We’re thrilled to announce 30 of the winning photographs from the Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards Single Images Category, to be exhibited as part of a group street exhibition in Brooklyn, New York later this year. Congratulations to Dorie Hagler, Matthew Bagley, Zerb Mellish, Anna Neubauer, Daniel Heilig, Mona Singh, Karene-Isabelle Jean-Baptiste, Sunniva Hestenes, Ryan Peticca, Susan Borowitz, Tris Lovering, Dom Marker, Devin Lunsford, Inga Pae, Cuneyt Gumushaneli, Lua Kobayashi, Gemma Pepper, Stefano Lotumolo, Tom Winter, Valeria Cammareri, Shou Yi Daniel, Iara Mora Watanabe, Grzegorz Piotrowski, Priscilla Ong, Artem Shestakov, and Sebastian Dijkstra Nilander for being selected by this year’s judging panel.

The Single Image jurors for the 7th Annual Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards were Maura Friedman, Associate Photo Editor at National Geographic; Karen Comer Lowe, Executive Director and Chief Curator at Hammonds House Museum; Kainaz Amaria, Visuals Editor at Vox; H Eugene Foster, freelance photographer and Adjunct Instructor at ICP; Jason Baron, photography consultant and former Head of Photography at the BBC; and Aaron Turner, photographer, educator, and founder of the Center for Photographers of Color at the University of Arkansas, School of Art.

The theme for this year’s Single Image submissions was Show Us Today’s World Through Your Lens, interpreted by the winning photographers in a wide variety of ways. Some took a documentary approach, with Dorie Hagler photographing the Queer Liberation March in New York City and Shou Yi Daniel covering the work of chemical troops in Taipei amid the pandemic. Others, including Sunniva Hestenes and Susan Borowitz, veered into surreal territory, tapping into current anxieties with emotions with ambiguous, open-ended pictures.

Still more celebrated cherished moments in everyday life. Zerb Mellish, a first-generation Liberian-American photographer, captured the bond between a mother and child, while Daniel Heilig spotted a family playing soccer in the Jebel Shams mountains of Oman. Diving into the depths of the ocean, Matthew Bagley celebrated the beauty of the natural world at a time when it faces dire threats.

We encourage you to browse all the winning photographs here. If you’re in the Brooklyn area during the exhibition, we hope you’ll check them out in person. Another 30 single images will be exhibited in Los Angeles, and all winning pictures from the Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards will be published as part of our upcoming photobook, so stay tuned for details.

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The winners of the Single Images category of the 7th Annual Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards have been announced, with 30 photographs included in our upcoming street exhibition in Los Angeles. Thanks to this year’s jury for single images, including Karen Comer Lowe from Hammonds House Museum, H Eugene Foster from ICP, Kainaz Amaria from Vox, Maura Friedman from National Geographic, photographers and educator Aaron Turner, and photography consultant Jason Baron for curating the exhibition.

The exhibiting photographers in Los Angeles are Zerb Mellish, Carlos Barrera, Cuneyt Gumushaneli, Richard Beck, Won Kim, Sunniva Hestenes, Ludwig Nikulski, Mahnoor Malik, Valerie Brunnette, Ryan Peticca, Gemma Pepper, Grzegorz Piotrowski, Anton Kuehnhackl, Mona Singh, Selene Magnolia, Anna Neubauer, Jari Poulin, Katia Belmadani, Shunsuke Miyatake, Szymon Lewinski, Sandra Cattaneo Adorno, Susan Borowitz, Devin Lunsford, Dorie Hagler, Jack Sorokin, Emily Neville Fisher, Alexej Sachov, Catalin Chitu, and Costas Kariolis.

This year, following a series of unprecedented events worldwide, we asked submitters in the Single Image category to “show us the world through their lens,” and the winners responded through a range of approaches, from photojournalism to fine art and beyond. Some captured quiet moments with global implications. Carlos Barrera photographed a survivor of the November hurricanes in Central America, while Valerie Brunnette, who is based in Minneapolis, visited the George Floyd Memorial. Elsewhere, Selene Magnolia covered the crossing of Europe’s Mediterranean border, known as the world’s deadliest border.

Many of this year’s winners introduced us to the people who inspired them. Mona Singh photographed a girl and her doll in India, while Sandra Cattaneo Adorno spotted children at play in sunny California. Anna Neubauer found beauty in diversity, and Won Kim looked for connection in a disconnected world. These 30 photographs will be on view in LA for one week later this year, so if you’re in the area, be sure to check them out in person. Another 30 photographs chosen by our judges will be part of a street exhibition in New York, and all winning images will be part of our upcoming photobook.

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“One day, I said to myself: ‘I want to make something that uplifts who I am as a person–and who we are as people,’” the photographer Lindsay Perryman tells me of the seed that would later blossom into The Colors We Don’t See at The End of The Rainbow, a resplendent zine made in celebration of African American masculine women in the LGBTQ community. “I’ve always been a part of a community that has very little representation, and I wanted that to change through the making of this zine.”

Zines have a rich heritage in community building, from Fire!!, the famous literary magazine published in New York during the Harlem Renaissance, to Vice Versa, a lesbian magazine from 1940s Los Angeles. Perryman created their zine after encountering work by fellow photographer Stef Mitchell, whose use of crayon helped inspire the presentation of the text in The Colors We Don’t See at The End of The Rainbow. 

“I was having a difficult time with self-acceptance during the making of this zine,” they say. “The only thing that kept me going was being able to conduct more shoots and finish my project. I’m very serious and invested in my work when I start a project. The Colors We Don’t See At The End of The Rainbow got me through a dark time in my life when I was dealing with depression, and it helped me gain insight on some issues I’ve been struggling with.” 

The people in the zine are friends of the artist and people they met through Instagram. What they all have in common, Perryman says, is the “resilience and strength to keep being themselves.” The portrait sessions took place at the sitter’s home, inside the studio, or in the artist’s dorm room. They were particularly drawn to details like neck tattoos and jewelry that helped tell the story of the person on the other side of the camera. 

The Colors We Don’t See at The End of The Rainbow comprises photographs by Perryman as well as drawings by Inez Perera. All profits from the project go back into the community that helped bring it to life by supporting The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center in New York City. “It means a lot to the people in the book to have been included,” Perryman tells me. “They feel seen.” 

You can order your copy of The Colors We Don’t See at The End of The Rainbow via Perryman’s website. You can follow them on Instagram at @lindsayperryman. 

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“It’s said that a Black man was the first human,” the artist Ceres Henry, who also goes by the name Diaja, tells me. “It’s also said that Adam and Eve were Melanated beings.” Her ongoing Adam & Eve Series is a tribute to the people African diaspora, their beauty and divinity, during a time in our collective history where white supremacist violence continues to make national headlines. The vivid portraits, each featuring body paintings by Diaja herself, are the artist’s resounding response to harmful ideas and images reflected in the media for generations. 

The inspiration for Adam & Eve came to Diaja by chance when she spotted a child with a flower painted on her face. “I put my own spin on it and painted the model all black so everything I painted on top would pop,” she remembers. “I decided to paint multiple flowers and incorporate real flowers into my imagery. That was the beginning of something major, yet at the time, it was just another creative day for me.”

