Tamra Ward started her photography business in January 2022 and has since been photographing moments in the community, with family, performances, nature photography and more. Ward said this post-retirement gig has kickstarted many friendships for her in the North Texas community, as she aims to bring a little kindness and a smile into the lives of everyone she meets.
Tell our readers a little bit about yourself.
When I was eleven years old, I did an unforgivable thing: I set my family photos on fire. We were living in Saigon at the time, and as Viet Cong tanks rolled toward the edge of the city, my mother, half-crazed with fear, ordered me to get rid of everything incriminating.
Obediently, I removed pictures from the album pages, diplomas from their glass frames, film reels from metal canisters, letters from desk drawers. I put them all in a pile in the backyard and lit a match. When I was done, the mementos of three generations had turned into ashes.
Only years later in America did I begin to regret the act. A few pictures survived because my older brother, who was a foreign student, had taken them with him. But why didn’t I save the rest, the way I slipped my stamp collection in my backpack hours before we boarded the C-130 cargo plane and headed for Guam? For years I could not look at friends’ family photo albums without feeling remorse.
Then last week I had a dream that was so instructive it left me with a different estimation of that loss. In the dream, I find myself once more in front of my old home in Saigon. I walk through the rusted iron gate to find, to my horror, the place gutted—an empty structure where once there was life and love.
What I failed to retrieve in the dream survives, if only as an exquisite longing.
Immediately, I start to rummage among the pile of broken bricks and fallen plasters, finding, at last, a nightstand that once belonged to my mother. I pull at its drawer and out spill dozens of black-and-white photos. I am ecstatic. The photos are intact.
They are exactly as I remember them. Here’s one of my brother when he was twelve, wearing his martial art uniform and bowing to the camera. Here’s one of my mother as a teenager, posing next to the ruins of Angkor Wat. Here is my father as a young and handsome colonel, smoking a cigar. And me and my sister holding onto our dogs—Medor and Nina—as we wave to the photographer, smiling happily.
Suddenly a little boy appears in the dream. “This is my home,” he yells, “and you’re trespassing.”
“But these are my photos,” I meekly protest.
The boy looks at me with suspicion and shrewdness and changes his tone. “Well,” he says, “how much would you give me for these photos?”
But before I can find the answer, the boy laughs and snatches the photos out of my hand. I try to grab them back of course, but it’s too late.
I woke to find my arm still reaching out over the blanket in a gesture toward the pictures, still trying to retrieve them. Confused and astonished, I stared at my own empty hand for what seemed to be a long, long time. In that salty dawn with the cable cars rumbling up the hills and their bells clanging merrily outside my window, I saw what I hadn’t seen before: that nothing was ever truly lost.
What I failed to retrieve in the dream survives, if only as an exquisite longing. If words and language, as the poet Rilke tells us, can be made into a thing, mute as the statue of an orator, the reverse is true also.
Precious things lost are transmutable. They refuse oblivion. They simply wait to be rendered into testimonies, into stories and songs.
–Andrew Lam
*
Ambush in the Leaf, 2007 © Binh Danh, from Binh Danh: The Enigma of Belonging © Radius Books.
Untitled #4, 2009 © Binh Danh, from Binh Danh: The Enigma of Belonging © Radius Books.
Waiting, 2009 © Binh Danh, from Binh Danh: The Enigma of Belonging © Radius Books.
Archival Family Photograph, c. early 1978 © Binh Danh, from Binh Danh: The Enigma of Belonging © Radius Books.
” data-medium-file=”https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-11-at-7.36.19-AM-229×300.png” data-large-file=”https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-11-at-7.36.19-AM.png” class=” wp-image-230955″ src=”https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-11-at-7.36.19-AM.png” alt width=”361″ height=”472″ srcset=”https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-11-at-7.36.19-AM.png 563w, https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-11-at-7.36.19-AM-229×300.png 229w, https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-11-at-7.36.19-AM-46×60.png 46w, https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-11-at-7.36.19-AM-38×50.png 38w” sizes=”(max-width: 361px) 100vw, 361px”> Archival Family Photograph, c. early 1978 © Binh Danh, from Binh Danh: The Enigma of Belonging © Radius Books.
