The cover of the 1968 The Concerned photographer edited by Cornell Capa which included the work of Robert Capa, Werner Bischof, Chim, Andre Kertesz, Leonard Freed and Dan Weiner.
The New York Times reports that, “Cornell Capa, who founded the Iternational Center of Photography in New York after a long and distinguished career as a photojournalist, first on the staff of Life magazine and then as a member of Magnum Photos, died Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 90.” Click on the links below to read more and view a portfolio of images.
“Cornell Capa (1918–2008)” – icp.org.
“Cornell Capa: Portfolio” – magnumphotos.com.
“The concerned photographer finds much in the present unacceptable which he tries to alter. Our goal is simply to let the world also know why it is unacceptable.” - Cornell Capa, photographer.
Filed under: Art, Friends Work, Journalism | Tags: MSF, Women Are Heroes. JR
“JESSIS JOHN”, Liberia. Published here by kind permission of JR.
Today we hand the Blog over to the French photographer and street artist JR. All images and text have been used here by kind permission of JR. As I’m sure you can tell I’m a big fan. So I hope you get as much out of his work as I do.
“Women Are Heroes” “Women Are Heroes!” proclaim Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the artivist JR on the occasion of International Women’s Day. JR has visited Sierra Leone, Liberia, southern Sudan and Kenya, returning with striking portraits of women taken with the help of his 28 millimetre lens.He wants to share their stories, first by exhibiting them in their country of origin, then in the framework of spectacular exhibitions hosted in several cities throughout the world.As from 8th march 2008, the faces and expressions of eight women will first of all be splashed across the walls of Brussels for a month. Their gigantic portraits will make their presence felt in the streets of the town centre reflecting how vital their role is in the daily routines of their countries.By asking them to pull a face, JR shows the spark of life… the expressiveness of their faces testifies to their strength, their courage and their will to fight which keeps them going, keeps them alive.
“Women Are Heroes!” in honour of the fate of these women, both strong and vulnerable, who display extraordinary strength in all circumstances, including the most extreme.
They do not always have guaranteed access to health care, so MSF responds to their specific health needs in numerous countries.
For MSF, this collaboration is part of its campaign on women in humanitarian crises launched last June, whilst for JR, this first exhibition in brussels is the beginning of the third phase of his 28 millimetres artistic project – following on from “Portrait of a generation” (2004-2006) and “Face 2 Face” (2007).
“LIBERIA MONROVIA BRIDGE”. Published here by kind permission of JR.
Link : www.jr-art.net
Link : www.womenareheroes.be
Link : http://face2faceproject.com
Link : www.azg.be
Filed under: Art, Political Protest Project, Youth Culture | Tags: Dennis Cooper, Scott Heim
The index page on the site has been updated with new images and quotes from Dennis Cooper and Scott Heim. Click on the image above to take a look. The feedback has been positive so far which is all good.
Tomorrow I will be posting some very nice stuff from the French photographer and street artist JR.
A big well done for my good friend Andreas who has just been chosen by PDN (a some what respected ‘photo’ magazine) as one of 30 emerging photographers to watch out for! Andreas is a very talented photographer and I’m proud to say I had a little bit to do with him getting into photography. On hearing the this news Andreas said: “I’m not sure why, but nonetheless I’m pretty stoked”
Filed under: Art, Journalism | Tags: Afghanistan, Iraq, Robert Capa, Sion Touhig, Tim Hetherington, War, World Press Photo of the Year
Today we hand over the Blog to award winning photographer Sion Touhig who has worked for UK and international newspapers and magazines since 1991, covering stories such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and strife in the Balkans and Palestine. Sion gives us his views on this years World Press Photo Award and related issues.
WORLD PRESS PHOTO of the Year 2007. Tim Hetherington, UK, for Vanity Fair. American soldier resting at bunker, Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, 16 September. Published here by kind permission of World Press Photo.
Through a Glass, Darkly…
by Sion Touhig.
It’s World Press Photo award time again, and like nearly every year, the winning image (this time by Tim Hetherington ) has caused all kinds of ructions around and about.
To be honest, the only decent response is to congratulate all the winners, but it’s worth remembering the contest is called not the ‘World Photo Award’, but the World Press Photo award (WPP). It’s ultimately pointless elevating one image to encapsulate a whole years news, but some of the criticisms do have some validity, in that journalism seems to have been often displaced in favour of aesthetic concerns at the WPP.
Aesthetics needn’t outweigh journalistic enquiry, you can have both – but Paul Melchers blog argument is that in a competition which is concerned with press photography, you’d assume the judges would be looking for an image that satisfied both pictorial and journalistic concerns.
I think the winning image is intriguing, but it doesn’t really tell me anything I don’t already know – and perhaps even tells me less about whats going on.
The blurred image clearly shows a US soldier at the end of his tether…but because of what? In Afghanistan, the largest military power in history is putting huge efforts into bending one of the poorest nations on Earth to it’s will.
Yet by viewing this image I’m supposed to empathise with the more powerful party and to shrug off the growing and largely unaccounted civilian casualties caused by their activities.
Pictures like these (and the story its taken from) construct a developing consensus narrative about Afghanistan and Iraq, in the same way a media/popular culture consensus was constructed about Vietnam…that it was a tragedy for the US only, instead of what it really was – the military might of the Worlds most powerful nation, laying waste to a poor country and slaughtering its civilian population, for ultimately futile strategic aims.
