Friday, July 29, 2022

“I hope that the documentary can change the mentality of some people a little — make them understand that without journalists, there is no democracy,”

 


An early look at the new content is available, via Farrow’s interview with Jimenez in this 9-minute video clip


Via FORBES

July 28, 2022

CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez, at times, still looks a little stunned when recounting what happened to him in May of 2020 while covering a protest over the killing of George Floyd. All of a sudden, despite the press badge hanging prominently near his waist — to say nothing of the crew that was clearly filming him — Jimenez went from reporting a story to staring blankly at the still-rolling camera as police put him in handcuffs.

The cops in riot gear, standing in the background brandishing batons during Jimenez’ live shot, wanted the street cleared. And this reporter from CNN was another body standing in the way.

“As a reporter, it’s the last thing you’d expect would happen in the United States,” Jimenez says, by way of recounting his arrest during a conversation with investigative journalist Ronan Farrow. “I was in this professional mode of being a reporter at first … then trying to figure out, wait, what the hell is going on right now?”

That conversation is part of new footage HBO Max is releasing today in support of “Endangered,” an HBO Original documentary film that debuted in June about journalism in its current state of global crisis.

Directed by filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, with Farrow as executive producer, that documentary presents vignettes of reporters from around the world. From places as disparate as Mexico City, Miami, and Sao Paulo, where reporters like photojournalist Sáshenka Gutiérrez grapple with recalcitrant public officials, death threats, an indifferent public, an uncertain business model, and other hazards to their livelihood and lives.

“I hope that the documentary can change the mentality of some people a little — make them understand that without journalists, there is no democracy,” Gutiérrez told me. “(And) show them the different forms of violence that we face.”

In all, “The Endangered Tapes” includes six new pieces of content featuring Farrow interviewing journalists like Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post opinion writer arrested in Iran and held in the country’s notorious Evin prison for 544 days. As well as Selene San Felice, formerly of The Capital Gazette and a survivor of the newsroom shooting there.

"While we were producing ‘Endangered,’” Farrow told me, “I was guided by conversations with fellow journalists about their experiences and views on the state of the free press. I’m happy to share some of those behind-the-scenes exchanges with the world. These are bite-sized, informative glimpses into the lives of different kinds of journalists, facing different challenges. I learned a lot from them, and I’m so glad that the HBO Documentaries team — and the journalists I spoke with — are allowing others to see them too."

The documentary and supplemental content encourages viewers to not take for granted that the profession of bearing witness undertaken by reporters will always exist in its current form. That existential threats are ever-present. And that there is a man or a woman behind every byline, as well as a home and a family that the correspondent you see on TV will return to at the end of the day.

For journalists like Jimenez, there is also an everlasting tension between functioning as an objective reporter — and as someone with a life outside of that work, someone who’s not dispassionate about the people and things they encounter.

“A lot of times, being reporters, I think we fall into this pattern of — I have to be so objective that I am removed from the story,” Jimenez tells Farrow. “The story is over here, but I am back here.”

“This,” Jimenez continues, about his arrest, “was a situation where I couldn’t escape it.”


Related: Photojournalists Nina Berman and David Butow discuss threats to photojournalism.

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Thursday, July 28, 2022

Censorship Is a Missing Picture: Photojournalist Grant Baldwin discusses what we don't see

 Via  Charlotte Journalism Collaborate

Censorship Is a Missing Picture: Photojournalist Grant Baldwin discusses what we don't see

Justin Colasacco and his husband Bren Hipp kissing after Colasacco dropped to one knee and proposed in front of the crowd at the 2019 Charlotte Pride Festival & Parade.
Grant Baldwin: 2019 Charlotte, North Carolina Pride Parade, August 18, 2019


What is censorship? How do we recognize when it is happening, and how do we address it? Please join local photojournalist Grant Baldwin to discuss his photographs, their impact, and his experience with censorship.

