Peikwen Cheng November 3, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Burning Man, Nevada
Peikwen Cheng (b. 1975, USA) is a self-taught photographer and visual artist based in Beijing, China. His work has been exhibited in Cambodia, Canada, China, Greece, Poland, Singapore, Sweden, Syria, United Kingdom and United States. He was recently selected for Flash Forward – recognizing emerging photographers from Canada, UK and USA – as well as for Singapore’s photography biennial SIPF 2010. Peikwen holds a degree in Product Design from Stanford University.
About the Photograph:
“In 2000, I journeyed to the Black Rock Desert of Nevada to a pre-historic lake bed, ringed by mountains. It is at a strikingly beautiful place, yet incredibly inhospitable place plagued by alkaline dust storms. Each year a spontaneous community gathers for one week to share, build, participate and then disappear. Creativity is abound and caution is tossed to the wind. People realize their random dreams/whims/etc, no matter how nonsensical they may be in the real world. It is this idea of realizing dreams that has been incredibly inspiring to me and has propelled me to tackle challenging projects, including this series Lost and Found (2000-2010).” (more…)
Carl Bower October 27, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Diane undergoes a bone scan. Chevy Chase, Maryland
Carl Bower (b.1966, USA) is a freelance photographer based in Washington DC. His personal work addresses issues of identity in the face of adverse social conditions, and his photographs have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Newsweek, and the Sunday Times Magazine of London. His project on Colombian beauty pageants was shown at the LOOKbetween and Palm Springs photo festivals, featured in Burn and the New York Times LENS blog, received the Blue Earth Alliance Prize for Best Project Photography and was a finalist for the New York Photo Festival Book Award and Photolucida’s Critical Mass Book Award. His series on one woman’s experience with breast cancer received a Clarion Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
About the Photograph:
“This image is from Diane’s Story, a series about a close friend’s bout with breast cancer, her physical and emotional recovery, and the disease’s eventual reoccurrence. When first diagnosed, she was bombarded by the details of clinical trials, conflicting advice and inspirational platitudes. She wanted a realistic sense of the experience before her as a way to prepare herself, but could find nothing. Partly to wrestle something positive out of the situation and partly for the illusion of control, we began to document her experience so that other women could have the insight Diane sought but could not find. This photo was made after her mastectomies and chemotherapy, at a time when she was in the process of reconstruction. Although Diane was deemed a “survivor”, regular tests looking for hints of metastasis were a constant reminder that cancer is forever in remission, never completely gone. She was undergoing a bone scan as her oncologist looked for suspiciously high densities of marrow, a possible sign that the cancer had metastasized. Radiology reports carried the weight of life verdicts, and she said every test felt like a game of Russian roulette.”
Beth Rooney October 11, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: Ohio University, United States
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The Zoppé Family Circus. Addison, Illinois 2008
Beth Rooney (b. 1983, USA) is a freelance photojournalist based in Chicago. After graduating from Ohio University in 2005 she traveled to Paranagua, Brazil with a grant from Ohio University. Upon returning to the United States she took an internship with Lauren Greenfield in Los Angeles. After working as a freelancer in Chicago for a year, Beth attended the Eddie Adams Workshop in 2007. Some of her current clients include: The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, FADER, and NPR.
About the Photograph:
“Carlo Gentile is holding his youngest child, Giulia, a year old in this photo, in front of the tent at The Zoppé family circus in Addison, Illinois. Carlo and his family spent last summer traveling with “Zoppé, an Italian Family Circus,” which has been entertaining crowds around the world since 1842. Carlo and his wife perform a foot-juggling act and incorporate their children into their show. They are already teaching them to balance and feel comfortable in front of the crowd. This image is from a larger piece about the whole show. This story appealed to me because traditional circus has an energy that is mysterious and draws people in. This troupe was particularly interesting because they focus on emotional connections with the audience and work to preserve the dying art of family circus. Every year there are new acts, but the basics stay the same: entertaining audiences around the country with the simple but fantastic story of Nino the clown.”
