Archive for the 'photographic essays' Category

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thomas freteur – abu sakha…

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Thomas Freteur

Abu Sakha…

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Mohammed Abu Sakha used to be a normal, cheerful kid, despite the violence he witnessed in the West Bank in 2004. In 2008, he joined the first Palestinian circus school, an organization that trains Palestinian children from various West Bank cities throughout the year. When summer comes, they hit the road, taking the kids for a Mobile Circus Tour.

“I feel circus brings me the chance to send my message from Palestine to the world”, he tells. “I don’t speak English very much so I can’t communicate with everybody outside of Palestine. Circus brought me that chance. I can use it as a expression tool to tell our stories.”

I followed Mohammed in August 2009 during a tour of the circus.

In the night of August 24th 2009, the Israeli Occupation army surrounded the house of Mohammed Abu Sakha in the old city of Jenin. His parents were told that they just wanted to talk to him outside, but instead they took him and put him into jail. At that point, Mohammed had just turned 18. He was accused of throwing stones at one of the Israeli attacks in 2004 during the second Intifada – at which point he was 13 years old.


Bio

In 2005, I was 25 years old and I shared the same passion about photo documentary with three friends. We founded the photographers’ collective “Out of Focus”, based in Brussels.  Since then, I usually work for local associations and NGO’s. I am also doing a personal project concerning circus around our world like the Palestinian Circus School. It’s more about daily life than shows, and more particularly about the use of art in conflict situations such as occupied territories.

For the two last years, I also coordinate with the collective specific exhibitions. We regularly spread our images out of their usual context by exhibiting in the streets and open spaces. An interesting way to generate reflection…


Related links

c.photoshelter.com/c/outoffocus


Editor’s note:

Please only one comment per person under this essay.. Further discussions should take place under Dialogue..

Many thanks… david alan harvey

jerome brunet – cops

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Jérôme Brunet

Cops: Riding Shotgun with Texas Sheriffs

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When asked why I’m interested in law enforcement, I’m compelled to reply, “We all should be.”  The fact that we know so incredibly little about our ‘boys in blue’ all though we see them on our street corners and of course in more dramatized versions on television and in Hollywood, I’ve always been interested in the symbolic aspect of the modern day police officer; the man with the badge, gun and authority to dramatically change a persons life forever. Societies apparent answer to all life’s little and not so little problems. However bleak and insignificant a situation may seem, officers are constantly dealing with lost children, family quarrels, various assemblies of homeless and confronting each day, the violence and corruption humanity inflicts on each other everyday.

During the six months I spent with a multitude of Deputy sheriffs in El Paso county, south west Texas in 1997, I had the rare opportunity to follow and record the everyday activities of these men and women. I managed to capture a few strong moments of the out-of-the-ordinary happenstance’s of these law enforcement officers, people not unlike you and I who share varying difficult tasks ranging from the mundane routine of pages of paperwork to absolute, life threatening danger, ugliness, insanity which ultimately leads to an inevitable breakdown of values and morals. This is an account, albeit brief, of a police officers job description.

These ‘Wild West’ ancestors keep somewhat true to their past. The majority of the men and women I interacted with were primarily Hispanic. Because of their ancestry they were able to bring forth a much appreciated warmth and understanding that I and, I’m sure, the rest of the townspeople, who were also Hispanic, enjoyed and accepted openly. I was first impressed with the equipment used by the officers, with a ‘larger-than-life’ resemblance to the grandiose American lust for “bigger is better” with such names as Chevrolet, Harley-Davidson, Ray Ban, Smith & Wesson. However, as the weeks wore on I watched these officers who exuded obvious professionalism accomplish their missions ranging from routine I.D. checks to reports, endless hours spent on surveillance duty which sometimes ended up being hundreds of kilometers down dirt roads to the sudden adrenaline rush during a dangerous bust.

Murphy’s Law never became so evident until this project. A law explaining the fact that things have a tendency to happen when you least expect it or as one of the deputies so eloquently described it. “It’s when the shit hits the fan!”. After hours of uninterrupted patrolling with a K-9 unit on a grave yard shift, we pulled up to the local truck stop on the I-10 highway. Apart from the lonely truck driver stirring his coffee endlessly, only one table at the back of the restaurant was occupied.  All deputy sheriffs and one stray highway patrol officer.  You can only imagine what might go on in their minds as you sit at a table like this one. Conversations running from family life to pay cuts, shoptalk to the guy that got away. You would catch the odd lost gaze out the window into a universe unknown to most.  A place where many do not return.  It’s only after receiving your meal ordered off a menu mainly composed of picture that the dispatch calls out “to all available officers code 10-50″ — a hit and run victim.  As quickly as we had arrived, we leave our untouched food behind, bolting for the door.  With sirens blazing, an agitated dog shifts from side to side, tension mounts.  To the untrained eye, the scene looks like total havoc, lights flashing in every direction, flares are scattered across a four lane intersection, a small white object catches my attention, it’s a shoe roughly ten meters from where the victim is lying.  Paramedics surround the body trying to keep its pulse.  The feeling of helplessness overwhelms me as a medical helicopter lands directly behind us, and two doctors try to revive him, it is too late.  After a grueling hour of unsuccessful tries, the body is covered with a white sheet.  Time of the deceased – 4:30 am. To my knowledge, no one was arrested for this senseless brutal act.  It was only then that we returned to the uneventful truck stop. Just another day in the life of the deputy sheriff.