Perhaps that sounds familiar? It probably will to average Afghans, as they endure the consequences of yet another superpowers ‘boots on the ground‘.
With neither present UK or future US political leaders talking about military withdrawal, I don’t think its acceptable any longer to uncritically look at military images taken in Afghanistan or Iraq, and celebrate them simply on the sole aesthetic grounds that they carry on the pictorial legacy of Robert Capa.
The D-Day troops depicted by Capa on Omaha Beach were doing something markedly different to what US troops did in Vietnam, and are doing now in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Robert Capa’s blurred photographs of soldiers at their tethers end, shoulder-deep in seawater amidst withering gunfire, were arguably images of liberators, and Capa had recognised and documented anti-Fascist struggle a damn sight earlier than most. His lover, Gerda Taro, died recording it.
As repugnant as Qutbism is, it simply does not present the same dire existential threat that Nazism posed in June 1944, and whatever threat of Islamic militancy that exists now, has been increased, not lessened, by the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The context of these current conflicts and WWII is very different, but the photographic depiction often, is not.
In many examples of contemporary photojournalism from Afghanistan and Iraq, deeply embedded (excuse the pun) pictorial motifs of liberation and sacrifice are being used to either endorse, ignore or excuse economic and military imperialism.
AN AFGHAN woman passes through a Northern Alliance frontline position. The woman and other refugees are fleeing US aerial bombing of Taliban fighters around Khanabad and Kunduz. Northern Afghanistan, 18th Nov 2001. Photo by Sion Touhig. Published here by kind permission of Sion Touhig.
BURMESE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ACTION – Pro-democracy protesters demonstrate in London. Burmese monks and supporters march from Tate Britain via Downing Street and Whitehall to a rally in Trafalgar Square on October 05, 2007 to show support for pro-democracy demonstrations that took place in Burma in September 2007. (Photo by Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk) (c) Marc Vallée, 2007.
Kaiserin Magazine, the independent bi-annual art magazine published in France by Didier Fitan and Arnaud-Pierre Fourtané will be running a series of my images called “protest boys” next year (Kaiserin #04 – June 2008). To read more about the magazine click here and to view a few of the images that will be used, click here.
Images : Click here.
Filed under: Art | Tags: David Hoffman, Exhibition, Photography, Photomonth 2007, Tate Britain
MARC VALLEE injured by police on demo in Parliament Square, 9 oct 2006. Published here by kind permission of David Hoffman. (c) David Hoffman, 2006.
Photomonth, the east London photography festival which has more than 80 exhibitions and events in 50 galleries and spaces in east London is always well worth taking a look at. The last time I had a show at Photomonth was back in 2001 and I enjoyed the experience greatly.
David Hoffman (who took the above pic of me) has an online show for this years Photomonth, which you can take a look at here.
“Photographs of protest and confrontation that make up a slightly more radical representation of Britain on the streets over the last 30 years than the Tate thought fit for your delicate sensibilities.”
David Hoffman’s show is a response to the Tate Britian exhibition “How We Are – Photographing Britian” which was held this year. When I was going around the Tate show I kept on thinking that I was glad I had not paid to see it (thanks Greg) and I ended up thinking more about the gaps in the show then what I had just been looking at. so it’s great to see David Hoffman’s online show as it goes some way to filling in a few of those gaps in our photographic history here in Britian.
Filed under: Art, Friends Work, Youth Culture | Tags: Boys, gay, Gay Boys, Queer, Stuart Sandord
PRINT ABOVE : Blend shoot. (c) Stuart Sandford. Published here by kind permission of Stuart Sandford.
I’ve know the artist Stuart Sandford for something like five years and his a good friend. Back then I called him the queer Terry Richardson and I still think that fits the bill today.
“While it may be tempting to dismiss queer British photographer Stuart Sandford as nothing more than another kid with a camera, a closer look finds that Sandford’s images successfully interlock the snapshot aesthetic with more thoughtful subjectivity. The result is a delicate, yet empowered portrayal that eschews piteousness in favor of a more light-hearted, exhilarating self” – queerty.com
Images : www.stuartsandford.co.uk
Filed under: Art, Friends Work, Youth Culture | Tags: Brian Kenny, Marko Brozic, Slava Mogutin
PRINT ABOVE : Marko by Marko. (c) Marko Brozic. Published here by kind permission of Marko Brozic.
This is Marko Brozic, a model from Slovenia (who now lives in London) who has worked with Slava Mogutin & Brian Kenny. Marko likes to turn his own camera on himself to creative powerful and edgy self-portraits that have a beauty and frank honesty about them. Within a narcissistic context these images show both the physical and emotional “self” but it’s our own voyeurism that we should take note of when looking at his work.
Images : www.myspace.com/markobrozic
FRONT COVERS of issue 01 and 02 of Kaiserin Magazine. (c) Kaiserin Magazine.
The nice guys at Kaiserin Magazine have asked me to contribute to the next issue (issue 03 December 2007) which is very nice of them. It will be nice to get back to some art based photographic work aftar all the protest project work of late. I will let you know more about this when december comes around.
