Photography

LCHD hosting amateur photography contest

Jun 29, 2023 By Admin in Photography

For the Tomahawk Leader

LINCOLN COUNTY – The Lincoln County Health Department (LCHD) is hosting a photo contest for amateur photographers.

LCHD said it is “seeking out the best parts of Lincoln County.”

“When you think of Lincoln County, what is your favorite part?” LCHD stated. “What makes Lincoln County healthy? When you brag about the county you live in – what do you picture?”

LCHD said photos should represent its “vision of a safe and thriving Lincoln County where everyone has the opportunity for optimal health and quality of life.”

“Please submit one or two sentences as to why your photo represents optimal health and quality of life,” LCHD stated.

Photos must be taken in Lincoln County and must be submitted as high-resolution JPEG files to [email protected] by Saturday, July 15.

No panoramic, digitally-enhanced or altered photos, and only one photo per person, will be accepted.

“Tall thin, photos from phones do not reproduce well for our use,” LCHD stated. “Please send photos that can be used as 4×6-inch or 8×10-inch prints.”

Each photo submitted must include where, when and why the photo was taken, as well as the photographer’s name, phone number, mailing address and email address.

Professional photographers and individuals who sell their photos are not eligible to enter the contest.

“By entering the contest, photographers are verifying that the image is their own and are agreeing to have their submitted photos used/copied/displayed (without fee or compensation) for the contest voting purposes in local publications, in articles relating to the contest, saved for any future use by LCHD, and on the Facebook page,” LCHD stated. “Photos that are picked will be contacted via email to sign a consent form for the use of your photograph.

LCHD said it reserves the right to reject any photo submitted that does not comply with the contest rules, is not properly labeled or is deemed inappropriate.

First-place winners will receive a 2024 Wisconsin State Park vehicle sticker. Second-place winners will receive a gift certificate valued up to $15.00.

For more information, email [email protected].

Light painting 101: How to create illuminated art with a bottle house

Jun 29, 2023 By Admin in Photography

I had a rare opportunity to light paint a house made of bottles. Here’s how I made the most of it. Best of all, you can use these light painting techniques for everything.

Light painting a bottle house, Rhyolite Nevada.

What is light painting?

Light painting is a term that is often used loosely to describe any addition of handheld light to a night photograph. Really, though, light painting is a technique that uses a handheld light source to illuminate a subject during a long exposure photo. You are quite literally painting the scene with light. Night photographers have used this technique for many decades.

Here, I had the opportunity to photograph a house made of over 50,000 bottles in a safe environment. I made the most of it.

Can I make it glow from within?

My first instinct was to shine the light from within the bottle house. I wanted the bottles to light up from within. I had been inside some bottle houses and structures in the Andean countryside of Ecuador, and I loved the way sunshine made the bottles glow.

Unfortunately, I could not do that for two reasons. One is that the inside walls were plastered. There would be no light shining through these bottles. And the second is that I didn’t have access to the interior of the house.

Shadows create depth, detail and interest

However, there were plenty of opportunities to create shadows. This can be used with almost any subject. Here’s how I went about light painting the porch of this amazing house.

Three steps to light painting the porch of the bottle house

Step one: Illuminating the back wall

The bottle house has a lot of amazing texture because it’s made of bottles. I skimmed a warm white light from the ProtoMachines against the wall, just glancing it off the surface. By doing this, I was able to pick up a lot of the detail from the uneven surface. I kept the back wall slightly darker than the rest of the house to add depth and keep the focus on the front of the porch.

Step two: Creating the shadows from the porch handrail

On camera right is a wooden porch handrail. Because the porch is wooden and takes up a lot of space in the composition, I thought it might be fun to create some shadow from the handrail. I stood to the right of the handrail and held the ProtoMachines light still for a short while so that the lines would be strong and well-defined.

Step three: Blue light from inside the house

The house still looked a little empty. I decided to shine a blue light from the inside of the room. I did this by walking over to the front window and shining a blue handheld light through that. This illuminated the entire room, coming out the side window and the door window in the back.

You are the director

When you light paint during night photography, you are making creative decisions. You decide what to illuminate and what to keep in shadow. You decide what angle, what sort of texture, what sort of feel, and what sort of colors you want in your photo. It is the most actively creative form of photography that I know. You are wandering around in the scene, determining the angles, colors and brightness. Every “brush stroke of light” builds the photo.

If you do this, you are one of a very small number of photographers who try. Far less stick with it. Hopefully, articles like this inspire you to keep doing it. I cannot possibly exaggerate how addicting, fun, and rewarding it is.

