Photography Through the Lens of Magnum and VII

Spring 2016

Month: February 2016 (Page 1 of 4)

Magnum Website Response, Caroline Martel

February 26, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Honestly, I was very worried when I first started digging into Magnum’s website, as I am not a big tech person. But surprisingly, I found it very easy to navigate through. It is indeed surprising to me as I could only start to imagine the overwhelming amount of content that the company presents compacted in one single website. However, the website’s different sections are very clearly divided between the editorial, photographers, cultural, commercial, community and store.

The presentation and design of the website is also very pleasing to the eye. It clearly embodies Magnum’s philosophy: organized, professional and tasteful.

Created in 1947 by Capa, Cartier-Bresson, Rodgers and Shim; Magnum was founded on very friendly bases around these photographers’ common love for photography and wish to bring testimonies on our world. These founders had very different styles and techniques with their work, which is clearly reflected by the incredible stylistic diversity on Magnum’s website.

The first thing that really stroke me as I was scrolling through Magnum’s website is how incredibly global the its coverage is. Having photographers on the ground dispersed all over the globe gives the cooperative a huge advantage compared to other types of organizations that would have to fly their photographers where the action is happening. Just by glancing at the “Latest stories” page, I can see that there are 14 in Europe, 10 in America, 7 in Latin America, 6 in Asia, 6 in the Middle East, 4 in Africa, 3 in North America and 1 in Oceania. I am stunned. One thing that inevitably comes to mind when looking at those statistics is the question of funding. How does Magnum afford to have so many different photographers all over the world covering such a diverse range of topics (i.e. armed conflict, politics, daily life, food population, religion, transport). Magnum’s presence is worldwide, as the map of  the “Magnum whereabouts” shows.

The statistics given on Magnum’s website are very interesting and some are surprising to me. For example, in the latest stories, only 46 have been shot in black an white when 132 were shot in color. Are the new generations growing up in a digital world becoming more sensitive to pictures in color than a black and white one?

There are only 61 photographers in Magnum, a surprisingly small number considering the immense worldwide coverage that Magnum offers. It is pleasing to see that Magnum stayed the small, elitist and friendly cooperative that it was at its creation.

I especially liked the “Archive Calendar” as it presents the key dates in history. We can see a true evolution in the history of photography. These two pages were, in a way, a summary of Magnum’s website as a whole. It shows clearly that photographers have different ways of approaching the different themes. We might seem more engaged and brought into certain types of themes. For example, when looking at portraits, there is a type of intimacy and comfort that the viewer builds that might not be present in a photo of an armed conflict. But point of views and angles chosen to present are not only based on the theme it s celebrating but also very unique to each photographer. Some clearly prefer giving more of an outsider’s point of view than others. I also found it very interesting, even surprising, that Magnum’s website would present their photographers’ commercial work. I see it as a way of encouraging their commercial work for financial reasons.

One photographer’s work especially caught Moises Saman’s my attention: the one of Moises Saman. Born in Peru, Saman grew up in Spain where he currently lives. He graduated in 1998 from California State University where he developed an interest for photography. His first real project abroad hands-on was in Kosovo, photographing the effects of the last Balkan war. During 7 years, Saman was a photographer for Newsday in New York where he covered the 9/11 attacks. In 2007, Moises becomes a freelance photographers and his work is published in The New York Times, Newsweek or even Time magazine. His famous coverage of the Iraqi conflict will be published in the latter. Moises was invited to join Magnum in 2010 and became a full member in 2014.

While studying Saman’s portfolio, I found that there is such an interesting contrast between his different photos while still following a common thread. He photographs action shots, presenting a lot of movement and chaos. Some of them are extremely dramatic.

For example, this picture taken in 2003 of an American soldier screaming in Bagdad shows a state of unimaginable panic. Saman gets very close to the action as we can see in this image, he was right next to an explosion. I think that he might have wanted to transmit that personal involvement by making this picture very engaging to the viewer.

 

soldier in gear with cloud of black smoke behind him

IRAQ. Baghdad, Iraq. May 1, 2003. An American soldier screams at a gathering crowd at the scene of an explosion at an illegal petrol station in central Baghdad.

 

 

 

He uses the same technique in this other photo taken in Afghanistan in March 2010. These Afghan soldiers are rushing to the helicopter, carrying a wounded soldier. The movement is obvious in this photo: the soldiers running, screaming, the helicopter’s movement. But it is the contrast that the wounded’s soldier’s expression brings that is truly stunning. The focus is on him, and he seems so peaceful, the light embraces him perfectly. That expression just adds a whole other dimension to the photo itself.

 

Injured soldier on stretcher being carried to helicopter by other soldiers

AFGHANISTAN. Kunar Province. March 2010. Afghan soldiers carry a wounded comrade into an American medevac helicopter after a Taliban ambush near the village of Tsunek, Kunar Province.

 

But Saman’s work doesn’t only cover the action of the armed conflict. He gives us also very powerful images of the direct disastrous effect that this violence has on the civilians. Those pictures present an incredible emptiness. Very sad, some of them show an immense serenity that stroke me. I thought this idea was embodied perfectly in his picture above.

Little boy leaning into a large hole in a wall.

AFGHANISTAN. Gardez. May 2005. An Afghan boy plays in the ruins of a former government building detsroyed during the civil war of the 1990’s in Afghanistan.