Certain photographs betray a mood of pending violence when an ordinary family quarrel may well end up in a blood bath. In this respect, the bullet proof vest worn under the shirt of all these cop’s is highly revealing, (which in some cases I wore myself). Besides, the repression of drug trafficking constitutes the major part of the work done by this border police force. Roads linking Mexico to the U.S., such as the I-10, are sensitive arteries of a flourishing contraband. Even though another deputy in a deep sigh, admitted to me catching only ten percent of the actual traffic, a task force made up of U.S. Customs, D.E.A., Texas and New Mexico police have seized over 30 kilos of heroin, 2 tons of cocaine and 75 tons of marijuana. Even though these quantities sound enormous, actually landing on a large bust was a different story, only luck and perseverance enabled me to land on what was to be one of US’s largest single drug bust in US’s history.  As a nervous Mexican driver arrives at the U.S. border and a routine check is made on his car, officers reveal neatly packed away in the trunk, 23.3 pounds of black tar heroin, estimated at 24 million dollars. This package is later revealed to the local press in Hollywoodesque fashion. I watch in amazement and think of the outcome of this Mexican peasant paid 1000 dollars to transport this load into the land of the free.

Texas, the second largest  state in the U.S. also boasts the highest rate of incarceration (700 for 100 000).  In an ultramodern county jail of El Paso, Texas, I witnessed different aspects of “the inside world”. Body searches, finger printing and delousing before the anonymous inmate dons the regulation blue overalls inscribed E.P.C.D.F. (El Paso County Detention Facility). On the top floor is the outdoor gym, from which you can admire the end of the Rocky Mountains and the beginning of the Sierra Madre into Mexico. Caged like lions, 40 federal prisoners await transport to a large prison. I am placed alone with one guard in this cage. Surprisingly enough, like a ghost, I hover through the crowd unnoticed, my heart beating for what felt like an eternity. Prisoners can only be exposed to the natural light of the gymnasium a sparsely granted privilege of only three hours a week. An afternoon spent with the elite S.R.T. (Sheriff Reaction Team) proved to provide more excitement. This team made up of tough looking officers is specially trained to counter an unlikely riot in the prison. I was presented a billboard full of makeshift weapons made by previous inmates, everything from hand sharpened spikes, to knives made out of tooth brush handles with razor blades attached to their ends. All used for assassination purpose by gang members thriving to in the “inside world”.

We will find in the police officers, goodness, honesty, corruption and brutality. In many cases we are the police, and like it or not we are responsible of their actions as much as our own. The more we know about them, the more we observe and tie ourselves to them, and the more this society will feel secure.

This testimony shares a few privileged moments into the life of these Texas and New Mexico cops, as well as revealing the true backdrop of American culture.

Bio:

A freelance photojournalist Jérôme Brunet was born in southern France and raised in Ontario, Canada. After obtaining his O.S.S.D. majoring in visual arts, he started his post secondary education in Paris, France, at the E.F.E.T. School of Photography, graduating in 1997. Jérôme Brunet has been published internationally in The New York Times, Financial Times, Forbes, American Photo, Rolling Stone, and Billboard. His client list includes Nikon, The Discovery Channel, Fender Musical Instruments and Gibson Guitars. Jérôme Brunet is currently working and residing in the Bay Area of San Francisco and is represented internationally by Zuma Press.


Photographs: Jérôme Brunet
Website:  www.jeromebrunet.com


Editor’s Note:

Please only one comment per person under this essay.. Further discussions should take place under Dialogue..

Many thanks… david alan harvey

beso darchia – stigma

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Beso Darchia

Stigma

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The dire economic situation in Georgia has left the population of the country without any protection that would be provided by Government. Socially unprotected groups of society were among the ones most affected, their survival left to the mercy of foreign donors and the kindness of random people.

We live by the side of people who suffer from mental illnesses. Due to the lack of understanding of such illnesses, large parts of society have developed a sense of alienation towards the people who suffer from those illnesses. The social stigma remorselessly relieves mental patients of all their constitutional rights.  Abandoned by the friends and family, the “lucky” ones among them spend all their time at the deteriorating post-Soviet mental institutions; the rest may often not even have a roof over their heads.

There’s no official statistic regarding the number of people suffering from mental illness in Georgia. According to unofficial studies conducted by different research groups, there are about 400 thousand people suffering from different kinds and degrees of psychiatric disorder, about 10% of those in need of immediate medical care.

