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Posted: 22nd December, 2023 by The Editor

The year is 2013 and Canadian screamo/post-hardcore band, Silverstein has dropped their seventh studio album This Is How The Wind Shifts. 10 years later, the fellas are still going at it and celebrated the release of the album by doing a 10-year anniversary tour.

Silverstein took a different approach when performing This Is How The Wind Shifts in its entirety. Instead of playing the album from front to back, the band mixed it up and performed the songs out of order sprinkling in fan favorites and hits from their other albums. Fans in attendance also got to participate in a live set list vote.

Silverstein is one of those bands that when they cover a song, they find a way to deliver and apply a touch of their sound that won’t make people stop listening to the cover. They did just that with Linkin Park’s “One Step Closer”. Everyone around me either sang, jumped, or had their phones out. None of that would stop as the band proceeded to play fan favorite, “My Heroine” off Discovering The Waterfront. If you’ve seen Silverstein before, then you already know this is a song they play every time and it’s one that anyone who’s anyone is going to sing along to. Unfortunately, “My Heroine” would be the last song before the encore. 

There were still some songs from This Is How The Wind Shifts that the band had not played yet. For the encore, Silverstein played “Stand Amid the Roar”, “In a Place of Solace”, “Arrivals”, and finally, “Departures”. With a great night coming to an end and this tour now over, one has to wonder how the screamo/post-hardcore veterans will surprise fans in 2024. No matter what, they have always come through.

Photos by Jazmin Lemus

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For Dawoud Bey, history is anything but dead. Through the Hyde Park photographer’s eyes, and more specifically his lens, the events of the past are very much alive and tangled amid contemporary life.

A MacArthur Fellow whose intimate, evocative portraits have been the subject of major exhibitions across the country, Bey has shifted his focus in the past few years to the indelible mark people have had on place and space. And in particular, how the legacy of slavery still lives in the land.

Bey, 70, began this exploration in 2017 with his series Night Coming Tenderly Black, a set of large-scale black and white images that feature purported stops on the underground railroad in Ohio. “That work was about trying to visualize and imagine the landscape of fugitive activity,” Bey said. “How Black bodies moved across Northeastern Ohio in an act of self-liberation to get themselves to the other side of Lake Erie and Canada.”

From there, the Columbia College professor stepped further back in time and turned his camera to the places from which Black slaves escaped. In this case, the west banks of the Mississippi River in Louisiana where more than 350 plantations once stood. This set of images, which Bey titled In This Here Place, focus on Evergreen plantation, a well-preserved sugarcane plantation and historic landmark about 45 miles upriver from New Orleans.

And now, for his new photo series, Stony the Road, Bey has completed the triptych in Richmond, Virginia, where African men and women were sold into slavery. The series is part of an exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts titled Dawoud Bey: Elegy, which brings together the three projects for the first time. “Virginia was an epicenter for the import and export of Black bodies,” Bey said. “This is where this whole narrative basically begins, where 350,000 enslaved Africans walked into slavery.”

Along with the exhibit, which runs through February, Bey has published a book with Aperture. On the pages of Elegy, the 42 images create a haunting catalog of the American landscape. They illustrate, says Bey, how history reverberates in the present, how it doesn’t simply disappear. Bey shared with WBEZ contributor Elly Fishman, in his own words, the stories behind five Elegy photographs suspended somewhere between the past and present.

Irrigation Ditch

Bey: “This is Evergreen, which still has an active sugarcane business on that landscape. This is a view of that, but the picture itself is meant to pull you in and suggest the vastness of this landscape. That it goes on for as far as the eye can see. I’d never been on a plantation landscape before. I still haven’t seen a cotton field. Being in those sugarcane fields, and seeing the absolute enormity even of a reduced sugarcane operation, it really gives you a sense of the intensely grueling labor needed to harvest sugarcane.”

* * *

Cabin and Benches

“This slave cabin is from Evergreen plantation and is one of the 22 intact cabins that remain on the site. One of the reasons they’re so well-preserved is that they were occupied until as recently as 1947 by people who were the descendants of the enslaved. People who lived here as sharecroppers on the same land where their family had once been slaves. They lived here with no running water. No bathroom facilities. This cabin looks like someone just got up and walked away from the scene. There are benches still there. Even the parted curtain, it has a very haunted and haunting feeling to it.”

* * *

Conjoined Trees and Field

“There is something deeply human about these touching trees on this plantation landscape. It’s one of the few pictures that eems deeply allegorical in some way. These two touching trees and this once horrific landscape. It’s the persistence touch, and the persistence of connection, as suggested by trees, which are very much a living thing, too.”

