Photo Feature by Ernesto Gonzalez Diaz

HAVANA TIMES – Photography is about managing light to capture a piece of reality. Long Exposure photography is a technique that allows moving objects to leave a luminous trail, achieving a very visually attractive effect.

To do this, it is necessary to look for shutter speeds between 1/10 and ¼ seconds, that is, the lens diaphragm is open between 10 and 25 tenths of a second, the time in which an object or subject moves, leaving a visible trail of light. which can sometimes seem somewhat surreal or ghostly. It is also advisable to use an exposure level that is as neutral as possible and an ISO of 100.

However, note that in each image there is something perfectly focused and sharp, which may well be a static element of the scene or a moving element as long as the photographer has achieved a minimum movement of the camera that synchronizes with the movement of the element of the scene, which can be a vehicle, a cyclist or a person walking.

See more photo galleries here on Havana Times

Countries that celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month do so at different times of the year – it’s May in the USA, for example, while Australia does so in October. But there’s one mental health-related event that the world celebrates on the same day – October 10 has been designated as World Mental Health Day, an initiative that began in 1992 and continues today to help raise awareness of mental health issues.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, most of us would have come in contact with mental health illnesses – either by suffering directly, or by indirectly watching and possibly supporting a loved one going through tough times. Many of us – like me – don’t even realize we have a problem, but sometimes talking to someone else about what might be triggering an emotional response to something specific can be prudent.

For those of us who aren’t comfortable with asking for help, know that you’re not alone and there are things that you can do to get through the turbulent times. For example, one of my colleagues used ChatGPT to overcome his grief, while another uses cameras and photography to focus his creativity.

Photography has also been my mental support for a very long time. I’m happiest with a camera in my hand and I’m lucky to be in a job where I get to indulge my passion.

I’m also a voracious reader and spend any spare waking minute I have with my nose buried in a good book. Well, ‘book’ isn’t quite right – I went digital years ago and now use an ereader to not just read, but also jot down notes and todo lists.

But the technology isn’t really what’s important; it’s about how it helped me get through some tough times – and could possibly help you as well.

Reading to escape

Escapism is a slightly complex concept when it comes to dealing with mental health issues, but when used correctly, it can be a positive force. I’ve been reading since I was five years old and, as an only child, books were my constant companion. In hindsight, I suppose it’s fair to say I was using Enid Blyton’s characters to combat loneliness. 

Reading, for me, is a habit, not a hobby. I have to read every single day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. While I’ve read all kinds of genres through the years, I now have a strong preference for books that help me escape – fantasy and cyberpunk for the most part. I also devour books on ancient and medieval history because those worlds, that life, is foreign to me and I need to use my imagination to build that ‘fantasy’ land.

I haven’t read a printed book in a while, having bought my first ereader – the Kobo Glo – in 2014. It broke a year later after falling off a shelf, and I then got my first Kindle. Now, thanks to being a reviewer, I have a stack of these e-paper tablets and am always excited when I get to test some of the best ereaders on the market today. 

You can argue that there’s no better experience than reading a real book, but I’ll counter that by saying the feel of the paper or the sound of the page turning is superfluous – if you’re engrossed in the book, these are extraneous and you won’t even register them. If the ‘feeling’ of the physical book is what you’re focusing on, you’re probably not reading the right book.

Reading the right book can also help you cope with stress, anxiety and depression. In fact, there’s a little-known branch of psychotherapy called bibliotherapy that focuses on how books can support mental health.

Book recommendations to help combat mental illness

A bibliotherapist is someone who uses books along with traditional therapy techniques to improve your mental wellbeing. Some libraries around the world offer ‘lite’ bibliotherapy sessions, but these are of a different kind – you get book recommendations based on significant life events you’re dealing with to help you cope. 

I recently had a session like this. Organized by Kobo, I was first asked to fill in a short questionnaire that included questions like ‘who is your favorite author’, ‘what are your favorite books’ and ‘are you experiencing or will experience a significant life event’. Examples for that last one were things like marriage, childbirth, milestone birthdays, a breakup, divorce and more.

Based on my answers, the bibliotherapist – Lucy Pearson from The Literary Edit – came armed with some book recommendations for me. While I had read most of the titles she recommended, I liked the fact that I wasn’t steered towards reading a genre that didn’t appeal to me. 