The Gaston County Manager ordered the removal of a photograph on display as part of an exhibit titled Into the Darkroom at the Gaston County Museum of Art and History. According to the Charlotte Observer, "LGBTQ equality advocates are demanding officials in Gaston County reverse their decision to remove a photo showing two men recently engaged, kissing, from a museum exhibit. The photograph, taken by Charlotte freelance photojournalist Grant Baldwin, shows Justin Colasacco and his husband Bren Hipp kissing after Colasacco dropped to one knee and proposed in front of the crowd at the 2019 Charlotte Pride Festival & Parade. They married Oct. 4, 2020." According to the Gaston Gazette, the Gaston County Manager claimed that the photograph was political advocacy and wanted Mr. Baldwin to replace it with something else. The photojournalist chose instead to leave the display spot on the wall empty to demonstrate that something was missing.

Grant Baldwin is an award-winning freelance photojournalist based in Charlotte NC who focuses on visual story telling. His work has appeared in multiple local and national news outlets. He recently won the North Carolina Press Association's 2020 Best Multimedia Project for Black Lives Matter Coverage. 

Please join the Charlotte Journalism Collaborate to discuss what censorship means in our community.


Grant Baldwin's photograph is featured in the current exhibit "Imagine A World Without Photojournalism", on view through September 18. Monroe Gallery hosted Nina Berman and David Butow for a discussion on July 22: Threats to Photojournalism".

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Dallas Center for Photography Welcomes Back Renowned Photojournalist Ed Kashi with an Exhibition, Artist Talk & Book Signing

 

Dallas Center for Photography Welcomes Back Renowned Photojournalist Ed Kashi with an Exhibition, Artist Talk & Book Signing Celebrating Work from his Newly Released Monograph

Abandoned Moments Exhibition

DCP’s Community Gallery

Opening Reception: Thursday, August 4, 6-8pm

Exhibition on View: August 4 – August 27

For more information go here.


Artist Talk and Book Signing (DCP Speaker Series):

Friday, August 5, 7-9pm

For more information, go here.


For forty years, celebrated photojournalist Ed Kashi has delivered the world's stories through images that both imply, as well as directly show, humanistic challenges and joys. Abandoned Moments: A Love Letter to Photography (Kehrer Verlag) is a window into Kashi's unique voice and craft, and presents glimpses of ordinary life, as well as extraordinary events, struggles, and triumphs – the chaos of everyday life. 

The images selected for Kashi’s book and exhibition span the decades of his work and were taken around the world. Shot entirely from the hip, Kashi flips standard photography conventions by snapping these "abandoned moments" without looking through the viewfinder, seeking to capture moments shaped by serendipity and instinct, rather than objectivity and intellect. “They are free to be less controlled but for that very reason they may be more certain and more certainly true,” Kashi explains about the evolution of his style and methodology.


Ed Kashi's photographs are included in the current exhibition "Imagine A World Without Photojournalism" on view through September 18, 2022.

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

"A most satisfying photo...."

 


A woman hitting a neo-Nazi with her handbag in Växjö, Sweden, 1985

Hans Runesson: A woman hitting a neo-Nazi with her handbag, Växjö, Sweden, 1985


From The Santa Fe New Mexican Letters to the Editor, July 20, 2022

"A most satisfying photo

The reprint of a 1985 photo by Hans Runesson in a recent Pasatiempo of an elderly Swedish woman slugging a neo-Nazi in the back of the head with her handbag during a rally, is quite possibly the funniest thing I have ever seen. It provoked in me the most extravagant hilarity and happiness. Look at her! She puts her entire body into it. Her face is contorted in a grimace of pure rage. She looks like she is of the generation that actually experienced the real Nazis and knows what these silly, idle, testosterone-laden young boneheads do not know or will not recognize: that all of it was pure hell.

Slugging that young man must have been immensely satisfying. I will admit with only the smallest trace of shame that I wish I could have similarly slugged one of these boneheaded, malevolent and violent Jan. 6 rioters in the back of the head with my handbag. The photo is now on my fridge, to be enjoyed for weeks to come as a sort of counterweight against the hopelessness that befalls me at times these days."