In Soviet Georgia (population: 5 million), the official number of people in psychiatric institutions was around 74 thousand. A study, conducted in year 2000, recorded 98 thousand of them. Current statistics shows that around 13 thousand people seek medical care in psychiatric institutions every month. Despite this statistic, latest polls in Georgia show that a visit to the psychiatrist is still perceived as a negative and derogatory act: 90% of the respondents would never recommend their friend or relative to visit a psychiatrist. Due to the lack of awareness among the parents, 99% percent of children with a mental illness never receive any medical care.

People with psychiatric disorders are a part of our society. Society should accept and accommodate them.

My goal and hope is to raise awareness about mental disorders in society. I hope to show that mental patients are regular human beings, who deserve to be treated with respect and care; that the society should not make them feel inferior, just because they suffer from an illness….


Bio

My name is Besik Darchia. I was born on 24th of September 1982, in Georgia, Tbilisi. I’m postgrad dentist, but have never been working by profession. By chance, three years ago photography became the main interest in my life: I accidentally found one of the photo sites and focused on portraits and photos on social life. I was inspired, that was stimulus to follow through and reflect the life surrounding me through photography.


Editor’s note:

Please only one comment per person under this essay.. Further discussions should take place under Dialogue..

Many thanks… david alan harvey

jennifer richter – california overpasses

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Jennifer Richter

California Overpasses


Remembering Views From The Road

These images encompass my love for traveling by car or motorcycles and they take me back to my childhood road trips taken with my family.

I can still hear the words “GOD DAMMIT” bursting from my father’s mouth as he unsuccessfully tried to bring order to six loud children ensconced in the family Volkswagen bus during the 1970’s. Or later, cruising around with him in our orange convertible Volkswagen beetle and on his motorcycle. It was the middle of summer, with the sun going down, eating peanuts, rolling to Steely Dan and Cat Stevens on 8 track tapes on the radio. I recall vividly and fondly the countless rides to the swimming pool in the summer with my mom. Wearing our handmade terrycloth, pullover yellow ponchos, we would point our toy kaleidoscopes toward the sun and experience so many bright colors shining out like fragmented architectural landscapes. Then gazing out the car window, a coveted position I had to eternally fight for, I would record in my brain all of the landscapes and architectural forms on the way to the pool.

With these overpasses I chose to shoot the straight image of them in the most dramatic way possible.  I then ascended to the next level and turned them into architectural surreal images that are interesting to me. My work engenders hope that the individual observer viewing the work would be able to view these structures in a new way even when driving these same highways in the future.

Riding in cars or on a motorcycle, and looking out the window and feeling the breeze on my face is a type of euphoria for me.  I would point out anything and everything I saw that was interesting or out of place to me.  Recently living in California, and seeing all the different overpasses brought elation of those sweet memories. When I photograph some of the overpasses, I see kaleidoscopes aglow and sometimes roller coasters; or I visualize the sensations and recall what it feels like to ride on one. It gives me new insights and I think that maybe the architects’ base some of their own ideas on what they remember or wish they could experience again.

My viewpoints have been built from the ideas from other Master artist works of the past, whom I have studied such as Dali, M.C. Escher,  (surrealism, places that don’t exists), Andy Goldsworthy (the idea of earth as art and design), and Architect – Frank Gehry, (clean abstract design), and photographers Michael Kenna, Edward Weston, Jerry Uelsmann, to name a few.

With the movement of Dancers and the sounds of music take me on a flight and speed that I have always enjoyed and to translate it in to a image is a daunting task and very enjoyable. The curves and sharp angles of movement that you can see visual in the overpasses this is one of the ways I visualize sound and movement in an image. They pull you in even as a small image or a ten-foot image into the unfamiliar but existing worlds.

The surreal viewpoint is something I have found to be very inventive, inviting, and engrossing images to view. The overpasses themselves are surreal in nature and very artistic on their own. They show the movement that grips my soul and I am able to see objects and faces of things within the images that are of dreams and unreal, but at the same time they are genuine, because the object in the image is a photograph of something real.

Bio:

Jennifer Richter is an emerging award winning fine art photographer, based in St. Louis, Missouri. She has been shooting photography since she was a child, but did not embrace her talent until she rediscovered it in college and her curiosity grew. Having moved to San Francisco, she furthered her studies in fine art photography. Jennifer has exhibited her work in numerous shows including Center of Fine Art Photography. She has participated in artists in residence program and taught workshops on photo in the local schools in St. Louis.  She is an artist who focuses on the compositional element of an image and the emotional response it elicits, and strives to bring greater awareness to the public through the lens of her camera.


Photographs: Jennifer Richter
Website: www.jrichterphotography.com


Editor’s note:

Please only one comment per person under this essay.. Further discussions should take place under Dialogue..

Many thanks… david alan harvey

jonathon bowman – monkey business

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Jonathon Bowman

Monkey Business

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I began taking photos at the monkey houses at the zoo, fascinated by the inner lives of our genetic relatives. I soon realized that what I found compelling in the photos I had been taking was the space that exists between the viewer and the subject. The plexi-glass that separates our lives from theirs is also a surface that records, in scratches and smudges, a history of the lives lived on the inside while reflecting back the glare of our own gaze.

