PHOTOLUCIDA: 2015 Portfolio Reviews

Nomads In Niger

Photograph © Terri Gold

Nomads In Niger

Photograph © Terri Gold

Nomads In Niger

Photograph © Terri Gold

TERRI GOLD

 

When rainfall quenches the bone-dry terrain of Southern Niger, says New York-based travel photographer Terri Gold, a thousand Wodaabe nomads, along with thousands of their treasured animals, coverage across the desert in celebration of the The Guérewol Festival. As part of the weeklong event, the men dress in traditional finery, adorn their faces in paint, and perform for hours in hopes of winning the admiration of a set of young women judges. After braving the 110 degree heat in search of the merrymaking, Gold at last happened upon Guérewol after weeks of anticipation. read more...

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 Ileana and Valerica, Sirbi, Maramures, 2013

Photograph © Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin

Batrine, Sarbi, 1999 (color 2013)

 Photograph © Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin

 Walking Home, Sarbi, 1999 (color 2013)

 Photograph © Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin

 KATHLEEN LARAIA MCLAUGHLIN

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Stubborn Child 1 / Grimm Mysteries

Photograph © 2015 Gerhard Clausing

Stubborn Child 2 / Grimm Mysteries

Photograph © 2015 Gerhard Clausing

The Water Witch / Grimm Mysteries

Photograph © 2015 Gerhard Clausing

GERHARD CLAUSING

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 "Poetics of the Landscape XX"

Photograph © Jacqueline Walters

JACQUELINE WALTERS

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Within The Shadows

Photograph © Aoife Shanahan

AOIFE SHANAHAN

 

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Daisy 1

Photograph © Yelena Zhavoronkova 

YELENA ZHAVORONKOVA

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Landscape #7, 2002 / Everywhere All At Once
photo-eye Gallery, Santa Fe
Photograph © Vanessa Marsh

VANESSA MARSH

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Saint Veronica
Photograph ©  Eileen Clynes 

EILEEN CLYNES

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Fence / Star  Japan
Diptych © Andrew Warren
FENCE  Photoville, Boston

ANDREW WARREN

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Let Virtue Be Your Guide
Photograph © Frances F. Denny

 FRANCES F. DENNY

 Home Sweet Home. Gobelin.
Photograph ©  Rubi Lebovitch

Home Sweet Home. Sofa.
Photograph © Rubi Lebovitch

RUBI LEBOVITCH

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 PHOTOLUCIDA

Photolucida is an arts nonprofit based in Portland, Oregon. Our mission is to provide platforms that expand, inspire, educate and connect the regional, national, and international photography community.

Every other April, an international set of photographers and reviewers gather in Portland, Oregon for a five-day celebration of photography that includes lectures, workshops, and exhibition collaborations. Intensive portfolio reviews are at the heart of the festival. Reviewers are selected for their experience, involvement, and commitment to advancing the work of emerging and mid-career artists. Over the years, many participants have made contacts that have led directly to exhibitions, publications, and sales, in addition to receiving useful critiques.

By providing a venue for in-depth, informed, and supportive dialogue between photographers, gallery owners, curators, publishers, editors, and consultants, Photolucida promotes the culture of photography locally, nationally, and internationally. The next Portfolio Reviews Festival will take place April, 2017.

PEDRO FARIAS-NARDI: Let Me Introduce You at Photolucida

"Let me introduce you to my deceased Mother"

Photograph © Pedro Farias-Nardi

"Let me introduce you to my daughter and her husband"

Photograph © Pedro Farias-Nardi

"Let me introduce you to my Mother"

Photograph © Pedro Farias-Nardi

"This series of portraits are the result of the lingering power of the image in bringing memories to life.  I was working for an NGO (TU, MUJER) in Los Mina, Santo Domingo Este, Dominican Republic; devising a program to help the recipients of remittance to understanding their hard work overseas, thus to avoid that it is wasted in banal issues.  While visiting houses for people to talk to them, they always brought a picture of the relative that had left the country."

