OPEN YOUR ARCHIVE: Call To Enter to Jan 24th

Midges at Dusk, Santa Fe River © Lynne Buchanan



Virginia Creeper © Lucie Langford Canfield

 

Call for Entry:

"Open Up Your Archive"

Curated by Elizabeth Avedon

 

DEADLINE JANUARY 24th

 

Exhibition March - May

Online and at South x Southeast Gallery, Molena, Ga.

 

Please Click Here for More Info and To Enter

 All genres, all processes welcome in this salon-style exhibition

ALL-ABOUT-PHOTO AWARDS: Call To Enter

The Car Boys © Rebecca Moseman, Merit Mention 2019

CALL TO ENTER: All-About-Photo Awards 5th edition invites photographers from around the world to submit their best work for consideration. Cash prizes! Terrific jurors! Deadline to enter: January 31, 2020

Winners will receive $10,000 in cash awards, extensive press coverage and global recognition. The grand prize is $5,000, the 2nd prize is $2,000, the 3rd prize is $1,500, the 4th prize is $1,000 and the 5th prize is $500!

All winners will have their work published/showcased on the websites Lenscratch, Daylighted's digital traveling exhibition worldwide, All About Photo Winners Gallery and featured in the printed issue of AAP Magazine "Special Edition All About Photo Awards 2020". In addition, a selection of entrants of particular merit will be invited to display their portfolio on the website www.all-about-photo.com.

For More Information and to Enter:

All-About-Photo Awards

 © Christian Vizl, 2nd Place Winner 2019

For More Information and to Enter:

All-About-Photo Awards

 All About Photo Awards is open to all individuals age 18 and older; 
professional and amateur photographers alike.

BEST PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS OF 2018 : ROUND-UP PART I

SALLY MANN  A Thousand Crossings

Photograph © Sally Mann

SALLY MANN  A Thousand Crossings
Photographs by Sally Mann
Text by Sarah Greenough and Sarah Kennel
Contributions by Drew Gilpin Faust, Hilton Als and Malcolm Daniel
Produced by the National Gallery of Art and the Peabody Essex Museum (Abrams, New York)

For more than 40 years, Sally Mann (b. 1951) has made experimental, elegiac, and hauntingly beautiful photographs that explore the overarching themes of existence: memory, desire, death, the bonds of family, and nature’s magisterial indifference to human endeavor. Organized into five sections—Family, The Land, Last Measure, Abide with Me, and What Remains—and including many works not previously exhibited or published, A Thousand Crossings is a sweeping overview of Mann’s artistic achievements.

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MONA KUHN  Bushes + Succulents

 Photograph © Mona Kuhn

As a photographer, my female gaze highlights an unfiltered admiration for the female form and the works of other women such as Lee Miller and Georgia O’Keeffe. – Mona Kuhn

 

MONA KUHN  Bushes + Succulents
Photographs by Mona Kuhn. Poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks
(Stanley/Barker, London)

Bushes + Succulents is Mona Kuhn’s artistic response to the ongoing currents in contemporary feminism. "Reminiscent of Georgia O’Keefe’s floral paintings, your eyes wander around the graceful lines, not knowing exactly what you are looking at. The images are a celebration of the female essence — confident, raw and elegant, yet confrontational and unapologetic. The solarization process reveals human imperfections. 60 silver and color illustrations."

I'm always impressed by Mona Kuhn's methodology when embarking on a new series.  I spoke with her about her inspiration with these alluring botanicals. Read our Interview here

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 TOD PAPAGEORGE  

Dr. Blankman's New York

 Photograph © Tod Papageorge

I’d like to think that, in Dr. Blankman´s New York, you’ll find a persuasive account of what it meant for me to be free with a Leica in the streets of my newly adopted home of Manhattan, a record drawn with Kodachrome film and its rich, saturated colors." —Tod Papageorge