David Bowen September 27, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Bubble-gum girl, San Francisco, New Years Day 2002
David Bowen (b.1972, u.k.) is a freelance photographer based in Norway. His journey into photography began at 12 years old with his elder brothers discarded SLR, and evolved with the building of his first darkroom a couple of years later. His first long term project was shot from 1991 until 1997 documenting the westernization of a remote Tibetan village in the north of India. Following the London exhibition of this work he embarked on a second personal project looking at the fast growing youth culture scene based around electronic music. Now 12 years in, this still expanding body of work so far consists of around 60 international events in more than 20 countries. Exhibition prints from his Tibetan folio are held in the private Kodak Eastman archive and his youth culture work is currently being proposed for exhibition and book publication.
About the Photograph:
“Photographing the scene around electronic music has been an utterly consuming obsession. Working 52 weekends of the year for more than 10 years has meant rarely spending a weekend at home. For this commission I’d been in the city for five days, sleeping much of the day and submersing myself into the nightlife each evening. The last night was spent documenting the NYE gig at 10/15 Folsom, from which a handful of magazines had requested photos. By the time this shot was taken the work had been done and I was taking a final walk around the venue with my last film. It was around five or six am, and there were a couple of hours to drop by the hotel and pick up bags before catching a plane home. I took two frames of the girl with the bubble-gum. In the first a bubble had just burst and they laughed hard as I had caught her with the exploded bubble covering her mouth. I smiled back at them before beginning to move away when she blew another bubble, and took this photo.”
Emily Sciffer September 8, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Flat Tire. From the series “Cheyenne River”. South Dakota
Emily Sciffer (b. 1980, USA) received her BA in Fine Art and African American Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. Two years later, she founded the My Viewpoint Youth Photography Initiative on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota, where she continues to teach and shoot. Awards include: the 2010 Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Portraiture, the 2010 winner of the PDN Photo Annual Personal Project Category, the 2009 Inge Morath Award (Magnum Photos), a Fulbright Fellowship, and recognition for the Leica Oskar Barnak Award. Publications include: Smithsonian Magazine, PDN among others. Her work is in the permanent collections of The Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Japan and The Center for Fine Art Photography.
About the Photograph:
“Keegan, Demi, Destiny and I borrowed their parent’s car and drove an hour down gravel roads to their grandparent’s ranch. As we exited the car, we noticed a flat tire. We had a problem with our spare, so we happily stayed the night, and spent the next day exploring the vast hills of their grandparent’s property. Our favorite locations on the Cheyenne River Reservation are the fields and abandoned buildings on the fringes of town, forgotten places thick with the past that lend themselves to imaginary games and textured photographs.”
Mario Tama September 6, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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New Orleans 2007
Mario Tama (b. 1979, USA) studied photojournalism at Rochester Institute of Technology. He began shooting for journal newspapers in suburban Washington D.C. before freelancing for The Washington Post and Agence France-Presse in Washington. Mario joined Getty Images in 2001 and has since covered global events including September 11, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the funeral of Pope John Paul II and more recently, Hurricane Katrina – before, during and after the storm. He has received numerous awards from Pictures of the Year International, NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism Competition and the White House News Photographers Association.
About the Photograph:
“This image was taken in the B.W. Cooper housing projects in New Orleans, known by locals as the “Calliope,” about two years after Katrina. The projects were always a dangerous place, yet for the people who lived there, it was home. They were a true incubator of New Orleans culture where Bounce music originated and where the Neville brothers and Master-P grew up. Most of the projects in New Orleans were torn down following Katrina in what many thought was an attempt to rid the city of poor African-Americans. Most of the people who lived in the Calliope have now been priced out of the city, as affordable housing stocks haven’t been replaced. A small section of B.W. Cooper remained open and I was fortunate enough to spend some time there. None of B.W. Cooper’s recreational areas were rebuilt after Katrina. Yet as you can see, New Orleanians are masters of improvisation. Of course, improvisation in New Orleans gave birth to jazz.”
