HOWARD CASTLEBERRY: Priest's Pulitzer Nominated Photograph

Father Buries Daughter in Soccer Field, Mogadishu, Somalia
Photograph © Howard Castleberry

Photojournalist Howard Castleberry (center) in a refugee camp,
Mogadishu, Somalia, September 1992 (Courtesy photo)

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Things like Somalia force you to answer big questions, they lead you to transformation. –The Rev. Howard Castleberry

The Rev. Howard Castleberry, now rector at Christ Episcopal Church in Temple, Texas, was a former staff photographer for the Houston Chronicle. While on assignment in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1992, he shot a photograph of a man burying his daughter in the city soccer field turned makeshift graveyard. It was reported that 10,000 people a day were dying in Somalia with the ongoing civil war and subsequent famine that left the country in chaos. The city’s soccer field, along with the botanical gardens, had become a grave yard because the city had run out of burial space. This image earned Castleberry a Pulitzer Prize nomination, and won Picture of the Year and the Robert Kennedy Award for International Photojournalism.

Suffering has always been a part of humanity's condition, and always will be. How we react to this condition is the question. Perhaps my work in Somalia will call attention to the fact that we're all really wanting the same things - a warm bed, a full tummy - and that those with more might give from the heart to those with less. –The Rev. Howard Castleberry

This photograph was selected by the Museum of Fine Arts Houston from more than a million images considered over the past seven years of curating for the future history of war photography exhibition. The prints in the show go from 1848 to the present and are taken on six continents. "The History of War Photography," curated by Anne Wilkes Tucker, will open in November 2012.

I want to thank fellow Memorial H.S. Alumni, artist Mary McCleary, soon to be named "2011 Texas Artist of the Year" in November, for bringing Fr. Castleberry's work to my attention. You can read more about Rev. Castleberry here: epicenter.org

W.M.HUNT: George Eastman House Exhibition

W.M. Hunt at Home, Oct 2011
Photograph © Elizabeth Paul Avedon

The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious
(Aperture, 2011) by W.M. Hunt

The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious
(Thames and Hudson, 2011) by W.M. Hunt

"W.M. Hunt Talks To Elizabeth Avedon"
La Lettre de la Photographie

When I turned 50, I decided my life’s mission would be to promote the pleasure of photography. – William Hunt

The first U.S. exhibition of 550 photographs from W.M. Hunt’s extraordinary collection opened at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. Selected works include photographs by Man Ray, Irving Penn, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Edward Steichen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Berenice Abbott, and Nadar in a range of formats from daguerreotype to digital. Highlights from the collection have previously been shown at the Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles, France; the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland; and Foam-Fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Thames & Hudson in the UK, Actes Sud in France and Aperture in the U.S. are simultaneously publishing his book, The Unseen Eye: Photographs From the W.M. Hunt Collection, to accompany the show.

Hunt’s collection follows an unprecedented theme in which the subject’s eyes are averted, hidden, concealed, pierced, or missing in every photograph. He began collecting over forty years ago with his first acquisition, Veiled Woman, by Imogen Cunningham...read the full Interview here

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Photographer Paolo Ventura exploring Hunt's Collection

[Paolo Ventura comes into the apartment during our talk. His exhibition The Automaton of Venice is at the Hasted Kraeutler Gallery through October 15 and he’s visiting for the day before returning to Italy. Ventura and Hunt discuss some 19th century photographs of nude women, prostitutes, Paolo saw in a flea market. Somebody had drawn beautiful masks to cover the eyes on the negatives.]

WM Hunt: The mask thing is a strange thing in the collection, because masks let the eyes in and this is very much about not letting the eyes in. For the show at the Eastman House I took out all the masks, so there are pictures in the book that aren’t going to be in the show.

