“As I made these images, I was becoming aware that my body was remembering what it had gone through and was going through,” the photographer Veronica Cruz tells me. “But I was also learning that it was okay to let it out and feel all of this without shame and without feeling like I had to hide it.” In Little Earthquakes, the artist navigates childhood trauma through photography.

Cruz was raped as a child; she does not know when it started, but it continued until she was eight. At the age of twelve, she had emergency brain surgery and was hospitalized due to an AVM, an abnormal connection between the arteries and veins in her brain. “There was one moment when I went from having fun being a kid to having an hour left to live,” the artist says. She remembers that particular moment vividly, in slow motion. Other moments she can’t remember at all. 

Little Earthquakes is a work-in-progress, following the artist as she revisits the past and copes with the ongoing tremors reverberating in the aftermath of trauma. Early in the process, she was encouraged by a conversation with a friend, who is also a survivor. “It was the first time I didn’t feel alone,” she remembers now. 

With the support of friends and family—her mother and grandmother—she continued making photographs and writing about her experiences. “The friend I shared my story with would remind me that none of it was my fault,” Cruz says. “I was so used to the traditional ways of thinking: ‘what happened in the past stays in the past, now just move on.’ But I understood that’s just not how it works, especially with such trauma.”

For one of the photographs, Cruz returned to the house where she was raped. Some were made in the hospital. Most of the photographs were created in and around the artist’s home, with the light itself becoming a recurring figure. While navigating PTSD, the artist had flashbacks and intrusive memories involving light.

“One of the things I kept seeing was the light from his window onto the bed,” she explains. “Other times, it almost seemed like I could feel the light on my face. Any time I saw a certain light, usually in the morning—for the times I woke up in his bed or the light when the sun was setting, for the times I try not to remember—I started photographing.”

While the rays of light carry the weight of the past, I can’t help but think that perhaps they also contain another layer of meaning, calling to mind the idea of bringing the truth “out of the shadows” and “into the light.” In that way, the shafts of sunlight that appear throughout Little Earthquakes become like a refrain—a recurring reminder these things happened and cannot be relegated to darkness. 

Cruz remembers the harsh hospital lighting too. After immediate surgery at the age of twelve, she was hospitalized for two weeks. For four months after that, she was an inpatient at a rehabilitation program. “I couldn’t eat/drink, talk, or breathe on my own for some time and had to relearn it all,” she explains.

“I was scared all the time. I live with the haunting memories of what I’ve seen at rehab—one being another kid, burned head to toe. Another where my friend was dying. Another where my friend who had an AVM did die even after things were going so well.”

She grappled with anger and confusion over the fact that she hadn’t died herself—and the unbearable fear that she would. She wanted to live. At fourteen, she had her first seizure. More seizures, tests, and procedures followed. She remembers crying in the CAT scan machine, thinking they’d find something fatal: “I really thought I’d end up dying.”

“It will have been eleven years on March 30th,” the artist reflects. “I am still navigating a world that isn’t as disability friendly, and I still am, and possibly will forever have to deal with a mostly paralyzed arm (left) and a weaker leg (left).”

Cruz grew up Catholic, so religious iconography naturally and organically made its way into the work, bringing with it a sense of ambivalence. On one hand, there’s anger and uncertainty—sparked by the question that if God exists, how was this allowed to happen? Why wasn’t she protected? At the same time, though, these religious motifs speak to a sense of hope and faith in the face of unbearable pain.

Cruz knows that other survivors will see her work. “I want them to know that it is not easy, but that they can do it,” she tells me. “They can push through and move forward. What has happened or is happening doesn’t define them. This is where you grow and become stronger because we are the ones who understand life better than most. It will be a rollercoaster, but know that you are not alone. It truly is one step at a time, one day at a time. To survivors of assault, it was never your fault.”

In some ways, the photographs represent an acknowledgment of the artist’s younger self—seen literally in an old family picture, where she’s bundled in a pink coat, and figuratively in an empty swing, swaying gently on a snowy evening. The past and present collide and overlap. Each time the artist herself appears throughout Little Earthquakes, whether she’s gazing directly at the camera or cradling her body, she reinforces the simple fact of her survival: she’s still here.  

In the early stages of making this work, Cruz experienced a pervasive sense of numbness, accompanied by loneliness. Revisiting trauma through photography was not immediately cathartic, and in the beginning, it did not feel healing. It just felt terrifying and exhausting, causing her to dissociate. But with the support of friends, family, and professors, she slowly started to feel less alone. The numbness dissipated. Right now, she sees the work continuing indefinitely and possibly forever. 

“I think the only time this project could end is when I feel like I no longer have to protect and heal the inner child inside of me,” the artist says. “While making this work, I was starting to learn more about myself, and I became less ashamed to say that I wasn’t doing okay or admit I was scared. The moment it became cathartic was during certain times when creating. I found myself crying during the process or after. I was becoming aware there was the eight-year-old girl and twelve-year-old in me, finally starting to release what I never felt I could.”

All images © Veronica Cruz

• Read this next: we recently interviewed Izabela Jurcewicz, a rare tumor survivor navigating trauma through photography. 

The post A Survivor Navigates Childhood Trauma Through Photography appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Over 7 years, Polly Penrose created a series of dynamic self-portraits that examine a her changing body. Matthew Morrocco sat for sun-drenched portraits with older gay men he met online. Viktória Kollerová dives headlong into the murky corners of the human psyche. Plus, the great Francesca Woodman addresses themes such as gender, representation, corporality, and sexuality. Six photographers, each with a different perspective, bare all through self-portrait photography.

Viktória Kollerová’s mysterious self-portraits take us to remote landscapes across Slovakia and Portugal. 

“Kollerov ashoots in black and white, and her primary subject is her own body. She finds ambiguous, impenetrable locations in various states of decay and weaves through them like a serpent.“

Matthew Morrocco’s intimate self-portrait photography was made in collaboration with older gay men, who shared their stories with him.

“Morocco embarked on what would become Complicit, a collection of self-portrait photography and portraits of older men, when he was in his early twenties. At the time, he wanted the photographs to ‘feel like falling in love for the first time.’ It’s now ten years later, and the pictures never left him. “

 Polly Penrose’s photographs of her nude body capture milestones in her life over the course of several years.

“Each of Penrose’s portraits is a reaction to how the body can ‘fit in’ a physical space. Often, Penrose has never seen the location before, and she never enters a space with a concrete idea. Open to unrehearsed experimentation, each image tests her stamina.”

For Francesca Woodman, photography was ultimately a means of self-expression. When she passed away, she left behind 800 works.

“Woodman’s photos represent a legacy and stand as a testament to her artistic vision and her remarkable eye for composition, light, and shade.”

Artem Humilevskyi’s photography captures his journey to self-acceptance.

“‘I’ve received hundreds of letters from people who suffer from their own insecurities,’ Humilevskyi reflects. ‘And it’s not just fat people–it can be any kind of insecurity.’ Many have found in his work an invitation to express themselves more freely, live more fully, and accept themselves for who they are. “I did not expect my project to become so important to so many people,’ he says.”

For her dreamy self-portrait photography, Noriko Yabu submerged herself underwater.

“In each image, Yabu recreates herself time and again—she is an island, she is Ophelia floating in the riverbed—and her body, her expressions, her hair, all obfuscated and turned into a mosaic of brushstrokes, reminds us of the element and ‘home’ in which all mammals, including ourselves, started out.”

The post 6 Artists Get Vulnerable Through Self-Portrait Photography appeared first on Feature Shoot.

In response to the devastating earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria starting in the early morning hours of February 6th, 200 photographers have come together for a ten-day print sale fundraiser, SIX.TWO Editions. The campaign is led by a group of artists based in the US who have ties to Turkey. Dozens of today’s leading voices have contributed prints to this print sale fundraiser for earthquake relief. 

As of this writing, the death toll in the aftermath of the earthquakes has risen to more than 54,000. Millions of people have been displaced, with many seeking emergency shelter in tents or container housing. 

The organizers of SIX.TWO Editions—Ebru Yildiz, Civan Özkanoglu, Devin Yalkin, Mitchell King, and Yeliz Secerli—have channeled their grief and an initial sense of powerlessness into action. After contacting more photographers, the roster grew to include hundreds. 

The participating photographers chose the prints themselves, so each selection carries personal meaning to that artist. Perhaps one common thread woven throughout the collection is a sense of hope, as told through portraits of children, people in motion, and birds in flight. In a photograph by Carolyn Drake, Çagan Sekercioglu, a conservation ecologist, is just about to release a Red-backed Shrike at a bird-banding station at a small village in Turkey. Elsewhere, Devin Oktar Yalkin and Paolo Pellegrin photograph birds soaring through endless skies. 

The creators of SIX.TWO Editions were inspired, in part, by two recent fundraising efforts: Pictures for Elmhurst, which raised $1.38 million for Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens at the start of the Covid crisis, and States of Change, which raised funds to fight voter suppression in 2020. Once they started reaching out to friends and colleagues, the campaign started to take shape. 

SIX.TWO Editions has partnered with Turkish Philanthropy Funds (TPF) to distribute funds to NGOs working on the ground in areas affected by the earthquakes. The list of organizations can be found via the SIX.TWO Editions website, and additional organizations could be added in the coming days. 

All prints included in the SIX.TWO Editions print sale fundraiser for earthquake relief are available for just ten days, with the sale closing on March 20th at midnight EST. Each is priced at just $150. Light Work will be producing the prints, sized at 10×12”. Shipping is available worldwide, so order your prints and show your support today!

The post 200+ Artists Join Print Sale Fundraiser for Earthquake Relief appeared first on Feature Shoot.

In this roundup of 1960s photography, Terence Donovan and Kenneth Graves document SF’s Bay Area, home to members of the Beat Generation and the Haight-Ashbury hippies. Leni Sinclair enters Detroit’s radical political and cultural scene, while Sylvan Rand hits the road with a gay motorcycle club. Shirley Baker discovers magic in the oft-forgotten Manchester and Salford slums.

Plus, one photographer created Esquire’s iconic covers featuring Muhammad Ali, JFK, and Andy Warhol–but you might not have heard his name.

Terence Donovan‘s 1960s photography came to define a time remembered for sex, frocks, and rock & roll.

“Donovan came to the forefront of fashion photography just as the glossies became a pop-culture phenomenon, dictating possibilities for fashion and beauty. Donovan’s noirish photographs offered moments of drama and repose, feeding youth fantasies about the ever-growing culture of self.”

Sylvan Rand captures the beauty of life and adventure in a gay motorcycle club.