How can some of the techniques — including techniques creating shadow, depth and detail — help with light painting your subjects? How might you apply this toward abandoned automobiles, cactus, trees, mountains or people? What about other subjects that are not night photography?

A Photo Wander in Harlem | Magazine

Jun 29, 2023 By Admin in Photography

Perhaps you’re asking, “What is a photo wander?” Essentially, it’s a walk during which photographers follow a route with the intention of making photographs. Just before the opening of MoMA’s New Photography 2023 exhibition, the photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi led a photo wander in Harlem. Akinbiyi, whose work is featured in the exhibition, is an accomplished artist based in Berlin. His work focuses mainly on street and documentary photography. The wander was an unofficial kick-off celebrating the exhibition. MoMA partnered with Souls in Focus, a local artist collective and agency of which I’m the general manager, to help plan and organize the wander. Souls in Focus is used to putting together these events: we’ve done it since founders Henry Danner, Sade Fasanya, and Natiah Jones started the collective nearly five years ago. These walks always begin with a location, and we chose Harlem.

A Photo Wander in Harlem, 2023. Photo: Sade Fasanya

Akinbode Akinbiyi. Photo: Anthony Artis

The neighborhood has a storied history. It was home to the Harlem Renaissance and the headquarters of Malcolm X’s civil rights organization; James Baldwin walked these streets collecting stories that would find their way into his novels and essays. Neighborhood context is critical when organizing a photowalk: that includes respecting the locals and the history. Context also helps us choose where we stop on the way and how to approach people if we’d like to make their photographs.

Akinbiyi decided to call this photo walk a “photo wander” because he wanted it to feel less rigid and allow for discovery. It’s also a play on “wonder.”

At 71, Akinbiyi, or Bode, as he likes to be called, may walk a little slower than in years past, but he makes up for it with his enthusiasm and genuine interest in the wander’s participants, whose age and photography experience ranged from newbie to seasoned. About 25 photographers joined Bode and the Souls in Focus team in Harlem. It was Bode’s first time in New York City, and I got the sense he was on a mission to see and experience every single thing the city had to give. On Saturday, it was his turn to experience Harlem. In a conversation after the photo wander, Akinbiyi told me that he had a good feeling about coming to New York, with his expectations high, but said that “the way the wander evolved was even more beautiful.”

A Photo Wander in Harlem, 2023. Photo: Henry Danner

“I love watching other people photograph, because I always learn something, like what attracts them.”

Akinbode Akinbiyi

The group met at the Schomburg Center for African American Studies and made stops at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, the Apollo Theater, the Harriet Tubman Memorial, also known as Swing Low, and the Malcolm Shabazz Market. We chose each stop for its significance to Harlem’s history and current communities of color.

A Photo Wander in Harlem, 2023. Photo: LaLea Raymond

Unfortunately, we got to our first stop, the Abyssinian Baptist Church, just after the last service. But that didn’t stop the group from engaging with the building by making images of its architecture and snapping a few shots of the congregants who were still around. We had our own version of Sunday service: it happened outside the church—with cameras. Bode conversed with wanderers, took some photos, and also posed for portraits. He is an elder statesman within the photography community, but says that he is still learning: “I love watching other people photograph, because I always learn something, like what attracts them.” He appeared surprisingly comfortable in front of the camera. In my experience that’s not something you often see with seasoned photographers. They’d much rather be behind the lens.

This scene repeated itself at each stop, but along the way we ran into Harlem residents who were curious about the large group walking through their neighborhood. Initially, some were skeptical, but when they found out what we were doing and understood our mission, they stopped to pose and shared stories. It was important to Bode that participants respected and engaged with the community. This approach made for a much more pleasant experience for the photo wanderers, but most importantly, for the Harlemites. And it offered an opportunity to photograph the neighborhood and its residents as they are, in a less guarded and more authentic guise.

The marks of a successful photo wander are sore feet, great photos, and even better memories. Shortly after the wander, we looked at the participants’ work and heard how much they enjoyed the thoughtfulness of the event and conversations with each other. Organizing events like these makes the day seem like a blur, but as I look back on the resulting photographs and videos, I’m grateful for the art and fellowship.

A Photo Wander in Harlem, 2023. Photo: LaLea Raymond

Africa Style: With Freedom Came Fashion Flair

Jun 29, 2023 By Admin in Photography

Clothing can be transformative. This exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum transports visitors to the historical moment when nearly an entire continent shed its colonialist attire and stepped onto the world stage.

