Author Archive for burn magazine

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ana galan – viv(r)e la vie!

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Ana Galan

Viv(r)e la Vie!

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Viv(r)e la vie! is a photography series in process, consisting of photographs of couples in profile with a landscape of a countryside in the background, snapshots which evoke the Diptych of the Duchess and Duke of Urbino by Piero Della Francesca.

The concept depicts the two contrary principles, masculine and feminine, which are found in an embrace as a symbol of the partnership, the unit and belonging, the union of two planets which find themselves in the same line of gravitation. In this movement, we discover the meaning of life. As well in its coniferous landscapes, the series recreates the representation of the power of vital force, of immortality.

Viv(r)e la vie! consists of 15 photographs, of 15 couples which meet in order to dance every Sunday in a community center. This series pays homage to those people who continue to live in the moment.

I began the series Viv(r)e la Vie! in Guadalajara, Spain, with the idea of putting together a set of series of 15 couples in different cities around the world, between 1 and 5 series in each continent and subcontinent. Couples of a certain age, people barely seen socially, but who have not stopped living life fully and whose close relation is photographed in the Sunday outing dances of the community centers of their area.

The photographs give visibility to people which, for a certain time, have lacked such visibility. This series, at the same time, documents the cultural diversity that exists between different cities and countries. All of this is seen through the behaviors and gestures of the dancing couples, in the relationships between man and woman and in the roles assumed by each of them, they also narrate each selected territory.

The second series of Viv(r)e la Vie! was developed in the American city of Philadelphia from June 7 to 27, 2011 thanks to an artist residency I have been granted by the Philadelphia Arts Hotel.


Bio

Ana Galán was born in Madrid in 1969. After receiving her degree in Economics, she completed an International MBA, which entailed studying in three different cities: Oxford, Madrid and Paris. In the last two courses, she wrote a thesis addressing “Speculation in Plastic Art”.

Since 1993 she has combined her passion for photography with her profession, attending various courses and workshops in Paris and Madrid, such as EFTI’s Master of Fine Arts in Photography, and since then has participated in several collective exhibits and photography projects.

She works as the marketing director for a magazine in Madrid, and lives between Guadalajara and Paris.

 

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Ana Galan

Published on July 19, 2011 by burn magazine. 161 Comments

mikel bastida – war theatre

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Mikel Bastida

War Theatre

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During the last two years I have traveled across Western and Eastern Europe recreating the figure of a World War II photographer. I’ve covered several historical recreations where groups of re-enactors have performed different war episodes in both historical scenarios and fictitious battlefields.

This photographic series is a search for those fields that history has turned into literary landscapes. Scenarios made out of different representations of WWII – from films to vintage photographs – which turn into huge sets where recreation and simulation leaves exposed a collective imaginary.

The Photographic Naturalism, the definition of reality from behind the camera, does not allow fictitious characters but imaginary. Real figures transformed into the main character of a false epic representation. Archetypes of a story that has permeated our popular culture to the point of making reality interesting only when it is mystified by its representation.


Bio

Born in Bilbao in 1982, he first became interested in photography at the age of 19 while studying at the School of Film of Andoain. After this period he started working as a TV camera for the leading Spanish news agency EFE. He then enrolled in the School of Communication and Visual arts, while embarking on personal photographic projects abroad. In 2009 he was granted an award for a project developed during the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.
In 2010 he moves to China to work on a personal project. This trip is a major breaking point in his career and the resulting project is awarded with the prestigious Roberto Villagraz scholarship.
He currently lives in Madrid, where he studies a Masters in photography at EFTI School of Image and Arts.

Published on July 15, 2011 by burn magazine. 41 Comments

bill frakes – agony, ecstasy

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Bill Frakes

Agony, Ecstasy

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I am a photojournalist, a storyteller–the world’s greatest vicarious adolescent profession.

The crux of my exploration of athletic competition is the intersection of motion and emotion, the sometimes chance but more often calculated inclusion of art, commerce and athleticism into sport which so heavily influences the functioning of society through participation and observation. Capturing the penultimate moment which will hopefully enlighten and engage the viewer in a way that defines the game.

That said I really just want to make people smile.


Bio

Bill Frakes is a Sports Illustrated Staff Photographer based in Florida who has worked in more than 130 countries for a wide variety of editorial and advertising clients.
His advertising clients include Apple, Nike, Manfrotto, CocaCola, Champion, Isleworth, Stryker, IBM, Nikon, Canon, Kodak, and Reebok. He directs music videos and television ads.
Editorially his work has appeared in virtually every major general interest publication in the world. His still photographs and short documentary films have been featured on hundreds of Web sites as well as on most major television networks.
He won the coveted Newspaper Photographer of the Year award in the prestigious Pictures of the Year competition. He was a member of the Miami Herald staff that won the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of Hurricane Andrew. He was awarded the Gold Medal by World Press Photo. He has also been honored by the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for reporting on the disadvantaged and by the Overseas Press club for distinguished foreign reporting. He has received hundreds of national and international awards for his work.
He has taught at the University of Miami, the University of Florida and the University of Kansas as an adjunct professor and lecturer. During the last five years he has lectured at more than 100 universities discussing multimedia and photojournalism.
In 2010 he served on the jury of World Press Photo.


Related links

www.billfrakes.com
www.strawhatvisuals.com

Published on July 2, 2011 by burn magazine. 102 Comments

william daniels – faded tulips

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ESSAY CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONTENT

William Daniels

Faded Tulips

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I remember seeing images of Kyrgyzstan for the first time on television, in March 2005. There were scenes of excited Asian-looking men rushing toward an imposing Soviet style administration building. They entered the building, vandalizing, even pillaging, all they found. Then, on the roof, a scene of men proudly brandishing a flag. This event was called the “Tulip Revolution”. One could read in the press that the Kyrgyz people, motivated by social injustice, had just overthrown the authoritarian and corrupt regime of President Askar Akayev and had replaced him with Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

It was a few years later, when the little country, no longer in the limelight, had been completely forgotten, that I visited Kyrgyzstan for the first time. Aided by a grant, I set out to discover what the Tulip “Revolution”, which was supposed to lead to a democratic transition in the country, had really accomplished. This so-called revolution seemed to have been no more than a power grab. The elections were rigged; the media censured, perhaps even more than previously; political opponents were arrested. Kyrgyzstan was considered one of the 15 most corrupt countries in the world. Even today 40% of the population live below the poverty line, and at least as many look back with nostalgia to the Soviet era. Today one speaks of the Tulip Revolution as a coup d’état disguised as a popular revolution.

I continued to visit the country in the course of several trips. I was confronted by the growing instability which would lead, eventually, to the bloody riots of April 2010. It was a new revolution, perhaps a bit more authentic this time. The nepotistic Bakyiev was overthrown in his turn and found asylum in Belorussia, as had Akayev five years earlier. There followed a period of great unrest during which Osh, the major city in South, was the scene of anti-Uzbek pogroms.

Some say that the young country has never really recovered from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and that what it is going through today is still the painful apprenticeship of independence.

Faded Tulips is a trip through a young country at the crossroads of different worlds, born out of the break-up of the Soviet Union 20 years ago.
It is an immersion in the daily life of a disenchanted people living amidst the ruins of their past and whose present is undermined by poverty, clannishness, and chronic instability, a explosive mixture.

