwali, 48, who was living her exile there told me, "The good men understand what the women are going through, that it is difficult for women when they have to stay out of the house but there are many men who are stupid and illiterate and they don’t want to understand. They beat their wives, call them bad names and obligate them to stay out of the house in the goth. The ones who are educated and understand want their wives to stay at home but its mostly women who make other women stay out."

A multidisciplinary project encompassing still and moving images and the book to be published by FotoEvidence later this year, Blood Speaks is designed to have broad reach. “I want to turn my audience into activists and crack open the veil of silence and shame around women whose lives are shattered by such gender based violence,” Poulomi says.

This is courageous work as the stigma and superstitions run deep, but Poulomi believes now is the time to put these stories on the international agenda and fight to end these “brutal rituals”.

You can pre-order the book at FotoEvidence.

Exhibition: New York
Whose Streets? Our Streets! : New York City, 1980-2000
Bronx Documentary Center

(C) Sandra Lee Phipps

The timing of this exhibition couldn't be more apt. On show is the work of more than 38 independent photojournalists who have captured the collective activist heart of New York over two decades documenting peaceful protests and rallies as well as violent confrontations. This is the first time these photographs have been exhibited together. It's a fantastic collection, and an important historical record. The show is curated by Meg Handler, former photo editor of The Village Voice, historian Tamar Carroll, author of Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty and Feminist Activism, and Michael Kamber, founder of the Bronx Documentary Center.

(C) Corky Lee

(C) Nina Berman

(C) Lisa Kahane

(C) Ricky Flores

(C) Frank Fournier

(C) Mark Peterson

(C) Ricky Flores

Until 5 March
Bronx Documentary Center
614 Courtlandt Avenue (at 151st St.)
Bronx, New York 10451

The Last Friday Round Up for the Year - 16th December, 2016

This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up we end the year with a bumper book review feature - The Light Collective, Daniella Zalcman, Ryann Ford, Paula Bronstein and Sandro Miller. Also there are some new links to stories on L'Oeil de la Photographie on the right hand side of this blog.

Wishing all my readers a wonderful and safe festive season. Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up will be back on 13th January, 2017.

Special Feature: Book Reviews

Kati Thanda – Lake Eyre
Interpretations from the Air
The Light Collective 

In their first book, Australia’s The Light Collective, a group of five landscape photographers claim their objective is “to explore modern interpretations of Australia’s immense and unique landscapes to invite deeper reflection on the immeasurable value of our wild places.” In Kati Thanda – Lake Eyre, this intention is fully realised in the ethereal beauty of these images.

Lake Eyre is an important part of the Aboriginal Dreamtime of the Arabana people. Located 700 kilometres north of Adelaide in the South Australian Desert, Lake Eyre is the world’s 13th largest, and Australia’s biggest, salt lake. On average floodwaters cover the Lake every eight years, and it has only filled three times in the last 160 years. When there is water the Lake becomes a breeding site for waterbirds, and when it is dry it presents a vast, seemingly endless expanse of white that stretches as far as the eye can see.

(C) Above images Adam Williams

I’ve seen numerous photographs of Lake Eyre shot from the ground, but these images from the air are striking in their rich texture and complexity and the fact that there is no reference point – no horizon, no sky – enhances the abstract imagery. Here Lake Eyre is at once a palette of pastels, an artist’s canvas dripping with vibrant hues, an etching seemingly carved from the earth. Deep rivets run through the landscape, shorelines become the sweep of the painter’s brush, waterways spread like capillaries across skin, algal blooms are marked by iridescent blues and greens and shifting colours in the salt, soil and rocks create almost otherworldly vistas. 

(C) Above images Ignacio Palacios

I am drawn to the power of nature that is so evident in these images. There is something about seeing the Lake from above that sparks one’s imagination for it is a view that few of us have the opportunity to see first hand. In some images the landscape presents as giant jellyfish floating across a vast sea, in others abstract shapes take form, evoking ideas of birth and renewal. 