Diaja’s muses for the series include professional models she’s worked with in the past, but she’s also featured friends and family members. She does everything herself, from the wardrobe and flower styling to painting. The painting itself takes about one and a half hours on average, though it all depends on the vision. The actual floral adornment, using living flowers, happens last. “Everyone I’ve worked with is amazed by how they look when I’m done painting them,” she admits. 

As for the flower selections, Diaja says they hold no meaning in particular. She chooses them for their colors and because they’re beautiful. Still, flowers have a long history as symbols of resistance and solidarity. I can’t help but think of Martin Luther King, John Lewis, and all the other Civil Rights activists, who when marching from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, famously wore double carnation lei, gifted to them from Hawaii. I think also of the lush community greenhouse that was erected this year at George Floyd Square to grow flowers for the memorial. 

It’s been four years since Diaja created her first Adam portrait, and the project continues to evolve and grow. “This ongoing series is my way of countering the negative stereotypes and stigmas placed on my people,” she shared on Instagram early this year. “This one’s for us! When you see these images, you’ll have no choice but to behold the splendor of our Blackness. We are works of art.” 

Fine art giclee prints from Adam & Eve are available via the artist’s website. You can follow Diaja’s work on Instagram at @omg_diaja__. 

All images © Diaja

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Looking to improve your photographic skills this fall? Engage your creative side with ICP’s courses and workshops, open to image makers of all types and skill levels. The educators of ICP’s Innovation Lab collaborated to create courses that engage in creative ways of studying photography online. By rethinking traditional class structures, students and faculty can now share feedback quickly and easily in both live online classes and in conversations that extend asynchronously throughout the week. 

Course topics are expansive and explore ideas ranging from building a mastery of the black and white image, working collaboratively in the creation of new work, thinking creatively about the photographic archive, growing your artistic practice, and working collectively to sequence and complete a body of work.

Students in an Innovation Lab course share feedback with their classmates and receive guidance from their instructors through both Atget Studio software and in live online classes. Immerse yourself in an experienced and engaged community of artists from around the world. Fall sessions start this month! View all Innovation Lab offerings. 

Interested in learning more about all of ICP’s photography courses? Serving more than 3,500 adult and teen students each year, ICP’s school offers photography education for every level, from courses and workshops to certificate programs in Creative Practices and Documentary Practice. We are excited to welcome back our community of image makers to our school located at 84 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side in New York. 

About the International Center of Photography 

The International Center of Photography (ICP) is the world’s leading institution dedicated to photography and visual culture. Cornell Capa founded ICP in 1974 to champion “concerned photography”—socially and politically minded images that can educate and change the world. Through our exhibitions, education programs, community outreach, and public programs, ICP offers an open forum for dialogue about the power of the image. Since its inception, ICP has presented more than 700 exhibitions, provided thousands of classes, and hosted a wide variety of public programs. ICP launched its new integrated center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in January 2020. Located at 79 Essex Street, ICP is the cultural anchor of Essex Crossing, one of the most highly anticipated and expansive mixed-use developments in New York City. ICP pays respect to the original stewards of this land, the Lenape people, and other indigenous communities. Visit icp.org to learn more about the museum and its programs.

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“After taking this image, I knew I was onto something that had never been seen before,” Robert Andy Coombs says, looking back on Nude on Grass, a self-portrait he created five years ago. “Being disabled, I don’t get to see my body or explore it very often, so photographing helps me appreciate it for what it is,” he tells us. “It shows all the different aspects of what makes my body unique and beautiful by showcasing intimate areas; like my floppy crippled wrists and the tan lines where my splints lay, my suprapubic catheter, scars from my G-tube and tracheotomy, and my beautiful tattoos.”

That photograph was the first in a series he’s titled CripFag–a reclamation of the words “crip” and “fag” as well as a tender exploration of sex and love, disability and care. After sustaining an injury to his spinal cord in college, Coombs searched for representations that resonated with his experiences. “I felt so uninformed from my medical professionals about disability and sexuality that I had to find it elsewhere,” he remembers. “There were very few resources to learn from, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and started creating images I wanted to see in the world.”

Nude on Grass was created when the artist was in the process of applying to the Yale School of Art. He graduated with his MFA during the pandemic, and his first solo museum exhibition is currently on view at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University. The show features selections from CripFag, Nude on Grass among them. The exhibition is titled Notions of Care.

In the years since he first made the portrait, Coombs has continued to photograph himself, alone and with close friends, many of whom he met while at Yale. The resulting images are enduring reminders of their love and the time they spent together. “Some of my subjects have never had an intimate relationship or experience with someone who has a disability,” Coombs says. “I will always cherish our behind-the-scenes memories because of all the helpers that, if you’re lucky, you will see in the photos. There is always a hint of the people behind the camera that you will see if you look closely.” 

The famed art critic Jerry Saltz once compared the composition of a photo by Coombs to Dead Christ With Angels, an 1864 painting by Edouard Manet. The bible story on which that painting is based retells the tale of Mary Magdalene, who, upon hearing that Christ’s body is missing, peers into his tomb. In the bible story, Christ’s body is gone, replaced by two angels. For whatever reason, Manet diverged from that telling. In his painting, Christ hasn’t vanished. He’s right there with the angels–flesh and bone. 

In Coombs’ photos, perhaps we can find a similar reverence for the beauty and divinity of human flesh, so often seen bathed in golden light. During the pandemic, when contact between loved ones became painfully restricted, the artist says his pictures became a “saving grace” for him and his friends. He tells me, “They gave us hope for the day that we could touch again.”

See Notions of Care Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum FIU through November 7th, 2021.

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Dash Snow was a famously graceful climber, and he was never afraid of heights. As a young graffiti artist, he climbed onto a ledge to paint the Brooklyn Bridge. He left behind his tag, SACE, and the message “Fuck Giuliani” before taking off his clothes and gazing out over the water. In the artist’s own words, New York City was in his blood. 

Snow (1981-2009) was a photographer, sculptor, collage artist, friend, partner, and father. He also defied categorization. As a young boy, he threw watermelons at cars and tossed the heads of his sister’s Barbies out their 17th-story window. He was Ryan McGinley’s friend and muse, and along with Teddy Liouliakis and Dan Colen, a fixture of the clubhouse on 7th Street where people got together to party and make art. 

Later, he built “nests”–first in hotel rooms, then in an art gallery–shredding countless phonebooks to produce a human-sized hampster nest where he and friends could play. And, of course, he was a loving parent. When his daughter, Secret, learned how to walk, she did it by holding onto his finger.  

The exhibition DASHCAM Dash Snow: Photographs of Life, on view at Morán Morán in Los Angeles, centers an overlooked piece of the artist’s expansive oeuvre: his black-and-white 35mm photographs. Like his Polaroids, these images capture the city of New York and the people Snow loved most, including his partner Jade Berreau, daughter Secret, and close friend Kunle F. Martins, in moments so tender they ache. 