Archival Family Photograph, c. early 1978 © Binh Danh, from Binh Danh: The Enigma of Belonging © Radius Books.
Archival Family Photograph, c. 1966 © Binh Danh, from Binh Danh: The Enigma of Belonging © Radius Books.
Archival Family Photograph, c. 1981 © Binh Danh, from Binh Danh: The Enigma of Belonging © Radius Books.
Immigration Paperwork, c. 1979 © Binh Danh, from Binh Danh: The Enigma of Belonging © Radius Books.
__________________________________
From Binh Danh: The Enigma of Belonging. Photography by Binh Danh. Texts by Binh Danh, Boreth Ly, Joshua Chuang, Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, and Andrew Lam. Copyright © 2023. Available from Radius Books.
This Is War evolved out of my work as a photographer covering some of the bloodiest conflicts of the late 20th century. The imagery is not pretty, nor could it be. But seeing it—looking squarely at the misery delivered by leaders who promised to do good for their people—is important. More than that, refusing to see it, whether out of personal or political discomfort, is a form of misinformation.
The book tells the story of war through the experiences of both civilians and combatants. The civilians were entering a labyrinth of grief that they would occupy for the rest of their lives. Many of the combatants naively viewed war as an opportunity, only to discover that their bodies were mere fodder for the powerful.
I first picked up a camera in El Salvador in the mid-1980s. I photographed the bodies that the notorious death squads left on street corners at night. In the early ’90s, I was posted to the former Yugoslavia, and later, to Africa. Unscrupulous leaders, driven by ego, profit, and ethnic, religious, or nationalist agendas, waged war on civilians and turned villages into killing fields.
To be a war photographer is to forge an intimate relationship with the dead and dying. We occupy disparate worlds, empathizing with those reeling from profound loss, even while interacting with those who take human lives. To witness brutality is to sustain psychic damage: What the eye sees, the brain records and cannot erase. For the war photographer, the conjunction of horror and opportunity adds a further twist.
I understood this ambivalence while photographing street battles between rival militias in Monrovia, Liberia, in 1996. I came upon a man foraging for food in a destroyed shop. A group of fighters pounced on him. They ignored his pleas for mercy as they dragged him through the streets and, moments later, executed him.
Developing the film in the quiet of my hotel room, I retched as I relived what I had seen an hour earlier: A group of teenagers stripped an unarmed man who did not expect to die that day to his underwear and socks and murdered him in a ditch for no apparent reason. But I was also gratified when I discovered that the photos were in focus and powerful. I knew they would distinguish my career, and they did.
My life as a war photographer was punctuated by such moments of cognitive dissonance. Photographing the wounded in frenetic hospitals, mothers rocking in grief, soldiers stepping on land mines, and militiamen taunting, torturing, and killing one another, I wrestled with the awareness that the most painful episodes of these people’s lives were also occasions on which a part of me thrived.
I produced this work at a frenzied pace: airport, war, photograph, airport, war, repeat. My images exposed atrocities, signaled the beginnings of epidemics, and set off alarms in world capitals. But as the years passed, I became aware that with each war, what I gained in stature as a photojournalist, I lost in human empathy.
The realization drove me from my profession and led me to another: documenting war crimes in West Africa for a human-rights organization by means of witness testimony. Immersing myself in a world of policy, justice, and state building, I worked to stop the atrocities I had witnessed as a conflict photographer. I had a daughter, I fostered a son, and I didn’t look back.
I stuffed boxes of negatives from my photojournalism days into footlockers. And then, 20 years later, I pulled them out again and saw the images I’d made through a different prism. I had spent decades analyzing how states fail and why wars persist. Raising children had forever altered my understanding of the aching magnitude of loss, and how this loss, if not managed, drives ever more violence.