 

in 2005, Saman took this picture of a young Afghan playing in the ruins of Gardez, destroyed by the civil war. The serenity, not only brought by the black and white but also by the composition is mesmerizing. The emptiness that Saman shows in his pictures of civilians is overwhelming.

Women in open space with sunlight hitting them

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO.Goma, DRC. September 2009.Congolese women living at the Buhimba camp for Internally displaced people outside Goma.

Man and woman walking through rubble lined street.

HAITI. Port-au-Prince. January 18, 2010. A couple walks hand in hand through a devastated area in downtown Port-au-Prince, one of the hardest hit areas by the January 12th earthquake.

 

The other photographer who’s art especially stroke me is Antoine D’Agata. Originally from France he left to New York in 1990 where he studied photography, instructed by notably Larry Clark and Nan Goldin. His first books of photographs, De Mala Muerte and Mala Noche, were published in 1998. The Galerie Vu then started distributing his work. He then won the Niépce Prize for young photographers in 2001 for his work Hometown and published more work, such as Vortex, Insomnia, 1001 Nuits, Stigma and Manifeste. He joined Magnum in 2004 and has ever since been traveling the world.

“Its not how a photographer looks at the world that is important. It’s their intimate relationship with it.”

This quote really touched me in a way that he admits being involved in his art personally, when as some photographers just act as witnesses or messengers of the action. But D’Agata’s art is so personal and real that it is very perturbing. I really liked his collection “Hometown”. Every photo is unique and beautifully perturbing. The crudity of what he is showing is immense and the fact that he is just giving it to us without any sugar coating is incredibly different from what we would be used to see.

D’Agate shows us the beauty behind the aspects of human beings that we don’t normally want to see. And he just shoves it in our face in a very brutal way. It is very effective.

Here are some of my favorite shots from “Hometown”:

Woman's back

FRANCE.

Man in his underwear against a plain white wall

FRANCE.

Woman with blonde hair in between the legs of another woman

FRANCE.

Arm with tattoo receiving a needle

FRANCE.

Cristina Wedekind – Magnum Response

February 24, 2016 / / 0 Comments

While scrolling through the Magnum Website and observing various pictures, portfolios, and relevant historical data, there were a few themes that stuck out most to me. As well as two artist collections that captivated me.

One of the founders of Magnum, Cartier-Bresson, has a quote in the ‘about me’ section of the site that emphasizes that Magnum operates as a collective with a curious AND respectful attempt to expose what is happening in the world. Another theme that seems to be an integral part of Magnum’s projected image was the diverse range of images framed through multiple mentalities given the diversity of the members and collections within the collective. The Magnum founders and the Magnum collective today, seem intent on allowing their various, iconic, and well-done photos to speak for themselves and act as a documented moment and representation of a greater event.

All of the photographers and their work shown on the page is a testament to the diversity that Magnum prides of itself. Two stuck out particularly to me for personal and relative reasons. The first of which was Max Pinckers and his collaborative collection titles “Two Kinds of Memory and Memory Itself.” In the project description on the website, it seems that Pickers attempted to portray, through his documentations, specific stereotypes that Western cultures seem to associate with Japan in an alternative and aesthetic manner. By listing descriptions of specific images, Picker’s framing of the summary of the project led me to notice the (perhaps staged) image of Sumo wrestlers and the image of the “perfectly manicured” bonsai tree the most. However, I love Japan and seeing images of the country through the eyes of Pinckers was an awesome aesthetic and moving experience.

Men in traditional Japanese loincloths standing in circle Small bonsai trees on a rock as centerpiece of table

(I have no idea why these images are so small— sorry!)

The second photographer that stuck out to me the most was Matt Black and his project “The Geography of Poverty.” Black created a chart with demographics and statistics of the poverty levels within our very own United States. The reason this project caught my eye at first was the fact that Black started his project in my home state of California and then spread across the rest of the U.S.A.

I especially enjoyed the relationship between visual and quantitative data that Black was able to portray effectively through his collection. All of the images are aesthetically pleasing and photographed in black and white, adding to the somber idea of beautiful yet decrepit scenes.

One image that stuck out in particular to me was the image taken in Walkerville, MT in 2015. The population in this town is “675 and 39.4% live below the poverty level.” This photograph arrested me as I felt I had been transferred to an old Western ghost town complete with a lone dog and what appears to be an even dirt road littered with crumbling houses and overgrown shrubbery. However, Black was able to make something traditionally seen as a dilapidated town and frame/ capture the scene in a manner, which highlights its unique beauty.

birds on telephone wire

USA. Tulare, California. 2014. Birds. Tulare has a population of 59,278 and 21.4% live below the poverty level.

The second image, which is still a part of the same collection, was taking by Black in 2014 in Tulare, California. This town has a “population of 59,278 and 21.4% live below the poverty level.” This image stuck out to me due to the pleasing aesthetic of symmetry. I also continue to wonder why Black chose to include such an image in this collection.

dog on empty street surrounded by dilapidated homes

USA. Walkerville, MT. 2015. Walkerville has a population of 675 and 39.4% live below the poverty level.

VII Photography

February 19, 2016 / / 1 Comment

I’ve always treated photography as “capturing a moment.” In addition, I’ve felt that photography has lost this aspect as of late. With camera phones taking exceptional pictures, and with digital SLRs becoming more ubiquitous and cheap, I’ve felt that photography has declined in some small way.

