Ryan Vizzions: The Tender Work of Preserving Renee Good’s Memorial

 Via Hyperallergic

March 16, 2026

Ryan Vizzions is archiving the objects left at the site of Renee Good’s murder. (all photos by and courtesy Ryan Vizzions)

Ryan Vizzions, a photojournalist from Atlanta, had already arrived in Minnesota when federal immigration agents murdered poet and mother Renee Nicole Macklin Good.

For the last five years, the traveling photographer has been living out of his small van as he travels across the country for a photo survey exploring what it means to be American in all 50 states. He was taking photos at Lake Superior when he learned of Good’s killing, and drove immediately to the street where agents shot Good in her car. He arrived in time for a massive vigil held in Good’s memory.

Nearly two months after Good’s murder, Vizzions is still in Minnesota, but his focus has shifted from observation to intervention. He is now the de facto archivist of Good’s memorial site, where mourners have left hundreds of devotional objects, short notes, and artwork in protest and in grief.

Vizzions among Good memorial objects at his undisclosed storage site

“I want to make sure people in the future understand what happened here,” Vizzions told Hyperallergic in an interview.

So far, Vizzions has photographed about 200 items and relocated fragile objects to what he described as a “secret location” in the southern part of the city.

He’s left behind some items, including plastic signs, for the public to view. Alongside community members, Vizzions is maintaining the site, including by removing what he described as hundreds of pounds of decaying flowers.

Among the items Vizzions has documented is a note signed by an employee of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the agency driving the Trump administration’s escalating immigration enforcement tactics. 

“Ms. Good,” the message reads, “We will never forget you. Rest in peace and power. Your work on earth is done. Your legacy lives on.” 

The card, which is covered in stickers, is signed, “A DHS employee.”

“That was probably the most surprising because that’s somebody who is involved with the same institution that ultimately killed her,” Vizzions told Hyperallergic. 

Mourners attended a vigil for Good hours after federal agents killed her.

Vizzions made the leap from outside observer to active participant in Minneapolis’s response to Good’s murder after someone attempted to burn the memorial site and extreme winter conditions set in, threatening to destroy the makeshift monument.

On February 18, someone poured gasoline on the memorial and lit a flame. Vizzions said that he and a group of community members watching over the site at night were able to stop the fire from spreading.

While Vizzions has previously photographed political apexes, including Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock, he said he had never before inserted himself in the communities he covers.

“ As a photojournalist, oftentimes you’re divided from the community because you’re on the outside looking in,” Vizzions said. “And I wanted to serve.” 

Vizzions told Hyperallergic that Good’s parents are aware of his project and that he is in communication with a family friend who is serving as a mediator. Ultimately, Vizzions said, he will respect the family’s wishes for any next steps for the collection. He expects that some of the items could end up in the collections of private institutions or in the archives of the Smithsonian, but noted that whatever happens next will not be his decision to make. 

In the meantime, he is photographing and digitizing items from Good’s vigil so that anyone can experience them, regardless of where they live.

“It’s  really important for me to make sure that the folks who couldn’t be here, and the family who couldn’t come to the vigil because of everything happening, are able to access the memorial in person or online,” Vizzions said.

The photographer recalled one snow-covered note that made him cry. It read: “ We all carry whistles now. I hope you hear them. I hope you’re home. We all carry each other now. I know you’re with us. I know you’re home.”

The message is a nod to activists’ use of whistles to alert community members of potential immigration raids.

“It was just on a small note that was tucked somewhere,” Vizzons said. “But that’s just one of hundreds, if not thousands, of items that people have left. It’s that message and the other message that really make it feel like we have an obligation to protect these offerings that people brought to her.”

Full article here

See Ryan Vizzions' photographs from Minneapolis at The Photography Show Presented by AIPAD April 22-26, Monroe Gallery Booth B10.

 

Projections: March 11th for a very special evening with photographer Ed Kashi

Via Projections

Hold The Date: Projections March 11th for a very special evening with photographer Ed Kashi.

One of the world’s most celebrated photojournalists and filmmakers Kashi has dedicated the past 45 years to documenting the social and geopolitical issues that define our era.

Ed will be presenting his new book, A Period in Time: Looking Back while Moving Forward: 1977–2022, a stunning and expansive retrospective of photographs spanning the world and his prolific career.

March 11, 2026 7 pm EST 

"It’s absolutely imperative that the truth is documented.”

