Caroline Irby November 28, 2008
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Tajikistan.Tags: Tajikistan
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Handmaid to the Navruz bride, Pista Mazor Village, Tajikistan
Caroline Irby (b.1977, Hong Kong) had her most intense photographic lesson at 18 when she worked at Magnum in Paris three months immersed in great composition and surrounded by her heroes. After graduating in French and Philosophy from Edinburgh University in 2000, she entered the world of photography. She has been published in The Sunday Times Magazine, The Guardian Magazine, The Observer Magazine, Marie Claire, and The Independent among others. Caroline also works for aid agencies including Save the Children, UNICEF and Oxfam alongside commercial assignments. Her work has received awards from the Observer Hodge, the BBC and The Commonwealth Photographic Awards and has been exhibited in the UK and internationally. Caroline was a member of Network Photographers until 2005 and is now represented by Abby Johnston. She recently completed a project for the Guardian called : A Child From Everywhere.
About the Photograph:
“In spring 2007 I went to Pista Mazor, a small village in Tajikistan, close to the Afghan border, to photograph for a children’s book called ‘Our World of Water’. Six photographers were sent to different countries to follow the daily lives of children and explore what water means to them. I had five days in which to tell this story – long enough to be able to cover the story safely and have time left over to shoot outside the brief. I was commissioned to work digitally and when I’m making my own pictures alongside commissioned work, I use a different medium so I can separate the two in my mind and shoot as creatively as I like; this image was made on a Rolleiflex. My visit to Tajikistan coincided with the festival of Navruz, meaning ‘new day’: an ancient spring festival celebrated across Central Asia. The girl in the picture is getting ready to take part in the Navruz play.”
David Holloway November 26, 2008
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Ku Klux Klan Naturalization Ceremony, Arkansas
“Although from a long line of farmers, carpenters, truck drivers, and mechanics, David Holloway discovered a career in visual storytelling. His curiosity has taken him from photographing the farmlands of Oklahoma and forests of Arkansas, to the first multiparty elections in Tanzania, the SARS outbreak in Toronto, and the punk rock and politics of Washington, D.C. Holloway was the first recipient of the Getty Grant for Editorial Photography and has been a finalist for several other grants, including the Lange Taylor Prize and the Alexia Foundation Grant. He has won numerous awards and his work has been shown at the Perpignan Photojournalism Festival as well as Chobi Mela. His images have appeared in Time, Newsweek, Life, The Washington Post Magazine and Stern.
About the Photograph:
The wife of a Klansman, right, tells a recruit that she should take off his necklace so it isnt ripped off during a Ku Klux Klan Naturalization Ceremony held near Colt, Arkansas. This ceremony concludes the men’s probationary membership. After being blindfolded they are marched into a dark forest, where much like other fraternities they are hazed by existing members. If they demonstrate courage and endure the intimidation of that evening they complete their naturalization process. The men then become recognized members of the Aryan Nations’ Knights of the Ku Klux Klan during a cross lighting that evening. It is surprising to many that nearly 150 years after forming, the KKK is still active in the United States. The numbers are smaller, but there are still new recruits and the organization is alive. With the country’s first black president many racist organizations are noticing a rise in interest and membership.”
Marco Vernaschi November 24, 2008
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Bolivia.Tags: Bolivia
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Marco Vernaschi (b.1973, Italy) lives in Buenos Aires He began working as photojournalist in 2000 covering wildlife and environmental issues. Since 2006 he has focused on cocaine trafficking and production, the Bolivian miners war and the daily struggle of the Quechua Indians living in the remote salt deserts of Northern Argentina. Marco is currently working on a documentary film “Cocaina: The Untold Truth.” He was awarded with the Fuji Film Prize for Photo-journalism in 2005, Young Photo-journalist of the year in 2004 by the Italian Photography Foundation and was a two time grant winner from the Nando Peretti Foundation. He is currently working with the Pulitzer Center to develop the cocaine trafficking project. His work has been published in magazines such as National Geographic, GEO, Mother Jones, Days Japan and Marie Claire among others.