“It was a sunny weekend in 1967 when photographer Rand hopped on the back of his friend’s motorcycle and headed for a sequestered farm in the New Jersey countryside. As the hours passed in a haze of food, cigarettes, love, and bikes, he joined in the festivities of an unofficial motorcycle run, where gay men gathered to enjoy each other’s company in an insulated, utopian setting.”

Leni Sinclair paints a vivid portrait of radical Detroit in her 1960s photography.

“’Study history, don’t forget about the repression: the McCarthy era, the Nixon era, and the war in Vietnam,’ Sinclair says. ‘The same things are still happening today. Like Jesse Crawford used to preach at the MC5 concerts, ‘You either part of the problem or you are part of the solution.’”

Shirley Baker documents life in neighborhoods that no longer exist in her 1960s photography.

“In the 1960s and the two decades following, the streets of the Manchester slums became like a home away from home for Baker. There was little space to make a home and none for children to play, and yet youngsters spilled out into the streets in groups to congregate and frolic about with their toys.”

Kenneth Graves captures humor and strangeness in 1960s-70s America.

“Focusing on his immediate surroundings, Graves covered San Francisco’s Bay Area, home to members of the Beat Generation and the Haight-Ashbury hippie folk, walking the streets much like Garry Winogrand was doing in New York, capturing intrinsically American scenes.”

Meet Carl Fisher, the man who photographed some of the most recognizable magazine covers of all time.

“Back then, Esquire covers weren’t just images; they were statements geared toward titillating and provoking.”

The post 1960s Photography, Featuring Andy Warhol, Sophia Loren, & More appeared first on Feature Shoot.

“We learn of the gender disparity from our real-world experience,” Briar Pacey, the producer and co-founder of Women’s Work in New Zealand, tells me. “I was never shooting the massive campaigns with women photographers. It was always men. It’s important to draw attention when you see that bias play out in real-time in your industry.” Women’s Work, a collective of women and non-binary photographers, is doing just that through an advertising campaign running on billboards across Wellington and Auckland. 

Created in collaboration with Ogilvy NZ and the outdoor ad brand Lumo, the campaign features photographs by members of Women’s Work, overlaid with text about the gender disparity across the ad industry. Kristal Knight, the executive creative director at Ogilvy NZ, shares these numbers: while women influence more than 85% of consumer goods purchases, the percentage of ad images shot by women sits at less than 20%. 

(Another figure, this time from Jill Greenberg, who founded the Alreadymade platform for women photographers in 2018, puts that number at less than 10%, based on research of advertising agency output.)

“We can see on the rosters of agents around the world that there are fewer women represented than men, and we know that this translates into fewer commissions and fewer large-scale campaigns that are being shot by women,” Victoria Baldwin, the founder of Women’s Work, tells us. The collective regularly shares resources for women and non-binary photography professionals, including organizations working to foster equality and bridge those gaps. 

The current campaign coincides with Women’s Work’s fourth annual exhibition in Auckland, titled The Shape of Things. “We have a number of avenues for people to engage with the work though live shoots, an assistant workshop, and artist talks,” Baldwin shares. “For the first time this year, we have also included works of emerging photographers shown on beautiful screens provided by Sony.” The show will be on view until March 12th. 

In recent years, sexism in advertising has come under closer scrutiny: in the UK, for example, ads that perpetuate gender stereotypes were banned in 2019. That same year, one billboard ad for an air conditioning company, which featured the line “your wife is hot!” drew criticism for that reason.  

In many ways, the choice of location for the outdoor ad campaign feels deliberate and meaningful. The fact that these new images—all made by Women’s Work members—have taken over the traditionally male-dominated space of commercial billboards gives the campaign another layer of significance. Women in advertising photography should have a role in every stage of the creative process, from the mood board to the finished product. 

“We each hold a little bit of power in our hands, whether you’re a suit, a creative, or a producer,” Baldwin explains. “The people we choose to work on projects can have huge effects on the outcomes. We are all learning the nuance of our bias and trying to assess our thought processes to see how we can wield that tiny bit of power for a more inclusive and authentic storytelling process. 

“We love to see agencies including women in every pitch; simply by doing this, they have the opportunity to engage in the process and learn that little bit more. The next step, of course, is seeking out female and non-binary talent and hiring them.”

You can learn more about Women’s Work and the work they’re doing for women in advertising photography by visiting their website. 

Credits: 

Ogilvy NZ

CEO: Kelly-Ann Maxwell

Managing Partner: Megan Clark Cook

Executive Creative Director: Kristal Knight

Senior Art Director: Glenn Chapman

Senior Art Director: Diana Winter

Resource Manager: Ellie Walker-Huizing

Studio: Ian Wood 

Women’s Work

Founder/Producer: Briar Pacey

Founder/Photographer ‘Car ads’: Victoria Baldwin

Photographer ‘Fashion’: Mara Sommer

Photographer ‘Activewear’: Michelle Hyslop

Photographer ‘Women in sport (beam)’: Sacha Stejko

Photographer ‘Women in sport (rock climber) / ‘Holidays’: Virginia Woolf

Lumo:

Chief Marketing Officer: Hamish Smith

GM – Programmatic: Jack Plowright

Further reading on women in advertising photography and beyond:

A Stunning Exhibition of Powerful Photos of Women

Exploring Black Masculinity Through the Lens of Black Women and Non-Binary Artists

40 Subversive Female Photographers Who Capture Women in a New Way

The post Women in Advertising Photography Work to Close the Gender Gap appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Americans are holding onto $650 billion worth of unused devices. That’s according to a recent survey from MPB, the world’s largest platform for used photo and video gear. US adults ages 18 to 34, on average, own $3,691 worth of tech they don’t use. With these figures in mind, MPB makes it easy for photographers to sell their old gear and upgrade to something new. 

MPB first caught our attention because of their circular business model and commitment to environmental sustainability, but just as significant is the fact that they’re helping to make the industry more accessible, inclusive, and affordable to all. 

Consider this: The New York Times’ Wirecutter recently chose the Fujifilm X-T4 as their top pick of mirrorless cameras for serious photographers. A new Fujifilm X-T4 will set you back more than $2,000, but you can grab one for a little over $1,000 at MPB. 

MPB recirculates an estimated 400,000 used items annually. In 2022, the most frequent cameras sold by photographers to MPB included the Sony a6000 and a7 III; the Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Mark IV, and Mark II; the Nikon D750; the Canon 80D and Canon EOS R; and the Fujifilm X-T3 and T4. On average, people who sell their gear to MPB earn $900 every time they do so.

MPB makes selling your gear exceedingly simple. You enter the item you want to sell—say, a Canon 5D Mark IV DSLR in excellent condition—and they’ll give you a free estimate in seconds, delivered straight to your email. I found myself using that quote tool over and over again and was surprised by just how much you can earn on the platform. 

If you sell that Mark IV to MPB, for example, you’ll get $840. Add in a Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM lens for another $530. You can keep that $1,370, or you can put it toward buying a Canon R6 mirrorless camera (or anything else you want) on MPB. When you trade your gear, you get free shipping as well. 

MPB is built for photographers who want to upgrade their camera gear without the hassle of selling items themselves. It’s important to make a distinction between MPB and a traditional online “marketplace”: unlike on a marketplace, you’re not selling your gear to random people. You’re selling it to the pros at MPB, who will then list it for sale on their site. 

All you have to do is book a time for free, contactless doorstep pickup, and they’ll take it from there. Their streamlined quoting process means you never have to deal with lowball offers or sell your equipment for less than it’s worth. 

Everything is handled safely and securely, with MPB photographing your gear and shipping it to its new owner. If you need any help throughout the process, MPB’s customer service team is very responsive.

Right now, we’re in the midst of a second-hand “gold rush”: the apparel resale market, for instance, is expected to grow 16 times faster than the non-resale market over the next four years. As we ditch fast fashion in favor of more sustainable and affordable options, brands like MPB are also inspiring us to reevaluate how we buy and sell camera gear. 

While MPB is home to all of the most popular digital gear of 2023—at price points for everyone—it’s also a treasure trove of unique and special items. For example, right this moment, they have a Leica M10-P Ghost Edition (each of these cameras is engraved and individually numbered); an 800mm f/5.6 lens from Nikon, available for less than half the price of a new one; and an f/0.95 lens capable of producing spectacular bokeh. 

A little while back, I was delighted to see the famous “Green Giant”—the Sigma 200-500mm f/2.8 lens—pass through MPB’s hands. It’s the only 500mm f/2.8 lens in existence. What a find!

Get started selling, trading, and upgrading your camera gear with MPB today.

This article was sponsored by MPB.

The post MPB Can Help You Earn Money & Upgrade Your Camera Gear appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Tyre D. Nichols loved photographing sunsets. In one of his artworks, now on view as part of an outdoor installation of his photography at Desert X in California, he captured the sun just an instant before it touched the horizon; in the foreground, delicate tree branches seem to reach to the sky as they fade into silhouette. 

Nichols, who was murdered by police in Memphis in January, is one of twelve exhibiting artists at Desert X this year, with six of his photographs raised high above the highway on billboards.

The choice of location is significant, as Nichols, who was just 29, was brutally beaten after being pulled over by police. The lead lawyer for the Nichols family, Ben Crump, has shared the family’s hope that the work will raise awareness for proposed amendments to California Senate Bill 50 that would reduce the risk of deadly police traffic stops. 

Nichols’ work spans genres, revealing the architecture, hidden corners, and natural wonders of Memphis through his eyes. While living in Memphis, he made frequent visits to Shelby Farms Park to take in the vast expanse of greenery and the dazzling evening light. “I take different types of photograhy, anywhere from action sports to rural photos, to bodies of water and my favorite… landscape photography,” he wrote on his photography website.

In addition to the landscapes, Nichols created one of the artworks in this Tyre Nichols photography exhibition at the Tom Lee Memorial, a landmark honoring the Memphis hero who saved 32 lives in 1925 after a steamer capsized in the Mississippi. In that way, the show roots itself firmly within the present moment, while also acknowledging history and advocating for a better future.

Tyre Nichols was stopped and beaten by police on January 7th. He died three days later. But the photographs in Desert X capture the artist’s life in vibrant color, each moment with a sense of hope and wonder. That night in January, he was driving home from an evening of photographing the setting sun when he was stopped. Later that month, members of the community gathered at Shelby Farms Park for a sunset protest in honor of his life. 

The Nichols family continues to seek justice for the murder. Show your support by contributing to the Tyre Nichols Memorial Fund, set up by his mother, RowVaughn Wells. You can see this collection of Tyre Nichols photography in person as part of Desert X in Coachella Valley, running through May 7th. 