These are records of the space between.


Bio

My interest in photography began while working in South Korea. I was looking, I think, to find a voice with which to express the cultural disconnect I was feeling.

Since returning to my home in Ontario, I have been seeking to make sense of what was once familiar.

These photos are a product of those experiences.


Editor’s note:

Please only one comment per person under this essay.. Further discussions should take place under Dialogue..

Many thanks… david alan harvey

charlie mahoney – a troubled paradise

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Charlie Mahoney

A Troubled Paradise


Climate change is a difficult subject to treat visually, because much of the expected damage is still yet to come. We just haven’t seen many direct victims of climate change…at least not yet. As a result, I wanted to find a story that had a human element to it. After extensive research, I decided to go to the Maldives because, if scientists are correct, it will likely be the scene of one of first humanitarian disasters due to climate change. The story also ties in to an interesting social-political situation. I hope you find it interesting.

Beneath the outsiders’ vision of the Maldives lurks a troubled paradise- one shaped by 30 years of a brutal dictatorship. No one knows this better than Mohamed Nasheed, the nation’s new democratically elected President, who unseated Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the Maldives’ ruler since 1978, in a landmark election in October 2008. Nasheed was imprisoned thirteen times by Gayoom and was named an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience in 1991.

Nasheed is determined to secure liberal democracy in the Maldives, but the country is facing pressing challenges at home. Despite significant tourism revenue – the Maldives has South Asia’s highest GDP per capita – almost half of the Maldives’ population earns less than $2 a day. And Maldivian youth are in the middle of a heroin epidemic that may be one of the worst in the world. The legacy of Gayoom’s rule lingers, and the process of unraveling it will take time as entire political institutions, like a free press, an independent judiciary, and a multiparty legislature will need to be built from the ground up, emerging from the long shadows of three decades of tyranny.

As if all that was not enough, the archipelago nation faces a larger challenge. It could find itself submerged by a swelling sea. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international body of scientists, forecasts that sea levels will rise an estimated 2 ft. (60 cm) this century, enough to inundate most of the country, many of whose 1,190 isles sit just 3 ft. (1 m) above the ocean. For a nation of so small a size, the new government’s task is monumental.

Photos from this story were published as part of an assignment in Time Magazine (Asia Edition) and in Intelligent Life and Corriere della Sera Magazine.


Bio

Charlie is a photojournalist and multimedia journalist currently based in Barcelona, Spain. His clients and publications include Time Magazine, The Guardian, BBC News, GEO, National Geographic Traveler, Lonely Planet Magazine, The Times, The Independent on Sunday, The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHRC), the Council on Foreign Relations, Corriere della Sera Magazine, Intelligent Life, CS Monitor Weekly, 100 Eyes, The Telegraph, Financial Times, Global Post, Die Tageszeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau and De Standaard.

His most recent awards and nominations include the 2009 Environmental Photographer of the Year Award, the 2009 International Photography Awards, the Life category of the 2008 Travel Photographer of the Year, the 2008 PX3 Prix de la Photographie for photojournalism, the 2008 SOS Racism Photography contest and the new talent category of the 2007 Travel Photographer of the Year. He is represented by Bilderberg, Corbis and Cosmos.

He especially likes to work on stories of human interest and strongly believes that photojournalism can promote change by giving a voice to people who are all too often powerless to tell their own stories.

He has a Masters in Photojournalism from the University Autónoma of Barcelona and a B.A. in International Relations and Biology from Bowdoin College. Prior to his career in photojournalism, he worked in investment banking and equity management.


Related links

www.charliemahoney.net


Editor’s note:

As per Charlie’s request, comments are closed under this essay…you may discuss under Dialogue….

-david alan harvey

lila schaffler – my collections

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Lila Schaffler

My Collections

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Remember the story of that old photograph? It was taken at some show in the run-down Bowery years ago. There’s this boy sitting in the middle of some trashed mosh pit right below the stage. No one’s left but him and he’s sitting there in this chair, his mouth open and screaming.

You can almost hear it if you stare hard enough. Everyone else was gone, but here’s this boy with blood on his face from a pulled piercing, keg cups surround his tired shoes, cigarette butts line the floors, and he’s just there in the thick of it – alone and screaming to some invisible moon, some greater madness.

It’s just a picture really, but it tears your heart out all the same.

It’s what it’s like I suppose; pogo-dancing insanity, some band destroying the already torn cloth speakers with curses and riffs, ripped piercings, blood, drool, the yellow fuzz from keg cups splashing in eyes and crying… and just for that moment, everyone is in the same place long enough to feel the shit and glory of some fantastically well-orchestrated abuse.

In the end there’s just that one person left over for it all to come back to, the one person left who just eats it all, hating it, loving it, slipping away and coming back all over again, sitting there in that empty room and screaming.

How do you top that?  It’s not the photographer I admire, it’s the boy.