 Via El Pais

February 23, 2026

American photographer Carol Guzy, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, asserts that, in light of the brutal anti-immigration crusade being waged by the US government, the work of photojournalists ‘is more important than ever’

It was an unexpected flash of empathy. The woman’s husband had just been detained by immigration agents in a federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, which has become the epicenter of the Donald Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in New York. Photographer Carol Guzy (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 69) saw the agents take the man away as his wife shouted, “Please, help me!” and their two children cried. Guzy decided to accompany the family to the exit. There, the woman realized she didn’t have her keys; with no way to return home, she broke down in tears again. A court security officer approached her to offer help and, faced with the scene, also began to cry. Through her own tears, Guzy captured the moment with her camera.

For the photographer, it is an image that radiates compassion at a time when people desperately need it. In the midst of an unprecedented crusade against immigration, launched by a president obsessed with carrying out the largest deportation in U.S. history, the work of photojournalists like Guzy has become, in her own words, “more important than ever” in her country’s history. With their cameras, they are building a historical record that is at once deeply alive and profoundly human, documenting the consequences of an immigration policy whose effects will be felt for decades to come. --click for full article

“It’s our challenge in the face of the disinformation being disseminated, both for us as photographers and for these brave, brave residents who are standing out there with their cell phones documenting, like Alex Pretti. It’s absolutely imperative that the truth is documented.”

Online lecture July 23: Nina Berman on work made in 1987 when she traveled with a group of American Vietnam War veterans on their return trip to Vietnam

Via Pemumbra Foundation

July 21, 2025

Penumbra is excited to host a series of online public lectures in July 2025, where artists will share insight into the projects being digitized through this program.

On Wednesday, July 23, Nina Berman will discuss work made in 1987 when as a young photographer and journalist she traveled with a group of American Vietnam War veterans on their return trip to Vietnam. The experience had a significant impact on her and influenced her later work more generally on the costs of war and American warmaking.



July 23, 7-8PM | RSVP here

Nina Berman is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, journalist and educator.  Her work explores American politics, militarization, environmental issues and post violence trauma.  She is the author of Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq, (Trolley, 2004) portraits and interviews with wounded American veterans, Homeland, (Trolley, 2008) an examination of the militarization of American life post September 11, and An autobiography of Miss Wish (Kehrer, 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 Gugggenheim Fellowship in Photography, 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. Her work has been exhibited at more than 100 international venues from the Whitney Museum Biennial to the concrete security walls at the Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan. Public collections include the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of the City of New York, the Harvard Art Museums and the Bibliothèque nationale de France among others. She has participated in workshops around the world for young photographers and is a professor at Columbia Journalism School where she directs the photojournalism/documentary photography program.

Podcast - Nina Berman: A Lens on Consequence

Via Foto

 Foto 026 - Nina Berman by Michael Howard

 

 In this episode, Michael talks with Nina Berman, a documentary photographer, filmmaker, and professor whose work interrogates the relationship between power, militarization, and the American experience. Over a career spanning three decades, Nina has consistently focused her lens on systems of violence and their aftermath, from war zones to police training grounds to the staged patriotism of political spectacle.

A Guggenheim Fellow, two-time World Press Photo winner, and professor at Columbia Journalism School, Nina is also the author of three major books: Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq, Homeland, and An Autobiography of Miss Wish. Her photographs have been exhibited in venues such as the Whitney Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

In this conversation, she discusses how her work has evolved from portraits of wounded veterans to broader investigations into how militarized thinking permeates everyday American life. She reflects on the ethics of long-term documentary work, the emotional cost of sustained witnessing, and why photography remains a vital civic act.

This is a powerful episode with one of the most uncompromising voices in American documentary photography — a conversation about courage, clarity, and using your camera to look directly at the systems that define our time.

Panel: "Today we are testing whether this nation can long endure. The photographers in this panel will present to us a heartfelt and critical view of what America looks and feels like today." with Nina Berman and Ed Kashi

Via Social Documentary Network

May 5, 2025 

This America

Tuesday, May 13, 1:30 pm ET via Zoom

Watch on YouTube here

 

Ed Kashi and Julie Winokur: American Sketches: People of a Place at This Time

Nina Berman, Photographer & Professor of Journalism, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Richard Sharum, Spina America

Dudley Brooks, Moderator

In 2025, America finds itself in a very confused and divided place. 250 years ago, it embarked on the greatest experiment in human history to overthrow the old norms of monarchies and despotic rule. America thrived, evolved, and conflicted during those two-and-a-half centuries. 

Today, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address penned 161 years ago is more relevant than at any other time since it was first spoken.

Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. 

Today we are testing whether this nation can long endure. The photographers in this panel will present to us a heartfelt and critical view of what America looks and feels like today.

