Last February, a group of artists—all members of the worldwide community Black Women Photographers—got together in Los Angeles for a studio meetup hosted by Amari Dixon and Jessica Bethel. It was during that session that Kelli Scates photographed Jerry, standing under the glow of gelled lighting. In the portrait they made together, Jerry, the model, looks like he’s bathed in starlight—as infinite as the cosmos. At the time, the artist wrote, “Black men, I see you and I love you in all your glory.”

Scates’s portrait of Jerry, titled Sentimental Moon, along with work by twenty more photographers and members of the Black Women Photographers community, is on view as part of Our Black Experience, an exhibition curated by Dixon and Bethel. Black Women Photographers was founded by the photographer Polly Irungu in 2020; this exhibition marks a historic milestone. The selected work defies boundaries, spanning genres such as portraiture, fine art, documentary, and beyond, but each of these photographers has come together under one roof as part of one show.  

“The overarching theme was showcasing each artist’s Black Experience,” Bethel says. “That could look like families, friendships, the day-to-day, and our Black culture. Once curating the work, we looked for these common themes and began to tie them together. The artists’ individual Black experience connects us all in the end.”

Lauren Todd’s photograph, After Skid Row, took Bethel’s breath away. Granni, the woman in the portrait, is a former Vogue model and motorcyclist. She rides horses without a saddle. At the time of that picture, Granni had recently moved into an apartment after living on Skid Row for ten years. “Skid Row in Los Angeles is where the unhoused population lives, and it’s very tough to make it out or even alive,” Bethel said. In Todd’s picture, a portrait of resilience and strength, Granni’s looking at herself in the mirror. She’s illuminated by the soft rose glimmer of a nearby lamp. 

The stories on the walls of this exhibition are as personal as they are universal, specific to the locations and times they document. Along Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles, Alexis Hunley celebrates the legacy of Black families, watching babies in strollers and young children on skateboards; there, she met Amanda and Quincy, as they awaited the arrival of their first child. In Harlem, New York, Kate Sterlin spots a mother carrying her child. On a cool autumn day, Amber Clemons watches the sun peak over East Chicago in the early morning. 

I asked Bethel and Dixon whether or not they ever saw an exhibition like this one when they were emerging photographers themselves. “Honestly, I never saw this while I was entering my career or growing up,” Bethel responded. “I never saw this type of representation and community that Polly [Irungu] created with Black Women Photographers. It honestly would’ve meant the world to see representation like this. 

“I was generally the only Black woman, sometimes, the only Black person in a photography setting, especially academically. This is motivation to keep creating spaces and work that represents us.”

For Dixon, seeing Scates’s portrait of Jerry, made more than nine months ago during that Black Women Photographers meetup in Los Angeles, was one highlight of many. “It was wonderful to see how the community works full circle,” she told me. The print for Sentimental Moon sold on opening night. “Celebration and giving each other flowers was the main purpose,” Bethel said.

You can see Our Black Experience: Stories from Black Femme, Queer, Non-Binary, and Transgender Photographers at The Perfect Exposure Gallery in Los Angeles through December 3rd. Exhibiting artists include Alexis Hunley, Amari Dixon, Amber Clemons, Anisa Williams, Debra Orols, Gabrielle Hudspeth, Hanna Leka, Jessica Bethel, Kate Sterlin, Kayla Oaddams, Kelli Scates, Lauren Todd, Melissa Johnson, Nathalie Gordon, Nia Symone, Oluchi Enemanna, Phylicia J. L. Munn, Taizja Marie Tate, Valley, Zaria Love, and Zoe Law. The exhibition will travel to more cities worldwide in the new year. 

The post ‘Our Black Experience’: A Historic Exhibition by Black Women Photographers appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Carolyn Marks Blackwood heard the ice break in the tide before she saw it. It was winter in the Hudson Valley, along the River. “I went down to the shore with my camera to see what was happening,” she remembers. There, she discovered thousands of pieces of ice, broken like shards of mirror, sparkling as they reflected the world around her.

Blackwood captured about twenty shots before her battery died. She planned to wake up early the following day to make more, but when she did, she found all the ice had melted. She’d missed her chance. 

That was fifteen-plus years ago. Since then, the artist has photographed the Hudson River, returning time and again to the same bluff close to her home to capture the flowing water. From November 19th through January 7th, some of the photographs she’s made during that time will be on view as part of Water, Water, Everywhere, a solo exhibition at Von Lintel Gallery in Los Angeles. 

The title of the show is drawn from a line from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, following the long-ago journey of an old sailor and his crew. His story starts with the killing of an albatross, a violent act that sets the stage for what follows. The crew dies slowly, one by one. Alone and tormented by guilt, the mariner returns home from sea, but he is doomed to walk the Earth, telling his tale over and over, forever. 

“The quote, ‘Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink’ from the poem took on a new meaning for me this year, especially this summer as severe droughts, extreme heat, storms and rainfall, catastrophic mudslides, and flooding visited many places around the globe,” Marks Blackwood explains. “Water, either too much or too little, has been a big topic of conversation lately, and while it is one of the most precious commodities that we can not live without, it can be a hugely destructive force.” 

It’s a fitting title for an exhibition motivated by an artist’s love for the natural world—and her grief over the collective actions of humanity. In the poem, the fictional albatross is slayed with a cross-bow; today, in real life, the world’s remaining albatrosses are threatened by large-scale human activity, including longline fisheries, trash and debris (the birds eat our discarded plastics and starve to death), and changes wrought by climate change. 

Of course, the albatrosses aren’t alone. Climate change has already sparked water crises worldwide, including severe droughts and flooding. The Hudson River provides drinking water for millions of people. Today, it’s protected by organizations like Riverkeeper, but the water quality is still threatened, decades after the passing of the Clean Water Act. Over the years, Marks Blackwood has been an enduring champion for the River and its protection.

Ultimately, Water, Water, Everywhere is about hope, even amid a decade of fear and change. Marks Blackwood’s photographs recall mythic visions of fire and ice, but as she notes, they are not apocalyptic. While some feature frozen blocks of ice in winter, most are of running water, reflecting the glint of sunlight as it falls across the landscape. 

These aren’t visions of the end of the world; they feel more like primordial memories from the time of its creation. Marks Blackwood moved to the Hudson Valley from New York City after the attacks of September 11th, 2001. The River has nurtured, healed, and entranced her. “I feel more at home out to sea than I do on dry land,” she admits. 

The moments she’s caught here can never be repeated. The clouds will move; the tides will shift, and the light will change. Her photographs represent glittering, irreplaceable shards of time. She’s right: they’re joyful, not apocalyptic. But they do capture, as few pictures do, the fact that nature doesn’t stand still, as much as we might wish it did. Everything is fleeting, so everything is precious. Blink, and you’ll miss it. 

Marks Blackwood still remembers when she heard the River freeze and crack all those years ago. She’s had many more chances to photograph the water in winter, and in every other season, but the curiosity, wonder, and elation that first drew her to the shore have never faded. Every year feels like the first time. “With ice, I feel so excited, at the exclusion of everything else,” the artist tells me. “I sometimes forget and get close to frostbite. I have to run inside to my car to warm up my face and hands.”

All images © Carolyn Marks Blackwood

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“I didn’t see people who looked like us in publications or billboards growing up,” the photographer Maya Iman says. In art school, she studied American art history, but the curriculum largely overlooked the monumental contributions of Black artists. Having been a photographer since high school, she set out to change that?—first by collaborating with the people closest to her, including friends and family members. 

She immersed herself in the work of Carrie Mae Weems, Deana Lawson, Dawoud Bey, and Gordon Parks?—and in 2018, she saw Tyler Mitchell become the first Black photographer to shoot the cover of American Vogue in the magazine’s 128-year history. He was 23 years old. Mitchell and the photographer Renell Medrano, both of Iman’s generation, have continued to inspire her. 

In 2019, the National Portrait Gallery acquired Mitchell’s now-iconic portrait of Beyoncé for its permanent collection. Change was in the air. That same year, Iman left her 9-to-5 advertising job in Chicago and bought a one-way ticket to Los Angeles, where she’d start her career as a freelance photographer. “I took my leap of faith,” she tells me now. “It was terrifying, but I wanted to make the most of it!”

Three months later, the pandemic hit, and lockdowns followed. But Iman sought inspiration daily, and she continued to make photographs. “My creative journey got me to the light at the end of the tunnel,” she explains. “I created some of my most personal work during this unforeseen time in history.” 

That creative journey coincided with a pivotal moment for the United States, as the Black Lives Matter movement became the largest in our nation’s history. On May 25th, George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis. The next day, demonstrations swept our cities. On June 6th, 2020, half a million people turned out as part of protests spanning 550 locations across the US. 

That July, another photographer, Polly Irungu, launched Black Women Photographers, a platform and community advocating for change and representation in an industry that has historically been overrun by white men. Iman joined. “As a black woman photographer, I strive to make impactful and timeless work,” she tells me. “The history of African American visual culture has been overlooked throughout history; now we are in a pivotal time to share the stories of our past and present, while we also envision our future.” 

Since moving to LA, Iman has flourished. Today, her clients include Air Jordan, Audi, Versace, The New York Times, and Wired. She’s represented by Hello Artists. But even as her star has risen, she’s made time to photograph friends and family, as she did in the very beginning of her career. Collaboration and conversation remain at the heart of everything she does. 

“I work with my subjects in safe and intimate spaces where the beauty of trust and lifelong bonds are created and nurtured through image-making,” the artist shares. “While I am invested in always generating beautiful pictures, this cannot be done without direct collaboration with the people I photograph. I take great care to create spaces where we have open dialogue with one another, as I believe the way they want to be photographed is crucial to the process and the result.”

Along the way, she’s reached unexpected milestones. In December of 2021, Iman’s phone started “blowing up.” Three of her portraits had been prominently featured in the fifth and final season of Issa Rae’s HBO series Insecure. “I rushed home to watch the episode,” she remembers. “All of my friends and family called to congratulate me?—it was a surreal, full-cycle moment.”

Iman didn’t set out to become a portrait photographer; that was something that happened naturally. What she did realize very early on, however, was her potential to make images that would make a difference and have an impact. Growing up, she dreamed of seeing herself reflected in magazines and billboards. As an adult, she’s set her sights even higher. 

Maya Iman is a member of Black Women Photographers, a global community bringing together Black women and non-binary photographers. To learn more about Black Women Photographers, visit their website, and follow along on Instagram at @blackwomenphotographers.

The post An Artist Puts Black Representation Front and Center appeared first on Feature Shoot.

“When David was a baby, I sang a special song to him,” Debe Arlook, David’s aunt, tells me. “I still do, and it seems to warm his heart because it makes him smile.” For more than two years now, Arlook has been collaborating with her sister Lori, David’s mom, to tell the story of their family. 

Today, David is 28 years old. He loves music and walking in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. David is also on the autism spectrum and has Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy that causes multiple types of seizures that are resistant to treatment. 

Over the years, Lori has developed a meditation practice, based on a range of spiritual studies, to help her navigate the responsibilities of being a full-time caregiver. In addition to conventional medicine, she’s also consulted healers working with energy; some have told her that, in certain cultures, seizures are believed to create an altered state—and that perhaps David does healing work within spiritual realms beyond our understanding. 

“I find it remarkable there’s a possibility he is a healer working on other planes,” Arlook says. “We and other families have been told people like him have this ‘gift.’” Lori’s handwritten words accompany Arlook’s photographs in their project, one, one thousand…  An “unconventional documentary,” the series draws its title from Lori’s counting during David’s seizures, measuring how long they last. The seizures occur nearly every day. As of now, there is no cure for LGS. 

David is non-verbal, but it was vital for Arlook to have his consent, as well as Lori’s, before embarking on the project. “Because his communication is limited, I had no idea if he’d understand what I was asking or if he’d respond,” the photographer says. “I explained I would photograph him with respect and honor. If I ever felt he was uncomfortable, I would stop.” 

David learned toward his aunt, met her eye, and stayed there for a long time before leaning back. He had never done that before. “We had our ‘yes,’” Arlook says now. “I felt I was witnessing a miracle.” She lived with them for a month in 2020 and has returned to work with them, as months turned to years. 

During that time, Arlook, Lori, and David have been part of exhibitions and talks about LGS and the experiences of caregivers. Until February of next year, the work will be on view at the University of Colorado Anshutz Medical Campus, Fulginiti Pavillion for Bioethics and Humanities. “My sister gave two talks for student doctors there,” Arlook explains. 

“They were brought to tears by the photographs and were grateful to have the opportunity to learn more about a real-life scenario.” A portion of photographs sold goes to the Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome Foundation. You can also support the Foundation directly through this fundraiser, hosted by the family. There will be a hybrid talk and artist reception tomorrow, Tuesday, November 1st, International Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome Awareness Day. 