About the essay:

It seems have been taking my camera on walks since the age of twelve.  I have collected more images than I could even begin to put a number on.  I wanted to show some of my collections in a way that made sense to how and what I see.  There was nothing easy about the edit, and still I can’t be certain that I chose the right ones…But I suppose that’s part of the beauty of it all, when you really stop an look.  Some of the images have been exhibited, some published, but I’ve never quite had the opportunity to show them as I’ve wanted to, as an essay…A collection of sorts. My collections.


Bio

When I was ten my grandmother gave me an old Canon, I still have it till this day… And regardless of all its replacements over the years, I haven’t stopped shooting since.  I’m originally from New York, NY, where I learned, studied, practiced, and trained through University professors on top of many professionals. Presently, I’m located in Seattle, Washington where I run my own studio and business. However, I remain quite bi-coastal and often travel with my camera in hand. I have exhibited In New York City, Seattle, Portland, with several coming up, both nationally and internationally, as well as many publications.


Related links

www.LilaSchaffler.com


Editor’s note:

Please only one comment per person under this essay.. Further discussions should take place under Dialogue..

Many thanks… david alan harvey

mimi mollica – terra nostra

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Mimi Mollica

Terra Nostra

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The story I want to tell is about my land, Sicily, the effects of Mafia in our territory, the people that fight against it on the front line and the context in which Mafia has grown and rooted its identity.

The Sicilian reality is a ‘pre modern’ one, rooted within the family system and characterized by an accommodating behavior toward the corrupted system, strongly based on nepotism as opposed to a healthier meritocracy. Commonly diffused is the lack of respect towards the law and its representatives. The resulting scenario is, in fact, one of an orphaned society abandoned to its ill-omened destiny of relentless decadence. Therefore,  the aim of this photographic essay is to capture this backdrop of decay.

Mafia and corruption have destroyed our most beautiful coasts that once were described by artists and writers as a paradise of natural, artistic and archaeological beauty. Cosa Nostra has worn out our economic system by killing market competition through intimidations and a thick network of corruption, and by imposing extortion to 95% of the region’s business, Mafia holds an even stronger economical control of the territory.  The price paid by those who rebelled against this oppression has been reported by blood stained chronicles on newspapers and media.

After many years of pondering on the idea of working on such project I recently felt the urge to photographically deliver my wide perspective on the Mafia phenomenon, in a moment in time where Italy is living its worst political and social crisis since the Fascist era.
This is a long-term project on which I wish to work for several months to come.  Any comments or suggestions are more than welcome.

This Essay has been published on the Financial Times Weekend Magazine on July 18th 2009.


Bio:

I was born in Sicily, Palermo where I lived until I turned twenty and decided to move away from Italy.  I have always been in love with photojournalism since an early age.

Now I am 34 and photojournalism is what I do for living. I take photos because i have an urge to communicate my views about our time and to show people that what I have had the privilege to witness first hand.

The themes that interest me most are related to society undergoing transitions, identity and migrations. I believe I have grown together with photography both professionally and on a personal level. I have traveled a few countries and met all kinds of people, rich and poor alike, criminals and judges, academics and musicians, interesting people and ugly characters. All of them are part of who I am now.

They gave me the eyes to see and the ears to listen their stories and my deepest self, so photography became for me an neverending journey that I am enjoying as much as I enjoy my life. News about my previous essays, publications, exhibitions and other stuff can be found on my website.


Related links:

www.mimimollica.com



Editor’s note:

Please only one comment per person under this essay.. Further discussions should take place under Dialogue..

Many thanks… david alan harvey

jake mendel – short track

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Jake Mendel

Short Track

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Short Track documents the world of semi-professional dirt track racing: from the downtrodden bombers and high-end stock cars, to the fans, drivers, and mechanics’ lives on and off the track. With roots going back to prohibition-era rumrunners, stock car racing has evolved into a national phenomenon and has become America’s second-most watched televised sport. For racing enthusiasts, hot days spent sweating over busted engines and damaged bodies give way to nights of tearing up the earth in front of a crowd, mud spraying from tires with the pedal jammed down and the adrenaline cranked up.

The “short track” is any oval track less than a half-mile round, and countless semi-pro races are held weekly on dirt short tracks across the country. Drivers in these events, race at breakneck speeds, seeking triumph while courting disaster, and spectators know there is as good a chance of witnessing a crash as getting a first look at NASCAR’s next up-and-comer. Mendel traveled to the Deep South, Arizona, and New Mexico—hotbeds of stock car racing—in order to capture the raw power and gritty determination of life on the short track. As most drivers can’t afford their expensive hobby, many rely on assistance from family and friends, and even from fellow competitors, in order to maintain their cars. But for the die-hards, stock car racing is more than a sport; it is a way of life. Short Track puts readers in the passenger’s seat for an up close ride-along through the world of America’s most dangerous, grease-splattered, high-octane, pastime.

Short Track, the book is available November 2009 from powerHouse Books at the following link:
http://www.powerhousebooks.com/book/1116


Bio

Jake Mendel is a photographer living in Santa Fe. He was born and raised in Alabama in 1971. Although he harbored a passion for photography, he put it aside to pursue a career with his father’s company. In 1999 he left the family business to return to photography full-time. Since then, Mendel’s photographs have been included in various solo and group exhibitions throughout New Mexico and Alabama.