Photograph © Tod Papageorge

TOD PAPAGEORGE Dr. Blankman's New York
Photographs by Tod Papageorge. Text by David Campany
(Steidl/Pace/MacGill Gallery) 


Tod Papageorge: Dr. Blankman´s New York "documents a brief but critical moment in the photographer's early career, the two years Papageorge shot in color in New York in the late 1960s. Black-and-white  photography was still the "serious" medium, and color reserved for commercial applications; Papageorge--25 years old and newly arrived in New York City--was encouraged by his fellow photographers to seek paying magazine work by developing a body of work in color..." continue reading here

Listening to my photography professor, Tod Papageorge, late '60's

Photo: Alan Kleinberg

Tod Papageorge (born 1940) picked up photography for the first time as a student at the University of New Hampshire. He is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. From 1979 to 2013 Papageorge served as Yale University’s Walker Evans Professor of Photography and Director of Graduate Study in Photography.

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EMILY SHUR  Super Extra Natural!

Imperial Palace Gardens with Wall, Tokyo
Photograph © Emily Shur

 Super Extra Natural!  Vimeo link

Emily's "Baroness" in their shipping department via Instagram

EMILY SHUR  Super Extra Natural!
Photographs and text by Emily Shur
(Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg)

I first met and fell in love with the work of American photographer Emily Shur at CENTERS 2009 Review Santa Fe! Her book Super Extra Natural! is a collection of images made in Japan between 2004 and 2016. "What began as a one-time getaway possessing no agenda beyond experiencing something new expanded into a long-term body of work that has resulted in over 15 trips to various parts of the country. Shur says, “Everything made sense. Lines, shapes, light, and color fit together like a math equation that added up to what still feels like a supernatural high.”

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TODD HIDO  Bright Black World

 #11389-3087 from the series Bright Black World

Copyright © Todd Hido

#11755-2192 from the series Bright Black World

Copyright © Todd Hido

TODD HIDO Bright Black World
Photographs by Todd Hido. Text by Alexander Nemerov
(Nazraeli Press, Paso Robles, CA).

"Exploring the dark terrain of the Northern European landscape and regions as far as the North Sea of Japan enchanted Hido, calling him back on several occasions. This newest publication highlights the artist’s first significant foray extensively photographing territory outside of the United States, chronicling a decidedly new psychological geography." read more here for Bright Black World

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 VIVIAN MAIER  The Color Work

   

Vivian Maier: The Color Work

VIVIAN MAIER  The Color Work
Photographs by Vivian Maier.
Text by Joel Meyerowitz and Colin Westerbeck
(Harper Design, New York)

"Photographer Vivian Maier’s allure endures even though many details of her life continue to remain a mystery. Her story—the secretive nanny-photographer who became a pioneer photographer—has only been pieced together from the thousands of images she made and the handful of facts that have surfaced about her life. Vivian Maier: The Color Work is the largest and most highly curated published collection of Maier’s full-color photographs to date."

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 YUKARI CHIKURA  Zaido

 Zaido (Steidl)

Photograph © Yukari Chikura

 Zaido (Steidl)

Photograph © Yukari Chikura

I first met Yukari Chikura at Houston's Fotofest Portfolio Review.

YUKARI CHIKURA Zaido
Photographs by Yukari Chikura.
(Soon to be published by Steidl, Germany)

This book is Yukari Chikura’s record of the 1,300-year-old Japanese ritual festivity known as Zaido. "Following a series of tragedies, including her father’s sudden death, her own critical accident and the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Chikura recalls how her father came to her in a dream with the words: “Go to the village hidden deep in the snow where I lived a long time ago.” With camera in hand she set off on a pilgrimage to northeast Japan. There, Chikura discovered Zaido, where inhabitants from different villages gather on the second day of each new year and conduct a ritual dance to induce good fortune. The performers dedicate their dance to the gods and undergo severe purifications." read more

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 TOM CHAMBERS  Hearts and Bones

The Trickster Photograph © Tom Chambers

 Vineyard Blush Photograph © Tom Chambers

TOM CHAMBERS  Hearts and Bones
A Retrospective of Tom Chambers' Photomontage Art
Photographs by Tom Chambers. Foreword by Elizabeth Avedon
(Unicorn Publishing Group, Chicago)
 

Hearts and Bones is the first comprehensive collection of Chambers' work. More than one hundred color photomontages are included in this volume, spanning his entire career. 

