This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up we end the year with a bumper book review function - The Light Collective, Daniella Zalcman, Ryann Ford, Paula Bronstein and Sandro Miller. Also there are some new hyperlinks to memories on L'Oeil de l. A. Photographie on the right hand side of this blog.
Wishing all my readers a wonderful and secure festive season. Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up will be back on thirteenth January, 2017.
Special Feature: Book Reviews
Kati Thanda ? Lake Eyre
Interpretations from the Air
The Light Collective
In their first book, Australia’s The Light Collective, a group of five landscape photographers claim their objective is “to explore modern interpretations of Australia’s immense and unique landscapes to invite deeper reflection on the immeasurable value of our wild places.” In Kati Thanda ? Lake Eyre, this intention is fully realised in the ethereal beauty of these images.
Lake Eyre is an critical part of the Aboriginal Dreamtime of the Arabana human beings. Located 700 kilometres north of Adelaide inside the South Australian Desert, Lake Eyre is the sector?S thirteenth largest, and Australia?S biggest, salt lake. On common floodwaters cover the Lake every 8 years, and it has only crammed 3 times inside the last one hundred sixty years. When there's water the Lake will become a breeding web site for waterbirds, and when it is dry it presents a big, reputedly countless expanse of white that stretches as a ways as the attention can see.
(C) Above photos Adam Williams
I?Ve seen severa images of Lake Eyre shot from the ground, however those images from the air are putting in their rich texture and complexity and the truth that there's no reference point ? No horizon, no sky ? Complements the abstract imagery. Here Lake Eyre is without delay a palette of pastels, an artist?S canvas dripping with colourful colorations, an etching seemingly carved from the earth. Deep rivets run via the landscape, shores grow to be the sweep of the painter?S brush, waterways unfold like capillaries across pores and skin, algal blooms are marked by iridescent blues and greens and transferring hues inside the salt, soil and rocks create nearly otherworldly vistas.
(C) Above pictures Ignacio Palacios
I am drawn to the electricity of nature that is so evident in these images. There is some thing about seeing the Lake from above that sparks one?S creativeness for it's far a view that few of us have the possibility to look first hand. In some images the panorama offers as massive jellyfish floating throughout a huge sea, in others abstract shapes take shape, evoking ideas of birth and renewal.
(C) Above photographs Luke Austin
When you shoot in a far flung region like this there are regularly awesome anecdotes just like the bidding struggle the photographers located themselves in with pilots in one of the small towns bordering the Lake. As the expenses for a -hour flight soared, the photographers took their commercial enterprise further down the road locating multiple pilots that wouldn?T break the bank. And pilots who were additionally glad to dispose of the doors from the light planes, and to fly at various altitudes, to deal with the photographers? Needs.
(C) Above pictures Paul Hoelen
Each of the photographers in this quantity ? Adam Williams, Luke Austin, Ignacio Palacios and Paul Hoelen ? Present one-of-a-kind views on the way they see the Lake. They also proportion their private thoughts on Lake Eyre in text, including to the revel in of seeing this far flung and foreign land via their eyes. Yet the pictures via their summary nature are open to interpretation making the viewing revel in pretty pleasing. It?S a tremendous debut and the works can be on show in Sydney 10-29 January at Black Eye Gallery.
Kati Thanda ? Lake Eyre
The Light Collective
Available from www.Thelightcollective.Com.Au
128 pp
Signs of Your Identity
Daniella Zalcman
The winner of this year’s FotoEvidence Book Award was American photographer Daniella Zalcman’s Signs of Your Identity. As one of the jury members I am thrilled to showcase the book on Photojournalism Now, as I believe it is a wonderful example of a new approach in visual storytelling, in both the crafting of the images and in their presentation in the book.
Signs of Your Identity tells a complicated tale of the legacy of colonialisation and its impact on the First Nations people of Canada. In 2014 Daniella spent a month driving throughout Canada ? British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Ontario. ?Very speedy I realised that every single individual I interviewed who were First Nations and HIV advantageous had long past to some thing referred to as Residential School. I?D in no way heard of that before,? She stated. ?Indian Boarding schools are what they may be called inside the United States and they nonetheless exist today. It took place to me that the public fitness crises and the substance abuse and the unfavourable behaviour this is so frequently touted as a virus hassle in native groups become to me a symptom of this plenty larger legacy?.
A year later she returned to interview those who went to Residential School focusing her investigation on Saskatchewan, a plains province in the middle of Canada where the last residential school operated until 1996. Saskatchewan is also known for some of the most famously terrible Residential Schools. On this visit Daniella interviewed and photographed 45 people, and this is the work featured in Signs of Your Identity.
Wanting to painting the story in a manner that did not similarly marginalise or stigmatise those pictured, Daniella has created double exposures, where she combines the number one portrait with a secondary layer that depicts elements that are applicable to all of us?S story. In a few there's a picture of the real college or its website, in others there are geographic markers or items that evoke precise recollections or sentiments.
