NARCISO CONTRERAS "Libya: A Human Marketplace" Fondation Carmignac | SKIRA

Narciso Contreras "Libya : A Human Marketplace"

Publishers Fondation Carmignac | Editions SKIRA

(click on images to enlarge)

Narciso Contreras  Sabha, March 2016

The corpses of illegal sub-Saharan migrants lie in the morgue of Sabha City, after having been collected from the streets and the desert during previous days.

Narciso Contreras  Zawiyah, May 2016

A group of sub-Saharan illegal migrants and refugees is crowded into one section of the Zawiyah detention center, a warehouse-like facility holding as many as two thousand detainees at any time, making it the largest of it's type on Libyan soil. The center serves as a distribution facility in the human trafficking supply chain, and from here inmates are resold to other militias on the west coast of Libya.

Narciso Contreras  Tajoura, May 2016

Sub-Saharan illegal migrants and refugees on the Tajoura shore after having been arrested in the Mediterranean Sea by the Libyan coastguard. 

Narciso Contreras  Surman, June 2016

Illegal female migrants queue in the prison yard as they are loaded on to buses to be transferred to another detention center, after having been sold by the militia group ruling the Surman detention center in the west of Libya.

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I just received a powerful new monograph from the Fondation Carmignac on the theme of Libya by Mexican photographer, Narciso Contreras, the 7th Laureate of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award. It is an elegantly designed and produced book co-published by Fondation Carmignac with Editions Skira, Paris and printed in Belgium. The overall book, beautifully typeset on magnificent paper, belies the dangerous situations Contreras put himself in to bring us this ongoing chronicle documenting the brutal reality of human trafficking as he traveled through the complex tribal society of post-Gaddafi Libya from February to June 2016.

"Contreras lays bare an unfolding humanitarian crisis in which illegal migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are at the mercy of militias who exploit them for financial gain. Held in detention centres for illegal migrants, they are subjected to inhumane conditions. He weaves a compelling narrative to show how, instead of being a place of transit for migrants on their way to Europe, Libya has actually become a trafficking market where people are bought and sold on a daily basis. He provides us with a glimpse of the complex and horrifying context migrants are faced with."

 Narciso Contreras,

7th Laureate of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award
"Libya: A Human Marketplace"

Texts by Narciso Contreras and Ela Stapley

Hard Cover, 102 pages, English+French

ISBN 978-2-37074-043-4

Publications Fondation Carmignac

Production: Fondation Carmignac, Direction: Gaia Donzet, Carmignac Photojournalism Award Gestion, Direction: Emeric Glayse, Communications manager: Valentine Dolla, Photo Editors: Patrick Baz, Narciso Contreras, Text: Ela Stapley, Photography & Investigation: Narciso Contreras, Publisher: EDITIONS SKIRA, Senior Editor: Nathalie Prat-Couadau, Editorial Coordination: María Laura Ribadeneira

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In 2009, the Fondation Carmignac launched the Carmignac Photojournalism Award with the aim to support, each year, a photojournalist in undertaking a photographic and investigative assignment exploring a theme or an area of the world at the centre of geostrategic conflicts. Selected by an international jury, the Laureate receives 50,000 EUR that enable him/her to spend time into the field, as well as a fully-financed monograph and a touring exhibition of the project.

Created in 2000 by Edouard Carmignac and directed by Gaïa Donzet, the Fondation Carmignac has three strands: the corporate collection comprising nearly 250 contemporary works of art, the annual Carmignac Photojournalism Award led by Emeric Glayse, and the Foundation's project to open an exhibition space and a sculpture park to the public on the preserved site of Porquerolles (Var). Edouard Carmignac’s desire to share his passion for contemporary art, promote freedom of expression and increase awareness of contemporary world issues led him to the creation of this Foundation.

