Jonathan Hanson November 29, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Martin Luther King Day, Baltimore MD 2009
Jonathan Hanson (b.1981, USA) received his B.A. in Magazine Journalism and English from Drake University and attended Ohio University’s Visual Communications MFA for a year and attended the Eddie Adams Workshop in 2010. He has been based in Baltimore for the past two and a half years after spending close to a year between Santa Fe, NM and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where he worked for the Santa Fe Workshops. After his adventures in Mexico, he returned to the U.S. and began his freelance career. His work has been recognized by The Magenta Foundation Flash Forward Award 2010, the National Press Photographers Association and The International Color Awards. Clients include, The Wall Street Journal, The London Times, The New York Times, Bloomberg News, NPR, The Advocate, AARP Bulletin and USA Today among others.
About the Photograph:
“On a snowy MLK day in January 2009, I headed down to MLK blvd. to photograph Baltimore’s annual parade as part of a project I have been working on about Baltimore’s struggle with violence, poverty and violence. My goal with this project is to show the harsh realities while maintaing the pride and resilience of the subjects and community members. The young man in the image greatly symbolized the attitude I am trying to convey and furthermore, it was captured on a day where the community gathered together to celebrate progress and a national icon.”
Magnus Wennman November 26, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Senior Sweetheart Beauty Pageant, USA 2006
Magnus Wennman (b.1980, Sweden) has been working as a photojournalist since the age of 17 when he started his career with a local newspaper, DalaDemokraten, in Sweden. Since 2001 he has worked as a staff photographer with Scandinavia’s biggest daily paper, Aftonbladet. He has prestigious awards both in Sweden and internationally including two from World Press Photo and nine from Picture of the Year International.
About the Photograph:
“Doris Ulrich, Ruth Gibson and Francesca Piscottano ready themselves in the dressing rooms. Once a year a group of elderly women meet in Fall River, a small village south of Boston, to answer the fairy tale yet still modern age old question: Who is the prettiest in the land? There are many beauty pageants, but just one Ms. Senior Sweetheart competition: this pageant is the only one in the world for women aged 58 and over. Since 1978 the pageant has invited women from all over America to spend eleven days in Fall River, starting with dress rehearsals, practicing their group performance and excursions around New England. The contest peaks with the “Ladies Ball” and the crowning of the new queen.”
Dominic Bracco ll November 24, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Mexico.Tags: Mexico
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Ciudad Juarez, Mexico 2010
Dominic Bracco ll (b. 1986, Texas USA) specializes in documenting the effects of Mexican and North American policies on the border region where he was raised. He has degrees in journalism and Spanish literature from The University of Texas at Arlington. He is a regular contributor to The Washington Post, where he was selected for a six-month internship in 2008, and The Wall Street Journal. He is also founding member of the collective Prime. He pays rent in a coastal Mexican village, but often finds himself in other countries.
About the Photograph:
“I shot this image at the funeral of 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, who was killed on June 7th by a Border Patrol agent in Ciudad Juarez on June 10, 2010. According to eyewitnesses the shooting occurred after Guereca helped guide several other teenagers into the United States when they were spotted and retreated back to Mexico. One of their group was detained by the U.S. Border Patrol and at least one of the boys threw a rock from the Mexican border into the United States toward the Border Patrol agent upon which he returned fire at the group, firing several rounds, and hitting Guereca in the head. The killing sparked much controversy over the use of force across international borders and sat uneasy in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico where over 1,000 killings have happened as a result of the insecurity caused by the war on drugs. There are still many questions unanswered about what exactly happened on June 7th near the international bridge as there are conflicting reports from the agent and eye witnesses.”
