CINCINNATI (WKRC) – May 5 is the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Artist Brent Billingsley is out with a new piece to honor that group. He and the head of the Urban Native Collective, Briana Mazzolini-Blanchard who is the subject of this artwork, talk about the work and the cause.
Photos submitted to the contest should express the mission of RTK: “To preserve Kansas’ ranching heritage and open spaces for future generations through the conservation of working landscapes.” Participants may enter up to five photos. The contest will be open through the summer and close on Wednesday, September 4. (Courtesy image)
TOPEKA, Kan. — The Ranchland Trust of Kansas (RTK) 13th annual photography contest opened on Wednesday, May 1. The contest is open to professional and amateur photographers of all ages. Photographs entered will showcase the natural beauty of ranching and grazing lands across the state. The competition offers the chance to explore and capture the many activities, seasons and faces of Kansas ranching.
Photos submitted to the contest should express the mission of RTK: “To preserve Kansas’ ranching heritage and open spaces for future generations through the conservation of working landscapes.” Participants may enter up to five photos. The contest will be open through the summer and close on Wednesday, September 4.
Photo contest entries will be judged by representatives of RTK, Kansas Livestock Association (KLA), and special guest judge, Jim Richardson.
Kansas native, Jim Richardson, has traveled the world as a National Geographic photographer for over 35 years. He also speaks nationally and internationally. He and his wife, Kathy, live in Lindsborg where his work is featured in their store, Small World Gallery.
Photo contest judges will select one winner in each of the following categories: grand prize, landscape, livestock, people, wildflowers or other wildlife, sunrise/sunset, youth (ages 5-17), KLA member, fan favorite via Facebook voting and one honorable mention.
L’image in Wichita will sponsor the photography contest this year with prizes for the winning photographers. All category winners will be awarded an 8” x 10” plaque mount of their winning photo. The grand prize winner will receive their choice of an 11”x 14” canvas or metal print of their winning photo.
L’image is locally owned, based in Wichita, Kansas. They specialize in their ready-to-hang plaque mount and offer image mounting, metal prints, laminating, canvas gallery wraps and traditional framing. They are in the business of making the artist or photographer look their best.
For full contest rules and to enter, visit www.ranchlandtrustofkansas.org and find Photo Contest on the News and Events page.
— Ranchland Trust of Kansas
On the national theater stage, Oklahoma — the state, not the show of the same name this time — is having a moment in the New York spotlight, with plenty of award nominations to prove it.
The new stage adaptation of “The Outsiders” shines like gold, the new musical “Dead Outlaw” looks alive, and Oklahoma natives Kelli O’Hara and Mary Kathryn Nagle are contenders as the nominees for the Tony Awards and other New York theater prizes have been revealed.
Presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, the 77th Annual Tony Awards, which honor theater professionals for distinguished achievement in 2023-2024 Broadway productions, will air live Sunday, June 16 on CBS and will stream on Paramount+ in the U.S. for subscribers.
Oscar winner and Tony nominee Ariana DeBose returns to host the Tony Awards for the third time at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City.
But the nominations also have been announced in the past few days for the Drama Desk Awards, Drama League Awards and Outer Critics Circle Awards, which all honor the top Broadway and Off-Broadway productions of the past season.
Here’s a look at the theater award nominations with Oklahoma ties:
“The Outsiders,” the musical theater version of Oklahoma novelist S.E. Hinton’s landmark 1967 coming-of-age book and Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic 1983 movie adaptation, earned 12 Tony nominations, including best musical.
The show’s dozen Tony nods comes in second only to the 13 nominations for “Hell’s Kitchen,” a new musical featuring the songs of Grammy winner Alicia Keys, and “Stereophonic,” a play about a feuding 1970s band set entirely in a recording studio.
Inspired by her experiences at Will Rogers High School, Susan “Susie” Eloise Hinton penned the tale of two rival Tulsa gangs — the poor Greasers and the privileged Socs (pronounced Soshs) — when she was still a teenager. “The Outsiders” musical is set in Tulsa in the 1960s and focuses on young Greaser Ponyboy Curtis (Brody Grant), his two older brothers and their chosen family of “outsiders” struggling to survive in a world of haves and have-nots.