The post A Tyre Nichols Photography Exhibit Shows How He Saw the World appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Natcha Wongchanglaw spend a few weeks on the Couchsurfing app before the first person agreed to be photographed as part of her series of portraits. He gave her his address, and she showed up that night in Harlem. A traveler from Germany was there and cooked them dinner, which they ate together as they chatted about the couchsurfing experience.  

The idea behind Couchsurfing is simple: it’s a social network that connects local hosts with travelers from around the world. The travelers stay with the hosts for free, and in exchange, the hosts learn about different cultures and connect with new people. 

Anyone can sign up and make a profile sharing their interests. Users then get references from other users who’ve met and stayed with them, building trust in the process. In cities with a large couchsurfing presence, such as New York, there are also in-person meetups and events for members of the community. 

Wongchanglaw moved to New York in 2019 and embarked on her portrait series Couchsurfing Hosts while studying with Marko Kovacevic and James Estrin. She read profiles and references carefully, starting with hosts who had more than 200 references and then broadening the search as she went. “I remember being afraid to send a request at first because I had no references,” the photographer tells me. “But I did it anyway.”

She was straightforward about her goals for the project. Most people didn’t respond, but some did, and then more followed. “I consider myself to be fairly open-minded,” Wongchanglaw says. “Some people have told me that despite the fact that we have only just met, they feel strangely at ease around me and are comfortable enough to tell me their stories.”

And these people had stories: at one point, one host even got a surfer out of jail. Wongchanglaw also learned that the community had come together in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, when people lost their homes and opened their doors to one another. She was especially moved after hearing about a host who’d helped a surfer get out of an arranged marriage and pursue a new life. 

Wongchanglaw stayed the night with some hosts, but in many cases, she visited for a few hours, sharing a meal and creating the portraits. She brought just her camera, a speedlight, and a diffuser to each shoot. She came in whatever clothing she was wearing at the time, and the hosts did the same. One was a nudist/naturalist; he doesn’t wear clothes at home, so naturally, it made sense for him to go without in his portrait too. 

The first location—and one Wongchanglaw always photographed as part of her couchsurfing portraits—was the spot where travelers stayed, usually on a couch in a living room. She might direct a host just a bit, guiding them slightly to the left or right, but she didn’t pose them. She set up her lights, took some test shots, and then hopped into the frame herself. It was important for her to sit next to the hosts to show the relationship and level of comfort they built with one another. 

The photographer did not stage the interiors, so they accurately reflect the eclectic styles of the hosts and their everyday lives, featuring everything from American flags to lush garden patios to beer pong tables. What connected them was a sense of openness and curiosity about other people and their perspectives. Wongchanglaw was also struck by their willingness to meet and connect with people face-to-face, particularly at a time when socializing increasingly takes place online and through a screen. 

When asked whether she considers herself an insider or outsider in the couchsurfing community, Wongchanglaw says she’s probably somewhere in between. She thinks that someday she might become a host herself (she has roommates now, so it’s not feasible), and she plans to do some couchsurfing on future adventures around the world. Most of all, she’s made friends: the artist stays in touch with most of the hosts she met along the way, and one of them even became her roommate for a year. 

All images © Natcha Wongchanglaw

Interested in seeing more couchsurfing portraits? Check out this project by Gabriele Galimberti.

The post A Look at New York’s Couchsurfing Community, in Portraits appeared first on Feature Shoot.

In this collection of photo stories from Ireland, Megan Doherty introduces us to Derry’s underground scene, while Kevin Griffin captures the life and character of a man he serendipitously met while driving through the local Irish countryside.

Jamie Johnson tells the stories of children from within the Irish Traveler community, a community that continues to face discrimination and abuse. Meanwhile, Enda Burke gets creative with his parents during lockdowns, and Jill Quigley brings abandoned cottages in Donegal back to life.

Megan Doherty captures the experiences of real-life Derry girls in the 21st century.

“Days in Derry are long. There’s not a whole lot to do except hang out, wasting time,” Doherty says of the Irish town where she spent almost her entire life. Stoned in Melanchol is her ode to the place where she grew up, a neon fairytale starring her friends as heroines. Making pictures was, as she puts it, her ‘form of escape.‘”

Next up in our photo stories from Ireland: Kevin Griffin documents the life of an extraordinary man he serendipitously met while driving through the countryside.

“Spotting a hitchhiker on the side of the road, Griffin offered a lift to Pascal Whelan, a former world-renowned stuntman and contemporary hermit. Their brief journey resulted in a burgeoning friendship and Griffin began visiting Whelan at his home of solitude on the tiny Omey Island just off the Galway coast in Connemara.” Measuring approximately one-square mile, Griffin says that during the mid-19th century there were almost 400 people living on the island—today the population stands at one—Whelan himself.”

Jamie Johnson tells the story of children growing up within the Irish Traveler community, who adhere to a nomadic lifestyle passed down between the generations.

“Johnson first gained access to the Irish Traveller community through the children. They were intrigued by the artist and her camera, and quickly, they accepted her as ‘the crazy American photographer.’ Once the young people trusted her, the adults followed.”

The Irish photographer Enda Burke collaborates with his parents to create vibrant, surreal tableaux.

“Someone recently asked me if I took a bunch of LSD with my parents and watched a lot of Wes Anderson movies,” Burke says. Inspired by artists including William Eggleston, Larry Sultan, Alex Prager, Gregory Crewdson, and Phillip-Lorca diCorcia, Burke transports us into an oversaturated, dreamlike world staring his parents as protagonists in a series of scenes of daily life that transform the mundane into the magical.”

Rounding up our photo stories from Ireland is Jill Quigley‘s playful work, made in rural Donegal cottages.

“‘This type of building, a white painted, thatched-roofed, two room cottage, is a common feature of tourism imagery of rural Ireland, associated with a disappearing way of life in the countryside,” Quigley says. “There are loads of these ruins in the Quigley’s Point area, and most people in Ireland would be familiar with similar cottages.”

The post From Derry Girls to Irish Travelers: Photo Stories from Ireland appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Over the course of a few years, the photographer Jean-François Bouchard spent approximately six weeks living in a community in the California desert, located at the site of a now-decommissioned military base. During that time, he captured the landscape, tracing the story of its inhabitants through evocative light painting photography.

The 400 to 500 people who live here year-round do so without access to running water, electricity, or waste removal and outside of the jurisdiction of any local government. Their reasons for joining the community vary; some crave freedom, while others have been forced there by economic uncertainty. 

“Most of them live in derelict RVs or shanties,” Bouchard says. “For some of them, it is a choice driven by libertarian values or a sense of adventure. But for many, it is the last stop on a long journey into homelessness—-and a stark reminder of the Californian inequalities.” 

For residents of the community, the outside world, nicknamed “Babylon,” feels remote—except in the sense that the debris and pollution from the surrounding communities often make their way into the desert. 

While the community is wary of journalists and tourists, who might misrepresent their lives, Bouchard says that they welcomed him as an artist. Exile from Babylon, currently exhibiting in New York City, is Bouchard’s portrait of a place that’s been shaped by harsh conditions, desert heat, and limited resources.

While living and sleeping in the community, the photographer found himself watching the trees, their branches dotted with pieces of garbage that had been blown across the landscape. The scene felt post-apocalyptic, representing a larger truth about inequality, loss, and environmental degradation in California and across the country. 

“I felt that the trees represented an interesting metaphor about the human condition there and the relationship between the harsh desert nature and inhabitants,” Bouchard tells me. It’s tempting to romanticize a place that exists outside of modern society—and the photographs in the exhibition are beautiful—but they also speak to the painful realities faced by the families forced to live in squatters’ communities. 

As the artist explains, the memory of the people he met while living here lingers in the background, even if they aren’t pictured directly. “The presence of kids was very emotional for me,” he says. “I decided against representing them in the photographs, but to me, they nevertheless inhabit this body of work and the memories I will forever keep of this surreal place.”

The eerie atmosphere running throughout the work is the result of light painting photography. “All these images except one were shot with a flashlight bought in a dollar store,” Bouchard admits. While working in this remote community, he made do with what he had. Through long exposures, he was able to capture as much light as possible. At the same time, the technique created a ghostly effect throughout the branches—a sobering reminder of the unseen presence of people throughout the landscape. 

Exile from Babylon is on view at Arsenal Contemporary, 214 Bowery, New York City, through March 11th.                   

All images © Jean-François Bouchard

Further reading:

• Vitor Schietti‘s light painting photography turns trees into living sculptures. 
• Ignas Maldziunas uses light painting photography while capturing eerie nighttime scenes. 
• Corinna Kern documents a squatters’ community in London. 

The post Light Painting Photography from a Squatters’ Camp in California  appeared first on Feature Shoot.

In 2016, Hedwig became the first injured snowy owl to arrive at Wild Bird Fund, New York City’s first rehabilitation and education center caring for animals in need. “She was shot near LaGuardia airport,” the photographer Mike Fernandez remembers. A bullet had likely wounded her pectoral muscle, and she was unable to fly. 

For her portrait session with Fernandez, Hedwig stood in a small lightbox, and Rita McMahon, the founder of Wild Bird Fund, held a light just outside. “I was starstruck,” he tells me. “It felt like I was in the presence of a greater being.”

The photographer first heard about Wild Bird Fund and the vital work they do for the city’s wildlife about a decade ago. At the time, he had just started working for Audubon Magazine, and he soon found himself making regular visits to the Upper West Side clinic. He was moved by the passion and dedication of the staff and volunteers, and he was astonished to learn about the diversity of avian life residing in and passing through the city. 

Wild Bird Fund treats an estimated 180 species, ranging from familiar favorites like pigeons and starlings to rarer visitors like snowy owls. Fall and spring are especially busy, as birds make their way across the East Coast migratory flyway, but they’re working around the clock all year round. 

Human activity contributes to bird injuries, with window collisions and light pollution being widespread threads. “Birds get disoriented from all the lights and reflection from glass buildings,” Fernandez says. “They are looking for food and don’t know what windows or mirrors are, so they hit it head-on.” 

That’s what happened to Super the Northern Flicker, who came into Wild Bird Fund with a fractured coracoid, and Eco the American Woodstock, who came in with a corneal ulcer. Both survived after receiving care and Wild Bird Fund.  

It also makes sense that Hedwig, the snowy owl, was found near LaGuardia, as tarmacs can resemble familiar Arctic landscapes. Other causes of illness include lead poisoning, brought on by contaminated water or food; collisions with cars; encounters with household pets; pesticide use, and trash. 