The Morán Morán show roughly coincides with the Quad Cinema screening of Moments Like This Never Last, the documentary by the artist’s friend, Cheryl Dunn. “For me, it really felt like an impure gesture to submit this to the world,” Snow says in the film. “Like, this is not for anyone. This is for us, and it’s too pure of a moment.” He’s talking about the Polaroids, but the same could be said for the 35mm black and white pictures. One feels privileged to see them. 

Snow died very young, but as Matthew Higgs, the curator of the show at Morán Morán, explains, it would be a mistake to understand his photographs as a kind of memento mori. They’re filled to the brim with “too much living” to lend such a reading any credence. Instead, we can find within them not only love (for his chosen family, his friends, his daughter) but also a kind of abiding innocence and hope–or as Higgs puts it, “a sense of melancholic optimism.” 

That seems right. Over the years, Dash Snow has become a myth as well as a man, and perhaps in some small way, he’s also become more than mortal. That night on the Brooklyn Bridge, I’d like to imagine that life seemed limitless, the future appearing before him, as vast as the city itself.

See DASHCAM Dash Snow: Photographs of Life at Morán Morán through October 19th, 2021.

The post The Life Of Dash Snow Revealed in Intimate Photos appeared first on Feature Shoot.

There have never been so many options for printing and displaying your photos – these days there are printing mediums out there that won’t just bring out the full potential of your images, they’ll also be a dynamic physical presence in themselves.

Photo paper still brings great results, but many photographers are looking for less conventional alternatives. And canvas – one of the oldest substrates for oil painting – is now seeing a revival as a base for custom printing.

To find out what makes canvas so special, we asked CanvasDiscount.com – an established custom printing company which has sold more than 10 million canvas prints. So let’s look at their arguments in favor of canvas printing one by one!

#1. Canvas is Remarkably Durable

Canvas is widely used in the production of tents, sails and other items that simply must be hard-wearing. And that helps to explain its popularity in the printing world too. These days only the most cherished photos make it to print, so people want printing substrates that will preserve those wonderful pictures not just for a few years, but for a lifetime. Canvas prints fit the bill perfectly – just choose a reliable provider and your photo reproductions on canvas should stay in great condition for at least 75 years. 

#2. Prints on Canvas Have a Striking Physical Presence

Traditionally, photo prints have been flat – and if left unframed, have lacked a certain substantial impact. By contrast, canvas prints normally come wrapped on an inner frame that immediately gives your photo reproduction a powerful sense of volume. And where there’s volume, there’s depth – the three-dimensional construction of canvas prints puts some real body behind every color and gradient, often making regular paper-thin prints look tame in comparison.

#3. Canvas Prints Look Like Classic Works of Art

Thanks to their gallery aesthetics and fine-grained surface, canvas prints blur the line between digital photography and classical artworks. Photos taken with a cutting-edge 21^st-century camera can achieve a timeless painterly quality when printed on canvas. And the textured fabric gives the print a soft pastel overtone, making canvas the ideal substrate for portraits, romantic landscapes, or just any photo that you want to present with artistic flair.

#4. Canvas Eliminates Glare

If you want to avoid reflections and glare, canvas is the perfect option. With print mediums like photo paper, a degree of glare is unavoidable even if you opt for a matte finish, but canvas is a fabric – meaning it has a naturally uneven surface that absorbs the light rather than reflecting it. The result? Beautiful matte prints that look beautiful from any angle.

#5. Canvas Prints are Wonderfully Affordable

When canvas first entered the custom printing market some decades ago, canvas printing technology was still in development. This explains the sometimes-underwhelming results that led some photographers at the time to think canvas isn’t a perfect match for high-resolution digital photos. But over the years, underperforming companies have been squeezed out of the market – and the ones that remain have truly mastered the technique.

And these days, high-end canvas prints are available at more than affordable prices – thanks to ever-growing demand, companies like CanvasDiscount.com can rely on economies of scale to cut prices without compromising on quality. 

With its unmatched versatility and aesthetic power, it’s safe to say that canvas has a promising future as a print medium!

Print Now & Save

CanvasDiscount.com is now offering a 50% discount on wall art to all Feature Shoot readers! 

Order 2 products and get 50% OFF the cheaper item!
Use code FEATURE50OFF to activate the discount at https://www.canvasdiscount.com/featureshoot/. Please note: Offer limited to Canvas, Metal, or Acrylic Prints

Give your photos a new life in print and enjoy your new custom wall art!

The post The Age of Canvas: Why It’s The Perfect Choice for Photo Printing (Sponsored) appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Feature Shoot’s latest guide is now available! As many photographers moved their business online amid a year unlike any other, we curated this one-of-a-kind listing of 45 marketplaces, galleries, and websites specializing in outstanding images, from fine art prints to stock photography licensing. In its pages, you’ll find everything you need to start submitting your work and selling your photos.

The guide is comprised of three sections: marketplaces, including open and curated collections; print shops and galleries representing an exclusive roster of artists; and stock photography and image licensing, with listings ranging from massive libraries to highly curated agencies. We spoke with several online gallery owners, agencies, and more to determine exactly what they’re looking for in submissions.

With forty pages of listings and tips, illustrated by stunning photography,45 Places to Sell Your Photos Online is your go-to resource for monetizing your archive, setting up a print shop, and expanding your reach. It’s an ideal companion for other Feature Shoot guides, including 51 Artist Residencies Around the World and 52 Photography Grants You Should Know About. Grab your pdf copy today for just $15.

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“I remember going to the beach as a child and feeling a sense of freedom,” Sandra Cattaneo Adorno, who grew up in Rio de Janeiro in the 1950s-60s, tells me. “The grown-ups were having a good time together, so they left us children to our adventures and mischiefs. The best part of the week was Sunday, when my mother packed a picnic and we went to the beach for the whole day. We had lots of fun, generally came back sunburned, but very happy.” 

Adorno would depart from Brazil in 1965, but memories of those mischief-filled Sundays at Ipanema followed her wherever she traveled. Eight years ago, at the age of sixty, she would become a photographer, and this newfound passion ultimately brought her back to the sparkling shores where she’d spent her childhood. Águas de Ouro, meaning “waters of gold,” out now from Radius Books, is her tribute to the beach and the people she’s encountered along the way. 

By the time Adorno fully reimmersed herself in the landscape, Ipanema had changed. While it had formerly served as a fashionable playground for a select few, she discovered that everyone was now welcome to enjoy the beach. “‘Cariocas’ (people born in the state of Rio de Janeiro) coming from all parts of the town are now able to go to the once-exclusive southern beaches thanks to public transport,” she explains. “The people I photograph now are much more diverse, and they create an energy that is much more powerful and interesting than what I remembered as a child. There are many more people and lots more action.” 

Music and laughter have always been a part of life at the beach. “Ipanema can be quite chaotic and noisy,” Adorno says. “I think people behave in an informal, spontaneous way when they are near water, and I enjoy trying to capture that in my photographs.” These days, people come together at Ipanema for barbecues, and you can find surfers dotting the waves at almost any hour of the night and day. “The sound of the waves, though, muffles the noises in a pleasing monotone that always takes the front stage,” the artist says. 