Along with best musical, the show is nominated for Tonys for best book of a musical for Adam Rapp and Justin Levine; best original score (music and/or lyrics) for Jamestown Revival and Levine; best orchestrations for Levine, Matt Hinkley and Jamestown Revival; best direction of a musical for Danya Taymor; best choreography for Rick Kuperman and Jeff Kuperman; best scenic design of a musical for AMP featuring Tatiana Kahvegian; best lighting design of a musical for Brian MacDevitt and Hana S. Kim; and best sound design of a musical for Cody Spencer.
In the acting categories, Grant is nominated for best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical, and two “The Outsiders” cast members are nominees for best performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical: Sky Lakota-Lynch, who plays Ponyboy’s best friend Johnny Cade, and Joshua Boone, who portrays tough Greaser Dallas “Dally” Winston.
“It has been such a joy to watch this reimagination of Susie Hinton’s beloved Oklahoma narrative develop and launch on Broadway,” said Oklahoma City native Laura Galt, who is a co-producer on the show and has been involved in its development since 2018.
“I am grateful the cast, creative, and production teams’ heart and hard work have been recognized.”
“The Outsiders,” which counts Oscar winner Angelina Jolie as a lead producer, also received nine Drama Desk Awards nominations, including outstanding musical, outstanding lead performance in a musical, outstanding direction of a musical, outstanding choreography, outstanding music, outstanding lyrics, outstanding scenic design of a musical, outstanding lighting design of a musical and outstanding sound design of a musical.
The Drama Desk Awards, which are voted on by theater critics, journalists, editors and publishers, will be handed out June 10 in a NYC ceremony.
“The Outsiders” garnered three nominations — for outstanding new Broadway musical, outstanding choreography and outstanding lighting design — for the Outer Critics Circle Awards.
The Outer Critics Circle, whose membership includes writers working for 90-plus newspapers, magazines, broadcast stations and online news organizations worldwide, will announce its annual winners May 13.
For the Drama League Awards, “The Outsiders” is nominated for outstanding production of a musical, while Grant and Boone are among the nominees for distinguished performance. The Drama League, a NYC-based theatrical association, will name its victors at a May 17 event.
“The musical is a love letter to Susie Hinton’s legacy. Its universal themes of identity, found family, reaching for dreams and staying gold through challenging times resonate deeply with audiences, allowing everyone to see a part of themselves reflected in the characters, music, and story. Thank you to all of the organizations for these incredible recognitions,” Galt said.
“The Outsiders” began its Broadway run with previews on March 16 ahead of the official opening night on April 11 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, where performances continue.
Based on the twisty tale of Oklahoma outlaw-turned-mummy Elmer McCurdy, the Off-Broadway musical “Dead Outlaw” played a limited engagement at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre that ended April 14. But that didn’t stop the musical from leading both the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards nominations.
Shot and killed by a posse in the Osage Hills in 1911, McCurdy, an ill-fated bank and train robber, had his body embalmed by a Pawhuska undertaker, but his remains went unclaimed, eventually drying up and mummifying. His corpse spent six decades traveling the country as a macabre attraction in sideshows, wax museums and low-budget movies, until the cast and crew of the television show “The Six Million Dollar Man” discovered it while filming in a California amusement park funhouse in 1976. McCurdy’s body was buried the following year in Guthrie.
For the Drama Desk Awards, “Dead Outlaw” received 11 nominations, including outstanding musical (opposite “The Outsiders”); outstanding lead performance in a musical for Andrew Durand, who portrayed McCurdy; outstanding featured performance in a musical for Thom Sesma, who played the coroner; outstanding direction of a musical for David Cromer; outstanding book of a musical for Itamar Moses; outstanding scenic design of a musical for Arnulfo Maldonado; outstanding lighting design of a musical for Heather Gilbert; and outstanding sound design of a musical for Kai Harada and Joshua Millican.
Also, the show is nominated for outstanding music and outstanding lyrics for David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna as well as outstanding orchestrations for Penna, Dean Sharenow and Yazbek.