My sister is the only one who’s seen all the different incarnations of this collection, so I’m curious to see what she thinks. This one will be really dense...read the full Interview here

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W.M. Hunt, with Gary Schneider diptych, Retinas, 1998.
Photograph © Elizabeth Paul Avedon

WM Hunt: Gary Schneider was doing a talk at ICP one night, just beginning work on the Genetic Self-Portrait series, and he showed a slide of this diptych. (Retinas, from ‘Genetic Self-Portrait’, 1998) When the lecture was over, I made a beeline for him. I wanted it. It looks like this moonlit night in the haunted forest; it looks like a lot of things. I think it’s very exciting.

[In “The Unseen Eye,” W.M. Hunt writes: “This is part of Gary Schneider’s ambitious self-portrait series, based on the extraordinary conceit of appropriating X-rays of the interiors of his own eyes – this really is the ‘unseen eye’ – and then printing these in his exquisite and exacting fashion. This image is a haunted landscape of the soul under a full moon, eerie and rapturous.”]

I’ve known Gary a long time and think he’s a real talent. His skill as a printer always preceded him. He had a photograph of a friend of ours daughter, Fotofolio’s Julie Galant and Martin Bondells’ daughter, Anya, when she was about 8 or 10. I bought it. It’s a great, great picture now in the book. (Gary Schneider, Anya, 1994)...read the full Interview here

The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the W.M. Hunt Collection
George Eastman House, Rochester, New York
Oct. 2011 - Feb. 19, 2012

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W.M. Hunt Talks To Elizabeth Avedon
La Lettre de la Photographie

DIANE ARBUS and MARVIN ISRAEL: Original 1970 Audio Slide Presentation + Screening

Marvin Israel and Diane Arbus photographed at her
1971 master class by her student Cosmos Sarchiapone

An Evening With
DIANE ARBUS AND MARVIN ISRAEL

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A SLIDE SHOW AND TALK BY DIANE ARBUS
and a screening of
WHO IS MARVIN ISRAEL?

The SLIDE SHOW AND TALK BY DIANE ARBUS is an original audio recording of a 1970 slide presentation by Diane Arbus in which she speaks about photography using her own work and other photographs, snapshots and clippings from her collection. Compiled and edited by Neil Selkirk, Doon Arbus and Adam Shott.

WHO IS MARVIN ISRAEL? is a short documentary on the life, work, and world of the enigmatic Marvin Israel (1924-1984), artist, designer, art director, and teacher. Israel's influence on Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Lee Friedlander, and many others is explored in the words of those who knew him. Directed by Neil Selkirk.

SVA Theatre
333 W 23 ST (8th x 9th)
Thursday October 6th 7:30 PM
Free Admission

Celebrating the release of Diane Arbus: A Chronology and the newly reissued Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph and Untitled: Diane Arbus, books will be available for purchase at a reception following the screening.

SlowExposures Photo Festival: La Lettre de la Photographie Round-up

The SlowExposures Gang

Click to Enlarge. Top row, l to r: John A Bennette; Jerry Atnip, John Bennette, Sylvia Plachy, Elisabeth Biondi, Nancy McCrary, Gabrielle Larew; Sylvia Plachy, David Simonton, and Magdalena Sole; Bennette Exhibition crowd, on the right, Alex Novak. Bottom row, l to r: Slow Exposure Co-Directors, Chris Curry and Nancy McCrary; Peter Essick; Sylvia Plachy and Jessica Hines; Elisabeth Biondi , Nancy McCrary, and Steve Harper.

1st Place Award: Seeker by Vicki Hunt, Roswell, Georgia
SlowExposures 2011 Exhibition

2nd Place Award: Young Ladies by Magdalena Solé, New York
SlowExposures 2011 Exhibition

3rd Place Award: Anthony, North Edisto River by Eliot Dudik, Savannah, GA
SlowExposures 2011 Exhibition

Peoples’ Choice Award Winner: Burning Fields by Will Jacks
SlowExposures 2011 Exhibition

Serendipitous Snake by Donna Rosser
SlowExposures 2011 Exhibition

Fish River by D.B. Waltrip
SlowExposures 2011 Exhibition

Buck, 2007 by Jo Lynn Still
John A. Bennette's Southern Memories Part Two Exhibition