 

Dudley Brooks

Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Dudley M. Brooks was the Deputy Director of Photography for The Washington Post, where he managed the creative strategy and production of photo-oriented content for the Features, Local and Sports departments. He was also the Photo Editor for The Washington Post Magazine before it was discontinued in 2022. From 2007-2014 he was the Director of Photography and Senior Photo Editor for the monthly magazine Ebony and its weekly sister periodical Jet. These iconic publications chronicled the African American experience for nearly eight decades and Brooks was a key member of the senior staff responsible for redefining the visual prominence and editorial relevance to their international readerships. Brooks was also the Assistant Managing Editor of Photography at The Baltimore Sun newspaper (2005-2007) and the co-creator/director of the landmark 1990 photography book and exhibition Songs of My People: African Americans – A Self-Portrait. This was an international project sponsored by Time-Warner and the Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). In 2003 he created and co-directed Imagenes Havana. This event was a five-day exhibition in Havana, Cuba that displayed the work of twenty-five international storytelling photographers. It was supplemented by three days of roundtable forums that addressed the difficulties of documenting the international community, opportunities in photo book publishing, and ethical issues facing the working photographer from a global perspective. Brooks retired from The Washington Post in late 2024.

Nina Berman

Nina Berman is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, journalist and educator.  Her work explores American politics, militarism, environmental issues and post violence trauma.  She is the author of Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq, (Trolley, 2004) portraits and interviews with wounded American veterans, Homeland, (Trolley, 2008) an examination of the militarization of American life post September 11, and An autobiography of Miss Wish (Kehrer, 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 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 started her photographic career in 1988 as an independent photographer working on assignment for the world’s major magazines including Time, Newsweek, Life, the New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, German Geo, and the Sunday Times Magazine. Her work has been exhibited at more than 100 international. Public collections include the Smithsonian National Museum of American History; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Museum of the City of New York; the Harvard Art Museums; and the Bibliothèque nationale de France among others. She is a tenured Professor of Journalism at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she directs the photojournalism/documentary photography program.

Ed Kashi

Ed Kashi is a renowned photojournalist, filmmaker, speaker and educator who has been making images and telling stories for 40 years. His restless creativity has continually placed him at the forefront of new approaches to visual storytelling. Dedicated to documenting the social and political issues that define our times, a sensitive eye and an intimate and compassionate relationship to his subjects are signatures of his intense and unsparing work. As a member of VII Photo, Kashi has been recognized for his complex imagery and its compelling rendering of the human condition. 

Kashi’s innovative approach to photography and filmmaking has produced a number of influential short films and earned recognition by the POYi Awards as 2015’s Multimedia Photographer of the Year. Kashi’s embrace of technology has led to creative social media projects for clients including National Geographic, The New Yorker, and MSNBC. From implementing a unique approach to photography and filmmaking in his 2006 Iraqi Kurdistan Flipbook, to paradigm shifting coverage of Hurricane Sandy for TIME in 2012, Kashi continues to create compelling imagery and engage with the world in new ways.

Along with numerous awards from World Press Photo, POYi, CommArts and American Photography, Kashi’s images have been published and exhibited worldwide. His editorial assignments and personal projects have generated fourteen books.

Richard Sharum

Richard Sharum is an editorial and documentary photographer based in upstate New York. Mainly focusing on socio-economic or social justice dilemmas concerning the human condition, his work has been regarded as in-depth, up-close and personal.

Selected exhibitions include Kyoto, Japan; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Reggio Emilia, Italy; New York, Boston, Chicago’ and Dallas.  His work is in the permanent collection of the Witliff Center for Documentary Studies, Amon Carter Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, and others.

Commissions include The Meadows Foundation, Centers for Community Cooperation, Harvard Law School, Student Conservation Association, Children's Medical Center (Oncology), Children's Cancer Fund. 

Publications include those by LFI (Leica International), British Journal of Photography, LensCulture, The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, Publico (Portugal), El Pais (Spain), Observer (UK), The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian (UK), B+W Photo Magazine, Huck Magazine, Glasstire, PATRON, Creative Review, among others.

Richard Sharum's debut monograph Campesino Cuba was published in 2021 (GOST) and his latest, Spina Americana, was just released in November 2024 (GOST). Richard Sharum is represented by The Hulett Collection, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

 

Julie Winokur

Executive Director, Talking Eyes Media

Julie WinokurJulie Winokur, Executive Director of Talking Eyes Media, has been a storyteller for over two decades, first as a magazine writer and then as a documentary filmmaker. She launched Talking Eyes Media in 2002 as a way to create visual media that catalyzes positive social change. Her work has appeared on PBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, and National Geographic. Beyond broadcast and publication, Winokur works extensively with nonprofit organizations to develop their messages and put Talking Eyes' films to work at the grassroots level. She is the co-founder of Newest Americans, a storytelling project about immigration and identity based in Newark, New Jersey, that was named Best Online Storytelling Project in 2020 by Pictures of the Year International. She is also the producer/director of The Sacrifice Zone and Bring It to The Table, both documentary films with extensive impact campaigns. Winokur is a National Geographic Explorer and has been on the faculty of Rutgers University-Newark and the International Center of Photography in New York.