(C) Above images Luke Austin

When you shoot in a remote location like this there are often wonderful anecdotes like the bidding war the photographers found themselves in with two pilots in one of the small towns bordering the Lake. As the prices for a two-hour flight soared, the photographers took their business further down the road finding a couple of pilots that wouldn’t break the bank. And pilots who were also happy to remove the doors from the light planes, and to fly at varying altitudes, to accommodate the photographers’ needs.

(C) Above images Paul Hoelen

Each of the photographers in this volume – Adam Williams, Luke Austin, Ignacio Palacios and Paul Hoelen – present different perspectives on the way they see the Lake. They also share their personal thoughts on Lake Eyre in text, adding to the experience of seeing this remote and foreign land through their eyes. Yet the images by their abstract nature are open to interpretation making the viewing experience enormously satisfying. It’s a wonderful debut and the works will be on show in Sydney 10-29 January at Black Eye Gallery.

Kati Thanda – Lake Eyre

The Light Collective
Available from www.thelightcollective.com.au
128 pp

Signs of Your Identity
Daniella Zalcman

The winner of this year’s FotoEvidence Book Award was American photographer Daniella Zalcman’s Signs of Your Identity. As one of the jury members I am thrilled to showcase the book on Photojournalism Now, as I believe it is a wonderful example of a new approach in visual storytelling, in both the crafting of the images and in their presentation in the book.

Signs of Your Identity tells a complex story of the legacy of colonialisation and its impact on the First Nations people of Canada. In 2014 Daniella spent a month driving across Canada – British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Ontario. “Very quickly I realised that every single person I interviewed who were First Nations and HIV positive had gone to something called Residential School. I’d never heard of that before,” she said. “Indian Boarding schools are what they are called in the United States and they still exist today. It occurred to me that the public health crises and the substance abuse and the destructive behaviour that is so often touted as an endemic problem in native communities was to me a symptom of this much bigger legacy”. 

A year later she returned to interview those who went to Residential School focusing her investigation on Saskatchewan, a plains province in the middle of Canada where the last residential school operated until 1996. Saskatchewan is also known for some of the most famously terrible Residential Schools. On this visit Daniella interviewed and photographed 45 people, and this is the work featured in Signs of Your Identity.

Wanting to portray the story in a way that didn't further marginalise or stigmatise those pictured, Daniella has created double exposures, where she combines the primary portrait with a secondary layer that depicts elements that are relevant to each person’s story. In some there is a photograph of the actual school or its site, in others there are geographic markers or items that evoke particular memories or sentiments. 

The book is small in format, but beautifully produced and one of the features I like the most is the use of transparent paper for the classic portraits. These pages precede the double exposure images and when overlaid give a lovely depth to the images and an engaging textural feel to the book. It also gives a multidimensional view of the person as you can see the portrait in reverse on the transparent paper. Most of the portraits come with a quote from the person featured. Intermittently there are small photographs of locations or ambient imagery that halts the pace of the book and gives time for reflection. 

It’s a really wonderful production from FotoEvidence that does justice to the work of this extremely talented young photographer whose unique vision and approach makes her one of the most exciting documentary photographers working today.

Signs of Your Identity
Daniella Zalcman
Available from: FotoEvidence

The Last Stop
Vanishing Rest Stops of the American Roadside
Ryann Ford

The great American road trip is the stuff of legends, and numerous novels, poems and songs have been penned about the thrill of being on the road. Part of the romance of travelling by road has been stopping at roadside rest stops, many of which feature unique characteristics that celebrate the state or city in which they reside.

Over a period of three years American photographer Ryann Ford made around twenty road trips to capture the roadside rest stops, which feature in her debut book The Last Stop: Vanishing Rest Stops of the American Roadside.

Ryann says the concept started as a personal project that gave her a visual respite from her work as a commercial photographer in Austin, Texas. “It was really interesting how it evolved, it was almost a selfish project. I wasn't worried that anyone else would like it, I was just pleasing my eye,” she said.

But as the project progressed Ryann saw a trend emerging as many of the rest stops were closed, earmarked for closure or in the process of being demolished. A narrative of lost cultural icons began to surface and Ryann started to think about photographing these sites for posterity, acutely aware that they were on the way to being extinct. 