 

Bio

William’s work revolves around social issues and humanitarian concerns mostly focusing on isolated or weakened communities. He has worked on many global issues such as the 3 main pandemics -Malaria, Aids and Tuberculosis- the Tsunami aftermaths in Asia, Haiti earthquake aftermaths, and he has been working on Kyrgyzstan since late 2007, among others issues. Recently he covered the Libyan conflict on assignment for Polka magazine.

His long-term work on malaria was exhibited in partnership with the Global Fund on the Pont des Arts Bridge in Paris, in London, at the European parliament in Brussels, and he published it in the book Mauvais Air. His images appear regularly in French and international press: Time, Newsweek, Le Monde, The New York Times, Der Spiegel, Polka and he was Awarded once at world press photo, 3 times at Picture of the year and shortlisted in many international awards such as Anthropographia and Sony Awards.

He is represented by Panos Pictures.

 

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William Daniels

Published on July 2, 2011 by burn magazine. 30 Comments

michael hagedorn – facing dementia

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Michael Hagedorn

Facing Dementia – A New Approach

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Dementia is a rapidly growing social challenge in almost all societies of the world.  For most of us who are not directly involved, dementia seems to be synonymous with a uniform regression of mental abilities and a rapid loss of quality of life.

But quite contrary to this typical misconception, which is constantly being nurtured by undifferentiated and stereotypical media reports, dementia is not dementia. Aside from the fact that there are a number of different medical forms of dementia, the most common of which is Alzheimer’s disease, it should no longer be ignored that every person affected develops his/her own and very personal form of dementia and his/her very distinct way of dealing with the limitations and changes resulting from it.

During the time that I have spent photographing in retirement homes and private homes all over Germany I have met many people affected with dementia who not only enjoy life to the same extent as they did before or even more; moreover I have met people who only after their diagnosis of dementia discovered talents formerly unknown, such as Werner Leypoldt who practically has not stopped making art work for years. And due to a vanishing consciousness of societal norms and rules many people with dementia enjoy personal freedom never experienced before.

Every human being is destined to personally be affected by dementia – provided we will be getting old enough and depending on some kind of individual biological clock. Some people start developing symptoms of dementia as early as in their thirties, while others live to an age of 100 years or older without showing any significant signs of mental regression.

We still do not know what physiological mechanisms may cause or boost dementia. There are many question marks, but more important than the academic side of this subject, is to rid it from its societal stigma and to give back dignity to those people involved. This project which is overdue is aiming at raising people´s awareness for one of the most important social challenges we are facing – worldwide.

This long term photographic project has grown to becoming the largest visual documentation on dementia ever.
A lot of the photographs have become part of the awareness campaign “Konfetti im Kopf” (“Confetti in the Head”), that I initiated, and that travels through Germany and other countries.


Bio

Michael works for magazines and in advertising, now specializing almost exclusively in dementia and related disorders and phenomena.
His work has been exhibited in numerous single and group exhibitions.
Awards and nominations include a nomination for World Press Photo Joop Swaart Masterclass in 1996; Fuji Euro Press Award, 1st Prize News, 1998; two grants of VG Bild-Kunst, Germany, in 2001 and 2005; Swiss Press Photographer of the year 2006, Gold Award; POYi-Nomination for Best Portfolio, 2007; Nikon Reportage Photography Grant, 2008, amongst various others.


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Michael Hagedorn

Konfetti im Kopf

Published on June 30, 2011 by burn magazine. 28 Comments

bruce gilden – haiti, 15 months later…

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Bruce Gilden

Haiti, 15 Months Later…

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Haiti, a land of great spirit and tremendous hardship occupies a special place in my heart. My first visit to Haiti goes back to 1985. Then, for ten years, I made a total of 19 trips, and my work culminated in the publication of the book “Haiti” that earned the European Publishers Award for Photography in 1996.

I thought I was done photographing in Haiti, but when the earthquake struck, I felt the urge of going back. Last February‐March 2010, in Port‐au‐Prince when I saw the enormity of devastation, I feared that once the media attention would shut off, Haiti would fall into oblivion again, so I decided that I had to keep the light burning.

All of the familiar sites I knew had been destroyed. Instead, I found rubble, chaos and homeless people sleeping on the streets, in their cars, in tents and makeshift shelters. For all of that, when I looked around at the improvised shelters that people had built out for themselves out of scavenged material, it seemed to me that the Haitian spirit was alive and shining on the decorated flimsy walls of these tiny huts.

The “residents” of these encampments had recreated all the elements of Haitian life as if they knew right away that this temporary settlement would be their long term home: a one-seat barbershop, a two-pot restaurant, and families taking bath buckets in the open, women ironing and watching TV, courtesy of the diverted electricity from the Presidential palace. The first time I stepped into one of these encampments, it felt awkward, as if I were invading people’s privacy, stepping into an open living room without being invited. But this was the street, this was Port-au-Prince post earthquake last year.

Unfortunately, when I returned, last April, 15 months later, I did not notice much improvement. The encampments were still there, with more small huts built and decorated. The walls display all kinds of statements, personal, religious, and political, and once again I was touched by their poetry, proving that the vibrant and unique Haitian spirit could fall through the cracks of the worst possible living conditions. During this last trip, I was able to capture the mood around, and I felt that I am today even closer than before to the people of Haiti: Older ones distressed by the emotional impact of the earthquake, and younger ones in need of work and leadership to human development.

 

editor’s note: these photographs were shot on exclusive assignment from Burn…dah


Bio

Bruce Gilden, a native New Yorker, has received acclaim for his black and white portraits and street scenes. Gilden has won multiple awards including the European Award for Photography, three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and a Japan Foundation fellowship. He has published many books. His work, exhibited widely around the world is part of numerous permanent collections.
In 1998, Bruce Gilden joined Magnum Photos.
While another early essay focused on the famous “Mardi Gras” in New Orleans, Gilden worked from 1968 until the late 1980’s on his first long-term project on Coney Island. It was published in his book Coney Island, in 2002.
In 1984, Bruce Gilden began to work in Haiti where he returned nineteen times. The book Haiti concluded this work in 1996.
Since 1981, Bruce Gilden had been working on his on-going project, the streets of New York City. It culminated in the publication of Facing New York in 1992, and later in 2005, in A Beautiful Catastrophe.
His next project explored rural Ireland and its passion for horseracing. After the Off juxtaposes Gilden’s photographs with text by the Irish writer Dermot Healey.
Published in 2000 Gilden’s next book, Go, is the result of Gilden’s immersion in Japanese culture, with images of Yakuza (the Japanese Mafia), the homeless, and Bosozoku or young biker gangs.
After years of worldwide travel, in 2008, Bruce Gilden felt the need of photographing his own country and draw a social portrait of America in this time of great recession. Gilden has just completed an extended personal project on foreclosures, in Florida, Detroit and recently in Fresno, California.
In February 2010 and April 2011, Bruce Gilden returned to Haiti a country that occupies a special place in his heart. He is passionate about dedicating a second opus to the people of Haiti and continuing to raise awareness on their everyday life struggles.


