Stephen JB Kelly March 30, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in China, Macao.Tags: China, Macao
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From the series “Sin City”, Macão, China
Stephen JB Kelly (b. 1983 , England) spent his early childhood in Africa and the Middle East before moving to Hong Kong where he lived for ten years. He graduated in 2006 from the University of Wales, Newport. Stephen recently received a nomination for the 2009 World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass and has won a number of awards for his work, including the 2008 Gareth Jones Memorial Traveling Scholarship (University of Wales) and a 2008 ‘Made in China’ award at the International Festival of Photography in Lodz, Poland. His work has been exhibited in galleries such as The Guardian/Observer Newsroom and The Getty Images Gallery in London and the Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande in Bologna, Italy. His work has been published in The Observer Magazine, D di Repubblica and The FADER Magazine among others.
About the Photograph:
“During the month of November 2008, I worked on a story documenting life in China’s self-styled ‘city of dreams’. Situated on the western side of the Pearl River Delta, this semi-autonomous region of China is the sole territory within the People’s Republic that permits gambling. In 2008, Macão is reported to have topped US $13 billion in gambling revenue, doubling that of Las Vegas. For the majority of my time I worked within the vast casino districts, photographing the huge explosion in wealth and trying hard not to get kicked out of every casino I walked into!” (more…)
Joshua Lutz March 27, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Suburbs, Chappaqua, New York
Joshua Lutz (b.1975, USA) is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including PDN 30’s top emerging photographers, American Photography, Communication Arts Best Editorial, and The Tierney Fellowship. His first monograph, Meadowlands released in the spring of 2008 has been named Best Photography Books of 2008 by Photo District News and American Photography. His Work has been featured in numerous publications including Artforum, the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Newsweek, and Time. His work has been widely exhibited and his most recent project “AM✡DAM” will be shown in conjunction with the Foam Museum at the Stadsarchief Amsterdam.
About the Photograph:
“I made this photograph for the New York Times Magazine on a story about Suburbia. It was one of the first assignments that I ever did. Its nice when you are able to pull an image out that you like from a shoot that you do for someone else. For me that’s pretty rare. Generally I am only really happy with a handful of images a year and almost none of them come from assignments. I was also given quite a bit of freedom on the shoot and simply asked to respond to the notion of Suburbs rather than the typical; be here at this place and photograph this person. For me growing up in the suburbs was all about conveying a sense boredom and frustration even if you were neither. Those emotions mixed with an enormous about of freedom – and lets not forget those cars-that amazing joy of driving around aimlessly with your friends trying to figure out where to go.” (more…)
Caroline Bennett March 25, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Mexico.Tags: Mexico
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Santa Martha Acatitla Female Penitentiary, Mexico
Caroline Bennett (b. 1983, USA) is a freelance photographer-turning-multimedia journalist currently based in Latin America, where she has worked on a variety of assignments and projects throughout the region for international and US-based media, NGO’s and private clients. She holds a dual B.A. in Documenting International Culture & Society (photojournalism based) and Political Science from Colorado College. When not shooting, Caroline has also worked at the Maine Photographic Workshops, Art Workshops Guatemala, and as a photo- editor for several US national magazines. She is currently based in Quito, Ecuador, and is pursuing a long-term project on the Ecuador/Colombia border.
About the Photograph:
“This is an image from Born Behind Bars, a project started in Mexico City on children who live in prison systems with their incarcerated mothers. Among the inmates at the Santa Martha Acatitla female penitentiary- one of D.F.’s roughest- are women serving sentences for murder, drug dealing and kidnapping. Fifty children also live inside the prison with their incarcerated mothers. While prison may seem an unacceptable place to raise a child, the Mexican government has decided it will allow babies born behind bars to stay with their mothers until age six, rather than be turned over to foster homes or unprepared relatives. Inside the prison, moms serving long sentences dread the day when their child is tossed out upon turning six, and many struggle financially to care for them while they are there.” (more…)
Charlie Mahoney March 23, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Ireland.Tags: Ireland
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Bob O’Mahony stokes the turf fire in the stove. County Cork, Ireland. 2008
Charlie Mahoney is currently based in Barcelona, Spain. His clients and publications include BBC News, The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, National Geographic Traveler, Lonely Planet Magazine, The Times, The Times Travel Magazine and Public Radio International. His most recent awards include the 2008 Travel Photographer of the Year, the 2008 PX3 Prix de la Photographie for photojournalism, the 2008 SOS Racism Photography contest and the new talent category of the 2007 Travel Photographer of the Year. He is represented by Bilderberg in Austria and Germany, Cosmos in France, Grazia Neri in Italy and WpN in New York. Prior to his career in photography, he worked in investment banking and equity management.
