The cool little video clip above by maestro Pete Longworth really is the way it is around my loft right now. Creative juices flowing the way they SHOULD always flow but rarely do. My goal in life is to mentor those who seek to marry art, craft, and daily life into one holistic experience. The clip isn’t trying to sell you anything. It is just where we are right now with the RIO edit.

Music By: Peter Goetz

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Alfredo Chiarappa

Crossing Leningrad

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Leningrad, Russia
January 2011

“Stavrogin: … in the Apocalypse the angel swears that there’ll be no more time.

Kirillov: I know. It’s quite true, it’s said very clearly and exactly. When the whole of man has achieved happiness, there won’t be any time, because it won’t be needed. It’s perfectly true.

Stavrogin: Where will they put it then?

Kirillov: They won’t put it anywhere. Time isn’t a thing, it’s an idea. It’ll die out in the mind.”

- The possessed, Fyodor Dostoevsky.

During the winter in Leningrad the night falls in love with time that seems never want to end. And the white mist all around suggests all lovers never to leave each other, and keeps company to the city youth.

After the end of the Communist dictatorship the young russian cultures strongly felt the influences of their contemporary american and european neighbours, so much that 20 years later even the myth of being a city of sex tourism has been lost.
Today in the city of the Great Peter you can breathe european air, and it can be compared to generation dream cities like Berlin and London.

Crossing Leningrad is about post-perestroika youth who wants to go beyond the time they couldn’t see certain films, couldn’t listen western music, radio stations and even wearing jeans.

Bio

Alfredo Chiarappa was born in 1982 in Melfi, a little town in southern Italy, and currently lives in Milan. He holds degrees in communication design from Politecnico in Milan and studied documentary photography at Rome School of Photography. His work is focuses on street culture and young people everyday life. Currently, he is a freelance photographer and he works on his personal projects. He also teaches Digital Media at Politecnico in Milan.

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Alfredo Chiarappa

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Teresa Cos

I Was There – Observations on “The Society of The Spectacle”

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“I Was There” is the first chapter of a long term (lifetime) project which explores western society and its obsession with success. I started by depicting the worlds of art, fashion and culture, where anxiety and struggle for success, together with the desperate need for recognition and approval are ubiquitous; where people live with the constant fear of being considered losers. The images have been taken in 2010 at Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice Film Festival, Milan and London Fashion Weeks, Frieze Art Fair in London and Paris Contemporary Art Fair (FIAC).

I chose these events because they are globalised examples of a bubble (for instance the art industry) that is on the verge of explosion. As wrote Jean Baudrillard: When one looks at the emptiness of current art, the only question is how much such a machine can continue to function in the absence of any new energy, in an atmosphere of critical disillusionment and commercial frenzy, and with all the players totally indifferent? If it can continue, how long will this illusionism last? A hundred years, two hundred? This society is like a vessel whose edges move ever wider apart, and in which the water never comes to the boil.

If one substitutes current art with current society the equation doesn’t really change, does it? And who are these indifferent players, if not us? I want to keep on exploring and understanding photographically the Hyper reality created by consumerism, where people aspirations are dangerously confused with the models of living that the society of the spectacle is constantly selling us and where need has become desire and admiration envy.

To me, it is fundamentally important to understand these social dynamics because, by creating the idea that through a selfish individualism everybody can finally reach extreme forms of wealth and success, one drastically contributes to the social and economic disparities in this world.

Bio

I was born and grew up in a small town called Latisana, in the North East of Italy, a one hour drive from Venice, where I ended up living for six years as an architecture student. It is thanks to architecture that I discovered photography, because it taught me to look at the world through different eyes.

After graduating in 2008, I was in the Italian team of architects and urbanists in the international table of consultation wanted by the French government to produce ideas for the future of Paris. I lived for seven months in the suburbs of the French capital, producing my first important body of work, Banlieue 08/09, that allowed me to be accepted last year onto the Photojournalism & Documentary Photography MA program at London College of Communication, where I graduated with Distinction.

I live and work in London and I am also part of the photography collective Five Eleven Ninety Nine.

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Teresa Cos

Collective Five Eleven Ninety Nine

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Charlotte Tanguy

NYX

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In St-Petersburg, pollen comes out of poplars that were massively planted there after the second World War, in order to fill the holes in the city. Because so many of them were planted, and the pollen started to pollute the city, people became allergic to these pollen.