AS SEEN ON
LA LETTRE DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE
HERE

“‘SlowExposures 2011’ welcomed the public, photographers and collectors from across the United States to discover emerging talent, take part in cutting-edge seminars with world-renowned experts and visit with old friends and colleagues.”– Co-Director Chris Curry

The ninth annual SlowExposures Photography Festival, located in Pike County, Georgia, wrapped last week. The SlowExposures 2011 Exhibition was juried by curator Elisabeth Biondi, formerly of The New Yorker, and photographer Peter Essick, National Geographic Magazine. Out of 700 entries, the juror’s selected seventy photographs for the exhibition, with three winners and fifteen honorable mention recipients.

The First Place Award went to Vicki Hunt from Roswell, Georgia, for her photograph “Seeker”; Second Place was awarded to Magdalena Solé from New York City, for “Young Ladies” and Third Place went to Eliot Dudik from Savannah, Georgia, for his photograph “Anthony, North Edisto River.”

Discussing their selection process during a Jurors Talk, Ms. Biondi, who served as Visuals Director at the New Yorker Magazine since 1996, said, “I prefer images that don’t have all the answers; images that pose a question, make me think about it and make me take a closer look.” Ms. Biondi curated the current exhibition, Beyond Words: Photography in The New Yorker, at the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York.

Peter Essick, recently named one of the 40 most influential nature photographers in the world, also likes images where “there’s some ambiguity in how it feels.” About Magdalena Sole’s photograph, he said, “These are the type of photographs that photographers look up to. A professor said, ‘Do nothing and something wonderful will happen.’ It’s this idea of being a fly on the wall. It takes time. You have to get to know the people, you have to earn their trust for them to just let you be there. That’s one aspect of what makes this a good picture. It takes skill and experience to learn to capture that.” Mr. Essick’s work can be seen in the upcoming National Geographic, Oct. 2011: A Portfolio by Peter Essick pays tribute to Ansel Adams.

Other SlowExposures Photo Festival Events:

Satellite Exhibition: “Southern Memories Part Two,” is an exceptional show curated by private collector, John A. Bennette. “I wanted it to have the quality of a New York show, but not the attitude of a New York show,” Bennette explained about this second part of his trilogy shown at the historic 1870 Whiskey Bonding Barn. He said the show, a selection of portraits taken in the region by local and national artists, is autobiographical, “Portraits are revealing. The photograph of the little boy sticking his tongue out is actually me. I’m still a kid who hides behind being cool and classical – in reality I’m the devil.” (check out: hanging with mrbennette)

2011 SlowExposures Portfolio Review: Reviewers included Alex Novak, collector and photographer with 35 years of experience, Anna Walker-Skillman, an owner, director and curator of the Jackson Fine Art Gallery in Atlanta, Kevin Miller, director of the Southeast Museum of Photography in Daytona Beach, Florida, Jerry Atnip, professional photographer and designer, and Brenda Massie, Director of Hagedorn Foundation Gallery in Atlanta.

Photographer Sylvia Plachy, gave a moving slide presentation, “Dancing With Ghosts,” and discussed her work and life starting in Hungary, in a Sunday afternoon salon. Ms. Plachy, often called “a photographer’s photographer,” has been photographing since 1965. From 1974-2004 she was a staff photographer and picture editor for the Village Voice. More recently she was a staff photographer and now a contributing photographer at the New Yorker Magazine, and has published six photography books. This evocative showing was followed by a book signing.

An informative Collector’s Seminar and Discussion by photography dealer, Alex Novak, of Vintage Works in Philadelphia. I gave a “Self-Publishing Your Photography Book Workshop” to help photographers fearlessly create a first photo book. Both events took place in the historic Zebulon Train Depot. Another satellite photography exhibition, “David Simonton: Selections from “The Ellis Island Portfolio,” was held at A Novel Experience in Zebulon, Georgia. Everyone celebrated the complexity, beauty and contradictions of the rural South.