A bibliotherapist can recommend titles that could resonate with your experiences. For example, if you’ve lost a loved one and need help coping with your grief, they can suggest a book (or books) where the main character is going through a similar experience and it might make you feel less alone. Book recommendations can be fiction or nonfiction, and it can help kids as well. And it doesn’t matter if you prefer reading a printed book or use an ereader.

Channeling creativity

While reading is a habit for me, photography is my hobby. As I’ve already said, I’m happiest with a camera in my hand. I took up photography in my mid thirties – it wasn’t until my late twenties that I got my first camera, a Canon point-and-shoot whose model number I can no longer remember. 

A couple of years later, I graduated to a Panasonic point-and-shoot with an 18x optical zoom and a manual mode, using the latter to teach myself how to adjust settings for the best shot. It was at this time that I began to realize I like taking pictures. It didn’t matter that the photos weren’t professional grade, I seemed to enjoy the experience.

It was around time that began to feel like things were falling apart. I won’t go into the gory details but by 2010, I was at my lowest point because of massive upheavals in my life. It was the most terrifying time I’ve been through, filled with uncertainties. And, as expected, the stress and anxiety of that time took its toll not just mentally, but manifested physically as well. My hormones went haywire and, consequently, I needed to undergo surgery.

It was taking photos that kept me distracted from it all. In 2012, I bought my first DSLR, the Canon EOS 600D, along with a Sigma 18-300mm zoom lens. For a few years, I could hardly leave my apartment because of the health effects of depression, and I’d take photos of the sunsets from my balcony (which were really quite nice), or drying autumn leaves on the plane trees outside the building. 

I found that focusing on honing my photography skills kept my mind occupied with other, more constructive thoughts, rather than on myself – things like framing the shot, figuring out the best settings, and so on.

I haven’t stopped taking pictures. Experimentation over the years has made me a better photographer – I am entirely self-taught and am decidedly not a professional. What I got out of it, other than feeling better mentally, is a good understanding of the tech that goes into cameras and lenses. This put me in a position to be able to write about photography and I was offered a job that helped me indulge myself with my passion.

I think photography has made me a better person, teaching me patience and empathy. It’s also helped me own up to the fact that I have a mental health issue, and no longer feel the need to hide in the shadows. And that makes me one of the lucky few.

Being able to share what we’re going through helps – although it takes tremendous courage to do so – and telling that story through photography or film can be a wonderful creative outlet. If you are creatively inclined, there are photo competitions like Out From The Mist that accept entries each year on the theme of mental health. It’s also a great and safe space for photographers and content creators to tell their stories.

Harnessing the power of fitness and other hobbies

Reading and photography are my personal mental supports, but they’re not the only ones you can try. Going for a run or a walk, joining a gym, meditation and yoga… these are great options that not only keep your mind healthy, but your body too. There are plenty of mental health apps that you can use to get started.

Not into fitness? You can take up knitting or crocheting maybe, or start a scrapbook. If you like making arts and crafts, perhaps consider buying a machine like the Cricut Joy and you could be selling your wares on a platform like Etsy and making some extra cash.

Almost every single one of us has some form of stress or anxiety, whether we admit to it or not – it’s up to us as individuals to seek help or find something that sparks joy in our lives and, perhaps most critically, stick with it.

If you’d like to know more about mental health, or are keen to seek help, visit the Mental Health Foundation website in the UK, Mental Health America in the US or SANE and Beyond Blue if you’re in Australia.

Landscape photography, at its core, is more than just a visual art form; it’s a profound emotional experience. It’s the art of capturing feelings, not just scenes. I want to take you on a journey through my lens to explore how photography transcends mere pixels and lenses, with my backdrop being the unforgettable Storm Agnes adventure at the Devil’s Horns in Dingle.

Photography is unique among the arts because it can freeze a single moment in time, preserving not only the image but also the emotions that accompany it. Every photograph is a testament to the photographer’s emotions, intentions, and perspective at that precise instant.

As I stood at the edge of the roaring sea, battling the tempestuous winds during the tumultuous Storm Agnes in Dingle, my camera became an extension of my emotional state. The crashing waves and the majestic Devil’s Horns evoked awe, wonder, and fear simultaneously. Each click of the shutter was a release of pent-up emotions, an attempt to encapsulate the visceral experience. I felt at times that I wouldn’t be able to get a sharp shot, due to the relentless power of the wind coupled with the ferocious size and speed of the waves. Nonetheless, I continued to hammer my shutter button every time a wave approached, and to be honest, this was every few seconds, so overall, my feeling of missing the moment would only be fleeting, as I would have another chance to catch the next one as it roared towards us and crashed against the rocky cliffs. 