"Chambers uses photomontage to present unspoken stories that illustrate fleeting moments in time and are known for being extremely evocative, eliciting feelings ranging from tranquility to turbulence—and all the points in between. Through his intentional use of magical realism, Chambers' photomontages look believable, but improbable. Each, in fact, has been carefully constructed, using both planned images and ones that unexpectedly enhance the story he wishes to tell. Through such techniques Chambers moves beyond documentation of the present in order to fuse reality and fantasy into musings about the possibilities of the future"

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 The Best of LensCulture, Vol. 2

 Austin, Randy and Justin, Nevada © Robin de Puy  
Juror’s Pick, LensCulture Portrait Awards 2017

BEST OF LENSCULTURE, VOL 2 (Schilt Publishing)

  The Bass Family ©  Kremer/Johnson
1st Place, LensCulture Portrait Awards 2018
BEST OF LENSCULTURE, VOL 2 (Schilt Publishing)

  Lost Family Portraits © Dario Mitidieri
LensCulture Portrait Awards 2017, Finalist
BEST OF LENSCULTURE, VOL 2 (Schilt Publishing)

The Best of LensCulture, Vol. 2  
(Schilt Publishing, Amsterdam)

Here are 162 award-winning photographers you should know. These exciting contemporary photographers come from 38 countries on 5 continents, and they are making remarkable work right now in diverse cultures around the world. It’s fresh, inspiring, insightful and thought-provoking. This book celebrates excellence in the visual language of photography in all genres: documentary, fine art, photojournalism, portrait, street photography, abstract, landscape, architecture, nature, alternative process, experimental, poetic, personal, and more. Anyone who is serious about the current state of photography around the globe will be delighted to discover the rich variety of photographers and their imagery presented in these pages. The Best of LensCulture, Vol. 1 and 2 here

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 JANELLE LYNCH 

Another Way of Looking at Love

“…full of delicate hope!” -Charlotte Cotton 

 JANELLE LYNCH
Another Way of Looking at Love
Hardcover, Accordion fold

JANELLE LYNCH
Another Way of Looking at Love

JANELLE LYNCH  
Another Way of Looking at Love
Photographs by Janelle Lynch. Essay by Darius Himes
(Radius Books, Santa Fe)

"In Another Way of Looking at Love, the landscape is explored as a metaphor to consider the personal, societal, and environmental consequences of disconnection, and simultaneously, our yearning to be connected. From 2015-2018, Janelle Lynch (born 1969) has used an 8 x 10 camera to create still lives in the landscape that combine similar and disparate visual and biological elements." Hardcover. Accordion-fold...read more  

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SHERI LYNN BEHR  BESEEINGYOU 

I photograph the surveillance cameras that hide in plain sight. When they blend into the walls, disappear into the architecture, or become part of the decor, I make these pictures so we see them, always watching us. Do we know who is taking our picture?  – Sheri Lynn Behr
Buy it here

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 RICHARD RENALDI  "I Want Your Love”

 Richard Renaldi "I Want Your Love”

RICHARD RENALDI  
"I Want Your Love” 
(Super Labo)

Richard Renaldi's autobiographical photo book I Want Your Love navigates through the most intimate moments in a happy life. "I Want Your Love follows the arc from childhood to middle age, exploring what it means to be young and perpetually seeking, and what it means both to find and to lose the things we most deeply treasure.” In an edition of 1000. 