Many years ago, I worked as a salesperson at Hugo Boss in the Beverly Center in Los Angeles. I sold the range of things the store carried: luggage, accessories, underwear, clothing. But what I most relished selling was men’s suits, because a good suit is often transformative. A man would come into the store looking forgettable and then, after donning a well-cut two-button, single-breasted navy suit with a peak lapel, he would look accomplished, adept. Walking into the new “Africa Fashion” exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, I felt that I was witnessing something wondrous, something more surprising than just an individual’s restyling. I was transported to the historical epoch when almost the entire continent was shedding its colonialist rule and the associated attire and stepping onto the world stage transformed.

Marking this wholesale change at the very outset is a wall featuring a timeline of text and documentary photography that details the consequential moments of Africa’s 20th-century liberation struggles. Video monitors offer film footage of key ceremonies, such as the 1957 formation of the Republic of Ghana. On an adjacent wall are the flags of all 54 countries in Africa, their insignia and heraldry explained. The exhibition seems quite intentionally based in the history of independence movements; Christine Checinska, the curator who led the team that organized the original exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London affirmed this, saying that for her it was crucial for viewers to understand that the clothing has “a political dimension.”

In the exhibition catalog Checinska writes that Tunisia and Morocco liberated themselves from the control of France in 1956 and then a year later Ghana freed itself from Britain. Then, in 1960, 17 African countries shook off colonial rule, to embed that time in the historical record as the “Year of Africa.” “The radical social and political reordering that took place sparked a cultural renaissance throughout the continent,” Checinska writes. “Fashion, music and the visual arts drew on formerly marginalized traditions, creating innovative forms that looked toward future self-rule.”

I think it must be acknowledged that self-governance has not always produced astute political leadership, or policies that benefited the majority of citizens, yet some countries once hobbled by colonial rule have learned to stand on their own.

Installation view of “Africa Fashion” at the Brooklyn Museum. From left: Bull Doff, a fashion label in Dakar, Senegal, dress and collar; right: The Trench (coat, mask and crinoline embroidered with hands and sequins, by Artsi Ifrach for Maison ArtC, Morocco.Seph Rodney

This revival and re-emergence of cultural practices and forms indigenous to native Africans takes on an expanded role in the Brooklyn version of “Africa Fashion,” according to its organizers Ernestine White-Mifetu, the museum’s curator of Africa art, and Annissa Malvoisin, a postdoctoral fellow here. It now includes 300 objects — of which about 130 are garments, textiles and jewelry, and more than 50 works from the museum’s collections. The curators of this show have added more documentary footage of the four large festivals on the continent in the ’60s and ’70s: the First World Festival of Black Arts (FESMAN) in Dakar in 1966; Zaire 74 in Kinshasa, 1974; the Pan-African Cultural Festival in Algeria (PANAF) in 1969; and the second World Black and African Festival of the Arts (FESTAC) in 1977 in Lagos.

A timeline of countries’ Independence movements introduces the “Africa Fashion” exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. Elias Williams for The New York Times

Here, too, is a makeshift library with classic books examining that history and its legacy. There were framed and mural-size photos of FESTAC activities by Marilyn Nance, author of “Last Day in Lagos,” who by chance was visiting when I walked in. I was looking at a suite of four images, which included Stevie Wonder performing in a bright white suit with bell bottom trousers, in stark contrast to women in elaborately wrapped dresses of Kente cloth and men in tribal outfits that include decorative leg bands. Nance, a Brooklyn native, told me that about 200 Black Americans from New York, including her, traveled to Lagos, knowing it was going to be a hugely important event.

I could hear one of the other ways in which this iteration differs from the V & A show. Music followed me as I moved from gallery to gallery. Malvoisin explained that they carefully chose a playlist — accessible via a QR code — that echoes the hot songs for each epoch represented in the gallery space: Chaabi, Arab Pop, Hip-Hop, Afrobeat, Highlife, Jazz, Kora, and more genres. (Only a small selection is heard in the show, so use the link.) There is a theme of exuberance that threads through the music which matches the clothing and accessories on display.

A visitor views paintings and album covers including some work by Lemi Ghariokwu, a Nigerian painter, illustrator and designer renowned for original album cover images of Fela Kuti, the Afrobeat legend.Elias Williams for The New York Times

A wedding ensemble by the Ghanaian designer Kofi Ansah in “Africa Fashion” at the Brooklyn Museum.Elias Williams for The New York Times

It has to be said: This show is exquisitely beautiful, with textiles, accessories and clothing that are surprising and curious. Hardly an inch of this show is expected or cliché. The history lesson continues into the garment displays with vitrines featuring images of key midcentury designers: Kofi Ansah from Ghana, Chris Seydou from Mali, and Shade Thomas-Fahm from Nigeria. (Thomas-Fahm has a spectacular gold robe accentuated with black squares and dark yellow chevrons. No one who wears this can go about their business without notice.)