About the Photograph:
“In 1890 John Joseph O´Mahony was born in Bawnea Kilbritain, a farmhouse, outside of Kinsale, in County Cork, Ireland. He was one of eleven children. The country was in political upheaval and jobs were scarce. He was the second eldest boy so he wasn’t going to inherit the farm, so in 1915, John boarded a ship in Cobh, Ireland and immigrated to America. He never stepped again on Irish soil. Today, his nephews Bob O´Mahony, age 80 and Dan O´Mahony, age 78, live in the house where my grandfather was born. Neither ever married, so they share the work on the farm and look after one another. They manage the land and animals using traditional methods and have modernized slowly. As Dan says, “while we be here, we’ll be doing it our way.” I lived with my cousins for a week in April 2008 while I documented their lives. It was my third visit to see them. Their way of life is quickly disappearing so I wanted to record it for future generations of the O’Mahony clan.”
Jason Florio March 20, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Libya.Tags: Libya
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Libya, 2004
Jason Florio (b.1965, England) has been based in New York since 1996. He apprenticed with a number of top NYC fashion photographers, but soon decided that ‘realism’ was his real calling. In 2000 he crossed Taliban controlled Afghanistan and in August 2001 he photographed the Taliban opposition forces; returning to NYC on Sept 5th to be at the foot of the Twin Towers as they collapsed. Since then he has worked all across the Middle East, Africa and South America for publications including The New Yorker, Outside, Men’s Journal and The New York Times. He returns yearly to his ‘other home’, The Gambia where he has been producing large format black and white portraits for the past 12 years, documenting the people who live around a sacred area of land called ‘Makasutu’. He has had a number of solo exhibits in NYC, and his work is in the permanent collection of The Brooklyn Museum of art.
About the Photograph:
“In 2004 I received a grant through The Aperture Foundation to produce the first ever assigned story for the magazine in their fifty year history. I was told that I could create my ‘dream’ assignment, which was both an exhilarating and frightening prospect. I wanted to go somewhere that had not had a lot of recent coverage and was emerging on the global stage. So I decided to produce a piece on Libya, with the initial title in my head of ‘The Emerging Youth of LIbya’. So my focus on arrival was to find the youth, see what they were up to, what influenced them, what it was like to grow up under the shadow of Quadaffi, and how they related to the ‘outside’ world. (more…)
Stephen Dupont March 18, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Afghanistan.Tags: Afghanistan
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Kandahar, Afghanistan 2005
Stephen Dupont (b. 1967, Australia) began his photographic career in 1989. He has produced photo essays from dozens of countries, including some of the world’s most dangerous regions: Afghanistan, Angola, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Congo, East Timor, India, Iraq, Israel, Rwanda and Somalia. Dupont’s reportage has been featured in The New Yorker, Newsweek, French and German GEO, The Sunday Times Magazine and Vanity Fair, and has earned him photography’s most prestigious prizes, including a Robert Capa Gold Medal citation from the Overseas Press Club of America; a Bayeux War Correspondent’s Prize; and first places in the World Press Photo, POY International, the Australian Walkleys, and Leica/CCP Documentary Award. In 2007 he was the recipient of the W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography for his ongoing project on Afghanistan.
About the Photograph:
“This picture was taken in the village of Gombad, Kandahar, Afghanistan in October 2005. I was embedded with the US 173rd Airbourne as they swept through the village fighting and searching for Taliban insurgents and their supporters. An Afghan special forces soldier appears from a doorway in one of the village compounds after searching it for weapons or hiding Taliban. For me the photograph’s strength lies in the simplicity of the scene and the clash of war and peace. The soldier and the AK-47 clearly iconizes war whilst the child becomes the symbol of innocence, maybe even resistance, the scissors and rice sifter, objects of daily village life.”
Noah Rabinowitz March 16, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Ohio University, United States.Tags: United States
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Santiago Family, New Plymouth, Ohio 2008
Noah Rabinowitz is currently studying photojournalism, the history of cultural radicals and the framework linking gender and environmental development at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. He has interned with The Denver Post, The White House Photo Office, The Concord Monitor and The Free Lance-Star. He has been recognized by College Photographer of the Year, The Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, The Southern Short Course, The Society of Professional Journalists and the Ohio News Photographer’s Association. Noah also contributed to a multimedia project that was recognized by Pictures of the Year International and Best of Photojournalism. Noah was awarded an internship with The White House Photo Office and an assignment from The New York Times for his work at the 2007 Eddie Adams Workshop.