Related links

Bruce Gilden on Magnum Photos

Published on June 25, 2011 by burn magazine. 91 Comments

maurizio cogliandro – lidia, the sky is falling

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Maurizio Cogliandro

Lidia, the Sky is Falling

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This selection of photos is part of a work that I have created together with my mother during the last two years of her life.
My mother passed away on the 14th February 2005.
After being diagnosed with an ovaries tumor in the Spring of 2000, she spent her days composing with me a diary of images. The saying goes that a photo speaks a thousand words, but this reality is so intimate that both words and images lose all their value.
These photos aim to be the most truthful and essential, not a social allegation, but a testimony of our bond.
The one who is approaching death longs for life, a life lived with his own family until then, when his status changes and is therefore unknown… illness catapults us in a new condition, these are the days of those who are drawing near death, but who are not necessarily conscious of the fact that it is going to happen.
The ones who really suffer ask, dream to live and invent something, because they don’t know where else to take refuge.
Hope and awareness blend into each other in their mind, and the feeling that is generated enriches each and every one of their daily actions.
My mother made herself completely available to me, she fully trusted my vision to tell people not only about her illness, but also her pain and her abandonment.
I hope I have helped her to understand herself.

 

Bio

Maurizio Cogliandro was born in Bracciano (Rome) in 1979. He studied photography at Leeds College of Art and Design (Leeds, UK) and then at the Scuola Romana di Fotografia (Rome). His works have been displayed at a number of museums and national and international galleries. In 2010 he publishes Lidia, the sky is falling an intimate and private diary about his mother’s last years. He joined Contrasto Agency in 2010.

 

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Maurizio Cogliandro

Published on June 23, 2011 by burn magazine. 12 Comments

anton kusters – odo yakuza tokyo LIMITED EDITION (SOLD OUT)

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Anton Kusters

Odo Yakuza Tokyo

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Below is an excerpt of my conversation with Anton Kusters, talking about the birth of his first book. We are sitting on my front porch during a beautiful sunrise. Somehow appropriate. Even more appropriate is that today is Anton’s birthday.

-DAH

 

DAH: Well, the bottom line is, Anton, you have your first book… Tell me, a first book is comparable to what?

AK: It’s… It feels like I actually did something for the first time. I mean, it’s not that the book was more work than the project itself, but… it does feel like I took a step in some way, like a kind of achievement in some way, for myself, personally. It really feels like a personal victory. And whatever that victory, that achievement, will mean to the outside world, I would almost say, that is out of my hands. I mean that in the best possible way. I love seeing cutting my book “loose” into the world, let it go, beyond my control.

DAH: So… Validation?

AK: Validation… a little bit a sense of pride deep down inside… that I could actually pull something off, because for some reason, it always feels like nothing is really complete, or at least this project could not be complete, without the validation of a physical object, like a book, an exhibition… like Massimo Vitali said at LOOK3 a couple of days ago… “I’m looking at the picture as that unique physical object, impossible to see separate from the plexi it is printed on”

DAH: …Yes… I don’t know if everybody feels that way…. I certainly feel that way also, if there’s no physical object then there is nothing, actually.

AK: Yes

DAH: There’s instruction, there’s information, it’s up there on the screen, but it’s meaningless without the physical object…

AK: … things remain fleeting until something physical is made.

DAH: and even though you reach fewer people, it doesn’t matter –

AK: Yes… You reach so many less people… I mean, the internet is like multiple, you reach multiples of the audience of the book… but… I think the feeling it will never change as to what it must have been before the internet… it must be still exactly the same, that kind of feeling… the internet adds to it, but the feeling of selling the book, making the book, is… is something… is a different category. at least it feels like that. And seeing friends and strangers, complete strangers, hold that book, and look at them while they are looking at the book. that’s the thing that completes the circle for me.

DAH: You don’t see that on the internet, you don’t see that with an international magazine either… occasionally you do by accident, at the airport you see somebody looking through one of your articles, and of course they flip right through it.

[laughs]

Let me go back on a couple of basic things: so… it’s fun to have a book out there.

AK: Absolutely.

DAH: I remember, Sam Abell said one time, to me, “David, when you do your first book, life will change”. And he was right about that: after your first book, life does change.

AK: Yea… I feel it does… I mean, I don’t know, I obviously it’s too soon to say because it’s only hitting the stands right now, I mean “the stand”, singular, being here on burn, so I don’t know what the actual impact will -

DAH: – Oh I predict that, I think this book will, I think this, your limited edition of 500 copies, of a very well priced book and a very high quality book, and a very heart felt… done book, I think that this book will sell out in less than two weeks. That’s my prediction. I think it’ll be gone in ten days. Something like that, I really think that.

I think that people will, people will feel that this is a one of a kind object, as you described, there are people who get more out of photography than seeing, to flick a page, or even on burn or anything, anything that’s online, and will go for that physical object. and they’ll see it the same way that they saw Alec Soth’s “Sleeping by the Mississippi”, and they’ll want to be one of the ones to have an original, first edition, from the first five hundred.

AK: Yea… and it’s, it’s almost like I wish there was this tactile… extension to the internet where you could make people reach into the screen and pick up the book to be able to feel it, that they can feel what the object is like, because I feel that that’s such an important aspect.

DAH: Your book is a physical object, it’s a beautifully done physical object, and the printing and the binding and the making of this book are clear, and speak to the subject… So tell us a little bit about… the making of the book in relationship to the subject of the book.

AK: That’s of course pretty crucial, as I regard the book as an integral object of what the project is about… I mean, I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked at a printer a long time ago, and that opened a whole new world to me back then. But it wasn’t until last year that I realized was using all that knowledge for this book.

I completely did the process all by myself, I designed the book, I found the right papers and the right printer, prepared for print, went to press, and oversaw the binding…. I learned obviously a lot during the process, but… it’s such a fun thing to do, it’s a lot of work, you gotta follow up everything personally, but you’re basically taking up the role of, of…producer

DAH: OK, so we’ve covered the thrill of having the book… and the physical production of the book. But I think the word of mouth on the physicality of this book will quickly get out there, and I think that, you and I are of like mind of what Burn does, and our basic philosophy is a quality one.

AK: Yes… whatever the case, quality comes first, and that’s why I was so happy that you were willing to endorse and write the foreword for the book, because I knew that you would never, ever, even as a close personal friend, you would not do that if you wouldn’t be very sure about the quality of the work.

DAH: No, I would not do that. Of course I’m expecting a hell of a kickback from this book, I’m expecting a lot of money into my my bank account [laughing]

The thing is… photographers do want to do books, and I think everybody knows, that books are not how we make money, but you will, even if this book is a raging success, you won’t be paying your home bills with this book, no matter how successful this is….

AK: I might break even on some aspect of the printing, and I’d be really really happy if that happened, but I’m pretty sure I can forget about trying to pay for all the trips I took.

DAH: Now tell me a little bit about how the subject of your book.  Any way you look at it, is going to be controversial, inside Japan, outside Japan, all around the town. I mean, you’ve turned into a physical object of photography, a crime organization. So. justify that for me please.

AK: Justify…

DAH: I mean, don’t justify it for me, because I understand it…. Justify it to those who might be reading this.

