Happiest of Holidays

 

 

 

 

Thank you for your encouragement and support.

 

We wish you Happy Holidays and the very best in 2013.

 

The Monroes

 

 

 

 

A Photographer's War With PTSD

Marines run for cover after white phosphorus was accidentally fired at them by another company in Falluja, Iraq on November 9, 2004. [Ashley Gilbertson / VII]

Recomended read, via The Atlantic:

"As Ashley Gilbertson crept up the dark staircase of a minaret in Fallujah, he hovered closely behind advance troops of the United States Marines. Stepping around and over the rubble created by an earlier shelling of the mosque, Gilbertson could hardly see the two soldiers in lead.

Moments before starting their climb, Gilbertson argued to be the first person in the room. He wanted to take first shot at the insurgent who used this holy perch to prey on advancing U.S. forces. However, Lance Corporal William Miller and his partner, Lance Corporal Christian Dominguez, would not back down, and they took the lead that November afternoon. As Gilbertson took to the stairs, his partner Dexter Filkins mounted the steps behind him.

Guns at the ready, the convoy had just crested the first flight of crumbling stairs when gunfire erupted. Gilbertson was pushed backwards, tumbling down the steps. His face felt wet.

It was the blood of Lance Corporal Miller.

As the scene became chaotic, Gilbertson's immediate reaction was to shoot back.

He didn't.

He couldn't.

And it wouldn't matter.

The only weapon Gilbertson carries is a camera.

Full article here.

Photographer Craig Varjabedian discusses “Landscape Dreams” at 1:30 today at the Albuquerque Museum

 

This photo titled “Welcome to New Mexico” was made near Chama. (CRAIG VARDJABEDIAN FROM ‘LANDSCAPE DREAMS, A NEW MEXICO PORTRAIT’)

 

Review: Captivating panorama

Via The Albuquerque Journal

By David Steinberg / Journal Staff Writeron Sun, Dec 16, 2012

 Which one to choose for publication? A San Marcos cowboy holding a saddle with his canine friend Buddy next to him? A roadside descanso in Mora? Quaking aspen in Red River? Chile fields near Hatch?

I reviewed and re-reviewed the many wondrous black-and-white images of Santa Fe photographer Craig Varjabedian in his new book “Landscape Dreams” before deciding on the accompanying one you see.

I was taken by the tilt and the architecture of the “Welcome to New Mexico, Chama, New Mexico” sign. How 1950s New Mexico it was. I was also enraptured by the shimmering cool leaves, the curving vale, the stand of trees in the middle ground, the upward slope of the hill to the sky.

As the first full-page photograph in the book, it welcomes the reader to a journey – a journey into Varjabedian’s work – into a thoughtful essay on the Land of Enchantment, into an explanation of the photographer’s themes and artistic philosophy and into the how and why of his own coming to New Mexico.

I asked Varjabedian about the “Welcome to New Mexico” photograph.

“The sign is a kind of metaphor for New Mexico,” Varjabedian said. “As real and truthful as it looks, it is not really truthful. Ultimately what I am trying to say is that I’ve been calling this book my love letter to New Mexico. Whatever tools, tricks I can use as a photographer, I use. The sign was shot up. There were holes in it.”

The fact that the sign is a bit off-kilter, Varjabedian commented, says that there’s something “wonderfully different” about New Mexico.

He took the photograph in 2010. Since then, he said, the state Highway Department has replaced the sign with one that is more vertical.

“It’s a new sign and it doesn’t have the quality of its older relative,” he said.

Craig Varjabedian discusses “Landscape Dreams” at 1:30 today at the Albuquerque Museum, 2000 Mountain NW. In addition, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish and Jennifer Simpson read from essays in the book. Rebekkah Varjabedian, the photographer’s daughter, introduces her short film “Landscape Dreams.” UNM Press director John Byram talks about the press’ collaboration with Varjabedian and the importance of physical books.

To Varjabedian, the sign signifies something more.

“There’s something magical, enchanted and turned a little different about this place, which brings it its charm … and delights me to want to photograph it. I’m struck by those things that are turned a little bit differently, whether a sign or some historical fact,” he said.”