The Dance of Light and Shadow

One of photography’s most enchanting aspects is the dance between light and shadow. It’s this interplay that not only creates visually striking images but also stirs deep emotional responses. During my Storm Agnes adventure, the ever-changing light added layers of emotion to my photographs.

The dark, menacing clouds cast an ominous pall over the scene, heightening the sense of drama and foreboding. But occasionally, the sun broke through, casting a surreal, golden glow over the tumultuous sea. These moments of light were like fleeting glimpses of hope amid the chaos, and they infused our photographs with a unique blend of emotions—awe, anticipation, and even a touch of serenity.

Shooting a Sigma 150-600mm Handeld

As you will already know well, photography isn’t just about pointing and shooting. It’s about carefully composing an image to convey a specific emotion or message. The composition of a photograph can evoke a wide range of feelings. In the midst of Storm Agnes, the Devil’s Horns stood as symbols of resilience and strength. Their jagged, defiant forms contrasted sharply with the chaotic sea. Framing the shot to include both the furious waves and the unwavering rocks created a composition that spoke of the enduring power of nature and evoked a sense of admiration and respect. This was made harder due to the wind, plus my bold decision to shoot only handheld. This decision was made due to the very nature of my subjects, fast-moving waves, and light, which meant I needed to be fluid, and because I was going to be shooting at fast shutter speeds, I felt I didn’t need the extra baggage of the tripod. 

Color?

Color plays a pivotal role in photography, affecting the emotions a photograph elicits. Storm Agnes offered a dramatic palette of colors, from the deep blues and grays of the raging sea to the warm, rays of light that teased us as they bounced off the islands in the distance. 

The cool, moody blues of the stormy sea conveyed a sense of depth and mystery. They mirrored the intensity of the moment, inviting viewers to feel the vastness of the ocean’s power. In contrast, the warm colors of the glowing light from the sun that periodically peaked out from behind the clouds hinted at the promise of contrast and texture on the water, fostering a sense of hope amid the chaos.

Photography as a Cathartic Experience

In general, photography is often a deeply personal form of self-expression. It can be a therapeutic outlet for processing and conveying emotions. Storm Agnes was a tumultuous and challenging experience, both physically and emotionally. But through photography, I was able to channel my emotions into something tangible and share them with others.

Each photograph taken during that stormy day in Dingle tells a story — a story of resilience in the face of nature’s fury, a story of awe in the presence of untamed power and a story of camaraderie among fellow photographers. Nigel, Mads, and Michael all felt the power of this storm also, and this would fuel them as the day went on too. We may have at times felt wind-swept, uncomfortable and like giving up. However, the sheer power of this storm and the promise of what was to come kept us transfixed on the mission and the goals of capturing some stunning shots to match our feelings. It’s a cathartic experience to revisit those images and relive the emotions they carry.

Photography Is Storytelling

Photography is storytelling without words. Each photograph is a narrative, a frozen moment in time that invites viewers to weave their own stories and emotions into the image. Our Storm Agnes adventure became a tale of bravery, determination, and the enduring love for the art of photography.

As viewers look at our photographs, we hope they can immerse themselves in the narrative. They can feel the wind whip through their hair, taste the salt in the air, and hear the deafening roar of the waves. It’s a testament to the power of photography to transcend time and space and evoke emotions in those who behold the image. I certainly had all of these feelings during my shoot, and even at times felt the wind as it tried to lift my eyelids from my face. 

The Longer-Lasting Feelings 

Photographs, once captured, have an enduring impact. They become time capsules of emotions, transporting viewers back to the moment when the image was taken. Our Storm Agnes photographs continue to evoke a sense of awe, wonder, and respect for the forces of nature.

Every time someone views one of those images, they are transported to that stormy day on the cliffs of Dingle. They can feel the rush of adrenaline, the tingling of excitement, and the reverence for nature’s power. It’s a testament to the emotional resonance that photography can achieve. These are the feelings I have when editing my shots from there, and if I can evoke any similar feelings in the viewer, then that’s half the future battle done too. 