AK: I think it goes back to the fact that I’ve always taken aback by… prejudice. I’ve always been taken, really taken aback by blanket statements, I’m taken aback by the judging of people and things… Personally, I’ve always asked questions instead, being inquisitive, at least in my mind ask questions, trying to understand things…

I do not want to be a judge in my photography. I want to be a witness in my photography. A faithful witness of my own vision. A vision which I know is shaped and skewed by my upbringing and my life’s experiences.

I guess that’s why the Yakuza project actually quickly turned into something different than I expected, I started to feel that it’s a way of life more than anything else… and that’s where I latched on. The bad part or the good part for that matter, very quickly became irrelevant after that. The subtle shades of grey are the key.

Who am I… can it ever be my right to say about someone that he is “bad”? about anyone?

DAH: So your essay, your book is, how would you describe what it is in relationship to a crime organization? is it a revelation, is it an exposé, is it a behind-the-scenes? what is it exactly? what are you telling us with this book?

AK: Well… that’s a good question. I might have to find that one out as we go along, because I actually just want to show, I think, basically what I just said, I started feeling that that Yakuza is many shades of grey, and not simple black vs white.

DAH: so is that your, your…mission?.

AK: It’s the subtlety of the story that hit me, I think it would be kind of easy, or cheap, in a way, to show the Yakuza and what they do, instead of what they are, because I would, in a way, stereotype them, and that is something I don’t want to ever do to anybody.

DAH: yeah… do you want me to get you another coffee?

AK: yes, sure.

DAH: you drinking it black?

AK: as always

DAH: OK. Here, think about this question: what do you think the Yakuza are going to think about this book? What are they thinking that this book is? You’re thinking that it’s a revelation of some sort, what do they think it is? Everyone wants their thing out of it.

[DAH gets a cup of coffee]

AK: Interesting question… The thing is, I think, and I have the feeling, that they want to have, kind of a chronicle of their family, of sorts, a chronicle of what they are about.

DAH: When I look at the pictures, I  don’t see them doing anything bad… If I weren’t reading about the Yakuza, or know about the Yakuza, your pictures here do require text, and context, which, I think, only adds to the texture and to the feel of these photographs. Is that correct? They seem here to appear as traditional Japanese businessmen.

AK: Yeah… Though you can’t really misinterpret the tattoos, covert training camps, prostitutes and severed fingers.

DAH: So aside from the fact that people who buy this book are going to receive a physical object, and a lot of visual stimulation, on a topic that you have decided was worth photographing, what do you, what do you think that people will get out of this book, or should get out of this book, besides the fine object aspect of the book? Because it is a documentary. it is not a conceptual thing.

AK: Actually, I would like to describe this as a conceptual documentary, because I have no intent, to tell the truth, but rather I have the intent of telling the Yakuza story as I personally experienced it, me, Anton Kusters, the person and character that I am, with all my flaws and shortcomings, and I will most probably see things in a completely different way and therefore be sensitive to, and concentrate on, the things that strike me or touch me… the shades of grey i see, the realization that being Yakuza is a way of life more than anything else. I hope others will see that too.

DAH: So in that sense you are being very documentary, mission oriented documentary. In that sense.

AK: Yeah. in that sense. I could even consider that a mission in life in general.

DAH: I know exactly where you stand on this. Personally, for me, I find any topic interesting, if a someone, if a photographer, if a writer, or a film maker is telling me that they are interested in whatever the topic is, whether it’s the sinking of the Titanic, as a piece of history, or Restrepo, a war story by Tim Hetherington, or your story on the Yakuza. I don’t really care, I mean, somebody who is a storyteller, or a visual artist, if they have decided that they’re going to do this particular thing…. i’m not ranking subject matter by some subject matter being more important, or right, than others. It becomes important by the fact that this particular storyteller is going to tell it.

AK: Yep. About Tim…. I met Tim only a couple of times, and the last time we talked at length about the Yakuza project, which was then only halfway, and he was the one who also told me, like you had always told me too, David, because there was one particular picture, when he saw that one he stopped in his tracks and said “this is the one” and that was the picture of the empty table with empty glasses and cups and a burning cigarette and the two empty chairs, the full ash tray, and he said “right there, that’s the kind of image, that’s the image you have to have in there, because there you are saying that you are personally telling that story that is your story, and that you are not just ‘covering’ the Yakuza”… and I hope I have taken that to heart.

DAH: well I think there is no doubt that you’ve done that. The only thing left I wanted to ask you is… you will now probably spend the next year working on the film, on the same topic.

AK: I hope that works out, yes. There is… we’re starting, my brother Malik and I are starting to, because obviously film is way more complex than photography from a production point of view, my brother will be doing sound, I will be doing video, the moving image…. I hope that works out… we’ve got a good story. And the book, offering the book to the Yakuza bosses now, tomorrow I’ll be flying over to Tokyo to, you know, present the book to them, give copies as a gift, which will hopefully open gates.

But again, this will be way more complex, also financially… so, I will be using the potential success of the book as a gauge for myself, if it’s viable to continue on that path or not. But I obviously feel I should do it no matter what. so I hope it will work out.

On the other hand, photographing daisies is great fun too.

 

(the limited edition sold out on July 21, 2011)

 

Bio:
Anton was born in Belgium. He grew up in Australia, Saudi Arabia and Belgium, and has been visiting Japan ever since his brother moved there a decade ago. The long term YAKUZA project started out three years ago, and the first major step now has been taken with the book “ODO YAKUZA TOKYO”.
Anton feels that life should be about going deep down rabbit holes as much as you possibly can.

 

Related links:

www.antonkusters.com

Published on June 17, 2011 by burn magazine. 232 Comments

EPF 2011 Winner

Emerging Photographer Fund – 2011 Recipient


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Irina Werning

Back to the Future

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I love old photos. I know I’m a nosy photographer. As soon as I step into someone else’s house, I start sniffing for those old photos. Most of us are fascinated by their retro look but to me it’s imagining how people would feel and look like if they were to reenact them today… A year ago, I decided to actually do this. So, with my camera, I started inviting people to go back to their future.

It starts when I get together with my subjects and we choose the old picture. I go through their boxes and albums looking for an image that speaks about them. Next comes a bit of a photographic investigation: studying the lighting, the angle, the type of camera and lens it was shot with, etc. Then, from there, the search begins: internet auction sites, second hand stores, borrowing from friends wardrobes, cutting, dying, sewing, attaching, adapting, assembling, gluing, coloring, painting, renting rare and hard to find objects. This project requires a lot of improvising on the run and it involves searching endlessly for stuff in the streets of Buenos Aires. I guess I really like finding things. If I cant find something, then I make it.

Once I have everything I need, we are ready to go back to the future. I dress them up and put them either in the set I built for them or, when possible, back in the real location. Once I get the light right, I ask them to do that thing they were doing in the original photo. I am always amazed that they do it.

Its funny how what you do can show you who you are. I always thought of myself to be the opposite of perfectionist as I live in complete chaos most of the time. However, when I now look at these pictures and see the attention to detail in them, I have to question my self image…

This story has been published in Sunday Times Magazine (Spectrum).