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BILL SHAPIRO  WHAT WE KEEP  

What We Keep: 150 People Share the One Object that Brings Them Joy, Magic, and Meaning

BILL SHAPIRO WHAT WE KEEP 
150 People Share the One Object that Brings Them Joy, Magic, and Meaning (Running Press Adult)

Author / Editor Bill Shapiro is the former editor-in-chief of the iconic LIFE Magazine. "All of us have that one object that holds deep meaning–something that speaks to our past, that carries a remarkable story. Bestselling author Bill Shapiro, with Naomi Wax, collected this sweeping range of stories–he talked to everyone from renowned writers to Shark Tank hosts, from blackjack dealers to teachers, truckers, and nuns, even a reformed counterfeiter–to reveal the often hidden, always surprising lives of objects. With contributions from Cheryl Strayed, Mark Cuban, Ta-Nahesi Coates, Melinda Gates, James Patterson, and many more–this fascinating collection gives us a peek into 150 personal treasures and the secret histories behind them." What We Keep

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Don't miss 

BEST PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS OF 2018

ROUND-UP PART II

If it's in RED it's a link. Many descriptions are from the publishers promo's.

Follow Jonathan Blaustein’s Photography Book Reviews all year on aphotoeditor.com

Happy Holidays! 

Happy Holidays!

SARA TERRY: Forgiveness + Conflict. Landscapes From Nelson Mandela's South Africa

 (1) East London City Hall Hearing Room

Photograph © Sara Terry 

complete captions below. click on images to enlarge

 (2) Site of the Battle of Paardeberg

Photograph © Sara Terry

 (3) Brandfort

Photograph © Sara Terry

(4) Liliesleaf Farm

Photograph © Sara Terry

(5) Limestone quarry, Robben Island, Western Cape

Photograph © Sara Terry

Landscapes From Nelson Mandela's South Africa

Text and Images by Sara Terry

Exhibition through May 26, 2018

I resisted including South Africa in this project for a long, long time.

Over the years, when people asked about my work – and heard the words “reconciliation” and “Africa” come out of my mouth – they almost always leapt to the same conclusion without hearing another word: “Oh, you mean like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa?”

No, I would say, not really. I’m looking at traditions and attitudes deeply embedded in African culture – like mato oput in Uganda, or fambul tok in Sierra Leone. It’s true, I often used the South African word ubuntu when talking about my work. I leaned heavily on its rich meaning (which loosely translates as “because you are, I am”) to explain the extraordinary human interconnectedness I found rooted in the traditions of truth-telling and forgiveness that I was exploring.

But the TRC of South Africa? I didn’t think it fit. For one thing, it seemed to me to be as much a Western proceeding as it was an African one, with formal hearings and reports in equally formal settings. I was also aware that although the TRC was given high marks for many things – including its “truth” mandate of finally putting on record the horrific abuses of the apartheid era – it was also sharply criticized in many quarters for falling short of its goals, particularly its “reconciliation” mandate. So, no, I would say, not really.

As time went by, however, I began to re-think my work. If most people I encountered in the West consistently referenced the TRC when talking about reconciliation in Africa, then perhaps I needed to include it – to create a bridge, of sorts, to bring people farther into the heart of my project. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. After all, despite the TRC’s shortcomings, it was still a monumental achievement. And so was the fact that for the first time on the African continent, a minority white power had willingly (in the end) conceded governance to the black majority. And then, of course, there was Nelson Mandela – the extraordinary human being who embodied forgiveness and reconciliation with breathtaking grace in almost everything he did after being released from prison and becoming his country’s first democratically-elected president in 1994.

But how to do the work – that took me quite a while to figure out. At one point, I thought about making portraits of former political prisoners who had forgiven their prison guards, and of the guards who had been forgiven. I had met a few of those former prisoners, who now serve as guides at the former Robben Island prison, but ultimately that route seemed too contrived, and not a genuine representation of a country that was still working through deep divisions.