“Unlike other beaches in Rio, which open onto the bay of Guanabara and whose sea is therefore calmer, Ipanema rests on the coast and is exposed to the open Atlantic ocean.” The waves can be unpredictable, and sometimes they get rough. Every day brings something new. “Ipanema is a place that always hides some secrets for me to discover,” Adorno confesses. 

Again and again, the photographer saw children at play in the sun and surf, many around the same age she was when she first explored the beach. The photographs in Águas de Ouro are gilded and resplendent, but in between its sun-dappled pages, you might also find traces of melancholy and heartache. “The saddest encounter I had was with a child who was very scared of everything,” she remembers. “He always looked down, as if he was afraid of interacting with people. 

“The other boys were making fun of him and asking me why I was taking the photo of such an ugly boy. I saw this boy had some scars on his face, but only later, when I edited my photos, did I realize that he had scars all over his body, and he most likely suffered from domestic abuse.” She felt herself caught in what felt like an impossible situation; had she gone to the authorities or confronted his family, she feared the situation would worsen and become more dangerous for him. 

When Adorno was a child, Sundays at Ipanema were a time of freedom and joy. As an adult, she recognizes that the beach often serves as a background for the full tapestry of human emotions, from sorrow to wonder. When she came across moments of pain, she didn’t close her eyes or look the other way. Instead, she took it all in, tasting the bitter with the sweet and turning her head to face the sunshine as it danced across the sand. “For many of the children living in the most deprived areas of the city, coming down to Ipanema feels like the realization of a dream,” she says now. “Maybe I see in their eyes the same curiosity I had as a child to discover the openness of the sea–and to dream about what lies behind it.”

All photos © Sandra Cattaneo Adorno, from Sandra Cattaneo Adorno: Aguás de Ouro (Radius Books).

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On the morning of September 11th, 2001, Sgt. John McLoughlin and Officers William Jimeno and Dominick Pezzulo of the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) brought rescue equipment to aid in the evacuation at the World Trade Center. They saw the South Tower start to collapse above them, and when all fell still, they found themselves buried under thirty feet of rubble.

Officer Pezzulo was killed while trying to rescue the others. Trapped, Sgt. McLoughlin asked Officer Jimeno, then a rookie, to tell him his first name: Will. Officer Jimeno told him he was expecting a daughter; he wanted to name her Olivia. Thirteen hours later, a rescue team from the Emergency Service Unit of the NYPD would free Officer Jimeno. Sgt. McLoughlin was rescued after twenty-two hours, just after the clock struck 7:00 on the morning of September 12th.

The boots Sgt. McLoughlin wore that day are among the 70,000 artifacts now housed at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in Manhattan. For the September issue of National Geographic, Henry Leutwyler photographed some of the objects from the collection, many of them unseen by the general public until now. To coincide with the publication, more than 30 photographs from the project will be on view at Foley Gallery in New York as part of Sacred Dust: Photographs by Henry Leutwyler.

Among the rescued artifacts photographed by Leutwyler are a broken keyboard, a plastic lid, a sprinkler head, a Rolodex, plane parts, and family photographs. In the National Geographic feature, you’ll find a watch that belonged to Rosemary Smith, who worked at the Sidley Austin Brown & Wood law firm. It’s stopped at just before 1:00.

You’ll also discover a pair of pants worn by an EMT named Greg Gully, who spent four days at Ground Zero, searching for survivors. When he got home, he was unable to wash the dust from his pants, realizing that the ashes were the remains of the people who’d died. And there’s the helmet that was worn by Firefighter Joseph Gerard Hunter of FDNY Squad 288, who was killed while helping to evacuate the South Tower. 

Leutwyler was in New York City when the Towers collapsed. To make these pictures, he spent weeks and months with these objects, housed in archives and private collections. Like the artifacts themselves, Leutwyler’s photographs have become memorials in their own right. The prints exhibited at Foley Gallery are not available for purchase. 

Instead, they will become part of the permanent collection at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, where they will join tens of thousands of artifacts, including that worn pair of boots that once belonged to Sgt. John McLoughlin. After he was pulled from the rubble, it was uncertain if Sgt. McLoughlin would ever walk again. But four months later, as the last steel column was removed from Ground Zero, he was walking once more, with Officer Jimeno by his side.

You can see Leutwyler’s prints in person at Foley Gallery through September 25th, 2021. You can find all the images in the September issue of National Geographic magazine and online at NatGeo.com. National Geographic‘s four-night limited series, 9/11: One Day in America is available to view on Hulu. 

The post Remembering September 11th: Photos of What They Left Behind appeared first on Feature Shoot.

“When I think of participating in Animal Save vigils, I think of the freezing cold temperatures that the animals endure in transport, as well as the sweltering heat,” the photojournalist Jo-Anne McArthur, the founder of We Animals Media, tells me. “When I put my camera to the openings in the truck walls, I’m hit with the smells from inside, which are particularly bad on hot days. The conditions are crowded. The lens fogs up. The animals are panting, or wide-eyed; often both.”

McArthur has been part of the Animal Save Movement, a global network co-founded by Anita Krajnc, since its inception. It began in 2010 as Toronto Pig Save when Krajnc, an animal activist and friend of McArthur, saw truckloads of terrified pigs carted into a slaughterhouse on her morning walks with her dog, Mr. Bean. Today, their goal is to hold a vigil at every slaughterhouse until they’re shuttered for good. 

“It’s been incredible to see it grow from the commitment of one person who wanted to start vigils, in solidarity with animals, so that people could bear witness,” McArthur says. “Anita has been greatly influenced by activists and writers like Gandhi and Tolstoy, who believed in bearing witness, being at the front lines, and helping. Now, there are chapters globally, and millions of people are drawn to see, to learn.” 

At Animal Save vigils, everyone knows that the animals in the transport trucks can’t be rescued, but learning about their suffering and educating the public can help save future generations from their fate. The animals in these trucks are usually crowded together, forced to stand in their own waste; pigs might stand on top of one another, screaming in pain and fear. It is legal to transport animals without access to food or water in unbearable heat; according to Animal Justice, 1.59 million animals arrive at slaughterhouses in Canada dead or dying each year. 

For participants, the vigils provide a chance to peer into the eyes of individual animals during some of the most frightening moments of their lives. On sweltering days like the ones McArthur remembers so vividly, activists might also offer water to thirsty animals while the trucks stop in traffic. Pigs are known to push their snouts to the holes to receive water and bits of watermelon, squealing with stress but also momentary relief. They enjoy being stroked on the nose, although the trucks are so crowded that not all can reach the holes for that moment of contact. 

The vigils, and the vegan potlucks that sometimes follow, also foster lifelong connections within the community, strengthening the resolve of people working on the frontlines on behalf of animals. As a community, they’ve weathered losses and tragedies side-by-side. In June of 2020, social justice activist and animal advocate Regan Russell was killed by a transport truck in front of a Fearman’s Pork Inc. slaughterhouse. The driver was charged with careless driving causing death. Animal Save activists continue to fight for justice and honor her memory by attending vigils.  