Visitors near the “Adornment” section featuring jewelry throughout Africa. Center: LaFalaise Dion, “The Amazon,” 2019, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire; cowrie shell, beads, nylon. Cowrie shells were once a form of currency in West Africa, as well as a symbol of fertility and womanhood.Elias Williams for The New York Times

Beyond these displays is a monitor offering current runway shows where the innovative spirit of that time and place in Africa shines through even in collections that are seemingly drawn on European sources. There are too many designers to relate all the astonishing work here but it is worth mentioning the Kenyan designer Ami Doshi Shah, in the Adornment section, who has devised a gold and green metal choker with a long tail of leather or cloth that falls down the wearer’s back, in his Salt of the Earth collection.

In a nearby vitrine, Inzuki, a young Rwandan brand, presents a woven-basket collar necklace comprising interlocking bands of aquamarine, deep orange, hot pink and more, clearly drawn from traditional basket design. Here, the everyday is repurposed as the extravagant. This section is augmented by items in the Brooklyn Museum’s collection, including gold rings from Pharaonic dynasties and early 20th-century beadwork from southern Africa.

The show doesn’t fetishize but also doesn’t avoid talking about process. There is a set of mannequins showing three stages of a dress, from cut paper pattern to toile mockup to the finished garment, by Katungulu Mwendwa, whose Katush line is designed in her home studio in Nairobi, Kenya. Artsi Ifrah, who last year won the Fashion Trust Arabia evening wear prize and is based in Morocco, makes sumptuous clothing that is all about maximalist layering, patterning, draping and material. The South African designer Lukhanyo Mdingi makes matching jackets and joggers for people of indeterminate gender out of felted mohair, wool and acrylic, with scarves that double as body shawls.

Malick Sidibé, “Nuit de Noël (Happy Club),” 1972/2011, youth culture incarnate, a couple dances in Bamako, Mali. From “Africa Fashion” at the Brooklyn Museum.Estate of Malick Sidibe; via Brooklyn Museum

Mixed in with lavish design is street photography by artists such as Sarah Waiswa, Trevor Stuurman and Stephen Tayo, who show what the people on the street are wearing and how their outfits are no less imaginative and daring than the better-resourced fashion here. There is studio photography by the artists of legerdemain, such as the Malians Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé. What would it have been like to embark on a career documenting this exploratory and upstart beauty at the start of a brand-new country? It must have been exhilarating. And all of this greeted me before I even got to the great rotunda hall that ends the show.

In this gallery about 40 mannequins are outfitted with a mesmerizing array of work by contemporary designers throughout the diaspora, such as Eilaf Osman, Papa Oppong, Brother Vellies and its founder Aurora James, Christopher John Rogers, and Studio One Eighty Nine in the section that means to show how Africa has a global footprint. According to Marisa Guthrie, writing for Women’s Wear Daily: “The contributions of African-born designers is already obvious in the fashion industry, but the exhibit is arguably the first comprehensive recognition of that legacy.”

Masquerade handwoven Alicia skirt, of recycled cotton, 2018, by Studio One Eighty Nine, an African brand founded by Rosario Dawson and Abrima Erwiah.Elias Williams for The New York Times

“Look 39, Ready-to-Wear, Spring 2021” by the American fashion designer Christopher John Rogers.Elias Williams for The New York Times

From left: IAMISIGO, jacket, dress and shoes ‘Chasing Evil’ collection; Doreen Mashika, ensemble, bodice, detatched sleeves and khanga skirt, Mikono collection ensemble; Doreen Mashika, Amani Dress; Lisa Folawiyo, Jossa top and trousers; Lisa Folawiyo, Irin dress; Lisa Folawiyo, classic robe, leggings and top.Elias Williams for The New York Times

The show is, in the words of the V & A’s Checinska, “inspired by the theater of fashion with its narrative potential: the crafting and performance of identities through props.” This potential is what drew me to fashion, the idea that I might present myself in a distinguished way, that I could embody an elegance that had previously eluded me. But with this exhibition the stakes are much higher than a mere rendition of individual identity. What unites the fashion talents represented in Brooklyn (and in London) is a clear need to exercise a political and aesthetic agency that go hand in hand.

Agency means almost nothing unless it is expressed. To have agency is to act in the world under one’s own imaginative and intellectual capacities. I never truly had that working as a salesperson for someone else’s brand, someone else’s notion of appropriate design.