* * *

Untitled #1 (Picket Fence and Farmhouse)

“I found this house from doing research on underground railroad safe houses in Cleveland. The site was not overly modernized and there’s the white picket fence, which is significant within the sociocultural sensibility of this country. The white picket fence signifies a kind of property demarcation. The very real aspiration to get your own house around which you can put a white picket fence to mark your space.”

* * *

Dawoud Bey at work in Cleveland at Lake Erie

“I very much want to keep working in the landscape tradition. For me, the human presence in these photographs hasn’t completely disappeared because it shapes how I make the photograph. They’re always eye level. I’m not doing interesting and unusual things with the camera to make interesting pictures. Even if the photographs look down, they’re looking down from a human vantage point. They are meant to suggest the human presence in that place. I actually see it as people, those Black presences, moving from in front of the camera to behind it.”

Elly Fishman is a freelance writer and the author of “Refugee High: Coming of Age in America.”

It was peak night in Sedona, AZ December 13-14, 2023 for the Geminids Meteor Shower. Weather was perfectly clear for most of the moonless night. Between 9:15 p.m. and 5 a.m., I made over 1000 images. See the initial cull of the images using Adobe Bridge here.

Capture

1,230 images captured during the night using the time-lapse feature with Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III. A 7-14mm M. Zukio Pro f2.8 lens set at 7mm. Stars exposure was 20 seconds ISO 6400. Due to no light from the moon a separate foreground image was made. Exposure at 7mm 20 sec ISO 25,600. I used a Fotopro T-Roc Max tripod with a Platypod Elite ball head. The ball head is extremely strong and the T-Roc very light and strong which works well for hiking. I went about 3/4 of a mile with all my gear on the trail in Sedona. The hike was necessary to keep headlights from cars from interfering with the capture.

Processing

After all the images were downloaded into a folder, I checked them for meteors. Next, I opened a single image in Adobe Camera RAW and processed it to intensify the stars and open the shadows in the foreground a bit. That image was highlighted, and Control + Click (right-click on a PC) brings up a menu. Click on Develop Settings > Copy Settings. Select all the other images and Control + Click Develop Settings > Paste Settings. All of the settings are applied. In this case, it took a little over 35 minutes as I had done some masking in the process.

Photoshop

I selected images with meteors in Adobe Bridge. Next, I went to Tools > Photoshop > Load Files into Photoshop Layers to stack the files into layers. The master image was chosen and moved to the bottom of the stack. Option + Click on the bottom layer eyeball to turn off all other layers. Click on the eyeball of the second layer to turn it on. Add a Mask. Using a Paint Brush set to 100% Black remove the meteor. Making a brush just a little larger than your meteor click at one end, hold down the Shift key and click at the opposite end of the meteor. Holding the Shift key ensures a perfectly straight line between the two points. Finesse your mask selection and invert the mask. Voila! The meteor is now visible. Repeat these steps for the rest of the layers.

I recommend saving the image as a .PSD or as a Large Format Document, .PSB depending on how many layers you have. Keep saving every 10 minutes or so. You definitely don’t want to lose any work as you go along.

Rotation for meteor radiant

The sky has apparent movement throughout the night due to the rotation of the Earth. To show how the meteors come from the same general place in the sky, additional work needs to be done to the files. When making the exposures I made sure to have Polaris in the frame. Having that point which does not move makes it easy to line up all of the meteor exposures to show the radiant, or origin, point. I rotated all the meteor strikes around the North Star lining up the Big Dipper. See the original placement of meteor captures below.

Tips for rotation

Here are some tips for making the lining up of the images easier. Start at the bottom layer and as before Option + Click on the eyeball to turn off all other layers visibility. Take two guides and place a horizontal and vertical over Polaris. Turn on layer two. Invert the mask to reveal most of the layer. Change the Blend Mode of the layer to Difference. Activate the Transform Tool. Press Cmd + T or Ctrl + T on PC. Move the rotation point from the center of the image to the point over Polaris. Rotate the layer until most of the stars disappear. In this case, I looked for the Big Dipper to line up. Accept the transformation. Invert the mask and change the Blend Mode back to Normal. Repeat for the rest of the layers. If you don’t see the rotation point for the Transform Tool in the top left-hand corner, there is a check box that will turn it on and off.

Blending foreground

Due to the dark skies I made an image for the foreground. Since I set the ISO to 25,600, there was some noise with which to deal. Adobe Camera RAW and the Denoise worked well. When using Denoise, be careful about applying too much. There is a point of diminishing return. In this case, I set it at about 40. This removed the most objectionable color noise yet still left me with detail and not mushing up the red rocks.