Bonneville

In The Last Stop: Vanishing Rest Stops of the American Roadside Ryaan showcases 19 of the 22 states she visited. She predominantly focused on rest stops in the southwest although there are a few concessions to the east coast. But Ryann says the aesthetic of the southwest with its stark, isolated landscapes is what really intrigued her.

“The remote stops really convey the loneliness and I really loved shooting those stops that were the most remote and the most forgotten. The ones that had been closed off were my favourite, fascinating and completely forgotten and closed and rundown.”

The images are classic Americana with many of the rest stops featuring quirky designs that are indicative of each state’s history be it military, as is the case with the rest stop that features a giant missile or those that draw on Native American themes. At the Bonneville Salt Flats in northwestern Utah, which is known as the site for land speed records, the rest stop sports an impressive concrete structure funded by Goodyear Tires. Many of the rest stops were built between 1950 and 1970 and make a real cultural statement about the period of time in which they were constructed.

Flower Mound, Texas

Ryann says her favourite is the White Sands rest stop, which she shot on her first trip after a summer thunderstorm had swept through and cleared the crowds and the air. “I had seen photos of White Sands and it was just beautiful. It looks like snow and the tables are iconic and for me – we (Ryaan and her mom who accompanied her on most of the trips) had a picnic after making the picture and that is one of my favourite from the book”.

White Sands

As the attrition of rest stops continues in the US, The Last Stop: Vanishing Rest Stops of the American Roadside has become an important historical record, a fact that is not lost on Ryann.

“It’s crazy that something that started out as a personal project has come to represent a lost era in American road travel. I’m thrilled I got to do this project and that other people have found it interesting too.”

The Last Stop: Vanishing Rest Stops of the American Roadside
Ryann Ford
powerHouse Books New York
176pp

Afghanistan Between Hope and Fear
Paula Bronstein


How can you tell a story of Afghanistan that hasn’t been told? We’ve seen so much over the past decades on the conflict, on the victories and defeats, on the devastation of a people.

Award-winning photojournalist Paula Bronstein has been travelling to Afghanistan since December 2001 at the height of the push to oust the Taliban. While she has covered the conflict on assignment, Paula has spent more time photographing the Afghan people, getting to know them and the way the live, and also die. For the past 14 years she’s travelled frequently to Afghanistan, a country she admits has gotten under her skin.

When I met Paula a few years ago she was talking about doing a book on Afghanistan and thinking about how she would approach the story. Paula doesn’t do anything half-baked. She spent time figuring out what she wanted to say and how she wanted to say it. In 2015 she raised money on Kickstarter and in September 2016 I took receipt of my copy of the book, which quite frankly blew me away.

Afghanistan Between Hope and Fear takes you on a tumultuous emotional journey that is punctuated with vivid colours and visceral moments. The book is sectioned into three chapters – The Situation, The Casualties and The Reality.







In The Situation Paula gives an insight to the journey towards independence where photographs capture the training of the Afghan soldiers, the aftermath of suicide bombs, women voters and the election of President Karzai.

The second chapter The Casualties slams you into the ground with the horror of the impact of war on civilians. There are photos here that make you wince. Others make you recoil. They are gruesome, but you dare not look away because these people have lived this moment. The least we can do is look and acknowledge their pain. And acknowledge Paula’s courage in staying the course and taking these photographs. As she said in interview, “It’s important to show this. This is reality”. And Paula is not interested in telling the story any other way.

Paula doesn’t just take photos and walk away. She has often followed the stories of those she has photographed. She once told me that as journalists we have to help, and “while we can’t give money, we can still assist those in need. If you document something, you have a responsibility to help”.