"For the series I placed the person holding the picture on front of a blue curtain, to resemblance a studio, but included the surroundings as a metaphor, allegory, of what is left behind, sometimes, what had been acquired from the money send: furniture, a store, emptiness –like the image of a woman holding a picture of her deceased mother (Let me introduce you to my mother…).  She was denied a visa for the funeral, and she had not the resources to bring the body back home, thus a lot of sadness, among the thins she mentioned was “who will tend to her grave there?”  Or the young girl, that can hardly hold the picture, and hardly knows her mother...." read more here

"Let me introduce you to my wife"

"A picture of myself, holding a picture of my wife; she is overseas continuing her studies in surgery" Self-Portrait © Pedro Farias-Nardi

Pedro Farias-Nardi was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in 1957 and started photography at the early age of seven. Focusing on long-term photographic projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, Farias-Nardi has extensively documented the lives of economically and socially marginal people. He holds degrees in anthropology from the City University of New York and the University of Florida, Gainesville, and studied photography and visual anthropology at the International Center for Photography, the University of Southern California, and with photojournalist Antonin Kratochvil. He currently lives in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. We met at Photolucida's 2015 Portfolio Review. His work is posted on FotoVisura's Guild.

From the series El Otro
Photograph © Pedro Farias-Nardi

From the series El Otro
Photograph © Pedro Farias-Nardi

Pedro Farias-Nardi’s El Otro is a series of portraits of undocumented Haitian migrant workers in the Dominican Republic. In collaboration with the Immigration Department, the portraits were taken when the Jesuit Refugee and Migrant Service (JRMS) started an ID campaign.

“My reason for these re-presentations is to call attention to the plight of these workers who are ignored by the Dominican population but are an important segment of our economy. I cooperated with the JRMS for almost two years, documenting the life of the migrants in the region.”

Check out Farias-Nardi's Otro series at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland 

MICHAEL KIRCHOFF: Photolucida + Austin

Road To Red Square, Moscow

Photograph (c) Michael Kirchoff

double-click image to see full frame

Transfiguration Cathedral Compound, Kizhi, Russia

Photograph (c) Michael Kirchoff

Shadow Angel, Lafayette Cemetery

Photograph (c) Michael Kirchoff

After several years of corresponding online through social media, it was great to finally meet photographer Michael Kirchoff and view his work in person at Portland's recent Photolucida Portfolio Reviews. I'm pleased to be able to announce his solo exhibit, Flawed, opening today, May 8, at the Photo Methode Gallery, Austin, Texas. This is his statement about the work in this show:

Michael Kirchoff:  Flawed

"I am inherently flawed. Deeply and irrevocably. I always have been, and I always will be. I try, make mistakes, and often fail, but not without learning something from them. Without these flaws I would not be able to properly create the images you see in this collection, as they are representative of myself as a photographic artist and as a human being. I strive to create images that are a flip side to the perfectly composed, digitally created and retouched photographs seen in ads and the covers of magazines. My art can be recognized by a timeless and ethereal quality where the imperfections of the subject, camera, or technique are often highlighted as an integral part of the image."

A large portion of the photographs on exhibit are from my two largest bodies of work, An Enduring Grace, created with long expired Polaroid materials that produce inconsistent and unpredictable results, and Vignette, created using cheap plastic toy cameras with plastic lenses that bring about softer, more unrefined looking photographs.

The use of outdated Polaroid film has been the perfect vehicle for constructing the framed and fractured reflections of many of my travels. Over time I have been able to predict and guide the unpredictable nature of this process, yet never maintaining a perfect handle on the outcome. A natural frame exists within each photograph, and within that frame a more organic and meandering texture or weakness. Once again, I am reflected within its contents.

The square photographs made with toy cameras, specifically the Chinese manufactured Holga camera, engage the use of one of the simplest of photographic tools made. Little control over exposure, and an inaccurate viewfinder require an innate ability to predict and compose the moments captured. Inaccuracy and lack of control are the hallmarks of my being.

No one person is not without needed improvement, and I am forever a work-in-progress. My images embrace, expose, and mirror the fact that I, like everyone, remain imperfect… and most certainly, flawed." – Michael Kirchoff

MichaelKirchoff.com

Photo Methode Gallery, Austin, Texas

May 8 – June 19, 2015