About the Photograph:
‘This widow in mourning was sitting in her kitchen by the picture of her husband, who died two days before. He was killed by other miners, who were fighting for the access to the most productive area of the mine. The Quechua and Aymara people have no popular icons that belong to their ethnicity. Che Guevara, Jesus Christ, and Bolivar are all aliens to their local culture. President Evo Morales represents an indigenous identity – the first time in 500 years. Ironically, one of the effects of President Morales’ policy of nationalization was the war among the miners. These were the people that were supposed to be the main beneficiaries of such change.”
Andrei Liankevich November 21, 2008
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Belarus.Tags: Belarus
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Elections in Minsk, Belarus 2006
Born in 1981 in Belarus and based in Minsk, Andrei Liankevich attended the Belarus State University, where he received a Bachelor Degree of Economy in 2004. In 2004-5 he studied at the Caucasus Media Institute in Yerevan, Armenia concentrating on the Yezidi minority in Armenia and was awarded a distinction for this work from World Press Photo. Since 2006 Andrei Liankevich lectures on “Photojournalism” at an European Humanitarian University in Vilnius, Lithuania. His works have been published in leading Belarussian newspapers like Nasha Niva, Leader, CD, Komsomolskaya Pravda and in international publications such as New York Times, Le Figaro, Newsweek (Russian edition), Die Zeit, Ogoniok (Russia), Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzecz Pospolita (Poland), Rigas laiks (Latvia). His work has been exhibited in Poland, Germany, Norway and Belarus.
About the Photograph:
“A member of election commission observing the voting process during the president election in 2006. Lukashenka’s re-election didn’t spark the kind of oppositional momentum which many had hoped. Belarus, at least for now, will not follow in the revolutionary footsteps of the Ukraine and Georgia. Although the events in Belarus may not have reached a tipping point for the Lukashenka regime, they have marked a change in the nature of the Belarusian opposition. Despite a concerted effort by the Belarusian government to destroy, undermine and embarrass the opposition, the “denim revolutionaries” have emerged as a force to be reckoned with. The night of the Presidential Elections was the beginning of protests and the largest gathering (of approximately 20,000 people) in October Square in Minsk. Following this, young activists set up camp and for four days people came to show their solidarity and protest the dubious election results.”
Casper Hedberg November 19, 2008
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Kenya.Tags: Kenya
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Kisumu, Kenya 2008
Born in 1983, Casper Hedberg grew up in a small village in the southern part of Sweden. By the age of 14 he took a darkroom class and got hooked on photography. Casper’s professional career started in 2005, when he began working as a full time photographer. He received his degree of photojournalism from the Mid Sweden University in Sundsvall. He currently lives in Stockholm and works on assignment for Swedish newspapers and magazines. Awards include: “Pictorial Feature of the Year – Foreign” 2008, 1st prize, Swedish Picture of the Year Award. “Picture of the year” 2007, (SPYA). “News picture Sweden” 2007, 1st prize, (SPYA)
About the Photograph:
”Kisumu, in western Kenya, was heavily affected by the post-election disturbances. The entire city center was burnt down and road blocks were raised surrounding the city. The ODM party announced three days of peaceful demonstrations but the police replied with live bullets. A desperate jump, in a desperate situation. The conflict that erupted in Kenya after the presidential election in December 2007 has exposed fissures in the facade of the leading East African country. Since January 2008 Kenya has plunged into a deep crisis of ethnic cleansing. It all began on December 30th, when the election results were made official and the incumbent president Mwai Kibaki was announced winner. Quickly and secretly sworn in for five more years of power, one month after the election more than 500,000 people have been displaced by the violence and over 1,500 people were killed.”