"Imagine A World Without Photojournalism" continues through September 18, 2022

Sunday, July 24, 2022

George Eastman Museum Acquires Ashley Gilbertson's Photograph of Office Goodman: The Storming of The Capitol, January 6, 2021

 

 Eastman Museum 

July/August 2022 Bulletin

"Throughout its history, our institution has collected and exhibited photographs and films that address timely and timeless topics. For example, we have recently acquired the powerful photograph (above) taken by Ashley Gilbertson, who bravely documented the events at the United States Capitol during the insurrection on January 6, 2021."


scan of Eastman Museum July/August 2022 Bulletin announcing acquisition of Ashley Gilbertson's photograph of Office Goodman at US Capiton on January 6, 2021
Ashley Gilbertson (Australian, b. 1978) Officer Eugene Goodman: The Storming of the Capitol, Washington, DC, January 6, 2021. Chromogenic development print, 12 x 18 inches. George Eastman Museum purchase from Monroe Gallery of Photography with funds from the Rusitzky Photograph Endowment Fund. ©Ashley Gilbertson


Friday, July 22, 2022

Photojournalism Under Threat: A Conversation With Photojournalists Nina Berman and David Butow

 

card announcing talk by Nina Berman and David Butow with image of an Afghan woman in a burqa and a Ukranian woman and child on train

Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, was pleased to host photojournalists Nina Berman and David Butow for an engaging conversation on Friday, July 22,

Across America and throughout the world, photojournalists working to bring the world vital news have come under attack, often from authorities, governments, and groups using violence and repression as a form of censorship. Combined with deliberate misinformation creating public skepticism, the photojournalist’s mission of creating visual moments essential to understanding societal and political change is being threatened.






NINA BERMAN

Nina Berman is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, author and educator. Her wide-ranging work looks at American politics, militarism, post violence trauma and resistance.  Her photographs and videos have been exhibited at more than 100 venues from the security walls of the Za'atari refugee camp to the Whitney Museum of American Art.  She is the author of Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq, (2004) portraits and interviews with wounded American veterans, Homeland, (2008) an examination of the militarization of American life post September 11, and, An autobiography of Miss Wish (2017) a story told with a survivor of sexual violence which was shortlisted for both the Aperture and Arles book prizes. Additional fellowships, awards and grants include:  the New York Foundation for the Arts, the World Press Photo Foundation, Pictures of the Year International, the Open Society Foundation, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, the MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship and the Aftermath Project.  She is a Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she directs the photography program. She lives in her hometown of New York City.

DAVID BUTOW

David Butow is a freelance photojournalist whose projects and assignments have taken him to over two dozen countries including Afghanistan, Burma, Iraq, Peru, Yemen and Zimbabwe. His new book, BRINK, chronicles politics in the United States from the 2016 presidential election through the chaos of the Trump presidency, the turmoil of 2020 and concludes with the insurrection and its aftermath at the U.S, Capitol in January 2021.

Born in New York and raised in Dallas, he has a degree in Government from the University of Texas at Austin. After college he moved to Los Angeles and worked in newspapers before beginning a freelance career for magazines in the 1990's. From the mid-90's through the late-2000's he worked as a contract photographer for US News and World Report magazine covering social issues and news events such as post- 9/11 in New York, the Palestinian/Israeli Intifada, the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the 2019 Hong Kong protests, the funeral of Nelson Mandela, and the death of Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.

Most recently, his photographs from Ukraine and Ulvalde, Texas have been published in Politico, Time, and The New York Times

David's photographs have been shown in numerous exhibitions including the Asia Society NY, the United Nations NY and Visa Pour l'Image in Perpignan, France. His photographs have also appeared in books and magazines worldwide.


Monday, July 18, 2022

Defend Our Clinics! Photo Story by Nina Berman

 Via Indypendent

Photos by Nina Berman

July 5, 2022

screen shot of Indypendant cover story about pre-choice protest in New York after Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 28, 2022

A Planned Parenthood clinic in Lower Manhattan has become a magnet for anti-choice activists who don’t want to stop with Roe’s repeal.

Women who have abortions should get the death penalty,” Beatrice, a pro-life protester, told The Indypendent. She wore a T-shirt that read “Hope is here” and was one of several women protesting outside the downtown Manhattan Health Center on the Saturday morning before the Supreme Court toppled Roe v. Wade. 