Self-identity emerged through street fashion. From left, Sarah Waiswa, “Photograph at Thrift Social, Anette Kiru”; Waiswa’s “Photograph at Thrift Social”; Trevor Stuurman, “Mama Panther,” 2017; Lakin Ogunbanwo,“Untitled IV,” 2019; Lakin Ogunbanwo, “I See It, Do You?,” 2012Elias Williams for The New York Times

At the end of the show, considering this, I walked back for a closer look at Waiswa’s photos of people on the street attending a “thrift social,” where clothes and music are exchanged. In one portrait, a woman has her hair pulled back in two coiled braids and sported a bandeau top made up of two fastened leather belts. At her midriff is a thin orange belt fastened with a gold panther buckle. In an adjacent photo three young men wear an eclectic mix of patterns and beaded jewelry. One has red-and-white striped overalls; another combines trousers with umber flowers with a red jacket. The third matched horizontal stripes with vertical stripes. When I was working in fashion retail, it never occurred to me that I could be this daring, this individual in my personal style.

That spirit of industrious innovation using whatever is at hand, and the relentless optimism in what the future might hold, are evident throughout the exhibition. What “Africa Fashion” understands deeply is that it has always been important not merely to be well dressed, but to be able to dress yourself well.

Africa Fashion

Through Oct. 22 at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York; brooklynmuseum.org.

Love and Loss Through the Photographer’s Lens

Jun 29, 2023 By Admin in Photography

“Love Songs: Photography and Intimacy” at ICP reveals the camera’s limitations as well as strengths when it comes to depicting romance.

In the thought-provoking exhibition, “Love Songs: Photography and Intimacy,” at the International Center of Photography, two series of photographs by Nobuyoshi Araki face off on opposite walls.

In the first, “Sentimental Journey,” from 1971, Araki charts his honeymoon with Yoko Aoki, his young wife. The sequence includes shots of her undressed, and one image shows her in orgasm. But the most intimate portraits, with Aoki fully clothed, expose her interior life. In the most poignant, she is sitting in a train compartment and looking off to the side, with an air of resignation and foreboding. I thought of the last line of Henry James’s “The Bostonians,” where the newly betrothed heroine weeps tears and the narrator remarks, “It was to be feared that … these were not the last she was destined to shed.”

The Araki marriage, however, seems to have been happy. The tears to be shed were his. In 1994, Aoki died of ovarian cancer, an illness Araki chronicled in “Winter Journey,” from the hospital room all the way to the coffin and the household shrine constructed in her memory. The prints are time-stamped, as if each station of the journey was impressed on his soul. The couple’s beloved cat patrols in many of the pictures, and magnolia flowers are featured in others. The pet and the blooms conjure up the spirit of the departed wife.

Love and loss. The ditty that played in my head as I walked through “Love Songs” is the one that begins, “You don’t know what love is … until you’ve loved a love you had to lose.” There are 16 artists in the show, which has been adapted by the independent curator Sara Raza from an exhibition at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (M.E.P.) in Paris. Many of the photographers are charting the end of a love affair. As songwriters have recognized, the pain of a breakup is more emotionally penetrating than the joy of a happy romance. But what can be readily conveyed in music is elusive in photography, where the subjects too easily become performers, and the desired feeling of intimacy turns theatrical.

Scrolling through photos on Instagram or Facebook, you get the sense that the people smiling joyously with their arms around each other are actors. Or rather, that they have embarked on these relationships mainly to advertise them: They are impersonating themselves. Karla Hiraldo Voleau tackles the theme of simulated intimacy in “Another Love Story,” 2022. Arranged month by month, the pictures chronicle the artist’s discovery that her lover has continued a relationship that he had told her was over. The installation includes transcripts of phone calls between Hiraldo Voleau and the other woman, who was also kept in the dark.

Karla Hiraldo Voleau, from the series “Another Love Story,” 2022.Karla Hiraldo Voleau

Underscoring the unreliability both of lovers and of social media posts about love affairs, Hiraldo Voleau displays pictures she took of her ex-boyfriend where his face is not discernible and mixes them with photos made after the breakup, restaging old scenes with a hired look-alike. Tellingly, I could see no difference between the shots in which she is with her real lover and those with the man pretending to be him; in all these pictures, the subjects are acting for the camera.

Leigh Ledare in “Double Bind,” 2010, sought to show how a lover projects upon the beloved by photographing his ex-wife, five years after their divorce, in an isolated cabin in upstate New York. She had recently remarried. Two months later, Ledare persuaded her to visit the same dwelling with her new husband, Adam Fedderly, also a photographer, who portrayed her with his own camera. Ledare displays their photographs together, identifying the authorship by the color of the frames. In montages, he intermingled the photos with magazine cutouts, adding three vitrines brimming with more glossy clippings. It’s an ingenious setup that once again illustrates the inherent ambiguity of photography. I could not distinguish between the visions of the two men.