I’d have to say that viewing the VII website helped restore my faith in some way. Of course I seem pessimistic because I am biased towards a certain type of photography. Yet, VII photographers seem to be excellent at “capturing a moment” — the idea of freezing a moment of time in one frame, to convey an emotion or message. What is beautiful about the VII photos is that they speak for themselves. There might be some degree of artistic interpretation, but the idea seems to be about sharing stories and broadening the minds of viewers.

My other impression of VII photos is that they are very frank. “This is what life is,” is what the photos seem to say. I appreciate that, because they aren’t highly stylized. By that, I mean they aren’t heavily photoshopped to the point where they are considered digital art/digital painting. Of course, filters and effects can help adjust the mood or bring out certain tones, but it never seems overly done to the point where the photographer/editor created an entirely new photo.

I also appreciate VII’s commitment to sharing stories from people around the world, from all walks of life, instead of adhering to some corporate agenda. Of course, every company must have their own issues internally, but externally the collective seems like an honest effort to create discussions on happenings around the world.

One of the photographic works on the VII website that stunned me was by Sim Chi Yin. Titled, “Dying to Breathe,” Sim Chi Yin. Chi Yin, in my opinion, captures the raw heartache associated to illness; the numbing “knowingness” of an impending death; and how knowing you will die has already killed you, in some way. She follows the family of Mr. He Quanggui, 40 years-old. He’s been with his wife, Mi Shixiu, 36, for nearly 19 years. They have an 18 year-old son.

He Quanggui used to be a gold miner. The extreme conditions of his job lead him to develop silicosis. He can now barely breathe and uses a machine to help pump oxygen into his lungs. He consistently collapses, suffers from life-threatening illnesses, and attempts suicide. Fortunately, his family is there for him every step of the way.

The first photo from the collection that strikes me the most is of He Quanggui struggling to climb the stairs to see his doctor. We find out by the later photos that his lungs will need to be drained, but for now, this first photo simply captures He’s daily struggle. It’s not that he cannot walk up the stairs or is short of breath–he is severely handicapped from his disease. We can see by how he grips the railing, hunched over, almost collapsing. People near him can stand upright, yet he cannot. The photography frames He in a very simplistic way, again demonstrating the “frankness” that is pervasive throughout other VII photographer’s works. This is He, and this is his struggle.

The second photo that, quite honestly, wrenched my heart was He sitting with his wife, son, and father. His father had also worked in the mines, but fortunately he does not suffer from silicosis. The caption of the photo lets us know that He collapsed for the second time that morning. His wife holds him and cries; his son sits next to him; his father bends his head down in seriousness. This photo beautifully captures the severity of He’s disease and the effects it has on family. We can see that the end of the road is near for He, yet he is still alive. Therefore, he is suffering greatly.

The next photographer whose work I was struck by is that of Maciek Nabrdalik. Nabrdalik’s photo series, “Refugee Crisis,” is an ongoing work following refugees from the Middle East. We see them arriving on boats, traveling down empty roads, and sleeping on the ground. To summarize, they have nowhere to go, yet they are in dire need of a newer, safer home. Hence, the “crisis.”
 One photo I found interested was of a man waking up after passing out. He is surrounded by several people. It is unclear whether or not he knows these people, or if they just helping him. His eyes are crossed, and the frame hugs tightly around his body. Typically I am not a fan of close cropping, yet this helps capture what it must be like to be surrounded by several people trying to bring you back to consciousness.

Another photo I wanted to point out was one of a father holding his baby, wrapped in a thermal blanket. Why is this important? Well, this is what they have to keep them warm–a thin foil-like layer. Of course, it will do it’s job, but is is enough? This photo is also “matter-of-fact,” but, it also inspires several questions. Where will they go? What will they do? What do they have? The refugee crisis is something we hear about every day, but not necessarily something us Americans deal with on a daily basis. Though, in other countries, natives encounter refugees every day. It is simply a part of life. Furthermore, this is a refugee’s life, one of nomadicity.

man leaning heavily on stairwell banister

“Arriving at a hospital seven hours’ drive from his remote village in the mountains, former gold miner Mr He Quangui struggles at the foot of a flight of stairs to get to the room where he will be warded. He is almost totally out of breath. An air bubble had burst in his lung cavity, putting pressure on his lungs, the doctors told him. The doctor who received him took one look at the chest x-rays he brought with him and said ‘It’s a miracle you made it here.'”

family comforting sick member

“Collapsing a second time in the same day, shortly after trying to take a pee on a commode, He Quangui is struggling to breathe, his son He Jingbo fanning him with a piece of cardboard while his wife Mi Shixiu and father He Decheng hold him, crying. He eventually recovers his breath. But in the wee hours of the next morning, he tried to kill himself to end the suffering.”

crowd surrounding man laying on ground

Family and volunteers surround a refugee who collapsed on a beach after arriving in an overcrowded dinghy on the Greek island of Lesbos from Turkey on September 24, 2015.

man and baby in open field

A man hugs his baby after landing on the Greek island of Lesbos on September 22, 2015.

Taylor Jung

February 19, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Author standing behind leaf fronds

I’m a sophomore in Gallatin studying journalism (potentially concentrating in the Middle East?) and foreign languages. It would be great to be a foreign correspondent some day, and a fashion blogger on the side. A girl can dream.