“Frankly, I’m surprised ‘Dead Outlaw’ is getting such high praise,” Penna told The Oklahoman. “Not that I had any doubts about the quality of our work, but that the show is devoid of many contemporary musical theater conventions. I assumed subjects like mortality, America, forensics and the absurdity of the ego would be vibe killers for the theater world.”
“Dead Outlaw” also leads the Outer Critics Circle Awards with nine nods, including outstanding new Off-Broadway musical, outstanding book of a musical (Broadway or Off-Broadway), outstanding score (Broadway or Off-Broadway), outstanding orchestrations (Broadway or Off-Broadway) and outstanding direction of a musical (Broadway or Off-Broadway).
In the acting categories, the show landed four total Outer Critics nominations: two for outstanding lead performer in an Off-Broadway musical, for Durand and Jeb Brown, who plays the narrator/bandleader, and two for outstanding featured performer in an Off-Broadway musical, for Sesma and Julia Knitel, who does double duty playing Elmer’s Oklahoma girlfriend and a filmmaker’s daughter.
For the Drama League Awards, “Dead Outlaw” rounded up nominations for outstanding production of a musical (again pitting it against “The Outsiders) and outstanding direction of a musical.
Oklahoma native Kelli O’Hara earned her eighth Tony nomination for best leading actress in a musical for the now-closed new show “Days of Wine and Roses,” an adaptation of the Oscar-winning 1962 film directed by Tulsa native Blake Edwards.
An Elk City native who graduated from Deer Creek Public Schools and Oklahoma City University, O’Hara won a Tony for best lead actress in a musical for her turn as Anna Leonowens in the 2015 revival of “The King & I.”
For “Days of Wine and Roses,” she’s also nominated for the Drama Desk award for outstanding lead performance in a musical, the Outer Critics Circle prize for outstanding lead performer in a Broadway musical and the Drama League trophy for distinguished performance.
An Oklahoma City native and enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, playwright and attorney Mary Kathryn Nagle received an Outer Critics Circle nomination for the John Gassner Award, which goes to a new American play, preferably by a new playwright.
Nagle garnered the nomination for her drama “Manahatta,” which New York’s Public Theater staged late last year.
“Manahatta,” which Nagle showcased as a work-in-progress in OKC during the 2014 Native American New Play Festival, follows Jane Snake, a brilliant Native woman with a Stanford MBA. Jane reconnects with her ancestral Lenape homeland, known as Manahatta, when she moves from Oklahoma to New York for a banking job just before the 2008 financial crisis.
“I am honored to say that my play about the Indigenous Oklahoma experience has been nominated,” Nagle said in an email. “I have so many people to thank, but this nomination would not be possible without the contributions of the Lenape Center and Delaware Tribe citizen Joe Baker. I am also thankful that so many Native and non-Native artists brought this play to life nearly 10 years ago in OKC.”
If you love David Lynch and every time you watch a film you look for the atmosphere of Twin Peaks or Mulholland Drive, then Andrea Riba is the photographer you need to get to know and start following.
Andrea Riba is attracted to images, whether they are static or in motion, in fact, her art does not end with photography, but also finds expression in short films and shorts. In addition to her undeniable innate talent, the photographer honed her technique and style by attending an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) at the University of Southern California and now has several collaborations with national and international magazines and journals.
If we had to describe Riba’s inner work in two words, they would certainly be analogue and cinematographic. Yes, the photographer shoots exclusively in analogue, a technique that allows her to obtain shots with a thick grain that seem to belong to a distant past. Analogue also goes well with a cinematographic style: her photographs could be mistaken for frames from old films.
It is no coincidence that Andrea Riba’s main source of inspiration is dated films, although the director who has most influenced his work is David Lynch. Not only do we find the typical atmospheres of the famous director’s films in Riba’s shots, but some of her photographic series celebrate certain works in particular, such as the one entitled Twin Peaks One Eyed or the one dedicated to Mulholland Drive, shot along the famous street in Los Angeles.
The passion for cinema also returns in other projects, such as the one dedicated to Bonnie and Clyde in which the two characters are both played by River Gallo.
Browsing through Andrea Riba’s photographs is like watching a film, we are enveloped by atmospheres that are often surreal and macabre, as if there were no longer any difference between reality and dream.
