Saturday, December 31, 2011

2012



As we say good-bye to 2011 and hello to 2012, a few thanks are in order.

Thank you to all the extraordinary photographers we have been so fortunate to know, with special heartfelt gratitude to all photojournalists across the world.

Thank you to our friends, clients, and collectors for your support and encouragement.

Thank you to our blog readers, followers, and "social connections". May 2012 bring us all that we need.


"All of us live in history, whether we are aware of it or not, and die in drama. The sense of history and of drama comes to a man not because of who he is or what he does, but flickeringly, as he is caught up in events, as his personality reacts, as he sees for a moment his place in the great flowing river of time and humanity.

I cannot tell you where our history is leading us, or through what suffering, or into what era of war or peace. But wherever it is, I know men of good heart will be passing there."


 --Carl Mydans

Friday, December 30, 2011

The Case of Loving v. Bigotry


Hands of Mildred and Richard Loving on their kitchen table, King and Queen County, Va
Photograph by Grey Villet

January 1, 2012


In 1958, Richard and Mildred Loving were arrested in a nighttime raid in their bedroom by the sheriff of Caroline County, Va. Their crime: being married to each other. The Lovings — Mildred, who was of African-American and Native American descent, and Richard, a bricklayer with a blond buzz cut — were ordered by a judge to leave Virginia for 25 years. In January, the International Center of Photography is mounting a show of Grey Villet’s photographs of the couple in 1965. That exhibit is complemented by an HBO documentary, ‘‘The Loving Story,’’ directed by Nancy Buirski, which will be shown on HBO on Feb. 14. The film tells of the Lovings’ struggle to return home after living in exile in Washington, where Mildred, gentle in person but persistent on paper, wrote pleading letters to Robert F. Kennedy and the A.C.L.U. Two lawyers took their case to the Supreme Court, which struck down miscegenation laws in more than a dozen states. The Lovings’ belief in the simple rightness of their plea never wavered. Asked by one of his lawyers if he had a message for the Supreme Court, Richard said he did: ‘‘Tell the court I love my wife.’’
Julie Bosman








Special screening in Los Angeles January 10, 2012 with HBO at the Museum of Tolerance.

Additionally, on January 17th, The Loving Story will screen at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, DC.



Grey Villet's photographs are available from Monroe Gallery of Photography. View selected photographs of the Lovings during photo la at Monroe Gallery of Photography, Booth B-500.

Monday, December 26, 2011

THE 21st ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL LOS ANGELES PHOTOGRAPHIC ART EXPOSITION






Monroe Gallery of Photography is pleased to be exhibiting at the
2012 edition of photo l.a. We will be located in Booth B500, the
first booth at the right entrance to the fair. Our booth will feature
some of the finest examples of humanist and photojournalist
imagery from the 20th and 21st Century.


photo l.a. returns to the historic Santa Monica Civic Auditorium
for its 21st edition on January 12 - 16, 2012. Continuing the
discourse on photography’s place in the fine arts, photo l.a.
provides dealers from around the globe a platform for the
exhibition of vintage masterworks, contemporary photography,
as well as video and multimedia installations. This exciting
juxtaposition creates the character that is photo l.a.

In addition to our compelling program of lectures, panels,
book signings, and special installations, we are pleased to
announce Salon de Tableaux, an area of tabletop
presentations showcasing vintage, vernacular and unique
photography. Also we proudly introduce photoBOOK - a forum
with guest reviewers offering feedback to photographers on their
book proposals.

During the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, January 12-16,
2012, photo l.a. returns to the landmark Santa Monica
Civic Auditorium for the 13th time. As the Getty’s
Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980 initiative continues
into January, photo l.a. will include installations focusing on
post-WWII art created in Southern California. January is also
L.A. Arts Month, a collective marketing effort by the city and its
arts organizations to attract enthusiasts and collectors to Los
Angeles.

Please join us in January for a memorable four days of art,
education, and excitement. Check our website reguarly for
updates, and join our mailing list for news on ordering tickets,
special projects, and events.

photo l.a. website with details here.

Related: One of the world's most important annual photography events to be held at the Park Avenue Armory in March

LocationSanta Monica Civic Auditorium
1855 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401-3209
www.santamonicacivic.org

Opening Night Gala
Thursday, January 12, 2012 6pm - 9pm
Benefiting the Los Angeles County Museum of Art‘s
Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography


Special host Moby

General Admission Fair Hours
Friday: January 13, 11am - 7pm
Saturday: January 14, 11am - 7pm
Sunday: January 15, 11am - 7pm
Monday: January 16, 11am - 6pm


Tickets
Visit photola21.eventbrite.com/ to purchase tickets

Contact
General Information: info@photola.com

www.photola.com
Tel: 323.965.1000
Fax: 323.937.5523

Thursday, December 22, 2011

The 'Girl In The Blue Bra'


Egyptian army soldiers arrest a female protester during clashes at Tahrir Square in Cairo on Dec. 17.

Stringer/Reuters/Landov
Egyptian army soldiers arrest a female protester during clashes at Tahrir Square
in Cairo on Dec. 17.

"This image now has the potential to impact national policy, and that has been one of the major attributes of photojournalism — images that move the hearts and minds of the public and policy makers".

Via NPR The Picture Show: "The Girl in the Blue Bra"

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

FATHER FOR CHRISTMAS


Marisol rushes to her father as he surprises her during a Capshaw dance. 
 Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican


Father for Christmas: Army veteran's surprise visit to Capshaw brings daughter to
tears

Read the full article in the Santa Fe New Mexican here.