Alex Tehrani September 3, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Backstage with Jon Stewart, New York 2009
Alex Tehrani (b. 1970, USA) developed the travel bug soon after losing his mom to breast cancer, and has since been roaming the planet making pictures of personal & political interest. “My photography education began in the darkroom of the school paper at Berkeley High, continued at Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, studying with some fantastic educators and lovers of photography, and continues to this day with just about every project I take on. I’ve been the recipient of numerous awards, none with a measurable effect, but all of which I’ve been thankful for, and I continue to take editorial and advertising commissions from all types. My editorial clients include: Details, Rolling Stone, Big, Interview and others. I couldn’t have chosen a better way to spend my life.”
About the Photograph:
“This was an unusual moment in an otherwise upbeat shoot … three days with the Daily Show for Entertainment Weekly, at a time when people were just beginning to pay attention to the show. I was young and still getting my feet wet in the editorial world, and although I was comfortable with chaos & conflict, I didn’t quite know the etiquette when it came to photographing celebrities. The best part was the atmosphere around putting a show together – the inner circle at that time consisted of Steven Colbert and others- they were all heavily involved in the writing and there was no more enjoyable part to that shoot than sitting through the writers meeting each day- the writer were hilarious, way beyond anything that actually makes it to air … a bunch of smart minds hashing out ridiculous ideas for a couple hours each day. I’m often in great situations but somehow I end up missing most of them because I’m too narrowly focused on making pictures. But this was the other way around. I struggled to make pictures through what I would have much preferred to just be a part of.” (more…)
Scott McIntyre August 30, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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New Hampshire 2009
Scott McIntyre (B. 1986, USA) took an introductory photography class at Western Kentucky University in 2006 and has since worked with various publications including The Louisville Courier-Journal, The Concord Monitor, and National Public Radio. During his time at WKU, Scott’s work has been recognized by College Photographer of The Year, The Hearst Journalism Awards, Atlanta Photojournalism Conference and The White House News Photographers Association. Scott was named the 2009 Kentucky Student Photographer of The Year and will graduate with a BA in Photojournalism along with a minor in Folklore from Western in spring 2010 after which he will begin a six month internship with the St. Petersburg Times.
About the Photograph:
“While I was interning at the Concord Monitor, I was working with a writer to find a farm family to put a face to the growing problem of dropping milk prices in New Hampshire. Dairy farmers across the state were facing the lowest milk prices in recent history. Several dairy farms across New Hampshire were shutting down after not being able to pay bills or pay to feed their herd, putting families out of work. The writer, Chelsea Conaboy, and I drove to Salisbury, NH, to talk with the Drowns family about how their dairy farm was dealing with the low milk prices and to see if their story was the right one to tell. While we were talking to the family, a farm hand came from the pasture to tell the family about a cow in labor with its first calf. We all went to the pasture to find that the calf had turned itself around inside the womb causing it to suffocate. Jake Drowns, pictured, stripped off his shirt to try and turn the calf around by hand so it could pass through. After several attempts, he found it was too late and the calf had died. ‘Sometimes you just can’t win them all,’ said Drowns.”
Diego James Robles July 30, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: Ohio University, United States
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Beauty Pageant, Ohio 2009
Diego James Robles (b.1985, USA) is a staff photographer at The Denver Post. He recently left the Navajo Nation where, with a partial grant from the Alexia Foundation, he was living and doing a documentary on its people and culture. Diego discovered photography while deployed in Kosovo with the U.S. army. Upon the completion of his contract, he enrolled in Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication. Diego is a Chips Quinn Scholar and alum of The New York Times Student Journalism Institute. He has interned for El Deber-Diario Major (Bolivia), Democrat & Chronicle and The Orange County Register. This school year he won the Award of Excellence in College Photographer of the Year and was named White House News Photographers Association Student Photographer of the Year.