In St-Petersburg, I met Lielia during these so-called “white nights”, 21st of June 2010. I saw her walking through a cloud of white dots, pollen. She refused to be photographed, but took me to her home anyway. She showed me a cut out photograph of her son Anton, a journalist who got killed in St-Petersburg in 2000.

Her dog, a dalmatian, was jumping on me.

This project is about hopelessly trying to own absence… a walk with no beginning and no end through St-Petersburg, haunted by Anton’s photograph.

I came back to see Lielia in St-Petersburg in February, and will go there next time in June.

Bio

Born in 1979 in Lyon, France. Based in Paris.
Graduated from Ecole Nationale des Arts decoratifs de Paris (ENSAD) in 2004, started photography in 2008, and joined Agence Vu’ in January 2011.

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Charlotte Tanguy

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Diarmait Grogan

New Way Home

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‘New Way Home’ incorporates autobiographical elements into a non-linear narrative on longing, loss, joy, intimacy and vulnerability. The result is a subjective reflection on the human condition. Disparate experiences coalesce in a body of work that is ultimately concerned less with an external reality than with highlighting ‘fragmentary moments of interior significance’.

As individuals we have this desire to relate everything to ourselves.  I’m always looking for new images to replace the ones I’ve already made, to express the same feelings more succinctly or more accurately. This is why there is a certain anxiety present in my work, alongside a sense of melancholy. Perhaps it’s about my own fear of disappearance. The camera is an extension of my longing, a yearning for associations, for meaning and for stability in the face of mortality. But the images are made with the understanding that any such stability is a phantasm. Any truths expressed in the work are always partial and contingent.

Authenticity is what I’m striving for. I only want to work in a territory that I’m intimately familiar with. The raw material of the work is natural, but as soon as an image is made it becomes a kind of fiction. I find that tension between truth and fiction, objectivity and subjectivity, to be endlessly fascinating.

Bio

Diarmait Grogan was born in Ireland in 1983. He studied photography in the Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Dun Laoghaire, graduating with first class honors in 2008. His work has been exhibited internationally, including an exhibition as part of the ‘Exposure’ program of Format09 International Photography Festival in Derby, UK. He recently presented his first solo show in his home city of Dublin.

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Blog

Hi David,
Exciting news! The photo of mine from the workshop that you ran on Burn was used in Life magazine’s 2012 year in pictures special issue. The caption has some really nice things to say about the picture as well. I would never have this photo if you hadn’t told me that my photo of sleeping protesters from the day before sucked and I should keep working it. So thank you, and I’m pleased to say that the investment in the class last fall has already started paying for itself, financially, professionally and spiritually.

Hope all is going well. I really enjoyed reading the updates on Rio online, and can’t wait to see the book when it’s done.

Cheers & happy new year

Andy Kropa

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Alberto Lizaralde

Frail

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Frail is about those everyday moments when everything collapses. Little moments where our life changes, spins and breaks. Suspended moments in which something has just happened or is about to. Situations in which time, objects and places lose their physical nature. Tiny fragments of life which, when put together, redefine our idea of control of ourselves and the world around us.
We are vulnerable in the everyday.

Bio

Alberto Lizaralde was born in 1979 in Madrid (Spain). In 2002 he obtained a degree in Advertisement in Madrid. He worked as a film critic and directed two short films and some cultural live events. He currently lives in Madrid (Spain) and combines his work as creative supervisor at Contrapunto BBDO advertising agency with his projects in documentary photography.

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Alberto Lizaralde

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Valerio Spada

Gomorrah Girl

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Its about adolescence, choices and chances in a land of Camorrah (the name of the Mafia in Naples).
On March 27th, 2004, Annalisa Durante, at the age of 14, was killed in Forcella, a Naples area under the Giuliano clan’s egemony. Annalisa and two of her friends were in front of her father’s small store, leaning on a car, talking with Salvatore Giuliano, a young Camorrah boss, then 22. Two killers on a motorcycle and uncovered faces pop out of a side street and open fire. Their aim is to kill Guiliano, who hides behind the car and starts to shoot back at them. The two friends of Annalisa find a getaway on the rigth side in a small street, while Annalisa runs in the opposite direction, where the killers are driving away. One of the three bullets fired by Giuliano hits Annalisa in the head, immediately she falls lifeless to the ground. Salvatore Giuliano was charged for homicide and is serving 24 years in prison.