Editor’s Note:

Irina will receive $15,000. from Burn Magazine through the Magnum Cultural Foundation to continue her project.

The EPF 2011 judges:

Trent Parke – photographer, Magnum Photos
Narelle Autio – photographer, Agence VU’
Maggie Steber – photographer, editor, teacher
Barbara Stauss – photo director, Mare magazine, Germany

-dah-


Bio

Born in Buenos Aires
BA Economics, Universidad de San Andres, Buenos Aires, 1997
MA History, Universidad Di Tella, Buenos Aires, 1999
MA Photographic Journalism, Westminster University, London, 2006
Winner Ian Parry Scholarship 2006
Gordon Foundation Grant 2006
Selected for Joop Swart Masterclass (World Press Photo Organization), 2007


Related links

www.irinawerning.com



—

Emerging Photographer Fund – Finalists:

Dominic Bracco II
Michael Christopher Brown
Zhe Chen
Laura El-Tantawy
Daisuke Ito
Tushikur Rahman
Benjamin Rusnak
Daria Tuminas


—

Emerging Photographer Fund – Honorable mentions:

Walter Astrada
Victor Cobo
Maurizio Cogliandro
William Daniels
Marc Davidson
Alvaro Deprit
Rian Dundon
Matt Eich
Ryan Gauvin
Robin Hammond
Tom Hyde
Sebastian Liste
Alberto Lizaralde
Nicola Lo Calzo
Guy Martin
Gabriele Micalizzi
Karen Mirzoyan
Jane Moriarity
Isabelle Pateer
Emily Schiffer
Valerio Spada
Andy Spyra
Anastasia Taylor-Lind
Munem Wasif

Published on June 11, 2011 by burn magazine. 63 Comments

chris anderson – capitolio

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Chris Anderson

Capitolio

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The word ‘capitolio’ refers to the domed building that houses a government. Here, the city of Caracas, Venezuela, is itself a metaphorical capitolio building. The decaying Modernist architecture, with a jungle growing through the cracks, becomes the walls of this building and the violent streets become the corridors where the human drama plays itself out in what President Hugo Chavez called a ‘revolution.’

Originally published as a traditional book in 2010 by RM, “Capitolio” is an intimate journey through a time of revolution in Hugo Chavez’ Caracas, Venezuela. This series was photographed between 2004 and 2008.

“Capitolio” is the first authored monograph photography book for the iPhone and iPad.

 

DAH – Chris Anderson Interview

This is an excerpt of a recent skype conversation with Chris Anderson, talking about how the iPad application of his most recent book, Capitolio, came to be. This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

-DAH

David Alan Harvey: …tell me in your own words a little bit about where you got the idea [to make an iPad monograph out of Capitolio] and what you did.

Chris Anderson: Basically, the book was starting to sell out, and I started thinking, only a certain number of people can actually get this book, and the ultimate expression of what I did in Venezuela really comes together in a book. You know, a slideshow on the web doesn’t really capture the whole thing, seeing a print doesn’t really capture it, it’s in this book form, and the way I put the pictures together, and the way the pictures come one after another, the relationship between the other one…this final book form that we think of, that’s what this book was. Not just a collection of pictures. And, I sorta think, well, there’s only 3000 copies of this book printed, so there’s only a certain select people who are actually going to experience that book, and because it’s an expensive book, only a certain number of people with the money to buy the thing. So, I started thinking, you know, it was kind of the confluence of a lot of things. Thinking about the finite audience of a printed book at the same time that I’m sitting here holding this new technology in my hand, an iPad and an iPhone, and thinking,

“a ha!”

Maybe this is a way to have an in-finite audience. And, that really I could, even though my first love is the printed book, I could still kinda get this experience and get across what I was trying to say to a much larger audience than I ever could with the printed book. And the applications of that in terms of reaching audience and what does that mean, even in an academic setting with students, you know? Think about a university classroom that’s teaching photojournalism, or that’s teaching book making, or even in the case of this book, you know, political science or something. And being able to have that book, which you could never have in a college curriculum, you could never have everyone in the class buy the printed book, but here’s a way that in an academic setting…

DAH: Everyone could be sitting there with their iPads looking at it.

CA: Exactly.

DAH: The quality, you know, it looks amazing. The quality is kind of better there than…I mean, in terms of there’s a certain texture or quality to it that you see on the iPad that kind of beats everything, don’t you think?

CA: Yeah, oh yeah. And actually, I just saw it recently on the iPhone for the first time, and that’s actually where I really liked it.

…I think it has something to do with being able to have something to say. You know, nice pictures photographers want to look at or people who like pictures want to look at, but to reach that other audience, you have to have something to say to them…We as photographers, we’re going to have to find a way to then become a writer and also a filmmaker, and also a radio producer and everything like that…maybe that’s one path to it. But it’s also just about having something to say about the world, even purely through pictures…somehow that voice of whatever you want to call it, authorship or whatever, is really important.

You know, I think about Paul Fusco’s Chernobyl Magnum in Motion, which is something I show my students a lot, it’s really, it’s pretty simple, there’s not really any whistles and bells. It’s him talking and showing his pictures. But it’s so powerful because he really has something to say, you know what I mean? And, it’s not about having fancy music as the background track, it’s not about slick jump cuts, it’s really about having something to say. I have a feeling that in the future, you know, I imagine…this app that I did is pretty basic in the end. There’s a pdf, a digital version of the book pdf style, to look through, theres some extra pictures, there’s a video interview, pretty basic. There’s not too many bells and whistles. I can imagine though that in the future, people are going to do things that will really be amazing in terms of how to use this medium, how to use this technology to tell stories, or to offer the public things that a printed book can never do.

DAH: Oh yeah, you can imagine that if you had 10 or 15 or 30 or 50K to spend on building the app, yeah, you could imagine…you’ve got directors cut, you’ve got the video component, you’ve got the about, you’ve got those kinds of things, but you could go even further, right? You could even go back there and have a 5 minute movie on there, or on some other topic….but you can imagine having an incredible thing. Are you guys gonna have that for Postcards [From America]?

CA: Well, we don’t have an app version yet, but we want to try and incorporate as much as we can in terms of like…

DAH: You don’t have anybody shooting video or anything though?

CA: I’m going to try and shoot a lot of video.

DAH: Yeah, I was gonna say, that would be, that would always be an interesting component for any app. How long is your interview in your app?

CA: It’s ten minutes.

DAH: ..You’ve already reached I don’t know how many people with it, but we’ll just, we want to just promote the app, but in the best possible way. And to get it on some Facebook pages, like people who are interested in political science in Venezuela, and see what happens, outside of your fan club. You know, your fanclub is gonna buy the app. But, you’re right, you want to see if you can sell it to other people as well.

CA: Yeah, that’s the real test, if you can find a way to break out of that.


Bio

Christopher Anderson was born in Canada in 1970 and grew up in west Texas. He first gained recognition for his pictures in 1999 when he boarded a handmade, wooden boat with Haitian refugees trying to sail to America. The boat, named the Believe In God, sank in the Caribbean. In 2000 the images from that journey would receive the Robert Capa Gold Medal. They would also mark the emergence of an emotionally charged style that he refers to as “experiential documentary” and has come to characterize his work since. Christopher’s photographs often explore themes of truth and subjectivity, and his subjects range from war to fashion to his own family.