About the Photograph:
“This image is from a series I did about three little beauty queen contestants in Southeast Ohio. Hanna, Heidi and Tomi wave and blow kisses to empty streets in the last leg of their parade through McArthur. During the two to three mile parade route, due to the small size of the float, I squatted on the trailer hitch and almost fell several times. There were supposed to be four little girls attending this particular parade but I felt very lucky when only three, the girls I was covering, showed up. I had a difficult time holding the viewfinder to my face as I needed one hand at all times to keep me from falling in between the tow vehicle and the float. In the end, I only made pictures when I could see all three girls doing something similar at the same time. During those moments, I braced myself, used both hands on the camera, prayed I got the shot and if I didn’t fall that was good too. In the end I don’t think it was quite successful but good enough.”
Peter Hoffman July 16, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Ohio University, United States.Tags: United States
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Tribute to Rachel, Chicago 2010
Peter Hoffman (b. 1984, USA) is a Chicago based photographer. Originally studying advertising, he switched paths and received his graduate degree in photography from Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication. His personal work is split between environmental and issue based explorations, and autobiographical work that began with documenting a stint living an idyllic life of surfing and exploring New Zealand. Recent recognition includes work included in the upcoming American Photography Annual 26, and placements in Px3 (Paris), the International Photography Awards, College Photographer of the Year (General News) and others. Clients include The Wall St. Journal, The National (Abu Dhabi), HIV+ Magazine, Grazia (U.K.), non-profit associations and others.”
About the Photograph:
“Rachel Gilliam was 25 years-old and an employee of Bowman’s Bar and Grill in the north Chicago neighborhood of Lincoln Square. Rachel was well liked by both patrons and the staff, and regularly worked during the Wednesday trivia nights. She often traveled during her time off. On Halloween night of 2009 she was the fatal victim of a hit and run, only two blocks from Bowman’s, for which the perpetrator is still on the loose. This essay, which looks at the space of her employment and friends she left behind, was commissioned by Time Out Chicago Magazine. I made this particular picture in February 2010 as I left the bar late after photographing the Wednesday night trivia, as I had one frame left on the roll. The harsh Chicago winter was a stark contrast to the warmth of the community inside.”
Andrew Spear June 28, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Ohio University, United States.Tags: United States
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Glouster Ohio 2009
Andrew Spear (b. 1987, United States) lives in Athens, Ohio and works as a freelance photographer while continuing work on numerous personal projects. He is a recent graduate from Ohio University and has been published in national publications including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Andrew has also been recognized by the National Press Photographers Association, The Southern Short Course in News Photography and had two images selected for American Photography 26. He also collaborated on the 2008 “Soul of Athens” project which was awarded an honorable mention in Online Publications Best Use in POYi.
About the Photograph:
“I’ve been working on a project in the town of Glouster for about a year now. Glouster was once an extremely prosperous extractive industry town in southeastern Ohio. In the early 1960s, however, the mines moved out after stripping the natural resources, taking most of the jobs and opportunity with them. As with many surrounding towns, narcotics abuse is an ever-increasing problem. I was photographing a family outside their home last spring when the girl in the red dress ran by with a ferret. One of the children asked her to stop so they could look at it and I asked what was happening because she was in such a hurry. All she told me was that her Aunt had just been arrested and asked her to take care of the pet for her. She was unsure of what charges her aunt was facing.”
Ariel Zambelich June 25, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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From the project “I’ll Be A Beautiful Girl,” USA 2009
Ariel Zambelich (b. 1985, USA) is a freelance photojournalist based in Northern California. A Los Angeles native, she graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in Journalism. She worked for two years as a staff photographer at a mid-sized newspaper in Stockton, CA, before deciding to pursue her freelance career. Ariel attended the Eddie Adams Workshop in 2008 where she received an award from Life Magazine, and was nominated for the Joop Swart Masterclass in 2009. Her clients include the Wall Street Journal and The FADER, and she co-directs the Exposure Gallery in San Francisco, which is dedicated to documentary photography.”