(editor’s note: as per Jake Mendel’s request, comments will be closed under this essay…you may discuss under Dialogue )


Related links

jakemendel.com

petri uutela – passers by

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Petri Uutela

Passers by

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I don’t know how to analyze or comment something that personal as my street photography. It’s therapy for me to wander in the streets trying to capture moods, events or gestures that I feel somehow connected to. Even if  I’m taking pictures of total strangers, my street photography actually reflects myself – this is an autoportrait series, although it’s not me who is in the pictures.

Photographs in this video are taken in Finland and Slovakia during 2006-2009. Music written and performed by my brother Tuomas Uutela.


Bio

I am a freelance photographer and a photography student based in Finland.
I am co-founding member of Finnish photo collective STRAP.


Related links

www.petriuutela.com

www.strap-photos.com


Editor’s note:

please only one comment per essay….

-david alan harvey

andrei liankevich – belarus portfolio

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Andrei Liankevich

Belarus Portfolio

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Is the story over or are we still in the middle of it somewhere? Is it the country itself? Is it Belarus that makes reality and fiction seem to be layered like transparencies? The pictures of Andrei Liankevich seem to suggest that at least. For example, when a lonely Communist marches across a foggy square. Or when a soldier poses in a comfortable armchair among his trophies: the naked antlers on the wall and the no-less trophy-like twin sons held tenderly and creepily on his lap – Nestor and Pollux? Remus and Romulus? Cain and Abel? If they are supposed to stand for a dually new beginning, this might take place once again within that historical cliché that has helped give Belarus its sense of unreality. History has certainly provided plenty of signs.

No other region in Europe suffered as much during the Second World War as Belarus: the bourgeois intelligentsia were practically wiped out, the number of war victims was the highest relative to the total population, and the infrastructure was destroyed. Later the country was the remotely controlled ally of the old Communist powers, and the same clique is still in power today. And yet the very fact that Liankevich can depict the somnambulistic conditions of his country the way he does is proof that there is a young generation of Belarusians whose creativity is in the service of change. Fantastic elements of an unattainable dreamland and a caricatural focus on pseudo-Soviet deco-propaganda à la Lukashenko provide a backdrop against which innovation has been going on for a long time.


Bio

Born in 1981, Belarusian photographer, born in Grodno and based in Minsk (Belarus). Andrei obtained his BA in Economics from Belarusian State University. In 2004-2005 he studied at the Caucasus Media Institute in Yerevan, Armenia. As a part of the programme, he spent few months living and travelling with Yazidi minority in Armenia, and his final photo project about Yazidi’s life, got award from the World Press Photo seminar. In September 2007 Andrei was invited to take part in Focus on Monferrato master class project in Tuscany (Italy). In June 2008 he participated in programme supported by French Association Pour l’Instant, shooting a photo story on “Modern family institutions”.

Andrei tought a course on Photojournalism at the European Humanity University, Belarusian University, in Vilnius (Lithuania). Since 2005 he cooperates with European Press Photo Agency (EPA) and in 2007 he joined Anzenberger agency. Andrei has worked with Nasha Niva, one of the few independent Belarusian newspapers during 2001-2008. His works are also published in such international medias as New York Times, Le Figaro, Newsweek, Die Zeit, Spiegel, GEO, GEO Lino, International Herald Tribune.

He has presented his works in more than 30 exhibitions in Europe and USA. In 2008 catalog  of Andrei’s photographs was published.  Later this year Andrei’s photos were included in “EAST” photo book and “Break Lines. Touch Points.” -photo book with photo story  “Unknown Country”, publisher: “Reporters without Borders” organization. And “This day of Change” photo book having 132 photographs of the project, published in Japan.

In 2009 Andrei won a prize at the Humanity Photo Awards 2009 with his work about

 “Pagan traditions in Belarus”, and was among finalists of  “Magnum Expression Award”.


Related links

www.liankevich.com


Editor’s note:

Please only one comment per person under this essay.. Further discussions should take place under Dialogue..

Many thanks… david alan harvey

erica mcdonald – the dark light of this nothing

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THIS ESSAY CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONTENT


Erica McDonald – The Dark Light of this Nothing

Janet: Hi Erica..(kiss)

EM: Hi, Where’s Adele?

Janet: Adele’s inside..Erica, this is my family, that’s uh..Donny, my sister in law, Sharon, Angie…David and that’s my brother John..

EM: You’ve got a good memory.

Janet: I’ve got a good memory, I have 38 nieces and nephews, I have to..this is just a little quarter of it.

EM: I’m trying to get people to talk about what the neighborhood was like and what it is like now and..

Janet: You want some dessert? Steven would know that, my husband would know that, and so would Mary.

EM: No thanks, I’m okay. Yeah, Mary was just talking to me a little.

Anthony: I wasn’t born here..I don’t know anything..