Final cleanup

It’s time for final cleanup of the masks around the meteors. Ensure masks are accurate by zooming in close. What looked as if it was fine when you first made it may need a little adjustment after the rotation. You may also do some final tweaking of the tones on your starry background, brighten the meteors a bit and tone up or down the foreground to make it mesh.

When done, go have a celebratory coffee, wine or cocktail. You deserve it! Let me know how this works for you.

More on meteor showers and nightscape photography

Here are some links on capturing meteor showers:

Did I mention it was a wee bit cold in the overnight shoot? And, I loved every minute.

Yours in creative Photography, Bob

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People typically looked for one thing in pictures of Shane MacGowan, photographer Andrew Catlin has said: a shot of the late Pogues frontman with his mouth agape, those infamous teeth on display.

Catlin, a photographer, director and filmmaker whose work is on display at the National Portrait Gallery, reflected on his memories of working with MacGowan – and his friend and fellow musician, Sinead O’Connor – after attending the Anglo-Irish singer’s funeral in Dublin.

One of the most famous shots of MacGowan, taken by Catlin, was seen on the artist’s coffin as the funeral procession took place, and later displayed during the service at St Mary of the Rosary Church.

“They wanted a picture of his mouth open, his teeth all showing looking as grotesque as possible,” Catlin told The Independent of how many people expected to see the “Fairytale of New York” singer.

“That’s all everyone ever wanted for a long-time and it seemed to me that it was really irrelevant.”

As both a friend and a photo subject, MacGowan could be “very difficult”, Catlin said, “but he was never nasty”.

“He was either bored or he didn’t want to engage with you,” he explained. “And then he would just switch off and ignore everything. He could be in a room full of people and not be there at all – people thought he was always completely out of it, but he just wasn’t interested in whatever was going on.”

If someone happened to say something that caught MacGowan’s interest, though, he would “snap out of it” and come out with “an incredible, intelligent, well-informed opinion”.

“He was so sharp,” Catlin said. “And he was incredibly interested in people – if they weren’t interesting, that’s when he’d switch off. And he didn’t like people who were full of s**t.”

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Some of Catlin’s favourite portraits of MacGowan were taken in Porto, Portugal, around 1989, while the band were going through a particularly difficult period.

“Shane was going crazy because they’ve been touring nonstop for like four years or something, and he was acting more and more like he didn’t want to be there,” Catlin recalled. “You could really see it was starting to unravel at that point.”

Catlin and MacGowan stayed up drinking all night, until the musician decided he was willing to do a photo session.

“He was acting out the madness that was going on in his head, and he kind of transformed into all these different characters,” Catlin said. “There’s one where he looks like he’s being crucified, and another where he’s got a fistful of cash.

“It was always fantastic working with Shane – you just had to wait until the mood was right.”

Catlin met MacGowan’s friend, Sinead O’Connor, when he was commissioned to shoot the then-21-year-old for a music magazine. After missing his flight to Los Angeles, he feared he’d lost the gig, but a twist of fate meant that, around a month later, he discovered that O’Connor had moved into the flat two floors above his.

O’Connor died aged 56 in July, a year after the death of her son Shane.

“She was just an extraordinary character, you know?” Catlin said. “She wasn’t at all arrogant – she was interested and curious.

“This was before she’d had a hit record, but she’d already been through so much in life. Yet she maintained this incredible openness her whole life – most people become really guarded after a long time in the music industry.”

Catlin’s photos of O’Connor show her wide-eyed, gazing into the lens, with her hands clasped to her face. Her hair is freshly shaved: “The record company told her to wear more makeup and get dressed up, so she shaved her hair off,” Catlin said.

The pair met often after that first shoot. The last time Catlin saw her was at MacGowan’s 60th birthday at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, which “celebrated Shane surviving to 60”.

“He was presented with some kind of lifetime achievement award at the end, which I think he was very moved by – as someone who grew up outside Ireland but loved it and spent a lot of time there,” Catlin said. “That was quite an important thing for him.”

MacGowan’s funeral, attended by thousands of fans along with the musicians close friends and family, was an “amazing experience”, he said, and “absolutely in keeping with everything he was about”.

He found himself seated in one of the front pews near MacGowan’s former Pogues bandmates, and Michael D Higgins, president of Ireland.

“It lasted for more than three hours, and it was absolutely electric for every second of it,” he said. “It was emotional, beautiful, funny and extraordinary.”

