Free Range 2013 graduate exhibition: Best of Show

University of Westminster BA Photography graduate Aida Silvestri has been named as one of BJP’s two Best of Show winners at this year’s Free Range exhibitions. For her final degree project, Aida Silvestri chose a subject that was close to home. Born in Eritrea, east Africa, to an Italian father and an Eritrean mother, Silvestri decided to document the experiences of refugees from the region as they travelled to the UK. Eritrea has been governed by a dictator for 22 years and there is no freedom of speech or religion, Silvestri explains. People who leave are regarded as criminals and are unable to return home for fear of imprisonment or death. writes Gemma Padley in the BJP

 

Silvestri mapped the route each person took and superimposed it as a corresponding line across the individual portraits. “Mapping the journeys graphically allows the viewer to trace these journeys,” she says. “In the early days [of the regime] people could take a plane but others have had to travel on foot and by car to a point where they could catch a plane. The journeys have become increasingly difficult.”

Rehsom. Eritrea to London on foot, by car, lorry, boat and train

http://www.aidasilvestri.com

http://www.free-range.org.uk

Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/feature/2277338/free-range-2013-graduate-exhibition-best-of-show#ixzz2YedAquqp
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Group mentality: How photographers can join forces to tackle the market

This long and interesting article in The BJP by Olivier Laurent discusses the means by which photographers can work together to maintain a foothold in photography and not starve or have to get a ‘day job’ or as has been siad on many occasions a ‘proper job”

Faced with a tougher market and increased competition, some photographers are banding together to produce more ambitious bodies of work. Olivier Laurent speaks to three of these groups
Laurence Butet-Roch has spent the past three years documenting the lives of indigenous teenagers in the Aamjiwnaang reserve in Southern Ontario. Now she’s partnering with five other photographers to develop a multimedia project about these communities. Image © Laurence Butet-Roch

The Farm Security Administration photography programme, despite being more than 75 years old, continues to influence photographers today. It not only fostered photographers such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks, but also put into focus the consequences of the most devastating financial crisis the US had been subjected to at the time.

 Five years ago, as the US and most of Europe faced a new financial meltdown, a group of photographers and writers led by Anthony Suau launched Facing Change: Documenting America. The collective was funded in the early days of the Obama administration to record the effects of economic and social change in the US. It has produced more than 50 stories, attracted photographers such as Stanley Greene and David Burnett, and signed a deal with the Library of Congress.

A growing number of photographers have developed similar approaches – bringing together talents around a specific theme or project. Laurence Butet-Roch is one of them. The Canadian photographer and journalist at Polka magazine has, for the past three years, been documenting the relationship between indigenous communities in Canada and their environment, government and heritage. “As a photo editor at Polka, I realised that a lot of Canadian photographers had similar concerns,” she tells BJP. “I felt that we could provide a more comprehensive overview of what is going on in Canada if we pulled these projects together to create a stronger body of work.”.….MORE

Sophie Gerrard is part of the collective producing Document Scotland. Image © Sophie Gerrard

Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/report/2255214/group-mentality-how-photographers-can-join-forces-to-tackle-the-market#ixzz2YebYQO3p
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Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award calling for entries

Photojournalists and documentary photographers have until 30 September for a chance to win a €50,000 grant dedicated to the production of a new body of work on Iran. 

“Created in 2009, the purpose of the Carmignac Gestion photojournalism award is to grant €50,000 in funding for a photo reportage carried out over a period of several months on a specific, topical subject,” say the organisers of one of the largest photojournalism grant programme. “With the profession in the grips of an unprecedented financing crisis, and the risks taken by freelance photographers the subject of much debate, the Carmignac Gestion Foundation wished to sponsor the delving work of photojournalists. Their dedication to depicting the truth requires knowledge of the country and experience of the terrain in order to represent the situation in all its complexity.”

 After themes around Pakistan, Palestine and Zimbabwe, Carmignac Gestion is calling for photographers to submit projects on Iran for its fifth edition. The deadline for entry is 30 September.