Christopher is a member of Magnum Photos. He is the author of two monographs: Nonfiction, published in 2003 and CAPITOLIO, published in 2009 by RM and named one of the best photography books of 2009/10 at the Kassel Photo Book Festival in Germany.

Related links

Capitolio on iTunes

Chris Anderson

Published on June 10, 2011 by burn magazine. 43 Comments

daisuke ito – losolmo gym

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EPF 2011 Finalist


Daisuke Ito

Losolmo Gym

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“More than the development of the muscles of the body, there is the development of the muscles of the soul. It is not only task of the athletes but task of instructors, of trainers, and of all?”
- Fidel Castro, 10 July 1996

Losolmo gym is in Cuba’s second city of Santiago. The boys here train barefoot, dressed in little more than rags. The equipment is decrepit. The boxing ring floor is unevenly patched together, the ropes are frayed and there is barely enough equipment to go round and it has produced four Olympic champions. Each of these impoverished Cuban boys carries the dream of becoming a champion. I think it is not for the money, not even for the fame, but for these boys to be a boxer is the noble and heroic pinnacle of human aspiration.

There has been an exhibition “LOSOLMO GYM” in the Zen Foto Gallery, in Tokyo, 2010, and in Beijing, 2010


Bio

Daisuke Ito was born in 1976 in Japan. He had studied photojournalism for two years in 2000-2002 at IDEP in Barcelona, Spain. He had wandered around Central and South America for seven years in 2002-2009. He started his career as a photographer in 2007 in a slum named Chapeu Mangueira in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His work has been published by magazines in Brazil and Japan. He moved to Tokyo in 2009.

Published on June 7, 2011 by burn magazine. 45 Comments

dominic bracco II – life and death in the northern pass

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EPF 2011 Finalist


Dominic Bracco II

Life and Death in the Northern Pass

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“There are two ways of thinking about living here; either you go on every day and when it’s your turn to die you die, or you live every day in fear.”
- Daniel Gonzalez, 26, a resident of Ciudad Juarez who later moved to El Paso, Texas.

Sprawled across the tail end of the Rocky Mountains where the starved Rio Bravo pushes mud through a barren desert valley sits Ciudad Juarez, arguably the most violent city in the world — historically known as ‘El Paso del Norte’ or ‘The Northern Pass.’ The last three years the city of 1.5 million has seen over 8,000 murders.

As the drug war rages on violence has become more sporadic and faceless. Random crime has increased. Car jacking, robberies, and assaults are a daily occurrence.In the past five years, over 10,000 businesses have closed in Ciudad Juarez and up to 230,000 people have fled their homes. The economic downturn has exacerbated destabilization.

Drug bosses often offer the equivalent of a factory worker’s weekly wages to perform an execution. The most vulnerable social group is ‘Los Ninis’, young men and women who earned their name from the phrase ‘ni estudian, ni trabajan’ (those who neither work nor study).

According to a recent study by the Colegio de La Frontera Norte, up to 45 percent of all Juarez residents between 14 and 24 fall into this category and make up a quarter of the city’s total homicide victims. Massacres of Juarez’s youth are common – they have been gunned down at parties and targeted at rehab centers. They are killed indiscriminately.

The first mass killing of youths took place in January 2010 when 15 teenagers were gunned down at a party. Another massacre of 14 teenagers took place in October.

Without work or real incentive to work, young people are increasingly turning to the cartels. According to Miguel Parea, a local Juarez journalist, the mentality of many youth is fatalistic: “they say it’s better to die young as a rich man, than to die poor as an old one,” Parea said.

An earlier edit of the project was published on BURN Magazine, sections of the project have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.


Bio

Dominic Bracco II 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. Past clients include The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New York Times Sunday Magazine. Dominic is also a founding member of the collective Prime. He is based in Mexico City. His project “Life and Death in The Northern Pass” was a 2011 Alexia Foundation Professional Grant Finalist, won 2nd place in spot news in the 2011 POYi competition, and was a finalist for the 2011 Michael P. Smith Fund For Documentary Photography.


Related links

www.dominicbracco.com

Published on June 5, 2011 by burn magazine. 30 Comments

michael christopher brown – the libyan republic

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EPF 2011 Finalist


Michael Christopher Brown

The Libyan Republic

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Since arriving in Libya, I have tried to understand the situation. People swap facts, predictions and rumors, but the complexity of the conflict makes it impossible to fully comprehend. Once a picture is taken or a word is written it is already old news. There seems to be no way to catch up, as the database of history is filed before it is processed. And as a result I have become more confused. But I can attest to one reality, shown in these photographs. They form a loose record of my experience during the war in Libya.

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi ruled Libya for 42 years. During his reign, supporters were given power while those opposed saw their lives crumble. Libya changed from an optimistic, patriotic society to a people living double lives, resigning basic human rights in the face of a brutal authoritarian regime. Trust was elusive and the people were cold.

Then everything began to change. After dictators in similar Mafia-like states of Tunisia and Egypt were forced to leave, thousands of Libyans planned their own Day of Rage. In Benghazi, a peaceful protest on February 15th became a massacre, as protestors were fired upon by police forces. As the uprising spread across eastern Libya, young men throwing stones stormed the Katiba in Benghazi only to be slaughtered by anti-aircraft guns. Though hundreds of them were killed, with help from General Younes special forces the protestors took Benghazi back from Gaddafi. So began the revolution in Libya.

Today, as the war rages on in eastern Libya and in Misrata, Libyans are treating each other as family while creating a new Libya for themselves, not Gaddafi. Though their cities are in shambles, freedom is in the air.

The more time I spend in Libya the more questions I have. Will NATO give up? Who are the rebels and the people creating the new Libyan Republic? Who were the children affected by the HIV trial? What happened to the missing soldiers in the war with Chad and where are their families?

This summer I will attempt to find some of these lost pieces of a past long covered up by the Gaddafi regime and continue documenting daily life, both of which have been shielded from foreign eyes for nearly half a century.

This story has been published before on BURN Magazine, in FOAM magazine (Spring 2011), National Geographic Magazine (July 2011), Das Magazin (April 2011), Photoworld (April 2011), and on Time.com (2011).


Bio

Michael Christopher Brown is a contributing photographer to National Geographic Magazine and works regularly for Fortune, GEO and Time magazines, among others. While earning a master of arts in documentary photography from the School of Visual Communication, Brown was named College Photographer of the Year. A former attendee of the World Press Joop Swart Masterclass, his work has won numerous awards from organizations such as BURN, CENTER, Magenta, PDN, The Art Directors Club, Canon and Anthropographia. American Photo magazine named him among a new generation of photo pioneers.


Related links

www.mcbphotos.com

Published on June 3, 2011 by burn magazine. 55 Comments

irina werning – back to the future

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EPF 2011 Finalist


Irina Werning

Back to the Future

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I love old photos. I know I’m a nosy photographer. As soon as I step into someone else’s house, I start sniffing for those old photos. Most of us are fascinated by their retro look but to me it’s imagining how people would feel and look like if they were to reenact them today… A year ago, I decided to actually do this. So, with my camera, I started inviting people to go back to their future.