Upcoming Carmignac Photojournalism Award exhibition: Saatchi Gallery, London, May 16–June 16, 2017

NICK BRANDT: Inherit The Dust, a monograph

Wasteland With Elephants, 2015

Photograph © Nick Brandt

Nick Brandt's latest book, Inherit The Dust, is a tragic desolate look into our fast approaching future without the majestic beauty of wildlife. An elegant, beautifully designed and printed edition with 68 black-and-white tritone images; two essays by the artist: a text about the crisis facing the conservation of the natural world in East Africa; and a behind-the-scenes descriptions of Brandt’s elaborate production process, with accompanying documentary photographs. One of the most important Best Books of 2016.

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Quarry With Lion, 2014

Photograph © Nick Brandt

Wasteland With Rhinos, 2015

Photograph © Nick Brandt

Quarry With Giraffe, 2014

Photograph © Nick Brandt

Underpass With Elephants, 2015

Photograph © Nick Brandt

Wasteland With Cheetahs and Children, 2015

Photograph © Nick Brandt

Road Junction With Qumquat and Family, 2014

Photograph © Nick Brandt

Inherit The Dust Behind The Scenes

Elephant Panel on Dumpsite 

Photographs © Nick Brandt

 "Due to the urgent nature of the subject matter,

I'm on a mission to get this work exposed"-Nick Brandt

The wasted lands in Inherit The Dust were once golden Savannah, sprinkled with acacia trees, where elephants, big cats and rhinos roamed. These now dystopian landscapes - as Nick Brandt's unvarnished, harrowing but stunning work reveals - brings us face to face with a crisis, both social and environmental, demanding the renewal of humanity itself. -Kathryn Bigelow, Film Director, The Hurt Locker

Three years after the completion of his trilogy, On This Earth, A Shadow Falls, Across the Ravaged Land, documenting the disappearing animals of eastern Africa, Nick Brandt returned to East Africa to photograph the escalating changes to the continent’s natural world and its animals. In a series of epic panoramas, Brandt recorded the impact of man in places where animals used to roam, but no longer do. In each location, Brandt erected a life-size panel of one of his portrait photographs―showing groups of elephants, rhinos, giraffes, lions, cheetahs and zebras―placing the displaced animals on sites of explosive urban development, new factories, wastelands and quarries. The contemporary figures within the photographs seem oblivious to the presence of the panels and the animals represented in them, who are now no more than ghosts in the landscape. Inherit the Dust includes this new body of panoramic photographs along with original portraits of the animals used in the panoramas, the unique emotional animal portraiture for which Brandt is recognized. 

In 2010, Nick Brandt and award-winning conservationist Richard Bonham, co-founded the Big Life Foundation. Relying on a grass roots effort and calling on inclusive community collaboration, Big Life Foundation was the first organization in East Africa with a coordinated, cross-border anti-poaching operation covering the Kenya/Tanzania border. Five years after its creation, the Foundation now employs more than 300 rangers, 41 permanent and mobile outposts, 15 patrol vehicles, 2 planes for aerial monitoring, and protects over two-million acres of the land.

Nick Brandt: Inherit The Dust

Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York

through May 7, 2016

Nick Brandt: Inherit The Dust

Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles

through May 14, 2016

Inherit The Dust
Photographs by Nick Brandt
Edwynn Houk Editions, 2016

Nick Brandt: Inherit The Dust
Edwynn Houk Editions, 2016

photo-eye Bookstore

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Future Exhibition Dates:

May 18 - May 22 2016
ATLAS GALLERY, SOLO EXHIBITION 

PHOTO LONDON, LONDON

May 20 - September 11 2016
FOTOGRAFISKA MUSEUM, STOCKHOLM

May 13 - July 9 2016
CAMERA WORK, BERLIN

May 23-July 30 2016
A GALERIE, PARIS

June 1 - June 26 2016
LOOK3 FESTIVAL OF THE PHOTOGRAPH, 

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA

June 9 - July 23 2016
PHOTO-EYE, SANTA FE

July 26 - August 14 2016
SOURCE PHOTOGRAPHICA, MELBOURNE

July 26 - August 14 2016
SOURCE PHOTOGRAPHICA @ BLACKEYE, SYDNEY

September 15 - November 13 2016
WILLAS CONTEMPORARY, OSLO
 

ALINE SMITHSON: Monograph | Self + Others: Portrait As Autobiography

Self + Others: Portrait As Autobiography

Photographs by Aline Smithson

Published by the Magenta Foundation

 Available for pre-purchase here

 Fur from Daughter

Photograph © Aline Smithson

Special Edition soft-cover in a fabulous Drawer Box!