Photography has always been an important facet for my family. My father raised me on his cameras, until I eventually got my own. It was the best feeling in the world. I take photos for numerous other personal reasons, and all I’ll say is that I find the medium very cathartic.

Currently, I work at Bang Bang Tattoo in the Lower East Side. When I’m not working or going to school, I’m either browsing the Internet, taking pictures, or sewing clothes. Most likely just sleeping, because I’m exhausted from my schedule!

About Michelle Boukhover

February 17, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Author in cafe with sunlight shining on face

I’m Michelle, a sophomore transitioning to Gallatin, looking to concentrate in marketing and graphic design. I’m currently a production intern at an experiential marketing agency, BMF Media. I was born and raised in New Jersey, the armpit of America, and I’m Russian by heritage so I believe in a multitude of superstitions, eat some weird food, and sound pretty angry when I speak to my parents. My mail goal in life is to have  a house on the water where I will take long walks on the beach with my 2 burnese mountain dogs. I always drive with the windows down, I’m a firm advocate for hydration, and my nickname is Juicy B. 

VII Website Response

February 12, 2016 / / 1 Comment

VII is reinvention. What I see on the loading page of the VII website are images that are bright, energetic, but most of all, driven by political themes in the modern world. Searching through the years of work of their photographers, it’s no secret that VII is a physical embodiment of the major political and social events of the 21st century. I did not see images that were conventional and felt as if each photographer and project was pushing new ground, aided by the fact that many of the images are digital, after all, it was meant to compete with Getty and Corbis. Out of some of the least conventional photojournalism I have seen to date, two photographers that stood out and encapsulated the impression that VII left upon me were Alexandra Boulat and Maika Elan.

Maika Elan is a vietnamese photographer who was a sociology student at the University of Hanoi until she took up photography and, at a rapid pace, ascended to a professional level. In 2010 she started documentary photography after spending years as a fashion photographer and by 2013 was a member of the VII Mentor Program. A large amount of her work for VII is from Malaysia and Vietnam, documenting rituals, LGBT couples, family, and friends.

Upon first glance of Elan’s photographs, I was surprised when I saw double-exposed images. I have never seen any photojournalistic project that has utilized this technique, it largely remains confined to more aesthetic and concept-based photography. Her project Here Comes Thaipusam was one that left a lasting impression on my visual senses. In this project, Elan documents the Thaipusam ritual in Kuala Lampur, a ritual that dates back centuries. Before going on assignment, Elan exposed her film to frames of a Western fashion magazine she was reading. As a result, each of the images of this long standing ritual are contrasted with images of the magazine, providing a juxtaposition of tradition and religion to sex and product driven advertising. In one image, she superimposes a high-fashion model woman with one breast exposed onto an image of a large crowd of Thaipusam celebrants on their way to Batu Cave, the starting place of the religious ceremony. The colors are muted, and the dominant hue is blue, causing the viewer to feel colder, which accentuates the distance between the two images now morphed into one. The contrast between the two photos is heavy handed, mostly because we are aware of the fact that Thaipusam is a religious and traditional festival and feel out of place staring at an advertisement that as a citizen of the Western world, we see almost every day. It begs the question, has the Western world’s ritual become shopping or worship of products? In a second image, she contrasts an image of Malaysian men praying and marching in the ritual to another high-fashion image of a woman modeling what seems to be an expensive pair of shoes and yellow pants. There is a large juxtaposition in this image of color, the yellow pants of a high-fashion female model matching with the yellow accents of the dress of the men in the ritual. In these two entirely different worlds, the form, shape, and stance of people remains the same. It invokes a sense of universality, maybe we cannot relate entirely to the religious or spiritual ritual, but we certainly can draw a physical comparison and maybe that is a start to understanding cultures and places entirely foreign to our own.

Alexandra Boulat, one of the founding members of VII, was originally from Paris and first studied art history and graphic art at the École des Beaux-Arts before starting photographing, represented originally by her mother’s agency, Cosmos, and Sipa press for a decade. In 2001 she founded VII along with several peers and spent most of her photographic career focused on warzones in former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Israel, and Palestine, although her work does not stop at war-related images and includes a wealth of social and economic issues of the late 20th, and early 21st century. She is one of the most renowned photojournalists in modern times and has received a myriad of the highest prestige of awards for photography including the ICP Infinity Award, Eisenstat Award, and the Perpignan, Visa d’Or pour I’Image.

Alexandra Boulat’s photographs utilize heightened realism to it’s fullest potential, keeping her images often times brutally realistic and either jarringly still or blurred while in motion. I was drawn to her first project in Gaza, which contains an image of a man being pushed on an ambulance stretcher through what appears to be a hospital. The photograph is blurred from the forward pushing motion of the emergency responder. There are only two visible faces, the urgent expression of the EMT, and the shocked and concerned face of an onlooker staring at the injured man. The photo carries an immense amount of weight with it, we see several cameras around this man and the EMT struggling to push through. Despite the intensity of the situation, there remains a savior, committed to keeping this man alive. The viewer sees the power of the human will in one fleeting moment, we feel propelled by the pure raw energy of the man pushing the injured man to safety.  In a second image, three men are gathered near a young child in a hospital bed. One man, who may be the father of the young child, looks at the camera with great concern, the child, still innocent, also looks at the camera. Off to the right, two other men have bowed their heads in prayer. The image of a child in a hospital bed with a cast on his leg draws strong emotion, as many photo’s of children tend to do. However, Boulat is saying more than just about who gets hurt in war, she is also exploring the purpose of prayer and religion. These men may have almost seen this young child die, and for that reason they remain somber, in prayer, perhaps hoping their situation will change. The image asks the viewer to look beyond just the physical manifestations of war, but also the social and mental ramifications as well. As long as bombs continue to be dropped, people will continue to pray, a hopeless gesture, but one that is all one can do in a violently hopeless scenario. 