In Conclusion

Photography is not merely about capturing what the eye sees; it’s about capturing what the heart feels. It’s a means of translating emotions, experiences, and moments into a visual medium that can be shared and appreciated by others. Our Storm Agnes adventure in Dingle exemplified how photography can transcend the visual to become a visceral and emotional experience.

So, the next time you pick up your camera and frame a shot, remember that you’re not just capturing an image; you’re capturing a feeling, a moment in time infused with your emotions and your unique perspective. And in doing so, you’re sharing a piece of your soul with the world. Even if you don’t have the crazy conditions we had, I am sure that there will still be a feeling that lasts a lot longer than the shoot.

Photography is an art of emotion, and every click of the shutter is an opportunity to convey the depths of the human experience in our images. Print your shots and put them on a wall at home, so you too can be reminded of those feelings you had when hitting that shutter button

Have you more to add to this? Have you a particular image(s) that evoke emotions and feelings each time you look at it, or perhaps your images have evoked feelings in other viewers? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments below.

By Jonathan Morales

October 09, 2023

Charles Victor has spent most of the time setting up his business since earning his Photography degree from Sacramento State in May. Most of his work, he said, takes place in controlled environments such as the studio, where people are aware of him capturing their image.

So, when he first walked into Recovery Café, a West Sacramento safe space for people who have experienced trauma to enjoy a meal, learn life skills, or just socialize and support each other, he had to do something he wasn’t used to – he had to leave his camera in the bag.

“I realized quickly – the opposite of what I do professionally – is no one is expecting photography,” he said. “I had to earn people’s trust in a different way.”

Victor is one of seven new Sac State alums who have been taking photographs for the Yolo Food Bank’s partner nonprofit organizations, gaining crucial experience and contacts while providing the often cash-strapped nonprofits with professional-quality images they can use for marketing and fundraising.

The partnership is the latest effort by Assistant Professor of Photography Eliza Gregory to not only teach students technical skills, but to take “a step toward my personal goal of trying to build bridges for our graduates to professional practice after graduation,” Gregory said.

The photographers’ work has two components. The first is practical: Take documentary-style images that will be easy for the nonprofits to use on their websites, in promotional materials and reports, and elsewhere.

The second part gives them the freedom to capture images they think are important based on what they’ve seen and heard, doing so artistically if they are inclined: food items scanned against a black background, for example, or stylized close-up images of a client’s face.

When the project finishes this month, the nonprofits and the Yolo Food Bank will have exclusive rights to use the images for three months. The artists can then submit their work to other venues. Artists are each receiving $1,000 from the food bank. An exhibit featuring their work will go up at the Barn Gallery in Woodland in July 2025.

“My mission in making these partnerships is to build capacity in my students, but also build capacity in the nonprofit sector so they understand how to work with emerging artists,” Gregory said. “Sac State alums just coming out of our program need support as they enter professional practice, so there is a lot of potential here for mutual benefit.”

The photographers will hand in their final work during a celebration at the Yolo Food Bank on Oct. 18.

Karen Baker, the organization’s executive director, has liked what she has seen so far.

“Just the way they can tell our story, both with the food that we work with, but also the families, was really surprising,” she said. “I was really impressed.”

The need within the community for food and other services is “going through the roof, and yet people are not aware of that, and I need to get that story out there,” Baker said.

The food bank’s number of clients has risen by 20% since the start of the pandemic, she said, but data can only tell part of the story. Powerful imagery can humanize an issue like food insecurity and build empathy, and the Sac State alumni have been up to the task.

“I need to raise money, I need to raise supporters, and it all begins with being able to tell the story in a way that’s powerful and impactful, and touches their heart, and really helps them understand it,” Baker said. “And what you need are talented photographers with a lot of heart, and that’s what I noticed when I met these photographers. They not only had the artistry, but their compassion was just as incredible.”

The alumni will walk away from the job with two local contacts and references – the food bank and the nonprofit they worked with – as well as the skills developed while taking the photos.

Joseph Roman graduated with a Photography degree in 2021 and has been working in a grocery

store while picking up photography and gallery work where he can. The Yolo Food Bank project is his first commercial job, and he was assigned to the local Meals on Wheels chapter.

He spent the last few weeks photographing the kitchens, food prep staff, and the congregation halls where the organization serves meals. Doing so not only shored up his portraiture skills, but also helped him learn how to better connect with his subjects.