Window light shines throughout Arlook’s photographs of David and Lori, reflecting off of David’s Mardi Gras beads (“he jiggles them with a repetitive behavior that’s common in individuals on the autism spectrum,” the artist says), illuminating their skin, and glittering in their eyes. When David was young, his aunt would hold him in her arms and watch as his gaze followed the light as it fell across the room throughout the day. “I wondered what he was seeing,” the photographer tells me. “I still do.” 

We asked David’s aunt and mother to tell us more about their collaboration. 

Debe, could you tell me a bit about your relationship with Lori and David? 

Debe: “Lori and I have always been close. She’s my baby sister, and I’ve always looked out for her. And because she’s the amazing person she is, she looks out for me too. When David was diagnosed, we lived across the country from each other. I supported her from afar with phone calls, emails, and visits. When life was heavy, I took it upon myself to be ridiculously silly and make her laugh.

“Lori inspires me in many ways. She’s a pillar of strength. She’s courageous, resilient, smart, and perfectly goofy. She’s David’s advocate and an alchemist by way of caring for him. Her dedication to David and her own self-care (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual) is what makes her beyond remarkable. With all the sacrifices she endures, she always has reserves to be there for other family members and friends. 

“Early on, David was neutral to people entering or leaving a room and he didn’t like to be touched. Now, so many years later, he shows affection by leaning in and resting his head on my shoulder. It’s super sweet. He seems to have a good sense of humor. When I tease Lori, David gets this great smirk on his face letting us know he’s in on the joke. It’s hilarious.”

How and when did you start collaborating with your sister and nephew in this way? 

Debe: “During the first summer of the pandemic, I was aching to be with my family in Colorado so I drove out from California, intending to stay for maybe ten days. During the first few days, I was photographing Lori and David at home, as I’ve done over the years on occasion. Nothing major, just family photos.

“Only this time, in my mind I heard a clear message: ‘You need to make a project about Lori and David.’ I stopped in my tracks, knowing I was being directed by a higher realm. I had no idea what the project would look like or how to proceed. I felt my heart open and knew by taking on this project, my first documentary, I’d be acting upon a life purpose. Odd as it may sound, I knew everything I had done creatively up until that moment would lead me to make this work.”

Lori, why did you trust your sister to tell your story and David’s? 

Lori: “I trust my sister because she, more than anyone else on this earth, knows what I have gone through in the struggles of being David’s mom. She’s always been there for me, to listen to my pain, to witness my struggles and my victories, to hear me cry, laugh, and rage. She’s not only my blood sister; she’s my friend and my soul sister. We are journeying in step with one another. We speak the same language of personal and spiritual growth. She is my confidante. Who better to tell my story?”

Can you tell me a bit about LGS and how it’s shaped your family’s life? Your life?

Lori: “LGS is a brain disorder that develops in early childhood. Its features are abnormal brain activity, multiple seizure types that are resistant to treatment, and neurological impairment. From one perspective, LGS is a monster that has ravaged my son’s brain, lurking in the shadows, always present with the threat of physical harm from a seizure. 

“From another, his disability draws out great compassion, sensitivity, and love throughout our family, from my friends and even strangers. Our nephew is going to med school because of seeing the effects of David’s seizures. He’s been working in epilepsy research since he was an undergrad pre-med student.

“As for me, well, my whole life since he was born has been devoted to his care. And in order to do that well, I’ve learned how to prioritize my own self-care. I exercise outdoors and meditate regularly. That’s how I resource myself to get up at all hours during the night when David has a seizure, needs the toilet (or has an accident in bed), or is just awake and making loud happy sounds at 4:00 AM! It was much, much harder when David was young and I had two other kids to raise as a single parent.

“Aside from the physical demands, the emotional and psychological tolls of having a child with severe disabilities are enormous. My spiritual and personal growth practices have been the scaffolding that have not only helped me climb out of depressive states but have enabled me to keep my perspective wide–wide enough to feel the deep pain and grief of seeing my son injured from a seizure and to know that this terrible moment will pass, he’ll be okay, and we’ll return to the calm and love that underlies everything.” 

Can you tell us more about your work with nonconventional healers? 

Lori: “David has been treated by a Tibetan Buddhist monk in New Jersey, John Upledger (the ‘father’ of craniosacral therapy) in Florida, John of God (the famed spiritual healer in Brazil), an herbal healer in Ukraine, and multiple energy workers in Colorado. They’ve all contributed something to our healing journey–unfortunately, not always positively. Today, we stick with a local craniosacral therapist who comes to our home regularly. He enjoys her touch and her presence.

“I always had an interest in the spiritual realm but really pursued teachings and practice after the break-up of my marriage. It was such an intense period of my life. I knew that the events I was experiencing—the break-up and David’s condition—had some greater meaning that I didn’t understand. I knew that there was a broader context to it all, and I wanted to understand what that was. So I dove into spiritually-based personal growth books, attended talks and retreats with spiritual teachers, and learned to meditate. It’s been quite a journey.”

Have these nonconventional healers been helpful?

Lori: “None have helped with the seizures. The only real benefit I’ve seen is the lessening of David’s sensory defensiveness. He used to hate to be touched. Now he enjoys head massages, overall body pressure, and (sometimes) foot massages. I’ve learned that not everyone who calls themselves a healer has good intentions, but many do.”

What does a typical day in your and David’s life look like? Do you have a routine? 

Lori: “David doesn’t have a set routine. The days mostly work around his energy level, which is affected by seizures and medication side effects. We’re almost always working with a new seizure medication because none of them have helped to control seizures enough to consider it ‘successful,’ or if they do, David experiences side effects too disruptive to his quality of life to stay on the med. So it’s hard to make plans or have a schedule. 

“My family and friends know that if we do arrange to meet, it’s always ‘David dependent.’ He’s taught me to hold all plans loosely and be super flexible. Sometimes that’s hard when I really want to get out of the house. I love my home but can get cabin fever. Fortunately, we have two wonderful caregivers who come four days a week so I can live my life apart from David’s care.

“What I can count on is David preferring to linger in bed in the morning. That gives me time for my meditation, breathing exercises, and yoga. The rest of the morning is taken up with David’s brief stretching and massage, shower, dressing, cooking, and eating. I love to cook for him, and I make super healthy breakfasts. It can take a long time to get a meal into him because seizure meds curb his appetite. He often doesn’t feel hungry even if he hasn’t eaten for many hours. 

“After breakfast, he might fall back to sleep. When he’s ready, I’ll pack lunch and we’ll go for a walk, either in our neighborhood or a nearby hiking trail. This is where David gets his physical therapy—on the trails. He has to look where he’s walking, something he doesn’t naturally do, and navigate over roots and rocks. I love hiking and love taking him to easy trails when he’s up for it. 

“If it’s a day when David doesn’t have the energy to get outside, I’ll get things done while he rests or sit with him and read aloud. If he’s up for it, we’ll do some interactive play with balls. He often enjoys just sitting, looking out the window, and listening to music.

“In the evening, I’ll prepare a delicious dinner. It’s a time I look forward to. I always have music playing or a podcast, sometimes pour a glass of wine, and let my creative culinary juices flow. I typically spend the rest of the evening getting David to eat what I made. He typically doesn’t finish dinner till 9:00 PM, sometimes eating very little. Then it’s off to bed. That’s a typical day.”

In what ways is David able to communicate? What are some of his interests or favorite things? 

Lori: “David communicates through vocalizations—happy and frustrated sounds, mostly—and body language, smiles, eye contact (frequent with me, not so much with others), reaching, pushing away, turning away. He’ll get up and walk to the front door when he wants to go for a walk. He’ll stand at the bathroom door, waiting for assistance, when he needs the toilet.

“He loves various kinds of music that have soul, from classical to funk to a cappella. When he’s not too sound sensitive, he likes it loud and smiles when I dance in front of him. He really enjoys going on our neighborhood walks, sitting on benches, doing gentle hikes in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and playing with his beads—that’s a big pastime.”

How are you and David doing now? 

Lori: “David continues to have near-daily seizures and we continue to try different seizure medications. He’s doing the best he has been in terms of the number of seizures, but he’s having more drop seizures that are dangerous if he’s standing when they occur. He’s eating well and getting out for daily walks, so that’s really great. 

“Since the installation of one, one thousand… at the University of Colorado, I have been invited to speak to university students, neuroscience clinicians, and researchers. Debe and I will speak at the gallery on November 1st, International Lennox-Gastaut Awareness Day. These talks have given my life greater purpose. 

“For the past 28 years, my life has been centered around David’s care. Though I’ve been working part-time as a life coach and lead a support group for parents of adult children with disabilities, I’ve wanted to make a larger impact in the world. I’ve grown so much in these years of caring for David. 

“He, along with many other great teachers, has taught me what’s most important in life and how to live it well, with all the pain and sorrow that accompanies the human condition. Now I’m getting a chance to share what I’ve learned.”

Debe, in what ways, if any, has your approach to making this work changed over the last two years? 

Debe: “one, one thousand… is continually evolving. When I first began shooting, I knew I didn’t want it to be a straight documentary, but I had no idea what that would look like. I began shooting reportage knowing the project would reveal itself over time.

“Eight months after I began the project, I took a workshop with Guggenheim Fellow, Daniel Coburn. He encouraged us to break photography tradition and give ourselves license to create freely. This allowed me to play without fear of what others might say about the work. Daniel’s encouragement was an eye-opener, and I played.

“I mixed multiple artistic interpretations that previously I would have thought of as taboo. I used different styles and techniques I’ve used throughout my practice and new ones. All to relay unknown elements of the spiritual realm, alluding to Lori’s practice and the unanswerable questions I have about David. 

“Is he a healer working in other planes to help people? Is he intelligent? Does he have synesthesia, as an estimated 70% of people with autism do? Is his vision distorted? What does he think and feel? I wanted to portray what is ‘real’ and what is outside our scope of understanding. 

“Six months later, I was prepping for a solo exhibition for a Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome Fundraiser. I realized the photographs alone were not enough to educate viewers about LGS and the experiences Lori and David have. We needed captions. This shifted the project even more and elevated its cadence. It evolved into my desire to have Lori’s fingerprint, as it were, on the images. I asked her to handwrite descriptive narratives for selected photographs, which became part of the images.

“I was careful to make work showing the care and love Lori has for David…and the love I have for them both. I felt I had honored them with each image. As we were installing our exhibit at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Fulginiti Pavilion for Bioethics and Humanities this September, Lori told me she had great discomfort with some of the photographs. I was shocked and confused. 

“We spoke about it at length, and I saw it was challenging for her. I gave her the time she needed to look into what she was experiencing. After all, it wasn’t me exposing my private, personal life.

“Lori’s dedication to personal growth and going deep into the why of her discomfort enabled her to see the work with refreshed eyes. This is one example of my sister’s courage that is a throughline in her life. We’ve come to understand this story is not just about them. It’s about all long-term family caregivers; it’s about bringing awareness to this rare, incurable epilepsy disorder; it’s about autism; it’s about family.”

All images © Debe Arlook. Debe Arlook is a Top 50 finalist for Photolucida’s Critical Mass.

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Metro stations that double as bomb shelters. Mass synchronized swimming displays. Pastel-colored buildings resembling a “socialist fairyland.” And ordinary life and day-to-day moments, existing in the background and defying snap judgments and assumptions. Six photographers take us behind the scenes in the DPRK, where both access and photography are restricted and controlled, to reveal a complicated picture.

Another Piece of the Jigsaw That Is North Korea

A Rare Look at Daily Life in North Korea

“Prior to his first visit to North Korea back in 2014, Fabian Muir’s preconceptions were much the same as everybody else’s; it’s difficult to disassociate the country from its leaders, missile tests, prisons, military parades, the famine of the 1990s or “notions of robotic factory workers who never smile”, emphasizes Fabian. ‘The real story is much more layered,’ the photographer asserts.

‘I realised that there seemed to be relatively little material providing more intimate insights into ordinary life, with the majority of photo essays on North Korea looking very similar to one another and focusing on already familiar — and photographically irresistible — motifs, such as imposing architecture, Leader statues or parades. All of that is unquestionably part of North Korea’s fabric, but there are other, more basic sides that have been largely ignored, be it North Koreans hanging out at the beach, having a beer, or sitting through a power failure. I feel these sides are also relevant.'”

These ‘State-Approved’ Photos from North Korea Reveal a Complex Truth

“Carl De Keyzer, a photographer based in Belgium, offers a glimpse of the process of indoctrination within North Korea. From their first day in kindergarten, children are spoon-fed propaganda—from lectures about the legendary feats of Kim Il Sung to field trips to a museum that depicts, in gruesome detail, Americans massacring Koreans. What makes the images all the more remarkable is that De Keyzer was subject to the same restrictions imposed on foreign tourists who visit North Korea. During his four trips to the country over the past two years, he was attended at all times by official minders, and had to submit his photos for state approval.”