Piero Martinello November 22, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Italy.Tags: Italy
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“Bar Portraits”. Schio, Italy 2007
Piero Martinello (b.1985, Italy) joined FABRICA, the Communication Research Center of Benetton Group. At FABRICA Piero has worked extensively for Colors Magazine, becoming the director of photography of Colors 76, “Teenagers”. His work has been published in La Repubblica, The Herald, Le Monde, Il Corriere della Sera, La Stampa La Tribune and Internazionale, and has had exhibitions in Luxembourg and Lisbon. Piero has also worked on various social awareness campaigns; a campaign for the situation in Darfur commissioned by the Canadian newspaper Walrus, two World Health Organization campaigns entitled “Stop Tubercolosis” and “Child Injury Prevention”, and two campaigns for United Colors of Benetton. In 2010 he has been assisting Mary Ellen Mark in New York, and he’s currently working in London with Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin.
About the Photograph:
“This image is part of the “Bar Portraits” series, a collection of portraits of gentleman met and photographed inside small and dodgy bars and cafes of small villages all around Italy. It was taken in the town where I come from, Schio, a village at the bottom of the mountains in the northeast of Italy. And this is actually my favorite bar, Osteria Due Spade, a place where Ernest Hemingway had some good times when he was an ambulance driver with the American Army. The man in the photo comes to this bar every single morning and every single afternoon, no exceptions. He always sits on his own, reads the news and has a coffee or a glass of wine, white during the summer and red during the winter. He’s a man of few words, when I asked to take his portrait he didn’t complain or say anything, he just followed me, sat at the table with an incredible spontaneity and posed like an worldly-wise Hollywood actor.”
Michael Christopher Brown November 20, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Ohio University, Russia.Tags: Russia
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Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Sakhalin Island, Russia
Michael Christopher Brown (b. 1977, USA) moved to New York and began working as a freelance photographer in 2006. He has worked for publications such as Fortune, The Atlantic, ESPN The Magazine, Financial Times, GEO France, Conde Nast Portfolio, Time, National Geographic Magazine, The Economist, Monocle, Smithsonian, Ventiquattro, The Nature Conservancy and The New York Times. When not on assignment he can be found driving around China in his modified bread van, taking pictures with the iPhone and Kodak films.
About the Photograph:
“I first traveled to Sakhalin Island, Russia, to work on an editorial piece about the island’s energy riches, which, since the 90’s, sparked a booming economy from this tired outpost in Russia’s lost eastern frontier. As the majority of the population was living in broken, rusted skeletons of communities formerly dominated by fishing, timber and coal industries, I tried to photograph a changing psyche in the air. The young couple in this photograph were at The Chameleon bar in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the capital city of Sakhalin. All the young people here knew each other. I knew someone who knew the owner of the bar and nearly everyone in the room, so I was able to walk around and photograph everything. No one paid me any attention.”
Greg Kahn November 18, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Naples, Florida
Greg Kahn (b. 1981, USA) started his photography career as one of ten recipients of a week long trip studying under National Geographic photographers during the North American Nature Photography Annual Summit in San Diego. After graduating from George Washington University, Greg worked at a the Independent Tribune, a small daily newspaper outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. He then moved to Naples, Florida for a staff position at the Naples Daily News in 2007. Recently his work on the the housing foreclosure crisis in Florida garnered him awards in both Pictures of the Year International and the NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism including the 2010 NPPA Photojournalist of the year (small markets) and the 2008 and 2009 NPPA National Clip Photographer of the Year.
About the Photograph:
“This image of Lee Shearer, 13, was taken at the starting line before the Naples Fitness Challenge Triathlon. I was positioning myself to make photos of the runners sprinting off the start line, when I noticed the teenager standing uncomfortably in front of all the competitors. It was odd to see such a young athlete in front of the field of adults. He seemed lost in his own thoughts as he stood waiting for the starting gun to go off. The other triathletes kept packing in tighter and crowding him as though he didn’t exist. Just then, he took a long deep breath and his cheeks puffed out as he let the air go. I caught up with Shearer after the race and he told me he was intimidated by the field of adult competitors. He explained he competed in the teen triathlon the previous day and was rattled challenging a more experienced group of athletes.”