This Is War represents a deeply personal journey—a reckoning with what I witnessed over a tumultuous decade and the toll it took on me. But the book is also my contribution to the historical record of the conflicts covered and the role women have played in conflict photojournalism.
My work is also a call for reflection on why conflicts relapse. Way too many of the images I took decades ago could be taken today. At the time of writing, war has returned to Sudan, while in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it never left. El Salvador’s ideological war has been replaced by bloody gang violence. In Bosnia, ethnic tensions are on the rise. In too many places, the factors that drove conflicts in decades past—predatory governance, corruption, and crushing poverty—continue unabated. These images are a reminder that the parts of the world that are broken still need a durable fix.
To be the last person a dying woman, or a condemned man, sees on Earth is a morally uncomfortable thing, but also one that conveys a certain responsibility. War photographers are historians, artists, trespassers, and emotional bandits with complicated motives, some virtuous, some not. The images themselves, at their best, extract the essence of conflict, beseeching the viewer to honor those who have perished and to protect the rest of humanity from its worst, most abject failure: its capacity for war.
This article was excerpted from Corinne Dufka’s book This Is War: A Decade of Conflict: Photographs
When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.
A common question is what light painting tools I recommend for light painting for night photography. Here’s what I recommend — and why.
I’ll start with the most inexpensive light painting choices and work my way up.
Light painting is a term that is often used loosely to describe any addition of light to a night photograph. Really, though, light painting is a technique that uses a handheld light source to illuminate a scene during a long exposure. You are quite literally painting light on a subject. Your light source is your brush. Night photographers have used this technique for many decades.
I also wrote an in-depth article about purchasing light painting tools for cheap. I encourage you to read this and see why I recommend what I do.
For white light only, I would recommend the Wurkkos FC-11 (review here). It holds detail well and has a pleasing warm white light.
Use some gels from a $5 Roscolux Swatchbook sample booklet. Simply put these in front of your flashlight. Bam. Done.
Another option is the Colorshine light. I have never used this, but hear that it produces good results. Best of all, the light typically sells for under $33. It produces “10 different LED colors with flash and smooth color-change modes” which they describe as “red, green, blue, orange, turquoise, purple, yellow, cyan, violet, and white.”
Read about more inexpensive color options for light painting lights here.
Another possibility is to use an LED panel instead of a flashlight, simply using it as a handheld light instead of a stationary light (which isn’t really light painting anyway). I use a Lume Cube RGB Panel Pro 2.0, which has a high-quality light and holds detail well. You can read an in-depth review of the Lume Cube RGB Panel here.
This is a high-quality light that you can use for handheld light painting. You may need to wrap black Cinefoil or something similar around it to prevent the panel from shining into the camera lens if you are walking through the scene.
Another possibility is a Luxli light panel. There are some that have accessories that surround the light, similar to what you are doing with Cinefoil, so it prevents you from inadvertently shining the light into the camera lens and causing giant streaks.
Currently, the highest-quality LED flashlight with RGB that I know of is the Ants on a Melon RGB Critter 2.0. It has a high-quality light and holds detail well. You can read an in-depth review of the RGB Critter 2.0 as it pertains specifically to light painting here.
The challenge of the RGB Critter is that the user interface is challenging. It involves either pressing buttons simultaneously or pressing a sequence of buttons to change colors, brightness, and functions. It produces 39 colors, all rich and vibrant. However, you have no control over the saturation. You cannot produce any other colors besides the 39 colors. Still, though, those 39 colors would be more than enough for most people. The challenge here is primarily the confusing user interface. This also includes through the colors to reach another color instead of going straight to it.
The light that I use, as well as the one all the Nightaxians use, is a ProtoMachines light. It’s meticulously designed for light painting scenes and subjects. The ProtoMachines light offers easily accessible, on-the-fly control over saturation and brightness from 1-100%, a timer, user presets, and more. The form function is perfect.
Before you get too excited, there are two issues.
One is that they are not cheap. Their products range in price from the Radium LED light wand at $249 to the LED8 at $559.
