Vicki Goldberg Dies at 88, an influential photography critic, she wrote essays, newspaper columns and books, including a notable biography of the photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White.

 Via The New York Times

June 18, 2025

Vicki Goldberg, an influential photography critic and the author of a lauded 1986 biography of Margaret Bourke-White, the pioneering and colorful Life magazine photographer, died on May 29 in Manhattan. She was 88.

Bourke-White was America’s first female photographer to be accredited to cover World War II, a swashbuckling personage who worked for Fortune and then Life magazines. She shot Nazi rallies, and, in agonizing images, the liberation of Buchenwald. She flew in a Flying Fortress bomber to get shots of a raid on Tunis. She photographed a smug-looking Stalin. Away from the war, she perched on a gargoyle atop the Chrysler Building in Manhattan to photograph its twin and made perhaps what is the most famous portrait of Gandhi, sitting cross-legged with his spinning wheel.

Flag Day, 2025

 

Flag Day is a holiday celebrated on June 14 in the United States. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress.

Throughout history, flags have elevated the emotional impact of images. 

Joe Rosenthal/©AP

Perhaps the most iconic of all flag photos is Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of six U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. It was taken on Friday, February 23, 1945, five days after the Marines landed on the island. Almost instantly, the image came to symbolize American courage, resilience, and unity in the face of adversity, becoming a powerful emblem of the nation's resolve during World War II.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Thomas E. Franklin documented three New York firefighters raising the American flag amid the wreckage of the fallen World Trade Center towers. Like Rosenthal’s photo, it was universally embraced, an uplifting photo that defined resilience and unity.

Thomas Franklin/©Bergen Record

The weaponization of the flag has similarly produced iconic photographs. In 1976, Stanley Forman photographed a white protester outside City Hall assaulting an African American attorney with the American flag. “The photo shocked Boston” made front pages across the U.S. and also won a Pulitzer Prize. Captioned “The Soiling of Old Glory”, to this day it offers a dramatic window onto the turbulence of the 1970s and race relations in America.

©Stanley Forman

Nearly fifty years later, on January 6, 2021, a weaponized American flag was documented once again. David Butow’s unsettling photo of Trump supporters attacking police from the steps of the Capitol is a modern echo of Forman’s Soiling of Old Glory.

©David Butow

And most recently, on February 22, 2025 – almost exactly 80 years to the day after Joe Rosenthal’s Iwo Jima Photograph - Tracy Barbutes photographed an inverted American flag — historically used as a sign of distress — off the side of El Capitan, a towering rock formation in Yosemite National Park, hung to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service. Hundreds of visitors had gathered to photograph an annual phenomenon in the park known as firefall, when the setting sun causes a seasonal waterfall on El Capitan to glow orange. One spectator commented: “I feel like our national parks are national treasures, and they need to be protected, as does our democracy. It was a call to action and a call for hope.”

©Tracy Barbutes

©Ron Haviv

Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris react to results on election night, 2024 Washington D.C

©Mark Peterson

Ku Klux Klan New Member Meeting, Kentucky, May, 2025

Seeing war: presentation, perception, and responsibility

 Via MEER Culture

June 9, 2025

"In the mid-19th century, governments and military institutions began actively employing photographers during conflicts to document their war efforts, images that were then used to cultivate a sense of national pride back home. Two well-known examples are Roger Fenton’s photographs of the Crimean War and Matthew Brady’s photographs of the American Civil War.

However, by the 20th century, with the rise of World War II, the technological boom, and the growing need for mass communication on a global scale, conflict photography began to shift toward a more raw and activist approach. It became widely used as a medium to expose concealed truths and reveal the horrors of war. This transformation became particularly prominent during the Vietnam War, where the power of photographic imagery played a central role in shaping public opinion and confronting audiences with the brutal realities of the conflict." -click to read full article

WWII  Eighty Years is on exhibit through June 22, 2025

Journalists are injured while covering the LA protests

 

June 9, 2025

Law enforcement injure at least 4 journalists covering protests in California amid federal crackdown

Several journalists have been injured while covering the protests in Los Angeles, including a television reporter who was struck when a law enforcement officer fired a nonlethal projectile while she was on the air

British photographer injured by 'plastic bullet' in LA protests

Australian journalist hit by 'rubber bullet' while reporting from LA

Chinese journalist hit by rubber bullet amid the Los Angeles conflict: report

Utah Artist Fellowship Program Announces Award to Photographer Eugene Tapahe

 Via The Salt Lake Tribune

(Eugene Tapahe) | The Jingle Dress Project: Eternal Legacy, 2023 (photograph)

The Utah Division of Arts & Museums has been supporting Utah artists since the agency’s founding in 1899. A large part of that support is the Utah Artist Fellowship, one of the highest state-sponsored awards a Utah artist can receive. The Utah Artist Fellowships are cash awards that recognize the careers of Utah artists demonstrating exceptional creativity in their fields. Fellows are chosen by out-of-state, nationally renowned arts professionals. Selections are based on evaluation of application narratives, as well as work samples from the past five years.

Through these fellowships, the agency seeks to support professional and committed artists reaching pivotal moments in their artistic practices, encouraging their career advancement and growth. Candidates are selected through an open application process. All eligible applications receive equal consideration through a two-round review process: a prescreen staff review, and a juror review. This year, five fellowships were awarded in the categories of Design Arts, Literary Arts, Performing Arts (Theatre), and Visual Arts. This year marked the inaugural year for a Literary Arts category.

2025’s Visual Arts Fellows are Eugene Tapahe, Christopher Lynn, Nancy Rivera, Ariel C. Wilson, and Xi Zhang. Visual Arts juror Lana Meador said: “The submissions reflected an incredibly rich artistic community, making the selection process no easy feat. The chosen artists displayed a clear vision and commitment to their practice in works that push the boundaries of their chosen media in new and exciting ways.”  Full article

Monroe Gallery is honored to present a very special exhibit by Eugune Tapahe - Art Heals: The Jingle Dress Project. The exhibit opens on July 5, 2025, with an artist’s talk at 5:30 p.m. It will continue during the renowned Santa Fe Indian Market weekend, the world’s largest Native American art market, August 16 and 17, and conclude on September 14, 2025. Please contact the Gallery for more information

 

Widening the Aperture: A War Photographer’s World With Ashley Gilbertson

 

Tuesday, June 3 from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm at the Southern Vermont Arts Center.

Green Mountain Academy for Lifelong Learning (GMALL) welcomes Ashley Gilbertson, an Australian photographer based in New York City recognized as one of the best documentary photographers working in the U.S. today, to talk about his life as a war photographer. Sometimes war photographers must tell the whole story in a single image, never knowing whether that’s all the viewer will see. That doesn’t make every picture perfect, but it does make every picture essential, worth taking whatever risks are necessary to get it. And it gives the good photographers a special way to look at the world around them. Ashley Gilbertson has covered the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine, as well as the January 6 riot and countless other domestic and foreign stories. The conversation will be moderated by Susan Weiss, a Vermont-based photographer, filmmaker, and art educator. Registration for this program is $20 per person.

 For more information or to register, please visit greenmtnacademy.org or call our office at 802-867-0111.

Venue

Southern Vermont Arts Center

860 Southern Vermont Arts Center Drive
Manchester, VT, 05254 

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Organizer  Green Mountain Academy for Lifelong Learning

Phone 802-867-0111

Email  greenmountainacademy@gmail.com