New Book on The Photo League: “Walkers in the City: Jewish Street Photographers of Midcentury New York”

Via NY Jewish Week

September 27, 2023

A multi-generational group of people congregate on a building stoop on Hester Street; an African-American man leans on a lamppost; a gaggle of teenagers pile on top of each other at the beach in Coney Island; a hoard of children — in various states of undress — play with a broken mirror in the street. 

These are only a few examples of the 150 black-and-white snapshots of New York City street life in the 1930s and ’40s that appear in the new book “Walkers in the City: Jewish Street Photographers of Midcentury New York” by historian and scholar Deborah Dash Moore. The photos are the work of the New York Photo League, a group of socially conscious street photographers whose aim was to showcase the living conditions of the city’s working class, as well as spotlight their everyday lives and relationships.  (click for full article)

Dash Moore will be in conversation with Manhattan Borough Historian Robert W. Snyder at the Center for Jewish History on Thursday, Sept. 28.

Related: SONIA HANDELMAN MEYER & IDA WYMAN: TWO PIONEERING WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS OF THE PHOTO LEAGUE

Save the date: Two Pioneering Women Photographers of The Photo League Gallery Talk April 21

 

SONIA HANDELMAN MEYER and IDA WYMAN

TWO PIONEERING WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS OF THE PHOTO LEAGUE

Opening Gallery talk April 21 with managers of the photographer’s estates, Joe Meyer, son of Sonia Handelman Meyer, and Heather Garrison, granddaughter of Ida Wyman. The talk starts promptly at 5:30, seating is limited and RSVP is essential. Zoom registration here. The exhibition continues through June 18, 2023.

The Photo League was a collective of photographers active between 1936-1951 who believed their work could change poor social conditions and champion photography as an art form in the process. The Photo League thrived as one of the most progressive, dynamic and creative centers for photography in America, and was unusual in its time as many of the collective’s members were women.

In the 1940s when McCarthyism started gathering momentum in the US, suspicious authorities decided to clamp down on the Photo League’s confrontational and uncensored representations of urban American society. In 1948, it was declared a subversive organization and blacklisted. As the league’s secretary at the time, Sonia Handelman Meyer answered the office phone when requests for comment about the accusations poured in from the media. “It got to be too much,” she told The New York Times. “They were blacklisting people”.

Both photographer’s work went unrecognized for decades. In recent years, there has been a revived interest in the radical collective that contributed incomparably towards promoting early street photography as an art form.

RSVP

Zoom Registration

Photographs from Ed Kashi's groundbreaking project, Aging in America, were recently acquired by the Library of Congress

Ed Kashi: Ageing in America

 

30 photographs from Ed Kashi's groundbreaking project, Aging in America, were recently acquired by the Library of Congress, the world's largest library and the national library of the United States. Its collections comprise the world's most comprehensive record of human creativity and knowledge, and as such Kashi's work will take its place in the annals of history. 

Aging in America: The Years Ahead chronicles the unprecedented changes confronting America as old age goes mainstream. Ed Kashi and writer Julie Winokur first began the project as an award-winning story published by The New York Times Magazine. They then embarked on an eight-year-long journey across the topography of aging in search of what it means to have a “good old age” by collecting scores of personal histories that, when viewed together, challenge the culture of aging in America.

From the upsurge of elderly immigrants following their children to America to the overwhelming toll a tornado exacted on a rural elderly community, to the intimate vignettes of people who are living the new old age, the book and its companion film traverse the vast experiences of our elders. We are able to travel with the Loners of America, an RV club for mature singles and delve into a retirement community where Alzheimer’s patients work in a child daycare facility. We track the campaign of a 76-year-old politician running for office for the first time, follow a woman launching her modeling career in her 60’s, and celebrate the wedding of a couple of octogenarians. Through their stories, we laugh and cry as the “wellderly” to the elderly tackle life’s challenges, celebrate their freedom, apply their wisdom, and suffer the consequences of their bodies’ limitations.

This original award-winning body of work was published in The New York Times Magazine, July 13, 1997.