 

Letter from FIRE, NCAC, and ACLU of Texas to Fort Worth Police Department, February 19, 2025 Regarding Seized Sally Mann Photos

 Via Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

February 19, 2025

Dear Chief Noakes:

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the National Coalition Against
Censorship (NCAC), and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas are deeply
concerned by the Fort Worth Police Department’s unconstitutional seizure and investigation
of artist Sally Mann’s photographs, which were on view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort
Worth.1 While some may find the images inappropriate, that does not strip them of the First
Amendment protection afforded to artistic expression. We therefore call on the Fort Worth
Police Department to uphold its binding obligations to defend the Constitution by ceasing its
investigation and returning the photographs.

--Click for full letter

"I take my responsibility as a photographer much more seriously"

My Most Important Photograph: Spc. Robert Acosta, 20, photographed at his home

 in Santa Ana, Calif., April 13, 2004

©Nina Berman-NOOR

 

Via TIME Lightbox

Best known for documenting the aftermath of the Iraq War and the militarization of American life, Nina Berman tells us about the most important photograph she's ever made.

"I thought I could add some complexity into the narrative by investigating what it meant to be wounded, who these troops were, what it meant to return home at such a young age and make the transition to disabled veteran."

What if a World Press Photo of The Year was taken in America?

“But it does say something about what you can do in your own backyard.” --Craig Walker

"HEROES: PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEVE SCHAPIRO"

If you are in the New Hampshire area, we highly recommend this exhibition.



Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. © All Photographs Copyright of Steve Schapiro

Lamont Gallery Presents "Heroes: Works by Steve Schapiro" Monday, December 6, 2010 - Saturday, January 22, 2011


Exeter, NH -- From Monday, December 6, 2010 to Saturday, January 22, 2011, the Lamont Gallery at Phillips Exeter Academy will present Heroes: Works by Steve Schapiro, renowned journalism and portrait photographer, in an exhibition of 60 of his photographs. An artist reception will be held on Friday, January 7, 2011, 6:30-8 p.m.; and a gallery talk will be held on Saturday, January 8, 2011, 10 a.m. The exhibition is organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions © Steve Schapiro. The Lamont Gallery is in the Frederick R. Mayer Art Center on Tan Lane. This exhibit is free and open to the public. Please note the gallery will be closed Friday, December 18, 2010—Tuesday, January 4, 2011.

The exhibit is a collection of Schapiro’s "personally selected iconic images from his encounters with artists, writers, actors, athletes, and politicians throughout the second half of the 20th Century." Schapiro’s work ranges from dramatic images of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, to portraits of Robert F. Kennedy, Jackie Onassis, Muhammad Ali, Truman Capote and Andy Warhol. His groundbreaking images of influential personalities, newsmakers, and cultural and political leaders display a modest yet remarkable presentation of his extraordinary life in photography.

Born and raised in New York City, Schapiro’s career as a notable photographer began in 1960, when he documented Arkansas migrant workers who were fighting for electricity in their camps. His photographs were published as a cover story for The New York Times Magazine, and ultimately forced the workers’ management to provide the utility, according to Schapiro’s website.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he traveled throughout the U.S. as a documentary photographer, recording the changing culture and politics. During the 1970s and 1980s, besides continuing his photographic works, he created iconic movie stills for such movies as Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, and John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy. Later, Schapiro worked for such musical greats as Barbra Streisand and David Bowie, creating photography for album covers.

"As a young photographer on assignment for Life, my only ambition was that the pictures I took each day would be published in the following week’s magazine; I never thought beyond that. I could not imagine that 40 years later, so many of my subjects would remain strong, iconic figures in the world. However, as I photographed each of these ten individuals, I was aware of the life-changing effect they were having on me," Schapiro says.

His photos have been displayed on the covers of some of the world’s most well-known and well-read magazines, including: TIME, Newsweek, LIFE, Look, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, People, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times Magazine.

Having to help shape an iconic American culture, Schapiro’s works are represented in many private and public collections, including: the Smithsonian Museum, Washington, D.C.; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Hamiltons Gallery, London, England; Galerie Thierry Marlat, Paris, France; Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe, NM; Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, GA.

Gallery hours are Mondays 1–5 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday 9 a.m.–5 p.m.; closed on Sundays. Please note the Lamont Gallery will be closed from December 18, 2010 until January 4, 2011. For more information, contact the Lamont Gallery at 603-777-3461. For information on upcoming events, visit the Academy’s community calendar. To learn more about the Academy and its events and programs, visit our website. You may also call the PEA public events line at 603-777-4309.

Related: Steve Schapiro Exhibition review in ArtNews