While the religious right’s quest for earthly dominion over women’s bodies proceeds undisturbed on this morning, that’s not always the case. On the first Saturday of each month, Witness for Life, an anti-choice group, returns to the same clinic, which is run by Planned Parenthood. They are met by counter-protests organized by NYC For Abortion Rights, a socialist-feminist collective that fights for full abortion and reproductive justice.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Mississippi will lead to the outright ban or severe restriction of abortion rights in 22 states that are home to 64 million women and girls, with several more states likely to enact similar laws. It won’t stop there. People who suffer miscarriages or stillbirths could face criminal investigations and those who cross state lines to procure an abortion will be targeted, as will all the people and organizations that help them. Digital surveillance technologies will further the aims of the abortion police in ways that weren’t possible when Roe was decided in 1973.

Meanwhile, New York’s state and local leaders have promised that ours will be a sanctuary state for women seeking abortions and won’t cooperate with out-of-state law enforcement. Mutual aid groups have also vowed to aid those in need. The prospect that anti-choicers, now further emboldened, will step up their protests and harassment outside New York City’s abortion clinics seems likely. If they do, how many of us will be there to greet them? For more, see abortionrights.nyc.


black and white photograph of thousands of abortion rights supporters rallying in Washington Square Park hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 28.
Nina Berman: Thousands of abortion rights supporters rallied in Washington Square Park hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 28.

More photos and full article here

Nina Berman and David Butow will be in discussion about the current threats to photojournalism on Friday, Jul 22 - Zoom registration here.


Sunday, July 17, 2022

Capturing The Front Lines Through The Lens

 

screen shot of Albuquerque Journal article "Capturing the front lines through the lens" about Monroe Gallery photo exhibition "Imagine A World Without Photojournalism"
Via The Albuquerque Journal

July 17, 2022


David Butow photograph through train window of Mother a and son leaving Ukraine in March, 2022
Two of the millions of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, this woman and her son leave for Poland and a completely unpredictable future. (Courtesy of David Butow)

From the Depression years to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a human through line weaves among heroism, deprivation, power and oppression.

Open at the Monroe Gallery of Photography, “Imagine a World Without Photojournalism” explores those repeated connections through a roster of 24 photojournalists and 44 prints.

The photographs cover an arc of 20th and 21st century social and political change, from the battles of World War II to the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, from the Dust Bowl to the devastation of climate change, from the frenzy of presidential elections to the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.

“I think of it as a survey of our 20 years in Santa Fe,” gallery co-owner Michelle Monroe said. “We’re reinforcing the power of being educated by a free press. We’re trying to draw parallels between past events and current events.”

David Butow’s haunting portrait of a Ukrainian woman and her son leaving home for an unknown future in Poland reflects the uncertainty of migrants everywhere.

“It’s the heroism of every day people,” gallery co-owner Sidney Monroe said.

“He was in Ukraine covering the exodus when millions of people were trying to evacuate. He just returned from Uvalde, Texas (the site of the latest school massacre, where a gunman killed 21 people). He was also has covered the aftermath of other tragic school shootings.”


Line of African Americans at a Red Cross relief station in front of billboard that says "There's No Way Like The American Way", following flood in Louisville, Kentucky in 1937

Margaret Bourke-White’s 1936 image of a line of African American flood victims lining up for food and clothing beneath a sign touting the “American Way” reveals her ironic and subversive intent. Similar lines formed during the ravages of COVID-19.


Steve Schaprio’s “Stop Police Killings, Selma March, 1965” could have been taken at a Black Lives Matter march.

African - American woman holding a sign that says "Stop Police Killings" during the Selma March in 1965


“It’s never changed; the concept of an armed occupier,” Michelle Monroe said. “They can’t manage power responsibly.”

A photo of floating Zanzibar primary school students holding empty water jugs leads to the treatment of women, particularly in Muslim countries.

Daily life in the Zanzibar Archipelago centers around the sea, yet the majority of girls who inhabit the islands never acquire even the most fundamental swimming skills. Conservative Islamic culture and the absence of modest swimwear have compelled community leaders to discourage girls from swimming. The rate of drowning on the African continent is the highest in the world. The swimming lessons challenge a patriarchal system that discourages women from pursuing things other than domestic tasks.