Mr. Malin from Hollywood at Home

Aline Smithson is known as a superstar among her peers. She is beloved in the photo community she so generously promotes and supports daily in her award winning journal, LENSCRATCH, she teaches workshops at the Los Angeles Center of Photography, jury's exhibitions and reviews at portfolio reviews all around the country – while working full-time on her own photography career.

Now, the Magenta Foundation is publishing Aline Smithson's first monograph, Self + Others: Portrait As Autobiography, portrait photographs spanning over twenty years. A gorgeous must-have photography book, with a foreword by Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director and Curator at the Griffin Museum of Photography; an introduction by Karen Sinsheimer, Curator of Photography at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and some very interesting, revealing text from the photographer about her photographic series, opens each chapter.

Self + Others: Portrait As Autobiography

Photographs by Aline Smithson

Published by the Magenta Foundation

Available for pre-purchase here

I have always been partial to Aline Smithson's black and white photographs of her family with her children at various ages and stages. I was interested to learn she was inspired by some of my favorite photographers. She writes "...I was drawn to the humanity of the early portraits of Keith Carter, captured near his home in Beaumont, Texas; I was fascinated with the intimacy Diane Arbus was able to create with strangers; and I was affected by Matt Mahurin’s moody and gestural images, which inspired me to print darker and take risks in the darkroom."

Night Light from Daughter

Photograph © Aline Smithson

Brothers

Photograph © Aline Smithson

Venus Rising from Inside Out

Photograph © Aline Smithson

Hardcover
11" × 12"
216 pages with foldout section
55 B&W photographs and 75 colour photographs
Full colour throughout and gilded edges
ISBN 978-1-926856-06-3
—
Special Edition soft-touch cover book,
inside of a high-gloss, foil stamped
drawer box with a pull-tab
—
$60 (book)
$150 (special edition book in box)
$300 (special edition book in box, with print)

Self + Others: Portrait As Autobiography

Photographs by Aline Smithson

Available for pre-purchase here

—

"Aline Smithson Talks To Elizabeth Avedon" 

L'Oeil de la Photography Interview here 

LYDIA PANAS: Longing In Black + Photolucida + The Mark of Abel Monograph

LONGING IN BLACK / Amy

Photograph © 2013 Lydia Panas

LONGING IN BLACK / Elexia

Photograph © 2013 Lydia Panas

LONGING IN BLACK / Mattie

Photograph © 2014 Lydia Panas

"There is almost nothing I would rather do than look at someone through the lens of my camera. It's hard to describe what it feels like, a seduction of sorts or a way of getting close. It's got something to do with desire.  We see one another and we don't have to speak or smile.   The photograph is a record of our connection; intimate, intense and very present." – Lydia Panas

"Lydia Panas is a fine art photographer whose work has been widely exhibited in the US and internationally. Lydia was one of nine artists selected by Houston FotoFest curators for the prestigious International Discoveries Exhibition in 2007 and has since garnered numerous awards and honors, including  an Image Award from CENTER, Santa Fe. She was twice included in both the Critical Mass Top Fifty and the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize Exhibition. She has received six Pennsylvania Partner's in the Arts Grants and a Puffin Foundation Grant among others. She is currently a Visual Arts Fellow with CFEVA in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Her work has been featured in periodicals such as the New York Times Magazine, Photo District News and Popular Photography. Lydia has degrees from Boston College, School of Visual Arts, and New York University / International Center of Photography. She has received a Whitney Museum Independent Study Fellowship." Her book, The Mark of Abel, is available at photo-eye Bookstore.