“Yet through his keen eye and careful framing, De Keyzer helps us see beyond the official picture. The images do not show us what is kept out of the frame. But within their narrow confines, they reveal much of what is meant to remain unseen.”- Jean H. Lee for The New Republic

The ‘Kindergarten Kitsch’ Interiors of North Korea

Touring the interiors of Pyongyang, North Korea, says The Guardian’s Oliver Wainwright, is not at all dissimilar to “walking into a life-size Polly Pocket toy.” Although his views of the emerging metropolis were strictly monitored— all prohibited areas were described as “closed for renovation”—he couldn’t help but feel bewitched by the twee layouts of the buildings he visited. It’s a style he calls “kindergarten kitsch.”

Supreme leader Kim Jong-un is the driving force behind the new architectural initiatives. His goal, explains Wainwright, is to turn the capital into a tourist mecca, or in the words of the official state slogan, to “turn the whole country into a socialist fairyland!”

Fascinating Photos Compare Public Spaces in North and South Korea

“Until recently, photographic views of North Korea were as controlled as the region itself. With Korea—Korea (Gestalten), the German photographer Dieter Leistner, who obtained special permission to photograph in Pyongyang outside of the normal, highly supervised structure, has made a fascinating comparative study of the capital cities of North and South Korea.

“Leistner applied his particular vision as an architectural photographer to Pyongyang, North Korea, and Seoul, South Korea, in 2006, and 2012 respectively, to capture the apparent dichotomy between the two places. Although not all pairs are exact comparisons, they have much to communicate with their interaction, and it is immediately apparent which is north and which is south with most pairs.”

The post Spotlight on North Korea: 5 Photographers Pull Back the Curtain appeared first on Feature Shoot.

“Bleeding Heart Doves are named for their thatch of breast feathers that mimics a chest soaked with blood,” the artist Leila Jeffreys says. Endemic to the Philippines, the Luzon Bleeding-heart is listed as near threatened, facing pressure from deforestation and habitat destruction. In Jeffreys’s portrait of one bird from this species–now on view at Olsen Gallery in Sydney as part of her exhibition The wound is the place where the light enters–the breast does, in fact, appear to be bloodstained. 

As the bushfires of 2019 to 2020 ravaged Australia’s east coast, Jeffreys found herself returning to that portrait; the natural red markings on the chest became symbolic of the many wounds inflicted on our planet and its inhabitants. According to estimates, the unprecedented fires affected 180 million birds in Australia. Some of their bodies were dug from piles of ash, and others were found washed to shore after being pulled out to sea. Many of the birds who survived later died of starvation, exposure to predators, and injuries they’d sustained during the fires. 

It was during this time of unfathomable loss that the idea for The wound is the place where the light enters was born. Jeffreys found her title in a line from a Rumi poem; the exhibition features photographs of birds, all with natural red markings. The birds wear their “wounds” with grace. Together, they speak to our collective mourning; for Jeffreys, they’re also enduring reminders of the importance of facing that grief head-on—rather than turning our eyes away. From pain, love flows. 

Jeffreys’s work with birds has taken her around the world; she’s photographed puffins in Iceland, the glossy black cockatoos on Kangaroo Island, and, of course, the native pigeons of the Phillipines. She dreams of working with an albatross. For years, the artist has worked with conservationists, sanctuaries, and ornithologists, bringing with her a mobile studio so that the birds can be photographed where they’re most comfortable. A carer or rescuer will remain present, and Jeffreys will take the time to get to know each bird on his or her own terms. 

When the birds are relaxed and feel safe, their true personalities shine. At the National Threatened Species Institute (NTSI), she was able to meet a Moluccan Cockatoo, a species that has declined in recent years due to habitat loss and illegal trapping. The individual bird Jeffreys photographed enjoyed the time they spent together so much that she “politely declined” to leave after the session ended. She’s featured prominently in the exhibition at Olsen Gallery. 

The bonsai tree becomes a recurring motif throughout the exhibition; upon its branches perch white zebra finches, Cordon-bleu finches, and more. “I selected Bonsais as they are symbols of harmony and balance,” the artist says. “Zen Buddhists see bonsais as an object of contemplation, which is an idea that repeats throughout my exhibition.” 

Whereas birds in “real life” are always moving, you can stare at the birds in these photographs forever–and it’s an exhibition that encourages us to take our time. Seeing a Jeffreys portrait for the first time is a bit like seeing a bird in flight for the first time; you can almost feel your heart thumping in your chest. Perhaps that’s down to the awe of the photographer herself, who approaches each bird, from the most common to the most elusive, with the same sense of curiosity and wonderment. Every bird has her secrets. 

The Luzon Bleeding-heart is no exception: no one knows for certain why they have these blood-red markings. “I asked Tim Low (Australia’s best ecologist),” Jeffreys recently shared on Instagram. “He simply said what we see is different to what they see. We see a wound. But for example, a simple suggestion could be that the female bleeding heart dove might see a plume of beautiful bright red feathers and be attracted to the boy with the biggest, brightest patch.” 

It reminds me of something else Tim Low once said, a phrase that comes back to me time and again while looking at these photographs: “Everything alive is essentially a mystery.” See  The wound is the place where the light enters at Olsen Gallery through this Saturday, October 29th. 

All images © Leila Jeffreys

The post While Grieving the Australian Bushfires, An Artist Finds Hope in Nature appeared first on Feature Shoot.

In 2013, Rich Hardy was inside a factory pig farm in Northern Italy when he discovered a sow in the corridor, immobile and alone. “Unable to move her back legs, she had been dragged out of her crowded pen and was propped up against a wall,” he remembers. She bore a dark pink line along the length of her back, an indication that she was injured. 

As a result of that injury, the sow would be used as “second-grade meat”; her body would end up in pet food. As he was working undercover, Hardy was unable to help the wounded pig, who was in too much pain to reach a feeding trough. “She would have to wait two days without food, water, or medical care before the pet food truck came to collect her for slaughter,” he tells me. 

Hardy worked undercover as an environmental and animal protection activist for more than two decades. His work took him to more than thirty countries, though he considers himself a citizen journalist and “visual-evidence gatherer” rather than a photographer in the traditional sense. The book Not As Nature Intended is the stunning culmination of the stories recorded in his investigative journals over the years. 

During that time, he visited several pig farms across Italy and Poland. On another farm, he found pigs with eyes red from conjunctivitis; when he moved his hand in front of them, they showed no signs of registering his presence. Their tails had been cut off to prevent chewing and cannibalism, behaviors that are common among factory-farmed pigs due to the stress and extreme boredom of confinement. 

Hardy’s work wasn’t limited to pigs; his advocacy took him around the world and face-to-face with countless animals. When covering a rabbit factory farm, he witnessed the insemination of does, who were roughly removed from their cages before having their tails lifted and plastic tubes thrust inside them. Some were so sick from conjunctivitis that their eyes had crusted over. Others had severe ear infections. In one cage, he found a tiny kit dead in the corner. 

When he posed as a prospective buyer of a chicken factory farm, he encountered birds made so large (by genetic selection) that their legs splayed under their weight. While documenting the factory farming of quails, he noticed animals on one farm who had bumblefoot–a swelling of the foot caused by infection. He held one tiny quail gently in his hands, feeling her heartbeat, before putting her back down with a whispered apology only she could hear.

Following the completion of Not As Nature Intended, Hardy retired from his career as a visual-evidence gatherer. Along with his partner Pru, he went on to found Lazy Meadow Farm in Cornwall. In addition to running the vegan farm, they have a micro-sanctuary for animals. The cats and dogs were rescued from animal shelters, but many of the residents come from factory farms like those Hardy once visited undercover. Idris the duck, for example, had lived his entire life in a dark shed, without access to water for swimming. They saved him on the day he was scheduled to be slaughtered. 

“Just hours from the chop, Idris’s life changed completely in just a few short hours,” the journalist remembers. “That day, and alongside two other ducks, Silvia and Tea, Idris found out what it is like to truly be a duck. Freedom to move, to make choices, to behave naturally. He had 24/7 access to a pond, which ducks need more than anything else. 

“While Idris was definitely scarred by his experiences in the factory farm, I could watch him at a distance enjoy living out his life without daily fears. I kept my distance, but I knew he was happy waddling in formation with the girls.” Idris passed away suddenly in August of 2021, with the probable cause being a virus. Tea died soon after, likely of a broken heart. 

If Hardy gave Idris a second chance at life, Idris and the other animals have given the journalist a reason to hope. “Both the micro-sanctuary and the farm have been instrumental in helping me to process what I’ve witnessed over the course of twenty years,” he says now. “I think it would have been quite easy to walk away from the investigative work feeling I’d done my bit and that things aren’t going to get any better. Just run to the hills, baton down the hatches, and shut the world out. 

“Rescuing our first dog, though, helped show me that I could do something for one animal, having spent years filming the plight of animals only then to walk away. Though I never felt I was turning my back on them, it was never easy to leave. Now giving a home to chickens, ducks, cats, and dogs who were just days away from death gives me a purpose and an opportunity to keep telling stories about animals, just from a different perspective.” 

Recently, Hardy has focused on caring for these individual animals, but his work and the work of investigators like him continue to inspire change for animals on a massive scale. “While it’s not clear-cut, I think the European Union’s banning of barren battery cages for egg-laying hens in 2012 forced open a little crack in the factory farm door,” he says. “While it didn’t end cages completely for hens, it required farmers to make significant changes and led to a reduction in cage egg sales. 

“It’s also made lobbying for a complete ban on cage systems more of a reality. That’s being shown by recent votes from both the European Parliament and European Commission, who are talking of banning cages for all farm animals in factory farms. Since I began campaigning for farm animals in 1993, the gaps between legislative victories for farm animals are narrowing. When previously it took decades for change to take place, now it can just a few years or even less.”

At Lazy Meadow Farm, Hardy and his team have an open-gate policy. “The community can drop in and see what we do,” he explains. “That’s a big difference to the closed doors of the factory farm where food comes at a huge cost, especially to the farm animals. Vegan farms are few and far between, but they can offer nutrient-packed, local, seasonal food that can help communities not only thrive but become better connected with their food. 

“We need examples of how we can grow food for communities in a kinder way if we’re going to end the suffering for caged and crated animals. The mantra at our farm is ‘No Blood, No Bones, No Shit.’ We believe in agriculture that builds soil health and fertility without supporting animal cruelty. We work with nature’s cycles, and we accept that we will always lose a portion of what we grow to the wild insects, birds, and mammals who share our farm. That’s okay; they are our neighbors.”

Hardy cherishes every day at the farm, but he most looks forward to the weekly harvest. “We pick our veggies early in the morning and then just an hour or two later they’re in the kitchens of our customers,” he tells me. “It feels good to be able to feed people, but not at the expense of our animal companions.” 

Though they’ve all been slaughtered now, Hardy hasn’t forgotten the many pigs, rabbits, chickens, and quail he met in dark cages, pens, and warehouses. “Some days, I look into the eyes of my dogs or cats and see the eyes of some of the animals I’ve documented,” he admits. “I’ll often think about that poor pig I found left uncared for in an Italian factory farm when I look into the eyes of Bryher, our collie cross. Just the way Bryher sits can be a chilling reminder of how I found that poor sow, sat on her haunches in a dank corridor. When you have reminders like that, it’s hard to look away.” 

Order your copy of Not As Nature Intended here, and learn more about Rich Hardy’s investigative work on Instagram at @notasnatureintended. You can follow Lady Meadow Vegan Farm at @lazy.meadow.farm.

The post The Undercover Journalist Who Became a Vegan Farmer appeared first on Feature Shoot.

The artist Christina Leslie’s father grew up in Morant Bay, the capital of the parish of St. Thomas, Jamaica, and she’s been visiting since she was a young child. For the Christmas holidays, the whole family would return to her father’s hometown to visit her grandparents, relatives, and family friends. St. Thomas, once known primarily as a sugar-growing parish, is a place she knows well, and it’s one with happy memories. But as an adult, she’s also come to learn more about its complicated history–and the brutal legacy of the sugar trade in the Caribbean islands. 

Before the end of the 17th century, a quarter of a million enslaved African people were brought to Jamaica, Barbados, and the Leeward Islands, where they were forced to work on sugar plantations, places notorious for their harsh conditions.* Thousands were killed in the production of sugar. In the decades following emancipation, colonial violence persisted: in October of 1865, a group of farmers in Morant Bay (many formerly enslaved) protested against unjust conditions before they were violently suppressed, with hundreds killed. 

