Great New Book: Breach of Peace

Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders by Eric Etheridge was published last May and, if your local bookstore doesn't already have it on the shelf, you should ask them to order it. The book juxtaposes contemporary portraits of the original Freedom Riders with their mug shots from 1961, along with interviews and reflections about American culture then and now. Not only is that a unique idea, it's an aesthetic jolt to see the modern nuanced portraits side-by-side with the older shots, often stark and badly lit but, nevertheless, heroic. The book raises questions about the uses of photography, the uses of memory, and the importance of documentary photography to capture the essence of a moment. The book contains more than 100 modern portraits/interviews and says as much about 21st century America as it does about the 1960's.

Heavy Light

Heavy Light: Recent Photography and Video from Japan is the first major American presentation in the last decade of contemporary photography-based artwork from Japan. The exhibit, which features 13 artists, is at the International Center of Photography in NYC from May 16-September 7, 2008.

The Esquire Covers---at MOMA

George Lois: The Esquire Covers

This exhibit--at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC until March, 2009--features Esquire covers from 1962-1972. Photographer George Lois "changed the face of magazine design" and dealt with such controversial issues as racism, feminism, and the Vietnam War. Don't miss this exhibit and the images that have become icons of American culture.

Call for Proposals

Call for Proposals: Documentary Photography Project

OSI's Documentary Photography Project is seeking applications for a grant to encourage new ways of presenting photography to the public to stimulate social change.

Rediscovering Jacob Riis

A new book "Rediscovering Jacob Riis: Exposure Journalism and Photography in Turn-of-the-Century New York" is just out from The New Press. The New York Time's says that Riis' photos "still have the power to shock." Read a review of the book and see a slideshow of Riis images.

Witness for Justice

Highly recommended is a new book called "Witness for Justice: The Documentary Photographs of Alan Pogue." Pogue began taking photos during the Vietnam war and continued for the next four decades. The book spans the years from Vietnam to Iraq and also contains Pogue's pictures from Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as portraits of American cultural heroes like Allen Ginsburg.

Orlando Fringe Theater Festival

The Orlando Fringe Theater Festival is happening now through May 26th in Loch Haven Park. There are dozens of shows, plus art for sale.

In California, visit an exhibit of photographs documenting Cesar Chavez and the "Thousand Mile March." Also included in the exhibit is a series of personal portraits of Chavez. The exhibit continues through May 30th.

Independent and Experimental Films

Long unseen experimental films (from NYC's Filmmakers' Cooperative) will be screened at The Stone in the East Village on Friday, May 16th, including films by Wim Vander Linden, pioneer of Dutch experimental film. Meanwhile, in DC on the 28th, filmmaker Cauleen Smith will show and discuss her film "Drylongso," about an art student who decides to make a Polaroid documentary about young Black men, an "endangered species."

Current Exhibits

Great exhibits are happening this week and next on both coasts. A stunning Lee Friedlander exhibit is continuing at SF MOMA through May 18th. Also at SF MOMA is an exhibit of photographs by Italian photographer, Gabriele Basilico , whose work emphasizes architecture, urban landscapes and "marginalized urban settings."

At the Met in NYC, Photography on Photography continues through next week. And at the MOMA in NYC, screenings of documentary films by Canadian filmmaker, Alanis Obomsawin begin on May 14 and continue till May 26. Obomsawin is a member of the Abenaki Nation and may be best known for her 1993 film "Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance," about a Mohawk protest against the intrusion of a golf course onto sacred native lands.

The Last Photographic Heroes

Check out the recent book (November, 2007) by Gilles Mora--The Last Photographic Heroes: American Photographers of the Sixties and Seventies. Find out why, according to the author, these important decades produced "the last photographic heroes."

New articles on documentary photography

1. Street, R.S. (2008). Pacific visions. Pacific Historical Review, 77 (1), 151-3.

In this article, photographer Richard Street describes photographing the end of a Cesar Chavez fast. Fascinating personal recollection.

2. Noordenbos, C., Sorgedrager, B., Teijmant, I. & Gerritsma, R. (2007). Sociology as a vehicle: The new method of learning in study of documentary photography. Societes, 95 (1), 41-52.

Professors in the photography department of the School of the Arts (Utrecht)describe their new method of integrating sociology and documentary photograpy.

3. Wiesner, A. (2007). Rediscovering the (extra) ordinary: Missed experience and the South African documentary photography. Javnost, 14 (3), 7-29.

The article discusses the current direction of documentary photography in South Africa.