This year, the panel of jurors will include François Hebel of Les Rencontres d’Arles, photographers Reza and Jérôme Sessini as well as Christian Caujolle and Mark Sealy among many others. writes Olivier Laurent in the BJP

For more details, visit the Carmignac Gestion website.
Our dear friend Kazem Hakimi published a book on Iran a few years ago

Ageing and creative decline in photography

“Photographers never want to talk about the fact that they may well be in decline. It’s the greatest taboo subject of all,” says Martin Parr in our special issue devoted to ageing, available now on newsstands, on the iPad and the iPhone. We spoke to photographers aged 19 to 100 about their career highs and how they keep their work fresh in the face of creative decline. ….

How do photographers keep their work fresh in the face of what Martin Parr describes as “probably the greatest taboo subject of all” – creative decline? In the June edition of BJP, we spoke to photographers aged 19 to 100 and asked them when they think they were at their peak. Do photographers hit their stride in their thirties, or is that merely a myth?

 The June issue of BJP, which centres around the issue of age, is available from today at newsstands in the UK, and on the iPad and iPhone worldwide.

It features exclusive interviews with Don McCullin, Martin Parr, Alec Soth, Saul Leiter, David Goldblatt, Duane Michals, Brian Griffin, Vanessa Winship, George Georgiou, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Wolf Suschitzky, Olivia Bee, Max Pinckers, Anna Orlowska, Anouk Kruithof and Lorenzo Vitturi.

Below, some of our highlights: see the article here

Olivia Bee, 19
“I don’t like to be known only by my age, but I know that because I’m 19 my age is a ‘thing’. It has always been a thing. I would prefer to be known as a photographer or an artist, rather than as a 19-year-old photographer.”

Image © Olivia Bee

Duane Michals, 81
“I was a late bloomer. I didn’t become a photographer until I was 28, and I didn’t go to photography school. In many ways, I’ve been a wolf in the hen house, dancing around what photography does rather than showing the world as it is. A photograph shows nothing.”

Molly Bloom, 2012. Image © Duane Michals, courtesy of DC Moore Gallery

Read our highlights

Frontline Freelance Register created to help freelance war reporters

Frontline Club’s Vaughan Smith has launched the Frontline Freelance Register, a representative body created to help freelance war journalists and photographers…….

Vaughan Smith – Image courtesy of Frontline Club
The Frontline Freelance Register is a new representative body for freelance conflict photographers and journalists, created to “address the current gaps in the media landscape and [for freelancers] to take responsibility for their own safety and security,” says Vaughan Smith of the Frontline Club in London.

 “I think this is all linked to the coverage of the Syrian conflict, which is increasingly being conducted by freelancers,” he tells BJP in a phone interview, hours before news emerged that two journalists, including photographer Edouard Elias, had been abducted on their way to Aleppo in Syria. “The dangers are obviously great. In fact, I think it’s hard to find anything else in the past two decades that has been as dangerous for journalists as Syria has become.”…

For more details about the Frontline Freelance Register, visit frontlinefreelance.org.

Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2273649/frontline-freelance-registry-created-to-help-freelance-war-reporters#ixzz2Wf6LDDUv
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Ian Parry Scholarship calls for entries

Young photographers aged 24 and under, as well as photography students of any age, have until 01 August to enter this year’s Ian Parry Scholarship, worth £3500…..

Created by Aidan Sullivan, the Ian Parry Scholarship is dedicated to 24-year-old photojournalist Ian Parry, who died while on assignment for The Sunday Times during the Romanian revolution in 1989.

 The Scholarship is a £3500 cash prize that goes toward the cost of a chosen assignment, which will then be published in The Sunday Times Magazine. In addition, World Press Photo automatically accepts the winner onto its final list of nominees for the Joop Swart Masterclass in Amsterdam. Highly commended and commended entrants will also receive £500 each……

For more details, and to enter, visit www.ianparry.org.

Image © Adrian Fussell / Reportage by Getty Images.

Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2272337/ian-parry-scholarship-calls-for-entries#ixzz2Wf5Kd0B1
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Photographers to launch digital light meter

From Olivier Laurent at The BJP

A group of photographers and developers has created a new digital light meter that plugs into an iPhone and uses the device to give accurate light measurements

Lumu Labs has created what it calls the “light meter for the 21st Century” – the Lumu, a device that plugs into an iPhone’s headphone jack to give accurate light readings with the help of a dedicated application.