It starts when I get together with my subjects and we choose the old picture. I go through their boxes and albums looking for an image that speaks about them. Next comes a bit of a photographic investigation: studying the lighting, the angle, the type of camera and lens it was shot with, etc. Then, from there, the search begins: internet auction sites, second hand stores, borrowing from friends wardrobes, cutting, dying, sewing, attaching, adapting, assembling, gluing, coloring, painting, renting rare and hard to find objects. This project requires a lot of improvising on the run and it involves searching endlessly for stuff in the streets of Buenos Aires. I guess I really like finding things. If I cant find something, then I make it.

Once I have everything I need, we are ready to go back to the future. I dress them up and put them either in the set I built for them or, when possible, back in the real location. Once I get the light right, I ask them to do that thing they were doing in the original photo. I am always amazed that they do it.

Its funny how what you do can show you who you are. I always thought of myself to be the opposite of perfectionist as I live in complete chaos most of the time. However, when I now look at these pictures and see the attention to detail in them, I have to question my self image…

This story has been published in Sunday Times Magazine (Spectrum).


Bio

Born in Buenos Aires
BA Economics, Universidad de San Andres, Buenos Aires, 1997
MA History, Universidad Di Tella, Buenos Aires, 1999
MA Photographic Journalism, Westminster University, London, 2006
Winner Ian Parry Scholarship 2006
Gordon Foundation Grant 2006
Selected for Joop Swart Masterclass (World Press Photo Organization), 2007


Related links

www.irinawerning.com

Published on June 1, 2011 by burn magazine. 59 Comments

tushikur rahman – fatalistic tendency

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EPF 2011 Finalist


Tushikur Rahman

Fatalistic Tendency

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There is a place in which your privacy, intimacy, integrity and inviolability are guaranteed. Your own body and mind, that unique temple and a familiar territory of sense and personal history.

Anxiety and stress can cause sleep deprivation, warping space and time, ultimately leading to fatalistic tendencies.

If one wishes to commit suicide, one gradually loses his mental resilience and sense of freedom… Feeling alien and objectified – unable to communicate, relate, attach or empathize with others… Floating in dreams and eventually fleeting in the sky… The taste of suicide: the true sensation, the extreme fantasy.

I could never write a diary; thinking about the things which should be written in a personal diary was the most difficult part for me. Making this photo story was like writing a personal diary about my past, and feeling the same kind of difficulty. Thinking about those times is still hard for me.

This work has been published before in Viewbook Photostory 2010-Yearbook and WPO (World Photography Oranization) 2011, Student Focus Award.


Bio

Tushikur Rahman, born in Bangladesh in 1987 is a documentary photographer who prefers to work with social issues both urban and rural. In 2009, Tushik enrolled in Pathshala South Asian Media Academy for BA in Photography. He participated in various international workshops conducted by renowned teachers and practitioners including Stuart Freedman, Jorge Villacorta, Shannon Lee Castleman, Abir Abdullah and Munem Wasif. He is also devoted in travelling and capturing thrilling subjects including the lives of Tiger widows and a full sequence of a tiger being slaughtered by hundreds of people in Shatkhira, Bangladesh. In 2010, he finished his latest project, Fatalistic tendency, a deep subject concerned with depression that results in violence. In 2010, he received 3rd prize of Jury award in conceptual category of prestigious Viewbook Photostory, Slected as a finalist for the WPO-World Photography Organization Student focus award 2011.


Related links

www.lightstalkers.org/tushikur-rahman

Published on May 30, 2011 by burn magazine. 58 Comments

laura el-tantawy – In the shadow of the pyramids: egypt

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EPF 2011 Finalist


Laura El-Tantawy

In the Shadow of the Pyramids: Egypt

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The revolution of Jan. 25, 2011 revived a long lost sense of pride and strength for Egyptian people.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen Egyptians live under a totalitarian regime pressing down against their dignity. People lost their national pride and unity. Wealth and power rested in the hands of a few who seemed the only ones with the right to live. The masses felt isolated and with this isolation people became foreigners in their own land.

Over the past three decades this country of nearly 85 million – the Arab world’s most populous and traditionally its most revered – became a country of lost souls – ripped apart by political, social and economic turmoil. I didn’t have to go beyond the streets to see the depth of this estrangement.

The signs were this is a country on the verge of an explosion.

“It’s a horrible feeling to realize that your country is weak, your voice is weak, your opinion is weak – to realize that if you sell your soul, your body, your pen and your name, you still wouldn’t be able to afford a loaf of bread,” writes the Egyptian vernacular poet Hesham al-Gokh in “Goha”.

In the 30 years of former President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Egypt became one of the world’s top 10 most corrupt nations. Bribery was common practice to get anything done, from a driver’s license to getting employed. Torture & humiliation of Egyptians was a daily occurrence. At least 24 million can’t read or write & estimates say more than 10 million live outside Egypt in pursuit of a better life. Egypt is one of a handful of countries where poverty forced roughly one million people to make homes out of cemeteries, breathing the spirit of the dead to stay alive.

In 2005 I began to document the lives of everyday Egyptians. The purpose of my work has & is to identify the essence of being Egyptian during & after Mubarak’s era. In doing so I aim to show how events in this strategic North African country can give insight into the future of the Middle East.

In parts, this project has been published before in different places, one of them being BURN magazine.


Bio

Laura El-Tantawy is a British/Egyptian photographer spending her time between London and Cairo. She was born in Worcestershire, England and grew up between Saudi Arabia and Egypt. She works on self-initiated projects.

She worked as a newspaper photographer with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Sarasota Herald-Tribune (USA). In 2006, she became freelance to focus on personal projects. In 2008, she was nominated and accepted as one of 15 photographers from around the world to participate in Reflexions Masterclass, a two-year photo seminar directed by Italian photographer Giogia Fiorio and French curator Gabriel Bauret. In 2005 she started work on her first book documenting her journey through a changing Egypt. As part of her urge to understand the issues, in 2009 she accepted a six-month fellowship at University of Oxford (UK) to research free speech in Egyptian. Her work has been published and exhibited in the US, Europe, Asia and Middle East.


Related links

www.lauraeltantawy.com

Published on May 28, 2011 by burn magazine. 44 Comments

zhe chen – bees

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EPF 2011 Finalist


Zhe Chen

Bees

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They left their lives in the very wounds they had created for themselves.
- Virgil (Roman poet, 70BC – 19BC)

To jeopardize existence for existence itself: ‘Bees’ records a marginalized group of people in China, who, faced with chaos, violence, alienation and irredeemable loss in life, feel propelled to leave physical traces and markings on their bodies, in order to preserve and corroborate a pure and sensitive mind from within.

In 2010, having ‘The Bearable’ (a photo series documenting my own self-inflictions over the past 4 years) as my passport, I had the opportunity to develop a close relationship with some of these obstinate souls – the bees. During the process of exchanging secrets with them, I crossed paths with certain possibilities that were formerly untouched but towards which I had struggled greatly in my personal life. I’m struck by the unyielding actions and reactions that the bees carry on with while encountering sudden and acute emotional fluxes, and moved by the recurrent effort they make to recover themselves afterwards. No matter how different our lives seem to be, we undoubtedly share common psychological experiences.