Read also: Kosuke Saito, a dynamic photographer and portrait artist
We have selected just a few of her works, but to discover more visit the photographer’s website and Instagram profile.
“From today, painting is dead,” Paul Delaroche famously declared after setting eyes on a collection of early photographs. And now, 185 years later, with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), some are hailing the death of photography.
“One of the things that people would say about photography, when it first took off in the 1840s and 50s, is that it can never be art because the machine is making the image,” says Phillip Toledano. The New York-based artist, primarily known for his conceptual photography projects, is about to publish his first collection of images created using AI, having begun experimenting with the technology 18 months ago. “Now, here we are again, saying exactly the same thing. And what that says to me is that we don’t really evolve as a species. We continue to be incredibly petty-minded. When confronted with something extraordinary, we only see the smallest in it.”
Toledano began posting his experiments with AI on Instagram last year. “It’s sort of like being a wizard,” he told his followers, describing what it is like to work with Midjourney, one of a new generation of AI tools able to generate credible, photorealistic images from descriptions input using natural language prompts rather than code. “You have to start with an idea, and then create a spell to conjure that idea into reality. The words count. The order of the words count. And then you must repeat the spell over and over again until you’re satisfied.”
“History and facts are options”: Phillip Toledano’s jellyfish (2023) from Another America © Phillip Toledano, courtesy of the artist
But when LensCulture, a popular photography platform, interviewed the British-born artist about one of the series that was evolving from his experiments, it generated more than a thousand comments on Instagram, most of them vitriolic, accusing him—and the platform —of betrayal. The irony wasn’t lost on Toledano. Another America, which will be published in book form by L’Artiere Edizioni later this month, emerged from a project he’d begun earlier looking at the divisions and contested truths that had taken hold in his adopted homeland.
“For people who believe in conspiracies, they are entirely real,” he explains. And so he set about inhabiting those alternative realities, reconstructing them “the old-fashioned way” through a set of photographs that took a lot of time and expense to complete. “And then AI shows up.”
Toledano has since spent a lot of time with the technology, creating various narrative sequences. One is Another America, set in the 1940s and 50s, “a time when photographic imagery held a unique sense of veracity”, which recreates surrealistic scenes of the strange, forgotten histories of a parallel universe. “For me, the thing that’s so interesting about this inflection point, historically speaking, is that AI makes it so that every lie, every conspiracy theory, can now have convincing visual evidence to say that it’s true. And that’s fascinating to me, this idea that history and facts are options that we now all choose. So the point of Another America is to demonstrate the elasticity of history that faces us.”
The point of Another America is to demonstrate the elasticity
of history that faces usPhillip Toledano, artist, on his new AI photography series
In spring 2023, another photographer who had also been investing a lot of time in AI had whipped up a bigger storm that brought the issue into the wider public realm. Boris Eldagsen had a similar taste for mischievous provocation, and so having entered an image—The Electrician, from his series Pseudomnesia—in the Sony World Photography Awards and won one of the top categories, he had a surprise in store.
Travelling from his home in Berlin to the gala awards night at the London Hilton on Park Lane in April 2023, he took to the stage in a tuxedo to say that he would not accept his award. And when he made his reasons public, the story went viral. “How many of you knew or suspected that it was AI generated? Something about this doesn’t feel right, does it? AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this. They are different entities. AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award.”
Eldagsen was one of the first photographers in Germany to begin experimenting with AI. He got onto the waiting list for DALL-E 2 in the summer of 2022, giving him access to the beta version before it became publicly available. It was a watershed moment in the so-called “AI spring”, a boom time in the development and investment in an artificial intelligence ecosystem that was kickstarted a decade earlier. And now there were text-to-image models capable of delivering complex and convincing photorealistic images. OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 model was joined by Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, among others, and the technology was now available to the public.
He says that what he saw in thesummer of 2022 was a lack of awareness in the photography community about the speed of development of AI, “and I wanted to close that gap”. His stunt at the Sony Awards was about forcing the topic out into the open. And on those terms, it worked. The story exploded, appearing in The Guardian, The Times, the Daily Mail and others on 17 April 2023, and then going worldwide, featuring in everything from USA Today to the South China Morning Post.