Seeing people come together as part of the Animal Save Movement makes McArthur proud and hopeful. “It’s mind-boggling to know that all of this suffering is unnecessary,” she says. “All of this ‘farming,’ growing, producing, antibiotics, fear, transport, violence, eating. There are other ways for us to be, more harmonious ways to be with others, treat others. Better ways to be on this Earth.” 

Earlier this year, activists at Foggia Animal Save in Southern Italy showed us what a better world might look like when they collaborated with a local sanctuary, La Fattoria di Nonno Peppino, and other volunteers to rescue a pig found on the side of the road between Canosa and Minervino. The pig, whom rescuers named Mariarosa, had likely thrown herself from the truck carrying her to slaughter, severely injuring herself on a guardrail in the process. She is now safe at the sanctuary when she can be found nibbling on veggies and taking mud baths. They hope she will survive to lead a long life there. 

This story is part of a series of articles about the We Animals collection, a world-class stock site comprising more than 10,000 images and videos from animal photojournalists working around the world. You can support their work by making a one-time donation here, or you can become part of We Animals Allies here. Stay tuned for more. 

The post The Animal Save Movement Bears Witness to Animals Headed for Slaughter appeared first on Feature Shoot.

The Print Swap, Feature Shoot’s global project, has relaunched with more opportunities than ever for photographers to get their work seen. First, we’re headed back to the Indian Photo Festival in Hyderabad, India’s longest-running international photography festival, which in 2020 presented work by 350 artists across 35 countries. All photographers who swap prints through August and September 2021 will be included in our digital exhibition. You can submit your photos for consideration directly through our website or via Instagram by tagging #theprintswap.

We also have two curated exhibitions on the horizon, with an opportunity for 55 photographers to exhibit images selected by a panel of industry experts.

The first will be a printed exhibition at the Indian Photo Festival, and the second will be some 8,000 miles away in the streets of New York City, spanning locations in the Lower East Side, Soho, and the West Village. The New York show will include 30 photos, and the Hyderabad show will feature 25. Featured photographers will be chosen by Alison Zavos, the Founder of Feature Shoot; Aquin Matthews, the Founder and Director of the Indian Photo Festival; Maarten Schilt, the Founder of Schilt Publishing & Gallery; and Anna Dickson, Visual Lead at Google.

As always, every photographer who takes part in The Print Swap gives a print and receives a print of their choosing. As of this writing, available prints include those created in the lush landscapes of Kenya, the wildlife reserves of the UK, the streets of Sri Lanka, and the blue city of Jodhpur, India. It costs just $50 per image to participate, and we cover printing and shipping in full. Follow along on Instagram at @theprintswap for news and updates.

The post The Print Swap Announces Exhibitions in India and New York appeared first on Feature Shoot.

For many photographers, the idea of a long-term marketing strategy seems complicated and overwhelming, but in 2021, it’s not enough to simply post a photo on Instagram and hope the right clients find you. The good news is this: our friends at CANDESCENT, the platform supporting women in business, have made setting and meeting your goals as a photographer easier than ever. Their free guide, Marketing Your Photography Business in 2021, is a must-have for all creatives navigating the market in a post-pandemic world. 

CANDESCENT’s 24-page eBook-style guide is jam-packed with career-building advice you won’t find anywhere else, providing a step-by-step process for growing your email list, creating and maintaining a social media presence, and mastering the basics of SEO (search engine optimization). 

Lanie Philippe, the founder of CANDESCENT and the author of the guide, has also included tips for marketing your photography through (effective!) paid advertising, and she shares resources for automating your business and carving out more time in your schedule. They’ve even included detailed checklists to help keep you organized and on track as you grow your client base. 

If the words “marketing strategy” once made your eyes glaze over, CANDESCENT has broken it down into manageable, actionable tips that you can start using today and continue to implement as your business expands. This guide is particularly well-suited to portrait photographers, family photographers, and wedding photographers, but the advice you’ll find within its pages applies to any field in the photo industry, from fine art to editorial. Many of these small everyday changes, from optimizing your website to setting up a social media schedule, can be done in a matter of minutes, but they make a significant difference in boosting your sales over time. 

Grab your copy of Marketing Your Photography Business in 2021 today!

The post A New Guide for Marketing Your Photography Business in 2021 appeared first on Feature Shoot.

In 1985, a chimpanzee was transferred from The Buckshire Corporation in Pennsylvania to The Coulston Foundation in New Mexico, where he was used for breeding and biomedical research. The studies he endured were highly invasive and some included daily “knockdowns,” frequent blood drawing, and the administering of unknown substances through injections or stomach tubes.

His name was Spock. During his time at the Coulston Foundation, he lived in “The Dungeon,” a building where chimpanzees could be found in barren cages, some emaciated and marked by scarring caused by self-mutilation. In 2002, when the Coulston Foundation closed, Spock and 266 other chimpanzees were rescued by the Save the Chimps Foundation, who would build them a sanctuary in Florida where they could live free from harm. It was here that Jo-Anne McArthur, a photojournalist and the founder of We Animals Media would meet many of these individuals years later. 

At the sanctuary, Spock made friends with twenty-five other chimpanzees and spent most of his time outdoors, soaking up the sun and roaming the island landscape. While research labs are incredibly difficult to access, McArthur was able to trace the stories of these animals by meeting the chimpanzees who’d made it out alive. She created the photographs featured here at two sanctuaries, Save the Chimps and Fauna Foundation in Canada, both providing refuge to chimpanzees rescued from biomedical research. 

At the Fauna Foundation, she met chimpanzees like Loulis, who loves to play chase and is known to ask humans for kisses, and Chance, who lived her first fifteen years in a baboon cage in a laboratory, alone and without other chimpanzees, before being rescued. It was in Florida at Save the Chimps that she met Ron, a chimpanzee who was born the same year she was. 

Ron was used at Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP), where he lived alone in a tiny cage suspended above the floor and was anesthetized with ketamine at least 105 times. During a period at the primate facility on Holloman Air Force Base (HAFB), he had a healthy disc removed from his neck. A prosthetic disc was placed into his spine and removed six months later. After the removal, Ron was not given pain medication for eight days. When he was given meds, it was only a small dose of ibuprofen, not enough for a chimp his size. Like Spock, Ron also spent time at the Coulston Foundation. 

At the sanctuary, McArthur met Ron in his room, where he built a nest every day. He was free to go outside as he wished, but he was most comfortable in his room. He died there in the fall of 2011, just months after that visit. 

Spock passed away suddenly and peacefully three years later, almost thirty years after he first arrived at the Coulston Foundation, during another one of the photographer’s visits to Save the Chimps. Spock’s hands and feet were painted and pressed onto paper as a memento and tribute to his life. As with every chimpanzee who passes away at the sanctuary, he was mourned with a ritual, and staff members had the opportunity to stand with him and say goodbye. He was survived by his three children, Bart, Angie, and Grace.

After Save the Chimps transferred all the chimps who had once lived at Coulston to their sanctuary, they sold the facility. They did so with the clause that it could never again be used for animal research. This story is part of a series of articles on Feature Shoot about the We Animals collection, a world-class stock site comprising more than 10,000 images and videos from animal photojournalists working around the world. You can support their work by making a one-time donation here, or you can become part of We Animals Allies here. 