About the Photograph:
“In this photograph, Elena shaves in preparation for Genital Reassignment surgery as her (now ex) wife Zing relaxes in their hotel room in Trinidad, Colorado. The couple traveled halfway across the country for the surgery. Elena viewed the trip as coming full circle; she was born in Denver, but the family that put her up for adoption as a child still lives in Trinidad. I was particularly drawn to Elena’s story because it was not only a visually remarkable transition, but it was also a complicated emotional change. In the course of a year, she shed her previous life as Rick Nafzinger, the tie-dye wearing father of five grown children, seminary graduate, Hindu priest and husband, to become Elena Jane Kelly, a name chosen for herself, and a personality she is still refining. She struggles to find her own identity in a sea of stereotypical femininity and a lifetime of male perspective. At 53 years old, she realizes she is reliving puberty in a way most take for granted. More than walking in high heels and choosing a hair color, the struggle for Elena lies in forging a new place for herself in her own life.”
Katie Falkenberg June 23, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Waiting for Free Medical Care. Virginia 2009
Katie Falkenberg (b. 1981, United States) is a freelance photographer based in Los Angeles, California. She began her career photographing the 2004 presidential campaign, which led her to Washington, D.C., where she covered the White House, Capitol Hill, and other stories throughout the nation’s capital. In the fall of 2006, Katie joined the staff of The Washington Times where assignments took her from the hollows of West Virginia to the mountains of Pakistan. Her photography and multimedia work have been awarded by Pictures of the Year International, the White House News Photographers Association, Editor & Publisher, and the NPPA. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, TIME, Rolling Stone, GQ, and Vanity Fair, among others.
About the Photograph:
“At the Remote Area Medical (RAM) clinic in southwestern Virginia, thousands of people gathered outside of the fairgrounds gate each morning before dawn, waiting for their number to be called so they could enter into the clinic to receive free dental, vision, and medical treatment. The people in this photograph were still outside of the gate in the afternoon, hoping to be called before they stopped accepting patients. The family to the left of the photo said that this was a “once-a-year effort to get their eyes and teeth worked on,” so they were willing to wait as long as it took to get in. Most of the people who came to the clinic said that if it were not for RAM, they would go without this vital care. People drove hundreds of miles and waited for hours, even days, sleeping in their cars and tents outside the fairgrounds gate, hoping to make the cut-off of those admitted. Still, at the end of the weekend, some people had to be turned away as time ran out.”
Ilana Panich-Linsman June 4, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Teen Party, Brooklyn 2009
Ilana Panich-Linsman (b. 1984, USA) is a documentary photographer currently based in Brooklyn, New York. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Scripps College in Claremont, California and is a graduate of the International Center of Photography’s Documentary Photography and Photojournalism program and also studied at the Maine Photographic Workshops. Most recently, she attended the 2009 Eddie Adams Workshops, Barnstorm XXII. Ilana was awarded the Director’s Fellowship from the International Center of Photography and was also a finalist at the New York Photo Awards in 2009. In June 2010, Ilana’s work will be on display at the Lumix Festival for Young Photojournalism in Hannover, Germany.
About the Photo:
“Fifteen is a photo essay examining a small corner of female teenage culture. These young women have grown up in a society saturated with images that they read and use in their own coded manner. By creating a persona, they mimic adult behaviors such as language and dress. Their exaggerated gestures and expressions are their language to this abstract time in their lives. In this photo the girls attended a party in Bushwick, Brooklyn hosted by older teenagers, who were unknown to them. They paid five dollars at the door. They were able to drink and smoke without anyone batting an eye. One of the girls in the background flirts with an older boy, and in the foreground, one of the boys in the group flagrantly smokes pot as the music pulses off beer-stained floorboards. All of this, and then home by 11 p.m.”