Leigh Ledare, from the series “Double Bind,” 2010.Leigh Ledare

Intimacy is difficult to capture in a photo. I didn’t glean much from the posed portraits, many of them nude, that Collier Schorr made of her close collaborator, Angel Zinovieff. Nor was I so interested in the artsy shots that Lin Zhipeng took of his young male lovers. But I paused in wistful fascination before the sequence of photos by Hervé Guibert of his boyfriend, Thierry Jouno, both of them young, taken in the late ’70s and ’80s. There are nude images of Jouno, some X-rated. But the most intimate were a portrait of Jouno laying his head on a desk while cigarette smoke rises above, another of him grimacing as he looks in a mirror, and, in three posed pictures taken from different distances in a rustic room, Jouno standing, heartbreakingly handsome and obviously adored, his naked body concealed by gauzy veils. Surely some of my interest came from the knowledge that both Jouno, who directed an institute for the blind, and Guibert, who was a gifted writer as well as a photographer, would die of AIDS in their mid-30s.

Hervé Guibert, “Sienne,” 1979.Christine Guibert, via Les Douches la Galerie, Paris

The shadow of mortality also falls on “Proud Flesh,” 2003-09, by Sally Mann, her photographs of her husband, Larry, who suffers from late-onset muscular dystrophy. She made them with the 19th-century wet-plate collodion process. Back when it was the state of the art, photographers expertly overcame the pitfalls of the technique, but Mann embraces the flaws. Like her naked husband, many of the pictures are blemished and distressed. The darkness and blurring created by this archaic process add to the elegiac mood.

Sally Mann, “Speak, Memory,” 2008.Sally Mann, via Gagosian

Ergin Cavusoglu’s “Silent Glide,” 2008, and Fouad Elkoury’s “On War and Love,” 2006, both set a romantic breakup against a landscape of decay or strife. In Cavusoglu’s staged three-channel video, a writer ends an affair with his married publisher, who is visiting him in Hereke, a Turkish seaside town once known for its production of silk rugs but dependent now, in addition to carpet manufacture, on shipping and a cement factory. Cavusoglu devotes as much attention to the degradation of the town as he does to the collapse of the affair.

Fouad Elkoury, July 30, from the series “On War and Love,” 2006.Fouad Elkoury

Similarly, in “On War and Love,” 2006, Elkoury chronicles in a diary format the dissolution of his relationship with a younger woman, a parting that coincides with a war in Lebanon in the summer of 2006. The photos are interspersed with texts, documenting the Israeli air and naval assault on Beirut and Elkoury’s emotional turmoil in Istanbul, where he travels from Lebanon in a futile attempt to persuade his lover to stay with him. Instead of resonating with each other, however, the two stories, when juxtaposed, distanced me from each of them.

“Love Songs” left me wondering if the theatricality of posing and the ambiguity of still images undercut the capacity of photography to document intimacy. Various art forms afford different advantages and limitations. Novels are best at describing the complex charms and vicissitudes of love, which is why so many of these artists resort to texts along with images. “Love Songs” is as much about what photography can’t do as about what it can.

Love Songs: Photography and Intimacy

Through Sept. 11, International Center of Photography, 79 Essex Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan, icp.org.

Harrowing image of injured elephant wins Environmental Photographer of the Year

Jun 29, 2023 By Admin in Photography

The third edition of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation’s Environmental Photography Award has come to a close and this year’s grand prize winner is Dutch photographer Jasper Doest. Taking home the coveted title of Environmental Photographer of the Year 2023, the young photographer will also receive a grant of €5,000/$5,458 plus the opportunity to visit the University of Ecuador’s Amazon Research Station in the heart of the Ecuadorian jungle plus an invitation to the awards ceremony in Monaco.

His winning image titled Fight to the Death shows a gripping scene of an elephant battling for survival after being hit by a freight train in the Gabon Lopé National Park. The elephant pictured in this image suffered a broken hip and sadly later died but its meat was distributed to the park’s local community. As gruesome as the image is, it shows the devastating effects human infrastructure has on wildlife which is why it was also awarded first place in the human versus nature category.

• Check out the best cameras for wildlife photography so you can capture animals in their natural habitat

Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation 2023 Environmental Photography Award

My Kingdom – 1st place in the “Ocean Worlds” category (Image credit: Simon Biddie)

Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation 2023 Environmental Photography Award

Airborne – 1st place in the “Change Makers: Reasons for Hope” category (Image credit: Marcus Westberg)

In the hope the image will inspire change and force people to take responsibility, Doest commented, “As I recall this gruesome scene along the railway, I am haunted not only by the tragedy that occurred as the elephant needed to be killed after the accident, but mainly by the larger story of human greed that underlies it–there is a railway that runs through a National Park, primarily for the purpose of transporting a valuable mineral.”