Today, the scars of slavery remain, in Jamaica as in the United States, but in some cases, they’ve been deliberately hidden from view. “There is one particular property, which I will not name, that was formerly a plantation and is now a world-renowned golf destination,” Leslie tells me now. “I often wonder if any of these golfers are aware that they are golfing on grounds where 100 enslaved Africans once toiled on the cane fields.” 

With Sugar Coat, the artist is bringing that history to the surface by creating pictures made of the granulated substance. The images themselves are emulsion lifts, fine and delicate objects similar to stained glass. They incorporate original photographs conceptualized by Leslie with help from models, some inspired by the stories of enslaved people; photographs from places of significance in Jamaica; and appropriated historical materials. What you see here are the re-photographed versions of those emulsion lifts, created to preserve images that would otherwise be too fragile to distribute widely. 

We asked Leslie about her creative process, the inextricable history of sugar and slavery, and the potential for reparations going forward. 

How and when did the idea for this project begin to take shape for you? 

“This project evolved from an earlier concept I had concerning the African diaspora. I aspired to produce a series that would function as an anthology centered on Black History. I envisioned completing the project in a succession of chapters—before enslavement, the years our history was interrupted due to the slave trade, as well as the aftermath and future.

“I had invested a significant amount of time on the first chapter (which is still in progress) before attempting to experiment with the second chapter, which became Sugar Coat. I began reading a variety of books about the sugar trade in Jamaica, Barbados, and the Leeward Islands. I felt from a contemporary art perspective there was a substantial number of artworks about the cotton industry, but the history of sugar was often neglected.” 

I’ve read a bit about the violent scars of the sugar industry in the United States, but might you tell me a bit about how the sugar industry has affected (and continues to affect) Jamaica as well? 

“The history of the slave trade/sugar industry has several branches, some of which include the history of the Jamaican Maroons who were forced to Nova Scotia, Canada, and eventually left to Freetown, Sierra Leone. 

“Today, many of the plantations in Jamaica, or great houses as they are often known, continue to earn revenue through the fees charged to tourists and residents who visit these sites for parties and weddings. These are sites that have witnessed an unfathomable number of crimes against humanity, but whose histories have been whitewashed in order to make them more palatable to tourists. 

“Furthermore, the town of Morant Bay in Jamaica’s Parish of St. Thomas, where my father is from, has a tumultuous history with the sugar trade sector and is the scene of the Morant Bay Rebellion. 

“Recently, with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s visit to Jamaica in March 2022, the royal couple was criticized for Britain’s lack of reparations and atonement for slavery. While Prince William emphasized his anti-slavery stance, he made no overt apologies for the Crown’s role in the slave/sugar trade. On the final day of the expedition to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, Jamaica’s Prime Minister announced that the government would consider a similar move as Barbados to remove Queen Elizabeth II as head of state.” 

In what ways can the scars of sugar’s history be seen in the modern sugar industry? “The “Caribbean’s main exports are still coffee and rum, both of which are manufactured from or, in the case of coffee, adjacent to sugar. There are still regions in the Caribbean where sugar is harvested manually, and workers are frequently underpaid, despite the fact that major sugar corporations profit from their labour.” 

Can you tell me a bit about your personal archives from Jamaica, which have been incorporated into Sugar Coat?

“I’ve been going to Jamaica since I was a child. As I grew older, I began to travel more frequently and on my own. I regularly travel with my camera to document my trips and the numerous places I visit. In 2018, I made it a point to photograph Morant Bay and the nearby villages of Seaforth and Portland Parish. I wanted to photograph the places that were significant to him as a child in Jamaica. Some of the photographs depict sites, such as my grandfather’s house, while others depict members of the community and family/friends.” 

What about the new images you created with models, costumes, and props? Who are your models? 

“The selected models were friends who are also of Caribbean/African descent and who were able to trace their ancestry and lineage to this location. This was a crucial choice since the objective was to produce an authentic body of work based on generational heritage to which the actors could relate while playing out my desired themes and roles.” 

Can you tell me a bit about the research that went into this project? Where did the appropriated literature come from? 

“Some of Sugar Coat’s image-making method is appropriation. Appropriation is simply defined as the deliberate borrowing, reproduction, and alteration of existing images and items. Some of the visuals in this series were generated from historical pro-slavery literature and sugar advertisements. I composited images of my model, locations, and advertisements to make new photographs, or I reused brand posters to create my sugar emulsions. 

“Additionally, I found a 1788 Jamaica Gazette piece announcing the escape of two enslaved women named Hope and Present. This prompted me to make a smaller series of images inspired by their escape. I also made photos based on my studies on slave auctions and news announcements from the time announcing the sale of enslaved labour.” 

Did you uncover anything that surprised you during your research? 

“Several instances throughout my investigation shook me. Some were truly horrifying and demonstrated the sheer depravity of humanity. 

“But I will share this discovery from my research. Some of the foods we consume now can be traced back to the sugar trade industry. Women were bred as chattel because slavery was regarded as an economic enterprise. Sadly, because they were malnourished, they were unable to carry their pregnancies to term. The governor of Jamaica (also a slave owner) at the time was concerned and requested that a specific physician Hans Sloane investigate his ‘chattel.’ 

“Sloane was said to have concocted a chocolate malt-like drink to aid these women’s nourishment. However, since cocoa tasted so bitter, sugar was added to sweeten the flavour and offer energy. It was later reported that Cadbury chocolate used Sloane’s recipe for their own chocolate enterprise after the recipe was sold to them.” 

Can you walk us through the process of physically creating and printing these artworks?

“Creating Sugar Coat was a labour-intensive process that required extensive research, testing, and numerous trial and error iterations. I was extremely intentional in my aesthetic choices and the way I made each image, with the materiality of sugar as the starting point. 

“I chose white sugar over natural brown sugar to allude to the racist mindset of purification. According to several sources, white was regarded a desirable colour, even though refined sugar consumption causes a slew of health problems as compared to natural, unrefined sugar. Using white sugar alludes to whiteness and the erroneous belief that it is good and pure. It is the eradication of the black hands responsible for its manufacture. 

“Each photograph is made with a special paper and a sugar solution that I invented that eventually turns into an emulsion lift. A single image takes roughly four days to create. After drying and hardening, the images become encased in sugar; after 24-48 hours they become 3-D objects. Only when light shines behind the object can the image be seen. The image is subsequently transformed into what looks like a stained glass and becomes a temporal collectible, an artefact, and an archival record. 

“I then rephotograph the images to turn them back into a 2-D object for the purposes of having two ways of presenting my images. The 3-D lifts will erode and disintegrate over time, and rephotographing is the only means of preservation.” 

How have people responded to the work so far? Do you find that most people know about this painful history, or has it largely been overlooked? 

“When I’ve shared this series, I received some abhorrent remarks, while others appear to be captivated by my method but uninterested in the conceptual component. I believe few are aware of the implications this industry had on the Caribbean islands and, for the most part, associate the Trans-Atlantic slave trade with African American History. Consequently, the people who suffered in the production of Caribbean exports have never benefited monetarily and the psychological, economic, and social-political consequences of colonialism continue to affect the Caribbean Diaspora. 

“Our bodies, stories, and identities are stitched and transformed by sugar. Most people I have found to be terribly ignorant of this fact unless, of course, they share this personal history themselves.” 

This is a big question, but in what ways, if any, do you see today’s artists and photographers righting some of history’s wrongs? And relatedly, what makes this moment in history an important turning point? 

“While I hate stating it, I feel George Floyd’s murder was the catalyst or tipping point that made people more aware of many historical injustices that have penetrated our current sociopolitical climate.”

“People in Canada, where I live, for example, are being presented with hard facts and visual evidence that horrific atrocities were committed against our Indigenous population as a result of the discovery of hundreds of children’s graves on residential school sites. That bothers me because it seems as if people must see it to believe it. They needed to see the graves of these Indigenous children or see George’s untimely and unlawful death on camera before they could accept both of these horrible occurrences had occurred.

“However, for numerous years, artists have used their platforms to raise awareness of these instances or history. Consider Kara Walker’s metaphoric ‘cut-outs,’ which show the magnitude and intensity of the racial and generational suffering inflicted on Black people throughout the Slave Trade. Her sugar Sphinx was a stinging criticism of capitalism and the sugar trade.

“In Canada, long before wearing a ‘orange t-shirt’ became popular, Canadian artist Kent Monkman’s 2017 artwork ‘The Scream’ referred to the atrocities of residential school institutions.

“Are artists striving to right historical wrongs? I’m not certain, but I feel that all of the artists I admire and find fascinating are aiming to educate the general public about some of humanity’s traumatic pasts. At the very least, they are laying the groundwork for difficult conversations to take place; will this result in restitution or reparations? Only time will tell.”

All images © Christina Leslie 

*Leslie consulted the book Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713 by the historian Richard S. Dunn as part of her research.

The post In Photographs Made of Sugar, A Brutal History Revealed  appeared first on Feature Shoot.

The winners and shortlisted entries for this year’s Indian Photo Festival Photographer of the Year Awards (IPOY) draw attention to some of the most overlooked environmental stories of a generation, spanning decades and continents. 

In the desert villages of Khetolai, Loharki, and Chacha, Chinky Shukla traces the painful scars left behind by the Pokhran-II nuclear tests–part of India’s Operation Smiling Buddha. More than two decades later, village residents continue to experience cases of cancer, cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, and miscarriage. 

Transporting us some 1,000 kilometers South to Maharashtra, Santanu Dey reveals the reality of an agrarian crisis responsible for profound financial insecurity and rising rates of suicide among farmers. Meanwhile, more than 3,000 away, Daniela Sala covers a water crisis in Hasaka, Syria, in the aftermath of drought and the Turkish occupation of the Alouk water station. In this city, 460,000 people have been affected, with refugees and children cut off from water; one family told Sala that they spend a quarter of their monthly budget on purchasing water from trucks. 

In Lovozero, a locality in Russia, Natalya Saprunova warns of the dangers of cutting communities off from natural resources: her work brings to light the experiences of the Saami people, who were forced out of nomadic lands in the tundra and into apartment buildings in the 1920s amid the rise of the Soviet Union. A century later, they continue to fight to keep their culture and language alive, complicated by the strain of worsening global warming. 

Importantly, The Indian Photo Festival Photographer of the Year Awards (IPOY) isn’t limited by any single genre or subject–and not all of the winning work addresses issues relating to the environment. With categories for wedding, street, mobile, wildlife, landscape, portrait, and press photography, the awards recognize a vast array of single images and projects on any and all topics, from the epic to the everyday. 

But there are recurring themes throughout that speak to the most pressing concerns of the 21st century, mostly through the intimate perspective of the individuals most affected. The winner of the Press category, Anindito Mukherjee, is another standout, recognized for an image from a priest performing last rights at a mass cremation amid India’s Covid crisis last year–a searing reminder of the dangers of zoonotic disease and a pandemic from which we’ve not yet emerged.  The theme of displacement and the loss of one’s homeland emerges once again in the work of Sergei Stroitelev, whose winning portrait features a sixteen-year-old refugee from Ukraine. 

When viewed together, the winning images–many made photographers on the frontlines of climate change and conflict–are a testament to the power of exposing the truth, brutal though it may be, before it’s too late. More than anything, these are photographs that remain in your mind’s eye long after you turn away (or click out of your internet browser). They deserve to be witnessed in person as well as online, and they will be on view as part of the Indian Photo Festival in Hyderabad from November 18th through December 19th. 

Finally, and perhaps most powerfully, running through these complex stories of loss and uncertainty, you’ll also discover bright glimmers of hope, human resilience, and environmental care. There are many, but one of the most notable comes from the overall winner of the Indian Photo Festival Photographer of the Year Award, Giacomo d’Orlando. Taking home top honors at this year’s awards, the photographer has committed himself to uncovering potential solutions to the climate crisis. His work with Nemo’s Garden, a sustainable, underwater greenhouse in Italy, provides a blueprint for a better future. 

The winners of the Indian Photo Festival Photographer of the Year Award share a prize pool worth $33,000, including cash prizes, gear, and more. In addition to showing at IPF this fall, the winning work will be part of an international exhibition tour. We’ve just scratched the surface of this year’s winners, so we urge you to explore all the 2022 standouts here. 

The post The Indian Photo Festival Photographer of the Year Award Draws Attention to Environmental Stories Worldwide appeared first on Feature Shoot.

This summer, We Animals Media Founder Jo-Anne McArthur sat down with world-renowned photographer Nick Brandt for a conversation on spellbinding images, bearing witness to animal suffering, speciesism, the emerging genre of animal photojournalism (APJ), and creating change in a desperate world. With their permission, we’ve republished their discussion here. Find the original article here.