This photographic journey starts from Annalisa’s father, Giovanni Durante, who still works in the same store in Forcella. Since that day he brings breakfast with milk at 9 every morning to his daughter’s grave. Annalisa was buried along with her cell phone, which was her father’s wish, since she used to call him five times per day, every day. Generations of wrong choices and mistakes that have ripped families and whole communities in this region apart.

In this book there are portraits of girls whose destinies can still change if not the destiny of the area in which they are growing up. Annalisa was one of them. “Gomorrah Girl” shows the problems of becoming a woman in a dangerous, crime ridden area. Adolescence is almost denied, at 9 they dance, move and make themselves up as tv personalities and dream to become one of them. At 13 or 14, very often, they become mothers, skipping the adolescence which is lived fully everywhere else in Italy. I think I’d like to make a series of books on this, and keep shooting in the same area for all my life.

Bio

Born in 1972 in Milan. After some years of occasional works in fashion and commercials, directed some music videos. For the last 4 years he’s shooting in Naples and self published his first book, in March 2011. Currently lives between New York, Paris and Piacenza.

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Valerio Spada

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G.M.B. Akash

The Bitterest Pill – A new danger for child sex workers in Bangladesh

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800 women and girls live and work inside the fortress-like brothel in Faridpur, central Bangladesh. Many of them are underage, and most receive no pay because they are chhukri – bonded workers. That girl as young as 12 should be condemned to a life of sex slavery is bad enough, but they also face a new horror, one that could snuff out any chance of a future they might have had.

The horror is a steroid called Oradexon, a drug identical to one used to fatten cattle for market. The girls are given Oradexon by their madams in order to make them look older and more attractive to prospective clients. One of its side effects is water retention, oedema, which can result in a ‘plump’ look that is considered attractive by some Bangladeshi men.

The drug is highly addictive and has severe long-term health implications, impairing the kidneys, increasing blood pressure and interfering with normal hormone production.

Nodi 15, is one of many girls who use the drug. She says she doesn’t have another name – ‘I’m just Nodi – it means River’ – and she has been in the brothel for two years. Many of the girls here have been sold by their stepmother or even their own mothers – and some are second-generation sex workers, born to a prostitute and an unknown client. ‘I started taking the cow drug a year ago, and I take two tablets a day,’ Nodi says. She thinks it makes her look healthier. ‘The customers like us to look healthy. I got a little plumper when I started taking the drug.’ The existence she describes is a miserable one. ‘How can I be happy here? God knows – there is no happiness here,’ she says.

In a conservative country prostitution is will of fate. No one knows the Story of those faceless girls who may be sold by their boyfriend, husband or parents. No basic right, having no admiration for own self & torture of uncertainty made them unvoiced. Whenever I met those young girls I tried to be one of them. They have no dreams; they only live in reality which is killing them ever.

Bio

My journey to the world of photography began long ago. For years I have been travelling widely, covering various social issues faced by the lesser known people, particularly in my country Bangladesh.

My work has been featured in many major international publications including: National Geographic, Vogue, Time, Sunday Times, Newsweek, Geo, Stern, Der Spiegel, The Fader, Brand Ein, The Guardian, Marie Claire, Colors, The Economist, The New Internationalist, Kontinente, Amnesty Journal, Courier International, PDN, Die Zeit, Days Japan, Hello, and Sunday Telegraph of London.

In 2002 I became the first Bangladeshi to be selected for the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass in the Netherlands. In 2004 I have received the Young Reporters Award from the Scope Photo Festival in Paris, again being the first Bangladeshi to receive the honor. In 2006 I was awarded World Press Photo award and released my first book First Light.

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A photojournalist’s blog

Yes, three years ago right about now I launched Burn Magazine as an evolution of my Road Trips blog. I as the publisher and curator, and out of a pool of eager helpers, Anton Kusters became the creative director/tech guru. Together Anton and I allowed Burn to evolve in its special way, flying by the seats of our pants. Chris Bickford, Tom Hyde, Erica McDonald, David McGowan ,Eric Espinosa,  and Andrew Sullivan were all on hand at my place in New York to help launch Burn. We were drinking, smoking, laughing and working really hard to make Burn a reality. Sleeping bags all over the floor. Ideas were popping up all over. Everyone contributed. Kelly Lynn James came up with the name Burn. I knew when I read it, that was it. We all did. Anton came up with a logo design I liked. Tom Hyde secured our domain name. Game on.