“We were just a bunch of photographers, totally annoyed by the current selection of light meters on the market,” says Luka Mali of Lumu Labs. “You know the feeling: walking home, rain is pouring and that lame excuse called an umbrella that should supposedly keep you dry. And it’s the same with light meters: they’re huge, unpractical, archaic and cost way too much. We decided to change that – by connecting our beautiful digital light sensor without batteries to your iPhone. And using its brain and connectivity to bring some features never seen in light meters before.”
Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2275493/photographers-hope-to-launch-digital-light-meter#ixzz2Wf4Qwrwp
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Pierre and Alexandra Boulat Association Award calling for entries .

Photographers have until 07 June to enter this year’s Pierre & Alexandra Boulat Association Award, which offers a €8000 grant for the creation of a body of work on social, economic, political or cultural issues Details can be found here and a link to the application form and rules here

Formed after the death of Alexandra Boulat in 2007, the Pierre & Alexandra Boulat Association seeks to keep the spirit of father and daughter alive by making their work available to the public and creating an annual grant for photographers.

 The Pierre & Alexandra Boulat Association Award is open to professional photographers of any age, sex or nationality, and will offer one applicant a €8000 grant to produce “a story that has never been told but that the photographer cannot find support for within the media,” say the organisers.

 

Kodak – a sorry story

This article by Jonathan Eastland was found in the BJP and titled Kodak: The fading of the Old Yeller

©Keith Barnes

Never mind what the loss of “Old Yeller” may mean to the wider public; for photographers weaned on its iconic yellow box film and printing paper, Kodak’s financial problem feels like the dying of a dear friend. In this camp, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. In the late 1990s, Eastman Kodak’s share price was up in the mid $90s. Just before it filed for bankruptcy protection in January, the price crumbled to a few cents. How did it all go so wrong?………

Enter digital

By the early 1970s, the writing was already writ large on the wall. Itek Corporation’s Earth Resources Technology Satellite mapping cameras used high-resolution electronic systems. The Philips laser video disc of 1974 and laser printers a year later were a sign of more to come. Sony’s Mavica of 1981, the 1986 Nikon/Panasonic SVS and Fuji/Toshiba’s R&D on memory cards were a clear sign of Japanese intent; by 1990, every major Japanese electronics firm had a video stills camera on sale……….

Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/opinion/2154237/kodak-fading-the-old-yeller#ixzz2PtKAA6nd
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Swedish photographer Paul Hansen wins 56th World Press Photo

From the pages of the BJP

World Press Photo of the Year 2012’s winning image by Paul Hansen, Sweden, Dagens Nyheter. Two-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and her big brother Muhammad, who soon was to be four years old, were killed when their house was destroyed by an Israeli missile strike on Monday evening. Their father, Fouad, was also killed. Their mother is in intensive care at Al-Shifa Hospital. In accordance with their religion, the dead are buried quickly. The badly mangled body of Fouad is put on a stretcher and his brothers carry his dead children to the mosque for the burial ceremony. When darkness fell over Gaza on this day, at least 26 new victims were to be buried. That makes the total more than 140 dead so far since the beginning of the bombardment. Approximately half of the dead are women and children. The picture was taken on 20 November 2012 in Gaza City, Palestinian Territories.

“The strength of the pictures lies in the way it contrasts the anger and sorrow of the adults with the innocence of the children. It’s a picture I will not forget,” says Mayu Mohanna, a jury member at this year’s World Press Photo photojournalism contest. In the image, two-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and her three-year-old brother Muhammad are being taken to a mosque for the burial ceremony, after they were killed when their house was destroyed by an Israeli missile strike. “Their father’s body is carried behind on a stretcher [and] their mother was put in intensive care,” says the Amsterdam-based organisation. “The picture was made on 20 November 2012 in Gaza City, Palestinian Territories.”….more by Olivier Laurent here

 The winning image was selected from 103,481 images submitted by 5,666 photographers from 124 countries. Hansen recently won First Place in the Pictures of the Year International competition in the Photographer of the Year – Newspaper category.