The post A Photographer Meets Chimpanzees Saved from Research Laboratories appeared first on Feature Shoot.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit last year, Alayna Pernell made the journey from Chicago to Alabama to be with her family. During that time, she moved between her mother’s house and her grandmother’s, immersing herself in the albums and buckets of family photographs her grandmother kept throughout the years. Some dated back to the late 19th century. 

Their faces stayed with her, and when she returned to Chicago, she delved into the collections of photographs held at institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. There, she found that many of Black women were not shown with their families. Most also remained unidentified. 

Pernell wasn’t able, at this time, to track down the women’s families and return the photographs, but she knew she could honor their memories. Using reproductions of the originals, she laid her hands over their hands and held their faces. Although she is not related to the women in the pictures, her series Our Mothers’ Gardens is, in many ways, their homecoming. She also reached out to Peter Cohen, the New York-based collector, in hopes of working together to find the families and give back the portraits. 

Pernell is one of eight photo-based artists featured in Source Material, an exhibition at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC), curated by Jon Feinstein and Roula Seikaly of Humble Arts Foundation. “I’m moved by Alayna Pernell’s project Our Mothers’ Gardens overall, and the image No Longer Peter Cohen’s Property #16 particularly,” Seikaly tells us. “I’m moved by how her hands cradle both the image, a valuable object in a transactional art market, and the anonymous woman who was treated as value-less when her identity wasn’t committed to any formal records relating to the image (who made it, when it was produced).”

For the exhibition, based on an earlier online show by Humble Arts Foundation, Feinstein and Seikaly chose to focus on the idea of “care,” as interpreted by each artist. The only guideline was that they work with found, vernacular, or archival images. From sculpture to collage, they introduced a range of approaches. 

Jody W. Poorwill altered and reinterpreted their school portrait from kindergarten, revisiting a time when they struggled to fit in while visualizing the idea of self-care. “I learned to listen to what my inner child needed, to cultivate a safe space to grow, a place to be visible,” they say. 

Meanwhile, Birthe Piontek returns to old photographs of her mother and grandmother, who have since lost memories due to dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease, tearing them up to build something new. “Birthe Piontek’s images hit me personally,” Feinstein says. 

“The images in this show are from Her Story, Piontek’s series of photos of her mom and grandmother, cut up, configured into sculptures, and then rephotographed as still lifes. My own grandmother, and my mother-in-law, suffer(ed) from the disease, so this work hits very close to home [with] its visual metaphors for a vanishing mind.” 

Pacifico Silano creates large-scale photo installations, collaging images found in vintage gay pornography magazines, all published after Stonewall in 1969. The trauma of the AIDS epidemic–and the millions of lives taken during the 1980s–serves as another layer of meaning throughout his collages. 

Ina Lounguine’s blue-tinged photos, created from a discarded and found wedding album, have been scarred with writing in Braille. The surface of each photo includes bits and pieces of Blues songs, meant to represent the loss of a relationship that didn’t have a happy ending after all. 

Diego Romo, left without a family archive, uses found photos, interrupted by gaps and glitches, to represent memories and moments that were never captured on camera. “The motivation behind Diego Romo’s project Lo Que Construimos resonates for me,” Seikaly admits. “Romo uses found images as substitutes for his own family’s absent photographic archive. It intrigues me that he builds collective memory, shared intimacy, and narrative that’s purely fictitious–and how that undermines photographic neutrality and authenticity.”

Aaron Turner combines images from his family archive with those featuring historical Black figures. In this way, his series Black Alchemy reconfigures time, merging the past with the present while exploring Black identity outside of historical narratives and forces that portray Black life as monolithic. 

Julie Lee brings us back to hands and touch, a theme woven throughout the exhibition. She describes her series A mother’s survey to live comfortably as a coming-of-age story; in it, a woman’s figures cover framed portraits of those she loves. It’s a gesture that obscures their faces, while also serving protect or shield, an expression of mourning as well as care in the aftermath of the Atlanta shooting that killed six women of ??Asian descent. 

“I think that a lot of the discussion around appropriation positions the practice as cold, ironic, problematic, or disrespectful to its source material,” Feinstein says. “By framing this exhibition around appropriation as a tool for care, and focusing on work that holds care as one of its central intents, it’s created new, warm, optimistic potential.” You can see the show at CPAC in Colorado through September 25th. You can also join the artists and curators for a Zoom discussion on August 31st.

The post Touched, Torn, and Put Together Again: A New Exhibition Explores Loss and Healing Through Found Photos appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Since its founding in 1994, the not-for-profit organization CENTER has nurtured a generation of socially and environmentally engaged photographers and lens-based artists. Their grants, awards, programs, and exhibitions have helped amplify the voices of talents ranging from the photojournalist Anastasia Taylor-Lind to the multidisciplinary artist Laia Abril, many of whom have helped spark important conversations about history, social justice, and photography’s role in opening minds and influencing our futures. 

Laura Wzorek Pressley has been at CENTER for more than fifteen years, helping to shape its programming and launch the careers of countless photographers. This year, we’re thrilled to have her as one of the judges for the Series category at the Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards. In anticipation of our final deadline on September 3rd, 2021, we had the chance to catch up with her via email. 

What has been one of your proudest moments or accomplishments as Executive Director at CENTER? 

“I secured a number of grants for the organization providing financial stability and programming. They provide much more than funds, as we are primarily an artist service organization, the grants help us move beyond the professional development programs to influence and expand the way the organization serves the public. They also allow for experimentation.

“We just secured a grant this year from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a lecture series called The Democratic Lens: Photography and Civic Engagement. We are so excited to implement that, hoping it reaches beyond the precincts of the art and photography communities, to engage a broad audience.

You’ve helped launch the careers of several prominent photographers. Are there any projects, in particular, that have stayed with you over the years? 

“I remember calling on the phone in 2006 a then-green Julie Blackmon about her receiving an award from CENTER. Her work is still a favorite. It was so well constructed, courageous use of color, and relatable. Also, in 2010, Dana Popa’s work Not Natasha won the Project Award and that body of work was about sex slavery in Eastern Europe. Sex trafficking wasn’t in the news then like it is now. That was eye-opening and heart-wrenching body of work with haunting imagery that lingered.”

How have you seen the photo industry change over the last decade, and what have those changes meant to you? 

“From the consumer perspective, the last two decades I have seen a significant change. The inflection point was in 2006: camera phones surpassed sales of both digital and film cameras. The rising and falling of the popularity of Instagram has been fascinating to watch. I’ve also been watching the growing use of computational imaging and filters.

“In terms of the photo industry, the consumption of images and content in the editorials has not seemed to slow down. A main change was the rise of the Photo Festival, which was a boon for photographers, storytellers, editors, curators, and the industry as a whole and new way to interact with photography. 

“At one point, I counted at least 152 photo festivals across the world which was a celebratory way to bring outstanding work to a larger audience; in contrast to the more contemplative book or traditional exhibition experience. We are very pleased to have a Photo Festival in New Mexico which has a history of excellence in photography, and we aim to contribute to that legacy by gathering people around the campfire for storytelling in a profound sense of place.