The book is small in layout, however fantastically produced and one of the capabilities I like the most is using obvious paper for the conventional pics. These pages precede the double publicity images and while overlaid deliver a lovable depth to the pics and an engaging textural sense to the ebook. It additionally offers a multidimensional view of the character as you can see the portrait in reverse at the transparent paper. Most of the portraits include a quote from the character featured. Intermittently there are small pics of locations or ambient imagery that halts the tempo of the e book and gives time for reflection.
It?S a genuinely superb manufacturing from FotoEvidence that does justice to the paintings of this extremely talented younger photographer whose specific vision and approach makes her one of the maximum thrilling documentary photographers operating nowadays.
Signs of Your Identity
Daniella Zalcman
Available from:FotoEvidence
The Last Stop
Vanishing Rest Stops of the American Roadside
Ryann Ford
The excellent American avenue ride is the stuff of legends, and severa novels, poems and songs had been penned about the joys of being on the road. Part of the romance of travelling by way of avenue has been stopping at roadside rest stops, a lot of which function unique traits that remember the country or metropolis wherein they are living.
Over a period of three years American photographer Ryann Ford made around twenty road trips to capture the roadside rest stops, which feature in her debut book The Last Stop: Vanishing Rest Stops of the American Roadside.
Ryann says the idea commenced as a personal task that gave her a visual respite from her work as a business photographer in Austin, Texas. ?It turned into clearly interesting how it evolved, it became almost a egocentric challenge. I wasn't worried that everyone else would really like it, I changed into simply appealing my eye,? She said.
But because the venture improved Ryann saw a trend emerging as the various rest stops have been closed, earmarked for closure or inside the system of being demolished. A narrative of misplaced cultural icons started to surface and Ryann started out to reflect onconsideration on photographing these websites for posterity, acutely conscious that they had been at the way to being extinct.
Bonneville
In The Last Stop: Vanishing Rest Stops of the American Roadside Ryaan showcases 19 of the 22 states she visited. She predominantly focused on rest stops in the southwest although there are a few concessions to the east coast. But Ryann says the aesthetic of the southwest with its stark, isolated landscapes is what really intrigued her.
?The remote stops honestly bring the loneliness and I really loved taking pictures those stops that had been the maximum remote and the maximum forgotten. The ones that had been closed off have been my preferred, captivating and absolutely forgotten and closed and rundown.?
The pix are classic Americana with among the relaxation stops presenting quirky designs which are indicative of each country?S records be it military, as is the case with the relaxation stop that functions a large missile or people who draw on Native American issues. At the Bonneville Salt Flats in northwestern Utah, which is called the website online for land pace statistics, the relaxation stop sports activities an excellent concrete shape funded by means of Goodyear Tires. Many of the relaxation stops have been constructed between 1950 and 1970 and make a real cultural announcement about the time period in which they have been built.
Flower Mound, Texas
Ryann says her preferred is the White Sands rest stop, which she shot on her first ride after a summer thunderstorm had swept thru and cleared the crowds and the air. ?I had seen photos of White Sands and it became simply beautiful. It looks like snow and the tables are iconic and for me ? We (Ryaan and her mom who accompanied her on maximum of the trips) had a picnic after making the photo and that is one of my favourite from the e-book?.
White Sands
As the attrition of rest stops continues in the US, The Last Stop: Vanishing Rest Stops of the American Roadside has become an important historical record, a fact that is not lost on Ryann.
?It?S crazy that something that began out as a non-public venture has come to symbolize a lost generation in American avenue journey. I?M thrilled I were given to try this task and that different humans have found it interesting too.?
The Last Stop: Vanishing Rest Stops of the American Roadside
Ryann Ford
powerHouse Books New York
176pp
Afghanistan Between Hope and Fear
Paula Bronstein
How are you able to tell a story of Afghanistan that hasn?T been told? We?Ve visible a lot during the last decades on the struggle, on the victories and defeats, at the devastation of a people.
Award-winning photojournalist Paula Bronstein has been journeying to Afghanistan considering that December 2001 at the height of the frenzy to oust the Taliban. While she has blanketed the struggle on undertaking, Paula has spent greater time photographing the Afghan people, mastering them and the manner the stay, and also die. For the past 14 years she?S travelled frequently to Afghanistan, a country she admits has gotten beneath her skin.
When I met Paula a few years in the past she was speaking about doing a ebook on Afghanistan and considering how she would approach the story. Paula doesn?T do anything half-baked. She frolicked figuring out what she wanted to say and how she desired to say it. In 2015 she raised cash on Kickstarter and in September 2016 I took receipt of my copy of the e book, which pretty frankly blew me away.
Afghanistan Between Hope and Fear takes you on a tumultuous emotional journey that is punctuated with vivid colours and visceral moments. The book is sectioned into three chapters – The Situation, The Casualties and The Reality.
In The Situation Paula gives an insight to the journey towards independence where photographs capture the training of the Afghan soldiers, the aftermath of suicide bombs, women voters and the election of President Karzai.