Sometimes, they also receive cases of abuse or neglect. During his time at the clinic, Fernandez met a cock rescued from a Brooklyn fighting ring. Very recently, Wild Bird Fund rescued a domestic king pigeon, who’d been released in Madison Square Park after being dyed pink. Despite the care he received, he died after about a week, likely from inhaling the toxins from the dye. Before he passed away, the team at Wild Bird Fund named him Flamingo. They name every single animal who comes to them for care. 

As Rita McMahon once explained in an interview with National Geographic, the birds seem to know that the humans and Wild Bird Fund are trying to help them. To keep the birds comfortable, Fernandez limited every session to just one to two minutes. 

When he photographed Hedwig the snowy owl, Fernandez knew that their paths would never meet again, but he remembers the time they spent together vividly. As part of the Audubon Mural Project, he painted a snowy owl in flight, dedicating the piece to Hedwig. 

From Wild Bird Fund, Hedwig was transferred to Raptor Trust of New Jersey, where she continued her rehabilitation. She ultimately recovered—and was then released in the beautiful Shawangunk Mountains. 

Wild Bird Fund relies on donations and volunteers to continue their life-saving work. Learn more about volunteer opportunities here, and make a donation here. Many of Fernandez’s portraits of patients at Wild Bird Fund are now on view at HERE Arts Center as part of I FOUND A BIRD, a two-person show with the painter and sculptor Katrina Slavik.

All images © Mike Fernandez

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We Are Present is a limited edition monograph by Laylah Amatullah Barrayn. Only 350 copies are available.

Laylah Amatullah Barrayn walked into Millennium Cuts almost by chance. She was exploring North Minneapolis, and discovering the barbershop still open (many businesses in the area had closed), she started talking with AJ, a barber and the manager at the shop. AJ told her that George Floyd, who had been murdered by police just days before, had been a client and friend for about four years.  

“AJ shared that George Floyd always asked about the well-being of his family and took a genuine interest in his life,” the photographer tells me. “AJ said he would miss those heartfelt conversations.”

That moment appears in Amatullah Barrayn’s historic book We Are Present: 2020 in Portraits, along with many others photographed serendipitously—in some cases, miraculously—during a year of pain, trauma, resilience, and joy. Spanning cities throughout the United States and beyond,* her portraits illuminate a singular time in American and global history, a year shaped by grief but also defined by hope. 

Amatullah Barrayn’s mother, who passed away a few years before 2020, was the family photographer. She introduced her daughter to photography, and through her, Amatullah Barrayn learned about the beauty of quiet moments and the importance of collaboration between a photographer and her sitter. 

It’s that abiding sense of connection—even and perhaps especially during a period of isolation—runs throughout the book, as we travel from the early days of the pandemic, the protests (with 15 million to 26 million people participating across the country, the Black Lives Matter is likely the largest in US history), the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and the very first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. 

We Are Present might be about a precise moment in history—the year that changed the world—but it’s also a book that we can and should return to ten, twenty, or a hundred years into the future. Amatullah Barrayn’s portraits invite us to look, revisit, read, and reread. Upon a second viewing of her portrait of AJ at Millennium Cuts, for instance, you might notice the barber’s chair in the foreground. “You feel the presence of Floyd in the chair,” the photographer says. 

We asked Amatullah Barrayn to tell us more about some of the portraits in the book. Order your copy today.

All images and captions © Laylah Amatullah Barrayn

*The book spans neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens, NYC, Newark, Louisville, Washington DC,  Minneapolis, and St. Paul. Two portraits were made outside of the US in Negril, Jamaica. 

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In her studio, Izabela Jurcewicz set up a slab, covered it with a green medical sheet, and stretched out on top of it. She was reenacting a real event in her life: when she was nineteen years old, Jurcewicz experienced major internal bleeding. 

She was diagnosed with a rare inter-organ tumor—one of only 300 cases in the world. Following weeks in the hospital, she was put on a table and cut open. That first surgery was nine hours. She remembers being naked and feeling cold when she woke up. She remembers not being able to speak. She remembers her parents’ faces behind glass.

Replaying that moment, from the safety of her own studio space, offered the artist one way of taking back control and healing from the memory of what happened to her. At the time, her father was in the midst of a battle with fourth-stage metastatic cancer, an experience that mirrored her own and brought her viscerally back to her own surgeries and those hazy weeks she spent in the hospital. 

When she left the hospital, Jurcewicz was given a CD with various documents, including photos from the surgery itself. In these photographs, she saw “the tumor, spleen, and some organ parts that were cut out.” The images shocked her. 

In her own self-portrait, made later in the studio while her father was undergoing cancer treatment, she’s looking at her body as a whole—redoubled by the mirror in her hands—rather than a sum of disconnected parts. This time, she’s not lying prone over the slab. This time, she’s wearing blue surgical gloves. She’s the patient, but she’s also the surgeon. 

Her knees are raised. She’s awake. “As I re-photograph the experience, I notice that each photograph serves as evidence of my feelings,” she recalls now. “I am emptied of their residue and move on.” The experience marked the beginning of finding some sense of closure. 

This photograph is the first in Jurcewicz’s monograph, Body As Negative, out now by Yoffy Press. Spanning years, the book brings together writings, medical notes, and pictures made in the aftermath of the artist’s tumor and treatment. 

Many of the photographs are staged re-enactments, like the first one. Following her surgery and after learning of her father’s illness, Jurcewicz sought help through therapy. Her therapist introduced the idea of cellular traumatic memory—the idea that our bodies bear an imprint of past events on a cellular level. 

That idea would become instrumental to this body of work, inspiring the artist to work with tuning forks and micro-kinesitherapy, a manual healing technique. The tuning fork appears within the book. 

Others photographs were not planned. Jurcewicz made Pain, for example, in bed, rather than in the studio. She was hurting and couldn’t sleep. It was a candid, spontaneous shot. “This night I started crying, as many feelings of anxiety connected to the idea of the internal bleeding or a growing tumor putting some kind of pressure on the body came to my mind,” she says.

She also returned to the hospital—the place where the trauma first happened—to make some of the photographs included in the book. She went at her own pace. “In between taking images, I always was taking time to process what had happened, to reflect on it, and decide if it was a good moment to move on or if I actually would like to re-visit the memory and re-photograph it again,” she explains. 

“Working on a particular memory might be difficult at times, but I would just take time to sit and just be, or cry—not focusing on photographing all the time. I could spend a few hours in front of the camera if that was what was needed. I remembered I was doing it for myself. Knowing that I was in charge and in control of the situation felt very rewarding.”

Jurcewicz’s father, navigating his own trauma at the time, appears in two of the photographs. In two more, she’s reenacting moments that happened to her father during his cancer treatment. “To understand better what he was going through, I observed him,” the artist tells me. “I didn’t want to become an outsider to his illness.” 

One night, while he was in the hospital, she placed herself in his medical bed. In the background are his medical stockings. She tried to sit up. “This allowed me to process what was happening to him and to better communicate with and support him,” she says now. “The photographs I took of myself ‘after my father’ also had the aim of getting closer to him, to be able to understand him better and not feel distanced from his experiences.” 

Jurcewicz’s father passed away at home, with his daughters by his bed and a nurse right beside them. “As much as I wanted to be close to him during his disease, I wanted to be with him through his passing and give him some comfort and familiarity during this moment,” the artist says. She dedicates the book to him. He got to see the dummy for the book in 2019. He was moved by his daughter’s self-portraits, in particular. 

In one of them, Control, Jurcewicz is lying down, a surgical scar running across her abdomen. She’s holding an air cable release—a subtle but unmissable assertion of her ownership of her body and her authorship over the image. Clasped tightly in her left hand, the release itself reminds me a bit of the manual resuscitators used in hospitals to keep a patient breathing during surgery, inflating and deflating with each inhalation and exhalation. In that way, it becomes a symbol not only of control but also of survival.

“I want to live,” the artist writes at the very end of the book. “I will live.” 

Get your copy of Body As Negative here.

All images © Izabela Jurcewicz

The post After Surviving a Rare Tumor, a Photographer Processes Trauma appeared first on Feature Shoot.

According to research from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the world produces approximately 54 million tonnes of electronic waste annually. This waste comes in the form of discarded computers, phones, televisions, home appliances, and even cameras—and only an estimated 17% is recycled. 

But change is brewing in the photography industry. Research conducted in 2021 by MPB, the world’s largest platform for used photo and video gear, revealed that more than half of photographers (56%) recognize that e-waste is an issue that the field needs to address urgently. 

At the time of that survey, photographers under 35 were most likely to consider the environmental impact of their practice, but in 2023, photographers across generations have joined the movement and are contributing to a more sustainable future. 

“We’ve seen an increased interest in the circular economy and demand for used camera gear across all age groups over recent years,” Rachel Thompson, the Head of Sustainability at MPB, tells us. “The sustainability benefits of buying second-hand are now widely recognized, with growing recognition that used is better than new.” 

In a circular economy, gear that might otherwise end up in landfills can be repaired and reused. As it happens, the photography industry is uniquely suited for circularity: while some categories of consumer electronics have a reputation for “planned obsolescence”—that is, the production of products that require frequent replacing—cameras and lenses are built to last. 

“Photo and video gear can keep producing flawless imagery for decades,” Thompson says. “Buying and selling used just makes sense, especially when everything has been properly checked by experts.” MPB circulates more than 400,000 products annually. Each one is inspected by a world-class team of product specialists and comes with a six-month warranty.

Data from MPB reveals that two-thirds of photographers agree that there’s no need to buy brand-new equipment—especially considering the ever-increasing price of brand-new mirrorless and full-frame cameras. Among those under 35, 69% say buying used is the best way to reduce the environmental footprint of their practice. At the same time, however, further research indicates that the average adult in the US has at least one camera they no longer use—and is holding onto $2,459 worth of unused devices. 

There are a couple of reasons why people might not be selling their used gear (yet). 10% don’t know how to do so, and nearly 15% think they don’t have the time. Some think it requires too much effort to sell their gear, while others don’t think they’ll make much money. To address those concerns, MPB makes joining the circular economy fast and seamless. 

“The MPB platform offers free instant quotes—our pricing engine immediately calculates how much the item is worth and what could be bought in exchange,” Thompson explains. “Those spare lenses can become an exciting camera in a matter of days—in some cases, without having to spend any money at all. We find that once people realize just how easy it is to buy and sell used camera equipment, they come back to us again and again.”