Ed Kashi's fine art prints are available from Monroe Gallery of Photography

Ageing in America book available here

Devour the Land: An Introduction with Curator Makeda Best and commentary from photographers Nina Berman, Sharon Stewart, and Robert Del Tredici

Via Harvard Art Museums  

Curator Makeda Best, alongside commentary from photographers Nina Berman, Sharon Stewart, and Robert Del Tredici, provides a brief introduction to our new special exhibition, Devour the Land: War and American Landscape Photography since 1970. Featuring approximately 160 photographs from 60 artists, the exhibition invites you to explore the impacts of military activity on the American landscape—and how photography supports activism in response to these effects.

Make your reservation to visit the Harvard Art Museums today.

Photography Daily Podcast: Ryan Vizzionson Van Life With A Camera

 

©Ryan Vizzions: Wild Mustangs, Utah, 2021

Via Photography Daily

STORIES OF LIFE, TOLD BY PHOTOGRAPHERS

VAN LIFING WITH A CAMERA - BEST JOB EVER!

June 23, 2021

Photojournalist Ryan Vizzions excites us about being on the open road in a van, photographing every American state to produce the most remarkable life experience book. We talk about escapism, freedom, mental health, the wonder of making photographs, solitude, social media, the human spirit and how being on the road affects basic instinct and needs such as sleep. But he’s not doing this entirely alone, as you’ll find out. Ryan has been a guest once before when he talked of pictures about protest and tomorrow on the Thursday Patreon show, he talks about the most precious picture made so far, one of which you can see below; the Mustangs in Utah. Follow him on the road through his Twitter feed.

Ryan Vizzions photographs are included in the current exhibition Present Tense, and you can view his full collection here.

Not standing still: new approaches in documentary photography at the Monash Gallery of Art includes Ashley Gilbertson's photography

 

Via Monash Gallery of Art

On exhibit through May 16, 2021

Virtual tour here

PHOTO is a major new biennial international festival of photography that will activate Melbourne and sites across regional Victoria with the most inspiring photography from Australia and around the world.

MGA’s headlining Photo 2021 exhibition will explore the festival’s theme of ‘Truth’ through the lens of new documentary photography.

Not standing still: new approaches in documentary photography, will introduce Australian audiences to leading photographers from around the world who are making new documentary photography, many never having exhibited in Australia before. This exhibition will place Australian photographers alongside their international contemporaries; spanning 11 countries of origin, these are the photographers who are changing the way we think about photographic storytelling.

Truth is implicitly linked to photography because of its capacity to be a medium of record, but photographers have been using their tools to uncover and reimagine truths through investigative, imaginative and allusive photography.

New documentary photography is about rethinking the traditional ways of representing what the camera sees. Instead of straight documentation, these photographers have sought new ways to show pressing social and political issues, and in doing so are transforming photography itself.

Ashley Gilbertson

 Marine Corporal Christopher G. Scherer, 21, was killed by a sniper on July 21, 2007 in Karmah, Iraq. He was from East Northport, New York. His bedroom was photographed in February 2009. 2009

Included in the exhibition are selections from Ashley Gilbertson's "Bedrooms of the Fallen" series.

In 2004, Australian photojournalist Ashley Gilbertson spent time documenting the Second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. Images he made during this assignment won him the Robert Capa Gold Medal for ‘best photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise’. During the trip, one of the young marines escorting him was killed. 

War photography is a complex phenomenon. It often relies on the bravura of a photographer to be in the ‘right place’ at the ‘right time’, capturing the action and the adrenaline on film to illustrate the drama of battle. To demonstrate the cost of this drama and to peel back its layers, Gilbertson has photographed bedrooms left behind by 40 soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The soldiers represented come from America, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Scotland. Their rooms show us what remains of lives cut short, displaying what is not evident in pictures of the battlefield. The familiar and ordinary objects that pepper these images communicate some of the texture of a soldier’s life, which is preserved in these photographed spaces – like an altar or memorial – in a way that a picture of an explosion or even a coffin struggles to convey. 

This series also show us what families cling to, and how memory and remembrance work in the real world of contemporary conflict. Gilbertson’s photographs show an aspect of war that is often secondary to images of battle. In their quietness these images reach no crescendo or catharsis, and so force a shift in pace in both the making and viewing of war photography.