Sim Chi Yin November 15, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Indonesia.Tags: Indonesia
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Java, Indonesia, December 2008
Sim Chi Yin (b.1978, Singapore) is a freelance photographer based in Beijing, China. This year, she was one of two photographers worldwide to receive a Magnum Foundation scholarship for a summer programme in documentary photography and human rights at New York University. She was a finalist for the Ian Parry Award in 1999. She photographed and reported on Indonesian women migrant workers’ trials and triumphs between 2005 and 2009. That work is being published as a book by the United Nations’ International Labour Organization. As a foreign correspondent for The Straits Times, Singapore’s largest English-language daily, Chi Yin won several awards for her pictures and text stories. She recently left the paper to get back to photography.
About the Photograph:
“On a wing and a prayer: Faith and luck are just about all Siti Cholifah, 27, has as she prepares to leave her two-year-old little girl and home yet again to work overseas as a domestic maid. It would be her third stint away in as many years. Year after year, tens of thousands of Indonesian women go the same way, keeping their families afloat by taking care of other people’s households in the richer countries of Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Siti, who had already been a domestic in Singapore and Saudi Arabia, planned to go to Singapore or Hong Kong to work once her daughter was a little older. It’s for my child’s future. And our house is not even completed, she said, sitting on a worn sofa in her home of bare cement floors, walls and roof beams.” (more…)
Andrea Frazzetta November 12, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in DR Congo.Tags: DR Congo
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Christmas Celebration, Congo
Andrea Frazzetta (b.1977, Italy) studied art and architecture in Milan but later decided to become a photographer. He works for Italian magazines such as D of La Repubblica, L’Espresso, Vanity Fair, Internazionale, National Geografic and has been published in New York Times, El Pais Semanal, The Guardian Weekend, Courier Japon. He has exhibited at: The International Photographic Festival of Arles, the Noorderlicht International Photofestival, and Visa Pour l’image. He is currently working on a long term project about the Mediterranean area. In 2009 he received the Yann Geffroy Award for his work “Obama Village”
About the Photograph:
“This photograph is from my “God too will be present” reportage, dedicated to religiousness faith in Congo. I shot this picture during a theatrical representation staged for Christmas by a group of street children, inside a missionary shed. I remember it as a moment of great intensity and lightness at the same time. God is black. And black was his son. This is the belief of the Kinbaguistas, followers of Simon Kimbangu, African preacher and new messiah who died as a martyr in a Belgian prison during the 1960’s. The Kimbaguistas are the most important religious sect in Congo, a small superpower equipped with a radio and television station. But that is only a part of the complex spiritual reality of Congo that includes 1300 chapels, five thousand priests and thirty million believers spread out at the four corners of a country as large as Western Europe. These are the impressive numbers that characterize the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Catholic community.”
Brian Cassey November 10, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Australia.Tags: Australia
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Boxing Match. Cairns, Queensland Australia
Brian Cassey (b.1959, England) is based in Australia and freelances for various national and international media. He is also a member of the Australian photojournalist collective ‘fotostrada’. He has covered Tsunamis in Asia (Aceh,Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar 2004/5 and Sissano, Papua New Guinea 1998) the evacuation of refugees from East Timor (1999), George Speights coup in Fiji, the World Economic Forum riots in Melbourne (2000) and the victims of the 2002 Bali terrorist bombs. Brian won the “Australian Sports Photo of the Year” and has recieved recognition in the Walkley, Moran, Hurley and Rothmans photo awards. In 2010, Brian was selected as a finalist in “Australia’s Top Photographers” in both the Editorial and Photojournalism categories.
About the Photograph:
“A Boxing and Muay Thai Explosion – Australia vs Thailand” … at least that’s what it said on the posters advertising a night of kick boxing (Muay Thai) and fisticuffs (traditional boxing) in the small tropical City of Cairns in Far North Queensland Australia. An enthusiastic crowd of two hundred fifty odd turned up at the local Police Youth Club hall to drink, yell and spur on kids, girls and men to kick and punch each other into submission. The young girl, her first real fight, didn’t know what hit her as her more experienced opponent kicked the living day lights out of her in the first round. The evening’s entertainment came to a crescendo well after midnight as the one real Thai boxer from took the ring against his local Australian opponent. Predictably He won … easily.”
