NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — What makes Lexi Brown unique is the way she has chosen to use what others might see as limitations to set herself apart as an artist. Look closely at her pictures and you might even start to see the world in a different way — thanks to her unique vision.

Brown spends her time abroad in the world with her camera, shooting old-fashioned film as opposed to the digital photography most common today.

“I realize that film correlates so much more with what I see with my own eyes. It literally looks exactly how my brain sees it,” Brown said.

Her brain views the world differently than most people. Brown says she was officially diagnosed with autism on Valentine’s Day this year.

A challenge? Yes, but one that came with certain benefits.

“It gave me the permission slip to be different and unapologetic,” she said.

Like others on the autism spectrum, Brown is very sensitive to light – which is an advantage because she says “photography is literally painting with light.”

Brown has been taking photos since she was in the eighth grade, when she won a national prize for one photo taken on her mom’s iPhone. It was autism that convinced her to make a living as an artist.

“Being on the spectrum, my internal world is very, very rich, and there’s always so much happening in here with light and sound and motion, and like dissecting these little details of the world around me,” she said.

In the details, Brown finds the divine, and says the neurodivergent brain is so beautiful because it can see all these different parts.

When asked if her diagnosis has helped her become a better photographer, Brown says she wouldn’t call it ‘better,’ but rather different.

“I think being on the spectrum and spending a lot of time feeling misunderstood has given me a gift to help other people understand,” she said.

Her gift allows people to see the world through her eyes and that broadens our understanding of life.

Lexi Brown is a star of tomorrow.

ALSO READ | Harlem Stage celebrates 4 decades of lifting creative voices of artists of color

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Fernanda Chandoha will discuss the work and career of her father Walter Chandoha, the grand master of cat photography. “Growing up,” she says, “when you told somebody what your parents do, it was just like: what?” Chandoha also tells us about Loco the cat and a Bayonne grocery store.

How lovely it was to see the beautiful photograph of a rainbow framing a view of Treorci (A sliver of sunshine and an undersea alien – readers’ best photos, 8 November). It actually shows the village of Cwmparc, where I grew up in the 1950s and 60s. My parents’ ashes lie on the Bwlch mountain, as they loved this view. Compliments to Mike Elcock for the composition, too.
Tina Lukey
Mold, Flintshire

There is no need to say anything to bereaved friends, just give them a hug (There’s no right thing to say to people who are grieving, but the worst thing is fearing to speak at all, 24 November). This can be an invitation to the friend to tell you about their grief, which I suspect they need more than condolences or platitudes.
Mary Brown
Stroud, Gloucestershire

After starting to experience a low-frequency two-tone hum in bed at night (Letters, 29 November), I contacted my GP, who referred me to the audiology department at my local hospital. They told me it was likely to be a form of tinnitus.
Ken Porter
Manchester

As a musician, my suggestion as to the sources of mysterious hums is that it might have been a vocal group like Singcircle rehearsing one of Stockhausen’s vocal works.
Meirion Bowen
London

Might this be the apogee? Seen on a cafe blackboard in Edinburgh some years ago: Various’ Ice’s’ (Letters, 30 November).
David Harvie
Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire

By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

CASCO — Being a photographer has given Brien Richards the opportunity to travel to many places around the world, including most recently, Antarctica.

“Antarctica is a photographer’s dream. There’s so much to photograph from the vast icy landscapes and floating icebergs to the huge array of wildlife like humpback whales, seabirds, orcas, and, of course, penguins,” Richards said.

He told a story, giving testament to how amazing Antarctica is to photograph.

“My daughter Audra borrowed my Nikon Z6 camera and 70-200mm lens and took more than 4,000 photos. She said she was holding back (on the number of photos she was taking). To date, she has not returned the camera,” Richards joked.

Actually, she had persuaded him to upgrade.

“She knew that there was a Nikon Z6ii available and shamed me into giving her the old one, along with the lens, and upgrading mine,” he said. “She never intended to take photos, but ride along, but I think she wanted to capture her own images for later memories,” he said.

His daughter Audra volunteered to be his sidekick on the trip to Antarctica because

Richards’ wife stayed firm to her decision not to get on the ship going through The Drake Passage. That route was known to have 60-foot seas, he said.

Richards has chosen a lifestyle of pursuing his photographic interests, which involves a lot of traveling

“I’m a retired military officer and a retired federal civil servant — that makes me really old,” he said. “I worked the last 30 years with the Department of the Army in Belgium working with NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.”