View more of Ashley Gilbertson's work here

RYAN VIZZIONS STANDING ROCK PHOTOGRAPH FEATURED ON COVER OF NEW BOOK

Colonialism Is Crime
By Marianne Nielsen, Linda M. Robyn

276 pages, 1 illustration, 6 x 9

Published by Rutgers Press

https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/colonialism-is-crime/9780813598710


About the book:
There is powerful evidence that the colonization of Indigenous people was and is a crime, and that that crime is on-going. Achieving historical colonial goals often meant committing acts that were criminal even at the time. The consequences of this oppression and criminal victimization is perhaps the critical factor explaining why Indigenous people today are overrepresented as victims and offenders in the settler colonist criminal justice systems. This book presents an analysis of the relationship between these colonial crimes and their continuing criminal and social consequences that exist today. The authors focus primarily on countries colonized by Britain, especially the United States. Social harm theory, human rights covenants, and law are used to explain the criminal aspects of the historical laws and their continued effects. The final chapter looks at the responsibilities of settler-colonists in ameliorating these harms and the actions currently being taken by Indigenous people themselves.


About the cover:
Between April of 2016 and March of 2017 one of the largest social justice movements in American history took place in the plains of North Dakota on the Standing Rock reservation. With an oil pipeline threatening the drinking water of the Standing Rock Sioux and 17 million people downstream on the Missouri River, thousands of people ascended upon the resistance camps to stand in solidarity with the Lakota Sioux and oppose the construction of the pipeline. From early spring of 2016 to late winter of 2017, over 15,000 people camped in tipis, army tents and vehicles without the use of electricity in an attempt to raise awareness and prevent the possible contamination of Lake Oahe, the source of drinking water for the reservation. Over 300 tribes and indigenous communities traveled to the camps, as well as nearly 4000 veterans and 500 clergy, to stand in solidarity with the NODAPL movement.

In September of 2016, Ryan Vizzions traveled from Atlanta, Georgia to stand in solidarity with the movement. Bringing his camera with him, but not intending to be a media source, Vizzions soon found himself using social media to reach over half a billion people with his photographic documentation of events unfolding over the months. With viral reach of one photograph in particular, "Defend The Sacred", Vizzions’ photography helped bring awareness around the world to the movement. Vizzions documentation of his 6 months at Oceti Sakowin camp was selected for the "Photos of the Year" by People Magazine, ABC News, The Guardian, Artsy.net; and as well his work has been featured in the Nobel Peace Prize forums, Adbusters, Huffington Post, Mother Jones, Amnesty International and many more publications as well as books such as "The Militarization of Indian Country" by Winona LaDuke & "An Indigenous Peoples History of The United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.


Ryan Vizzions fine-art photography is represented by Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe, NM.

40th anniversary of Church Rock Uranium Spill

Via New Energy Economy


"This weekend the Diné community and allies will gather to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Church rock uranium mine spill. To remember and honor loved ones lost. To pray, walk, learn, and to continue the struggle for healing and justice. The Church Rock uranium mill spill occurred on July 16, 1979, when United Nuclear Corporation's Church Rock uranium mill tailings disposal pond breached its dam. 1,100 tons of solid radioactive mill waste and approximately 93 million gallons of acidic, radioactive tailings solution flowed into Pipeline Arroyo, a tributary of the Puerco River.

We will be there. We encourage all who can attend to join in solidarity and support. We must sustain the gaze and honestly face the legacy of environmental racism and devastation tied to our nuclear dependence. In New Mexico 30% of our electricity is still generated from nuclear - a number we must work together to reduce." More information here

©Nina Berman

Residents from Navajo communities gather on Uranium Remembrance Day, Church Rock, NM July 16, 2016

The current exhibition "Living in History" features  photographs from Nina Berman's Aftermath Project.

New exhibits feature Gallery photographer Steve Schapiro

Steve Schapiro, Stop Police Killings, Selma, 1965

New exhibits feature Gallery photographer Steve Schapiro: “Civil Rights Era Contact Sheets" at Gage Gallery; “Activists and Icons: The Photographs of Steve Schapiro” at Illinois Holocaust Museum; and “Time is Now: Photography and Social Change in James Baldwin’s America" on display at the Sert Gallery (Harvard).

View the Steve Schapiro collection here.

Two Monroe Gallery Photographers Receive Lucie Award Statues

The Lucie Awards is an annual event honoring the greatest achievements in photography.  The photography community from around the globe pays tribute to the most outstanding people in the field. Each year, the Lucie Advisory Board nominates deserving individuals across a variety of categories.