“It’s definitely teaching me how to communicate, and I think that learning to communicate overall what I’m doing with the imagery will help me whether I’m doing fine art or commercial art,” Roman said.

Another important part of the project, Gregory said, was reimagining how nonprofit organizations communicate their mission to the public.

“We are trying to tell stories that contain nuance and complexity,” she said. “We’re not looking to tell the same old story that objectifies people receiving services, receiving support. We want to try to tell new kinds of stories, where contradiction, emotion – true humanity – can come to the fore.”

Victor, the May graduate supporting Recovery Café, slowly brought his camera out, of course, learning to respect the space and the individuals, and whether they want their photographs taken.

All art can illuminate pressing issues, he said, but pictures have a unique power to capture and humanize a moment or individual.

“It’s not a painting or drawing of something that’s happening in real life. It’s an actual photograph,” Victor said. “That tangibility, I think, is really important in merging documentary and contemporary issues into art.”

Mystery couple seen in Yosemite engagement photo comes forward after LA photographer asked for help finding the happy duo

• A professional photographer who caught an engagement at Yosemite National Park was reunited with the couple thanks to the power of social media 
• Allie Dearie shared photos of the proposal to Instagram in early October, asking for everyone to share the story so she could find the couple
• Dearie was later reconnected with the couple who had lost her card 

By Hope Sloop For Dailymail.Com

Published: 13:44 EDT, 9 October 2023 | Updated: 13:49 EDT, 9 October 2023

A Los Angeles photographer who captured a stunning proposal at Yosemite National Park and then asked social media to help her find the couple was reunited with the happy duo thanks to social media. 

Allie Dearie took photos of a proposal at Taft Point on September 28 and gave the couple her business card so they could get the stunning pictures. 

According to the photographer, however, the newly engaged couple lost her card as they were traveling home – a whopping 6,300 miles to Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

Luckily, after Dearie shared the pics on her Allie Dearie Photography Instagram page, KTLA and other outlets amplified the story, helping to spread the word. 

The photographer confirmed that she had made contact with Chen-Yun Yang and her fiancé Mati shared their surprise engagement pics via email.

The whole story started with an Instagram post on October 2. 

Dearie wrote that she was at Taft Point in Yosemite for an elopement – her photography specialty – when she saw the proposal unfolding at sunset. 

‘So we’re waiting to use the rock and we turn and we look and the guy was kneeling down and proposing,’ Dearie explained. ‘This was just right place right time.’

‘She turned and looked ’cause there was other hikers and when he kneeled down people started to applaud,’ she continued. ‘She kneeled down too so she was like really surprised, he totally caught her off-guard… It was a really cute reaction.’

She said the couple whose elopement she was photographing on September 28 let her ‘grab a few quick shots’ for the couple getting engaged.

After a week without hearing from them, though, she was concerned. 

‘I gave him a business card before they left, but I haven’t heard from him and with the hike back I’m worried he lost my contact info,’ Dearie wrote on Instagram.

‘It’s a long hike back and after sunset, you’re hiking in the dark so I’m a little worried that he may have lost the card and that’s why I started posting online to see if I could find them,’ she told reporters. 

The photographer said the then-unidentified couple had a friend with them taking a video, ‘but these would be their only still photos!’ 

Even better, the man who can be seen taking video of the proposal in Dearie’s photos found his way to her Instagram and said he too was a stranger. 

‘Pls let me know when you find them! I’m that stranger she asked to take their photos without unknowingly what came next,’ the purported videographer wrote. 

Yang then responded to the man, writing: ‘Thanks for taking that video and being such a chameleon in adapting to the situation!’

[embedded content]

After several days of searching and the story being picked up by Southern California outlets, Dearie finally made contact with the Argentinian lovebirds. 

They confirmed her suspicions: they had lost her business card and had no way to contact or find her. 

Luckily, the three were brought back together and after an exchange of emails, the couple was able to get the photos of their special moment. 

The photos and the story elicited a strong reaction on social media where dozens weighed in on the ‘heartwarming’ tale. 

‘That is so cool that you captured such a special moment for them!!! This lighting is pure magic!’ one person wrote. 

‘Love this story!!’ wrote another. 