In the last three years on Burn (and 1 yr. prior on Road Trips)  we have given away $52,500. in grant money (tax exempt donation status through Magnum Foundation), published two limited edition print magazines Burn 01 and 02 featuring legends and emerging photographers alike, paid photographers for original work published here on Burn , and have done it all with reader support. Lean and clean. We thank you for this support.

Any help you can give Burn in 2012 would be most appreciated. If every reader here donated 50 cents a month, we would be functional in the business sense. Right now a very few of you give a whole lot. The $15,000. EPF grant that we have awarded three times and a new one coming in 2012 is supported by a handful of generous donors. Same for the payments to photographers.

My Riobook online workshop which just ran for a month with a buck99 paywall worked. This was not a profitable venture of expenses against income if you just look at it narrowly , but I learned a lot. It can only be described as a rather magical experience for all of us. It was like when we started Burn itself. Audience participation. I did what I do, yet the audience jumped in with opinions, critique, and I answered all questions put to me. Everyone was happy (almost everyone) and I was able to produce the One Night In Rio book, or at least a major part of it (see below a sample of the working wall). www.theriobook.com

Few knew about this effort , yet I still had a paying audience. With content on the net.  I think there are many ways to educate, inform, and yes entertain. I am just trying to help get some things done right in this now helter skelter world of photography. I refuse to believe that the world of serious photography is either over nor that talented photographers cannot be compensated. I might be wrong, but I will go down swinging and trying new ideas or old ideas done in a new way…Whatever works.

I do not want to be big, I just want to be good. I have had enough success now online to be able to garner nice support for my work and for Burn, yet again it is those who put in such long hours for me like Anton, and Diego, and Michelle who need just a bit of help. Burn  is a labor of love.

Frankly, a labor of love is what I want to buy!! Anytime and every time. A house, a car, a meal , you name it…if it is a handcrafted personal labor of love, I want it!!  So, that is what we do here. Our print magazines, our books , our workshops, will always be small in numbers, always limited one of a kind,  and always done with care…Sure we will make mistakes. Yet, our intent will always be a perfection.

Well, almost. To take the picture above  my good buddy at the Outer Banks  Frank Brown and I had a fun afternoon. You can imagine what led up to this shot. Hey it is Christmastime. Don’t you wish you had been there? I live in a wooden house. Need I say more? All is just fine as it turned out. Popping another cold beer, getting a little crazy, first day back home from RIO (see below) .

I truly wish all of my loyal audience the most joyful holiday please. Forget the commercial stuff. Well at least minimize. Relish your friends and your families. Stop by my place for a cold one. Some of you will. Fire going, under control, and always a nice place to hang.

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Tamas Dezso

Here, Anywhere

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The map of Hungary is speckled with capsules of time. During the political transformation twenty years ago, as the country experienced change, some places were simply forgotten… Streets, blocks of flats, vacant sites and whole districts became little self-defined enclosures, in which today a certain out-dated, awkward, longed-to-be-forgotten Eastern European feeling still lingers. These places seem to be at one with other parts of the city, but their co-existence in time is only apparent; Each place fades in accordance with its own specific chronology, determined by its past. That what remains is then silently reconquered by nature, or enveloped by the lifestyles of the generations of tomorrow. Of the original inhabitants, who’ve never fully integrated with society, soon only traces will remain, until they, too, will inevitably disappear over the course of time.

I do not observe these mini-universes in the hope of recording them in their entirety, but I rather try to capture the essence of these worlds by elevating certain chosen details of this disappearing existence. The series, begun in 2009, examines the typically transitional period and symbolic locations of post-communist space which, due to disinterest or thoughtlessness, is slowly vanishing, and fading into images. But for the time being, they are still around. Here.

Here, anywhere.