For over 70 years, Art Shay has documented life, combining his gifts of storytelling, humor and empathy.  Art Shay, now 95, will be honored with the Lucie statue for Lifetime Achievement during the Lucie Awards gala ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York October 29, 2017. “Art Shay: A Tribute” is currently on exhibit at Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe, NM, through November 19.

At the same time, renowned photographer Steve Schapiro will receive the Lucie Award for Achievement in Photojournalism. Earlier this year the Gallery presented the exhibition "EYEWITNESS" to celebrate the completion of a project based on James Baldwin’s 1963 book, “The Fire Next Time”. Steve Schapiro’s photographs documenting the civil rights movement from 1963 – 1968 are paired with essays from “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin in a major book published by Taschen in March.

Monroe Gallery of Photography was founded by Sidney S. Monroe and Michelle A. Monroe. Building on more than five decades of collective experience, the gallery specializes in classic black & white photography with an emphasis on humanist and photojournalist imagery. Monroe Gallery was the recipient of the 2010 Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Excellence in Photojournalism.

Monroe Gallery at AIPAD: Photography as history and photography as visual evidence

Irving Haberman

Holocaust Survivors arrive in New York City, 1947

Vintage gelatin silver print

 Santa Fe--Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe, NM, will dedicate much of its exhibit at the 2017 AIPAD Photography Show to images that exemplify photography as history and photography as visual evidence . Recently, documentary evidence has been denied or disputed by those in power, and coupled with the new administrations attacks on the press, the exhibit is a reminder that photojournalism is a vital and necessary component of a free society.

Steve Schapiro, along with many other photographers of the civil rights era, not only brought awareness to the injustice of racial discrimination; they made people feel the injustice. The Gallery will exhibit several of Schapiro’s iconic civil rights era photographs, including James Baldwin in Harlem (1963), Martin Luther King marching for voting rights with John Lewis, Reverend Jesse Douglas, James Forman and Ralph Abernathy, Selma, (1965), and John Lewis in Clarksdale, Mississippi (1963) alongside several photographs of the 2015 refugee crisis in Greece, the Balkans and Germany by Ashley Gilbertson, VII photographer and author of the book Bedrooms of The Fallen. There will also be vintage photographs of refugee immigrants to the United States by Irving Haberman and Eddie Adams, as well as a large format color print of the abandoned Ellis Island Tuberculosis Ward by Stephen Wilkes.

Ashley Gilbertson

Refugees, primarily from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, disembark on the island of Lesvos, Greece, 2015

Archival Pigment print

Another featured photograph is one Ashley Gilbertson made earlier this year of Trump Tower in response  to President Trump’s attacks on the press: “I want the president to know we will not cease in our attempts to provide transparency, hold those in power accountable, and report on issues that affect us as a global community. As always, our armor is honesty, hardened and honed by our fact checkers and editors. Our mission as the fourth estate didn't change on Friday–it remains the same as it always has. Truth to power.”

Ashley Gilbertson: Trump Tower, New York, 2017

Archival pigment print

Rounding out our exhibit are significant prints from two 94-year old master photojournalists, Art Shay and Tony Vaccaro.

Rounding out our exhibit are significant prints from two 94-year old master photojournalists, Art Shay and Tony Vaccaro.

At the age of 21, Tony Vaccaro was drafted into World War II, and by the spring of 1944 he was photographing war games in Wales. By June, now a combat infantryman in the 83rd Infantry Division, he was on a boat heading toward Omaha Beach, six days after the first landings at Normandy. Denied access to the Signal Corps, Tony was determined to photograph the war, and had his portable 35mm Argus C-3 with him from the start. For the next 272 days, Tony fought on the front lines of the war. He entered Germany in December 1944, a private in the Intelligence Platoon, tasked with going behind enemy lines at night. The HBO documentary film “Under Fire: The Untold Story of Private First Class Tony Vaccaro” tells the story of how Tony survived the war, fighting the enemy while also documenting his experience at great risk, developing his photos in combat helmets at night and hanging the negatives from tree branches. The film also encompasses a wide range of contemporary issues regarding combat photography such as the ethical challenges of witnessing and recording conflict, the ways in which combat photography helps to define how wars are perceived by the public, and the sheer difficulty of staying alive while taking photos in a war zone.