Eldagsen says he sees himself as a knowledge transfer, a “good citizen” whosimply wants us to address the ethical questions that accompany the use of AI, and to think about its consequences. He has surely succeeded. “Suddenly, there is this impulse for debate. ‘What is art? Is it something uniquely human? Or can it be created by a machine?’ All of those conversations started… The debate is happening everywhere.”
In many instances, the photography world is still getting itself in a twist, he says, citing the recent controversy over World Press Photo, which highlights the best in international photojournalism. Last November the Amsterdam-based organisation announced that it would allow limited use of generative AI imagery in its Open Format category, which gives space to expanded practices and perspectives. But it quickly changed its mind following a huge outcry within the visual journalism community.
“It’s bullshit, because AI is not photography,” says Eldagsen, who says that AI can never replace authentic documentary modes. “Generated images are hallucinations. How can you mix that up? Of course, there is no absolute truth. But using AI is destroying it completely. The mistake that many people make is that they see AI-generated images as a logical evolution from photography.”
Eldagsen calls AI-generated imagery “promptography”, and despite his reservations, he remains an enthusiastic—if critical—exponent of this emerging art form, so long as its difference to photography is acknowledged. And now, one year after refusing the Sony award, he features in the exhibition Post-Photography: The Uncanny Valley (until 18 May), at Palmer Gallery, a new venue in northwest London, alongside the AI artists Nouf Aljowaysir and Ben Millar Cole.
“When you look at the broadly accepted narratives of art history, the story has been moved forward by artists who take risks with new technology, often artists who are much maligned at the time of making,” says Will Hainsworth, one of the gallery’s founders. “The job of the young gallery is to be open-minded to these kinds of developments.”
Lucas Giles, Palmer Gallery’s co-founder, sees huge potential in artists collaborating with AI. “I believe that artificial intelligence represents the most significant technological evolution in art since the advent of photography in the 19th century,” Giles says. “Art has a crucial role in advancing the discussion about our relationship with AI and how we as humans perceive the technology. The current discourse often tends to be binary, oscillating between utopian optimism and dystopian fear. Art can offer a more nuanced and reflective lens through which the multifaceted implications of AI can be explored, both positive and negative.”
, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 23.5 inches.)
, glazed stoneware, 8.25 x 11.25 x 2 inches.)
COLUMBIA — As a photographer, it’s starting to feel like my job is obsolete. I often arrive to shoot an event and immediately sense another photographer, pro or amateur, peeking over my shoulder to compete for the “best” angle. Professionals fall into rhythm and are polite about sharing space, there’s a dance-like etiquette to shooting around others that you learn over time — though there is nothing inherently wrong with being somewhat clumsy at first.
Another challenge lies in the fact that in many environments, my iPhone 14 can take a comparable photo to my professional equipment. Even acclaimed photographers I’ve followed throughout my decade (plus) on Instagram, like Jim Richardson, teach workshops on iPhone photography.
Despite this oversaturation of the photographic market, I have attempted to remain a soulful documentarian. It’s a double-edged sword to become a professional at something that lets you explore an endless sea of possibilities, yet feels just as crowded as a small pond.
This sharpness becomes amplified when the proverbial “space” that you occupy is already a bit cramped, albeit with amazing things. For me, this space is the music and DIY arts scene in Columbia — a space that for its size has a frankly astonishing legacy of quality documentation.
Documentation plays a huge role in DIY/self-produced music scenes because communication via word of mouth, and now primarily social media, is the engine that runs it all. What would that kind of communication be without a photo or two to back up the stories from the last house show, or the antics from the last Daikaiju performance?
With social media’s ever-expanding role in all of this, it has begun to feel like I’m drowning in a culture of FOMO (fear of missing out) that demands documentation and venerates it as being almost greater than lived experience — the image becomes grandiose, outgrowing the simplicity of just being present in a space.
To me, and others I’ve discussed this with in passing, those of us actually taking the photo … the present moment is only fully lived through our lens, and almost more importantly: it is no longer ours to control once it passes through the lens and lands in a format which can be perceived by everyone else.