Bio

Tamas Dezso is a documentary fine art photographer working on long-term projects focusing on the margins of society in Hungary, Romania and in other parts of Eastern Europe. His photographs have been published in The New York Times, National Geographic, TIME, GEO, Le Monde Magazine, Ojo de Pez, Polka Magazine and many others.

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Tamas Dezso

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Amnon Gutman

The Promised Land

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In June 2002, the government of Israel decided to erect a physical barrier to separate Israel and the West Bank in an attempt to minimize the entry of Palestinian terrorists into the country. This has partially solved today’s terrorist infiltration problem but has caused grief and pain to innocent Palestinians in every area in which it was constructed, along the 1967 Green Line. In the southern region of Mt. Hebron, the movement of Palestinians who are coming into the country to find work has been disrupted. These people and their families are paying the price for the system of collective control that Israel has decided to implement with the erection of the Separation Barrier. Typically, a day’s work in the West Bank for a builder usually comes to about $18, while a day’s work in Israel brings them $60 – $110. Their families have come to rely on this income. Ironically, these Palestinian men, who are determined to keep providing for their families are the ones who are physically building the State of Israel. They endure terrible conditions as illegal workers, sleeping rough in river creeks, under bridges, on building sites and under highways in the Beer Sheva area, trying to avoid getting caught. If the Palestinians are apprehended, they go through a security check and when found innocent of terrorist intentions, they are sent back to their homes. And so the wearisome cycle continues. Israeli border patrol police and the army are in a constant but only partially successful race to apprehend these Palestinians. Every wall has its weak points. For a young man determined enough, it becomes a way of life- waiting for the right moment, for the prepaid accomplice driver waiting on the other side, depending on his faithful cell phone and on his buddies, all of whom are adjusting strategies to accommodate for the Separation Barrier.

Bio

Growing up in a war conflicted region, I have always been deeply aware of the possibility of loss. Photography empowers me to share this insight, demonstrating the horrible, equalizing moment of the possibility of loss, the universality of vulnerability. There is nothing clearer, nothing more precious than the preservation of the life force in the face of violence and disease. This is what I am attempting to articulate with my black and white images of the world.

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Amnon Gutman

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Jason Florio

“The Long Fight for Kawtoolie – A Quiet Determination in the Jungles of Burma”

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Sixty two years ago in Karen State, Burma, the Karen people were forced into a David and Goliath conflict against the powerful authoritarian Burmese military regime who have tried to push the Karen people off the map through a brutal and systematic policy of murder, rape, forced labor and the complete destruction of their villages. Six decades on, and now considered the world’s longest current running conflict, the Karen people continue to be brutalized in an ongoing pursuit to cleanse them from their homeland they call Kawtoolie.

Working on assignment in Karen State in 2010 I was enamored by the calm resilience of the Karen people, both volunteer soldiers and civilians who all seem to possess a quiet determination backed up by their motto ‘never surrender’. Moved by the stoic and yet serene nature of Karen and horrified with their stories of the human rights violations against them, I decided to return in February 2011, self-funded, to bring the face of the Karen people, and their highly under-reported struggle to survive against the brutal Burmese junta to a greater audience in the hope of affecting some positive change.

Bio

Jason Florio is a NYC based photographer who seeks to create a conduit between cultures and societies by stripping down the seeming boundaries of language, religion and ideologies and to help show the commonalities that we share.

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Jason Florio

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Mikolaj Nowacki

Odra

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Odra is the second largest river in Poland. Its waters joins three countries: Czech, where it starts, Poland and Germany. I grew up on the banks of this river in the communist era playing with my best friend on boats and on a landfill of anchors, observing barges that transported coal. I often dreamed of jumping on such a barge and going to the unknown. When I was a teenager I often walked many kilometers along the river searching for rare species of birds as an amateur ornithologist. At that time, Odra was just a beautiful sewage – a mixture of water, fecal and toxic, irritating chemical substances.
Now, after 22 years of post-communist transformation  Odra is slightly cleaner but barges became a rarer view.
This project is a continuation of my fascination in this river. Through these photographs I want to explore people’s connections with Odra and to explore its natural beauty. I want to share my impressions with viewers hoping that this story will somehow increase peoples need of protecting this beautiful river.