 After the war, Tony remained in Germany to photograph the rebuilding of the country for Stars And Stripes magazine. Returning to the US in 1950, Tony started his career as a commercial photographer, eventually working for virtually every major publication: Look, Life, Harper’s Bazaar, Town and Country, Newsweek, and many more. Tony went on to become one the most sought after photographers of his day, photographing everyone from Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren to Pablo Picasso and Frank Lloyd Wright. Now 94, Tony still carries a camera and will be present in our booth #534 on Friday afternoon, March 30 during the AIPAD Photography Show.

Monroe Gallery of Photography will exhibit in booth #534 during the AIPAD Photography Show March 30 - April 2, 2017.

STEPHEN WILKES: "REMNANTS" OPENS TONIGHT

Recycled Aluminum Can Study #1

The New Yorker:

"The photographer Stephen Wilkes has been documenting some of the side effects of the crisis for years, including in the aftermath of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy. “Remnants,” an exhibition of his work, will be on view at Monroe Gallery, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, through November 22nd." Slide show here.

 

The Santa Fe Reporter:

"His latest collection, Remnants, unveiling this Friday at Monroe Gallery, explores the phrase further with a series of images that shine an eerie and at times ethereal spotlight on environmental remnants often left behind by man."

Please join us for the opening reception with Stephen Wilkes this evening, October 2, from 5 - 7 pm.

The Eye of Photography: Monroe Gallery at AIPAD 2015

Via L'Oeil de la Photographie








AIPAD 2015 : Monroe Gallery of Photography

Rashaad Davis, 23, backs away as St. Louis County police officers approach him with guns drawn and eventually arrest him, Ferguson, Missouri, August 11, 2014 c Whitney Curtis

Monroe Gallery of Photography specializes in classic black-and-white photography with an emphasis on humanist and photojournalist imagery. The gallery features work by more than 75 renowned photographers and also represents a select group of contemporary photographers. The gallery (booth #119) is exhibiting a specially curated collection of civil rights photographs at the AIPAD Photography Show 2015. Featured will be a variety of images from the history of civil rights, with prints including the 1965 Selma March to the recent protests in Ferguson, Missouri.

Of particular note are two prints by Whitney Curtis, photographed during the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. One print titled "Rashaad Davis, 23, backs away as St. Louis County police officers approach him with guns drawn and eventually arrest him, Ferguson, Missouri, August 11, 2014" was published extensively in national newspapers and just was awarded First Place in Domestic News by the National Press Photographer's Association in the Best Photojournalism of 2015 Awards. Monroe Gallery of Photography is proud to debut Curtis' photography at the AIPAD Photography Show

Monroe Gallery's booth is also exhibiting the environmental documentary photography of Stephen Wilkes, specifically images from Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy; and one from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Of particular note is a large format (50 x 66") color print of a television set washed up on the beach of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina that is visually arresting.

Monroe Gallery of Photography was founded by Sidney S. Monroe and Michelle A. Monroe. Building on more than four decades of collective experience, the gallery specializes in 20th and 21st Century Photojournalism.


1. Stephen Wilkes
Hurricane Katrina: TV in Sand, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, June 12, 2006
Digital c-print, 50 x 66 inches, edition 2 of 8

2. Whitney Curtis
Rashaad Davis, 23, backs away as St. Louis County police officers approach him with guns drawn and eventually arrest him, Ferguson, Missouri, August 11, 2014

3. Whitney Curtis
A man raises his hands in front of a row of St. Louis County police armored personnel carriers, Ferguson, Missouri, Aug. 11, 2014
Archival pigment prints, 18 x 26 inches, edition 1/10

Stephen Wilkes Lecture at the Annenberg Space for Photography

Stephen Wilkes: Hurricane Sandy, Seaside Heights, NJ, 2012

Via the Annenberg Space for Photography

Stephen Wilkes

Evolution

February 12, 2015  6:30 PM Pacific Standard Time

Lecture

Stephen Wilkes shares his personal evolution as a photographer and focuses on a selection from his various bodies of personal work, including his documentary photography on Hurricane Katrina and Sandy.