Born and raised in London, Nick Brandt originally studied Painting and Film and now lives in the southern Californian mountains. Brandt has had multiple solo exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide, and in 2010 he co-founded Big Life Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting 1.6 million acres of ecosystem in East Africa. The themes of Nick’s photographic works relate to the destructive impact that humankind is having on both the natural world and now humans themselves also.  

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Jo-Anne McArthur (JM): Nick, it’s great to connect again. I love our chats. First things first: Your massive new body of work, The Day May Break (2021) is the first part of a global series portraying people and animals impacted by environmental destruction. I have the book and am mesmerized by the images and their execution. The project is being exhibited globally. The photos are insane, and I know you get all the usual assumptions about them being Photoshopped.

Nick Brandt (NB): Sigh. Yes I do. And before I launch into that, thank you for those kind words, and yes, we don’t get to chat and sympathize enough with each other.

But to cut to the chase, yes, the people and animals were photographed together in the same frame. This was possible because the photos were taken at sanctuaries where the animals are almost all long-term rescues, victims of everything from the poaching of their parents, to habitat destruction and wildlife trafficking. So these animals can never be released back into the wild. As a result, they are habituated, and so it was safe for human strangers to be close to them. It was also possible because the animal carers had such a good trusting relationship with all of the animals.

The people in the photos have all been badly affected by climate change – some displaced by cyclones that destroyed their homes, others such as farmers displaced and impoverished by years-long severe droughts. They were also very calm, gracious and patient around these animals. The whole process was very calm and relatively stress-free.

This is all very different, of course, to the work that you do, Jo, which is much more high stress, with your cortisol levels probably shooting way up in many locations. I couldn’t handle that. Knowing that much of the time, every animal you photograph is going to be killed shortly, well, I would be arrested for trying to save every animal. Meanwhile, with the work I do, I can (selfishly?) maintain my sanity by photographing animals that are still alive, have lives of hope, a future. I don’t have the psychological strength to go beyond that. As I have said before, I am in awe of you and others working in the same field. You’re like war photographers, invariably photographing from the losing side.

JM: Nick, the cortisol is starting to feel like it’s killing me. I do think this gets harder with age. I still do it – I am heading out to do an undercover investigation this weekend. I can’t say what, as this [conversation] will get published ahead of the release of that work, but I am glad that so many other people are doing it now too. There were so few professional photographers doing animal photojournalism when I started. It didn’t have a name then; it was considered the work of activists (which it of course is), or perhaps wildlife photography because what else do you call photography that has animals in it?

“I am in awe of you and others working in the same field. You’re like war photographers, invariably photographing from the losing side.” — Nick Brandt

NB: I did a talk a few years ago with a very brilliant, highly-respected photography writer and critic, whom I like a lot, who asked me “Is it possible to take portraits of animals?” My reaction was one of spluttering incomprehension, because of course to me (and you and probably anyone reading this article), that is the same as saying “is it possible to take portraits of humans?” Because they are both sentient beings, and so for me, there is no difference, other than the fact you cannot direct the animals. We continue to battle endless examples of speciesism.

JM: You say that shooting The Day May Break was calm and stress free – it really shows in the images. I love it. That you can show such sadness, depth, urgency, poignancy, in a calm way. Our work spellbinds in different ways, Nick. May photographers find many other ways still, so that we can instil in people the need for action, change, compassion. And, frankly, critical thinking and rationality. Animal-focused work, activist work, is way too often relegated as sentimentality.

“I love that you can show such sadness, depth, urgency, poignancy, in a calm way.” — Jo-Anne McArthur

JM: Unlike your last few books, you switched to digital for The Day May Break. What prompted it? Any regrets about shooting film for the last books? I know it made the work more laborious, shall we say?

NB: I had already switched to digital for my previous project, This Empty World. A practical necessity. As for The Day May Break, the fog emanating from the fog machines (water-based, non-toxic) constantly shifted with the slightest change in the wind, so at the end of each session, it was important to be able to review what I had shot and see what was going on with the fog in the photos where animals and people appeared to have aligned into a potentially good frame.

JM: Your books Inherit the Dust, This Empty World and The Day May Break are culminations of your animal work. And I understand you’re just getting going on this animal work, especially as it overlaps with climate change and human strife. But your foundation, Big Life, came out of your early days of animal work. What came first for you, photography or conservation?

NB: Animals and conservation came first. I realized very belatedly in my life, too belatedly, that photography was the best medium for me to express my feelings about the destruction of the natural world. But finally finding this path was the best decision I ever made.

JM: Ah, me too. The camera is my way of expressing my feelings, and showing others what I think is important. I write about what I see, too, but the photos hit home and they do it quicker than an essay can! Seriously though, the camera has often felt like my all-access pass into the lives of others, and I love to take it with me and then let it lead me. I’ve shot less during the pandemic, and I remember recently picking it up again and feeling like I was home.

JM: Do you call your work art? Photography? Journalism? You are bearing witness, but not like a photojournalist would.

NB: Deciding what is art is always an impossible question, especially when you’re the creator of the work. So I prefer to leave that for others to decide.

Yes I am bearing witness, but is not every photographer a witness that is engaged in portraying something of consequence in the world? And even then, actually, who decides what is consequential? Clearly there are a vast number of people in America, for example, who ignore all science and inexplicably refuse to believe the reality of climate breakdown. So presumably, they would not consider that those addressing it are bearing witness.

JM: We’ve had some long talks and I know how pained you are about the social and political climate of the country you currently live in. Science and climate change denial is growing though, and it’s scary to see this tide rising in tandem with the far right. I’m not sure what I can do about reaching non-believers in animal sentience, or those so rigidly believing in their presumed right to use animals. But I can and do reach a lot of people. My hope is that at least a few of the photos I take in my lifetime will irrefutably show to us that the individual in the frame is thinking, feeling, worthy of safety, consideration, protection. Animal photojournalism needs ethology, needs media, even needs policy, to help get us there. “There” meaning accepted, acceptable – inevitably? – in the public conscience.

NB: Even though there is greater growing awareness of animal sentience, it is far too slow for our liking. And sorry to paint a dark dystopian picture, but as climate breakdown intensifies, and people around the world struggle all the more to simply survive by whatever means they can, I think that the pressure on the natural world and the animals within it will also intensify, with even greater amounts of killing wild animals, simply for food. But as always, it just means we all have to fight even harder, each difficult step.

“We continue to battle endless examples of speciesism.” — Nick Brandt

And of course, it is not just the animals who will be the victims of climate breakdown, but also the most vulnerable, poorest humans. My earlier series of works, like Inherit the Dust, also addressed this: unreleased portraits of animals that I had taken over prior years were printed life-size and glued to large panels, then the panels were placed in locations where animals such as these used to roam. The damnation of animal life, the debasement of human life, the destructive conjugality between the two.

JM: Is there any particular image you’ve created that you think represents your work and what you’d like to communicate to the world particularly well?

NB: I’m hesitant to judge what works well about my own work. But since you have asked, I’ll plump – somewhat randomly, for – “Alice, Stanley and Najin, Kenya, 2020”.

Context first. Abnormal floods, intensified by climate change, destroyed Alice and Stanley’s house in central Kenya in 2017. Fearful that this would happen again, they basically became climate refugees, moving to the city to try and start a new life, but have struggled in a new place. (Money from a share of print sales proceeds have helped them however, as they are about to start a shoe-making business with the money.)

Najin is one of the last two northern white rhinos in the world. When her daughter, Fatu dies, the species will be extinct. Once upon a time, the northern white rhino’s range extended through central Africa. But decades of poaching have taken its grim toll. Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where they live, has 24/7 armed security for Najin & Fatu.

“Najin is one of the last two northern white rhinos in the world. When her daughter, Fatu dies, the species will be extinct.” — Nick Brandt

JM: I find this so shocking that I just can’t find words. Only an exhausting exasperation for humans!

NB: Stating the obvious, everyone interprets an image differently. But I think perhaps you can see in this photo that Alice and Stanley do feel like what they are – climate refugees, that the rhinos are somehow discombobulated and fading from view, as their species fades away. But you know what, I would love to hand it over to Kenyan novelist Yvonne Adhiambo Uwuor, who wrote the beautiful foreword to the book. She describes the people and animals in these photos as “veterans of the planet’s unruly rumblings”, and “human beings whose lives the restless earth has overturned in such absolute ways, that the ordeal has imprinted itself upon their very essence. They carry these marks with a quiet stoicism.”

So I would like to think that this photo is a good example of what Yvonne describes.

JM: That’s beautiful. I loved reading her thoughts.

I hear you about us not always being our own best judge of what will resonate with others. And yet for me I sort of have a classic type of image that speaks to me, and speaks to others. Wide angle, up close, an animal in the frame, often looking at me, with the industry the animal is kept in, or being slaughtered in, all around them. The human element – the cause of the animals’ life and death – all around them.

NB: Interesting. What you describe is just about the most confrontational way of taking the photo (with the animal alive.)

“Animal photojournalism needs ethology, needs media, even needs policy, to help get us there. “There” meaning accepted, acceptable – inevitably? – in the public conscience.” — Jo-Anne McArthur

JM: I love how you’ve set things up with Big Life and print sales generating much-needed funds for people and projects. I used to hold exhibits and send the money raised back to the source of the story. Now the funds we generate go back into doing more assignments, more communications, more outreach, which allows us to continue providing animal advocates with free visuals for their work.

NB: Yes, so with The Day May Break, even though I have not yet broken even on the project’s expenses, I feel it’s only right that the people in the photos get a form of royalty payment from a percentage on the sale of the limited edition prints. In a few cases, collectors have donated life-transforming amounts to the people in the prints they bought, which is wonderful, as everyone wins.

With Big Life, in the first few years, print sales did help get it going, but in fairly short order, regular donations helped establish Big Life. Now in 2022, Big Life employs 350+ local rangers across the ecosystem, with multiple outposts and patrol vehicles, and with that the incidence of poaching has been dramatically reduced and the populations of elephants, lions, giraffes, and cheetah are all on the increase.

JM: What do you think about this genre that WAM has named – animal photojournalism (APJ)? Any pushback?

NB: It’s incredibly important work. As I’ve always said to you, I am in awe of the work you all do, because it is so easy to feel overwhelmed with anger and rage. Jo, your line – not photography of animals but for animals – is perfectly stated.

JM: I expected major pushback from the photo world but it’s been the opposite, and has led to more invitations to discuss what it is, and to jurying competitions. Being even more involved in the photo world is something I want because it normalizes and legitimizes what we’re doing. Some say that animal photojournalism shouldn’t be needed as its own thing, because it should just be considered photojournalism, but that genre is of course largely exclusive to anthropocentric stories.

NB: I don’t understand why photojournalism can only be considered relating to human stories. So on the one hand I would also say that the term should not be needed. However, if it helps to focus peoples’ minds on the issues of animals, then yes, it’s a good genre to push as forcefully as possible.

JM: You recently succumbed to posting on Instagram. Was that a purely commercial decision, or are you enjoying it? Or both?

NB: I consider Instagram the world’s worst and most inadequate visual platform. Visually detailed work is not designed to be seen on a two inch screen on your phone. Actually, I don’t think anything visual is.

It has unfortunately become a one-stop-shop visual aggregator where people go to view work, who don’t even visit photographers’/artists’ websites where the work can be viewed so much better. At the same time, I have discovered wonderful new photographers on Instagram, whose work I then get to know better via their books, their websites, etc. And it does of course provide a very important outlet for those in far-flung countries who would otherwise not have eyes on their work. So in theory, it means that anyone can build a following, an awareness, a message. In that regard, it is great.

JM: I dislike it too but because it encourages device addiction: designed to control our self-esteem and consumer habits, and is a tad life-sapping. It seems to me that most of us are sleep walking and scrolling is part of the problem, as it keeps us away from real people, real joy, real suffering, real issues. However, it is the tool we use now to disseminate our work and it’s doing so brilliantly and quickly. We need animal photojournalists to be using it.

JM: If you could issue an invitation to other photographers to take up animal photojournalism, or photographing animals, what would you say?

NB: It is so easy to get sidetracked in your life, and be dissatisfied with what you’re doing without perhaps even realizing (I was one of those people). But then when you do hopefully realize that you can use your talents towards something you consider much more important, that can be a liberating epiphany.

As I have said hundreds of times, it is better to be angry and active than angry and passive. Doing something you believe in, that you think can perhaps make a difference, this can help push away the unhealthy sense of despair and helplessness, and instead galvanize and focus you, and give you energy.

Two words: Greta Thunberg. If one young girl sitting alone with a placard on a street in Stockholm can achieve in a few years what she has, well, c’mon, let’s get going.