On the facing page of the “Welcome” sign is part of historian Hampton Sides’ foreword. In it, Sides touches on New Mexico’s road to statehood. The state “worked its way into the national consciousness,” he wrote, “and, as it nearly always does, won people over.” It was a reference to a welcoming act on Jan. 6, 1912 – membership into the Union as the 47th state.

Varjabedian’s public love letter was published in the same year as the New Mexico Centennial.

An exhibit of images from the book is up through Dec. 31 at William Talbot Fine Art, 129 W. San Francisco St., Santa Fe.

David Steinberg is the Journal’s Books editor and an Arts writer.

This is the cover of the book “Landscape Dreams: A New Mexico Portrait” (courtesy of unm press website)

Photojournalist Steve Schapiro's Contrasting Life

Steve Schapiro: Martin Luther King Marching for Voting Rights with John Lewis, Reverend Jesse Douglas, James Forman and Ralph Abernathy, Selma, 1965


Via CNN

December 12, 2012

Photographer Steve Schapiro's five decade career of classic photos displayed in new book, ‘Then and Now’

During his five-decade career, photographer Steve Schapiro likes to say he has photographed everything from presidents to poodles. Schapiro has captured the special moments of rock stars, film stars and politicians of the 60's and '70's as well as photos of migrant workers and the Selma March with Martin Luther King. In his new photobook "Then and Now" Schapiro compiles some of his best and most iconic images. The book contains more than 170 photos – some of which have never been published before. He joins “Stating Point” this morning to discuss some of his most iconic photos and his new book.

Video link here.
 

Schapiro says it has always interested him, “to capture all the different elements that make up our country.” He tells the story behind him capturing an iconic photo of Actor Marlon Brando when he was hired to photograph “The Godfather.” Schapiro says, “Brando let me photograph his makeup session… and in the middle of it he just gave me this wonderful look which luckily I caught.” Reminiscing on a picture he took of Actor Dustin Hoffman leaping in a narrow hallway he says, “[Dustin] is a delight. He is a delight on and off camera. He just has such spirit and you know such wonderful feeling and humor all the time…This was just a moment after they had been feeling and it just was a spontaneous event.”

Schapiro admits that he always wanted to be a “Life Magazine” photographer and “one of the things that interested [him] was the migrant worker situation in America.” He talks about his very first story where he spent four weeks documenting the lives of the migrant workers through his photos and an essay and reflects on one particular photo of a cabin wall where a child once wrote “I love anybody who loves me".

Jackie Kennedy's Note to Mark Shaw: "Anyone who puts a finger-print on them will have his hand chopped off "

Mark Shaw: John Looking at his Reflection in Tabletop, Palm Beach 1963

Only two weeks before Kennedy was assassinated, Jacqueline Kennedy wrote a note to Mark Shaw, one of many, thanking him for color photographs of her with her three-year-old, John F. Kennedy Jr.: "They really should be in the National Gallery! I have them propped up in our Sitting Room now, and everyone who comes in says the one of me and John looks like a Caravaggio—and the one of John, reflected in the table, like some wonderful, strange, poetic Matisse. And, when I think of how you just clicked your camera on an ordinary day in that dreary, green Living Room.I just can't thank you enough, they will always be my greatest treasures. Anyone who puts a finger-print on them will have his hand chopped off. "

 

 

Mark Shaw: The Kennedys exhibition continues through January 27, 2013

Stephen Wilkes' Sandy Photographs Among TIME's Best Photojournalism of 2012

Via TIME LightBox
Throughout 2012, TIME’s unparalleled photojournalists were there. At a time when so much hangs in the balance, bearing witness can be the most essential act — and that’s what we do."

Two of Stephen Wilkes photographs of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy are among the best of  Time's commissioned photojournalism from 2012:

UPDATE: Dec 13, 2013: The above photograph was chosen as one of TIME's "Top 10 Photos of 2012"

Stephen Wilkes for TIME

Nov. 4, 2012. Seaside Heights, N.J. The Jet Star roller coaster at Casino Pier amusement park, once a Jersey Shore Landmark, was submerged in the Atlantic as a result of Hurricane Sandy. From "Flooded, Uprooted, Burned: The Tracks of Sandy on the Shore."