The other is that, as of this writing, they are currently not available.
They are worth every cent, in my opinion. The form factor, quality of light, and ease of use inspire creativity are second to none. They are, in short, the best.
They are so good that I would encourage you to ask to get on the ProtoMachines waiting list so you can be notified when they release new products. Many of us are hoping for this.
Do you have any light painting tools that you would recommend? Please leave them in the comments!
Due to the spontaneity of the shoot, the 28 images have an authentic, off-the-cuff feel to them. Trying to be as “unobtrusive” as possible, Angela lent into the natural light of the hall, which she says helped to “set the tone”: the beige colours and low light from the blind-covered windows create a muted palette that contrasts with the palpable warmth of the people and relationships on show. “I focussed on the participants, with the simple hall backdrop highlighting their interactions and the essence of the game.” Players are shown chatting away, sat at a long table waiting for the game to start; a digital number randomiser glows red, its operator sat proudly behind; and an array of chocolates and homeware are all labelled, ready to be snapped up.
A particular image that stands out to Angela is one of her nan and two friends taking a break, making a cup of tea and grabbing a few biscuits. Framed by the hatch that opens into the kitchen, the image has a satisfying composition, each figure at a different stage of the tea-making process. Depicting what Angela describes as a “very simple, yet very British moment”, the image fittingly won an award in British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Britain 2022 and was displayed across the UK on screens and billboards, a fact that made Angela’s nan “very proud”.
The series gained new relevance in 2020, when the Covid lockdowns put an end to such gatherings. “This halt was especially poignant, considering the effort community members, like Janet and her late husband Karl who passed away during the pandemic, put into these games,” Angela says. “It wasn’t solely about bingo, it symbolised community building and provided a haven of joy in a town with limited recreational activities.” Through the series, Angela wants people to recognise how important such gatherings are, especially for elderly individuals who often rely on such events to keep loneliness at bay. Now, the photographer is preparing for Church Bingo to be displayed at a public exhibition in Heywood’s first outdoor gallery. In the wake of Covid, she hopes such exposure will push people to again start organising local recreational events, bringing communities together once more.
You’ve probably seen that a lot of YouTubers love their LUMIX cameras. They’re indeed really great for a variety of things. But we know that photographers are the ones who read this site, and photographers come first here. The LUMIX S5II is truly one of the best full-frame cameras that you can get your hands on if you’re looking for something that can give you special images. If you really want to do less post-production, we’ve got a camera kit for you that we know you’re going to love.
This article is presented in partnership with Lumix.
There are a lot of things about the LUMIX S5II that make it such a great camera for photographers. Ergonomically speaking, it appeals to the nice feeling of having a dial on either side of the viewfinder the same way they did in the film days. Then there’s the high resolution EVF that’s easy to see, the LCD screen that can help you take a photo in almost any angle you need, and so much more. Recently, there’s been talk of the sloped shutter button of cameras and how nice that can be for the ergonomics. The Lumix S5II has that for sure. But what’s even more special here is how they implemented the front dial. It’s right around the shutter button, so you don’t even really need to move your finger from it.
Combine all this with the features like scene detection autofocus, AF-Scope focusing, Real Time LUT, and so much more. This is an incredible camera for any working photographer that wants something lightweight, durable, and reliable.
This is the kit lens that comes with the LUMIX S5II. And we truly have to say that originally, we didn’t appreciate this lens. But the versatility that it allows is something that really isn’t talked about all that much, and so therefore people don’t understand it. It’s wider than your standard 24-70mm f4 lens — which doesn’t seem like a lot with just 4mm extra. But the difference can be huge. It might mean that you don’t need to take an extra step back or set your tripod even lower. And on the longer end, it becomes almost like working between a 50mm and 85mm lens. You just need to step back and forth as needed.
We’ve often called this lens the best nifty 50mm on the market, and we stand by that. The LUMIX 50mm f1.8 S is lightweight, fast to focus, and weather resistant. It also shares the same 67mm filter thread as most of the company’s other lenses. It can genuinely just do everything very well and if there’s a single prime that’s bound to stay stuck on your camera, it’s this one.