“It’s a through line to the oppression of women,” Michelle Monroe said.

color photograph of A lone man stops a column of tanks near Tiananmen Square, 1989 Beijing, China. (Jeff Widener/AP)

Associated Press photographer Jeff Widener captured the iconic photograph of a lone man standing in front of a column of tanks during the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in 1989 Beijing.


Widener was one of just a handful of photojournalists at the site.

“There were very few that got out with their film,” Michelle Monroe said.

“He hid it and let them take other canisters in his bag to get out,” Sidney said.

“That image is completely forbidden in China now,” he continued. “That whole movement has been erased.”


‘Imagine a World Without Photojournalism’

WHEN: Through Sept. 18

WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe

INFO: monroegallery.com



Saturday, July 16, 2022

Confronting “Press Freedom Predators”

 

Via Nieman Reports

Newsrooms are running a gauntlet of abuse around the world. But the threat is greater than against journalism alone — it’s against democracy itself

'In the United States, once considered a model for press freedom and free speech, press freedom violations are increasing at a troubling rate,” said Reporters Without Borders in this year’s World Press Freedom Index. That index ranked the U.S. 42nd out of 180 countries, an anemic standing for a nation whose origin story is rooted in press rights. The organization attributed the ranking to factors including online abuse of journalists and the unprovoked “harassment, intimidation and assault” reporters endure in the field.  

Moreover, some government officials in the U.S. have played a shameful role in delegitimizing the media at home and abroad, spreading anti-press rhetoric that gives succor to despotic regimes around the world. The term “fake news” is a deadly American export, one used to devastating effect by Vladimir Putin since the start of the Ukrainian invasion. And as Emre Kizilkaya writes, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is using the same language to push through a so-called “disinformation bill” that would represent “an unprecedented attempt to suppress journalism in Turkey.” '


Related: The Human Condition Through The Lens: “One of the challenges journalists are facing is just the outright denial of reality,” he says, adding that some visitors get defensive when confronted with uncomfortable truths.

Threats to Photojournalism, a panel program with photographers Nina Berman and David Butow, 5:30 p.m. July 22

Friday, July 15, 2022

The human condition through the lens

screen shoot of cover of Pasatiempo magazine with photo of women in yellow clothinng emerging from water in Zanzibar


Via Pasatiempo

By Brian Sandford

July 15, 2022


The 44 photos adorning the walls at the Monroe Gallery of Photography offer an unvarnished look at the human condition — tracing an emotional range from tender love to the fallout of hatred.

Many showcase the human spirit’s perseverance through challenges or trauma, while others are provocative reminders of recent history that some people would rather ignore or forget. That’s part of the point of Imagine a World Without Photojournalism, an exhibit that runs through Sept. 18 and includes a selection of art that has been shown throughout the gallery’s 20-year history.

The Monroe Gallery’s exhibit represents about a century of photojournalism. Gallery co-owners and spouses Sid and Michelle Monroe say the exhibit’s photographs were selected based on “individual universal relevance,” with each representing an important subject of social and political history.

In a way, records of historical events were created by painters for hundreds of years, if perhaps with less fidelity to the truth. As a result, accounts of historical events could come years — even centuries — later. The invention of photography in 1826 changed that, opening the door to real-time documentation of events and the work of photographers such as Mathew Brady, who defined our notion of the in-between moments of the Civil War.


A ma backs away as St. Louis County police officers approach him with guns drawn and eventually arrest him in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 11, 2014;

Whitney Curtis, Rashaad Davis, 23, backs away as St. Louis County police officers approach him with guns drawn and eventually arrest him in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 11, 2014; courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography


Modern photojournalism, though, began in the mid-1920s with the invention of the Leica, a portable camera using film able to capture movement.

Some photojournalists have gained fame for their work, such as Robert Capa, who documented war and whose photo of chaos on Omaha Beach in France on D-Day is part of the Monroe exhibit. Others are lesser known, despite producing iconic images, such as Eddie Adams. His name might not ring a bell, but his 1968 photo of the street execution of a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon is an iconic symbol of the brutality of war.

Some of those photos might have been viewed differently had they been taken recently, Sid says.