JM: We see ourselves as so removed from the environment that we see animals (those who are not humans!) as something very separate. They aren’t separate. We all affect one another. Animal stories are humanitarian stories are environmental stories are climate stories.

NB: Exactly.

JM: And the animals of the world are incredibly fascinating! Their travails, their abilities, their ways, which are like ours but so wonderfully exceeding of ours. We need to see them, experience them, learn from them, and it needn’t be face-to-face, and can’t always be, but it can be through images. So we need to get out there and take those images, even if it takes an emotional toll on us to do so. It is simply worth it, for both societal and personal rewards.

I’m recalling this photo I saw in Nat Geo when I was a kid. It was a close-up of the eye of a dead zebra, and in the reflection of their eye you see clearly men standing over the animal, holding guns. I tore it out of the magazine and it was pinned up on my wall for years. I’m sure it was more formative for me than I ever realized! Get out and take those photos. Tell those stories. You never know who they will reach and how it will change them.

“Animal stories are humanitarian stories are environmental stories are climate stories.” — Jo-Anne McArthur

JM: Are you already shooting your next project or projects? Can you tell us a little about what’s upcoming in your work?

NB: I recently finished Chapter Two of The Day May Break in Bolivia, which again features people badly impacted by climate change, and many rescued species on the South American continent. That work [was] released in September, with exhibitions of both chapters in New York and Shanghai in October. Two of those images are included in this interview. The book of that work is published in Spring 2023 (the book from Chapter One was published last year).

And I have started prepping for Chapter Three, photographing in another very different part of the world, with a very different angle.

JM: I’m shooting less now, for three reasons: Covid grounded me and I am recovering slowly, and We Animals Media has many photographers now, so we give assignments to photographers all over the globe. It’s no longer just me chasing all the stories for months at a time. The third reason is that I’m running the organization, and doing more teaching and speaking. I like it a lot, but my “home,” as I mentioned before, often feels to be with the camera and with the pen. So there will be more of that in the future. That’s where the inspiration is and what keeps me ticking.

Thank you to Nick Brandt for allowing us to republish their conversation and to We Animals Media contributors Stefano Belacchi, Luis Tato, Selene Magnolia, and Odysseas Chloridis, whose images are also featured. We encourage you to learn more on Brandt’s website and the WAM website. You can follow them on Instagram at @nickbrandtphotography and @weanimals, respectively. To help support their work for animals, make a donation to the Big Life Foundation and/or We Animals Media.

The post Nick Brandt and Jo-Anne McArthur On Photography and Creating Change for Animals appeared first on Feature Shoot.

It was 11:00 PM, going on midnight, when Sergey Melnitchenko saw the snow start to fall over the city of Mykolayiv, Ukraine. He texted his friends, and they went out into the night, shed their clothes, and ran around the city, naked and freezing but alive. It was long before the Russian invasion, and their city was their playground. 

Melnitchenko has been creating pictures with his friends (and friends of friends) for five years now as part of the series Young and Free, starting in 2017 and running until the invasion in 2022. The title refers to this group of friends but also to the rising generation of Ukrainians. “We’re young and free inside,” he tells me. “We don’t have any borders; we do what we want to do; we say what we want to say; we show that we want to show. That’s what our enemy never had.” 

For these photo sessions, which take place year-round, Melnitchenko and his sitters usually set out for their adventures at 2:00 to 3:00 in the morning, hoping to reach their location by dawn to catch the golden light. “All the photos were taken in the beautiful landscapes of my lovely Ukraine,” the artist says. “We did them in different regions in the south and central part of Ukraine.” 

Many of the men asked to participate in the series after learning about it from friends. Some of them were initially too shy to pose nude, but they found the experience liberating. In art, nudity evokes feelings of vulnerability, but it’s also closely tied to power and strength. For some, getting naked is an act of rebellion and defiance, especially in the face of oppression and violence. In ancient Greek art, heroes and warriors are depicted nude. In Young and Free, Melnitchenko’s sitters emerge as heroes in their own right. 

“Sometimes, I have crazy ideas and I call them,” the artist says. “They’re just like, ‘okay, let’s do it.’ They’re not shy anymore. They’re in the game and in the moment. It’s a kind of therapy.” The photographer himself does not appear in these images, but in many ways, he thinks of them as mirrors. “I think that if I didn’t see myself in these young men, I wouldn’t make such work,” he says. “An artist reproduces his inner world, feelings, and emotions. Some of these guys are as crazy as me. Some of them have families and kids like me.” 

An estimated 1,000 children have been killed or injured by this unconscionably cruel war over the last six months. Mykolayiv is among the hardest hit by Russian forces, with the city and surrounding areas witnessing brutal attacks daily. Almost half the city’s residents have left. 

Many of the remaining residents are elderly and not able to leave. When I first connected with Melnitchenko, he’d just heard that the house opposite his grandmothers’ house had been bombed. Hospitals and schools have been destroyed. Residents have been lining up to donate blood for soldiers on the frontlines. 

In the aftermath of the invasion, the photographer, his son, and his mother left Mykolayiv and settled in a region in the west of Ukraine. “We are trying to build a new life here,” he says. He wants to go back to get his grandmothers and bring them west, but they’ve asked him not to take the risk of returning at this time. 

The photographer has remained in touch with almost all of the young men featured in Young and Free. “Some of them stayed in Mykolayiv, Odesa, Kyiv, and some of them resettled as I did,” he says. “I’m very thankful to God that they’re alive. For now, that is the best that can be.” 

In recent months, work has been exhibited around the world, most recently at the Unseen Amsterdam Photography Fair. The artist is also the founder of MYPH (Mykolaiv Young Photography School), a Ukrainian photography school, community, and gallery. He’s chosen 63 photographers to be part of the first MYPH photobook. The book will be published in Ukrainian and English in a limited edition of 500 copies each. 

As for Young and Free, Melnitchenko hasn’t been able to make new images for the series during this time: “I tried, but I can’t.” He expects he won’t until the war is over. But he does look at the pictures often. “They give me hope that someday, and I hope it will be very soon, the war will end, and I can come back to my home, to my landscapes,” he tells me. Only then will they run through the streets of Mykolayiv, naked and free, as the first snow falls over their city. 

Selected images from Young and Free are available to collect as NFTs on Foundation. All of them are available as limited edition prints, made on Hahnemühle archival museum paper. Contact the artist for details. 

All images © Sergey Melnitchenko

The post ‘Young and Free’ Captures the Hopes and Dreams of An Emerging Generation In Ukraine appeared first on Feature Shoot.

“These people do not have to bear this situation for one day,” the photojournalist Zabed Hasnain Chowdhury, who has been documenting the lives of those affected by flooding in northern and central Bangladesh, tells me. “They endure it for months.” During that time, the floods might take everything–their homes, their animals, their crops, their food, and even clean drinking water. It happens every year, and it’s getting worse. 

Two years ago, he traveled to Bogura, Bangladesh, to tell the stories of individuals and families living amid the floods. That same month, news broke that a quarter of the country had been flooded, with flooding expected to get even more severe around the Brahmaputra River as the climate crisis worsens. The flooding affected the lives of millions of people, with dozens killed. Schools were destroyed, and houses were washed away. 

Somini Sengupta and Julfikar Ali Manik, writing at the time for The New York Times, emphasized at the time that the people suffering the most were also among those who bear the least responsibility for climate change, with the average person in Bangladesh responsible for just small a fraction of carbon emissions. Estimates suggest the average Bangladeshi emits 0.56 tons of CO2. The average American, on the other hand, emits 14.24 tons. 

Chowdhury believes the people he met agreed to be photographed so that the world could hear their stories. He listened to them recount their experiences, and he promised them the pictures would be published and seen. The photographer describes the conditions in these areas as “unbearable.” 

The government provides some help, as do aid organizations, but people are still losing their homes and struggling to feed their families. Some are losing their lives. One thing the photojournalist saw again and again while covering the floods was the determination of the people, even in the face of crushing blows: many went to great lengths to protect and care for their domestic animals.  

This year, the flooding returned, leaving more than seven million people in need of emergency aid and shelter, nearly four million people displaced, and hundreds of thousands of homes underwater. According to estimates, 17% of Bangladesh could be submerged by 2050 due to rising sea levels; if that happens, 20 million people will lose their homes. 

Chowdhury’s home city, Dhaka, has also been affected, as climate refugees from coastal areas are forced to migrate. “Because of climate change, many people have had to come to Dhaka for their livelihood,” he says. “Because of climate change, many lands cannot grow crops, and many places have become unsuitable for living. People come to Dhaka to earn and live a better life. As a result, Dhaka is beyond its capacity, and more vehicles and factories make the city more polluted.” 

The photographer doesn’t know what lies ahead for the people he met in 2020. “Some people might get an opportunity to go to another place, but most of them have been forced to live in water for months,” Chowdhury says. “This is obviously not safe, but they don’t have any other option.” In Bangladesh, the climate crisis isn’t a looming threat; it’s a daily emergency, and it’s one we can’t ignore. 

All images © Zabed Hasnain Chowdhury

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Sarah Schoenfeld exposes her film to crystal meth. Phillip Stearns shocks his film with 15,000 electrical volts. Brigette Bloom uses pee to make film soup.  Luce Lebart shows us what happens when mold grows on photographic plates. Throughout the years, we’ve featured countless artists reinventing the rules of what photography can be. Here are just a few of them.

Finding Magic in Old, Forgotten, Mold-Covered Photographic Plates

As director of the collections of the French Society of Photography, art historian Luce Lebart spends most of her time making sure the objects in her charge are preserved for generations to come. It was to her astonishment, then, that she discovered within the archives a long-forgotten box of plates that after having been exposed to flood waters, had become the breeding ground for all species of fungi. Instead of discarding the mysterious collection, she found beauty in the “destroyed” pictures, which she later published in the book Mold Is Beautiful.

Photographer Uses Bacteria Found in Jacuzzis, Adult Video Stores, and Human Orifices to Construct Celestial Images

For Cosmos, the photographer Marcus DeSieno collects various strains of bacteria and breeds them on the surface of positive film slides depicting scenes from outer space. In scanning the film after it has been partially eaten away by the bacterial colonies, he unites the microscopic organisms with the infinite galaxies, condensing all of existence within a single frame.

Heroin, Meth, LSD, Ketamine, Speed and More Captured on Film

We know what most drugs look like—at least in material form that is. But what does their matter, their breakdown, their essence look like? German photographer Sarah Schoenfeld pursued this challenging question in All You Can Feel, a series of images of various drugs that she placed onto exposed negative film and then enlarged. 

Photographer Urinates on Film to Create Surprisingly Beautiful Images

For Float On, the photographer Brigette Bloom soaks her film in urine, creating ethereal bubbles over a desert landscape in Hawaii. Before shooting, she will steep her film canister in a cup of her own pee, allowing the fluid to break down portions of the emulsion. After rinsing the canister and allowing it to dry outside for a week, she loads it into her camera and shoots. Bloom explains that each roll varies based on the time of day when the urine is collected and what she ate that particular day.

Photographer Phillip Stearns Shocks Film in ‘High Voltage Image Making’

The Brooklyn-based artist Phillip Stearns fundamentally alters the structure of color film by administering as many as 15,000 electrical volts to its surface, producing a resultant print set ablaze with woven Lichtenberg figures. Often, he introduces elements found around his house, carefully applying bleach, window cleaner, salt, alcohol or baking soda prior to the electric process, causing the emulsion to break down in ever more mysterious ways.

The post From Crystal Meth to Urine: 5 Photographers Doing Creative Things to Their Film appeared first on Feature Shoot.

We’re thrilled to announce the five photographers selected by Feature Shoot’s Founder, Alison Zavos, to be part of our group exhibition in Hyderabad as part of the Indian Photo Festival, now entering its eighth edition. The winning work was made across five continents–the United States, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Europe, using a variety of formats and media, making for a show that feels at once global and deeply personal. 

While there is no fixed theme for the show, all five winners explore, in one way or another, the meaning of home. In Japan, Takeshi Suga captures moments of nostalgia and magic, as told through the twinkling play of light across winter landscapes. Meanwhile, Oana Bakovic creates a surreal, hallucinogenic dreamscape using plants found throughout Britain. 

Traveling across the sun-baked Sahel desert in Niger, Terri Gold witnesses joy and reverie in the celebrations of the nomadic Wodaabe people. Barton Lewis captures a different kind of landscape altogether, discovering a hidden world of abstract images and found artwork, tucked away in the corners of the streets of New York. 

Not all of these stories are celebratory. In Australia, Matthew Dunne tells the haunting story of the deliberate killing of hundreds of Wedge-Tailed Eagles. For that reason, the exhibition is also tinged with loss and mourning, with Dunne’s work serving as a reminder of the fragility of our planet and the irrevocable scars we inflict on our landscapes–the same places we call home.  