Subscribe: La Lettre de la Photographie
Photo Festival Round-Up

PIETER HUGO: Permanent Error

Yakubu Al Hasan, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, 2009
Photograph © Pieter Hugo, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, NY
and Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town

Untitled, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, 2010
Photograph © Pieter Hugo, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, NY
and Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town

Abdulai Yahaya, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, 2010
Photograph © Pieter Hugo, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, NY
and Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town

David Akore, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, 2010
Photograph © Pieter Hugo, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, NY
and Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town

Pieter Hugo Photographs | Permanent Error
Yossi Milo Gallery
to October 29, 2011

"Pieter Hugo’s new series, Permanent Error, depicts Agbogbloshie, a massive dump site for technological waste on the outskirts of Ghana’s capital city, and the locals who burn down the components to extract bits of copper, brass, aluminum and zinc for resale. Tons of outdated and broken computers, computer games, mobile phones and other e-waste are shipped to the area as “donations” from the West, under the guise of providing technology to developing countries. Rather than helping to bridge the digital divide, the equipment is transformed into noxious trash threatening the health of the area’s inhabitants and contaminating the water and soil.

Gray plumes of smoke rise from smoldering piles of disassembled monitors, motherboards and wiring, providing an apocalyptic backdrop for Hugo’s portraits of the workers. The subjects, many of whom are young men sent by their families from impoverished outlying villages, are photographed full-figure and directly engaged with Hugo’s medium-format camera. With each portrait, Hugo draws the viewer into the conditions imposed on this slum community and their effects on individuals. Collectively, the photographs expose consequences of the West’s consumption of ever-new technology and its disposal of outmoded products in poor countries ill-equipped to recycle them." –Yossi Milo Gallery

MOBY: Destroyed Interview

My Weakness
(c) MOBY

Hyenas
(c) MOBY

Read the Full Interview on La Lettre de la Photographie

“When I play music, I’m just exclusively focused on the music. When I’m taking photographs, I’m exclusively focusing on that. There’s not a lot of interdisciplinary stuff going on in my head.”

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"I’ve been a photographer since I was ten years old. My uncle had been a photographer at the New York Times and as I was growing up he gave me his hand-me-down sort of cast-off camera’s and dark room equipment. I grew up shooting film and working in darkrooms...When I went on to University, I was a Philosophy major with a Photography minor, and although I’ve been doing photography since I was 10 years old, I’ve never really felt comfortable showing it to anyone. It’s only in the last couple of years that I got past my reservations or shyness in showing people my photographs...I think I was intimidated to show people my photographs because my uncle was such a good photographer."

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EA: Your parents nicknamed you “Moby” after your family’s ancestral relationship to Moby Dick author, Herman Melville. As you are both writers, have you felt a connection or been inspired or influenced by his work?

MOBY: That’s a really interesting question. The one thing, if I’m being completely honest, the one connection that I feel, and it’s not even necessarily a good one, is on that side of the family, my fathers side of the family, the men have a tendency to be very prone to brooding and taking themselves too seriously. For better or worse, I think I’ve inherited that. I’d love to feel more of a creative connection with Melville, and maybe it’s there, but I definitely more see the brooding New England melancholy, which is strange because I live in southern California now.

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"The image that’s on the cover of both the book and the album is a photograph I took in LaGuardia Airport and it was a sign that said “Unattended Luggage Will Be Destroyed”- a very small sign that would only fit one word at a time. So I stood in this hallway taking photographs of this sign every time it flashed this word “Destroyed”... Because a lot of the music on the album, and the images as well, are the product of insomnia and exhaustion and so the word “Destroyed” just summed up that feeling of living in these strange alien environments and trying to make sense of them through music and photography."