About the Photograph:
“The Santiago family lives in the impoverished Appalachian region of Ohio, a few miles from my home, and many miles from any economic opportunity. I started documenting Grace and her family in 2007. In this image, Grace is melting copper wire that the children collected from an abandoned trailer. The family is supported fiscally by welfare and trash collection alone. With this collection of images centering around Grace Santiago, I hope to show the genuine love and support that exists within the family despite their dire circumstances. These images are an attempt to take “the other” out of rural poverty, by making their humanity my central focus. Grace, suffers from crohn’s disease, and also cares for seven of her grandchildren as well as her mother.”
Guillaume Herbaut March 13, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Ukraine.Tags: Chernobyl
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Slaviutich, Ukraine, “Chernobyl: 20 Years After”
Guillaume Herbaut (b.1970) is a founding member of l’Oeil Public photo agency in Paris. His work on Chernobyl won the Kodak Critics Prize in 2001 and was published at Le Petit Camarguais in October 2003, also winning the Fuji Book Prize the following year. “After Oswiecim”, a documentary work on Auschwitz today was exhibited at Trans Photographiques festival in 2005. He was also awarded a grant from the French Ministry of Culture and has shown at Visa pour l’Image. His photographs were also exhibited at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris.
About the Photograph:
“This photograph was taken in Slaviutich, about 50 kilometers from Chernobyl. This city was been built after the Chernobyl explosion for workers of the plant who were left without homes. The Soviet government planned to make it an ideal city, however, after it was built, the surrounding forest was radioactive. The children wearing masks are in School n°4 in Slaviutich, during an emergency training in case of a nuclear explosion. I’ve returned to Chernobyl numerous times since 2001 and am haunted by the place.”
Vicente Jaime Villafranca March 11, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Philippines.Tags: Philippines
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Former gang member, Manila, Philippines
Vicente Jaime “Veejay” Villafranca (b. 1982 Philippines) was amongst seven Filipinos to be accepted in the first Asian documentary workshop of the Angkor photography festival in Siem Reap, Cambodia. After freelancing in 2006, he worked with Agence France Presse, Reuters, World Picture Network and the United Nations His long-term project about the life of former gang members in one of Manila’s dangerous slums, BASECO compound garnered the 2008 Ian Parry Scholarship grant in London. He is also the recipient of the 2007-2008 Asian Center for Journalism Photojournalism program in partnership with the World Press Photo Foundation. His work has been exhibited in London, Lithuania and Manila. Veejay is now working for Getty Global Assignment in London. His ongoing projects evolve around the Filipino faith, reserved space, and illegal refugees in Southeast Asia apart from his project with the gangs.
About the Photograph:
“This photograph is part of an going project about the lives of former gang members in Baseco compound, one of Manila’s largest slums. Rex, or more popularly know as 2PAC amongst the gang members had a complete turn around when the compound was ravaged by a huge fire in 2004. Most of the senior members left the compound in search of a life apart from the violence, crime, and drugs some opted to stay. For Rex (2PAC), the gang life expired when his twins were born. He now works in a mall as a janitor and he still spends time with former ‘brothers’ but hardly takes part in the activities or what was left of it. The Chinese Mafia Crew (CMC) was heralded the gang to look out for during their heydays but as the time changes, the members are trying to break the vicious cycle.
Kendrick Brinson March 9, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Monster truck rally, South Carolina
Kendrick Brinson (b. 1983. Columbia, SC, USA) was raised by a passionate journalist. Although she didn’t realize it at the time, her mother’s love for storytelling rubbed off on her and now visual storytelling is an integral part of her life. She received her journalism degree from the University of Georgia in 2005, graduating with a degree in Newspaper Journalism with an emphasis in photojournalism and a certificate in environmental ethics. Kendrick is one of the founding members of Luceo Images, a photo collective of like-minded passionate documentary photographers who pride themselves on shooting with their hearts. She is a currently freelancing and based in the south-eastern part of the USA.