Each of these five photographers was hand-selected from among Feature Shoot’s premium newsletter subscribers, who support the work we do every day. You can see the show in person in Hyderabad this fall, with the international festival running from November 18th to December 19th. Visit the IPF website for information on upcoming exhibitions, talks, workshops, and more. Read more about the winners below.

Winter Wonderland is Takeshi Suga’s exploration of nature in Japan; made on film, the photographs transport us to the borderland between dreams and reality. “Through the sequence of imagery, I seek to convey that the idea of a ‘winter wonderland,’ which was formed in the west, can also be applied to Japanese winter landscapes,” Suga writes. 

“Winter in some parts of Japan can be extremely harsh with heavy snowfall and fewer hours of sunlight than any other season, but these images of landscapes state that becalmed beauty and wonder do exist in the moments of euphoric serenity the season also offers every now and then – that is where I believe Winter Wonderland resides.”

In Desert Days, Oana Bakovic uses ambient light, flash, filters, and color grading to transform floral scenes into alien terrain. “The air was burning; bees and birds were knackered, while the flowers and plants seemed to melt into each other, displaying fragments of a paranoid world,” the artist writes. 

“My imagination took me on a wild journey to the theatrical dualities in this fantastic world. The stories and the intrigues, the music and the dance, the love and the drama, the loss and the hope.  This collection features an eclectic amalgam of native and far away flowers and plants co-existing in Britain.”

From 2015 to 2017, John Auer and Murray James Silvester poisoned and killed 406 Wedge-Tailed Eagles in Tubbut, Victoria. The Killing Sink is the photographer Matthew Dunne’s exploration of that crime and its implications. “Despite the image of Australia as home to unique and wonderful animals, we have some of the worst rates of extinction in the world,” the artist says. 

“Since colonialisation, 90 Australian species have gone extinct, and Australia has lost more biodiversity in the last 200 years than any other nation on Earth. Far from slowing, this trend is continuing to accelerate even today. The Killing Sink is a photographic/research project that examines the killing of one species, Wedge-Tailed Eagles, to tell a broader story about the environment.” 

In sublime infrared, Terri Gold tells a story of family, community, and tradition in the desert. “In the Sahel desert in Niger and Chad, the nomadic Wodaabe spend months apart, searching out pastures for their herds and shelter for their families,” she says. “When the rains are good, the clans celebrate with an extraordinary courtship ritual and beauty contest called The Gerewol, and it’s the men who are on parade. 

“The sweltering desert region of Niger seems an unlikely place to be so concerned with beauty yet it is an integral part of the Wodaabe culture. They display their beauty as a spiritual act, full of dignity and honor. Each person is an artist, and they are their art–a living canvas. The intensity rises as they dance all night in their technicolor dreamcoats, a surreal line-dance.”

“The exterior walls of buildings and construction fences serve as billboards for brands and canvases for street artists in New York City,” the photographer Barton Lewis writes. In Urban Topographies, he follows in the footsteps of Walker Evans and Aaron Siskind, whose pictures of a torn movie poster and textured walls, respectively, helped set the stage for this modern-day photographic survey. 

“Brands plaster ads across these surfaces in a form of guerilla marketing known as ‘wild posting’ or ‘wheat pasting,’” Lewis continues. “Street artists tear them to create collages, and the organic processes of decay further transform them into arresting images. My photographs capture these surfaces at a moment in time, belying their continuous evolution and fleeting existence, as posters decay and fences are dismantled.”

While Feature Shoot is free to read, one way to support us is through our paid newsletter, which includes exclusive articles, content, and opportunities. If you sign up for a yearly subscription ($99/year), you’ll also receive a free portfolio review with our Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Alison Zavos. Subscribe now.

The post Announcing the Feature Shoot Exhibition at the Indian Photo Festival 2022 appeared first on Feature Shoot.

It was a bleak February in Seattle, and it was pouring rain. Jaime Del Pizzo was about to embark on an epic journey of 5,715 miles, punctuated by sought-after vantage points and hidden treasures overlooking the Pacific. She would be making most of the journey herself, accompanied by her dog, and although she had a rough idea of the route, she didn’t know what she’d find. “I felt unsure and anxious about the unknown,” she remembers now. 

But Del Pizzo is no stranger to the unknown. For as long as she remembers, she’s been running toward challenges and obstacles rather than away from them. A passionate outdoorswoman, the artist has snowboarded countless mountains. She spent a summer abroad in New Zealand, and while working at a guest ranch in Wyoming, she devoted her time off to exploring wild hiking trails.

The photographer also happens to have been born with severe-to-profound bilateral hearing loss; she uses hearing aids and reads lips. “Being used to overcoming or failing at certain things led me to crave new ways of challenging and pushing myself,” Del Pizzo tells me. “Whether it is physically, mentally, artistically; I love the feeling of trying to do something I haven’t done before. Even if it doesn’t go perfectly, that experience makes me feel strong.”

The 5,715-mile trip this year was inspired by her longing for a “grand adventure.” She’d just bought a 2002 Nissan Pathfinder and outfitted it with a bed in the back, and although she’d driven through Baja before, she’d never done the Pacific Coast Highway. The road trip was made possible, in part, by the artist’s NFT photography sales. Later, the pictures she made on the road would also find their way to the blockchain as part of the collection 5715 Miles of Coast. Some of them are still available to collect. 

Del Pizzo spent a month making her way from Seattle to Cabo Pulmo and back, with two weeks in Mexico and the rest in the US. “I wanted to kind of take the minimal/rugged route for most of the trip, so I scoured the internet for free, primitive camp spots and places to park,” the artist says. “A lot of the spots I slept in were streets in neighborhoods.” Once she got to Baja, she headed to the beach. 

As she had many times before, Del Pizzo let her eyes guide her. While she had pinpointed specific spots she wanted to see, she also remained open to surprises. “The best part about being completely free on the open road was that I had little restrictions,” she remembers. “A lot of these photographs were taken in moments where beauty presented itself and caught my eye.”

The photographer, like many others, prefers to shoot around the golden and blue hours at the beginning and end of the day, but she pushed herself to shoot in all weather and light during this month-long journey. Some of the pictures she created in the harsh, midday sun; in a few, you can see the ghost of a daytime moon. 

At the Sea of Cortez in Baja, known for its calm waters and pink hills, she watched the sky turn violet at twilight. She felt waves so thunderous they made the ground shake. On a sunny day, cacti appeared to be undulating before her–a mirage caused by the heat. One night, she caught the shadow of a coyote moving just outside her camp. She shook in the presence of massive humpback whales. 

“I think my hearing loss plays a very large role in how I see the world,” Del Pizzo reflects. “I think part of it is just the psychological differences of being born with one ‘less’ sense. The other part is how my body and mind make up for not being able to utilize that sense fully. To survive and adapt in this world, I am using my eyes much more than the average person. Because of that, I think perhaps I also see things that other people may not.” 

The first picture in the 5715 Miles of Coast collection* was made early in the trip, during Del Pizzo’s second day on the road, when she was still feeling nervous and uncertain. “As I eventually reached the furthest South in Oregon–where I’d never driven before– the sky became fully clear after a day of rain,” she tells me. “The sun was starting to set, and I rounded a curve in the road that opened up to the stunning Oregon coast. With the waves backlit by the sun and the rock formations lit in brilliant golden hues, I immediately pulled over.  It was the first moment on this trip where I felt like I was exactly where I should be.”

Browse (and collect!) photographs from 5715 Miles of Coast here.

*This first image can be found at the top of this story.

All images © Jaime Del Pizzo

The post How One Photographer’s Hearing Loss Encouraged Her to See the World Differently appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Prints for Wildlife, now in its third year, is now open! 100% of the proceeds after printing and handling will go to African Parks, in support of the non-profit conservation organization’s mission to protect 30 parks by 2030. Prints are available through September 25th only, in limited editions of 100. 

In the North of Akagera National Park in Rwanda, the photographer Marion Payr, who is also the co-founder of the Prints for Wildlife fundraiser, watched giraffes and zebras roam the vast plains and savannahs. In the South, she fell asleep to the sounds of hippos feeding. Akagera is the only Big 5 Park in the country, a safe haven for elephants, lions, leopards, rhinos, and buffalos. On Lake Ihema, you can find crocodiles basking in the sun while listening to the call of cormorants. 

But it wasn’t always the magical place it is today. More than twenty years ago, Akagera was devastated by the Rwandan genocide; during this time, the lions were exterminated, and the rhinos disappeared. At one point, poaching snares numbered in the thousands. 

The rehabilitation of Akagera comes down to the tireless efforts of the Rwandan government and the non-profit organization African Parks, who have been managing the park since 2010. Lions, black rhinos, and white rhinos were reintroduced in 2015, 2017 and 2019, and 2021, respectively. The park provides direct support for 300,000 people.  

Now, African Parks is currently in discussions with governments across the continent to preserve extraordinary and irreplaceable places and support the local communities that care for them. Right now, 22 parks fall under their management–including forests like Nyungwe National Park in Rwanda, which they have managed since 2020. Nyungwe is one of the country’s oldest rainforests, home to a quarter of Africa’s primate species and more than 322 recorded bird species. 

The organization’s goal is to reach 30 parks by 2030, with the next few years being critical for conservation and the mitigation of climate change. Estimates place the standing carbon in African Parks’ current portfolio at half a billion tons. 

Prints for Wildlife, which has supported African Parks since 2020, is an unprecedented fundraiser bringing together the work of more than 130 photographers in 2022, with more than 220 having participated over the last three years. In 2020 and 2021, they raised a combined $1.75 million, with 100% of the proceeds after printing and handling directly donated to African Parks. This year, the limited fine art prints are available for just $100 through September 25th only.

Featuring internationally renowned photographers, Prints for Wildlife 2022 includes once-in-a-lifetime pictures from around the continent, featuring cheetahs and flamingos in Kenya, hippos in Zimbabwe, elephants in Malawi, zebras and rhinos in Tanzania, lions in Zambia, gorillas in the Republic of Congo, leopards in Botswana, oryx in Namibia, and a pangolin (the world’s most-trafficked animal) in South Africa–to name just a few. 

This year’s collection is a stunning testament to our planet’s biodiversity–with photographers introducing us to orangutans in Indonesia, tigers in India, Arabian oryx in Dubai, and bears in Slovenia. You can find manta rays in Western Australia, dolphins in New Zealand, sperm whales in Dominica, hammerhead sharks in the Bahamas, and sea lions from Mexico. Plus, bison in Yellowstone, foxes in Alaska, and horses in Utah. Elsewhere, you’ll discover polar bears in the frozen landscapes of Norway and penguins from Antarctica. 

Each year, the two founders of Prints for Wildlife, Marion Payr and Pie Aerts, each donate a photograph of their own. For 2022, Payr chose a picture she made while visiting Rwanda’s Akagera National Park with African Parks. Six individual Masai Giraffes, an endangered species, were first introduced to the park in 1986. A survey from March of this year revealed that there are now more than 100 individuals living in the park. In Payr’s portrait,* a mother giraffe nuzzles her child–a new addition to the growing population.  

Every print is available in an edition of 100. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever, so grab yours today. Follow Prints for Wildlife at @printsforwildlife on Instagram, and sign up for their newsletter for updates. *Find Payr’s photo third from the top of this story, above.

The post More Than 100 Photographers Are Making a Significant Difference for Wildlife. Here’s How You Can Help.  appeared first on Feature Shoot.

“The first time I saw Nemo’s Garden in real life, the biospheres looked like small space ships,” Giacomo d’Orlando tells me. “It felt like I had gone to another planet.” In reality, d’Orlando was very close to home, right off the coast of Noli in Italy. 

Nemo’s Garden is an underwater farm consisting of several pods, each floating anywhere from sixteen to thirty-six feet below the surface. Inside these air-filled “bubbles,” you can find fresh basil, veggies, berries, and even flowers. All around, you can see marine wildlife peacefully coexisting with these futuristic structures. 

The photographer happened upon this underwater farm while conducting research relating to climate change and the environment. It was late 2020, amid pandemic lockdowns, and he longed for a story that could provide a glimmer of hope for the future. When he found Nemo’s Garden, he knew immediately that he’d found it. “An underwater system of greenhouses, which grows terrestrial plants, so it is not something that you find every day,” he says. 

The idea for the garden started with Sergio Gamberini, the president of the diving equipment firm Ocean Reef Group. He was motivated, in part, by the fact that agriculture accounts for 70% of worldwide water use; as water scarcity grows from a looming threat to a global emergency, the hope is that this kind of system could be used to produce food in areas that are otherwise unsuitable for planting. Nemo’s Garden is entirely self-sustainable, using the sun and the freshwater it naturally produces through condensation.