Human condition on display at photography exhibit

An Afghan Woman in blue burqa holds fer Diploma, Kabul, Afghanistan, 1998

Nina Berman, Afghan Woman with Diploma, Kabul, Afghanistan, 1998; courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography

“One of the challenges journalists are facing is just the outright denial of reality,” he says, adding that some visitors get defensive when confronted with uncomfortable truths.

At least one of the images in the exhibit has created a stir elsewhere: A 2019 photo by Grant Baldwin was removed from a public museum in North Carolina in June. It depicts two men kissing at a Pride parade in Charlotte, North Carolina, while people in the background cheer and take pictures.

County Manager Kim Eagle ordered that the photo be removed from the Gaston County Museum, a move backed by at least two county commissioners there.

Men kissing after Mariage proposal at Pride Parade, Aug. 18, 2019

Grant Baldwin, Charlotte, North Carolina, Pride Parade, Aug. 18, 2019; courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography


While some images are divisive, Sid says, others are noteworthy for their unifying qualities. He cited as an example the iconic World War II shot of six Marines raising a flag at Iwo Jima, which is included in the Monroe Gallery’s exhibit. Joe Rosenthal captured the image on the Japanese island in 1945.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, “a photographer happened to capture these firefighters who took a flag off a boat that was docked near the towers, and they were putting it up on a column that had survived,” he says. “And then it was immediately seized upon, like, ‘Oh, this is a rally moment for America after 9/11.’ Well, we need [calls to rally]. Because most of these situations require sacrifice. Ukraine requires sacrifice. World War II required sacrifice. And so in order to galvanize the effort, you need that imagery to bring you all together.”

Selecting images for the exhibit wasn’t an easy task.

“You could do an entire museum, like, three floors and 200 pictures, and still not really tell the full story” of photojournalism, Michelle says.

Human condition on display at photography exhibit

A woman hitting a neo-Nazi with her handbag (Vaxjo, Sweden, 1985)


Hans Runesson, A woman hitting a neo-Nazi with her handbag (Vaxjo, Sweden, 1985); courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography


Part of that story is simply the power of an image viewed on a white wall, not accompanied by distractions on a computer screen.

“I often ask people in the gallery, ‘I wonder who’s benefiting from us thinking that we can’t be friends even though we think differently?’” she says. “As I like to say to my kids, don’t be an unpaid intern for someone. Because that’s what we’re doing for those people that are benefiting from separating us. We haven’t even examined how we really feel.”

The Monroes don’t aim to influence how others feel, they say.

“There’s never an agenda to the exhibit in terms of a viewpoint,” Sid says. “This is what happened. This is history.” 

Officer Eugene Goodman: facing a crowd, The Storming of The Capitol (Washington, D.C., Jan. 6, 2021)

Ashley Gilbertson, Officer Eugene Goodman: The Storming of The Capitol (Washington, D.C., Jan. 6, 2021); courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography

Details

▼ Imagine a World Without Photojournalism

▼ Through Sept. 18

▼ Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave.

▼ 505-992-0800, monroegallery.com

▼ Also, “Threats to Photojournalism,” a panel program with photographers Nina Berman and David Butow, 5:30 p.m. July 22, at the gallery or via Zoom. RSVP required

 

Thursday, July 14, 2022

Monroe Gallery of Photography : Imagine a World Without Photojournalism

screen shot of The Eye of Photography article with b/w photo of food line in New York on Allen Street in 20202


July 14, 2022


Monroe Gallery of Photography presents an exhibition celebrating the Gallery’s 20th anniversary in Santa Fe. “Imagine a World Without Photojournalism” is a multi-photojournalist presentation of news events of the 20th and 21st Centuries. (slideshow here)

Across America and throughout the world, photojournalists working to bring the world vital news have come under attack, often from authorities, governments, and groups using violence and repression as a form of censorship. In 2021, there were 141 assaults on journalists in the US according to the US Press Freedom Tracker. Combined with deliberate misinformation creating public skepticism; the decline of newspapers and the “news deserts” that result from newspaper closings, the photojournalist’s mission of creating visual moments essential to understanding societal and political change is being threatened.

For 20 years, Monroe Gallery of Photography has presented exhibitions championing the critical work of photojournalists.