Simon Hayter November 17, 2008
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Cuba.Tags: Cuba
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Simon Hayter is an award-winning freelance photographer who divides his time between San Francisco and Toronto. He specializes in editorial photography; both reportage and portraiture. Clients include Macleans Magazine, The Sunday Observer, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Toronto Star, The Advocate, Report on Business, The Guardian and The San Francisco Chronicle among others. Awards include: 2008- Selected for the Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward, 2007- Missouri Photo Workshop, 2006- Winner, American Photography 23 Annual, 2006- Nominated for Picture of the Year, General News Category, NPAC, 2005- Winner, Picture Story of the Year, ECNPA, 2005- Selected for Eddie Adams Workshop, winner of Getty Images Portfolio Award
About the Photograph:
“An island unto itself, Cuba remains fiercely independent in the face of continued American hostility and international isolation. A land of contradictions, Cuba combines incredibly sophisticated and progressive social infrastructure with a troubled economy and political uncertainty. In the final days of Fidel Castro the future of Cuba is very much unknown. Will it remain an island unto itself or become a Caribbean Disney World? “
Viviane Dalles November 14, 2008
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in India.Tags: India, Tibetans
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Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala, India 2007
French photographer Viviane Dalles graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in 2002. She traveled to Mali to work for the African Photography festival in Bamako. Back in France she refined her approach to photography while working at the Foundation HCB in Paris where she set up the print archive of Henri Cartier-Bresson since 1920. Then she was hired by the Magnum photo agency where she worked on editing the photographer’s archives. Since 2005, she works has worked a photographer and is based in New Delhi. Her publication credits include: Le Figaro, Paris-Match, The Guardian, Marie Claire and Le Monde.
About the Photograph:
“I made this photo of Dawa, 32 who arrived five months before to rejoin her husband who is studying in India. The Tibetan center welcomes the refugees for a period of about six months. They then have to find a place to live and work. The Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso was forced to flee the Chinese army in 1959,. More than 150,000 Tibetans have crossed the Himalayas to settle in Dharamsala India. Every year more than over thousand Tibetans cross over the Himalayas illegally.”
Jenn Ackerman November 12, 2008
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Ohio University, United States.Tags: Ohio University, United States
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Correctional officer comforting inmate during a psychotic episode
Jenn Ackerman has a bachelor’s degree in communication studies and social research from James Madison University and recently completed her master’s degree from Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication. She has a completed an internship at the Desert Morning News and plans to intern at the Lexington Herald-Leader, The Roanoke Times and The Dallas Morning News. Her work has been published in PDN, USA Today, New York Times and The Washington Post. Jenn’s awards include : Southern Short Course: Student Photographer of the Year, 2008. NPPA Best of Photojournalism: 1st Place – News Video, 3rd Place – News Video, 1st Place – Sports Video, 2008. White House News Photographer’s Association, 2008.
About the Photograph:
The goal when deciding to publish Trapped: Mental Illness in America’s Prisons was to uncover the mental health crisis in America. “The system is trapped with treating this growing population and the mentally ill often find themselves trapped in the system with nowhere else to go”. In order to show this struggle, she went inside the Correctional Psychiatric Treatment Unit, the largest mental facility in Kentucky. While prison might not be the best place for the mentally ill, this program at the Kentucky State Reformatory is adapting to the meet the needs of this growing population in the prison system.
Greg Ruffing November 10, 2008
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Miss Rodeo Texas Pageant
Greg Ruffing (b.1979, American) is a photographer based in the Midwestern United States, with an eye for the nuanced lives of everyday people in that region and beyond. His work has been recognized by the PDN Photo Annual and the Eddie Adams Workshop, and his photographs have appeared in a variety of publications including Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, the New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, Spin and others. He has also worked in Eastern Europe, where he hopes to eventually return to Romania and finish a long-term project on his family’s roots in the Transylvania region. His work is represented by Redux Pictures in New York.
About the Photograph:
“The Miss Rodeo Texas Pageant began in 1963 to promote Texas pride, Western heritage and the professional sport of rodeo. Miss Rodeo Texas is open to girls ages 19-24, and the Miss Rodeo Texas Teen for girls ages 14-18. The pageant also just recently added a Miss Rodeo Texas Princess contest for girls ages 9-13. Contestants go through a week of horsemanship, interviews, speeches, dancing, modeling and presentations, culminating with the Coronation on the final evening. Judges then make their final decisions based on the criteria of horsemanship skills, appearance and personality. The winner of Miss Rodeo Texas goes on to represent the state in the yearly Miss Rodeo America Pageant in Las Vegas, as well as numerous other nationwide promotional appearances.”