“Photography is my passion and I travel around the country [mainly in national parks] and internationally attending photo workshops that allow me to meet like-minded people in great locations with good instructors,” he said.

Some of his international venues include Greenland, Iceland, Costa Rica and Norway.

Richards traveled to Antarctica in December 2022 — not quite a year ago, during that region’s spring-time.

Last Thursday, at the Casco Public Library, Richards shared his trip to Antarctica via his photographs, his stories, and a video provided by Poseidon Expeditions that included drone video of humpback whales. About 20 people attended the library’s presentation; and, those folks ranged from a couple of families with younger children, to older people still in the working force as well as retired residents.

Conservation in Action

Richard’s presentation combined history and geography with a study of nature plus humorous stories of the wildlife.

“You have to go along the Drake Passage, where Charles Darwin left on his voyage about evolution,” he said.

The Drake Passage “is the body of water between South America’s Cape Horn, Chile, Argentina and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica,” according to Wikipedia.

It is where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Pacific Ocean, Richards said.

“The currents from all the oceans meet. That is why you can never count on a smooth voyage. They kept telling us, ‘This is not a tour. This is an expedition,’” he said.

The trip itself was a learning experience. During the two days it took to sail about 600 miles, the passengers were being schooled.

“What are you going to do for two day? We had nine professional photographers, and four naturalists. They gave us all these classes. The naturalists were great to listen to,” he said.

He passed on the history lesson, which is tied to the reason why Antarctica has remained virtually untouched with the exception of exploration and scientific studies.

“There is an Antarctica Treaty of 1959 in which 12 countries signed and agreed that Antarctica could only be used for peaceful purposes and no country had any territorial claims,” he said.

Of all the places Richards has traveled to photograph what he sees, Antarctica is certainly the most uninhabited.

“The thing that struck me most about Antarctica was its vast, pristine environment. After all, it is a whole continent with almost no one on it, except a few nations’ research stations,” he said.

“You see no one except those in your group. No cars, no boats, no roads. It looks like what one would imagine the world looked like before man (and woman) arrived,” he said.

Certain rules have been established to protect the fragile environments, he said.

“There are a few protocols that call for no harassment of wildlife, leave nothing behind, no kneeling or lying on the ground, except right on the rocky beach, cleaning boots before and after zodiac landings, etc,” he said.

“We were not allowed to even pee on the land. If you had to go, there was a Zodiac that took you back to the cruise ship. No kidding,” he said.

Another conservation-based policy: No two cruise ships can land in the same place, he said.

Wonders of Wildlife

Richards got a lot of front-row learning about penguins during his 11-day trip to Antarctica in December, which just happens to be that region’s spring. In reality, that trip was about two weeks earlier than when most penguins hatch. However, the Maine-based photographer did manage to catch one ‘early bird,’ a penguin chick born sooner than the hatching season.

Also, Richards witnessed a lot of courtship scenes centered on tiny pebbles used for the nests.

He told the audience that Antarctica has no trees to use for nest.

“They build their nests out of these pebbles. If he is a young, newly married penguin and he really loves her, he will bring her pebbles,” he said. “How do they find the pebbles? They steal them from other nests while those penguins are gone. The males fight back and forth over pebbles.”

He described a penguin sneaking over to get that pebble and losing it, and spending hours searching for that one pebble. Pebbles are a priority in the life of a penguin, he said.

“Their tails and wings help to balance them on land. They are funnier than heck. They will be walking along, and just do a face plant,” he said. “The penguins are extremely agile in the water.”

“A group of penguins is called a waddle. If floating together, they are called a raft. The Gentoo penguin is the fastest. They can swim up to 22 mph. They can dive down 600 feet. But, the great big orca can swim 35 to 40 mph, which puts the penguin at a disadvantage,” Richards said.

“Penguins can live 15 to 20 years in the wild. Somewhere around 30 years in captivity without predators,” he said.

One strange thing he noticed is that there were no nights, no darkness during his trip.

“It never got dark, not fully dark. The sun would set, but not much,” he said.

Wildlife briefings were built into the structure of the days.

“We ran into some humpback whales. The humpback go for krill shrimp. There was a professional photographer on board, and he had a drone. At the end of tour, they gave us a video,” he said.

To see more pictures from Richards’ trip to Antarctica or other trips or other wildlife, go to his website brienrichards.smugmug.com. The name of his business is Brien Richards Photography.