What advice would you give to emerging photographers who are just starting their careers and looking for grants, mentorships, and more?

“They should get together a body of work that they are obsessing about, images that work well together. It can be a story or a psychological landscape or an aesthetic, as long as it makes visual sense. Then write over and over and over again a project statement. Find the deepest meaning of the work that is most universal, and make that personal work universal. At that point, start applying to mentorships and portfolio reviews. Here are a few good ones: 

CENTER’s Review Santa Fe also offers mentorships for incoming photographers. We also have several grants for photographers that we administer in January-March each year.

Photolucida are two long-standing reviews with fantastic reviewers. They also have a great program called Critical Mass, where you can apply with a project and get it seen by 200 reviewers.

Magnum Photos has a mentorship program with several of their photographers. 

“I also recommend applying to group exhibitions for photographers. There are some great non-profit organizations with ongoing group shows. Center for Fine Art Photography and the Center for Photographic Art are two of them, where those just starting out can be part of an exhibition.”

What kind of work will you be looking for when judging the 7th Annual Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards? 

“I’m hoping to see something surprising, that is a fresh perspective on our times. I am also  interested in the intersection of arts and advocacy of vulnerable and underrepresented communities. I am partial to works that transcend boundaries of all kinds.”

This year’s Emerging Photography Awards comprises two categories, one for single images and another for series. Learn more about the awards, our judges, and our prizes over on our website. 

The post CENTER Santa Fe’s Laura Wzorek Pressley Offers Advice for Emerging Photographers appeared first on Feature Shoot.

In the past year and a half, National Geographic’s Maura Friedman has worked with photographers to cover some of the most urgent issues of our time, taking us behind the headlines to reveal untold or overlooked stories. She worked with the photographer Chiara Goia as she documented the lives of Italy’s funeral home workers just weeks after the height of the pandemic. When Jared Soares shared the experiences of people of color at living history sites, Friedman supported the project behind the scenes. 

With a background as a picture and video journalist, Friedman’s responsibilities at National Geographic include commissioning and curating photography for NationalGeographic.com and front of the magazine. As part of the leadership team at Women Photojournalists of Washington, she’s also helped nurture the careers of emerging photographers who identify as women, while educating the public about their contributions to the field. 

This year, we’re thrilled to have Friedman as one of the jurors for the 7th Annual Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards. In anticipation of our deadline for submissions on August 31st, we asked her a few questions about her work. 

Can you walk us through a day in your life as a photo editor at National Geographic?

“My work falls into a few buckets — photo research for text-driven stories, licensing existing photo projects for digital or print packages, photo commissions for shorter, single location stories, and the research, development, and support behind magazine feature stories. 

“In every case, my first step is to vet visual potential. If we’re licensing, are the photos and the narrative consistent with our standards? If we’re commissioning, will the situations be visually interesting or surprising? Great stories aren’t always a great fit for National Geographic. We have a significant emphasis on photography. 

“The best part of my job is always collaborating with photographers. The most inspiring part is when photographers are proud of the work they did on assignment with me.”

Is there any one story or project from your time at National Geographic that you’re particularly proud of?

“Working with photographer Muhammad Fadli recently to tell a deeper story about the COVID crisis in Jakarta was very meaningful. The first project I pitched to and licensed for National Geographic was his Rebel Riders portfolio, so in that aspect, working with him on assignment felt personally full-circle. 

“Muhammad and I have similar communication styles and ways in which we think, so our collaboration felt very second-nature. And he’s just such a talented journalist. It was an honor to help shepherd his work. And of course, I’m really happy with the photos and the edit. In a relentless pandemic news cycle, I’m appreciative to have the time and resources to report fully on the urgent connection between public health, economic decline, and nutrition.” 

Does your background as a visual journalist yourself inform your work as an editor? 

“Absolutely, but it’s taken time to meld the perspectives. Initially, I worked with photographers as the type of editor I liked working with as a photographer (very involved, technically specific, driving the production), which just doesn’t pull the best work out of everyone. I’ve since learned how to have conversations with photographers upfront about the type of collaboration and support that serves them best.

“One of my greatest strengths as an editor is my ability to see the mindset and habits of a photographer through their full take. That diagnostic aptitude absolutely comes from my own experience in the field. I can identify when photographers were nervous, when they were comfortable, and what photos they were trying to make, even if the frames weren’t successful. This leads to deeper and more productive conversations with folks about how to sharpen their work or build on their success. This is especially rewarding mid-assignment when the story is still developing.”

You’re also on the team at Women Photojournalists of Washington. Why is it important to you to help uplift and nurture the next generation of women photojournalists? 

“I recognize and am deeply grateful to all the women who have supported and encouraged me throughout my career and continue to do so. In almost every opportunity I’ve had to prove myself, a woman has opened that door. Consequently, I value spaces that also open doors and share knowledge and experience widely. 

“This can be a very opaque industry, but building community cuts through that. I’m also a bit selfish — I want to learn from and alongside the next generation of storytellers! I joke that my role in planning WPOW’s quarterly speakers is just my excuse to enlist women and non-binary folks in photography who I admire to talk to me—and for me to pay them.”

What kind of work do you look forward to seeing in this year’s Emerging Photography Awards? 

“I look forward to seeing moments, always. Aesthetic trends in photography come and go (and I happen to like the current focus on film, sparse spaces, and warm tones), but a moment in a frame always elevates the image. The decisive moment can’t be beat. It’s what I’m always pushing for with photographers I’m working with.

“I’m interested in photographers taking stock of their specific perspective and what new revelations can be drawn from that. Focusing the question ‘what are your stories to tell?’ to center ‘How would my perspective add to or upend our existing understanding of this story?’ That is a powerful place to ideate from.”

The Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards is open for both single-image entries and series entries. Maura Friedman will be one of this year’s single-image jurors. There’s still time to submit your work; learn all the details by visiting our website. 

The post National Geographic’s Maura Friedman on Capturing Meaningful Moments appeared first on Feature Shoot.

“The common thread that runs through all my stories is my interest in humankind in relation to the environment–even at its most extreme, raw, and ruthless,” the photojournalist Diana Bagnoli tells me. Four years ago, she was named a winner of the Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards for her documentation of the Boukout, an initiation rite for young men from Senegal’s Jola community, taking place in a holy forest. Since then, she’s continued to tell stories about people and their relationship to the Earth, from villages in the Amazon to the Atlantic coast of France and far beyond. 

In recent years, Bagnoli has photographed the use of medical herbs among the Raramuri people in the village of Munerachi, Chihuahua, Mexico. She’s traveled to the Rasuwa district in Nepal to meet the people affected by landslides made worse by deforestation, and she’s joined the Sea Shepherds in their efforts to protect dolphins from being killed as part of massive fishing operations. In traveling the world, the photojournalist has seen devastation and hope in equal measure. Ahead of the August 31st deadline for this year’s Emerging Photography Awards, we had the chance to catch up and learn more about her work over the last four years. 

You won the Emerging Photography Awards in 2017 for your project on the Boukout, a month-long initiation for young men in the village of Mlomb in Casamance, Senegal. What is one of your most powerful memories from your time with this community, even years later?