A circular model also makes photography more accessible and affordable: on average, used cameras and lenses from MPB cost a third less than the same models in brand new condition. You can choose from five condition ratings, including ‘like new’, and all cameras and lenses undergo a thorough 8–10-point inspection process. The team also works hand-in-hand with groups serving the photography community, including UK Black Female Photographers (UKBFTOG), SheClicks, and the Disabled Photographers’ Society. Through these partnerships, they’ve been able to uplift underrepresented voices and make buying and upgrading gear easy for everyone. 

A sustainable photography industry is also an inclusive one. “As more people join the circular economy, more choice becomes available, and the benefits continue to increase for everyone involved,” Thompson reflects. “It’s a positive feedback loop.” Word of mouth has been essential to MPB’s growth, with MPB customers leading the charge and inspiring others to start selling their old gear and investing in sustainable, second-hand options. 

While exceedingly simple, buying used can make a significant difference. “The leading camera manufacturers don’t publish their environmental data at product or business unit level—e.g. printing, imaging and cameras, medical, industrial—only their company-wide data,” Thompson tells us. “This makes it very difficult to estimate the carbon, metals, water, or waste footprint of new cameras. Due to this opacity, I tend to use carbon data for laptops as a proxy. 

“Interestingly, while the laptop sector is less ‘circular by design’ than quality cameras, the laptop sector is more transparent about environmental data. The standardized estimate of the carbon production footprint of a laptop is a third of a tonne. Over a four-year life-cycle—so production plus transport, sale, and use—it’s half a tonne. So selling and buying used will more than halve the carbon footprint and avoid e-waste altogether, compared to buying new.” 

MPB’s sustainable model goes beyond the basics. For the last three years, the company has partnered with One Tree Planted to plant 75,000 trees to directly combat climate change and deforestation. Their packaging is 100% plastic-free, made using sustainably sourced paper and card. MPB’s tech platform already runs on 100% renewable energy, and they’ve set ambitious goals for the near future. “Half of the electricity we use in our buildings is renewable, and we aim to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2025,” Thompson shares. 

“We have net-zero carbon goals for the buildings, data centers, and courier services we use, and we currently offset any greenhouse gas emissions. In terms of in-bound and operational waste, we send absolutely nothing to landfill.” 

The MPB data centers aim to be net zero carbon by 2030, and the courier services aim to say the same by 2035, thanks to innovations like environmentally sustainable biofuels and electric vehicles. Transparency and trust are essential to MPB, so they regularly share updates on their sustainability strategy as they evolve. 

Here’s the good news: according to research conducted by MPB over the last holiday season, most people (70%) would be happy to receive used gifts, with almost half (48%) of those surveyed in the US saying that they care about the sustainability of the gifts they receive. That’s the highest on record since MPB started running this annual survey three years ago. 

Buying, selling, or trading used gear is an easy, everyday choice. But it’s a choice with far-reaching implications: by joining the circular economy, you save money, reduce your environmental footprint, and help to make photography more accessible to all. Get started with MPB today.

The post Sustainable Photography Means Not Buying New Gear (Sponsored) appeared first on Feature Shoot.

On the cover of As We See It: Artists Redefining Black Identity, the new book by the writer and cultural critic Aida Amoako and Laurence King Publishing, is a photograph by Kenny Germé. Part of a project called The Godfather, the portrait features a child, the Godson, and a young man, the Godfather; both wearing blazers, they represent a legacy, passed on from one generation to the next, from ancestor to descendant.

Their fingers touch. In the Godson, we see the future. In the Godfather, we see the guardian and protector of that future.

But as Amoako writes, the portrait contains another layer of meaning: the Godson wears the Godfather’s blazer, but he hasn’t grown into it yet. The oversized blazer speaks to his potential and his innocence. It also subverts the characterization of young Black boys as “men,” particularly in relation to police brutality cases, where Black boys have historically been mistaken for older than they are, leading to a higher likelihood of violence.

As We See It highlights the contributions of 30 Black artists, many of them photographers, whose work follows and builds upon the legacies of those who came before, including artists like Malick Sidibé, Gordon Parks, and Carrie Mae Weems. In real-time, the book profiles a generation of artists who are laying the foundation for “the Black gaze”—a point of view as urgent and vital as it is multifaceted and ever-evolving.

Photography as a medium has a complex history of racial bias, including the use of the “Shirley card” in the early days of film. Used by lab techs for color calibration, the card featured a photo of a white woman, leading to color bias in film processing. It wasn’t until Kodak Gold, introduced in the 1990s, that Kodak started to get other skin tones right.

It’s particularly moving, then, to see photographers like Davey Adesida, using Kodak film to capture a range of exquisite skin tones. His portrait of Caleb McLaughlin, the Stranger Things star—just sixteen at the time—holds a bouquet of sunshine-bright yellow flowers. His gaze is powerful and direct, conveying powerful a sense that he is the author of his own image.

Elsewhere in the book are Braylen Dion‘s dreamy, resplendent portraits. In one, the model, Najee, carries a bouquet of lilies, a flower historically featured in religious or mythological portraiture and associated with stories of rebirth or resurrection. Najee looks like a heavenly angel, glowing from within.

As Amoako notes, one thing that helped spark this current Black artistic renaissance is social media, with platforms like Instagram and Tumblr empowering photographers and other artists to build networks outside of the traditional “gatekeepers” associated with magazines and exhibitions.

Early in her career, Nadine Ijewere, for example, used Instagram to connect with models and collaborators and create pictures that challenged the restrictive beauty standards long perpetuated in fashion photography. Since then, Ijewere has helped change the industry from within. In 2019, she became the first woman of color to shoot the cover of British Vogue. Two years later, she became the first Black woman to shoot the cover of American Vogue.

The camera’s role in challenging systemic racism stretches back more than a century: in the 1800s, Frederick Douglass famously used photography to reclaim his story and identity, while also advocating for an equal society. We’re still not there yet, but the work of photographers like those featured in As We See It brings us one step closer. In the future, I know that members of the next generation will not only revisit this book but also expand upon its legacy, repicturing Black identity—through their eyes and on their terms—for many years to come. Get your copy here.

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Four members of Black Women Photographers, a global community, have come together for Our Black Experience, an exhibition at Galerie Kitsuné in New York City.

Poochie Collins has worked with Leeza Joneé many times—she’s photographed her with 120 color film and with 35mm hand-developed black-and-white film. Sometimes, she’s adorned Joneé in jewels, and sometimes she’s captured candid moments out and about in Brooklyn.

This time, however, Collins chose an intimate setting, photographing Joneé at home as she ran a brush through her hair. It’s a portrait of her friend, but it’s also an expression of self-love and care.

“I documented an intimate, raw, and personal story which was my experience as a Black woman in admiration of my crown,” the artist tells. “Because I prefer to be a voyeur and not a matter of focus, the multidisciplinary artist Leeza Joneé, my dear sister-friend, agreed to let my vision speak through her. With our ancestors and hearts guiding us, Leeza and I created this series in her beautiful home somewhere in Brooklyn.”

Step into Galerie Kitsuné this month, and you’ll see Collins’s portraits next to a series of portraits by Kaylah Sambo, titled Black Femininity. Continue along that same wall to discover Yolanda Hoskey‘s soft and colorful floral portraits, which together create a singular visual reference for the idea of “giving someone their flowers.”

Going full circle from there, Zakiyyah Woods presents photographs from The women of my blood were…, a project inspired by her family history. “These photos are a part of an ongoing family discovery project that I began several years ago in order to confirm or dispel the rumors that my maternal grandmother was 100% indigenous,” Woods says.

“These images reflect my journey towards education and ‘meeting’ the women that existed before me through record discovery and making contact with living relatives. Finding them allows me to continue finding myself as a mother, sister, friend, woman.”

The four bodies of work are different, but one common thread becomes this idea of discovery and rediscovery. These photographers exist in conversation with their models, with one another, and with history itself. “Our voices have been silenced for centuries, but now we are taking control of our narrative and how we are viewed,” Polly Irungu, the Founder of Black Women Photographers, explains.

Black women have been sharing stories through the lens for generations, even in the face of intolerable inequality. Consider this: when the photographer Florestine Perrault Collins (1895-1988) made history by opening her studio in New Orleans in 1920, she was one of 101 Black women photographers registered in that year’s US census.

One generation helped blaze the trail for the next, who, in turn, forged paths of their own and helped pave the way for the many, many more who came after. A century down the road, a photography exhibition by, for, and about Black women feels like an act of resistance and celebration decades in the making.

“‘Come as you are, because who you are is enough’ are words I choose to live by and express to the world visually,” Poochie Collins writes. “I dedicate my art to all the Black voices, faces, and spaces. Despite the constant war on our bodies and existence, we will continue to exude love and joy and forever be multi-dimensional. My goal is always to document this truth.”

See Our Black Experience at Galerie Kitsuné through February 26th. Black Women Photographers will present in-person events every Thursday throughout the exhibition’s run.

The post ‘Our Black Experience,’ Featuring Four Women Photographers, Opens in NYC appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström has walked through the spice markets of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and explored the medinas of Marrakech, Morocco. She’s braved snowstorms and frigid temperatures to photograph the Aurora Borealis dance over the small town of Abisko, Sweden; biked through the Arabian Desert in Egypt; and joined local fishermen in the glistening waters of the Seychelles. Most of all, she’s met extraordinary people: farmers, vendors, athletes, chefs, artisans, and folk healers. 

“My goal is to show the world how my subjects want to be shown to the world—not how I personally want to show them to the world,” the artist says. Her portraits are collaborations, rooted in a give-and-take between two people who are no longer strangers: “You often see that spark of connection in their eyes.”

Now, the renowned travel photographer will lead her own workshops, bringing participants to some of her favorite locations in the world for one-on-one instruction and mentorship, with experiences carefully curated by locals. Presented through Ákínmádé Åkerström’s Geotraveler Media Academy, the first in this series of branded workshops will see the photographer—along with eight participants—travel to Croatia, by land and sea. 

“Croatia is such an underrated destination that combines all the art history and gorgeous architecture of Italy with the Mediterranean beauty and access of Greece, all in a single country,” the photographer tells us. In addition to exploring Zagreb’s historic center, Dubrovnik Old Town, and Hvar Town, participants will visit a local wine estate in Split, taste oysters in Ston, enjoy an immersive farm-to-table experience, and take a private yacht to the Vis and Bisevo Islands and the Pakleni Archipelago. 