I hope my photographs inquire upon society’s prejudice and preconception towards this community, and not become illustrations or pictorial evidence for the topic at hand: every subject is an individual, not just ‘one of them’ – his or her life cannot be predicted or dictated by any constructed social code or notion. Depression plants the seed of introspection. The bees take it in; They reason it, embrace it and explore it, forming an isolated universe in their own minds. These self-sustained universes contain every reason that explains the ‘abnormality’ that no one who lacks in common experiences could decode. I hope a first glance of my work conveys the idea of secrecy and sentiments, under which lies information awaiting exposure and recognition: like an index page pointing towards all the unanswered questions.


Bio

Brought up in Beijing, Zhe Chen is a photographer currently living in Los Angeles. In the past 4 years, Zhe has been documenting her self-inflicted activities while creating a series of projects focusing on body modification, human hair, post-traumatic stress disorder, identity confusion and memory. Zhe holds a BFA in Photography & Imaging from Art Center College of Design.

Related links

www.zheis.com

Published on May 26, 2011 by burn magazine. 38 Comments

benjamin rusnak – 23º, far from paradise

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EPF 2011 Finalist


Benjamin Rusnak

23º, Far from Paradise

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23º of latitude separate the Equator from the Northern tropic. These latitudes are home to beaches, palms, vacation resorts, idyllic paradise — and poverty.

This is where the sun bares countless dark and desperate lives. This is where the unfortunate location of birth often condemns people to a life of struggle in an unforgiving land, beset with drought and flood, famine and tempest.

Conversely, this is where hope and resilience coexist with tribulation. For the poor, there is a duality to life. In each person, each moment holds joy and pain, a mourning for what is lost and a yearning for what may be. These lands represent a dream holiday to tourists, but they are only an elusive fantasy to millions of residents still hoping for the reality of paradise to become theirs.

I have documented the lives of the poor in the Caribbean and Latin America for a decade. The people I meet struggle, strive, hope, dream, live and die in those 23º. While this region is only one part of the globe, the lives of turmoil and legacies of hope within it are emblematic of people around the world who suffer at the same latitudes. Their lives are separated by a chasm of degrees, in contrast to those living in developed nations to the north and south.

This work in progress seeks to illuminate this intersection of geographic lines with circumstance of birth and how the irony of being poor in paradise creates strength, resilience and a duality of spirit. I believe the broad view of the panoramic format, combined with an often intimate perspective, creates a novel way to explore the relationship between the land and those who must scrape together an existence from it.

To continue this work, I will return to Haiti, where the seismic shifts to land, culture, economy and politics since the 2010 earthquake have made the nation’s story even more poignant to this tale. I also plan to return to violence-plagued Guatemala and to Guyana, a country in a decades-long state of decline.


Bio

Benjamin Rusnak is a humanitarian photojournalist. He has documented poverty in the Caribbean and Latin America since 2000 as staff photographer for Food For The Poor, one of the largest international relief agencies in the United States, based in Coconut Creek, FL. He brought a decade of newspaper experience to telling the stories of those in need in the developing world.

His work has been recognized by Pictures of the Year International, the Best of Photojournalism, the International Photography Awards, the New York Photo Awards, Photo District News, the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, the Alexia Foundation and the China International Press Photo Contest. In 2008, Rusnak won the prestigious Gordon Parks Award. In 2009, his exhibition of Dreams & Tempests premiered as part of the citywide festival, Atlanta Celebrates Photography and has traveled to California (The KONA Gallery), Washington, D.C., and Florida. ZUMA Press represents his editorial work, and zReportage.com and DOUBLEtruck Magazine often feature his essays. He was awarded InterAction’s Effective Assistance Humanitarian Photography Award in 2010.


Related links

www.benjaminrusnak.com

Published on May 24, 2011 by burn magazine. 52 Comments

daria tuminas – ivan and the moon

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EPF 2011 Finalist


Daria Tuminas

Ivan and the Moon

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Ivan is the elder, he is 16. Andrey, nicknamed Moon, is the younger, 14 by now. The two brothers live in a distant village in the northern part of Russia. They are not like regular teenagers, and live in a fairy tale world, yet deeply connected to nature: they go hunting and fishing, can use a joiner’s chisel, play with ghosts at abandoned places, do not want to move to a city, and love nature. Mature and childish. Naive and enigmatic. In this ongoing project I want to show the mysteriousness of the world of these brothers.

The narrative in ‘Ivan and the Moon’ is neither chronological nor event related. It does not have a strict and one-way-to-read plot. All the images are connected to each other on the level of correlated motives and on the level of hypothetical story interpretations. Each picture is supposed to provoke some inquiry about ‘What is going on?’

Moreover, the two brothers are reflections of each other. Many people might even think that they are twins. The main corpus of works contains their individual portraits, so that it is no longer clear who is who. It was also important to show that the world around the boys is itself magical and their games and fantasies are consequences of being a part of this world.

My aim is to follow the brothers through their life (I met them at a folklore expedition) and ‘document’ things that are impossible to document: the world of a boy’s fantasies, ghosts, gods, spirits of specific places, magic itself. Such things usually can not be literally depicted. As J. Szarkowski stated in his famous work ‘Mirrors and Windows’: ‘most issues of importance cannot be photographed’. My goal is to try to photograph the ‘unphotographable’ side of the matter and challenge some formal criteria of ‘classical’ documentary.

Works from this series were published in several magazines (GUP, DigitalPhoto etc.); awarded with the first prize documentary at the Viewbook Photostory Competition, exhibited at several Amsterdam and St-Petersburg’s galleries, at Lodz Fotofestival etc.


Bio

I was born in 1984 in St.-Petersburg, Russia. I have always been interested in approaching photography in several ways. First of all, I am doing academic researches. I wrote an MA thesis about amateur photography at St.-Petersburg State University and for now I am a student at Leiden University’s MA program ‘Film and Photographic Studies’. I am also practicing writing critical essays on photography; and used to be the coordinator and curator of an International Summer School in Photography focused on the new language of documentary and journalistic photography. Currently, I am an intern at Foam magazine (Amsterdam), working in the editorial team. Finally, I also take pictures. ‘Ivan and the Moon’ is my first project.

Published on May 22, 2011 by burn magazine. 96 Comments

mary anne mitchell – altered states

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Mary Anne Mitchell

Altered States

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The waves are crashing and the lone figure is approaching, is he friend or foe?  The girl appears to be washed ashore; is she asleep, just resting, or worse?  The young man is entangled in the net or is he…?

This work documents the world in a manner that transforms the subject into something quite different from reality. The work depicts situations, often mysterious, which draw the viewer into a narrative. The subject often appears isolated in a strange or surreal setting. These depictions sometimes seem like an overlooked moment in our peripheral vision. Other times they feel like they are visions from a whimsical imagination. In each piece, the artist invites the observer into her curious world. They evoke ambiguous moods and each viewer’s response to them will be tempered by their own experiences.


Bio

Mary Anne Mitchell is a freelance photographer in Atlanta, GA.  All of the artwork is shot on film and printed by the artist.


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Mary Anne Mitchell

Published on May 19, 2011 by burn magazine. 12 Comments