Bio

Born in Wroclaw, Poland in 1972. Graduated at the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics at the University of Wroclaw. Received Master’s degree in Law in 1997. Finished post graduate studies; his doctoral thesis covered International Space Law. He renounced law and discontinued his doctorate for photography. Mikolaj is a freelancer cooperating e.g. with “National Geographic Poland” and “Newsweek Poland”. Since 2006 he participated in numerous workshops with National Geographic photographer Tomasz Tomaszewski. In 2010 he became a student of the co-founder of VII agency Antonin Kratochvil.

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Francesca Mancini

Asylum, seeking Refuge.

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This is the story of a young man aged twenty, this is the story of a man aged thirty, this is the story of a boy. This is the story of someone who, out of necessity or choice, is compelled to fight a system and to pay the consequences: forced escape.
He leaves everything behind. Family, home, girlfriend or often a wife and children, sometimes a good job and a bit of money. He has to say goodbye to the sweetness and the colours of his homeland for ever.
He leaves everything, otherwise they will kill him.
He’s an Iraqi, Eritrean, Nigerian. A Somali, Afghan or Kurd.
They have told him that he believes in the wrong god.
That land, where his people have always lived, does not belong to him.
They have ordered him to kill for a cause, whatever it might be.
So he escapes.
Convinced that his life is worth more. Knowing that he is young, that he can, and wants, to do anything: any kind of work, even the most humble, to have another chance, a new future, no matter where. He comes to Italy to forget.
The one thing, the only thing he’s looking for is a new system. To try and simply be what he is: a young man of twenty, a man of thirty, a boy.

Bio

Francesca Mancini made her debut as a professional photographer when she was 24, shooting her first international reportages on war refugees in the Balkans and southern Italy, and in Kosovo immediately after the war, and on the effects of pollution on the environment in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
After studying photography for three years in Rome, she worked for the Italian press and published her photos in leading daily newspapers.
From 2007 to 2008 she worked as a freelance between Kosovo and Serbia, documenting the social and political changes in the region and the difficulties linked to Kosovo’s independence.
In 2009 she started a project on political asylum seekers in Italy, which was published in the book Rifugiati by Christopher Hein.
Mancini’s photos have been published in Le Monde Magazine, The Independent, Newsweek Japan, Epsilon, Internazionale, L’Espresso, Panorama.
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Prospekt

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Tomasz Lazar

Theater of Life

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In 2008 we began working on the long term project entitled ‘Theater of life’. Themes are the changes occurring in our society under the influence of culture and technology, which are increasingly present in our everyday lives.

Historically, Platon developed the notion of Theatrum Mundi – Theatre of the World. Place where a man is only a puppet, an actor whose role is to play its normal role on stage of life. Planned by the powerful being known as the creator (Demiurg, God). At present, the place of this being has been taken by mass media.  Mass media, with which we have to deal every day. They have increasingly greater impact on us, our life and behavior. People under the influence of mass culture that comes straight from the television or the Internet, get lost in the border of two worlds: the real world in which they live and the world created by the media.

Topics touched upon in his essay can best be seen in most developed countries. Places where people use more and more technology, areas in which technology, the media have the greatest impact on people. Therefore, a further stage of the project is to travel to places like Tokyo (Japan), New York (USA), Las Vegas (USA), Hong Kong and Sydney (Australia). As well as to further develop this theme in my home country and the countries adjacent to it.

Bio

I was born in Szczecin(Poland), 31th march 1985. Studied Information Technology at Westpomeranian University of Technology. During my studies I discovered photography . After several months I discovered that it is my passion and that is what i want to do in my life. After three years I decided to begin photography studies at the European Academy of Photography. I studied under the guidance of Tomasz Tomaszewski, Lorenzo Castore, Michael Ackerman, Isabel Jaroszewska and others. Since December 2010 I started being apprentice in the biggest studio in Poland – Makata, to develop my capabilities with using artificial light in practice. I was also involved in various workshops, like with Tomasz Tomaszewski on photojournalism and photo edition. At present, I am planning to expand on my photography knowledge by studying at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava (the Czech Republic).
Currently I am working on a project titled Theatre of life, whose task is to move aspects of everyday life and cultural changes taking place in society as a result of the development of media and technology in the world.
I am interested in mainly the impact of various factors on human life (such as culture, technology). I get pleasure from every moment of being with people and the possibility of taking pictures.

