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.