It isn’t easy to get to know Daidō Moriyama. The Japanese photographer, 85, answers my questions from his home in Tokyo via an interpreter, and is quick to bat off personal questions. “Photographers can only take pictures,” he shrugs.

But Moriyama has done far more than take pictures. Although best known as a street photographer, he has pushed the form to its limits, interrogating what photographs are, how they are experienced, their ethics and effect. He is also behind some of the most iconic and influential pictures of the last 50 years – from closeups of fishnet stockings to portraits of stray dogs they are regarded as lyrical, symbolic expressions of the postwar era in Japan.

“He is shy, inconspicuous, and concentrated. He is a real brain – very articulated and well-read, who speaks in elegant, metaphoric ways,” says Thyago Nogueira, the curator of a rare retrospective exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery that gives an unprecedented view of Moriyama’s dazzling work.

The show has been three years in the making – it is the first time the gallery has devoted its entire space to one artist, taking over four floors. Remarkably, it is also the first time a UK institution has devoted a solo exhibition to Moriyama. “Yes, it is a bit late,” he jokes.

The show is a riveting, rapturous exploration of the enigmatic and prolific photographer, spanning from his earliest works in the late 1960s to today – he continues to go out with his camera, and a cigarette. “Although I have some constraints, including my health, I want to take as many photos as possible each day.”

Photographs are presented in myriad ways: at times completely overwhelming the viewer. There are slideshows on projectors (some more than an hour long), installations of images covering entire walls, magazine and book spreads, and sequences of glorious prints, mostly in black and white, changing in scale. In their various incarnations, with repeated images amounting to a kind of neuroticism, the photographs have a relentless pace. “They are a punch in the stomach,” as Nogueira puts it.

Moving back and forth between decades, the black and white film imbuing the images with a kind of timelessness, Moriyama contests photography as a form rooted in a moment or place. His photographs articulate something else, they palpitate with mystery – the great inexplicable essence of life. Perhaps this is why he is reluctant to speak for the images.

Moriyama was born in Osaka (then Ikeda), Japan, in 1938. “I was raised in a very ordinary way. My father was an office worker, and my mother was a housewife,” he says. His childhood wasn’t easy. Against the backdrop of US occupation and the second world war, home life was punctuated by loss. A twin brother died when Moriyama was two. The family moved often for his father’s work, before his early death. “I did not fit in at school. I lost my father when I was young. But I have always loved to draw so I became a designer through an acquaintance.” He apprenticed at a graphic design studio. His first photographs, he recalls, were of the family dog. In a later series “Memories of a Dog”, Moriyama returned to places of his childhood, to photograph his memories.

In 1961 he moved to Tokyo to pursue a dream of becoming a photojournalist, like his sensei, Shōmei Tōmatsu – Japan’s pre-eminent postwar photographer. “I became a photographer because I found the photographers I worked with very sporty and cool – and I guess I was never cut out for desk work,” Moriyama says wryly.

From early staid, documentary, journalistic-style images, mostly shot at the American base at Yokosuka (some of which are presented at the Photographers’ Gallery’s show) Moriyama’s approach quickly evolved into an expressive, subjective style that evoked his own experience of the world. He was invited to join Provoke – a collective of young photographers determined to revolutionise photography – by Takuma Nakahira, a photographer and critic, who died in 2015. “Takuma Nakahira was then, and still is, my only friend and my only rival.”

Provoke published just three issues of a visual manifesto between 1968 and 1969, but they had a profound effect. Japanese critics ridiculed the group’s lack of technical skills as “are, bure, boke” (“grainy, blurry, out-of-focus”). These terms were later reclaimed to describe the style pioneered by Moriyama. But, he says, “I never consciously shot that way, nor did I care.”

Moriyama set about photographing the world not as it was but as he saw it – a confused, chaotic and fragmented reality. There is a furious urgency to the pictures he took between 1968 and 1972: black and white photographs of everything and nothing, of underground kabuki actors and other avant garde artists and performers, erotic scenes, portraits of animals and street life, photographs of photographs, and of TV screens and newspaper headlines – precursors to screenshots and reels. “I was strongly inspired by William Klein’s books of New York, Moscow, Rome, Tokyo, published when he was still young. It was something in particular that I saw in his photographs that seemed to connect me to my own photography.”