– Tristan Oliveira

Men dressed in traditional garb walk in a crowd

A group of men walking and praying on their way to Batu Cave in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Feb. 1 2012, is overlaid by images of fashion models from a beauty magazine. Thaipusam is known as a very enigmatic festival, mysterious and frenzied. In the words of Maika Elan, “Thaipusam looked like a pilgrimage of a bygone era.” As an avid reader of magazines, Elan wondered how photographs of the traditional culture and people of Thaipusam would look exposed in contrast to media images of modern popular culture. As an experiment, before first visiting Batu Caves in Malaysia where the festival took place, she exposed a few rolls of film with images from the magazines she read. At the Thaipusam Festival, the film was re-exposed over the initial fashion magazine images.

Hospital room with view of landscape from window and pray mat on floor

Prayer time at the Al-Shifa Hospital on the bloodiest day of the Israeli incursion (21 were killed and more than 50 injured) in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestine, July 6, 2006. The Israeli military operation, dubbed “Summer Rain,” is aimed at winning the freedom of a captured Israeli soldier and lifting the threat of near-daily Palestinian rocket-fire on southern Israel.

person on a gurney surround by hospital staff

An injured Palestinian from the Hajjaj family arrives at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Palestine, July 8, 2006. Three members of the family were killed, including a six-year-old girl, in an attack on their home in Karni, east of Gaza City in the Palestinian territories. The Israeli military operation, dubbed “Summer Rain,” is aimed at winning the freedom of a captured Israeli soldier and lifting the threat of near-daily Palestinian rocket-fire on southern Israel.

Streets lined with people and tents overlaid by the image of a woman laying in bed

People gather outside of Batu Cave where the Thaipusam festival is held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Feb. 1, 2012, and is overlaid by an image of a fashion model from a beauty magazine. Thaipusam is known as a very enigmatic festival, mysterious and frenzied. In the words of Maika Elan, “Thaipusam looked like a pilgrimage of a bygone era.” As an avid reader of magazines, Elan wondered how photographs of the traditional culture and people of Thaipusam would look exposed in contrast to media images of modern popular culture. As an experiment, before first visiting Batu Caves in Malaysia where the festival took place, she exposed a few rolls of film with images from the magazines she read. At the Thaipusam Festival, the film was re-exposed over the initial fashion magazine images.

VII & It’s Photographers

February 12, 2016 / / 1 Comment

Like some posts previous to mine, I had a hard time examining the VII website without automatically contrasting it in my mind with Magnum (which I suppose is normal seeing that Magnum is succeeded and rivaled by VII). The first, most obvious difference is that VII is “current” or “hip”. This was evident to me when reading the press release –the use of bold color, current fonts, and strong graphics contrasted greatly to Magnum’s website, which is a touch plain by comparison. While Magnum has history on it’s side, VII has the new era. For them, this is the norm, not an adjustment. In one of the interviews, Ashley Woods puts a lot of emphasis of them as an “online” agency where the archive and work of all the photographers will be online and available to editors instantly – a relatively novel innovation which is important for the immediacy of photojournalism.

They’ve included a map to show where each of the photographers are in the world, as Magnum did. This speaks to the larger framework of how versatile and widespread such a small organization can be. It also shows how important it is to them, still in the current day, to cover all parts of the globe. Even though they put so much emphasis on being everywhere at once, VII has kept their organization deliberately small and it is probably much easier to manage that way since it is a cooperative.

One thing I noticed about VII as a group is they put a lot of significance on wanting to educate others. One of the five main tabs of the website is education. They offer various workshops all over the world as well as internships and mentor programs. While workshops aren’t free or cheap, these world-renowned photographers still take the time to spread their knowledge.

I like that their new photographers photograph mainly things they know/ places they grew up in. I think there is a large disconnect often times between the journalist or photojournalist and the things he/she is trying to convey. It is easier to present on something that you not only know well but have a personal connection to. It is one thing to sympathize with a community and quite another to be part of it. Danny Wilcox Frazier focuses on photographing in America, showing the devastating effects of an ever-shifting economy.

The second photographer, Sarkar Protick, I’ve picked to walk about was born and is based in Bangladesh. He himself is a photographer, teacher, and lecturer – a testament to VII’s commitment to education. Protick’s photos spoke to me because of his strong personal aesthetic and how beautifully dreamy yet haunting his photos are. Like Pinkhassov, from my last post, I was in awe from how carefully he rendered his photos, how lighting played such a big role in his photography. I now follow him on Instagram, and this aesthetic followed him even onto social media. He is very blunt and to the point in his captions, often just writing what he is portraying like “tea, no milk” or “picture of Jesus hangs in a drawing room”. While his captions are straight forward, his photos are not.

