STEVE McCURRY: Revealing The World

Jodhpur, India, 2004 (c) Steve McCurry/All rights reserved

Weligama, Sri Lanka (c) Steve McCurry/All rights reserved

Africa, 1986 (c) Steve McCurry/All rights reserved

...what matters most is that each picture stands on its own,
with its own place and feeling

"STEVE McCURRY, recognized as one of the world's finest image-makers, has won many of photography's top awards. Best known for his evocative color images, McCurry endeavors to capture the essence of human struggle and joy in the finest documentary tradition. Many of his photographs have become modern icons." (from Magnum Photos). An exhibition of color photographs "The Unguarded Moment" is currently at the Open Shutter Gallery in Durango, Colorado until Oct. 1. The upcoming Special Anniversary Issue of "FOCUS" profiles photographer Steve McCurry.

Steve McCurry Website and Blog

Magnum Photos Portfolio
FOCUS Preview

NICHOLAS VREELAND: Karnataka, India

Goat Herder, 2007. Karnataka, India (click to enlarge)

Photograph (c) Nicholas Vreeland/All rights reserved

Tiger Boy, 2007. Indoor, Karnataka, India.
Photograph (c) Nicholas Vreeland/All rights reserved

About Nicholas Vreeland
Rato Foundation Photographs
Rato Dratsang Foundation Exhibitions
An Open Heart by The Dalai Lama, Edited by Nicholas Vreeland

KIDS WITH CAMERAS: Calcutta

Bengali Moon. Photograph © Kochi, 10 / Kids With Cameras

Babai. Photograph © Kochi, 10 / Kids With Cameras

Photograph © Avijit / Avijit's Postcard Collection

We believe that photography is an effective tool in igniting children's imagination and building self-esteem. We believe in the power of art to transform lives, for both the artist and the viewer.

+ + +

BORN INTO BROTHELS, a film by Photographer Zana Briski and Co-Director Ross Kauffman, won the 77th annual Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. A tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art, Born into Brothels is a portrait of several unforgettable children who lived in the red light district of Calcutta, where their mothers worked as prostitutes.

Zana Briski, a New York-based photographer, founded Kids With Cameras in 2002, teaching photography to children in Calcutta's red-light district. She gave each of the children a camera and taught them the basics of photography and camera mechanics. Kids With Cameras has since expanded workshops to include Haiti, Jerusalem and Cairo.

The photographs taken by the children are available for purchase in the Kids' Gallery, and also as a signed Limited-Edition Portfolio. 100% of proceeds from sales of the children's prints and book, go directly to support their education and well-being. Archival prints on Somerset paper: 17 x 22 inches, $175 - 36 x 48 inches, $500.

There are also updates on the children on the Kids With Cameras website. One of those children, Avijit, was 11 when he began photographing in the brothels district he lived. "An innately talented artist, he's won many competitions for his paintings. Charismatic and restlessly creative, his images were among the most compelling of the workshop. Avijit was invited by the World Press Photo Foundation in Amsterdam to be part of their Children's Jury in 2002. In 2005, he received a four year high school scholarship to attend an incredible school in America." Avijit has now been accepted to the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. To help fund his education expenses, he's selected nine of his photographs taken and combined them into a collection of nine 4 x 6 postcards. You can help Avijit realize his educational goals by purchasing this Postcard Collection. $30. plus shipping and handling.

Purchase Avijit's Postcard Collection here
Kids With Camera's

RATO DRATSANG FOUNDATION: Exhibition

Ven. Nicholas Vreeland with his photograph of Fakirappa with his Bulls
Photo (c) Elizabeth Avedon

Young Rato Monk Memorizing
Photograph (c) Nicholas Vreland/All rights reserved

New York City Exhibition: Left to right: Musa Train Klebnikov, author Ptolemy Tompkins, restaurateur David Zinsser, art dealer Sandro Manzo, former US Ambassador Frederick Vreeland, designer Madeline Weinrib, and poet Rene Ricard. Photograph © William Avedon/All rights reserved

(Click to enlarge images) Opening Night Photos here

Nicholas Vreeland with Barneys New York VP Julie Gilhart; in background from left to right: Jimmy Chan, Ptolemy Tompkins with Darren Smith, Won-Hee and Iris Yu, a direct descendant of the past King of Korea. Photograph © William Avedon/All rights reserved