We recommend the LUMIX 85mm f1.8 for several reasons. First off, it’s the longest lens on this list. If you need something longer, the LUMIX S5II has a built in crop mode that lets it reach even further. It also has all the benefits of the 50mm f1.8. But we mostly recommend this lens for candid shooting, portraits, and product photography where you really want the bokeh to make a subject pop.
It’s truly one of our favorite lenses for the L Mount. The L-mount alliance was founded by Lecia, LUMIX and Sigma years ago. The three brands share autofocus algorithms, exposure data, and more through the mount so that their cameras and lenses can work as seamlessly as possible – allowing for a new level of freedom and choice. Photographers have options ranging from affordable to higher-end photographic instruments to make images that will enchant audiences. If you’re photographing while on a hike, in the desert, at a sports arena, or even at a local studio, LUMIX has a lens that can help the translation between your artistic and technical minds with ease.
Ryan Rice grew up in Carter County and it remains his favorite place to share the beauty of the region.
He now lives in Gray and works for an IT company based in Kingsport, but he explained Carter County is special because of number of mountainous terrain. Rice was one of three local photographers who had their shots chosen for the Tennessee Wildlife Federation’s annual calendar.
This week, punk music photographer Chelse Warren takes us into the pit.
We hop a tiny train to discover the miniature wonders of a West Virginia model railroad.
Then, we journey to eastern Kentucky, where they’re reclaiming their bootlegging heritage – along a new moonshine trail.
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
In This Episode:
Over the summer, Mason Adams visited a two-day DIY music festival called The Floor is Gone.
In the middle of it all was photographer Chelse Warren, who goes by Openhead Takes Photos online.
Mason reached out to talk music and more.
Credit: Zack Harold/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Along with trees and candy canes, trains have become a symbol of the holiday season. Think: the Polar Express, or Santa-themed excursions on local railroads. And generations of people grew up hoping to find electric train sets under the tree on Christmas Day.
These days, model train sets are enjoyed by grownup collectors and hobbyists.
Folkways Reporter Zack Harold visited a model train club in West Virginia and brings us the story.
Kentucky is known for its bourbon. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only liquor with a history in the state.
A group of distillers wants to attract more visitors to eastern Kentucky by focusing on its historic ties to moonshine.
Shepherd Snyder has the story.
Travis Stimeling, a musicology professor and the director of the Bluegrass and Old-Time Bands at West Virginia University (WVU), died on Nov. 15. They were 44.
Stimeling was a big figure in Appalachian academia, and played an important role in establishing the Appalachian Studies and Appalachian Music programs at WVU. Stimeling spoke with Inside Appalachia several times.
In 2021, Caitlin Tan interviewed Stimeling about a book they edited called, “The Opioid Epidemic and U.S. Culture: Expression, Art, and Politics in an Age of Addiction.”
In memory of Stimeling, we replayed that interview.
——
Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Collective Action, Dimension Six, Gaol, Sultry, Sean Watkins, Hurlbut-Kaukonen, Tyler Childers, Steve Earle and Gerry Milnes.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
You can find us on Instagram, Threads and Twitter @InAppalachia. Or here on Facebook.
Sign-up for the Inside Appalachia Newsletter!
Inside Appalachia is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
For Angel Colmenares, photographer, cinematographer and San Juan Island resident, traveling around the world for his work is nothing new. He prefers to go by Angel, and he was born in Cuba and raised in Mexico City, eventually making his way to the Pacific Northwest during his high school years, when his family moved to Seattle from Mexico. Ever since he was a child, Angel had an interest in visual arts, specifically cinematography and filmmaking. However, due to an accident that caused him to lose sight in his right eye when he was 17, he thought he could not pursue filmmaking, transitioning to photography instead. He went to Brooks Institute of Photography in Ventura, CA, and after graduating, he worked as a commercial and fashion photographer in major hubs like Mexico City, New York City and San Francisco.