About the Photograph:
“This image was taken during a break at a monster truck rally at a fair in western South Carolina. The photo is from a new long-term piece I’m doing on the romanticism and stereotypes of the Deep South. I recently became intrigued by this region where I was raised and decided to take a second-look at the oddities and traditions that are often taken for granted. I am a southerner but often feel detached from things deeply southern — so I am an insider with an outsider’s perspective. A boiled peanut stand at a monster truck show where people cheer on their favorite truck with gigantic wheels is about as southern as you can get. Agriculture plays a large part in the history and present of the South and boiled peanut stands are often spotted along rural highways and at festivals in late summer, early fall. I’ve made lists of events and traditions to cover and have had so much fun going to them and look forward to adding more images to this project in the next months.”
Holly Pickett March 6, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Gaza.Tags: Gaza
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Paramedic, Gaza City, 2009
Holly Pickett (b. 1977, U.S.A.) grew up in Butte, Montana. She earned degrees in journalism and history from the University of Montana in Missoula, and was a staff photographer at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., from 2002 – 2007, focusing much of her work on stories about the lives of refugees in the Spokane area. She left the newspaper and moved to Cairo, Egypt, in early 2008 to pursue a freelance career. Holly is drawn to stories about the human cost of war, refugees and forced migration, and women’s issues. Her work has appeared in Newsweek, Stern, Time.com, London Times, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor and Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
About the Photograph:
“A paramedic waits in the doorway of a Palestinian ambulance next to her patient, a 15-year-old boy who was injured when Israeli bombs hit the mosque where he was praying in Gaza City, Jan. 5, 2009. A convoy of ambulances had just crossed Gaza’s border with Egypt at Rafah just after the end of a daily 3-hour cease-fire, agreed upon to allow the transfer of critically wounded Palestinian patients out and to allow aid and medical supplies into the besieged territory. However, the so-called “humanitarian corridor” received its share of missiles. Eleven paramedics and one doctor had been “killed in action,” that is, while driving clearly marked, uniformed ambulances to hospitals or to the border to try to save a patient. The convoy brought two Norwegian doctors who had been working at Shifa hospital alongside the Gazan doctors and nurses for the past 11 days. Dr. Mads Gilbert called the Palestinian doctors heroes and said their homes had been bombed and some members of their families had been killed and they still stayed at the hospital working around the clock, without proper equipment and sometimes without electricity.”
Amanda Lucier March 4, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Lurlena, Sturgeon, Missouri. From “The Secret Life of Children”
Amanda Lucier (b. 1980, USA) graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Reed College with a degree in Political Science and is finishing her Master’s degree in Photojournalism at the University of Missouri. Currently an intern at The Herald in Jasper, Ind., Amanda was twice a Rhodes Scholarship finalist, Runner-Up 2008 College Photographer of the Year, and won an assignment at the Eddie Adams Workshop in October. She is headed to the Dallas Morning News for an internship this summer. She loves local stories, long drives, feature hunts and the 4-H Fair.
About the Photograph:
“In this picture, Lurlena cries in the back of the family car after losing the contest for Carnival Princess at her school. She spent the day getting ready, with a new white dress and new shoes. The winner was decided based on whose parents bought the most tickets, and Lurlena’s family could only afford eight dollars worth. This moment breaks my heart, and I’m sure Lurlena understood just how unfair life could be. It was amazing to be this deep into her life that she didn’t care about being photographed.” (more…)
Michael Loyd Young March 2, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Po Monkeys Juke Joint, Mississippi Delta
Michael Loyd Young (b.1955, USA) has worked on worked on several projects traveling to 21 countries. His primary focus is documenting cultural symbols and the impact they have on daily life. His first book BLUES, BOOZE, & BBQ will be published and released by PowerHouse in the fall of 2009. He is currently working on a second book project documenting the hunting and fishing culture of the gulf coast.
About the Photograph:
“The image is from a two year project that I just completed about the Mississippi Delta. There is not much in the Delta other than poverty and broken dreams. However, what is left is hope through music. The Delta is the origin of the blues which is the home of many blues legends such as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf and many others. Through my project I attempt to capture the hope rather than the poverty. Between April and September on any weekend take a road trip on HWY 61, the 160 miles from Memphis, TN down to Greenville, MS, and you will encounter an ongoing party. Blues music is the glue that binds these poor towns together. Whether it’s a blues festival, juke joint, picnic, or just hanging out on the front porch of a clap board house you will be welcomed as part of the family. This photograph was shot at “PO’ MONKEYS”, one of the original juke joints in the Delta. Willie Seaberry, the owner, has over a 100 suits. Willie may change suits as many as five times a night and has kept his tradition ongoing for nearly 50 years.”
Verve Photo- The New Breed of Documentary Photographers 