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory. Henri Cartier-Bresson

+ + +

NICHOLAS VREELAND'S (BIO) exhibition of photographs taken in India over the 24 years he's been a monk were shown in designer Aurora Lopez Mehia's Talavera Studio this past week in N.Y.C.. This exhibition was organized by the many friends of Vreeland who formed the "Photos For Rato" group to raise funds for the reconstruction of Rato Dratsang, one of Tibet's most prestigious monasteries. The exhibition organizers were art curator Nessia Pope and Priscilla Rattazzi Whittle. Co-hosts Vogue Magazine Fashion Director Tonne Goodman and New York Magazine Design Editor and author Wendy Goodman lent their "elegance and perfection" over seeing the hanging of the show. Anthony Spina and Darren Smith of The Tibet Center, where Vreeland teaches, organized the evenings purchases.

The exhibition consists of twenty photographs selected by Robert Delpire (first publisher of Robert Frank's The Americans in 1958 and the first director of the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris). Each image is part of a limited edition of 25, masterfully printed by Laurent Girard, one of today's best known photographic printers. Girard works with notables such as Bruce Weber, Peter Beard, Susan Meiselas, and Annie Leibovitz, along with many others. The exquisite framing work was donated by framer Pamela Morgan and her assistants, Joe and Jason, donated hours of their own time towards this event.

The evenings eclectic mix of guests included Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Golden Globe winner Marvin Hamlisch and his wife Terre Blair, the Princess's Pema and Yangchen Namgyal of Sikkim, photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Count Nuno Brandolini d'Adda and his cousin Venturina Gelardin, artist/poet Rene Ricard and art dealer Vito Schnabel, Brazilian painter Sylvia Martins, Barneys New York VP Julie Gilhart, interior designer Susan Forristal and photographers Ellen Forbes Burnie and Adam Bartos. Vreeland's father, former U.S. Ambassador Frederick Vreeland, flew in from Rome and was joined by his grandson The Paris Review's Assistant Editor Reed Vreeland and Nicholas' step brother author Ptolemy Tompkins. Painter Alida Morgan oversaw a gorgeous group of young ladies, including niece Rachael Morgan Peters, Daria Isham and Clelia Peters. Gallery owner Spencer Throckmorton, art dealer Sandro Manzo, painter/designer Madeline Weinrib, Yogi and Yogini power couple Nancy Grabois Arann and Tony Leroy and many others viewed the extraordinary work and socialized with the distinguished crowd. This exhibition travels to the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris for it's May 25th exhibit.

Purchase Photographs for Rato
Wall Street Journal
About Nicholas Vreeland
Karnataka, India Photos

NICHOLAS VREELAND: HH The Dalai Lama

Photograph (c) Nicholas Vreeland/All Rights Reserved

42nd Street, NYC. Photograph (c) Elizabeth Paul Avedon

THE DALAI LAMA VISITS USA APRIL- MAY 2009
Photograph of H.H. The Dalai Lama by Nicholas Vreeland

VEN. NICHOLAS VREELAND, born in Geneva, Switzerland, a protégé of Henri Cartier - Bresson, son of American ambassador, Frederick Vreeland, and grandson of fashion icon, Diana Vreeland, has lived in Germany, Morocco, Italy, Paris, New York and India. He's fluent in Tibetan, Italian, French, Spanish, English, German, and Hindi, among other languages. He studied at NYU film school, initially worked for Irving Penn, before later working for Richard Avedon, and photographed Maharajahs and Tibetan Rinpoches over many years carrying a huge Deardorff 5 x 7 throughout India. His elegant portrait of the Dalai Lama in his flip flops above was used as a billboard all over New York City during His Holiness's 2003 visit.