“I still remember vividly the energy and expressive power of the Jolà people in Casamance. Being able to share the celebrations for the initiation rite with them was a priceless experience. I remember, in particular, the kindness with which I was welcomed during that month, as if I were one of the family. I absolutely owe this to my fixer and friend Demba Mane. Since then, we have kept in touch and regularly update each other on our lives. 

“I was hosted in his family home in the countryside in Mlomb. The house was full because of the Boukout; several adults and children had come to share the big event. So they put me to sleep in his older sister’s bed, who kindly shared her mattress on the floor with me. The mosquito net protected us from insects, and the chickens walked around the room. Once, I woke up with two fresh eggs hatched at my feet. 

“That journey was complicated because I suffered from a high fever and migraine. I still fondly remember how I was looked after. The girl who changed the wet patches on my forehead said to me in French, ‘à partir de maintenant tu es ma soeur,’ from now on you are my sister. So I can say, without any doubt, that the most powerful memory is the affection I received from Demba’s family and his wife, as well as the whole village.”

What are some of your proudest moments from the years since you won the award? 

“The Emerging Photography Awards enhanced my work and helped me get more prestigious jobs. Since then, I have also won other awards and honorable mentions, and my pictures have been seen around the world. I’ve just won the 2nd Place at the International Photo Award, for the ‘Our Times’ competition, with a shot of an elder man in a retirement home who hugs his daughter through an inflatable structure. 

“One of the latest and most significant awards has been receiving the National Geographic Society’s Emergency Fund for Journalists to cover a COVID story. It will also be part of Inside the  Curve, a traveling exhibition produced by National Geographic. The story I have documented is about the Henry Reeve Brigade, a group of 36 Cuban doctors, epidemiologists, and nurses who came to Northern Italy at the beginning of the pandemic to help us heal COVID patients.”

You’ve documented several stories related to the COVID crisis. What has it been like for you emotionally to cover the pandemic? 

“The story of the Cuban doctors was memorable, as they gave a strong example of solidarity: a third world country sent humanitarian aid to the worst place for the pandemic at that time, when nothing was yet was known. Thanks to National Geographic’s Emergency Fund for Journalists, I’ve been able to document their work for two months in a temporary COVID hospital. Their work ended with the honorary citizenship of the brigade leader and a brotherhood with Cuba that we must not forget right now–now that they are the ones who need it. 

“COVID’s first year came as a shock to everyone. I documented first the COVID burials in my city cemetery, where there was a sad overload of activity. Then, I documented childbirth during the pandemic, as the Rava Foundation donated medical facilities to allow pregnant women affected by COVID-19 to safely give birth. Going from death to life has been a very strong emotion; if I entered into the hospital frightened, I came out somehow thrilled. Seeing babies being born in that context of protective suits, security protocols, and maximum alert filled my heart with joy and hope. This is when I realized that life is always going to be stronger.”

Would you say that there’s a through-line connecting all of your work as a photojournalist? 

“The Boukout story was part of a long-term project that lasted five years on mysticism in different parts of the world. The curiosity to understand the mysteries, beliefs, and answers that very different populations gave themselves led me to travel to the peaks of the Andes, into the Amazon, as well as to Haiti to visit the voodoo priests. The trust and connection that these ancient cultures still have for the nature that surrounds them has taught me a lot.”

Learn more about the Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards, including how to submit your work, by visiting our website.

The post From Senegal To The Amazon, A Photographer Explores Mankind’s Relationship with Nature appeared first on Feature Shoot.

By the time Paul Shiakallis met Millie Hans, he’d heard of the heavy metal band Manowar, but he didn’t know any of their songs. That changed when he was invited to Hans’s house to hear some of her favorite music. “She went to her bedroom to fetch a piece of paper, and on this paper she had written out the lyrics to the song,” he told me in 2017, after being chosen as a winner of the Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards. “She did not get it from a CD sleeve or from the net. She copied the lyrics by listening to the song over and over again.”

Shiakallis’s winning photographs introduced the world to women like Hans, who formed a vital part of the Marok community, the metalhead subculture of Botswana. He spent eight months with the rockers, listening to their favorite songs, joining them for supper, and helping to tell their stories. Now, it’s been seven years since he first met the Queens of Marok. He thinks of them often, and his time with them continues to inform his work as a documentary storyteller. 

To coincide with the open call for submissions for the 7th Annual Emerging Photography Awards, we asked Shiakallis to tell us what he’s been up to since winning four years ago.  

Your series on The Queens of Marok was one of the winners of the 3rd Annual Emerging Photography Awards. Have you stayed in touch with these women over the years? 

“The last time I saw The Queens in person was at the end of 2017, when I accompanied a TV crew that shot a documentary on The Queens for Arte TV. Ludo Dignified Queen Morima, one of The Queens I photographed, helped us with production and she was also one of the three protagonists in the documentary. 

“Since then, I have kept in contact with Snyder, Ludo, Millie, and Florah Dylon-Son; every now and then, I connect them to journalists interested in interviewing them. Snyder is still one of the rare few who sings and has her own band. I have been chatting to Ludo lately; she does a variety of things from helping her dad at his security company to helping her mom with her catering company. She is also busy with her own woodworking business. The last time I heard from Florah, I learned that tragically her son Dylan, the one in the photo, passed away.”

What have you been working on lately, and in what ways, if any, have these projects grown or expanded upon interests you cultivated while working with the Marok community?

“I have been working on another documentary project called Hotel Hillbrow, which is about my ventures into the notoriously dangerous suburb of Hillbrow, Johannesburg. The approach has been similar to the way I approached The Queens of Marok in that I had to spend a lot of social time with the people involved, but the main difference is between the two is the level of intimacy I achieved with Hotel Hillbrow. 

“It’s more a project of self-discovery; through quotes, conversations, and experiences, I leave my home of comfort and safety to experience the Hillbrow nightlife. The Queens of Marok project taught me how to be persistent in chasing the shots I wanted. From a conceptual point of view, it made me realize I was attracted to certain symbolic objects and colors which have been consistent through my projects.”

What was your experience like after winning the awards? 

“I had numerous online and print publications around the world feature the project most notably i-D Mag (USA), The Guardian Newspaper (UK), De Volksrant (Holland), and Vogue (Italy). In addition, I had interest from fashion designers and artists wanting to collaborate. My most notable exhibitions were: The Absa L’atelier awards (South Africa); Sibyline Feminist Exhibition at The alliance Francaise (South Africa); ‘Photographing the Female’ workshops in India and USA, curated by Sarah Ege Hoilund. 

“Winning the award generally made it easier for me to approach outlets to have the work shown or sold. Since gaining all that attention, I have definitely become more proactive in terms of submitting, pitching, and conceptualizing collaborations with potential clients.”

The Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards is open for entries through August 31st, 2021. This year, there are two categories: Single Images and Series. Twelve series winners will have their work exhibited as part of gallery shows in Berlin and Paris, while dozens of single-image winners will be featured in street exhibitions in New York or Los Angeles. Submit your work today.

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