Janet: You was SO!  He’s full of crap! Where were you born? Where were you born?

Anthony: I was born in Staten Island.

Janet: No he wasn’t.. He was born here in the house on..

Anthony: What the hell is this? you gotta talk to this thing?

EM: It’s a microphone.

Janet: Dad, just talk about..

Anthony: What am I gonna tell? I was born over on 3rd street. And the place was beautiful at that time, we had a nice time, not too much traffic, I’m old, that’s why. We used to play stickball in the middle of the street, there was no traffic, you could play stickball. right? Today you can’t even walk in the friggin street, too many cars.

Janet: You played Skellies..

Anthony: Skellies, well, we played all kinds of games. Kick the can, you know, stuff like that. What else did we play?Johnny on the pony, Johnny on the pony..You know what that is? She don’t know…(looking at EM) On the fire hydrant, and everyone’s gotta jump on his back and try to make him fall. We played a lot of games, when we grew up it was a nice neighborhood..There was no computers, of course not. You had to add in your mind. We didn’t even have a television. That’s why we used to go out and play. No it was nice, it really was, it was nice around here.

Janet: We used to play cards, knuckles..knuckles..We used to play over here everyday, and Grandma would come out and go “Why can’t yous play on your own stoop, whattaya gotta play here for?” Because we live here, Grandma! People would come and have to get up to the house and we’d always have cards and we had to move and the people would get annoyed..cause we were sitting down playin’, but what else were you gonna do?

Anthony: When we were young we used to play stickball, or stoopball, you hit the ball against the stoop, or punchball. And when we grew up we were poor, in plain English, it’s the truth. When we played football, you know what we used for a football? You rolled up a newspaper, seriously, you taped it, and that was a football, we couldn’t afford a football..it’s true..and if we had a baseball, eventually the cover would fall off, we used to tape it up..yeah, we couldn’t buy another baseball, we were all poor. And the glove was falling apart..it’s true..now what, what do they call all these people around here now, they all got money, what are they, Yuppies? Right, they’re all Yuppies? No, I grew up in a good time, I’m glad I grew up when I did.

In the summer time, when it got very hot, nobody had air conditioning. Not like today. Everybody had a fan, that was all you had, was a fan. But, if you had a fire escape, you could go out and sleep on the fire escape.

Janet: Remember? Grandma used to feed us on the fire escape. My cereal, on the fire escape, every morning. And our favorite game was, what we played was jump rope, all day long. I didn’t need anything else. Grandma used to stand by the window and yell at us, “What are you doing? what are you doin?” Yeah, double dutch…All day, I could play jump rope all day long..double dutch. And be happy.

***************************************************************************

This piece is meant as a tribute to those long term residents who have sustained the Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York neighborhood for generations and are now in an increasing minority. The old guard is losing their sense of community. A new, affluent population, drawn by Park Slope’s popularity as one of America’s best neighborhoods, is swiftly overshadowing the working class.

The title of this body comes from the words of the philosopher Derrida that reflect on the experience of the loss of  “what I myself am not” and on the interiorization of the Other in his irrevocable absence.

***************************************************************************

Many warm thanks to Rachel Been, Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Kelly Lynn James, Jacob Silberberg, Tom Sullivan, Andrew D. Sullivan and John Westfall for assisting in the making of the street portraits, and an especially big thank you to Sana Manzoor for her assistance which was both generous and gracious.

For all the thoughtful feedback and editing help, thank you to Joe Colligan, Jason Eskenazi, Paul Fusco, Eugene Richards and Andrew D. Sullivan.

Thank you Jim Powers for loaning me your lens! and to the Burn community for going on this ride with me.

DAH..thank you from the beginning to the end. Way back when you wrote on Road Trips that you might have “a good idea…why not really “show our photographic hand…” in the most provocative way…so, here is my idea: i give out short assignments or projects….on an individual basis…at the end each photographer presents this work right here for us all to see…for example, i ask Erica if she has time to shoot portraits on…” and somehow that idea turned into this work..though after a much longer wait than you had in mind! Thank you sincerely for your ideas and energy and care and for all that you do.


Bio

Erica McDonald is mostly a self taught photographer, taking inspiration from a myriad of social documentary and portrait photographers. She has a strong belief in the importance of lineage in photography and working in a continuum.

Erica is a thankful recipient of a Keyholder Fellowship at the Lower East Side Printshop, and her work has been exhibited in New York and Paris including in Chelsea and by PowerHouse, at the burn gallery and the Camera Club of New York, and has been included in projections at LOOK3, Palm Springs Photo Festival and the Slideluck Potshow. Awards and nominations include IPA/Lucies, PX3, The NY Photo Awards and the Magnum Cultural Foundation EPF. Her work has been published in Mother Jones, Boston Magazine, YES! Magazine and is part of The Collector’s Guide to Emerging Art Photography. She loves dogs, large and small alike, and is based in NYC.

A larger selection of images from this project is available for publication as a book. Please inquire with me directly at erica@ericamcdonaldphoto.com


Related links

ericamcdonaldphoto.com


Editor’s note:

please only one comment per essay….