While there are also confronting images in the final chapter, The Reality, such as those of heroin users shooting up, Paula also shares images that could be considered hopeful. In The Reality, which takes up half the book, the images soften and Paula shows us what has fascinated and sustained her interest in Afghanistan for so long: everyday life – kids skateboarding, a couple preparing for their wedding, schoolgirls playing at recess, a mother tending her baby, farmers harvesting wheat. And then there are quirky moments like the swan-shaped paddleboats that line the shore of a lake in Band-e-Amir National Park, which attracts tourists from around the country. These moments give the reader respite from the trauma of war, something the Afghan people are not yet able to claim.





The reproduction of the images is superb and Paula’s use of colour brings new dimensions to the imagery associated with the Afghan landscape. There is a foreword from journalist Kim Baker who worked with Paula and covered Afghanistan for The Chicago Tribune for five years. British journalist Christina Lamb, who has been writing about Afghanistan for 30 years, penned the introduction. It is a powerful combination to see Paula’s images and read the words from these accomplished journalists. A design feature worth noting is that captions appear with the photographs, which immediately gives context.

Afghanistan Between Hope and Fear may have been 14 years in the making, but it was worth the wait.

Afghanistan Between Hope and Fear
Paula Bronstein
University of Texas Press
228 pp


The Malkovich Sessions
Sandro Miller



American photographer and filmmaker Sandro Miller is a perfectionist, so it’s no surprise that this book from New York publisher Glitterati is more an artwork than it is a book. From the clear dust jacket on which words are printed in white on the inside flaps, to the gold pages that signify each new chapter and the double gatefolds within, this The Malkovich Sessions is a sumptuous production.

The book begins with the chapter Portraits, which features many of the first photographs Sandro took of actor John Malkovich. In 1999 Sandro met the actor when he was performing with the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago. The pair connected creatively in an instant and since then they have collaborated on some of the most ambitious and stunning projects that have involved still and motion photography.

Chapter 2 Homage begins with an interview with Sandro and Jon Siskel, in which he talks about his working relationship with Malkovich and how he came to create the series Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters. I know this story well as I interviewed Sandro last year when he was in Sydney for Head On Photo Festival where his Homage was one of the main features. It’s an inspiring tale of two creative geniuses coming together to bring off a project that would have daunted lesser men.

Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters came while Sandro was in treatment for cancer. At the time he asked himself if he only had one project left, what would that be? He settled on the idea of paying homage to the great masters who had influenced his career including Irving Penn, Dorothea Lange, Robert Mapplethorpe, Annie Liebovitz and Richard Avedon. Sandro’s intention was to recreate these masters’ iconic images and to have John Malkovich appear as Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon, Che Guevara, Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol and other celebrated cultural identities.











In creating Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich Sandro spent 18 months painstakingly researching each image and learning the different styles of lighting for each era. One of the biggest misconceptions is that he just photographed Malkovich’s face and dropped it into the existing photograph, but Sandro and his team meticulously staged each photograph.

“People think it’s all done with the computer,” he told me. “I’m old school, I’ve been doing this for forty years. I use a computer like a darkroom. For the most part it’s all in camera and we’re very, very, very proud that’s how we did it. I had a rock star crew. Everyone brought their A-game including John.”

In the final chapter, Film, Sandro talks about the natural progression of his work with Malkovich and the three short films he’s directed – Butterflies, Ecstasy and Allegory of a Cave (now doing the rounds of the film festivals as Hell). There is also a fourth film released in October – Psychogenic Fugue.





Sandro describes Butterflies as “a disturbing film about a journey taken by many men, who, when they turn fifty years old, are released from their employment and replaced by a twenty something. Feelings of worthlessness enter their lives and they resort to the demons of our society; pornography, drinking, drugs, divorce and suicide”. Watch here.


Butterflies 


Butterflies 

The second Ecstasy, “is a crazy film about an underclass Italian man preparing himself in a nightclub bathroom for another night of raunchiness!” Watch here.


EcstasyAllegory of a Cave, which is now titled Hell, sees Malkovich kitted out in US military garb complete with rifle and aviator sunglasses, as he recites Plato’s essay.

This is a remarkable body of work by one of the most innovative, passionate and hardworking photographers working today.


John Malkovich & Sandro Miller

The Malkovich Sessions 

Sandro Miller
Available at Amazon
268 pages

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