September 29, 2017

Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - 29th September, 2017

This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - the plight of the Rohingya with Anastasia Taylor-Lind in Bangladesh, Milton Rogovin's The Forgotten Ones, plus the Australian Photobook Awards are now open for entries and get your photobook reviewed in Sydney.


News:
What's really happening to the Rohingya


Photojournalist Anastasia Taylor-Lind is in Bangladesh working with Human Rights Watch right now covering the heartbreaking story of the Rohingya. I saw one of her photos last week, a portrait of a young woman, Hasina, who shared her horrific story. It made me cold with fury and sick from the inconceivable cruelty. I wanted to share this story with you, and a link to an Op Ed in the Washington Post - The Burmese military is committing crimes against humanity - penned by Human Rights Watch's Peter Bouckaert. This is genocide and the world needs to know what is going on. Get the story out. Please share.

(C) Anastasia Taylor-Lind

This is from Anastasia's post: "Hasina (above) is a soft-spoken 20-year-old Rohingya woman from Rakhine State in Burma. She asked us to use her picture and tell her story so the world knows what is happening there.

Her village, Tula Toli, was attacked in late August by the Burmese army on a rampage of killing and arson after Rohingya militants carried out coordinated strikes on police posts. The villagers ran when the soldiers came, but some were trapped on a river bank. Dozens, Hasina said, were murdered on the beach in front of her eyes, but the nightmare was only beginning.

The army forced Hasina and many other women to stand waist-deep in water and watch while soldiers dug a pit to burn the bodies of those they had killed. She tried to hide her infant daughter under her shawl, but a soldier noticed the baby, snatched her away and tossed her into the fire.
Hours later the soldiers took Hasina, her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and three other relatives, all children, to a nearby house. The soldiers tried to rape the women, knifing the mother-in-law to death when she resisted and beating Hasina and her sister-in-law unconscious. They beat the young children to death with spades.

When Hasina regained consciousness, she found herself inside the house. It was on fire, and she had been left locked inside by the soldiers. Her sister-in-law was alive, too. They managed to escape the flames, but with serious burns. Badly injured, they somehow made their way to Bangladesh. Both still have burn injuries. Hasina’s sister-in-law, who confirmed this horrible incident, showed us a big gash on the back of her head from when she had been beaten unconscious, and that a doctor had stitched.
Hasina insisted we take her picture and show her face to the world. For her, it is a brave act of defiance to those who sought to eliminate her and her family. Investigation by Peter N. Bouckaert and photo by Anastasia Taylor-Lind for a Human Rights Watch."


Photo Essay:
Milton Rogovin - The Forgotten Ones


In the course of researching for my PhD I come across various photographers who from time to time I will feature on Photojournalism Now. This week it's the work of American photographer Milton Rogovin, who passed away in 2011 just after his 101st birthday.

Over four decades, from 1970 to 2000, Rogovin documented the Lower West Side of Buffalo, New York, the city’s poorest area where he took portraits of those doing it tough. In his book The Forgotten Ones, Rogovin said, “Maybe my photos will encourage people to pay attention to these forgotten ones. That’s essentially why I’m doing it: we should pay attention to them and respect them. And to this extent, we (he and his wife Anne pictured below) feel that our photographs are successful”. 



Rogovin began his photography career in earnest at the age of 63. Prior to that he’d had a successful business as an optometrist, before he was accused of being a communist in the McCarthy era and called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1957. With his career as an optometrist in tatters, Rogovin picked up his camera and in 1958 he began photographing stories of social injustice. He earned a Master of Fine Arts and taught documentary photography at the University of Buffalo until 1974.

Throughout his photographic career he concentrated on the poor, believing that no one saw the “potential” he saw. Here are some of his images. 










Australian Photobook Awards and Reviews

Moments Pro, who sponsors the annual Australian and New Zealand Photobook Awards, is hosting a photobook review session at the Volume Another Art Book Fair in Sydney Saturday 14 October from 11am to 2pm. 


There are only 8 spots available. Reviewers include Kirsten Abbott from Thames & Hudson, award-winning photojournalist and artist Stephen Dupont, Diana Hill from Murdoch Books, documentary photography Lee Grant, Daniel Boetker-Smith form the Asia Pacific Photobook Archive and Ben Chadbond from Try Hard Editions. 

If you’re keen to have your book reviewed, you can sign up here.

Enter now for the Australian Photobook Awards.  Entries close 30 November.

September 22, 2017

Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - 22nd September, 2017

This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - the Indian Photography Festival opens in Hyderabad and locally Press Dynasty opens at Magnet Galleries Melbourne.

Festival: 
Indian Photography Festival - Hyderabad


(C) Kate Geraghty

The third edition of the Indian Photography Festival (IPF) opened yesterday. I had the pleasure of playing a small role in the curation of IPF by participating in the selection of the open call entries. I enjoyed the opportunity to view work by many photographers I didn't know, surely one of the greatest attractions of festivals like this.

This year the program boasts more than 520 photographers from 40 countries showcasing a diverse range of work. It's great to see Australian photojournalist Kate Geraghty's work on the drug war in the Philippines (above) as one of the major exhibitions. Other photographers participating in various capacities (workshops, artist talks and presentations) include Natan Dvir, Andrea Bruce, Reza Deghati, Stuart Franklin, Sudharak Olwe, Q Sakamaki, Cecilia Paredes, Prashant Godbole, Manoj Jadhav and Gurinder Osan.