The Mark of Abel 

 publisher: Kehrer Verlag

PHOTOGRAPHS BY LYDIA PANAS

GHOST PORTRAITS / October Gold 2

PHOTOGRAPHS BY LYDIA PANAS

LYDIA PANAS WEBSITE

Text: Lydia Panas website

ALINE SMITHSON: And the Magenta Foundation Kickstarter Campaign!

Award winning photographer Aline Smithson generously promotes and supports the work of other photographers and photo professionals daily on her award winning journal, LENSCRATCH; as well as giving workshops at the Los Angeles Center of Photography and jurying exhibitions and portfolio reviews around the country. Now Smithson's first monograph, a twenty-year retrospective of her portrait work, Self and Others: Portrait as Autobiography, will be published by The Magenta Foundation this Fall.

"I have always felt that the act of creating a portrait is equally a reflection of the artist and the sitter. I tend to work with people I know--family, friends, and neighbors, so that the process is in fact, autobiographical.  I am not only telling their story, but also telling my own. I still shoot film and work for the most part, with a mid century Rolleiflex. I like the slowed down nature of shooting film and the sense of history and methodology it brings to my art making." – Aline Smithson

I am thrilled to announce the Kickstarter campaign created to raise funds for the publication of award-winning photographer Aline Smithson's first monograph, Self and Others: Portrait as Autobiography, by the Magenta Foundation in the Fall of 2015.

"This will be the first published monograph of Aline Smithson's portrait photographs spanning over twenty years. Self and Others: Portrait as Autobiography is an almost 20 year culmination of portrait photographs captured by award-winning photographer Aline Smithson. Beginning with her early forays into black and white work, produced as darkroom silver gelatin prints, she photographed the world around her considering the poignancy of childhood and the pathos of aging and relationships. The book continues with her hand painted photographs featuring her defining series, Arrangement in Green and Black: Portrait of the Photographer's Mother, where she combines humor and family to create a universal expression of motherhood. The book is completed by her color projects that revisit beauty, the essence of childhood, and an examination of created realities. Aline brings a background in painting and fashion to her images, but at the heart of her work is her ability to recognize the inner self of her subjects. The photographer considers all her portraits a reflection of herself and the stories she wants to tell, and in that way, she has created a visual language that is her own unique autobiography." –The Magenta Foundation

PLAY THE VIDEO

"Hello friends! I am so excited to announce my first monograph, Self and Others: Portrait as Autobiography, and share my Kickstarter campaign created to raise funds for publication. The book will be published by the Magenta Foundation in Fall of 2015. I could really use your support to make this book a reality." Watch the Kickstarter video here

ALINE SMITHSON

KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN!

Read about Aline Smithson's series, Arrangement in Green and Black: Portrait of the Photographer's Mother, here on L'Oeil de la Photography.

LYDIA PANAS: Exhibitions Here + There

Fish
Falling From Grace...
Photograph (c) Lydia Panas

Pig
Falling From Grace...
Photograph (c) Lydia Panas

A Group Exhibition with Lydia Panas

MORE PHOTOS ABOUT BUILDINGS AND FOOD
Gallery 339, Philadelphia
September 12 - December 22

Lydia Panas

A Suspended Moment
Photograph (c) Lydia Panas

It's a Matter of Perspective, Mr.President
Photograph (c) Lydia Panas

Our earliest relationships factor considerably in determining whom we turn out to be. For three years, in hot weather and cold, I invited families of various forms to stand before my lens. I asked them not because I knew what to expect, but because I was curious to see what would happen. These groups and occasional individuals stood graciously before me. I watched how they arranged themselves and then began to photograph them with my view camera.

In these pictures of family relationships, the details matter most. Although they portray engaging people, verdant landscapes and beautiful light, the photographs also provide more subtle clues for understanding the nature of my work.