Photojournalism’s work and mission—one that can be put simply as documenting a news event through the medium of photographic images, has arguably become the most essential and enduring news messaging tool, and one that has gained only further traction and relevance in the 21st century. On the occasion of Monroe Gallery of Photography’s 20th anniversary in Santa Fe, we are proud to present an exhibition of photojournalists that we have exhibited throughout the years which span almost 100 years of history.

 

Imagine a World Without Photojournalism
through September 18, 2022.
112 Don Gaspar
Santa Fe, NM
www.monroegallery.com

A special program with gallery photojournalists Nina Berman and David Butow will be held on Friday, July 22 at 5:30 PM, RSVP required, please contact the Gallery for information.

 


 

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Ashley Gilbertson Photographs of Deforestation of Congo River Basin in NY Times

screen shot of NT Times article with photo of man tending kiln for making charcoal

 Via The New York Times

July 13, 2022

Dionne Searcey and Ashley Gilbertson  reported from the Mpatemata Forest community, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to understand the far-reaching effects of the charcoal trade on deforestation.



Sunday, July 10, 2022

Morris Museum of Art: Art Now Artist Talk: Ryan Vizzions

 Via The Morris Museum of Art


Woman on horse faces down armed police at Standing Rork protest

           Ryan Vizzions, Defend the Sacred: Standing Rock, Cannon Ball, North Dakota, 2016

Join us for a lecture by Atlanta native, independent photojournalist Ryan Vizzions, who set out on a mission to document the United States while traveling in his van and mobile photo studio. July 14, 2022
Lecture, 6:00 pm; reception, 7:00 p.m. FREE.  Details here.

Friday, July 8, 2022

Gaston County (North Carolina) forced museum to take down a photo of two men kissing; barred mention of Pride Month on its Facebook pages

 


Via Kara Fohner, The Gaston Gazette

Thu, July 7, 2022 

"Gaston County officials axed a social media post by the Gaston County Museum of Art and History that would have recognized Pride Month.

The decision came around a week before the county forced the museum to take down a photo of two men kissing, according to emails released by the county."

Article continues here

Related coverage here and here


The photograph was ordered removed from the Gaston County Museum exhibit "Into the Darkroom" photography, which, according to the museum, showcases "the evolution of photography, impacts of photography on human history, and highlights local photographers." It is now on exhibit at Monroe Gallery of Photography in the current exhibit "Imagine A World Without Photojournalism", on view through September 18, 2022

Thursday, July 7, 2022

David Butow, Author of the new book "Brink", on panel discussion at Monroe Gallery July 22

 

Monroe Gallery of Photography

Friday, July 22, 5:30 PM (MDT)

In Person and Online

112 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe, NM 87501


A Panel Discussion with David Butow and Nina Berman:

Threats to Photojournalism

Zoom RSVP here.


On Occasion of Monroe's Gallery 20th Anniversary

For more information go here.


color photograph of supporters of President Donald Trump with American Flag retreating from tear gas at the Capitol, January 6, 2021
January 6, 2021. Supporters of President Donald Trump retreat from tear gas during a battle with Law Enforcement officers on the west steps of the Capitol in Washington during the attack on the day of Joe Biden’s election certification by Congress



From a dingy motel room in the swing state of Michigan, to the Oval Office, BRINK chronicles the dynamics that unfolded during the 2016 presidential election and led, finally, to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. Photographer David Butow moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Washington, D.C. in 2017 to document what he knew would be a chaotic time in U.S. politics. “While I expected the incompetence, I underestimated the treachery,” he says in the book’s Endnotes.

“Why make a book of photographs from events that overwhelmed many of us in the last four years? We lived through history minute by minute, so much so that the gravitas of what transpired is apparent only when you step back and see how the whole saga unfolded. As revisionists seek to trivialize or downplay the events of 2016-21, it's critical to maintain a record of just how close the presidency of Donald Trump brought U.S. democracy to the brink of collapse.” 

To buy the book, go to: https://www.davidbutow.com/BRINK/1

image of cover of book "Brink"

Imagine a world without photojournalism exhibit Opens, Marks Monroe Gallery's 20th anniversary in Santa Fe

 Via Art Daily

July 2, 2022

color photograph thrugh train window of mother and child leaving Ukraine

David Butow, March 15, 2022. Two of the millions of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, this woman and her son leave for Poland and a completely unpredictable future. © David Butow. Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography.