Today marks a significant milestone for the Lions Eye Institute in Nedlands as it celebrates its 40th anniversary with the launch of the inaugural Eye to Eye photography competition. The competition is open to photographers of all ages and encourages participants to creatively interpret the theme of eyes and vision.

Four Decades of Visionary Work

Since its inception in 1983, the Lions Eye Institute has garnered worldwide acclaim for its pioneering ophthalmological care and research aimed at preventing blindness and eye diseases. It is distinguished as Australia’s first not-for-profit medical institute, with patient fees contributing to its research funding.

Eye to Eye: A Celebration of Vision

The photography competition, offering over $10,000 in prizes across various categories, is a tribute to the Institute’s commitment to vision health. Categories include three for adults, one for children, and a People’s Choice Award with a $2000 cash prize. The competition aims to parallel the functions of a camera and the human eye, emphasizing aspects such as the regulation of light by the aperture and pupil.

A Million Reasons to Celebrate

As the Institute also commemorates one million patient visits, Managing Director Professor Bill Morgan emphasized the significance of this event. The competition is more than just an anniversary celebration; it’s a testament to the Institute’s continuous dedication to eye health and vision preservation.

Entries are free and will be judged by experts in photography and ophthalmic imaging. The submission deadline is January 16, with winners set to be announced in March. For more information, visit the competition’s website at eyetoeye.lei.org.au.

Last Week’s Winners

In a related development, Indie Dodd of Rimersburg emerged as the winner of a previous Lions Eye Institute photography competition, bagging four tickets to the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium. Other notable winners included Jeff Hirsch’s photo of a worker in Vietnam, Jim Scott’s photo of an elephant in Kenya, and John Gravlin’s photo of a blue footed booby in the Galapagos Islands. Several other breathtaking photos captured in places like Iceland and Priest Lake also received honorable mentions.

The countdown has begun for the 2024 Sony World Photography Awards, with just a few weeks left for photographers worldwide to submit their best images and photo series. Now in its 17th year, the prestigious competition celebrates the diverse and creative world of contemporary photography while providing both experienced and up-and-coming photographers a platform to showcase their work.

Last year the Sony World Photography Awards received almost 600,000 entries across the Professional and Open competitions, making it one of the most popular photo competitions ever. With ten categories in total including architecture, creative, lifestyle, natural world and street photography, this extremely diverse competition is suited to photographers of all backgrounds. 

The Open competition rewards the best single-image entries, and participants are in with the chance of winning a $5,000 cash prize (approximately £3,900) plus a selection of Sony imaging equipment. Up to three images can be submitted free of charge, and entrants are encouraged to explore multiple categories to showcase their creativity. Entry closes on January 05 2024, and all shortlisted category winners and overall winners will receive worldwide recognition. 

Those entering the Professional competition have until January 12 2024 to submit a series of 5-10 images per category. This is also free to enter, and the overall winner could be the recipient of a $25,000 cash prize (£19,600), hold their own solo exhibition, be included in the Sony World Photography Awards book and show, and receive global exposure in print and online coverage. 

Edgar Martins was crowned the overall winner in last year’s Professional competition for his photo series Our War. “It is a huge honor to be recognized,” he reflected. “Knowing that there were over 180,000 entries to this year’s Professional competition is very humbling,”. His deeply personal series honors his late friend and photojournalist Anton Hammerl, who was killed during the Libyan Civil War but whose body remains undiscovered. 

As the clock ticks down, photographers worldwide are urged to submit their best works and seize the opportunity to gain international recognition and valuable prizes. Entering into such a prestigious competition can feel daunting but, whether you’re an aspiring photographer or an established artist, the Sony World Photography Awards provides a unique platform to showcase your talent to a global audience.

Winners are selected by an esteemed panel of judges including gallery curators, photographers, editors and art directors. Don’t miss out on this chance to make your mark in the world of photography! Visit the World Photo website to learn more about the competition, categories, and submission guidelines.

Check out the best Sony cameras as we round up our favorite models to suit a range of budgets and needs. For pro performance, take a look at the best professional cameras. 

December 22, 2023

Lead ImagePhotography by Alexandra Leese, Creative Direction by Nellie Eden

Lead ImageRejoice is wearing a cape in wool by ROKSANDA. Dress in jersey by STELLA MCCARTNEY. Elsa Peretti Bone cuff in copper with black finish by TIFFANY & CO. And sandals in leather by ISABEL MARANT Photography by Anders Edström, Styling by Akeem Smith