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Tomasz Lazar

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Baptiste Giroudon

Working with Democracy

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This project is a photographic research of the concept of Democracy. As a photo reporter I try to work on contemporary issues implying a wider angle rather than just the next morning front page. As an artist I work with the single image process, which comes from a personal wish to show the world with a sharp and thoughtful point of view.

In every story I work on, I find myself facing a different situation that almost constantly brings up democracy. This isn’t advocacy for, or a critic of democracy, but the intention is to show where and how in different aspects of our globalized world, this concept can be understood, reclaimed and put forward. I have chosen democracy as a common factor not only to describe a blurry concept, but also to raise a question that everyone shares: what has democracy become today?

Art and photojournalism exist in what Susan Sontag has termed ‘febrile rivalry’ and my intentions equal those of a tightrope walker trying to express himself without falling to one side or another. My approach stands in the news media and I look for raw material in countries that make the headlines. The thread of the project is Lincoln’s famous quote: “the power to the people, by the people, for the people”, elections, demonstrations, public maters and revolutions are examples for me to draw sketches of pictorial symbols of Democracy.

I am aware of the effectiveness of both my experience and my naivety, I use them both as much as I can into the research, the act of photographing, the editing, and are my only weapons I can use to fight.

Bio

With my father’s old camera I left to Argentina when I was 17 years old. This is where I started photojournalism. In 2001 the country fell into a terrible economic crash. I understood that today Photojournalism should avoid the cynical perception; it should be used as a positive tool, not to mention the need to find new ways of assimilating and representing the real. After my first exhibition of the Argentina’s pictures, I worked on a long term project that focused on the backstage of the politic, fashion and cinema industries. It was exhibited as a personal show in Paris (AAA gallery) and Brussels (Jonas Gallery). After a few collective exhibition on my new project “Working with Democracy”, I just finished a story in Egypt: Life after the revolution. Today I keep working for magazines, newspaper and personal projects.

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Baptiste Giroudon

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Ann George

The Three Chapters of Illumination: God Calling

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This body of work represents a metaphorical journey of my advancement through Three Chapters Of Illumination; burden, enlightenment, and liberty. Throughout the series, I used the image and representation of the wolf to symbolize fear and the girl to signify mankind.

In Chapter One, fearfulness establishes an internal anxiety, a captivity of sort, which evokes feelings of hopelessness. There entangled, is an existence of wandering of being misguided by unwise choices. Howling in despair at never breaking through the barricade, it is as though one is always against the wall. Gravity’s power manifests in materialism and things of this world and it seems as if loneliness and desolation is the destiny of the grave.

Chapter Two reveals the opportunity for change. Coaxed by the messenger the truth is unearthed in the form of knowledge, the basis for all illumination… just trusting this wisdom moves one forward into the third and final chapter.

As confidence and trust is gained, power embraced, and victory unwrapped, the wolf remains. Now, with the authority of the truth as a weapon, he is controlled and powerless. It is in this power and the promise of it that one becomes fire proofed with freedom. Joy and purpose give rise to inspiration. This inspiration, infused with passion, participates in loving obedience and the gifts of truth. These now are shared others. As spiritual strength is gained through this journey, it is, in the end, the wolf that retreats. There is joyful liberty in a souls progress to freedom!

Bio

I’m visual artist who melds pixels, paper, and paint to create photographic fusions that celebrate my native Louisiana as well as people and places that move me. In an effort to create images that reflect a sense of nostalgia, I blend Photoshop techniques with oils, glazes, and waxes to create texture and depth. I meld pixels, paper and paint to create photographic fusions, I make an attempt to portray the role of inspirational storyteller through imagery, and look for ways to satisfy my vintage eye in the camera, in the computer, in the printing, and in the paint.

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Ann George

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Gustavo Jononovich

YUMA

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I traveled to Cuba because my girlfriend decided to do an internship in a hospital in La Havana, she’s a Doctor. Until then, I had always made photographs guided by a specific theme, trying to tell something about other people’s misfortunes. I decided to experience photography in a different way this time. I wasn’t interested in telling or describing anything about the well-known political and historical characteristics of the Cuban system. I didn’t want to need to look for ‘useful situations’. I tried to forget that I was there.