SANTA FE, NM.- Monroe Gallery of Photography opened a major exhibition celebrating the Gallery’s 20th anniversary in Santa Fe. “Imagine a World Without Photojournalism” is a multi-photojournalist presentation of news events of the 20th and 21st Centuries. The exhibition will continue through September 18, 2022.

A special program with gallery photojournalists Nina Berman and David Butow will be held on Friday, July 22 at 5:30 PM, RSVP required, please contact the Gallery for information.


Imagine a world without photojournalism

Across America and throughout the world, photojournalists working to bring the world vital news have come under attack, often from authorities, governments, and groups using violence and repression as a form of censorship. Combined with deliberate misinformation creating public skepticism, the photojournalist’s mission of creating visual moments essential to understanding societal and political change may be threatened.

For 20 years, Monroe Gallery of Photography has presented exhibitions championing the critical work of photojournalists.

Photojournalism’s work and mission—one that can be put simply as documenting a news event through the medium of photographic images, has arguably become the most essential and enduring news messaging tool, and one that has gained only further traction and relevance in the 21st century.

On the occasion of Monroe Gallery of Photography’s 20th anniversary in Santa Fe, the gallery presents an exhibition of photojournalists that they have exhibited throughout the years which span almost 100 years of history.

Photographs in the exhibition cover 20th- and 21st- century societal and political change, from the battles of World War II to the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, from the frenzy of Presidential campaigns to the January 6 Insurrection on the United States Capitol. The exhibit includes a photograph from the 2019 Charlotte, North Carolina Gay Pride parade that the Gaston County manager ordered removed from a Gaston County museum exhibit on June 15, 2022.

Photographs in this exhibition are universally relevant; they reflect the past, the present, and the changing times. These unforgettable images are imbedded in our collective consciousness; they form a sort of shared visual heritage for the human race, a treasury of significant memories. Many of the photographs featured in this exhibition not only moved the public at the time of their publication, and continue to have an impact today, but set social and political changes in motion, transforming the way we live and think.


NINA BERMAN

Nina Berman is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, author and educator. Her wide-ranging work looks at American politics, militarism, post violence trauma and resistance. Her photographs and videos have been exhibited at more than 100 venues from the security walls of the Za'atari refugee camp to the Whitney Museum of American Art. She is the author of Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq, (2004) portraits and interviews with wounded American veterans, Homeland, (2008) an examination of the militarization of American life post September 11, and, An autobiography of Miss Wish (2017) a story told with a survivor of sexual violence which was shortlisted for both the Aperture and Arles book prizes. Additional fellowships, awards and grants include: the New York Foundation for the Arts, the World Press Photo Foundation, Pictures of the Year International, the Open Society Foundation, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, the MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship and the Aftermath Project. She is a Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she directs the photography program. She lives in her hometown of New York City.


DAVID BUTOW

David Butow is a freelance photojournalist whose projects and assignments have taken him to over two dozen countries including Afghanistan, Burma, Iraq, Peru, Yemen and Zimbabwe. His new book, BRINK, chronicles politics in the United States from the 2016 presidential election through the chaos of the Trump presidency, the turmoil of 2020 and concludes with the insurrection and its aftermath at the U.S, Capitol in January 2021.

Born in New York and raised in Dallas, he has a degree in Government from the University of Texas at Austin. After college he moved to Los Angeles and worked in newspapers before beginning a freelance career for magazines in the 1990's. From the mid-90's through the late-2000's he worked as a contract photographer for US News and World Report magazine covering social issues and news events such as post- 9/11 in New York, the Palestinian/Israeli Intifada, the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the 2019 Hong Kong protests, the funeral of Nelson Mandela, and the death of Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.

Most recently, his photographs from Ukraine and Ulvalde, Texas have been published in Politico, Time, and The New York Times

David's photographs have been shown in numerous exhibitions including the Asia Society NY, the United Nations NY and Visa Pour l'Image in Perpignan, France. They have also appeared in books and magazines worldwide.