I thought for a while that I would search out the places where the TRC human rights abuses hearings were held – the more than 50 locations where the dark stories of the past were told, where victims came to finally be heard as they recounted what had happened to them, where offenders came to tell what they had done. I thought about making environmental portraits of the locations and trying to find people who had testified. But this, too, seemed too academic, too contrived.

In the end, I let South Africa guide me to the story I needed to tell. I arrived in May, 2013, still unsure of my direction. I asked questions and listened to what South Africans, black and white, had to say about how far their country had – and hadn’t – come over the past nearly twenty years of democracy. Again and again, I heard the acknowledgment that reconciliation was still an elusive goal, one that might belong to the “born free” generation, the youth born after the fall of apartheid.

“We have a long way to go in our attitudes towards one another,” my black taxi driver said, as we drove from the airport into Johannesburg. “It will be some time before we are truly a rainbow nation.

“We have to reconcile in our daily lives,” he said. “You cannot leave that to the TRC. That was an institution that existed for a limited time.”

As I thought on these conversations, I found myself drawn to the land – and the landscapes – of South Africa. I began to seek out places of contemporary and older history where memories still lingered of events that had defined the country’s past – and thus helped shape its future. I drove across much of the country, and back again, seeking out sites that had shaped both black and white history in South Africa, sites that in many ways linked the two groups in ever evolving ways as passing years created new histories. I found battlefields, graveyards, monuments, memorials, new beginnings and old sorrows, each a wordless testament to a country still struggling to become its best self. 

The land, in fact, is where much of the story of South Africa has always played out – from the early displacement of blacks by whites seeking new destinies, to the discovery of diamonds, to bitter battles, to legislation passed 100 years ago by whites that deprived blacks of land ownership in all but marginal sections of the country (legislation that was overturned by the post-apartheid government). And land is where much of South Africa’s story continues to play out today – from the discovery of mineral deposits on communal lands and secret deals between mining companies and tribal leaders, to continued battles over land restitution claims resulting from the apartheid era.

“Each one of us is intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country,” Nelson Mandela said in his inaugural speech in 1994. He understood perfectly that the land of his beloved South Africa was inseparable from the identity, the hopes and dreams, of its people. 

These are his landscapes, the landscapes of South Africa’s memory – the landscapes of its future. Read More Here

Forgiveness + Conflict: 

Landscapes from Nelson Mandela's South Africa

Photographs by SARA TERRY
Exhibition through May 26, 2018

United Photo Industries Gallery
16 Main St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Photographer Sara Terry and UPI/Photoville Co-Founder's Sam Barzilay and Dave Shelley (not shown), generously explaining both the history behind this must-see series, as well as the importance of the sequencing of the exhibition, to my School of Visual Arts BFA Photography and Video program Professional Community students.

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Sara Terry is an award-winning documentary photographer and filmmaker, and a member of VII Photo, best known for her work as a post-conflict storyteller. She won a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship for her long-term project, “Forgiveness and Conflict: Lessons from Africa.” While working on her first long-term post-conflict work, “Aftermath: Bosnia’s Long Road to Peace,” she founded The Aftermath Project in 2003 on the premise that “War is Only Half the Story.” A grant-making, educational non-profit which supports photographers working on post-conflict stories, The Aftermath Project is celebrating its tenth anniversary with a book published by Dewi Lewis and a traveling exhibition in 2018. An accomplished speaker on aftermath and visual literacy issues, Terry’s lectures include a TedX talk, “Storytelling in a Post-Journalism Word,” and several appearances at The Annenberg Space for Photography. Terry has also directed and produced two feature-length documentaries, Fambul Tok (2011) and FOLK (2013). Fambul Tok, about a groundbreaking grass-roots forgiveness program in Sierra Leone, premiered at SXSW in 2011, and grew out of her long-term photo project, “Forgiveness and Conflict: Lessons from Africa.” It was supported by the Sundance Documentary Institute, played at over 100 festivals around the world and was hailed by Paste magazine as one of the best 100 documentaries of all time. Terry became a photographer and filmmaker after a long, award-winning career in print and public radio. She is currently working on her third documentary, “That’s How We Roll,” about mobile home parks and the affordable housing crisis