Bright room with wheelchair covered in white cloth

It was in the afternoon.I was sitting on my grandpa’s couch. The door was slightly open and I saw light coming through, washed out between the white door and white walls. All of a sudden it all started making sense. I could relate what I was seeing with what I felt. John and Prova, my grandparents. While growing up, I found much love and care from them. They were young and strong. As time went by it shaped everything in it’s own way. Bodies took different forms and relations went distant. Grandma’s hair turned gray, the walls started peeling off and the objects were all that remained. Everything was contained into one single room. They always loved the fact that I take pictures of them, because then I spend more time with them and they don’t feel lonely anymore. After Prova passed away, I try to visit more so John can talk. He tells me stories of their early life, and how they met. There are so many stories. Here, life is silent, suspended. Everything is on a wait. A wait for something that I don’t completely understand

television with blank white screen

It was in the afternoon.I was sitting on my grandpa’s couch. The door was slightly open and I saw light coming through, washed out between the white door and white walls. All of a sudden it all started making sense. I could relate what I was seeing with what I felt.

His series “what remains” portrays his grandparents and their home in a state of perpetual wait and suspense. The photos are very light in color, featuring a dreamy, foggy overlay and a multitude of pastel shades. However, the photos are still very vibrant and well lit. This kind of effect is very hard to achieve and speaks to his mastery. More so than just being beautiful, he explores an intimate relation with his grandparents with these photos from who feels distant yet utterly close to.

While this series is more of a personal piece, his work is also political. His series “Land in which We can trust” portrays a people who are forced to live in constant fear of their land literally going under water. Some of the work, like his other photogtaphs, can just be considered art because of how beautiful and gentle they are. However, a photo like this one of the men on the boat displacing from their homes, shows a different tone.

Many people on a simple boat

The islanders returning from their races on the continent. The Jamuna river can reach 17km wide during the rainy season. In the region of “tanks”, the voracious river absorbs everything, islands and houses, forcing people into exile. At the current rate of global warming, the country will lose up to 17% of its territory by 2050 and will have between 13 and 40 million climate displaced.

The pastel dreamy sea and sky don’t have a cloud or ripple in sight. The men on the boat could look like they’re just fishing or taking a trip. The haunting thing about this image is the man all the way to the left of the boat, in the center of the composition. He looks at you straight at the camera with a hard expression, but looks like he’s almost looking through you. Like nothing in front of him matters anymore. He looks determined, yet defeated.

 

Christopher Morris is the second photographer who I truly enjoyed (who, funny enough, won the Robert Cappa medal). The pieces that stood out to me belonged to his unpublished series on the New York subway system – shot in 1981. He shot it with ektachrome film and a magenta filter. The photos truly show the grunge of the time. Now living in New York and constantly hearing about “the way New York used to be” it was wild for me to see first hand how much really did change in a mere 30 years. Even the graffiti was somehow dirtier. The website describes the project in better words that I ever could “Morris captured the mix of grime, decay and erratic movement that epitomize a moment in New York’s history memorialized in popular culture as a dark, dire metropolis. With New York’s subterranean transportation as his backdrop, Morris contrasts rebellious graffiti with blase attitudes and counter-culture performances with seas of expressionless commuters to show rare moments of intimacy amid a gritty, hard-edged urban metropolis”. This speaks to my earlier point – I connect with this precisely because I do live here and do know so much about it. If I saw these photos of a metro in California or Montreal I would not have the same reaction to them.

 

 

New York City subway covered in graffiti in the 1980'sNew York City subway station in the 1980's

 

The photos themselves are striking and beautiful and I think speak to the kind of aesthetic that film produces. Organic in a way – less perfect, less staged. I like that these photos are not perfectly lit or color corrected. I sometimes forget that even though VII is a newer agency, a lot of their members are older and didn’t grow up in the digital age so their earlier work is shot on film. The rest of Christopher Morris’s work is good as well but this is what stood out to me.

 

 

 

VII Response: Gilbertson & Dimmock

February 12, 2016 / / 1 Comment

VII is a much newer, more modern agency compared to Magnum – the work on the site is all from within this century, while Magnum’s archives span nearly an entire century of work. Thus, VII’s collection is smaller and contains lots of categories that feel relevant to the news cycle I’ve grown up with: the Iraq War, the Refugee Crisis, the 2004 Olympics, Obama’s inaugurations, the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, and even the Iowa Caucus from last week. Everything seems very up-to-date, current, and like a true encapsulation of the past fifteen years of worldly events.

The site itself is similar to Magnum’s with its sleekness, and it takes a red and (mainly) white theme (as opposed to the black and white themed Magnum site). On that topic, most of the VII pictures are in color; the black and white photographs are certainly a minority in the collection. I have to say this surprised me – sure, much of Magnum is not in color because it comes from a time when color was not an option, but the modern black and white photos on the Magnum site seem artistic, intentional, and appropriate. The black and white VII photos, at least for me in the little amount I’ve spent with this content, seem a little forced and unnatural. Perhaps it is simply that they stick out on the more colorful VII archive.

Another big characteristic that I noticed of the VII website is the heavy amount of text. Captions, descriptions, bios, and other pages of the site are much wordier than the Magnum website. It seems to be more common for modern websites to have less text, especially one dedicated to a photography archive, but VII has a lot of words on its pages. Many of the photographers’ work that I was looking at was very specific and pertained to very focused times or events, so the detail certainly helped to provide background and context.