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moby exhibition to october 22

KOPEIKIN GALLERY

ELISABETH BIONDI | Beyond Words: Photography In The New Yorker

The Embrace, 1952
Photograph by Milton H. Greene

Costume Party, New York, 2002

Photograph by Mary Ellen Mark

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas at home on the Rue de Fleurus, 1921
Photograph by Man Ray

CURATED BY ELISABETH BIONDI

"Beyond Words: Photography in The New Yorker"

HOWARD GREENBERG GALLERY

"The New Yorker Magazine began to publish photographs in 1992, under the editorial direction of Tina Brown. At that time, the only photographer the magazine employed was Richard Avedon. The first Avedon photograph that the magazine ran was his iconic 1963 portrait of Malcolm X. The exhibition opens with this photograph and from that, an enlightening, visual history of photography in the magazine ensues.

In 1996, Elisabeth Biondi arrived at The New Yorker with a mandate to expand the presence of photography in the magazine. She contracted a small group of photographers to shoot on a regular basis, employed numerous others on an occasional basis and drew from a multitude of esoteric, often historical sources to locate images that richly illustrate the magazine’s multi-faceted content. For fifteen years, Biondi presented photographs that heightened the experience of reading the articles for which the magazine has been respected, treasured and enjoyed.

The work of staff photographers Ruven Afanador, Mary Ellen Mark, Gilles Peress, Platon, Robert Polidori, Steve Pyke, Martin Schoeller, and Max Vadukul, are all represented in the exhibition. From Afanador’s whimsical portrait of Mario Batali, published in the popular “Food Issue” to Polidori’s hauntingly beautiful Havana, Cuba interior and Gilles Peress’ wrenching coverage of Kosovo, these photographers produced pictures that, through publication in the magazine, became permanently etched in our collective, visual consciousness.

Also present in the exhibition are portraits by Irving Penn, William Klein, Duane Michals, Harry Benson, Brigitte Lacombe, Ethan Levitas, and others. The exhibition includes powerful images by some of the boldest photo-journalists of our time: Thomas Dworzak’s work from Afghanistan, Benjamin Lowy’s from Iraq, Marcus Bleasdale’s from Darfur, Samantha Appleton’s from Lagos, Joao Pina’s from Brazil and Ami Vitale’s from Kashmir. The historical section of the exhibition includes rarely seen photographs from the former Soviet Union, the Time Life Archive, Martin Munkacsi, Robert Doisneau, Lord Snowdon, Alexander Liberman, and Horst P. Horst, among others.

The third section of the exhibition includes images from the page at the front of the magazine’s opening section, “Goings on About Town,” which, each week, features a color photograph that in a delightful and quirky manner, illustrates an event occurring in New York City that week. Photographers in this section include Sylvia Plachy, Lisa Kereszi, Brian Finke, Landon Nordeman, Gus Powell, Yola Manakhov, Martine Fougeron and Martynka Wawrzyniak." –Howard Greenberg Gallery, thru October 22

About Elisabeth Biondi on La Lettre de la Photographie

PAOLO VENTURA: Automaton of Venice

The Automaton #2 , 2010

Courtesy of Paolo Ventura / Hasted Kraeutler

The Automaton #1 , 2010

"The fictional story centers around an elderly, Jewish watchmaker..."

Courtesy of Paolo Ventura / Hasted Kraeutler

The Automaton #7 , 2010
Courtesy of Paolo Ventura / Hasted Kraeutler

The Automaton #15 , 2010
Courtesy of Paolo Ventura / Hasted Kraeutler

The Automaton #16 , 2010

Courtesy of Paolo Ventura / Hasted Kraeutler

PAOLO VENTURA
THE AUTOMATON OF VENICE
HASTED KRAEUTLER GALLERY
September 8 - October 15, 2011

"The Automaton of Venice is a photographic narrative from beginning to end. It was created based on a story Photographer Paolo Ventura was told as a child. The fictional story centers around an elderly, Jewish watchmaker living in the ghetto of Venice in 1943, one of the darkest periods of the occupation of the Nazis and the rule of the fascist regime in Italy. The city where the watchmaker has lived his entire life, now desolate and fearful, is the stage where this story unfolds. The old man decides to build an automaton (an anthropomorphic robot), to keep him company while he awaits the arrival of the fascist police who will deport the last of the remaining Jews in the ghetto."