This experience is scheduled for May of this year, with a small group size designed to allow for more one-on-one coaching time with Ákínmádé Åkerström and the local community itself. “My photo experiences are very hands-on and will get you closer into the cultures and traditions we will be experiencing,” she says. She’ll set up pre-registration interviews with interested photographers to help set expectations and goals collaboratively. 

In September, she’ll bring another group of just six photographers to Western Mongolia, where they will visit a Kazakh eagle hunter family near Tolbo village, be hosted by another family in Sagsai, and attend the Golden Eagle Festival. “These nomadic families have been gracious to invite us in for private portrait photography workshop sessions and grant us access to revered traditions,” Ákínmádé Åkerström reflects. 

“Mongolia is an incredible place with such rich cultural traditions tied to its nomadic roots. From indigenous Kazakh eagle hunting to the revered Naadam festival of horse riding, archery, and wrestling, I can’t wait to take fellow photographers back to this country that has firmly secured its place in my heart.” 

Ákínmádé Åkerström is a multi-hyphenate: photographer, best-selling author, and entrepreneur. She’s worked with National Geographic, The New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, Travel + Leisure, Lonely Planet, and more. She’s a 2022 Hasselblad Heroine and the 2018 Bill Muster Travel Photographer of the Year.

For more than a decade now, the photographer has also been running Geotraveler Media, nurturing the next generation of storytellers and helping to shape the future of travel photography in the process. “My hope for the next generation is for them to redefine what travel photography means, what capturing a sense of place holistically means, and how they can weave their own visual voices into their storytelling in a way that honors the people they meet, without relegating destinations to simply backdrops,” she says. 

From her students and mentees, Ákínmádé Åkerström has learned to approach the world with a renewed sense of awe, wonder, and vulnerability. Through her in-country workshops, she’ll teach participants to dig deeper and discover hidden stories, while challenging existing stereotypes and revealing the truth beneath. Future workshops will take place in the Balkans, Swedish Lapland, and Central Asia—touching down in destinations the photographer has visited in the past or dreamed of seeing for a long time. 

These experiences are first and foremost about discovering your vision and voice through unforgettable places, moments, and conversations. Beyond the typical tourist sights and landmarks, photographing the individual people who shape and define a place and its legacy remains her steadfast goal—and that’s something she’ll pass on to every participant in her workshops. 

“We all fundamentally want the same thing in life: to be fully seen for who we already are, to be respected, and to be acknowledged,” she tells us. “This remains in my consciousness. This is what drives me as a photographer. To listen to people. To acknowledge, truly acknowledge people, and to show them in their most positive light with dignity.” 

Learn more about Geotraveler Media Experiences—and book your spot!—here. 

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Akilah Townsend, who grew up in Chicago’s South Side, remembers taking pictures with her friends in early the 2000s-2010s, “When I think of Chicago culture, it’s something that I can feel better than I can describe,” she admits. “But it was going to the Rink with my best Rocawear outfit, color coordinated to the nines. We would be decked out in Girbaud straps, academics, Fubu; baby blues, whites, oranges.”

It was that period in her life, and that specific place on the map, that inspired her passion for color. Whether she knew it or not, it was during this time, making memories with friends, that she started to uncover a lifelong mission. 

“In my personal work, it is important for me to make imagery of those who are most devalued, misunderstood, and unprotected: Black women,” she tells me. When collaborating with clients, too, her work is often a continuation of that goal, motivated by her desire to uplift and empower those who sit in front of her camera. 

Chicago continues to be a constant muse. “Another way that I think my city has informed who I am as an artist is the nature of my resilience and creativity,” Townsend reflects. “The South Side is a very creative place with ingenuitive people. Facing a lack of options, in many different ways, we build the mindset of ‘Get it how you can/get it how you live.’ I very much have adopted this mindset and have a resilient, flexible nature.”

Her portrait sessions change based on the person she’s photographing, but they always center around her sitter’s comfort, allowing them to become authors over their own image. “I try to allow people to show up exactly how they are,” Townsend says. 

She’s photographed actors, musicians, physicists, activists, and educators. She photographed Lori Lightfoot, the 56th Mayor of Chicago, on the roof of City Hall. Once, when partnering with a church, she photographed residents of Chicago’s West Side outside, setting up a black curtain as her backdrop. Soon, when the weather warms up, she plans to photograph her father in the nearby town of Joliet, where he grew up.

In 2020, in the aftermath of the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, she made Every Star, a portrait of a mouth and gold teeth, glittering brighter than the constellations. A few months earlier, she sat in front of the camera herself, her face bathed in a glowing spotlight. 

“Making self-portraits is tiring, but I try to do one once a year,” Townsend reflects. “This one was 2020, two and a half years ago. I captioned it ‘Protect Black Women’ because we are continuously left unprotected, by systems and people meant to protect us. We face systemic racism and misogynoir and are at risk of police violence. This was just after the murder of Breonna Taylor.” 

Late last year, Townsend worked on a story for The Wall Street Journal about the murders of Black women and girls. Murders of Black women rose sharply during the pandemic, but the percentage of those cases that were solved by police fell—more so than was observed among other demographics. 

As cases remain unsolved, families have tried to step in and find answers—and justice—for their loved ones. “Almost three years after Breonna Taylor’s passing, the problem is persistent and only getting worse,” Townsend explains. 

Still, even in the face of pain and injustice, moments of joy and resistance are woven like gold thread throughout Townsend’s portraiture. In a recent collaboration, the artist harkens back to the early 2000s, when she and her friends came into their own in Chicago, the city that shaped them. 

Part of a campaign for a clothing capsule by the brand Chicago Girls Do It Better, the series is a celebration of sisterhood: “It’s that type of love that watches over you, picks you up when you’re down, and fills in the gaps wherever you might need, even if you don’t know it,” the artist writes. 

In many ways, her steadfast commitment to photographing and championing Black women is an extension of that same type of love—an ode to sisterhood as a force with the power to move mountains. She tells me, “My aim with my portraiture work is to evoke a sense of familial empathy and also, simply awareness; that we’re here, we are beautiful and meant to be protected, the same as anyone else.” 

Akilah Townsend 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.

All images © Akilah Townsend (@killls)

The post Inspired by Chicago’s South Side, an Artist Uplifts Black Women appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Charise Isis was visiting Los Angeles when she got a call from Spirit, a woman who wanted to be a part of The Grace Project. At that point, Isis had been working on the project for a decade, traveling from city to city creating portraits with people who’d undergone mastectomy surgery as a result of breast cancer. She’d have to catch a flight the next day, but she told Spirit she could photograph her that night in a friend’s apartment. 

Spirit agreed. She showed up, shed her shirt, and sat for the camera. By the time she left that night, she was beaming. 

The Covid pandemic hit almost immediately after that session, leaving Isis unable to travel to photograph and meet people in person. Soon after, with the pandemic at its height, the photographer reached out to Spirit and learned that she’d just been hospitalized for several weeks. Amid lockdowns, with Spirit in bed in Los Angeles and Isis across the country in New York, they set up a Zoom call.

“We had a conversation about the disparities that she had faced as a Black woman, talked about the painful journey she had traversed, and discussed how thrilled she was to be a part of The Grace Project,” Isis remembers now. “She said she had made that portrait to leave a thing of beauty behind for her family.”

Spirit passed away shortly after that conversation. Soon after that, the Black Lives Matter Movement made history. “The message Spirit left for the world was incredibly powerful,” Isis tells me now. “In the face of her own mortality and barely able to breathe, Spirit was still willing to advocate for her cause, and she was still willing to laugh.” 

Over thirteen years, Isis has photographed more than 700 people. The women in the project are known as the Grace Goddesses. Spirit will always be one of them. In her portrait, her hand rests over her chest and heart–a living, breathing statue, bathed in light. Like the Venus de Milo, she has cloth draped around her waist–blue to match her hair. Her shoulders are open, reminiscent of another ancient Greek sculpture, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, about to take flight. 

Isis isn’t done yet. Today, she has folders of applications from people across the US, each with their own story, waiting to meet her. We asked her more about her epic journey–a path that’s taken her around the country and put her in touch with hundreds of extraordinary people. 

You’ve been working on The Grace Project since 2009–is that right? Which was the first picture you made, officially as part of the project?

“Yes, the project was started in 2009. But prior to The Grace Project, I specialized in Boudoir photography. A local paper heard about my work and ran an article about the work I was doing and interviewed many of my clients, all of who talked about the transformative experience that had as a result of visiting my studio for a photo shoot. Shortly after the article ran, a man called to book a shoot for his wife.  He explained to me that he hadn’t told her that he wanted her to do this for him, but he was checking on prices and would call back if she agreed.

“She consented, and the day of the shoot, a lovely petite woman with cropped grey hair showed up to the studio. She had hat boxes and hangers full of clothing; however, everything she had with her was about covering her body. I found this curious. 

“After about 45 minutes into the shoot, she finally confessed to me that the reason that she was staying covered was that twelve years earlier, she had a mastectomy on one side and felt mutilated under her clothing. The only people to have seen her scars were her doctors and her husband. Her husband had read the article about my work and wanted her to have the transformative experience that my clients had claimed in the article about my work.

“Once she had confessed this to me, she started exposing her non-mastectomy breast but leaving the mastectomy side covered. We got back into the flow of the photoshoot. I could see she was having fun and feeling sexy. Laying in an odalisque position on my couch, she suddenly threw off her shirt and exclaimed, ‘Fuck it, I’m doing this for myself.’ In that moment, I realized I was witnessing a woman letting go of twelve years of shame. It was my most powerful photographic moment up until that point and incredibly cathartic for her… but also for me.

“A few weeks later, a friend called and told me she couldn’t afford to pay me for a photo shoot, but that she was hoping I would agree to photograph her. She was about to ‘have her breast chopped off due to breast cancer’ and she wanted to remember what her body looked like. I spent a few hours with her, capturing her grief, sadness, anger, fear, bravery… a whole roller coaster of emotions that she was experiencing prior to her mastectomy. I had her return to my studio three weeks later with her fresh scars and new body.

“The experience of photographing these two women cause me to start exploring the internet for mastectomy portraits. All I could find were these gruesome medical images of women’s torsos. The photographs were badly lit and cropped from the neck to above the groin. I was horrified to think that these were the images that women would find if they were newly diagnosed with breast cancer. I decided that I needed to put a face to breast cancer and to create some beauty and courage, as that is what I had witnessed between the two women who had come to my studio.

“I began to put the word out to friends; I asked everyone if they knew someone who had breast cancer that might be interested in participating in my project. A close friend reached out to her oldest friend, and I shot her portrait in my friend’s gorgeous garden. It was a beautiful sunny day. I photographed her amidst flowers, draped with a beautiful tapestry. It was an empowering experience for her and the beginning of what was about to become a massive journey for me. I had no idea at the time.”