(1) East London City Hall Hearing Room: EAST LONDON, EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA. The room where the first human rights violation hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was held from April 15 -18, 1996. Chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the commission held a series of hearings across the country, taking the testimony of more than 21,000 victims of the apartheid regime. The TRC – with a mandate that included the possibility of amnesty for perpetrators of the regime – was an integral part of the agreements that led South Africa’s white Afrikaner government to agree to democratic elections, which in turn led to the election of Nelson Mandela as the country’s first black president in 1994. However, the hearings were also widely criticized for allowing the highest-level perpetrators (on all sides) to avoid testifying or being held accountable for their crimes. Although the TRC accomplished the monumental task of bringing the abuses of the apartheid era into the open and on to the country’s history books, “reconciliation” remained – and remains today – an elusive goal. May 2013. 

(2) Site of the Battle of Paardeberg: ORANGE FREE STATE, SOUTH AFRICA. One of the major battles of the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. On February 18, 1900, British forces began the siege of Boer soldiers led by General Piet Cronje. Ten days and several bloody battles later, the Boers surrendered. The soldiers numbered over 4,000 men – nearly ten percent of the Boer army. The victory was the first significant British win of the war, which lasted from 1899 to 1902, and ended with the Boer republics becoming British colonies. The conflict – and the brutal tactics of the British – helped fuel Afrikaner nationalism and a sense of victimization that were part of the Afrikaner mindset behind the creation of the apartheid state in 1948. May 2013.

(3) Brandfort: ORANGE FREE STATE, SOUTH AFRICA. The remains of information plaques that once held details about the concentration camp for Boers that stood on this site during the Anglo-Boer War. The camp, one of 45 created by the British for Afrikaner during the war, operated from January, 1901, to March, 1903; a total of 1,263 women and children died here. The British practiced a brutal scorched earth policy against Boer farmers during the war. They created tented concentration camps to house those burned off the land, mostly women and children, a policy that is widely considered to be the first modern use of concentration camps in war, and which outraged the British public when news of the camps was revealed. Black South Africans were also placed in concentration camps, where they died in greater number than Boers, a fact often omitted in Afrikaner writings about that period. This memorial site, once carefully tended during the apartheid era, is now completely overgrown and neglected. In 1977, under the apartheid regime, Winnie Mandela, then the wife of Nelson Mandela, was banned to Brandfort by the government for her anti-apartheid activities. May 2013. 

(4)  Liliesleaf Farm: JOHANNESBURG, GAUTENG PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA. In the early 1960s, Liliesleaf Farm was secretly used by members of the African National Congress, including Nelson Mandela, who lived at the farm under the assumed name of David Motsamayi, as a worker in blue overalls employed by the owner to look after the farm. In a crushing blow for the ANC and its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, South African security forces raided the farm on July 11, 1963, capturing 19 members of the underground as they were meeting to plan attacks on the government. The raid led to the Rivonia Trial (named after the neighborhood in which Liliesleaf stands), in which ten leaders of the ANC were tried for 221 acts of sabotage, which the government said were designed to “foment violent revolution.” Mandela was among those sentenced to life in prison; he was sent to Robben Island, where he served 18 of his 27 years in captivity. Today, the farm is a national museum, dedicated to keeping awareness of the early liberation struggle alive. May 2013.

(5) Limestone quarry, Robben Island, Western Cape: Political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, were forced to work here, crushing rocks, under conditions so severe that many prisoners suffered eyesight and respiratory problems. The pile of rocks in the center of the quarry was created in 1995, when former political prisoners returned to Robben Island. At one point, Mandela, who had been elected president of South Africa in 1994, stepped away from the group, picked up a rock and dropped it on the ground in the middle of the quarry. One by one, his colleagues followed suit, creating the pile of stones that has remained untouched. Robben Island has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. May 2013.