The second chapter The Casualties slams you into the ground with the horror of the impact of war on civilians. There are photos here that make you wince. Others make you recoil. They are gruesome, but you dare not look away because these people have lived this moment. The least we can do is look and acknowledge their pain. And acknowledge Paula’s courage in staying the course and taking these photographs. As she said in interview, “It’s important to show this. This is reality”. And Paula is not interested in telling the story any other way.
Paula doesn?T just take photographs and stroll away. She has often observed the tales of those she has photographed. She as soon as instructed me that as journalists we should assist, and ?Whilst we will?T provide money, we are able to nonetheless help those in want. If you record something, you've got a responsibility to assist?.
While there are also confronting images in the final chapter, The Reality, such as those of heroin users shooting up, Paula also shares images that could be considered hopeful. In The Reality, which takes up half the book, the images soften and Paula shows us what has fascinated and sustained her interest in Afghanistan for so long: everyday life – kids skateboarding, a couple preparing for their wedding, schoolgirls playing at recess, a mother tending her baby, farmers harvesting wheat. And then there are quirky moments like the swan-shaped paddleboats that line the shore of a lake in Band-e-Amir National Park, which attracts tourists from around the country. These moments give the reader respite from the trauma of war, something the Afghan people are not yet able to claim.
The reproduction of the pictures is incredible and Paula?S use of color brings new dimensions to the imagery associated with the Afghan landscape. There is a foreword from journalist Kim Baker who worked with Paula and blanketed Afghanistan for The Chicago Tribune for five years. British journalist Christina Lamb, who has been writing about Afghanistan for 30 years, penned the introduction. It is a powerful combination to look Paula?S images and study the words from these achieved journalists. A layout function well worth noting is that captions seem with the pix, which without delay gives context.
Afghanistan Between Hope and Fear may have been 14 years in the making, but it was worth the wait.
Afghanistan Between Hope and Fear
Paula Bronstein
University of Texas Press
228 pp
The Malkovich Sessions
Sandro Miller
American photographer and filmmaker Sandro Miller is a perfectionist, so it’s no surprise that this book from New York publisher Glitterati is more an artwork than it is a book. From the clear dust jacket on which words are printed in white on the inside flaps, to the gold pages that signify each new chapter and the double gatefolds within, this The Malkovich Sessions is a sumptuous production.
The book begins with the chapter Portraits, which features many of the first photographs Sandro took of actor John Malkovich. In 1999 Sandro met the actor when he was performing with the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago. The pair connected creatively in an instant and since then they have collaborated on some of the most ambitious and stunning projects that have involved still and motion photography.
Chapter 2 Homage begins with an interview with Sandro and Jon Siskel, in which he talks about his working relationship with Malkovich and how he came to create the series Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters. I know this story well as I interviewed Sandro last year when he was in Sydney for Head On Photo Festival where his Homage was one of the main features. It’s an inspiring tale of two creative geniuses coming together to bring off a project that would have daunted lesser men.
Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters came while Sandro was in treatment for cancer. At the time he asked himself if he only had one project left, what would that be? He settled on the idea of paying homage to the great masters who had influenced his career including Irving Penn, Dorothea Lange, Robert Mapplethorpe, Annie Liebovitz and Richard Avedon. Sandro’s intention was to recreate these masters’ iconic images and to have John Malkovich appear as Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon, Che Guevara, Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol and other celebrated cultural identities.
In creating Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich Sandro spent 18 months painstakingly researching each image and learning the different styles of lighting for each era. One of the biggest misconceptions is that he just photographed Malkovich’s face and dropped it into the existing photograph, but Sandro and his team meticulously staged each photograph.
?People assume it?S all finished with the laptop,? He told me. ?I?M vintage school, I?Ve been doing this for 40 years. I use a computer like a darkroom. For the most part it?S all in digital camera and we?Re very, very, very proud that?S how we did it. I had a rock big name group. Everyone introduced their A-recreation inclusive of John.?
In the final chapter, Film, Sandro talks about the natural progression of his work with Malkovich and the three short films he’s directed – Butterflies, Ecstasy and Allegory of a Cave (now doing the rounds of the film festivals as Hell). There is also a fourth film released in October – Psychogenic Fugue.
Sandro describes Butterflies as “a disturbing film about a journey taken by many men, who, when they turn fifty years old, are released from their employment and replaced by a twenty something. Feelings of worthlessness enter their lives and they resort to the demons of our society; pornography, drinking, drugs, divorce and suicide”. Watch here.
Butterflies
Butterflies
The second Ecstasy, “is a crazy film about an underclass Italian man preparing himself in a nightclub bathroom for another night of raunchiness!” Watch here.
EcstasyAllegory of a Cave, which is now titled Hell, sees Malkovich kitted out in US military garb complete with rifle and aviator sunglasses, as he recites Plato’s essay.
This is a top notch frame of labor by one of the most revolutionary, passionate and hardworking photographers operating nowadays.
John Malkovich & Sandro Miller
The Malkovich Sessions
Sandro Miller
Available at Amazon
268 pages -->
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