In what ways, if any, has your approach to the project evolved and expanded since then? What has surprised you most along the way? 

“When I first started the project, my plan was to photograph 80 to 100 subjects… enough for a rotating exhibition and a book. But as I neared the 80, I realized that I wasn’t finished. That this subject had not been explored enough by me, let alone anyone else. Every person who stepped in front of my camera brought a different thing to my lens, both emotionally and physically.  

“I decided that I would continue creating breast cancer portraits; however, I had to put a context to it. I started playing around with the numbers, dividing the number of new diagnoses in one year by the number of days. I came up with the fact that there are around 780 new diagnoses in the United States every day. 

“The number changes from year to year, so I rounded up the number to 800 and decided that my goal would be 800 portraits and that one day I would exhibit all 800 portraits together in one space so that a person walking into a gallery could experience one day of breast cancer diagnosis in America. Recently, I just hit the 700 mark! I have now photographed 719 portraits.

“In addition to that, having lost many friends along the way, I have become a resolute breast cancer activist. We are all aware of breast cancer, but there are things that I have learned about that most people are not aware with regards to breast cancer. So I use my project to illuminate some of these disparities.  

“For instance, I’ve worked very hard to make sure my project is diverse, and as such I try to bring awareness to the fact that Black women have a 40% increased mortality rate than their counterparts.

“I also try use my work to advocate for metastatic breast cancer. 30% of all breast cancer diagnoses will advance to metastatic. Stage IV breast cancer (metastatic) is a terminal diagnosis. Some try to claim it as chronic, but basically a stage IV diagnosis leaves a person with an average three to five-year death sentence. Despite this, very little of the millions/billions of dollars raised for the sake of breast cancer goes towards stage IV.

“I also started a chapter of the project called The Athena Division. In 2015, a friend who was a veteran pointed out that the Department of Defense did a study in 2009 showing up to a 40% increased chance of breast cancer for women who served. I began photographing Veterans and active military affected by breast cancer so that those women can be aware of their increased risk and medically advocate for themselves. Rather than draping the military women in flowy fabrics, I drape them in camo fabric and hand them a Hellenistic weapon such as a sword.

“Also I have become involved in ‘flat activism.’ Many women are denied aesthetic flat closure on a breast cancer diagnosis (no reconstruction and clean scars) and are pressured into having reconstruction. Young women are told by medical practitioners such things as that they will look deformed for the rest of their lives if they go flat, or that nobody will want to date them as a flat woman. It is my belief that all options for surgery along with the risks involved should be put on the table for a woman to choose when she is diagnosed with breast cancer, and she should absolutely be fully supported in that choice. She should not have to fight for it or be denied it.

“I have also photographed a few men. Although a much less frequent diagnosis, it is important that men realize that breast cancer is a possibility for them. Men often ignore a lump in their chest, and so often they are diagnosed at a much later date, leading to a much more advanced diagnosis.

“One of the things that has surprised me about this project is the sense of community that arose out of the project. Women who have been photographed are deemed as Grace Goddesses. There is a sense of pride in that title and they make friendships with others throughout the country who have participated in the project.”

Why do you think so many people have reached out to model for the project? Have you spoken with many of them about their motivations? 

“When I first started the project, it was very hard to get people; there weren’t a whole lot of mastectomy pictures out there, but word of mouth encouraged people to reach out. Once they started seeing more of my images and resonating with them, many wanted to have a portrait like that of themselves. I currently have two massive folders full of applications from people throughout the country that want to participate. I keep these on file so that I can be in touch when I am visiting their region.

“There are multiple reasons why people want to participate, and they often tell me why. Some of them simply want to help others by sharing their scars; however, most of them are struggling with self-acceptance and have a feeling that participating in a photo shoot like this will help them achieve that acceptance or at the very least take a step towards it. I believe it is about being seen, acknowledgment of the story that they have had to live. 

“Breast cancer is very hidden. Standing naked in front of a camera, revealing the courage, vulnerability and the inner and outer scars that they live with, they are asking the world to accept the story that has been written on their body. I think the true ask, however, is directed towards themselves, a deep inner ask. This is where the true healing is.”

Are most of the models strangers to you when they first reach out? Why do you think they trust you to help tell their stories?

“Yes, most of the models are strangers when they reach out. I think they trust me to tell their stories because they see the presence, vulnerability, beauty, and braveness of others who have participated in my project, and then they read the comments online that people are writing in response to a photograph. Sometimes when I am at a group event and people are watching a photoshoot, they witness the transformation and shift that happens in the person they are witnessing being photographed. If they were hesitant, they often change their mind after seeing another person’s shoot.”

Might you be able to share a story or two from one of these models? What inspired you most about her, him, or them? 

“There are so many stories… It is hard to just pick two. Spirit comes to mind, and so does my friend Carol. Carol was one of the earlier Grace Project subjects. She was one of the first metastatic women that I became close with. 

“She was such a cheerleader of The Grace Project; having stumbled on the project at her diagnosis, she made her decision to go flat based on portraits she had seen. I met her at a retreat for women with metastatic breast cancer. She gave me her number and told me that she lived locally and would love to be photographed. 

“It was the end of November and a very cold New York November at that. She told me that she wanted to be photographed outside, that she was hoping for a warm day. Miraculously, the day of her shoot was 70 degrees. I asked her if she was up for a hike; she said she was, and I took her on a trail near my house that leads to the Hudson River. We got to the river, and I made her work incredibly hard to get the results that I wanted.  

“When we left the trail, we went back a different way. Heading down into a valley Carol stopped and said, ‘Do you see that?’ 

And I said, ‘Yes, Yes I do.’ 

‘What is it?’ she asked.  

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But I think we would be remiss not to take a portrait right now… are you up for it?’

“We were looking at some kind of a mist, a veil… to this day, I’ve never been able to explain what we were looking at, but it was magical. Right then, Carol stripped off all of her clothes and ran into the woods, and I shot her portrait. 

“The mist that we were seeing was not visible in the image, but the image was very powerful. The leaves were all off the trees, blanketing the ground. The trees stood bare and tall, and it was the epitome of autumn heading into winter. Here was this woman at the end of her life with no breasts, as if she had lost her leaves. She was as tall and grand as any of the trees there in those woods. Her face was half in shadow and half in light. 

“If a photograph was to represent a woman at the end of her life, this portrait of Carol would be it. I remained friends with Carol to the end of her life. She told me that she knew she didn’t have much time left, but that she knew she was exactly where she was meant to be. She said that she was meeting people and doing things that she never would have done if it weren’t for cancer.  (She included participating in The Grace Project as part of that.) 

“She wrote a book at the end of her life titled Enough, which she sold to raise funds for an around-the-clock nurse once she went into hospice care in her home. Carol would have visiting times posted on the door of her home, and on the days I would go around to visit, there would be various women surrounding her, drinking tea, chatting and laughing with her. When Carol died, I went to her memorial. I knew that she had planned every aspect of it: who would talk, who would sing, even what we would eat. 

“It was incredibly inspiring to watch a woman approach death with as much gusto as she lived her life. Carol made me feel less afraid of death. I never watched Carol die. I watched her fully live right up until the end.”

Can you walk me through these collaborations with your sitters? How do you choose the location? The wardrobe elements? 

“I tell my subjects to wear their hair and make-up the way they like to wear it normally. I want them to look like themselves in their portraits. I allow jewelry, and often people will wear jewelry that is meaningful to them). I drape them in fabrics; I usually have a suitcase full and they get to choose a drape/color that they resonate with. Sometimes, I pick it out for them because it will work with the scenery or the color of their eyes or hair.  

“Since I travel around the country the location is also very random where I shoot. I prefer epic locations; however, I try to make it as easy as possible for women to participate, so the locations vary. As a result, I have shot everywhere from nasty old hotel rooms in front of a seamless backdrop to places like Red Rocks stadium. I prefer to be outside, but some things like the weather or a person’s mobility can limit the possibilities. 

“Sometimes when I have a shoot lined up, a person will take me to their sacred spot. It is usually a place of beauty that they visited while going through their treatment. For instance, I found out that there was a teahouse on top of a mountain in Alabama. I didn’t know that there were mountains in Alabama, let alone a teahouse! 

“I also get invited to retreats and usually, these are in epic settings so I get to photograph multiple subjects in these locations. Most recently, I went to a ‘flattie’ (women who opt for no reconstruction) meet up, on Flat Top mountain, in Mesa, Colorado. As you can imagine, the backdrops were quite epic.” 

What do the sessions themselves look like? Does it depend on the model? 

“The photo session usually takes about half an hour. In the beginning of the project, I would take up to about three hours with a subject because I was learning how to achieve the results that I wanted. But at this point, I know how to work with them to quickly get them to achieve what it is that I am looking for. 

“The sessions vary a lot. It absolutely depends on the model and the situation. Sometimes it is just me and the model, especially if it is someone that travels to me to be photographed. Sometimes, they bring their partner, or a sibling, or even a child. If this is the case, I often add in a portrait of them and their person, just for them to have as a memory.

“Sometimes, if it is at a retreat or gathering, the women will observe each other’s shoots, and hug and encourage each other when they are done. Often, in these situations, a woman that didn’t think she would participate see’s the transformation happen in the participant who is being photographed and changes her mind about being photographed. The transformation is very clear, and to witness it happening is quite powerful. 

“Sometimes the places I shoot in are very public, in which case it is very good to have my assistant there to divert the public away from the shoot, or at the very least to explain what we are doing. They always respond kindly to the situation, and they sometimes share their own connection with breast cancer.

“The sessions feel very sacred. I start the photo session off by guiding my subject through a meditation. I have found that this gets them out of their head; nervousness and self-consciousness of their surroundings tend to disappear. My photoshoots are a very intimate experience, even if it is in a public place as busy as Central Park. 

“Sometimes a person will cry during their session; sometimes they are filled with joy.  I encourage them to feel whatever it is that they are feeling in the moment. I want their emotion to be authentic, so when I see tears emerging or their face tightening up, I ask them to give themselves permission to let it flow. If it is joy they are feeling, I encourage them to absolutely embrace that feeling. Often after a photo session, the person will fall into my arms sobbing. It is an enormous release for them and very liberating.”

What is your most powerful memory from your time working on this project? Any one moment you’ll always hold onto? 