Marisol Tapia, 12, a seventh-grader at Capshaw Middle School, is surprised Tuesday by a visit from her father, Lt. Col. Marcos Tapia of the U.S. Army Reserves, during a dance at the school. Marcos Tapia, who has been serving in the Middle East, was granted holiday leave until Jan. 3. - Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican

10th Anniversary of Monroe Gallery


PHOTOS WORTH 100 WORDS


Steve Schapiro: Martin Luther King, Selma, Alabama, 1965







by Matthew Irwin
4-6 pm, Dec 23, 2011 | Free
ARTS & CULTURE

In 1983, while serving as the director of a gallery in New York City, Sidney Monroe curated the first show for the great Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt. The two talked about the lack of photo-journalist exhibitions, while collectors scooped up Eisenstaedt’s prints. Soon after, the Monroe's opened a SoHo gallery dedicated to narrative images taken from real life. “If you remove the event or the history, you often see composition, form, balance—elements you’d find in fine art photography,” Monroe says. Then 9.11 wiped out the gallery’s neighborhood, so Monroe and his wife, Michelle, moved, as a business decision. Monroe Gallery of Photography has now been in Santa Fe for 10 years, and the Monroes has about as many stories about their business as the photos have about the historical events they depict. (Matthew Irwin)

Holiday/Anniversary Reception: 4-6 pm Friday, Dec. 23. Free.
Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., 992-0800



Where: Monroe Gallery
Phone: 505-992-0800
Address: 112 Don Gaspar Ave.
Website: http://www.monroegallery.com

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Police are roughing up journalists across U. S.



Alarmingly, we are seeing more and more posts about interference with the press, including photographers. UPDATED: "The Committee to Protect Journalists have released their report for 2011 which chronicles the attacks on journalists worldwide. They report that at least 43 journalists were killed including seven dead in Pakistan making it the deadliest country to work in as a journalist. Photojournalists suffered particularly heavy losses in 2011."


Via BuffaloNews.com



By Douglas Turner
News Staff Reporter
Updated: December 19, 2011, 6:30 AM

WASHINGTON — Half-dressed celebrities can’t get enough of them when posing along the rope lines of Hollywood or Dubai. Then there is the stale but true remark about how dicey it is to get between a certain legislator and the lens of a camera.

Beyond serving our amusements, the work of press photographers and reporters is deadly serious. The crux of the matter is that press photographers and reporters are our last guarantors of freedom.

Think Danny Pearl, beheaded by al-Qaida in 2002; Don Bolles, murdered by the mob in Arizona in 1978; and Lara Logan, brutally assaulted while monitoring the behavior of a dictator’s police during Egypt’s Arab Spring.

Worldwide, 889 journalists have been killed since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Today, photographers and reporters are being manhandled again in this country by police. Not in the smoky backwoods of the Deep South, as in the 1960s, but in cradles of so-called liberalism like New York, Los Angeles, Oakland and Rochester.

These cities are among dozens where the cops are moving out Occupy Wall Street protest encampments, and the police plainly don’t want citizens to see how they’re doing it. Photographers and reporters, with chains of credentials hanging off their necks like the Lord Mayor of London, are being handcuffed, herded into pens, hustled into police wagons and sometimes into court.

The cops under New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg are operating with impunity. Consider the timeline of a Buffalo lawyer, Mickey H. Osterreicher, who is in the middle of this swirl. Osterreicher, a former newspaper and television photographer, is general counsel of the National Press Photographers Association.

Osterreicher helped arrange a meeting with Bloomberg’s police commissioner, Ray Kelly, in Manhattan just before Thanksgiving to get Kelly to restrain his troops, who were roughing up demonstrators and journalists while closing down an Occupy encampment. Among the attendees were representatives of Thomson-Reuters, Dow-Jones and the New York Times.

On Nov. 21, Kelly sent out a pious-sounding directive to all police reminding them of the journalists’ constitutional rights and directing that they be treated with respect. “The next day,” Osterreicher said, “a photographer for the New York Daily News was interfered with. And there were absurd incidents involving journalists trying to cover the Thanksgiving Day parade.”

Last week, according to AtlanticWire. com, Kelly’s cops shoved a New York Times photographer down a set of stairs, then blocked him from shooting an Occupy protest. So much for Kelly’s paperwork.

In Los Angeles, police arrested a credentialed City News Service reporter trying to cover the dismantling of an Occupy site. A video shows police taking him to the ground as he tried to show his credentials. Police later claimed he was drunk.

Among Osterreicher’s cases is his defense of a student journalist in Rochester who was arrested trying to cover an Occupy protest there. In what Osterreicher claims is a “terrific waste of public resources,” the Monroe County prosecutor refuses to drop trespassing charges against the man.
Osterreicher sees some of the police-versus-press tension as cyclical. The Occupy movement and police anxiety following 9/11, he adds, prompt more of it. There is also some public myopia involved.

“Photographers were killed in Syria and Egypt,” he said. “What is seen as heroic overseas is looked on as offensive here.”

Police harassment of demonstrators and journalists doesn’t seem to trouble the Obama administration much. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-Manhattan, wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder on Dec. 6 asking for an investigation into police mauling of Occupy demonstrators. Holder hasn’t bothered to answer Nadler, ranking Democrat on a Judiciary subcommittee.


dturner@buffnews.com

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Bahraini activist ‘Angry Arabiya’ arrested




A police officer drags Zaynab al-Khawaja after handcuffing her when she refused to leave after a sit-in. (HAMAD I MOHAMMED - REUTERS)   


Zaynab al-Khawaja, 28, widely known as “Angry Arabiya” for her outspoken tweets on human rights abuses, has been arrested in Bahrain. Photos and a video show Khawaja, who is the daughter of jailed human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, being disciplined and then handcuffed by police.


Full story here via The Washington Post.