PDN Photo of the Day » Documentary

The Lonely Housewife (3 photos)

Amber Terranova — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:00:34 +0000

Bastienne Schmidt uses self-portraits to explore female gender identity in popular culture. She photographs herself in the role of a “housewife,” challenging our visions of a domestic utopia by re-staging many disconcertingly familiar scenarios and circumstances. Working in her own home environment of Long Island, Schmidt explores suburban fragmentation and loneliness with the presentation of her housewife character as a wandering, rootless protagonist.

This exhibition was on display at the Southeast Museum of Photography in the fall of 2010 and is currently available as a traveling exhibition organized by SMP. Her book “Home Stills” was recently released by Jovis Press. -courtesy Southeast Museum.

Related Stories in PDN: Bastienne Schmidt’s Home Stills

Available… (10 Photos)

Conor Risch — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:00:15 +0000

West Fayette Street, #5, 2012

Syracuse-based photographer and teacher Willson Cummer’s new project “Available” explores buildings and vacant lots in Central New York that are for sale or lease. “In the current economy, there are hundreds of such properties,” Cummer says. “The state of availability is a poignant one. When a person says they’re available, it means they are looking for a new romantic relationship. These vacant buildings and sites are also looking for new life. They are in limbo states between one purpose and another. I am attracted to the humble paint jobs that cover up graffiti, as well as the buildings that sport graffiti. Often these structures appear to have been made without much concern for architecture. A certain amount of square footage was needed, and a building was thrown up to suit. The vernacular architecture is visually intriguing.”

Cummer, whose work plumbs the intersection of the built and natural worlds, recently exhibited another of his projects, a series of images of parking garages, at OK Harris gallery in New York City.

Bowman Road, 2012.

East Jefferson Street, 2011.

West Fayette Street #1, 2011.

Solar Street, 2012.

West Fayette Street, #2.

Wyoming Street, 2012.

West Fayette Street #3, 2012.

Walton Street, 2012.

West Fayette Street #4, 2012.

Grozny: Nine Cities (10 Photos)

Amber Terranova — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:00:39 +0000

Olga Kravets, Maria Morina and Oksana Yushko have been working on “Grozny: Nine Cities” for more than two years. Inspired by Thornton Wilder’s book Theophilus North, they are exploring specific aspects of the aftermath of two wars in Chechnya via its capital, Grozny, considering this an important fabric of the culture. With money recently raised through a campaign on Emphasis.org they will finish the project within the year and move on to the production of a Web documentary and book.

Ron Haviv: Tahrir Square One Year Ago (2 Photos)

Holly Stuart Hughes — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:00:44 +0000

All photos © Ron Haviv/VII
Above: A pro-Mubarak supporter is stopped from shouting slogans and eventually is beaten by anti-government protesters before being turned over to the Army in Tahrir Square, Cairo.

Today marks one year since anti-government protesters who had gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, and the journalists covering the demonstrations, were overrun by mobs loyal to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The two sides battled with rocks, curb stones and Molotov cocktails, and gunfire could be heard around the Square. As Ron Haviv and other photographers reported to PDN from Cairo at the time, pro-Mubarak demonstrators turned on the press, assaulting several and taking or smashing photojournalists’ cameras.

Ron Haviv’s coverage of the Tahrir Square demonstrations was honored in the Photojournalism/Sports/Documentary category of the 2011 PDN Photo Annual. The extended deadline for PDN’s 2012 Photo Annual is February 17, 2012.

To view more contest entries or submit to the 2012 Photo Annual, visit www.pdnphotoannual.com.

Related articles:

Photographers Beaten, Robbed as Pro-Mubarak Gangs Turn on Press (Update)

Photographer is First Media Fatality in Egypt: Situation Remains Dangerous

From Egypt, Photographers Persisted in Filing Stories

Borderline (4 Photos)

Amber Terranova — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:08:35 +0000

All photos © David Rochkind. Above: “Border,” February 2007, Mexico.

David Rochkind’s series, “Heavy Hand, Sunken Spirit” is about the social costs and consequences of Mexico’s violent drug war. In the four years since President Felipe Calderon’s inauguration, over 35,000 people have been killed and kidnappings have skyrocketed. The cartels are ruthless, leaving the gruesome nature of their crimes visible to everyone.