“I went to a metastatic retreat at The Omega Institute. It is a beautiful place in Rhinebeck, NY, that is all set up for healing retreats. There were six women in the group to whom I had presented my project who wanted to be photographed that day. Five of them wanted to be photographed before lunch on the field, but one woman named Louise, who was very sick and frail, wanted to be photographed after lunch at a beautiful spot on the property called The Sanctuary. 

“Lunch arrived, and one of the tables beckoned for me to come and sit with them. There was a young woman named Carla; I sat next to her, and I could tell she wanted to talk. Earlier that day when I had presented my work to them, I had explained how it had all arisen from a boudoir portrait session. 

Carla said to me, ‘I did a boudoir portrait once.’ 

‘Oh?’ I replied.  

“And Carla began to tell me about how she and her husband had a wonderful marriage, and that they had their challenges but they were deeply in love and happy and she wanted to give him a beautiful gift on their anniversary. So she booked a boudoir session, and before she even got her photographs back, she also got her breast cancer diagnosis. 

“At this point in the conversation, she started crying telling me that she never looked at those boudoir photographs because they represented to her this black cloud that had suddenly entered her life. At that point, she started full-body sobbing. I held her and just let her cry. 

“When the tears subsided, I suggested that she come to my studio and we would do a Grace Project portrait, that perhaps she might be willing to create a portrait that would represent the new way she was stepping into her life after the healing work she had done at the retreat. Lunch ended and Louise rounded me up. Carla asked if she could come and watch.  

“It turned out that it was beneficial to have Carla come and watch because Louise was very frail and could barely walk, so having a person to help undress her and set her up on a rock draped in the red silk that she had chosen to be wrapped in proved to be a fairly difficult task.

“But upon setting Louise in this beautiful setting with this gorgeous silk wrap, she transformed from a very frail sick woman to a powerful Goddess. It was breathtaking. Carla saw the transformation, and at the end of the shoot, she shyly asked if taking her top off and posing in her jeans would be enough for the purpose of my project. 

“I told her, ‘of course’  So I wrapped the red silk Louise had been wearing around her jeans and sat her amongst the beautiful rocks and trees, and I began the process of photographing her.

“The photographs take me a little time to get to the subjects, and I received a message on Facebook chat from Carla one night. She asked me when she could expect to see her portrait.  I explained it was a long process but that it would be fairly soon. I asked her how she was doing, and she told me that she was having good days and bad days but that they were putting her on a medical trial the following week in the hope that it would stabilize her. 

“A voice in my head told me to send Carla her photographs immediately. That she needed to see them. I told her to hold tight, that I was sending something to her via email to her. When she opened up her photographs, her reply was ecstatic. She was so grateful and declared what a gift these photographs were to her and all other cancer survivors.  

“I was so glad that I has sent her portraits, through. Based on her response, I knew that these photographs had given her some strength that she would need in the coming weeks.

“A couple of weeks later, I glanced at my Facebook page to see Carla tagged in a post. The post announced that Carla, sadly, was no longer here on this earth with us. That she had died. I was in shock. I fell apart sobbing for a good half hour or so. Carla was the first person in my project that I had lost to cancer. I was devastated, but at the same time so relieved that I had listened to that tiny voice telling me to send her pictures right away.

“My friend Carol, whom I mentioned earlier, knew Carla and was going to attend her wake.  Carol asked if she could take the printed version of Carla’s photographs to her husband. I agreed, but I didn’t know if Carla had even told her husband that she had done this shoot. So I wrote him a letter, explaining exactly how it had all gone down.

“A couple of weeks later, I got a card in the mail from him thanking me for the photograph. He told me that Carla had told him all about the photoshoot and that for the first time since her diagnosis, between the retreat that she had attended and the photoshoot that she did with me, she was finally able to make peace with her body and all that cancer had done to it.”

Have there been many reactions you’ll never forget?

“I have received so many amazing responses from women, including Carla’s. It is hard to choose one specific one, although here is a letter that I received from one subject that moved me deeply:

‘Having done the shoot by now, you know how much those photos mean to me, and although my daughter is not wanting to look at them now, I know she will when she is older. I often look at my pics, examining every angle, and although my mutilated, scarred body is glaring for all to see, my face carries the peace and tranquility that I thought was gone forever. Thank you for all your work. 

‘I am honored to have been photographed by you and I am amazed that I am not scared, ashamed, or embarrassed for anyone to see me. There is beauty in all these photos that cannot be put into words. They transcend our physical selves, they go beyond words. They convey emotions. 

“My body might be failing, but when I look at my photos, I still see that strength. I wasn’t sure if I had it anymore. You showed me I did. This is a gift for me and for my daughter and for every fighter out there. The scars do not make me who I am. The cancer destroyed so much of me, but it hasn’t destroyed me. There’s fight left, and when I feel like I can not go on, I just look at the pictures and realize that I can.’”

Are you still in touch with most of the models and their families?

“I stay in touch with all of the models; I share a deep connection with all of them. Mainly we stay in touch via social media, and also I continuously bump into many of them at various breast cancer events I attend. Being photographed like this is an intimate experience, and so even though I only spend a short time with some of them, the time that we share is well remembered by us both. 

“Sadly, some of my subjects have died. During lockdown, I took the time to send out signed fine art prints of everyone’s portraits that I had photographed up to that date. I had to hunt down the family and friends of those who had died to see if they wanted the portrait of their loved one. Here are the words I received from one of the Moms I reached out to.  As you can imagine, her words made me cry when I received them.

‘Hello Charise,

I received Megan’s portraits. You’re an amazing photographer. You were able to capture my sweet girl’s strength, beauty, tenacity and even her fear. She was so strong and fought till her last breath. Dying was not part of her plan. I will treasure these as long as I live. I have many many photos of Megan before and during her fight. But none like these. 

I hope you continue your work capturing women during their journeys of hardship. 

May God bless you and keep you,

Megan’s Mom forever’”

All images © Charise Isis. Charise Isis is a Top 50 finalist for Photolucida’s Critical Mass.

The post The ‘Grace Goddesses’ Shine in Post-Mastectomy Portraits appeared first on Feature Shoot.

“Aida Overton Walker was someone I needed deeply,” the British Ghanaian visual artist and actor Heather Agyepong tells me. A turn-of-the-century vaudeville performer, Overton Walker earned worldwide stardom and the title the Queen of the Cake Walk, named after a dance that became a cultural phenomenon. During a period when Black performers were given few opportunities on stage, her life’s work stands as a masterclass in creativity and resistance.

When Agyepong, who works with photography as well as performance, discovered Overton Walker’s work more than a century later, she was enchanted. Although Overton Walker passed away in 1914, Agyepong would step into her shoes, bringing her back to life and embarking on a new kind of collaboration, spanning generations. In Wish You Were Here, commissioned by The Hyman Collection in 2019, Agyepong plays the role of the legendary vaudeville performer. 

The dance itself—the Cake Walk—has a complicated history—and it’s one rooted in subversion. Before slavery was abolished (less than half a century before Overton Walker’s rise to stardom), enslaved people created The Cake Walk to imitate their enslavers and satirize “high society.” As Agyepong explains, these enslavers might (or might not) have understood the meaning of the dance, but it caught on, and many hosted competitions for enslaved people. 

After slavery was abolished, the dance continued to trend, earning its name from the cake that was awarded to the best performers. By the turn of the 20th century, however, minstrel shows had incorporated racist depictions of the Cake Walk. At the same time, racist postcards, featuring cartoonish and dehumanizing pictures of Cake Walk performers, became popular in Europe. Agyepong saw some of them while making this work; they were shocking and grotesque. 

But this was also during this time that Aida Overton Walker built her career. As a performer, she took the Cake Walk and turned those portrayals upside down, revealing the grace and agility required for the dance, defined by high kicks and struts. By 1903, she’d soared to fame following the landmark musical In Dahomey, one of the first hit Broadway musicals to be written and performed almost entirely by Black artists. 

“When I heard about this so-called ‘Queen of Cake Walk’ and how she flipped those postcard depictions, I thought, ‘There is really something here,” Agyepong reflects. “How can we Houdini power?” In Wish You Were Here, she plays the role of the magician: using the aesthetic of the old postcards, she portrays a woman with power and agency. 

“In the early 1900s, Overton Walker said, ‘Unless we learn the lesson of self-appreciation and practice it, we shall spend our lives imitating other people and deprecating ourselves,’” the photographer explains. It’s stuck with her. 

Agyepong spent about a year researching the performer, immersing herself in her life and work. “I was also digging into my life, thinking what liberated space meant to me, what ownership and rest looked like,” the artist says. In The Body Remembers, she uses white paint and lavender flowers to visualize trauma and ways of coping with it. In Rob This England, she’s wearing a crown—a reference to the time Overton Walker went to Buckingham Palace to perform for the birthday of the Prince of Wales. 

There are references to today’s popular culture hidden in there too. In one of the photographs, Anne Mae, the photographer is (in part) referencing a now-iconic gif featuring Viola Davis on the television show How to Get Away With Murder. In that scene, Davis’s character, Annalise Keating, is standing up, picking up her purse, and leaving a meeting. 

In that way, the lines between past and present—and between the photographer and her muse—start to blur. The two of them are talking, unbound by the rules of space and time. “She’s telling me, ‘I wish you were here—-where I am and how I feel, grounded and commanding,’” the photographer says. “I’m telling her, ‘Well, I wish you were here, where you could have taken up the space that was rightfully yours. 

“It’s an homage to our past and present circumstances as black female artists. At the time, Overton Walker felt like an aspiration. I think part of her fight always lived in me, but something about having that conversation within the images allowed me to really own it. Communion, sisterhood, and conversation are where real healing can happen for me.”

The work is timeless by definition. But at the same time, it feels meaningful that Agyepong made the photographs at this precise moment in global history, one marked by injustice but also change and hope. In 2020, the pandemic disproportionately affected Black families and Black women. It was also the year the Black Lives Matter movement inspired millions and reshaped the world forever. These photographs are just as important today as Overton Walker’s work was in 1903. 

In Wish You Were Here, Agyepong is playing a part, based on a real person. But she’s also simply being herself. In some ways, that’s the most stunning magic trick of them all: in becoming someone else, she’s actually coming into her own. “Making this work was a joy, but it was also heavy—because there were/are parts of myself which I’ve felt are too loud or too much,” she tells me. “This series was about processing that. I think all my work is about processing and reflecting on where I am now and where I’m going—to pay respect to me in the grey and the gold.”

Wish You Were Here will be on view at the Centre for British Photography from January 26th to April 30th.

Heather Agyepong 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.

All images © Heather Agyepong

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