Vreeland studied Buddhism at The Tibet Center, the oldest Tibetan Buddhist Center in NYC, under the tutelage of scholar Khyongla Rato Rinpoche. In 1985, he became a full-time Buddhist monk, living at the Rato Dratsang monastery in Karnataka, India. After 14 years of study, Vreeland holds the Ser Tri Geshe Degree, one of only three Westerners to ever achieve this honor. In 2001, he had the special distinction of editing An Open Heart, a New York Times Best Seller List book by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Vreeland helped organize and arrange, along with the Gere Foundation, HH The Dalai Lama's 1999, 2003, and 2007 Teachings in NYC. The Dalai Lama is touring the U.S. beginning in Santa Barbara, Ca April 26 and May 3 in NYC. HH The Dalai Lama's U.S. Schedule in April-May 2009

India Photos

Buddhist Photo Journal
Rato Foundation Photographs
Rato Dratsang Foundation Exhibitions
An Open Heart by The Dalai Lama, Edited by Nicholas Vreeland

SHIHO FUKADA: Pulitzer Nomination

Photograph by Shiho Fukada for The New York Times

"Tibetan monks leaving morning prayer on Wednesday at Rongwo Monastery in Qinghai Province, China. The Tibetan New Year has come, but many Tibetans, angry over the events of the past year, are rejecting official efforts to drum up festivities." Shiho Fukada was detained for 20 hours after taking this photograph.

+ + +

SHIHO FUKADA, a native of Tokyo, now based in Beijing, China, has a degree in English literature from Tokyo's Sophia University and worked in fashion and advertising before becoming a photojournalist. Fukada's stark photograph of Tibetan monks was recently published on the front page of The New York Times. I thought it was a powerful choice for photo editor Michele McNally to select for the cover of the Times newspaper.

Shiho's work includes portraits of child labor in Bangladesh where poverty pushes an estimated 6 to 7 million children to work, comprising one-fifth of the country's labor force. She also spent months in the Bangladesh brothels photographing both the child prostitutes and women who were sex workers for 50 years .

Her website includes her award winning photographs of the grief stricken families taken after the 2008 earthquake that struck China's Sichuan Province. At least 9,000 children were crushed to death by the falling school buildings. This photographic series received The New York Times Grand Prize, Photo of The Year by Editor & Publisher Magazine in 2008. The China earthquake photographs, like most of her work, began as her own personal project, not an assignment. Her work has also received recognition from the New York Press Photographers Association, The National Press Photographers Association in Photojournalism award, the Best of Photojournalism award for her multimedia work, PDN Annual, Communication Arts and Unicef Photo of The Year.

In the U.S., Shiho has covered the Iowa caucus for New York Magazine, photographed male exotic dancers and the life of migrant farm workers. In between assignments on the road, she recently completed a photo essay about the demise of the biggest labor town in Japan which has become a dumping ground of old men since the Japanese economy, once 2nd largest in the world, is now deteriorating at its worst pace since the 1970's during this financial crisis.

Shiho has been nominated for The Pulitzer Prize by The New York Times.

http://www.shihofukada.com
The New York Times slides: A Day of Mourning in Tibet
The New York Times 5/29/2009

SONAM ZOKSANG: Tibet

 Boy from Kham, Tibet

  Photograph (c) Sonam Zoksang /All Rights Reserved

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and President Barack Obama
Photograph (c) Sonam Zoksang /All Rights Reserved

Monks waiting for His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Sera Monastery
Photograph (c) Sonam Zoksang /All Rights Reserved

SONAM ZOKSANG was born in Kyirong, Tibet in 1960 after the Chinese invasion of Tibet. His parents escaped to India when Zoksang was one month old. He grew up in refugee schools, got a degree in Buddhist Dialectics, and taught himself photography. In 1985 Zoksang moved to the US, where he now runs Vision of Tibet. Active in the Tibetan Community as an advocate for human rights and political change, he is on the Board of Directors of the US Tibet Committee and has been president of the Tibetan Association of New York and New Jersey.

Sonam Zoksang’s mission is to tell the story of his homeland through photography. He does this by documenting Tibetans and Tibetan life, both in and out of Tibet. Whenever possible, he travels to Tibet to document the conditions in his Chinese-occupied homeland. He often takes pictures of Tibetan refugee communities in India, as well as in the US and other countries. Zoksang’s slide presentations at schools and cultural and community centers are always well-attended; he seeks out these opportunities as he feels education is particularly important. His photos have been widely published in books, magazines, and newspapers, and are widely exhibited, one major show having been in a US Congressional building in Washington DC. That exhibition was forced to close after less than one week due to political pressure.

 

Sonam has an enormous archive of photographs he's taken over decades of travels with H.H. The Dalai Lama, as well as very elegant landscapes of Tibet and India. I keep the Boy From Kham (center) with his hopeful face posted on my wall at all times.

Sonam Zoksang PhotoGallery