 

Watch live here

“Unframed — Ellis Island,” by the French artist JR; Inspired by Stephen Wilkes

Stephen Wilkes: Isolation ward, curved corridor, Island 3, Ellis Island

Via The New York Times




A new installation, “Unframed — Ellis Island,” by the French artist JR, which brings this landmark building, its patients and staff members, to grainy but wrenching life. It is the first time in 60 years that the Ellis Island hospital has been open to the public. Tickets go on sale Thursday for guided tours that begin on Oct. 1.


Unframed — Ellis Island” is part of JR’s larger “Unframed” series that puts archival photos in new contexts in places like Marseille, France; São Paulo, Brazil; and Washington. He was introduced to this project by a book, “Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom,” the photographer Stephen Wilkes’s exploration of the hospital in its wildest state, and quickly became obsessed with the grounds. Finishing the installation this month, he and his small team would arrive in the morning and wander all day, scouting out homes for their century-old charges, before taking the tourist ferry back to Manhattan, toting ladders and paste buckets.

“It’s a really powerful place,” said Mr. Wilkes, who photographed it the hospital from 1998 to 2003, and is now on the board of Save Ellis Island. He was particularly moved by the realization that some patients could see the Statue of Liberty from their sickbeds. “She’s so close, and for many people who came to America and who never got out of that hospital, they never got to see any more than that,” Mr. Wilkes said.

Their emotion lingered. “I would feel almost human energy in these empty rooms,” he said.

Read the full article here.

View Stephen Wilkes' Ellis Island collection here.

AIPAD Day 2

© Bill Eppridge

Bobby Kennedy campaigns in Indiana during May of 1968, with various aides and friends: former prizefighter Tony Zale and (right of Kennedy) N.F.L. stars Lamar Lundy, Rosey Grier, and Deacon Jones at Monroe gallery, booth #421

Via The Epoch Times

NEW YORK—The city’s most important photography show is back at the Park Avenue Armory.

Slideshow here.

The AIPAD Photography Show takes place at the Park Avenue Armory April 10–13. Admission is $30 daily or $50 for the run of the show. Students pay $10. aipad.com/photoshow

More:

Must-See Booths at the AIPAD Photography Show  (featuring Steve Schapiro)
Video: 60 Works in 60 Seconds at AIPAD 2014   (featuring Stephen Wilkes)
 via BLOUIN ARTINFO

The New York Times: Experimental Strategies at Aipad’s Photography Show

L'Oeil de la Photographie: Video - New York Apaid 2014: Opening night Gala

Nina Berman Presents "Fractured:The Shale Play" at Photoville 2013

Via Photoville

PHOTOVILLE will return Brooklyn Bridge Park from September 19–29 on the Uplands of Pier 5
 
The rush to drill down and explode the ground in pursuit of energy is transforming the natural landscape in rural America. Photographing this kind of industrial activity presents a paradox. The visual spectacle is alluring, yet the effects are toxic and polluting. This form of natural gas drilling, also called fracking, is steeped in controversy and unknowns. In these images, all made in rural Pennsylvania, I sought to capture the strange beckoning and fear where the landscapes shifts from natural to industrial, where what appears as rays of sunshine are actually methane flares; where pitch dark dirt roads, end in a burst of artificial light. In this unsettling environment, I include portraits of individuals who are trapped amid this altered, contaminated landscape.

Related Programming:

Artist Talk: Nina Berman, Fracking the Marcellus Shale

2:50 – 3:50pm | Saturday 9/28

Nina Berman is a documentary photographer, author and educator, whose photographs and videos have been exhibited at more than 90 venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Portland Art Museum, Dublin Contemporary and the Museum for Modern Art, (MMK) Frankfurt. She’s received awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, (NYFA), the Open Society Foundation, World Press Photo and Hasselblad. She is the author of two monographs: Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq, and Homeland, which examine the aftermath of war and the militarization of American life. She lives in New York City, is an associate professor at Columbia University and is a member of the Amsterdam based NOOR photo collective.