Moriyama’s photographs have become a testament of a tumultuous time in Japan, conveying a sense of the grim and gritty reality of the underbelly of the city in grainy images. “I understood the social atmosphere at that time, but personally I had no interest in politics,” Moriyama reflects. Many of these images were originally shot as photo essays for magazines – it was the golden age of the Tokyo publishing industry, and magazines were museums for photography as it became a new artistic form. The pictures were later printed again, sometimes at different scales, reshuffled and reordered, and compiled into the photobooks Moriyama is famous for – such as his acclaimed work, A Hunter, shot from the window of a car as Moriyama hitchhiked around Japan. “When I am going along the road, snapping the shutter as I read each moment, I become at times a poet, a scientist, a critic, a philosopher, a labourer, or a politician,” he said.

A less familiar, groundbreaking series of work on show at the Photographers’ Gallery is a monthly column Accidents produced throughout 1969 for a mass media publication. Each series took on a different aspect of photography and its exploitation by the mass media – a poster of a car crash designed to shock and scare; photographs of TV screens and newspapers in Japan in the week after JFK’s assassination. It shows Moriyama’s concern with the ethics of photography and its exploitative nature.

But questioning the purpose of photography so deeply led him down a dark road. In 1972 Moriyama published “Farewell Photography”, a swan song to his chosen medium, a mashup of old negatives, scraps and prints gathered from his archives and thrown together. Photography, Moriyama realised, wasn’t going to change the world as he had once believed.

He suffered depression and became addicted to sleeping pills. It was almost a decade before he picked up the camera again, when he was commissioned by two editor friends concerned for his well being. Just as the camera had plunged him into an existential void, it pulled him back from the brink of self-obliteration.

“Moriyama spent his life asking a basic, fundamental question: What is photography?” Nogueira says. “He never answered that question, but his life’s work is a constant and honest response to that.”

Today, Moriyama is humble about his achievements. “I am happy to know that many people around the world have been exposed to my photographs and photo books,” he says. Photographing daily for so many decades, “there is nothing that has not already been taken – each photograph becomes a great cycle. It is connected to the past and to the future – and that is why there is the most reality in the current photograph that captures it.

“Beyond the photographer, the work returns to society – and that is the most powerful force of photography.”

AI art has rapidly risen in popularity over the last few years as generative technology becomes more accessible to a wider audience. While artificially generated art is still a grey area within many artistic spaces, one Australian photography festival is keen to embrace this advancement, crowning the first-ever winner of its AI photography competition. 

The Ballarat International Foto Biennale (BIFB) is passionate about opening up conversations around AI-generated artwork, but the move has sparked debate among audiences, who fear that embracing AI art could lead to an extinction of traditional artistic forms. (Looking to get into photography? Check out our guide to the best camera for beginners). 

 The prize was awarded to Swedish artist Annika Nordenskiöld, for her piece titled ‘Twin Sisters in Love’, which depicts two women nestling up to a bundle of tentacles assumed to be an octopus. The piece was composed using the AI generator Midjourney and is the first prize-winning example of what the festival organisers are calling ‘promptography’.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, when asked about her piece Nordenskiöld said: “None of these places, people or creatures exist in the physical realm. They were conjured from the sum of human experience in our deep collective well, as seen from my dreamboat with its flickering light,” – a cryptic, but oddly beautiful insight into her creative process. 

Believed to be one of the very first AI photography competitions, the Prompted Peculiar International AI Prize is a groundbreaking advancement in an artistic territory that has typically been excluded from AI art intrusion. However, audiences have been critical of the competition, with many sharing their belief that AI art doesn’t have a place in a traditional photography competition.

In response to the winner’s announcement post on the BIFB’s Instagram account, one user stated: “This isn’t photography. Associating AI with a “photography” festival is incredibly disrespectful to photography and photographers.” Another frustrated commenter felt that the AI art was uninspired, stating “All this AI stuff looks the same. Apart from anything else it’s just boring.”

However, I tend to disagree. While concerns about ethics and copyright are valid, whether or not you’re pro-AI art, the technology will continue to grow, and so will the AI art movement. Surely art can expand beyond the constraints of traditional mediums – and while currently, AI-generated art may feel like an unskilled medium requiring little practical skill, it still requires imagination and creativity. Technology will advance – and so perhaps should our mindset.

If you’re after more news from the AI art world, check out this controversial digital art prize winner, that sparked some heated debate, or take a look at the AI art detector that generated some surprising results.