Liberating myself of having to tell something about Cuba allowed me to connect in a more authentic way with the place. Photographing using only my instinct allowed me to discover what I was feeling. My method was to walk the same streets over and over again, in silence, just focusing in contemplating. I sometimes felt attracted to the expression of the shapes and textures and to the simple beauty of nature. Other times I felt I was just photographing my own sense of calmness or the mystery that Cuba inspired me. Yuma is the way Cubans call foreigners, I was the Yuma.

Bio

Gustavo Jononovich was born in Buenos Aires in 1979. In 2008 he began as a freelance photographer, after two years of training covering local news as a contract photographer for an Argentine based newspaper.

His first long-term book project RICHLAND, currently in progress, is about the over-exploitation of the natural resources in Latin America and the resulting long-term negative effects, both human and environmental. His approach to photography led him far away from covering breaking news, being more interested in providing an in-depth analysis on the stories.
His work has been published in Newsweek Japan, PDFX12, the Black Snapper, Global Post, Bite! and Lunatic Magazine, among others.

AWARDS:
- POYi Latin America 2011 – Migration and Human Trafficking Stories – 2nd prize
- ICP Infinity Award in Photojournalism 2010 – Nominee
- Encuentro Internacional de Foto y Periodismo ‘Ciudad de Gij’n’ 2010 – Finalist
- Environmental Photographer of The Year 2009 – Climate Change – 2nd prize

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Gustavo Jononovich

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Michael Weintrob

INSTRUMENTHEAD

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INSTRUMENTHEAD is a photographic series created to tell the story of the musicians in a surrealistic style without showing their faces. This is a project five years in the making with over 150 musicians to date. Some of the artists that have participated in this project to date are: Bootsy Collins (James Brown, P-Funk), Mickey Hart (Grateful Dead), King Sunny Ade, Tina Weymouth (Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club), Zakir Hussain (Shakti, Masters of Percussion), Lenny White (Miles Davis, Return to Forever), Bill Summers (Herbie Hancock and The Head Hunters), Derek Trucks (Allman Brothers Band), Peter Asher and many more.
“Over the last 15 years I have met a lot of working musicians and I want to turn people on to the artists I have come to know and respect,” says Weintrob about the project. “I am humbled that all of these talented musicians have come forward to par- ticipate in the project; the response has been incredible.”
Weintrob has taken this project on the road, having shot por- traits at legendary venues such as Red Rocks Amphitheater, Preservation Hall and Tipitinas in New Orleans and Mama Rosas Blues Club in Chicago.
The project will culminate as a coffee table book and travelling exhibition that will be a who’s who of modern musicians.
For more information and updates about this project visit the website: www.instrumenthead.com

Bio

Michael Weintrob’s clients benefit from his ability to consistently produce intimate photographs under a variety of conditions. Whether it is a candid portrait, a live performance, or a cultural event, Michael aims to capture both spontaneity and clarity in his subjects.
“I like to bring out the personality of the people in my photographs,” Michael explains. “For example when I shoot musicians in the studio I try to create a relaxed vibe and let people be who they are. I move really quickly and try to improvise with my camera.”
The skill and ease of Michael’s technique has resulted in a growing reputation both in and outside the music industry. Born in Birmingham, Alabama and currently residing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Michael’s images have appeared in publications such as Rolling Stone, Newsweek People, Spin, Mojo, Billboard, Relix, Jazz Times and Downbeat.  Michael has photographed album images for renowned artists he has photographed include Bootsy Collins, Burning Spear, Taj Mahal, Gov’t Mule, Charlie Hunter and many others.

Michael’s work—which is well-known in musical circles—is now expanding into new avenues. Along with working for corporate clients (Sony, Blue Note, EMI, Carefusion, Loews Hotels), Michael has donated his time and effort to raising money for the New Orleans Musicians Assistance Foundation and his photography was auctioned off by Sothebys to help provide musical instruments to children affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Michael continues to work as the principal photographer for several music festivals (he is Staff Photographer for the 2011 Barcelona International Jazz Festival) and as a house photographer (Feinsteins at the Loews Regency Hotel). He is also developing a major publishing project that will highlight his unique “anthropomorphic photography” featuring musicians posing with their instruments.

Exhibiting the ease and skill of improvisational jazz player, Michael’s photography continues to explore the depths of the human soul in all its complexity.

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Michael Weintrob

Instrumenthead