This year’s competition received an overwhelming response, with over 2,300 photographers from across the globe submitting a staggering 10,000 images. These entries were meticulously evaluated by a prestigious panel of professional photographers across five categories: Polar Wonders, Into the Forest, Ocean Worlds, Humanity Versus Nature, and Change Makers: Reasons for Hope. In addition to these categories, the Public Award, chosen through over 5,000 public votes, and the Students’ Award, determined by high school students in Monaco, added an extra layer of recognition. In total a prize fund of €11,000 (roughly $12,007) was awarded to the winning photographers.

Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation 2023 Environmental Photography Award

Predator versus Predator – 3rd place in the “Into the Forest” category (Image credit: Clément Fontaine)

Sergio Pitamitz, the president of the jury, emphasized the significance of photography as a powerful tool in giving voice to threatened wildlife and biodiversity. He commended the Environmental Photography Award for providing a platform for photographers to not only showcase their captivating images but also convey essential conservation messages. Pitamitz also expressed admiration for the competition’s steadfast commitment to preserving the environment and the diverse living world.

For those who wish to witness these thought-provoking images firsthand, the exhibition can be visited on the Promenade du Lavotto in Monaco before it sets off on a global exhibition. To view the full selection of winning images, head to the Photocrowd website.

The best lenses for bird photography and wildlife will help you to capture animals in their natural habitat without disturbing them

Photography Turned Passion Project for Ed Donnelly in Damariscotta Mills – The Lincoln County News

Jun 29, 2023 By Admin in Photography

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Ed Donnelly has been a fixture in Damariscotta Mills the past two springs. The disabled veteran has remained at his post on the bridge since early May, taking pictures of osprey and eagles feasting on alewives.

Long after professional photographers have come and gone, Donnelly remains, hoping to get another great shot with his long zoom lens.

An Air Force veteran, Donnelly flew air cargo planes for 21 years. He started flying C 130s, and then C 141s, C27s, and finished with C17s. He flew transport planes all over the world, and was stationed in Germany and in Panama, as well as state side.

He was medically retired after losing a leg in a motor vehicle accident. “I loved every minute of my military career,” he said.

After his accident and a couple of years in a hospital, Donnelly started his second career with the Veterans Affairs, working on disability claims for the next 15 years. “I am double retired now,” Donnelly said.

He adopted a couple of kittens and started taking pictures of them. After taking “several hundred” pictures of his cats, he gravitated toward more challenging nature photography. Donnelly moved to Newcastle in May of 2020, and caught the end of the alewife run. He was hooked after that.

He calls his photography a hobby. “I took plenty of pictures in the Air Force in the old film camera days,” he said.

He has a knack for capturing birds in flight, diving, and fighting. He loves the action the fish ladder at Damariscotta Mills offers him. He spends a couple of hours almost every day in May and June photographing birds in the Mills. He stops there a couple of days a week during the rest of the summer.

He has two camera setups, a Sony Alfa 1, and an Olympus OM-1. He uses a 200-600 ml zoom lens.

“Birds, especially raptors have always fascinated me,” he said. “I do shoot backyard birds as well.”

He has had pictures published in an Audubon calendar, and has donated pictures for corporate calendars.

All his pictures are on a flicker page called LennyCarl08. He has over 25,000 images on his flicker account, but he said does not have a favorite picture.

“It is hard to say,” he said. “Really good osprey and eagle stuff; an osprey coming out of the water with an alewife; an osprey diving with the tip of its talons hitting the water. I have a couple of eagles fighting, a couple of osprey fighting, and osprey and eagles fighting.

Donnelly shoots in the cold and the heat, but not the rain. “Cameras are too expensive to get wet,” he said.

Donnelly said he enjoys people stopping by to ask questions. They stop to ask what he is looking for, if he needs help, or for directions.

Although parked in his wheelchair in the middle of the bridge, Donnelly does not fear traffic. “You have to watch out for dropping fish,” he said. “The seagulls drop them in the middle of the road.”

Although the alewife run is over, raptors are still present to capture fish heading back out to sea, dead fish, or stragglers. Of floating fish, Donnelly said, “Eagles just pounce on them. Osprey will not go for the dead fish, but the eagles love them. Eagles will eat anything.”

“It is absolutely fun,” Donnelly said of shooting pictures and chatting with bird watchers, other photographers, and Mills residents.