For years, the annual Pirelli calendar, aka The Cal, has made waves for its exclusivity, glamour, and star-studded lineup—both in front of and behind the camera. To mark The Cal’s 50th anniversary, the visual artist Prince Gyasi was chosen to photograph and conceptualize the 2024 edition, which features talent including Naomi Campbell, Teyana Taylor, Angela Bassett, award-winning writer and the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history Amanda Gorman, Afrobeats superstar Tiwa Savage, Hidden Figures author Margot Lee Shetterly, and more.

Gyasi, who hails from Ghana, brings a distinct visual voice to his work: vibrant colors provide viewers a glimpse of his otherworldly imagination, where a refreshing re-centering of Black subjects is a central theme. The 28-year-old credits his love of photography, in part, to the adults in his life who supported his creative exploration from early childhood. His mother, a respected Ghanaian fashion designer, and a local photographer who ran a photo stand in the marketplace took Gyasi on as a kid apprentice.

“I used to play around with disposable cameras. I’d buy films. I’d spend time in the dark room [with the marketplace photographer] to see how he developed images. I’d try to recreate logos from places like McDonalds and Lego on Microsoft Paint,” says Gyasi, who embraces a multidisciplinary approach to artmaking (his background in sculpture and literature still provide him inspiration to this day). Using what was within reach at the time rather than waiting for so-called perfect circumstances proved essential. Photographing The Cal and overseeing creative direction and casting of the photoshoot, which took place in both Ghana and London, turned out to be a full-circle moment for Gyasi.

“For me, it’s always been about where I’m from and how I’ll be able to project our culture and our traditions to the world,” he says. “It’s always a very good feeling to express myself in my country. I wanted some of the talent who’ve never been [to Ghana] to feel the place and understand why I am who I am. It’s also about letting people understand that you’re not a product of your environment––you can switch that narrative up.”

While anyone can admire the images that make up the Pirelli Calendar, copies aren’t available for the public to purchase; instead, they’re gifted to select individuals and celebrities. And although the Pirelli calendar’s extravagance—along with its photoshoot’s million-dollar price tag—have remained a point of interest through the years, Gyasi hopes the 2024 calendar proves timeless: with vibrant, thoughtful imagery celebrating cultural titans across the Black diaspora and the vitalness of community.

“Community is everything. I feel a lot of selfishness in this world…I want people to understand that if you’re selfish, you might get [where you want to be,] but you’re gonna get stuck,” he says. “You need people to help you get there. That’s my message. And also, everyone has their own voice and they can let their voice be heard and not try to copy someone’s blueprint to become that person. They have to be themselves.”

“If I speak and your voice comes out of my mouth, that would be very scary,” Gyasi adds, laughing. “That will never be authentic. You should have your own voice and speak from what god has already given you.”

The early life of Elliott Erwitt, who has died aged 95, was marked by upheaval and conflict. His Russian Jewish parents had fled their home country after the Russian Revolution to France, where he was born in 1928. The family then headed to Milan, only to return to Paris to escape Mussolini’s regime. They eventually migrated to the US, just as the second world war began. Erwitt was drafted for military service in 1951, and served in Germany and France.

Photography, at first, provided young Erwitt the opportunity to retreat from the world. One of his first interactions with the medium as a teenager was printing headshots of actors in a commercial darkroom in Los Angeles. Later, he would photograph Hollywood’s most famous stars himself, including Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich and Grace Kelly.

Erwitt joined Magnum Photos in 1953 and served as the agency’s president during the late 1960s. He took many of the pictures that would define his time. Among his most famous was the snapshot taken during the “kitchen debate” in 1959. Erwitt caught US vice-president Richard Nixon jabbing the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in the chest with an authoritarian finger – a moment of political slapstick that became a symbol of Nixon’s leadership and American autonomy. The image was used in Nixon’s 1960 presidential campaign. “I just happened to be in the right spot at the right time,” Erwitt humbly recalled.

Yet Erwitt was also searching, perhaps subconsciously, for a sense of stability, something that would speak beyond his time. Much of the pleasure of looking at Erwitt’s pictures today derives from a sense of his relentless curiosity dovetailed with an unbridled delight in humanity.