I approached the site with the search function and just started looking up significant events and people from the past decade or so, like the ones I named above. This allowed me to get a feel for the site and the types of photographs that were contained in the archive. Many of the pictures were unique and striking, while this also served as a reminder that VII photographers do not live in a world with limited film:Search results for "Obama" on the VII website

The pool of VII photographers is much smaller than that of Magnum, which obviously makes sense, but still surprised me a little – there may not be many people, but they have a massive, impressive body of work to show for themselves. To focus in on two photographers, I set out to find women. I first selected Ashley Gilbertson, looked through many photos of Iraq from 2003-2005, veterans programs, and families of soldiers. I then read through Gilbertson’s bio and learned he is in fact a man, but I was too struck with his work to move onto another person. Gilbertson spent a long time photographing refugees in the early 2000s, then ended up in Iraq for the middle of the decade, and moved on to working on the effects of war (veterans, suicides, families, brain damage) – his career has taken a very natural direction. He has received numerous awards for his work, being honored with the Robert Capa Gold Metal, an Ellie Award, and an Emmy nomination for some of his multimedia work in most recent years.

Soldier in combat gearing sliding down marble staircase

A U.S. Marine slides down the marble bannister in Saddam’s palace in Tikrit, Iraq, April 14, 2003.

I was drawn to one striking characteristic of Gilbertson’s work: he’s captured very heavy, intense scenes, but sprinkled throughout images of war and illness and destruction are photos that appear overwhelmingly joyful:

This is a photo of a Marine in Saddam Hussein’s palace in 2003, and below is an Iraqi child playing with some fake weaponry.

Iraqi child with fake knife.

Gilbertson has a remarkable ability to capture something positive in the face of a lot of negativity and violence. Without the context provided in the captions, it’d be hard to guess these images are both from a heated Iraq in 2003.

After covering the Iraq war, Gilbertson moved onto veterans affairs and the personal effects of war on involved individuals. A lot of these images, such as stressed Veterans’ Suicide Prevention Hotline employees taking desperate phone calls, are filled with hard, raw emotion and pain. Gilbertson again, though, captures beauty and happiness through all of the terrible circumstances. For instance, I was really drawn to a series of photos involving this woman, specifically this image:

War photographer struggling with PTSD. Woman stands with horse in front of barn

This is an Iraq war photographer who came home from war, suffered from PTSD, struggled with contemplations of suicide, and now has a hard time day-to-day with life. Directly from Gilbertson’s caption, “Today, to prevent overwhelming feelings, she smokes a pipe in the woods near her home and rides horses.” This has the looks of a stock photo of “happy woman with horse,” which is yet another instance of Gilbertson’s ability to contrast light and darkness, both literally and figuratively.

I moved on to Jessica Dimmock, confirmed she is a female photographer, and started looking through her work. She’s photographed a wide swath of people and events, made a music video for Moby’s “Wait For Me,” and served as photographer and videographer for the HBO mini-series The Weight of the Nation. Her folders of work range from Hurricane Sandy relief, Gossip Girls stars, and Hillary Clinton to photos of paparazzi, families with autistic children, and factory workers in Vietnam. She’s done it all.

I was particularly struck by her low-resolution photo series about the faces of uninsured Americans. There are a lot of photos of this one woman, Sandy Flanigan, and her struggle with not being able to afford cancer treatment.

Woman in doctor's office

Faces of uninsured Americans: Sandy Flanigan.

When she was diagnosed with leukemia and given six months to live in 1999, her health insurance premium skyrocketed and she had to drop her coverage. This photo is from 2007, where she is still alive but struggling to find care for a tumor that has been growing for months. This next photo is after her hospital visit, where she was examined and then charged exorbitant amounts for tests and pharmaceuticals, leaving her family helpless, stressed, and in debt.

Woman leaving an expensive appointment.

We hear about uninsured Americans constantly in the news and in politics, but rarely do we get faces assigned to statistics and numbers. A politician may tell a story about “someone they met” along the campaign trail who was without coverage, but this is different. Dimmock, though, has captured the pain and struggle of the day-to-day life of an uninsured woman so well in this series. In the second photo, even though we cannot see her face, Sandy’s stride and hand gesture tell us everything her face is saying – she is concerned about living, about the toll her sickness is physically placing on her, and the financial toll it is taking on her family. She needs help, and she cannot get it. Along with all of the VII photographers, Dimmock gives a face to this pain and a voice to the helpless.

Vii Website Response

February 12, 2016 / / 1 Comment

The photographers at the Vii collective represent a multitude of backgrounds, and similarly, they are stationed around the world from Chile, to Cameroon, to Bangladesh. Since Vii was established in 2001, their photos are shot primarily in digital format, as opposed to Magnum’s use of film throughout much of the collective’s industry. To that, Vii presents photos in both black and white and in color. Vii covers current events like “Iowa: Republicans”, by Danny Wilcox Frazier, but also focuses on “visual storytelling” of cultural focus through pieces like “A Detroit Requiem”, also documented by Frazier. The small size of Vii makes for a more exclusive feel within the group itself, but I find it interesting that the collective also advertises their multitude of partnerships, alongside workshops that are open to the public.