Macro Photographer Discovers New Species Called the Singapore Tiger

Jun 29, 2023 By Admin in Photography

The Singapore Tiger isopod first documented by photographer Nicky Bay.

A macro photographer who was out capturing pictures of isopods with his friends in Singapore stumbled across an entirely new species with the orange and black striped pill bug now aptly named the Singapore Tiger.

Photographer Nicky Bay tells PetaPixel that he thinks of his work documenting bugs and insects as like collecting Pokémon. “Gotta catch them all!” He says.

The Singapore Tiger appears to be a previously undiscovered type of isopod, which may come as a surprise given its striking appearance.

“The exciting part is that this species has not been recorded anywhere before, even with just photos,” Bay says.

“Also, we know of several other species in the region that had been dubbed various ‘Tiger’ names but this species was the most beautiful, with the brightest orange and most distinct stripes, closest to that of a tiger.”

Bay humbly points out that when compared to the world of vertebrates, there are numerous invertebrates unknown to science so “finding a species new to science isn’t too uncommon.”

However, the distinct look of the Singapore Tiger isopod makes it stand out and a “rigorous review” is needed to officially confirm it.

“So far, isopodologists have not been able to match it with any existing genus in the family so it is quite safe to say that it is new,” explains Bay.

The isopodologist who ultimately publishes the paper describing the new species will get the honor of naming the new creature.

“Most new species are named based on how the species looks like, or based on defining traits of that species,” he says.

“Sometimes, it could be named after a person in honour of some particular achievements in the field.”

Macro Photographer

Bay has been shooting macro photos for 15 years and much like a Pokémon trainer, he attempts to document as many species as he can.

“I like to shoot all microfauna because they exist right under our noses and many of them look really bizarre,” he says. “Because of that, I like to call macro photography a window to an alien world.”

For his photos, Bay uses an entry-level Olympus OM-D EM10 Mark 4 with a Laowa 50mm 2:1 macro lens and a small flash.

“For macro photography, most macro lenses are sufficient. The most important aspect would be the light diffusion rather than the lens or camera body,” he adds.

More of Bay’s work can be found on his website and Flickr.

Image credits: All photos by Nicky Bay.

Project Save Photograph Archives Announces Move and JumpStart Campaign – The Armenian Mirror-Spectator

Jun 29, 2023 By Admin in Photography

BOSTON — Project Save Photograph Archives announced this week a major move to a new space this summer. The new location — 600 Pleasant Street in Watertown — will feature an exhibition gallery and larger office space.

When its doors open this fall, Project Save will be one of the few hubs for photography not just in the Boston area but in the entire region, featuring exhibitions from the archives, various workshops and lectures, as well as exhibits of contemporary photographers.

The move represents a significant milestone and comes less than two years under the leadership of the new executive director, Dr. Arto Vaun, who has brought a fresh perspective and transformative vision to Project Save. Vaun’s commitment to elevating Project Save’s profile and highlighting its true value has already produced a wider impact and attracted a larger audience.

Through initiatives such as the annual Artist and Research Residency, the Conversations on Photography series, and interactive new website, Project Save has launched a bold new vision to claim its rightful place in the national and international field of photographic cultural work.

Founded in 1975 by Ruth Thomasian, Project Save Photograph Archives is a groundbreaking nonprofit that champions photography as a means of preserving and sharing the global Armenian experience and social history in general. Its collection spans over 80,000 hardcopy original photographs from around the globe, making Project Save the oldest and largest such archive in the world.

According to Vaun, “We’re living in a time when once again there are forces actively trying to rewrite history and erase any traces of Armenian culture. There’s no clearer, more powerful and direct evidence to counter such attempts than photographs.”

Landscape Photography in the Middle of the Day

Jun 29, 2023 By Admin in Photography

Most of the time, when you think of landscape photography, you probably think of golden hour, with soft and warm light spilling across the scene. And while that can make for fantastic images, if you restrict yourself to just a few hours a day, you are missing out on quite a few opportunities. This great video tutorial shows you the benefits of landscape photography in the middle of the day.

Coming to you from Brendan van Son, this excellent video tutorial discusses landscape photography in the middle of the day. While golden hour can provide some fantastic opportunities, you can make compelling photos in any kind of light at any time of day. The key is to understand what types of photos different qualities of light are conducive to rather than trying to fight the light and will images into existence, particularly through extreme editing. It can also be a great time to scout different locations you would like to shoot in different light so you are prepared when you return. Check out the video above for the full rundown.

And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out “Photographing The World 1: Landscape Photography and Post-Processing with Elia Locardi.”