Silhouette of Brett Nash, Aaron J. Burke, Dylan Dickerson and Cameron Powell outside of New Brookland Tavern under the marquee in January 2024.
A documentarian is someone who devotes their time to preserving lived experience, and equally, someone whose work honors the archive of other documentarians in their shared space. So much of this work goes unnoticed and underappreciated, unshared due to the volume of output or unnoticed until years later when the story or experience reaches a point of needed resurgence — sometimes even carelessly erased.
David Stringer, who started documenting the South Carolina music scene via the blog Scene SC in 2008, has spent countless Sunday mornings documenting Papa Jazz, attended probably thousands of shows across the state at this point and built sustainable relationships with numerous bands and solo musicians who call South Carolina home.
Sean Rayford (@theangrywhale on Instagram) recently published a photo book and zine of his photos documenting the final few months of shows at New Brookland Tavern’s old location on State Street. Rayford’s documentation practice extends far beyond our local music scene, of which his extensive photojournalism career is evidence. Rayford’s highly regarded body of work spans natural disasters, national sporting events, pivotal political moments and other titular newsworthy events.
The common denominator amongst these local documentarians is their humility and dedication to the craft, to being present and tallowing community engagement to form as a natural afterthought to the deeply intentional work they share.
The public often assumes photos give news an element of objectivity, yet the reality is that they are still seeing the image from the perspective of the photographer. Rather than being 100 percent objective all the time, a photo’s ultimate impact comes from the human experience and essence it displays.
The research I’m currently invested in at the University of South Carolina focuses on the idea of “information embodiment” as a way to understand documentation in the form of photography. Essentially, this means I’m trying to understand how people like Stringer, Rayford and myself take information from existing purely in the moment, in our bodies and our perception, and transfer that information into the form of an image.
What I’m thinking about now is how do I as a documentarian (professionally, independently or just for fun) take the experience that is getting channeled through my body and senses and transfer or “code” that information into an image.
This balances a demand for both technical control over my equipment and a deep attention to my surroundings — and this is hard work, to be honest. It challenges the way I move through certain spaces, even when I don’t have a camera in hand. I find myself unable to detach my physical presence in “scene” environments from the way I want to see it through my lens, and from the visual stories I want to tell with the images I encode.
In respect to the long-term relationship I find myself engaging with Columbia’s DIY scene, I’ve found the idea of it as a hometown permeates nearly all levels of social strata. The tension between staying and leaving will always permeate Columbia’s stories.
Ann Prime stands on the porch of her home in the North Main district of Columbia, SC. (35mm expired black and white film).
Universally, the desire to leave and break free, to reinvent oneself constantly pulls us away from spaces that have held us. At the end of these stories, the realization occurs: there are some things you just can’t run away from.
Of course, we’ve all heard the idiom “you can take the (person) out of the (place), but you can’t take the (place) out of the (person).”
I have a core memory of being a week away from leaving Columbia for a job out of state in 2022, just to escape. It was a song that kept me here, though — it was “The Weight of Lies” by the Avett Brothers, somewhat ironically.
Josh Dunn poses next to the HVAC unit at New Brookland Tavern’s old location on State Street in West Columbia in January 2024, not long after the venue moved to Harden Street in Five Points.
I realized then that the things I was trying to run away from were the things that would always find me, and that if I wanted to fight them off, here was my battleground. The dedication and attention to presence in the space which was born from that realization, I believe, is what motivates me to be a more reverent documentarian.
The South needs its heroes, its progressive spaces, its curators of the good and the beautiful. (You can read more about that here.) There is a painful joy in inhabiting a space that is at war with your very essence at times; yet, without that constant tension your dreams fall flat in the face of lukewarm adversity.
No matter the role you fill in a given space, to embody your values fully you must accept that you will be challenged, not just ideologically but to your core. Inhabiting a polarized space, politically or artistically, is more about what you do in the mundane shadows to care for and support your community. As a documentarian, it is important to seek out these moments of ordinary lived experience if your goal is to humanize dichotomous spaces like the South — like Columbia.
A ritual outside my apartment, Fall 2021.
Being a documentarian in an inherently politicized space must involve ceaseless work towards full embodiment of what you believe to be the truth and your work is a visible manifestation of your presence therein.