-david alan harvey

aaron joel santos – orphans of agent orange

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Aaron Joel Santos

Orphans of Agent Orange

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The Vietnam Friendship Village is an Agent Orange orphanage and care center founded in 1998 by George Mizo, an American veteran of the Vietnam-American War. It houses 120 children in six homes spread across the small, intimate complex. Located just outside of Hanoi, it is a place of both enduring hope and profound sadness.

During the Vietnam War, the US dumped roughly 80 million liters of the defoliant Agent Orange across Vietnam. Now, four decades later, the dioxins continue to effect the lives of thousands across the country. The children in the Friendship Village are all victims of this war, all suffering from the after shocks of the chemical substance.

But what sets the Friendship Village in Hanoi apart from many of the other orphanages and centers that take in children of Agent Orange is the care that it provides. Funds given to the village by benefactors and organizations from across the world give the children there access to food, shelter, schooling and health care. Often these funds far exceed what their families would be able to provide for them back home. So there is hope here. But hope in the most dire of circumstances.


Bio

Aaron Joel Santos is a freelance photographer living in Hanoi, Vietnam. His photographs have been published in a number of international magazines and newspapers and shown in galleries in the US, Malaysia and Vietnam.

He enjoys local cuisines, warm and humid temperatures, cheap beer and good people. So Vietnam just kind of fit.


Related links

www.aaronjoelsantos.com


Editor’s note:

Please only one comment per person under this essay.. Further discussions should take place under Dialogue..

Many thanks… david alan harvey

thomas bregulla – everyday

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Thomas Bregulla

Everyday

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There are those everyday repetitive tasks… So small, so little, we don’t even think while doing them. We do them – every day. But without them, something would be missing in that day.

Somehow, that makes these little everyday tasks important. By telling this little story about my everyday life, I wanted to make them special, .

These images show me in my everyday situations. Like they happen, more or less, every day. I made the images with a tripod or just by putting the camera in front of me.

I hope this essay makes us stop and think about the little and everyday things we have in life. The things we often forget that we are doing.

Bio

I was born 1965 in Salzgitter, Germany. After several years in southern Germany, I moved to Bonn where I live today. My main job is in telecommunications, where I am a program manager in an international context. I like to outline a story and take pictures according to that. Photography is a good balance for my current day job, allowing my creativity to go different ways.


Related links

www.flickr.com/photos/tfelix/


Editor’s note:

Please only one comment per person under this essay.. Further discussions should take place under Dialogue..

Many thanks… david alan harvey

michael loyd young – blues, booze and bbq

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Michael Loyd Young

Blues, Booze and BBQ

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“The Mississippi River Delta is flat country.  Not a hill in sight.  It is often way too cold or way to hot.  Yet there is a subtle beauty to it.  Large plantation owners used to rule this delta country and I imagine what it may have been like 100 years ago.  I can almost smell the history from the front porch where I sit now, as a thunder storm rolls loud and black across the flats, creating waves in the wheat fields resembling a green tumultuous sea.”

“From these former cotton fields came a new art form.  Out of commerce, out of slavery, out of greed, out of necessity, out of Africa, came the BLUES.  Yes, the music; blues, jazz, rock n’ roll and rap came from these cotton fields.  Out of these blood and sweat fields and out of these little one room churches came the voice of an enslaved people.  The voice of the men and women that toiled in these fields is the BLUES, and it is a voice heard around the world”
(text from the book forward by David Alan Harvey)

Blues, Booze, & BBQ documents the 150 miles of Highway 61, the famed blacktop road snaking from Memphis, TN down to Greenville, MS. At the halfway point, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, sits Clarksdale, MS, the city considered the birthplace of the blues and the location of Robert Johnson’s famed “Cross Road Blues” intersection of Highway 61 and 49.

The Delta has been home to blues legends such as Charley Patton, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Ike Turner, Cadillac John Nolden, B.B. King, T-Model Ford, Mississippi Slim, Big Jack Johnson, and Willie King, among countless others whose music has become the glue that holds these communities together as they struggle to survive.  The photographs, taken at juke joints, in private homes, or just hanging out, illustrate the bond blues creates between the Delta and its people. It is through this music that the people pass on their heritage and culture to future generations.

Bio

Michael Loyd Young lives in Houston, TX. Since 2002 Young has worked on several projects, traveling to 21 different countries documenting cultural symbols and the impact they have on the daily lives of the people he photographs. This is Young’s first book. All proceeds will be donated to the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, MS. He is currently working on his second book documenting the hunting and fishing culture along the Gulf Coast, from southern Texas to the Florida Everglades.

PowerHouse Opening December 10, 2009 7-9 PM 37 Main Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 (718) 666-3049 .

Blues, Booze, & BBQ is available NOW. Simply click on the PowerHouse link below to order.

Related links

www.michaelloydyoung.com

www.powerhousebooks.com



Editor’s note:

Please only one comment per person under this essay.. Further discussions should take place under Dialogue..

Many thanks… david alan harvey