Rochkind explains how Mexico is a country in crisis: “The government is battling the drug cartels, the drug cartels are battling each other and there is a palpable fear across the nation. Corruption exists throughout the state and complaints of human rights abuses by the army are widespread. The line between criminals and the authorities is so blurred that the average citizen fears everyone. These photographs attempt to move beyond simple depictions of carnage to explore the stress and tension that is left in the wake of such violence and illustrate how this conflict will impact and handicap Mexico’s future.” Rochkind’s exhibition, “Heavy Hand, Sunken Spirit,” opens at Blue Sky gallery in Portland, Oregon, on February 2, 2012.

Above: This stretch of the border divides Nogales, Arizona, at left and Nogales, Sonora, at right. There has been little violent spillover into the U.S., though recently U.S. citizens have been killed with more frequency in Mexico. In March of 2010, two U.S. Consulate workers were gunned down in Ciudad Juarez. –Courtesy of Blue Sky Gallery

“Community,” February 2007. A young girl walks by a caravan of police vehicles during a security sweep looking for criminals and drug dealers. Law enforcement officials along the border say that increased border security has resulted in more drugs staying in Mexico, which has elevated crime and created a variety of social problems. The consequences of this conflict are felt, and exhibited, throughout the daily lives of many communities in Mexico.

“Security Sweep,” March 2009. Ciudad Juraez is at the center of Mexico’s violence, with more than 5,000 drug-related murders over the past two years. President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of soldiers to the city to try to stem the violence, though after a short decrease in murders, the violence blossomed once again. Here, soldiers search young men for drugs, weapons or signs of drug use in downtown Ciudad Juarez.

“Dia de Los Muertos”

Zoe Strauss: 10 Years (3 Photos)

Meghan — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:00:56 +0000

Photographer Zoe Strauss, who from 2001 to 2010 installed her work on pillars below an I-95 overpass in South Philadelphia and hosted an annual day-long exhibition, is getting a mid-career retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The survey includes 150 images and extends beyond the museum with the Billboard Project, a series of 54 billboards throughout the Philadelphia area that will each display one of Strauss’s photos, blown up to 12 x 25 feet, without any text, logos, etc. A self-taught photographer who focuses on the “the beauty and struggle of everyday life,” Strauss is a true testament to DIY ingenuity. The exhibit runs through April 22, 2012.

At the Drive-In

Amber Terranova — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:00:17 +0000

Steve Fitch is a photographer and educator who has been making photographs of the American West for more then four decades. As a boy, the scenes that he observed out of the window of his father’s 1951 Buick fascinated him. In the introduction of Fitch’s first book Diesels and Dinosaurs, he re-accounts memories of observing small towns, glowing neon signs and 18-wheelers roaming the highway. Fitch was also witness to the rise and fall of the drive in theater. All were experiences that molded his interests as an adult – leading to his visual studies of the highway culture of the American West and man’s encroachment upon it. Highway Culture, an exhibition of Fitch’s work made between 1971 through the present, will open at the photo-eye Gallery on February 25, 2012.

-courtesy Photo-Eye

Teenie Harris’s World (8 Photos)

Meghan — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:00:51 +0000

For over 40 years Charles “Teenie” Harris documented life in and around Pittsburgh’s Hill District for the influential black newspaper the Pittsburgh Courier. Affectionately called “One Shot” due to the brisk manner in which he photographed his subjects, Harris spent as much time shooting the everyday people of the neighborhood as he did the famous people who visited it. With close to 80,000 negatives in his archive, he is said to have best captured the urban African-American experience during the 20th century.

The Carnegie Museum of Art acquired Harris’s archive in 2001 and set out preserving, cataloguing and digitizing the images. The museum is currently exhibiting the first major retrospective of his work, “Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story.” The exhibit includes a life-size projection of close to 1,000 of Harris’s images set to an original jazz score; a chronological display featuring small prints of those same images; and a mini-exhibit of 12 16 x 20-inch prints selected by various experts. The exhibit will stay in Pittsburgh through April 7 and then move on to the Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library.