When d’Orlando reached out to the team at Ocean Reef Group about documenting their work, they were instantly on board; the photojournalist describes the process as a collaboration every step of the way. Before embarking on the project, though, he first needed to master the art of diving for himself. “I have to be honest: learning how to dive and at the same time how to take underwater pictures was certainly not easy, especially in a short period of time,” he admits. “Underwater, everything is different: the way you move, the way you feel, the way you see things, and, of course, the way you take pictures.” 

But with every trip underwater, his confidence grew. At one point, he got the chance to taste the basil grown inside Nemo’s Garden; he says the flavor of just one leaf was so powerful he felt like he’d tasted the entire plant. Research indicates that the plants produced in the garden also have a slightly different chemical makeup, and the implications of that finding are vast. “The plants grown in these biospheres are richer in polyphenols and essential oils compared to plants cultivated on land,” d’Orlando explains. “This could be extremely beneficial in the pharmaceutical world.”

The photographer spent seven months covering life at Nemo’s Garden, and he was inspired time and again by the team, led by Sergio Gamberini and his son Luca. As the climate crisis grows increasingly urgent, he remains steadfastly committed to discovering the (often overlooked) stories of those who are making a positive difference. “Finding people who don’t give up in the face of challenges brought by climate change–but instead devote themselves to finding new solutions for our future–makes me more hopeful,” he says. 

Last year, d’Orlando’s work at Nemo’s Garden was recognized as part of the Sustainable Cities category at the annual Environmental Photographer of the Year (EPOTY) competition, encouraging people around the world to learn more about this singular project taking place off the coast of Noli. The pictures do it justice, but the photographer says nothing compares to visiting in person. He’ll never forget the first time he entered biosphere; it was, in a word, otherworldly. He remembers, “Being able to breathe normally underwater without an oxygen tank was just unbelievable.”

The Environmental Photographer of the Year competition is now in its fifteenth edition. D’Orlando will be participating again this year, and photographers around the world are invited to submit. The deadline for applications is August 31st. You can follow Giacomo d’Orlando and his work on Instagram at @giacomo_dorlando, and you can check out Nemo’s Garden at @nemos_garden_official. 

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In a village in Khost Province, Afghanistan, you’ll find a community garden, run by a group of brothers and their cousin. There’s a board there that reads, “You can take a flower, but you have to share a cup of tea.” In the district of Tani, where the brothers live, it’s tradition for men to tuck flowers into their Pakol hats. Last September, and then again in the spring, the photojournalist Oriane Zerah spent the day with the brothers. She photographed the brothers in their hats, and she stayed for a meal.

Now, one of her portraits from the pink and turquoise house belonging to Batshazullah, the cousin of the brothers, in Khost Province is part of a photography print and NFT sale, organized by ISHKAR. All of the proceeds will go to EMERGENCY, an organization providing free and high-quality healthcare to survivors of war, poverty, and landmines, and their hospitals in Afghanistan. Every minute, a patient receives care through EMERGENCY. 

Last year, ISHKAR raised $123,000 for the cause. This year, Zerah is one of nineteen leading photographers who have donated their work. The 2022 print sale comes in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake; the deadliest in twenty years, the earthquake killed at least 1,150 people and wounded at least 1,500. Medical professionals were among the victims. The sale is open through the end of the month, offering one-time prices for an extraordinary collection of images ($85 for prints). 

Not all the photographs included in the sale were made in Afghanistan, but many were. Some paint a nuanced portrait of the country’s (very) recent history. Andrew Quilty, while documenting America’s final days in Afghanistan, bears witness as evacuees try to enter Hamid Karzai International Airport amid the Taliban’s taking of Kabul one year ago. Elise Blanchard covers demonstrations in Kabul, as women and girls advocate for the reopening of a girl’s secondary school, this spring. 

At the same time, the collection focuses on the rhythms of ordinary, everyday life, which somehow persists and triumphs amid ever-changing circumstances. In 2002, Steve McCurry photographed a horse at the Band-i-Amir lakes, an azure oasis set between idyllic cliffsides. A decade later, Matthieu Paley traveled to Chaqmaqtin lake in winter. There, he met members of the Kyrgz nomadic community, taking in the view of their yaks grazing against the towering Pamir mountains. 

Beyond the beauty of the landscape itself, there’s also joy–much joy–to be found within some of these pictures. In one, Farshad Usyan takes us to the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif, where he was born and raised. There, he watched as children played on an ice cream cart, cast in silhouette by the setting sun. Its title: Splendid Sunset. 

The ISHKAR EMERGENCY PRINT SALE 2022 is open through August 31st. Be sure to explore the full collection here. The print sale coincides with an additional NFT sale, featuring photographs by Matthieu Paley, Blockbird, and Michael Christopher Brown. You can make a donation to EMERGENCY’s projects across Afghanistan here. 

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“I came across this abandoned house in the Central Valley of California,” the fine art photographer Lisa Levine tells me. “It’s a very small, humble, and unassuming house with peeling paint and boarded-up windows and door, with a banner on it that says ‘HOUSE’ draped across the front. A house that shows no signs of its inhabitants is simply a house, not a home, just as the banner reads.” 

The abandoned house lingered in her memory and followed her home. She soon returned to the photos she’d taken there, removing that house from its real-life surroundings and placing it in a lush and verdant landscape. The landscape also exists in real life, though she’s changed its context. She’s since lifted many existing houses and relocated them someplace else, as part of her series Virtually No Place Like Home, an ongoing investigation into the meaning of home. 

Levine grew up in New York City; though she lived in apartments during her early years, she often biked through neighborhoods with single-family houses. “These houses always fascinated me with their widely varying architectural styles, color, landscaping, and other forms of decoration,” she says now. “I was especially attracted to homes that displayed statues, particularly those relating to religion. The display of saints and icons seemed to me to be something very personal made public.”

After moving to California as an adult, she continued to photograph homes with statues, religious icons, and decorations that spoke to the inner worlds of the people who lived there. “There was one house that initially sparked my interest,” Levine remembers. “It’s a very small house with a high iron fence going all around it, located near my Oakland studio. It has only about four feet of distance between the house and the fence, and in this small area, there were numerous Christmas decorations packed closely together.” 

In her imagination, and later in her studio, she picked up the house and moved it. “I thought that it would be interesting to see this house, with such limited space within the fenced-in area, in a wide-open landscape,” she says. “It seemed to make a certain amount of sense in a rough Oakland neighborhood, but how would it read in a desolate, open landscape?  That question and that house are where I began this series.” 

At the same time, Levine was orienting herself within that very landscape. “When I first moved to California from New York and traveled through the Central Valley I was, quite frankly, horrified by the landscape,” she admits. “This landscape was that of corporate farms stretching as far as you can see with no signs of human inhabitants anywhere. And where there was no farming, there was simply brownish-gray wasteland. 

“I was used to the bucolic farmlands of upstate NY with small houses and barns dotting the green hillsides. Traveling through the Central Valley, I might as well have been on the moon. And the signs of the seasons were totally reversed; it was green in the winter and brown in the summer.  

“I have since, however, come to love this ‘barren-scape’ and I’ve sought out these types of landscapes in other Western states as well.  I’ve come to love the golden brown color of the dry land against the expansive blue of sky. I have returned to this type of landscape time and again because it is so foreign and fascinating to me, even after living in the West for several decades.” 

Virtually No Place Like Home intentionally blurs the line between fact and fiction. At first glance, Levine wants us to believe, but she also wants us to take a second look and realize that something isn’t quite “right.” This idea of the uncanny is something she sees throughout photography today, beginning with the highly edited, endlessly perfected “selfies” we share online. 

It feels appropriate that collectors can purchase the photographs as traditional physical prints–archival pigment prints on photo rag–and as NFTs, digital assets stored on the blockchain. As in the images themselves, the artist’s choice to release both further probes at the boundaries between the “real” world and the virtual one, questioning our ability to distinguish between the two as they evolve and overlap. 

The process of creating a convincing illusion requires hours if not days. “My process begins with photographing houses and landscapes separately,” Levine says. “I have quite an archive of these images. I also photograph objects such as statuary, banners, signs, and discarded items that I see outside people’s homes. In post-processing, many of these objects, landscapes, and homes get recombined. I also often change or enhance the color of the houses I’ve photographed.”

During the pandemic, her understanding of the series shifted. As she sheltered in place, her mind turned back to the question at the heart of these images: What separates a house from a home? “The solitary houses and expansive landscapes began to speak of physical and social isolation; both the safety and comfort and the loneliness and exile of home,” she reflects. “I felt there was a new sense of urgency in using the home’s exterior to show who lived within and what was important to them. 

“I saw many new manifestations of this need to share and express these concerns in the homes I encountered during this period. The 2020 ‘Shelter in Place’ holiday season was the impetus for a new series, Virtually No Place Like Home (for the Holidays). During that holiday season, the desire to bring light into the darkest of times was particularly evident. I noticed that many peoples’ holiday decorations were more elaborate than in years past, and many people left their decorations up well beyond the end of the holiday season.” 

In some of her more recent images, Levine has started to construct entirely new, make-believe houses using elements pulled from various buildings. Here and there, she’s even incorporated bits and pieces of her own house, though it’s impossible to tell where any of the foundationa components originated. Truthfully, though, she’s always been more interested in strangers’ houses, with all their hidden implications. She tells me, “I aggregate other peoples’ stories and make them partially mine as well.” 

Lisa Levine has an exhibition opening on October 20th at the Dortort Center for Creativity in the Arts at University of California Los Angeles Hillel.

All images © Lisa Levine

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Argus Paul Estabrook documents his father’s battle with pancreatic cancer. Erik Simander captures his grandfather’s grief after losing his wife. Jackie Dives creates double exposures in her father’s memory. In different ways, these seven photographers navigate the uncharted waters of mourning, tracing stories of love and loss.

One Son’s Photos of the Life and Death of His Mother

When Dorothy Friedman was sick, her son, the photographer James Friedman, visited her. Over the last eight months of her life, he saw her every single day, either in the nursing home or in the hospital. As she always had, since he was just a young kid with a camera, she allowed him to take her picture.

The Death of a Parent, Captured in Photos

The photographer Argus Paul Estabrook remembers his mother calling him from the hospital, and he remembers flying from Seoul to be with his family in the United States. But much of his father’s battle with pancreatic cancer remains a blur. By the time he was diagnosed, it had already reached Stage 4, and when it was all said and done, Estabrook‘s father would live for only three more weeks. This Is Not an Exit is one artist’s recounting of his father’s illness and its aftermath.

One Man Photographs His Grandfather’s Battle with Cancer

Gary became his grandson Karen Khachaturov’s muse the day he learned had bladder cancer. “He was diagnosed in 2017,” the Armenian photographer remembers. “It was pretty shocking for everyone.” Over the span of a month, the two of them worked together to create a series of playful and uncanny images, with Gary in the starring role. Despite the shock, or perhaps because of it, Khachaturov and his grandfather immersed themselves in a candy-coated dreamworld of their own creation.

Bittersweet Photos by a Man Grieving His Partner’s Death

The photographer Andrew A. Amundsen moved to his attic loft apartment abruptly after the death of his girlfriend and muse, a woman named Laurie with whom he had shared twelve years. In the days following, he turned to his immediate surroundings, peering out the window skylights of his new home and taking pictures of what he saw. 

After Her Father’s Death, a Photographer Explores Grief

Following her father’s passing, the photographer Jackie Dives started making double exposures on film–mirroring her experience with grief and the fracturing effect it had on her everyday life. “Creating double exposures was the perfect way to express my confused, messy, contradicting, and fraught feelings,” Dives explains.

One Grandson’s Poetic Photos of His Widowed Grandfather

The photographer Erik Simander helped take care of his grandfather in the wake of his grandmother’s death: he attended doctor’s appointments and made sure he had a coat to keep him warm in the bitter Swedish winter. He also photographed Harald, with his permission, as he went about daily life, on his own for the first time in decades.

Harald died about thirteen months after Hjordis did. The pictures Simander made during that time are a testament to their love and to his grief, but they’ve also become a way for a grandson to hold on to pieces of his grandfather now that he’s gone. “I can look at the photographs knowing what a great man he was,” the artist says.

Using Instagram to Cope with Grief, a Photographer Creates a Poignant Tribute to Her Mother’s Life

Left Behind is a beautiful still life and archival photo series by photographer Jennifer Loeber that touches on memory, love, loss, and grief. After her mother’s sudden passing, “I found myself deeply overwhelmed by the need to keep even the most mundane of my Mom’s belongings,” Loeber says. Through photography, she was eventually able to find emotional release. 

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