Marcellus Shale Documentary Project Artist Panel: Today, August 29

 

Nina Berman: Apple Tree illuminated by gas flaring, Susquehanna County, 2011

 
Via Ithaca College Handwerker Gallery

Marcellus Shale Documentary Project
Curated by Laura Domencic
August 26–September 27, 2013

Work by Noah Addis, Nina Berman, Brian Cohen,
Scott Goldsmith, Lynn Johnson, Martha Rial

Artist Panel: August 29, 4.00 p.m.
Opening Reception: August 29, 5.00–7.00 p.m.

The six photographers of the Marcellus Shale Documentary Project have taken on the responsibility of telling, in the best traditions of social and environmental documentary, the complex story of Marcellus Shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania. For the best part of a year, they have traveled across the Commonwealth, meeting people and listening to and recording their stories.

The Marcellus Shale Documentary Project tells stories, through photographic images, of how the lives of Pennsylvanians are affected by the Marcellus Shale Gas Industry. By creating a visual document of the environmental, social and economic impact of drilling, the work aims to engage communities in the current Marcellus debate while providing important historical images for the future.

In capturing images of the people and places most affected by gas drilling, photographers Noah Addis, Nina Berman, Brian Cohen, Scott Goldsmith, Lynn Johnson, and Martha Rial examine both the positive and negative results of drilling and how the environment and the communities that live with the resources are being shaped. Organized by photographer Brian Cohen, and Laura Domencic, Director of Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, the project will compile the work into a traveling exhibition opening October 2012 at Pittsburgh Filmmakers with accompanying lectures, book and online archive.

The Marcellus Shale Documentary Project is generously supported by The Sprout Fund, The Pittsburgh Foundation, The Heinz Endowments, and by the individual gifts of Josh Whetzel, Nancy Bernstein and Cathy Raphael.

If you are interested in joining these supporters by donating to this important body of work, please contact Brian Cohen at info@the-msdp.us






http://www.the-msdp.us/

(Must) To Do Friday: Documentary Photography Today Symposium

Documentary Photography Today

Friday, December 7, 2012 - 10:00am to 1:00pm

Teleconference Lecture Hall, Alexander Library, Rutgers University, 169 College Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ

 

Via developingroom.com

 

 

This symposium will reflect on how and why we use the term "documentary" to describe photography today. In what ways are artists, scholars, and curators thinking about documentary photography? How are photographers dealing with the evidentiary function of their pictures, as notions of authenticity and truth are being broadly challenged by political conflicts and new media? How do those pictures shape our understanding of contemporary human rights, and their violations, across the globe? Might we also speak of documentary photography as a style unlinked to the medium's perceived social functions? Participants include photographer Nina Berman, Mary Panzer (NYU), and Sharon Sliwinski (University of Western Ontario), with respondent Diane Neumaier (Rutgers).

WE INVITE YOU TO VIEW THE EVENT ON OUR LIVE WEBCAST BEGINNING AT 10:00 AM EST AT THE FOLLOWING LINK: vcenter.njvid.net

Just click on "live videos" toward the upper-right of the homepage

Sponsors

Center for Cultural Analysis, Rutgers University

Office of the Vice President for Research at Rutgers University

"in an age of information overload, now, more than ever, seeing is believing"

Seeing is believing: Human rights content in the age of social media

Via Storyful.blog


"Remember this famous image of a naked Vietnamese girl running in agony after being hit with napalm? Or how the plight of Kosovo refugees was documented in this image in 1999? These photographs were both captured by professional journalists, at times when media professionals played an integral role in documenting human rights abuses and bringing about change for those who weren’t being listened to. But with tightening budgets and technological changes altering the way news is being reported, nowadays it’s often largely up to the citizens themselves to let the world know what’s happening to them. Because in an age of information overload, now, more than ever, seeing is believing."


Full post here. (with video)


"For many reasons, there will always be a need for journalists on the ground, but the burden of human rights promotion rests now more than ever on the shoulders of the people who it most affects. Citizen journalists, working often in harrowing circumstances, can only do so much, however, and NGOs and news agencies must play their part in helping to transmit their message. They collate these citizen videos, verify sources and publicize the human rights violations they document using their established networks. Curation tools, outreach and collaboration play a vital part. The tools made available on and through social media are proving invaluable in the fight for human rights: it’s hard to deny atrocities when they are being documented and shared across a global community. Seeing is believing: what action we take once we witness the result is up to us."


Related: People Get Ready: The Struggle for Human Rights

Guest Blog: "To see, one has to look"