Laia Abril November 8, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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“Femme Love”, Brooklyn New York 2009
Laia Abril (1986, Spain) holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and studied photography at ICP in New York City. She began working on documentary projects in the Balkans, covering the 13th Funeral of Srebrenica and the Independence of Kosova, first for a Spanish NGO and then for Spanish newspapers. In 2009 and 2010 she was a finalist on the Ian Parry Award participating at the Getty Gallery in London first with her photo project about the young lesbian community in Brooklyn and then with the project ‘The Last Cabaret’ about a porno sex-life club in Barcelona. Most recently she was Editor-In-Chief and photographer of the Dance issue of COLORS Magazine and was awarded a second FABRICA scholarship to develop a personal photo project during the next year.
About the Photograph:
“Femme love is a project that began with the intention of depicting notions of femininity in young lesbian women but which developed into an intimate exploration of a single couple’s love. Mox and Jenny maintain a sincere relationship, ignoring the prejudice and prying eyes that the ‘otherness’ of their relationship attracts. Their chosen home of Brooklyn is to some extent a passport to the freedom they crave, but both have experienced long, difficult and emotional journeys in obtaining their current happiness. They are simply like any other loving couple in their twenties and in love.”
Sanna Sjöswärd November 5, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Iran.Tags: Iran
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Wedding Reception. Tehran, Iran
Sanna Sjöswärd (b.1973, Iran) has worked as a professional photographer since 2002. Sanna came to Sweden in 1977 after being adopted from Iran and grew up on Lidingö outside Stockholm. In 2006 she released her first project called Roots. In 2008 she released “Pastor & woman”. Her exhibitions include: “Roots” “Mary – The Dream Of The Woman” and “Priest & woman”. The first has also been shown at the Photographic Gallery in New York. She also works with on book projects and exhibitions. Her photographs are regularly published in many of Sweden’s largest newspapers and magazines and foreign newspapers such as Le Figaro, The Globe and Helsingin Sanomat. She has also written an autobiography entitled “My mother is a Persian Princess (Collins, 2009).
About the Photograph:
“This picture is from a project called Roots. It’s of my younger sister Maryam and her husband Mahdtis. In Iran parents often decide who their daughters or sons will marry. This wasn’t the case with my sister. The party was in a large room in central Tehran, where family and friends attended. Because my family is very traditional men and woman celebrated in separate rooms.”
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…)
Rafal Gerszak November 1, 2010
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Afghanistan.Tags: Afghanistan
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Afghanistan, 2009
Rafal Gerszak (b.1980, Poland) and his family were forced to flee their home during the Soviet era and lived for sometime in a West German refugee camp. After immigrating to Canada in 1990, Rafal began to identify with socially displaced groups and photographed the drug culture in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside before moving to Afghanistan to pursue documentary photography. A graduate of Langara College in Vancouver, Canada, Rafal’s documentary work and short films have been recognized by the NPPA and the News Photographers Association of Canada. In 2010, Rafal was selected as one of the winners of The Magenta Foundation Flash Forward competition.
About the Photograph:
“March 4, 2009 was the last mission I spent with soldiers from America’s 101st Airborne Division, 506th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battalion, Delta Company, 4th Platoon. I was accompanying the soldiers near a village in the mountains of Khost province, eastern Afghanistan. This photograph was made after an armored vehicle accident that nearly rolled the truck off an embankment. The soldiers and I were stranded in the area for hours until locals from a nearby village gathered and worked as a team with American soldiers to free the vehicle. Although I captured the image of an injured soldier, for me, when the villagers came to the soldiers aid, there was no more war and no more division between cultures. It was simply one human being helping another.”
Verve Photo- The New Breed of Documentary Photographers 