Stephen Wilkes for TIME

Nov. 9, 2012. Staten Island, N.Y. Strong winds and waves ripped several homes from their foundation, like this one in the Oakwood neighborhood. From "Flooded, Uprooted, Burned: The Tracks of Sandy on the Shore."

Related: Mr. Wilkes’ photo eloquently framing: amber waves of grain meets the apocalypse.

Related: The "Best Photos" of 2012 International Compilation

NYC: The Loving Story Film Opens December 10

 Grey Villet: Mildred and Richard Loving, King and Queen County,

Virginia in April 1965

The Loving Story
By Michelle Orange Wednesday, Dec 5 2012

Well-timed and well crafted in equal measures, The Loving Story is a thoughtful, terrifically intimate account of the case that dismantled this country's anti-miscegenation laws 100 years after the abolition of slavery. The story of Virginia couple Mildred and Richard Loving's efforts to live and love each other freely captures a critical moment in a civil rights movement whose most recent strides—for same-sex marriage—are just a few weeks old. First-time director Nancy Buirski's focus on the constitutional tangles that brought Loving v. Virginia before the Supreme Court in 1967 also complement Lincoln's warm, wonky embrace of the democratic procedural. A wealth of archival footage gives The Loving Story an oddly modern quality. We watch the supremely humble couple (Richard was white; Mildred part black and part Native American) interacting at home, tolerating journalists, conferring with attorneys, and recounting their path to the courtroom: Having been arrested in their home state, the Lovings moved to Washington, D.C. Mildred's distressed letter to Bobby Kennedy set things rolling. Equally compelling is footage of the dauntless young lawyers, Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, who saw much to be gained in one couple's belief in their rights and even more to be cut away.


Details

The Loving Story
Directed by Nancy Buirski
Icarus Films
Opens December 10, Maysles Cinema


Related: Director's Interview: The Loving Story

              Grey Villet:  A Storyteller Is Seen With New Eyes          

              On Exhibit: Grey Villet's Photographs of The Lovings 

(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

New report, to be released on December 11: Global jailing of journalists reaches record-high

Global jailing of journalists reaches record-high
Via Committee to Protect Journalists

New York, December 5, 2012-- The threat of imprisonment has become a reality for a record number of journalists in 2012, the Committee to Protect Journalist found in its annual prison census. The report, to be released on December 11, records and analyzes the imprisonment of journalists globally, underlining the ongoing crackdown against critical reporting.

A breakdown of the charges, regions, mediums and the number of freelance journalists imprisoned will be available. CPJ's census, first published in 1990, is a snapshot of those incarcerated at midnight on December 1, 2012. It does not include the many journalists imprisoned and released throughout the year.


WHAT: 2012 Imprisoned Journalists, a CPJ yearly census
WHEN: December 11, 2012 - 12:01 a.m. EST / 4: 01 a.m. GMT
WHERE: WWW.CPJ.ORG


Advance copies of the report are available upon request and interviews may be arranged prior to launch date. The report will be published in Arabic, English, French, Russian, Turkish and Spanish.

Steve Schapiro Interview: "The picture isn't truth. The picture is the photographer's point of view"

 

 

 

Via FreshMilkArt

(Pardon the ad) 

 

 



Interview: Steve Schapiro

Steve Schapiro was born in 1934 in New York. In the beginning he photographed the daily life on the streets of New York. Steve Schapiro made his education at the American photographer W. Eugene Smith. For years, Steve Schapiro photographed socially critical series like drug addicts in East Harlem or the lives of American immigrants. These pictures he sent to the "Life" magazine - until 1961 he received his first commission.

A Life full of legendsSteve Schapiro photographed in the 60ies the Kennedys and followed Robert "Bobby" Kennedy in 1968 during his campaign. He also worked with artis like Barbara Streisand and Maroln Brando. Also Muhammed Ali was one of the persons Steve Schapiro photographed during his career. He evolved a passion for photographing on film sets. His first shots he did on the film set of Martin Scorsese. The pictures he did on the film sets of "Taxi Driver" and "Godfather" are well known and legendary.