Michael Hauri November 7, 2008
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Senegal.Tags: Senegal
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The Fishermen of Baoût, Senegal 2008
Michael Hauri (b.1983, Swiss) is currently studying photography at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover, Germany. He has been working as freelance photographer for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung since last year after completing an internship there. For his project in Mongolia, Michael received several awards such as the “Prix Marc Grosset” in France, which in early 2008 allowed him to do a story on a community of fishermen who live on a remote island in the Senegalese Saloum Delta. Michael is interested in the socio-cultural transitions in Eastern Europe and recently began a long term documentary project on the Maramures region of northern Romania that was exhibited in spring 2008 during the Lumix Festival for Young Photojournalists in Hannover, Germany.
About the Photograph:
“Elhadji Birama Sarr, 22, ignites a fire on a pirogue in the Senegalese Saloum Delta. His crew from the small village of Baoût will use it for cooking and warming up their hands at sea. I documented the life of these fishermen for several days in January 2008. In this picture, they are on their way to the mouth of the Saloum River about 50 miles from home. Birama and his colleagues will fish for Bonga Shad, which takes the whole night. On the small pirogue, the villagers have to work under perilous conditions. Accidents caused by insufficient lighting on the boat or other missing safety precautions can happen easily because many fishermen don’t know how to swim. Because of the low wages earned from fishing, it is not surprising that more and more of them are trying to emigrate to Europe. In fact, in the past few months, an increasing number of pirogues secretly left the Saloum Delta at night and never came back.”
Chad Stevens November 5, 2008
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Ohio University, United States.Tags: United States
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Victoria, nursing home resident, Kentucky
During the past five years, Chad A. Stevens has been a faculty member in the photojournalism program at Western Kentucky University, a master’s degree candidate in the School of Visual Communication at Ohio University, a nomadic photographer and multimedia producer in Africa. He is currently director and multimedia producer at Mediastorm and working on a documentary about mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. While teaching at Western Kentucky University, Stevens created an annual documentary photography workshop, the Appalachian Cultural Project, and won the University Faculty Award for Public Service in 2006. He has won awards in the POYI, NPPA, and is currently nominated for an Emmy in the 2008 Awards for News & Documentary. Chad graduated from Western Kentucky University and Ohio University, and he interned at National Geographic, The Hartford Courant, the Muskegon Chronicle and the Jackson Hole Guide. During his time at Western, he traveled to Palestine and other Middle East countries, followed by some blind wandering of the Mediterranean coast of Spain. He was named 1997 College Photographer of the Year.
About the Photograph:
“For my final project as an undergraduate photojournalism student, I worked on a photo essay on loneliness, trying to define it, see it, and, in the end, feel it. Loneliness is one of those universal truths that all of us feel at least at some point during our lives. In this project I photographed many people all experiencing loneliness in their way. Some were brought to loneliness by mental illness. Some had chosen it. Others had love taken from them. And then Victoria, a resident of a nursing home in rural Kentucky, found the cure to her loneliness in a child’s doll. In this moment I saw the parallels of the beginning of life and the end of life, between death and birth.”
Aga Luczakowska November 3, 2008
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Poland.Tags: Poland
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Volleyball Fans, Katowice Poland 2006
Aga Luczakowska (b.1981, Poland) graduated from the University of Silesia, with a masters degree in Geography. She worked for one year as a staff photographer for the polish daily newspaper Dziennik Zachodni in 2006. In 2007 Aga began frelancing and joined Atlas Press Photo Agency in addition to begin working with Silesian Magazine and other newspapers in Poland. In 2007, she also traveled to Turkey and started her project on women in Istanbul and attended the Eddie Adams Workshop. This year Aga been awarded a scholarship to attend the Masterclass “Focus On Monferrato 2008” hosted by Toscana Photographic Workshops. She is currently based in Poland.
About the Photograph:
“I photographed these volleyball fans in Poland. We Poles are considered one of the most impassioned fans in the world. It was the last minute of the final round between Poland and United States when I made this photo of the spectators watching the game on a giant video screen. I concentrated on their emotions rather than the actual players. This shot was from the last minute of the game.”
Verve Photo- The New Breed of Documentary Photographers 