Plus there is a host of lesser known photographers from which selected works are featured here:

Helena Schätzle - Dharavi, Mumbai









Telaj Mewar
Indian Brick Workers









Camillo Pasquarelli - The Endless Winter of Kashmir
Student award of excellence, 2017 Alexia Foundation





Sabine Hartert - Absences






The IPF runs until 8 October. To find out more visit the festival website

Exhibition: Melbourne
Bruce & Cliff Postle - Press Dynasty







I don't know how many father and son press photographers there have been, but in Australia the Postle name has been synonymous with newspapers since the 1920s when Cliff Postle was shooting for the Brisbane Courier-Mail. His son Bruce followed in his father's footsteps, first with the Courier-Mail before making the move to Melbourne and carving a name for himself at The Age. 

This retrospective at Melbourne's Magnet Galleries brings together a selection of images never exhibited together, presenting a fascinating walk down memory lane for many, as well as insights into our recent history.

Until 14 October
Magnet Galleries Melbourne
Level 2
640 Bourke Street
Melbourne

September 15, 2017

Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - 15th September, 2017

This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up - a special feature on Photoville New York, plus The Aftermath Project 10th Anniversary.

Special Feature:
Photoville 2017

(C) Kisha Bari

Since its inception in 2012 Photoville has become the largest annual photographic event in New York City, with more than 90,000 attending last year. The festival features exhibitions in and on more than 55 shipping containers in Brooklyn Bridge Plaza, as well as night projections, workshops, debates, and a mini-trade show with vendors, publishers and gear demonstrators. Free of charge and open to the public, Photoville is unlike any other photo festival in the world.

This year Photoville runs over two (unofficial) long weekends 13-17 and 21-24 September.

Newest Americans, a storytelling project about immigration and American identity, kicked off Photoville this week with a live projection in the famed Photoville Beer Garden, in collaboration with Talking Eyes, VII and Rutgers University-Newark. Newest Americans chronicles the immigrant experience using documentary film, photography, fiction and nonfiction essays, podcasting and interactive storytelling, to present "fresh narratives on the emerging majority-minority population and the nation it is transforming."  

(C) Ed Kashi 

(C) Ron Haviv

(C) Julie Winokur

Kisha Bari - ReSisters: Behind the Scenes of The Women's March

Australian Kisha Bari's exhibition ReSisters: Behind the Scenes of The Women's March, is a project that has seen Kisha cover the Women's March movement since January this year. There are some fantastic images in the show and Kisha has captured wonderful, candid moments. 

"I am honored to present some never before seen imagery of the lead up to the Women's March on Washington from NYC to D.C," says Kisha. "The work presented captures this awesome women-led movement and celebrates the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change.”





(C) All images Kisha Bari

Panel Discussion: Reclaiming Photography
(C) Danielle Villasana

This should be a great talk (wish I could be there for this alone) featuring founding members of RECLAIM: an alliance of The Everyday Projects, Native Agency, Majority World, Women Photograph, Minority Report [renamed from Visioning Project], and Diversify Photo.

Panelists are:
Laura Beltrán Villamizar (Native Agency)
Shahidul Alam (Majority World)
Daniella Zalcman (Women Photograph)
Brent Lewis (Senior Photo Editor ESPN’s The Undefeated)
Tara Pixley (Scholar/Filmmaker/Photographer)
Austin Merrill (Everyday Projects)

For more details check out the link here.

Random images from exhibitions you should check out if you're lucky enough to be in NYC!

Insider/Outsider - Women Photograph 
(C) Abbie Trayler-Smith 

The Blood and the Rain - Magnum Foundation
(C) Yael Martínez

Carbon's Casualties: How Climate Change is Upending Life Around the World
New York Times (C) Josh Haner

We Have Experienced Calamities
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
(C) Juan Carlos Tomasi

Visit the Photoville website for all the details.


War is Only Half the Story
The Aftermath Project 10th Anniversary
(also exhibiting at Photoville)

(C) Stanley Greene

War is Only Half the Story is a ten-year retrospective of the work of the groundbreaking documentary photography program, The Aftermath Project.

Founded by photographer Sara Terry to help change the way the media covers conflict – and to educate the public about the true cost of war and the real price of peace – The Aftermath Project has run a grant program for the past decade, supporting some of the best documentary photographers in the world working on post-conflict themes. You can check out the project at Photoville.

Juan Arredondo/Finalist, 2016 “Everybody Needs a Good Neighbor”
Angél, 14, and Daniel (right), 16, members of the ELN Che Guevara Front pose for a picture at their camp in Chocó. The Che Guevara front operates on the Pacific coast of Colombia patrolling important corridors to allow the export of cocaine to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexico. February 17, 2014.


Isabel Kiesewetter/Finalist, 2013 “Conversion”
Fusion Festival, Larz Former Rechlin-Larz military airfield
1933 - 1945: Main testing ground of the Third Reich’s Luftwaffe
1945 - 1993: Used by the 19th Fighter Bomber Regiment West of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany


Stanley Greene/Grant Winner, 2013 “Hidden Scars”
A scarecrow and his guard dog watch over the village of Bamut, which was always a rebel stronghold, and was the last village to fall to Russian forces. The entire village was leveled by the Russian military. Bamut is near the Chechen border with neighboring Ingushetia, which lies to the west of Chechnya. In April 2014, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov sent forces on a cross-border raid into Ingushetia. A few years previously, he sent forces on a similar raid into Dagestan, to the east. Kadyrov’s pan-Caucasus ambitions are making his neighbors uneasy. Bamut, Chechnya, 2013. 

The tenth anniversary book, which is co-production with Dewi Lewis Publishing, takes a completely new approach to presenting the work The Aftermath Project has supported. Rather than a chronological order, photographs are curated under five themes, defined by the poetry of Nobel Laureate Poet Wislawa Syzmborska:

“All the cameras have gone to other wars…”
“After every war someone’s got to tidy up…”
“Perhaps all fields are battlefields…”
“This terrifying world is not devoid of charms…”
“Reality demands that we also mention this: Life goes on.”

There is a Kickstarter project to fund the book.

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