Erwitt was drawn to the perennial, the universal and the soul-affirming – a laughing child standing on his head will always be amusing. A solitary, impeccably dressed older gentleman sitting in a park, head tilted back to bask in the sun, will always embody grace and wistfulness. The haptic intimacy of lovers dancing in a kitchen – the man standing on his partner’s feet in battered espadrilles – elicits joy no matter where the kitchen is, or who the people are, or when it took place. Erwitt was equal parts eyewitness and dreamer, as theInternational Centre of Photography in New York put it when presenting him with a lifetime achievement award in 2011.

Erwitt downplayed his role as a photographer, often shrugging off pretension or chalking it up to happenstance: “It is silly stuff that I think has some relevance with nothing really important happening, but somehow being able to communicate some kind of fun,” he once said. There’s a lightness of touch that characterises even his most serious images, and he was a master of ironic juxtapositions and comic charm: in the 1980s, he even produced 18 comedy films for HBO. One of his cheekiest images shows a man’s naked buttocks in the foreground, close to the camera: the focus falls on the smiling faces of two elderly onlookers who look up at their nude interlocutor. It’s the perfect Erwittian moment.

However casual he was about it, Erwitt’s irresistible ease was the hard-won fruit of decades of devotion to life as it unfolded in front of his camera. Only one attentive to looking and attuned to human emotions could make the images he did. Erwitt moved with the times but stayed true to his own unchanging vision of the world. His legacy is one of hope, laughter and optimism – and it conquers us all, in spite of ourselves.

• The grand winner of the seventh International Wedding Photographer of the Year Awards has been named
• Canadian photographer Tara Lilly won, capturing the moment a bird landed on the bride’s head mid-vows
• Categories included Group Shot, Break the Rules, Epic Location, From Above, Solo Portrait and Lit

By Emily Lefroy For Dailymail.Com

Published: 11:14 EST, 1 December 2023 | Updated: 11:24 EST, 1 December 2023

Copper is the traditional metal to celebrate a seventh wedding anniversary but it’s all gold for a Canadian photographer, who took out top prize in the seventh the International Wedding Photographer of the Year Awards.

More than 1,700 stunning wedding photos by 300 wedding photographers, spanning across 11 categories.

However, the ‘grand winner’ photo was taken by Tara Lilly, who captured the moment jaw-dropping moment a bird landed on the bride’s head made itself comfortable while the groom reads his vows.

The unbelievable picture was entered into the Single Capture category, where it won first prize.

Reflecting on the shot, Tara recalled the moment she saw the bird land on bride Mikaela’s head as the couple said their vows during their picturesque ceremony in Whistler, Canada. 

‘Just as Mitch [the groom] began his vows, a curious whiskey jack swooped in and landed directly on top of Mikaela’s head,’ she explained on the International Wedding Photographer of the Year Awards website.

‘Mikaela’s shock, surprise and laughter were not enough to dissuade this bird from his perch,’ she added.

The rules for this category require that entries cannot be manipulated or photoshopped beyond standard adjustments to color and exposure.

The runner-up was Italian wedding photographer Carmelo Ucchino, who captured the moment a newly married couple were embracing as water brilliantly fell around them, which was entered in the Dance Floor category. 

‘In this photo, water actually falls from the roof in an almost surreal context, it is a dance floor where the bride and groom do their first dance together,’ Carmelo explained. ‘I remember with amusement the slippery floor… A few slips and lots of laughter to liven up the story of this wedding even more.’ 

Other categories included in the competition included: Couple Portrait, The I-Do Crew/Group Shot, Black and White, Engagement/Non-wedding, Epic Location, From Above, Solo Portrait, Break the Rules, and Lit.

‘With the successful completion of the seventh Annual Awards we continue to provide exposure and a unique platform for wedding and elopement photographers to have their best images reviewed and judged by our team of highly awarded and experienced educators and judges,’ Luke Simon, the International Wedding Photographer of the Year Awards curator, said.

‘This year we saw an increase of an extra 200 entries from last year, which has come partially as a result of a return of closer to pre-COVID business as usual bookings for photographers. 

‘It’s exciting to see the industry bouncing back after some tough years.

‘Along with the Awards program we’re working to help photographers book more clients with the addition of a wedding photographer search directory for loved-up couples to find their other perfect match.

‘As wedding and elopement photographers we spend a very large part of this pivotal day with our couples, often as much or more of the day than they spend with each other, so it’s imperative couples have a place to find the right professional to capture their day.’

The winner of the 2023 International Wedding Photographer of the Year received more than $3,000, as well as products from sponsors including Prograde Digital, Holdfast Gear, Pic-Time, Narrative Select, Godox, Koi Knives and ImagenAi.