LUMP SUM LOTTERY : Bonnie Briant

 Lump Sum Lottery 

Published by Damiani, 2021
Text by Sylvia Plachy

Annalisa and Pietro, Santa Marinella, Italy 2019

Photograph © Bonnie Briant

When you win the lottery you have two options, you can get all the money right away, but because of taxes you get less than if you’re willing to parse it out over time. Taking all the money right away but actually taking less is called taking the lump sum. The title is a comment on my constant, “I’ll have everything now, even though I know I should wait.”– Bonnie Briant 

 

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Bonnie Briant’s personal collection of images in her first monograph, Lump Sum Lottery, transport us through the select world she inhabits outside the usual path of our ordinary lives.

 

She recently spoke to my SVA students advising they "look at the photographs of Sylvia Plachy, the photographer who wrote the short text for my book. She is the one who taught me so much about taking pictures; not needing rules and to just feel what you feel when you take a picture. Most of my pictures are blurry and handheld and low light; it’s about the space in-between moments, versus being very formal about it." 

 

She went on to describe to them how she arrived at the brilliant cover image, Light through the door, Pattaya, Thailand. "One of my good friends is half Thai and his brother was getting married in Thailand, so I traveled over for the wedding. We had gone to their uncles house, and woke up in the middle of the night, it was 5am, so I guess early in the morning. I was a total mess because of the time change. So I just laid there staring at the ceiling and someone turned on the light in the hall."

 

I'm a big fan of this work . . .

Lump Sum Lottery

Photographs by Bonnie Briant I Text by Sylvia Plachy
Published by Damiani, 2021

STANDING TOGETHER: Jeanine Michna-Bales Woman's Suffrage Project

 

Inez Milholland with faceted-star crown, 1911

Inez Milholland at the National American Woman Suffrage

Association Parade, Washington, D.C., March 3, 1913

Library of Congress

 

Inez Milholland's 12,000 Mile Swing Through the West. 

Railway Map, 1916

"Standing Together

Inez Milholland’s Final Campaign for Women’s Suffrage"

by Jeanine Michna-Bales (MW Editions)

 

“Standing Together: Inez Milholland’s Final Campaign for Women’s Suffrage” by Jeanine Michna-Bales (MW Editions). “A powerful and inspiring book, painstakingly researched, beautifully written, photographed and designed!” - EA

In 1916, Inez Milholland Boissevain (1886–1916) embarked on a grueling campaign across the Western U.S. on behalf of The National Women's Party appealing for Women's Suffrage ahead of the 1916 Presidential election.  

The 30-year-old suffragist delivered some 50 speeches to standing-room-only crowds in eight states in 21 states. She battled chronic illness and died a month after her last speech in Los Angeles.

Her final public words were, "Mr. President, how long must this go on, no liberty?"

Through her photographs, combining dramatic landscapes and historical reenactments of important vignettes of Milholland on her journey, Jeanine Michna-Bales captures a glimpse of the monumental effort required to pass the 19th Amendment.

 Order: MWEditions.com

FOCUS 22 : SEAN PERRY Toyko, Japan

Tokyo City Rain - Japan © Sean Perry

M.M.C. Coffee - Tokyo, Japan © Sean Perry 

Space Trust, Co. LTD - Tokyo, Japan © Sean Perry

 

HULIC Sukiyabashi Building - Japan © Sean Perry

 

Pachinko Arcade - Japan © Sean Perry

Marugen 14 - Tokyo, Japan © Sean Perry

 

PAIS Building, Ginza - Japan © Sean Perry

SEAN PERRY  Tokyo, Japan

“Music is liquid architecture; Architecture is frozen music.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"I really love Japan. When there I’m happily lost in the resonance of the cities – the trains, the chatter, the hustle playing against the colors and light in the built and natural environments. In many ways it is like being under water, things are familiar but otherworldly, mysterious and immersive. Every now and again the surface breaks and the illusion is revealed, but it’s brief before returning to the somewhere in-between. I hope that never changes."

"I hear music unraveling stories into photographs, when you see these pictures I want them to remind you of vignettes from a movie you can’t quite remember. For me, these pictures of Tokyo still sound and light into the tracks ringing in my ears." – Sean Perry

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Sean Perry is a fine-art photographer living and working in New York City and Austin, Texas. His photographs and books center on architecture, space and light – the ambiance felt within built environments. His photographs and books are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Amon Carter Museum, the Wittliff Collections and the Harry Ransom Center, among others.

Cloverleaf Press published Perry’s first limited edition book, Transitory in 2006, and followed with a second title, Fairgrounds in the Fall of 2008. Both were a featured case study in Publish Your Photography Book coauthored by Mary Virginia Swanson & Darius Himes (Princeton Architectural Press, 2011). Perry was also selected as a finalist for the Hasselblad Masters award for his photographs and book Fairgrounds.

Perry is the Photography Department Chair for Austin Community College. His work is represented by the Stephen L. Clark Gallery.