"Ventura’s creative process for The Automaton of Venice was first to write the story as he wanted to tell it through the photographs, then build elaborate models in his studio out of sets and miniature figurines. The final works are the photographs of the scenes created within the models. "

"Paolo Ventura’s work is currently on display in the Italian national pavilion at the Arsenale at the Venice Biennale and in the exhibition Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities at the Museum of Art and Design. His works have been acquired by prominent public collections including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and the Martin Margulies Collection in Miami, Florida. Two monographs of Paolo Ventura’s work have been published: War Souvenir (Contrasto, 2006) and Winter Stories (Aperture and Contrasto, 2009). He is also included in the new publication Photographic Memory: The Album in the Age of Photography (Aperture/ Library of Congress, 2011)." – Hasted/Kraeutler

HASTED KRAEUTLER GALLERY
537 West 24th St NYC
September 8 - October 15, 2011

HIROSHI WATANABE: 9/11 Remembrance

Ellis Island 2, New York  
Photograph donated by Hiroshi Watanabe

Contributing Artists: Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, John Legend, Alanis Morissette, Dido, A. R. Rahman, Johnny Cash, Simon & Garfunkel, John Lennon, Jem, Vusi Mahlasela, Dave Matthews, Tim Reynolds, Stevie Wonder, Eva Cassidy, Cindy Lauper, Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, Nanci Griffith, Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic, Suzzy & Maggie Roche, Patty Griffin, Nina Simone. 100% of profits go to the 9/11 Memorial. Available on iTunes, AmazonMP3 www.tenyearsonalbum.com (album link no longer seems to be worrying)

HIROSHI WATANABE

SHELBY LEE ADAMS: Salt & Truth

Salt & Truth (Candela Books, 2011)

Angela with Banty Rooster, 2004
Photograph (c) Shelby Lee Adams
Courtesy of the Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles

Eddies Wayne, 2010

Photograph (c) Shelby Lee Adams
Courtesy of the Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles

"A native of Kentucky, Shelby Lee Adams has been recording the individuals, families, and communities of Appalachia for nearly forty years. Following word of mouth introductions only, the subjects of Shelby’s portraits are comprised of Adams’ friends and acquaintances from the close-knit families in Appalachia, a historically tight-knit community. Adams approaches his subjects with respect, care, and grace as he is welcomed into their homes and lives."–Fahey/Klein Gallery

SHELBY LEE ADAMS: Salt & Truth
Fahey/Klein Gallery
September 8 – October 15

DANNY LYON: Backs Prison Photography Project

Ramsey Prison Cell Block, Texas Prison, 1968

Photograph (c) DANNY LYON

Signed: Danny Lyon, Six Wing Cell Block, Texas 1968 (verso)

Negative made 1968, 11x14" printed 1995

Prison Photography On The Road

"This is a 1995 modern print made by Kelton. The negative was made by me in 1968. Ramsey Prison Cell Block, Texas Prison, 1968 was published on p.121 of Conversations with the Dead, with the caption ‘Six Wing Cell Block’. List the selling price as $1,750.00. The whole point is to get money for your project.–Danny Lyon to Pete Brook

Join Danny Lyon
BACK THIS PROJECT
here

RALPH EUGENE MEATYARD: Classic Vintage Black and White Prints

Untitled, c. 1960
© The Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard,
courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Gitterman Gallery, New York

Untitled (Zen Twig), 1961

© The Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard,
courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Gitterman Gallery, New York

RALPH EUGENE MEATYARD
SEPTEMBER 14 – NOVEMBER 19
Gitterman Gallery, NY

This exhibition, from a private collection, includes work from Motion-Sound, Zen Twigs, Light on Water and Romances.

EXCLUSIVE: Hey, I Talked To MOBY!

La Lettre de la Photographie: Interview Here

Sept 10 – Oct 22
MOBY at the Kopeikin Gallery, LA