The two photographers I chose to focus on are Danny Wilcox Frazier, and Sim Chi Yin. As Wilcox Frazier is based in Iowa, I found the contrast between him and Beijing-based Chi Yin to be interesting. Despite being stationed on opposite sides of the world, both photographers portray political photographs in their own right, and both capture the everyday lives of ordinary people, often times in poverty-stricken areas. I found Wilcox Frazier to be unique in that he’s based in the Midwest, rather than a large city. Similarly, Chi Yin is one of the only women in the Vii collective, making both photographers unique from a “typical” male, city-based photographer that we so often see in both Vii and Magnum.

The first photo by Wilcox Frazier is from his series, “A Detroit Requiem”. The series depicts the East Side in “America’s poorest largest city”, with photos of decay, murder, and poverty-stricken communities. The photo itself depicts Da’Rius Brown, a toddler, running “through garbage in the driveway of an abandoned house that sits next to his home”. The boy is almost naked—he wears just a diaper. The photo is shot in black and white and assumedly in digital format, but the entirety of the composition is blurry and depicts movement. For me, the photo resonated with the work of Robert Capa on D-day and during the Spanish Civil War. Wilcox Frazier’s series does depict a “warzone” in a way. With high murder rates and abandoned property with debris, Da’Rius is running through and toward danger whether he wants to or not. To that, life still continues for the people who live in this area of Detroit. The fact that Da’Rius is wearing only a diaper speaks to his vulnerable state. Similarly, his parents are not in the photo, which yields to a certain feeling of chaos and freedom that speaks to the larger themes of Detroit.

Small child in diaper running through trash

Da’Rius Brown runs through garbage in the driveway of an abandoned house that sits next to his home on the East Side of Detroit, Michigan. Da’Rius has lost two uncles, De’Erion Sherrors and Chaise Sherrors, both shot to death on Detroit’s East Side.

The second photo I chose from Wilcox Frazier is from his series titled, “Iowa Political Circus”—a series in which he follows various US presidential candidates’ campaigns around Iowa in the days leading up to the caucus. The photo depicts a café in Iowa City, Iowa captioned, “Supporters and voters listen as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaks at the Hamburg Inn No. 2”. The photo depicts a crowd of predominantly white men gathered in the Hamburg Inn facing leftward, but Chris Christie is noticeably not in the composition. The photo becomes political only in context. Normally, the viewer would merely see this photo as just a crowded café, but in this case, Wilcox Frazier’s caption gives the photo context since its purpose is not self-explainable on its own. When the caption provides the viewer with knowledge that the people depicted in the photo are listening to Chris Christie, an opinion is automatically formed. To that, the viewer perceives the photo based on their own view, despite the photo being objective and lacking a central focus. To the uninformed viewer, the people in the photo are merely present (the black and white image doesn’t allow any particular person to stand out), but the caption itself gives the viewer insight into these peoples’ ideologies, which yields to judgment.

Group of people gathered in restaurant

Supporters and voters listen as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaks at the Hamburg Inn No. 2 in Iowa City, Iowa.

The first photo I chose from Sim Chi Yin is from her series titled, “The Water Seller”. The series is set in a quickly-developing Myanmar, but Chi Yin follows the lives of water-sellers who rely on Myanmar’s lack of bottled water to make a profit. The color photo that I chose depicts Chit Min Oo, a water-seller, drawing a “tattoo” on his arm in ballpoint pen. The photo states that Min Oo “can often be found either smoking cigarettes or doodling. He has a reputation for being good at doodling on the train, other water-sellers often ask him to tattoo them with his ballpoint pen”. The design of the tattoo itself could be influenced by Western culture and the idea of globalization that is contributing to Myanmar’s development, but it certainly serves as a contrast to the normally grueling workday that water-sellers endure. This photo gives character to Min Oo, who may only be viewed in a one-dimensional way by the (likely Western) viewer. The photo also speaks to the idea of an innate human nature to find free time and enjoy leisurely activities—this is common among everyone, and the viewer can resonate with this photo in some sense.

Personal drawing heart on their arm

The second photo I chose from Chi Yin is from her series titled, “The Great Divide”. The series exposes the huge gap between rich and poor in Beijing—an issue caused by a lack of socioeconomic mobility within the city. The photo is captioned, “A worker talks on the phone in front of an advertisement for luxury goods”, and depicts a modestly dressed man on a (non-smartphone) cell phone leaning on a cart in front of a photo of an Omega watch. Compositionally, he is at the bottom of the image and the ad of the luxury watch towers over him, larger than life. At the same time, the worker and his cart take up almost exactly half of the photo, allowing the viewer to note his presence and the watch equally. There is no middle-ground in the photo, which can point to the idea that Chi Yin is trying to portray within the series—the disparity between rich in poor creates a huge gap in Chinese culture. To that, the worker depicted in the photo will likely never be able to afford the Omega watch behind him.

Person leaning against yellow cube on the phone with watch ad behind them

Cristina Wedekind– Who We Are

February 12, 2016 / / 0 Comments

My name is Cristina and I am a Junior at Gallatin. I’m currently studying the business of entertainment with a focus in the legal aspect of film production.  I’m originally from the Bay Area in California.
With this class, I’m especially interested in seeing how two major photo collectives had been able to shape the way a world perceives crucial and impacting events. I’m also interested gaining a better grasp on the society of the spectacle we live in today and how the influx of technology and media has affected human understanding and interaction.

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