Matt Black has spent the last few years working on his Geography of Poverty project and, last month, spent time in the cold woods of Maine.
This is heart-breaking work, the physical and mental isolation of our elders is hard to process. This work – what Roger May would, I think, call Heartwork – is what we need t be doing with our tools, telling the story of those left behind.
“The temperature would go down a couple of degrees because she had that nice, calming way and was nonthreatening with a ready smile,” Ms. (Nancy) Weinstock said, echoing the remarks of her colleagues on social media. “She would observe, step back a little, and she was very observant. She would see before shooting. She wasn’t one to shoot from the hip.”
Worth some time to look at her work.
I don’t know when I first came across Marc Riboud’s work, but his book on China affected me deeply. It was a seemingly casual yet amazingly precise look at the country during a time when few had access to it.
Riboud passed last week at the age of 93, Oliver Laurent at Time has a look at his work.
If you’re a college student, it’s time to get your portfolio together – the entry deadline for the 73rd College Photographer of the Year competition is September 23.
There is no entry fee for this – why wouldn’t you enter?
It’s an image everyone is talking about, a little girl crying as her mother is searched by U.S. Border Patrol agents. It’s an image that took John Moore a decade to make.
“I have no way of knowing if things will be okay.”
Journalism matters.
I am going to put this right up front – I think Craig Walker may be one of the most important photojournalists of our time.
He won earned two Pulitzer Prizes while at the Denver Post, one for a story on a kid joining the Army and a second on a Marine coming back from war. This week, the Boston Globe published Raising Connor, the story of a 13 year old boy with autism.
Walker invested the time, invested the energy, invested the compassion that this story needed. It is a shining example of what Roger May refers to as heartwork.
Not noted in the story, but due acknowledgment, are the editors who gave Walker the ability to make this story happen. It is stories like this that give us a true insight into what is happening in our communities, that let us both see and feel.
Last night, I sent another group of visual journalists out into the world at the University of Georgia commencement ceremony. We talk about stories that illuminate, educate and resonate – this story is what I mean by that.
I have a couple of friends, photojournalists with common but wide backgrounds, and we keep talking about doing some kind of project together. A road trip, an essay, a deep exploration of a place.
But we just keep talking about it, mostly because that’s all we have time for. And seeing pieces like this Andrew Moore gallery on the Bitter Southerner just makes me want to go even more.
Now that’s great storytelling.
My darkroom days are, thankfully, in the past. I was never enamored with the process of photography, it was the message and meaning of an image I fell in love with. The ability to bring someone somewhere, to let them bear witness.
That said, I do appreciate the work of masters in the craft and the Cibachrome prints of Christopher Burkett are enchanting. That his days in the darkroom are numbered is, truly, saddening.
Every now and then I come across someone I’ve never heard of and wonder how I missed them … Toni Frissell is the latest, as featured by Alan Taylor at The Atlantic.
Theres a simple elegance to her work that shows in the fashion and war work, clean compositions and nice moments.