After his work in photography, Angel decided not to limit his artistic abilities and sold all of his photography equipment, moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in cinematography. There, he worked on various films, documentaries and music videos as a cinematographer for ten years. After his time in LA, he and his wife moved to Hawaii, where he began shooting film for weddings, due to the lack of filmmaking opportunities there. His cinematic film style was well received for his wedding shoots, and they remained in Hawaii for many years before eventually moving back to Seattle, where he shot music videos for up and coming rappers in the area. In 2017, he and his family purchased a house on San Juan Island, making time to visit whenever they could. When COVID-19 hit during the spring of 2020, Angel and his family decided to permanently reside on the island, with his son starting at Friday Harbor High School that fall.
When looking at the photos currently displayed in his studio on First Street, Studio 50, one can witness Angel’s gritty, authentic style. Growing up, Angel loved watching art films with foreign directors, heavily influencing his preference for black and white photos and the imperfections of film – visible grain, out of focus shots – to the pixel-perfect images of digital photography.
“That’s what I love about the old style of photography: film has a feeling to it,” said Angel. “Now you have digital, which is so perfect in a way, and it has taken a bit of the soul of what photography is about.”
With artificial intelligence advancing more each day, Angel speculates that photography, especially older styles, is a dying art. Soon, people will be able to create a desired image without taking a photo of it.
“There’s something about sitting in front of a person you don’t even know and making that connection and capturing that moment. I like meeting people on the street or wherever it is, and having that connection, which is rare now,” said Angel.
When it comes to subject matter, Angel is not picky. He believes in creating what you can in the moment. Due to the constraints of COVID-19 on face-to-face interactions, Colmenares mainly drove around the island, capturing island landscape shots, including the towering image of English Camp which can be found in Studio 50. Despite his flexibility when choosing a subject, Angel often gravitates towards portrait photography. Whereas a landscape photo doesn’t always do justice to its location, a portrait can capture the visible character and genuineness of its subject.
“[A portrait] is just that. There’s nothing outside of that – everything is in their eyes, in their face,” said Angel.
His current show, “Perfect Imperfections,” perfectly combines the authenticity of the subjects and the film it was shot on to create unique, antiquated portraits. In the summer of 2016, Angel found himself in an artistic rut, unhappy with his work and his over-attentive editing. Thankfully around this time, he had come across a 19th century photographic procedure known as wet plate collodion by chance, and he traveled to Colorado to learn the process. Its method vastly differed from digital photography, taking 20 minutes to develop one photo and involving multiple chemicals, light-sensitive reactions and dark room processing.
“That’s what I needed. I needed to get my hands dirty again, to spend time creating and processing film. It brought me back to my love of photography,” said Angel.
Hitching his self-made darkroom trailer to his pickup truck, Angel continued to push his boundaries as he made the journey to North Dakota to photograph the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock Reservation in October 2016. He views the experience as one of growth, going outside of his comfort zone as an introvert to ask permission to photograph the protesters, as well as utilizing an intricate photographic process. While he was there, he connected with many natives who invited him to their powwows, and he later photographed one in Smokiam near Soap Lake. As his first wet plate collodion show at Studio 50, “Perfect Imperfections” is a triumph to his growth as an artist and person, and pays homage to those whose stories are often forgotten or left untold.
Following the show’s run through December, Angel will exhibit photography from his travels to Antarctica, Africa and portraits from this year’s All Souls procession for Day of the Dead in Tucson, Arizona. He is also working on his first book of portraits as well. The project will consist of shots of important community members on San Juan Island and their contributions to the island. Recently, he has decided to expand the project to include other prominent figures he has met over the years, and considers this project to be his main priority at the moment.
“There’s something real and natural and hardworking about [these community members] that I really admire,” said Angel.
Studio 50 is open Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. – 4 p.m., but he welcomes anyone to knock on the studio door at any time, regardless of the sign reading “closed.” For more information about Angel Colmenares and his work, visit https://www.50onfirst.com/.