These images depict specific people, but they go beyond portraits to explore the universal questions of how we feel. The pictures ask that we look deeper than the surface for what lies underneath: that complex part of our own personalities we often don’t see. – Lydia Panas

LYDIA PANAS

THE MARK OF ABEL
Rayko Photo Center, San Francisco
September 5 - October 7

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Monograph: The Mark of Abel
Essays by Maile Meloy and George Slade
96 Pages, 52 Color Photographs
Kehrer Verlag

RYAN McGINLEY: Twin Palms Retrospective

Dash Bombing, 2000. Photograph © Ryan McGinley

Jonas (Glow Falls), 2008. Photograph © Ryan McGinley

Read All: La Lettre de la Photographie

"Following in the footsteps of Allen Ginsberg and his Snapshot Poetics, McGinley turned his lens on the bodies and pastimes of his Lower East Side milieu, adding another generation to the History of Photography. This work, from the first years of this century, has given way to Ryan’s subjects running through and falling out of otherworldly utopian landscapes, caverns, forests and deserts; worlds away from the Chinatown tenements he still calls home." – Jack Woody, Twin Palms Publisher

You and I
Published by Twin Palms, 2011

"You and I carefully pieces together a ten-year overview of McGinley's work, resulting in a portrait of a generation. Taking us along on his youthful road trip across America, he incorporates the American landscape with nude figures of friends and acquaintances, perpetually falling from buildings, down waterfalls, out of trees, and over cliffs. McGinley said, "In the beginning, all the stuff was documentary, but after a while, I got bored with waiting for things to happen—for someone to light a Christmas tree on fire or take their clothes off and make love." read more on La Lettre de la Photographie

CHRIS VERENE: Town Hall Meeting April 29

Family Chris Verene • Twin Palms Publishers
Monograph 80 Four-color Plates 120 Pages May 2010

My Twin Cousin's Husband's Brother's Cousin's Cousins
Photograph (c) Chris Verene /All Rights Reserved

The Pregnancy Test
Photograph (c) Chris Verene /All Rights Reserved

"CHRIS VERENE: TOWN HALL MEETING" April 29 NYC

Chris Verene hosts a group discussion and performance expanding on his new documentary photography book, "Family," which chronicles twenty-six years of his family and their struggling community of Galesburg, Illinois. More about the book here.

Thursday, April 29th, 6:30pm-8:30pm
POSTMASTERS GALLERY
459 West 19th Street (at 10th Avenue) NYC 10011

PAULA McCARTNEY: Bird Watching

Aqua Tanager
Photograph (c) Paula McCartney /All Rights Reserved

Northern Cardinal
Photograph (c) Paula McCartney /All Rights Reserved

Song Sparrow
Photograph (c) Paula McCartney /All Rights Reserved

I decided to...photograph the idealized scenes that I fantasized about, where songbirds decorated the trees as I moved through the landscape.

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I'm so pleased to see Princeton Architectural Press has published Paula McCartney's first monograph, Bird Watching. “These are gorgeous images, and in that sense, they are worthy of their subjects. She’s not laughing at us by drawing us into her fantasy, rather, she’s playfully reminding us that all photographs indulge in certain fictions...she takes us on a journey that is educative and inspiring”.—Darius Himes, editor, Radius Books.

Paula McCartney will discuss her work with Darius Himes (Founding Editor of Radius Books), together with a book signing, on Saturday March 6, 1:00 pm—2:00 pm KLOMPCHING Gallery, DUMBO

EXHIBITION

KLOMPCHING GALLERY
March 4- April 23, 2010

THE MUSEUM OF UNNATURAL HISTORY: CLAMPART

Struggle
Photograph (c) Amy Stein /All Rights Reserved

Katie at Natural History Museum, 1997
Photograph (c) Blake Fitch /All Rights Reserved

Animalia, 2009
Photograph (c) Nicole Hatanaka /All Rights Reserved

Storage, 2009
Photograph (c) Nicole Hatanaka /All Rights Reserved

CLAMPART Gallery

THE MUSEUM OF UNNATURAL HISTORY
Feb 25–April 10

The artists included in The Museum of Unnatural History exhibition are Richard Barnes, Justine Cooper, Jason DeMarte, Blake Fitch, Jill Greenberg, Nicole Hatanaka, Harri Kallio, Hippolyte-Alexandre Michallon, Lori Nix, Matthew Pillsbury, Elliot Ross, Amy Stein, and Marisol Villanueva. My Interview With Richard Barnes