State of the Art

National Geographic Wins Big at Magazine Awards

The lead on almost every story about last night’s National Magazine Awards show in New York will focus on National Geographic and how it won three awards—two for photography (more on that in a second) and one for General Excellence.
    I was at the awards, and I was a judge in the Photojournalism category (won by Geographic). And I love that magazine, so it wasn’t a surprise for me that it won all those awards.
    What surprised me was how oddly funny former baseball player Lenny Dykstra was as a presenter last night. Dykstra was there because these days he’s also a magazine honcho, having launched a title called The Player’s Club, which is supposed to provide financial and lifestyle advice to pro athletes. (Do they really need that? Probably. According to this story, Dykstra’s magazine is having a difficult birth, in part because he spent $400,000 on a launch party.) At any rate, he enlivened the proceedings considerably, just as he once did the Mets locker room.
     Back to the awards: Go here for a complete list of the winners. As I noted, National Geographic picked up the award for Photojournalism, for a story about malaria in the July 2007 issue shot by John Stanmeyer. It was a great piece featuring true photojournalist story-telling, and I was glad it won.
      Here’s an observation for the American Society of Magazine Editors, which administers the awards through the Columbia University Journalism School: Since this was a photo category, you shouldn’t list the writer of the article ahead of the photographer in the official press releases you send out.
      National Geographic also won the National Magazine Award in the Photography category, which honors use of photography in three complete issues. Geographic won for its March, April, and June 2007 issues.
       In the Photo Portfolio category, Vanity Fair won for a story by Annie Leibovitz called “Killers Kill; Dead Men Die: A 2007 Hollywood Portfolio” in its March 2007 issue. Annie was in the audience, as editor in chief Graydon Carter accepted the award. She was smiling and didn’t seem any the worse for wear following the controversy over her Miley Cyrus pictures.—David Schonauer

Galleries Galore

Last night I braved the chilly rain that is currently plaguing New York's beautiful spring and went to see the opening of William Greiner's Fallen Paradise show at Klompching Gallery in DUMBO. Greiner and I have been emailing for at least a year, so I was happy to see him (and his beautiful prints) in person. But I was even more pleased to have finally made it out to the DUMBO gallery scene -- especially on what was a particularly opportune evening.

Last night happened to be the first Thursday of May, and it turns out that a bunch of the DUMBO galleries stay open until 8:30 on the first Thursday of every month. To make things even more convenient, the vast majority of those galleries are located in one building, 111 Front St. A funny aside: When I first went to DUMBO a couple years ago to see the construction of powerHouse's now-bustling Arena, I made a picture of the huge orange marquis at 111 Front St. (see above), without knowing what lay inside.

So it was pleasant serendipity to realize last night that that building holds many of the galleries I've been including in my weekly exhibition listings ... and that they all happened to be open late for my perusing pleasure. After Klompching, I stopped in at Safe-T-Gallery, showing Larry Racioppo's Brooklyn Interiors. These large, stunning images of the extreme decay hiding inside many of Brooklyn's transitional buildings are startling and enthralling -- one of an abandoned schoolroom reminds me so much of Robert Polidori's images of empty classrooms near Chernobyl.

Then I stopped in at Umbrage Gallery to see the Sylvia Plachy show. I love Plachy and her always light-handed wit ... although, I have to admit, after seeing her massive retrospective at PHotoEspaña last year, this small show was a little underwhelming. An exhibition combining work by Andrew Miksys and Jonathan Gitelson at the nearby Nelson Hancock Gallery had a similar air of insightful levity, especially Gitelson's funny little "Artist's Books," my favorite of which includes a found To-Do list that Gitelson "completes" with a sort of Polaroid scavenger hunt.

Finally, I wandered through Hire Education, the Pratt Senior Thesis Photography Exhibition. There were the usual highs and lows, but I was especially struck by Anita Ng's four studies of friend's bedrooms. Her artist's statement says that she never had her own bedroom, and thus is exploring both how people use personal space and what that personal space represents. Above all that, they are just fascinating spaces to look at -- and to imagine from them what their inhabitants must be like.

So if you haven't gotten the gist of this article yet, let me break it down for you: See these shows, check out 111 Front St., try to hit it on the first Thursday of the month. Especially if it's raining ... you won't even have to leave the building to see tons of good photography (and other art, fyi, if you're into that kind of thing).

~Miki Johnson

Venessa Winship Named Sony's First Photographer of the Year

Clearly I should already have known who Vanessa Winship is. I mean, she won the first World Press Photo award ever given in the arts category; she's exhibited at Visa pour l'Image, Les Recontres d'Arles, and the Leica Gallery; oh, and did I mention...she makes beautiful, beautiful images.

But I didn't know about her until I was sent the press release about the first annual Sony World Photography Awards, the ceremony for which was held in Cannes recently, and by which Winship has been named Photographer of the Year (and awarded a $25,000 cash prize).

There are lots of other winners in both professional and amateur categories up at the awards' site, but I'm satisfied just that this main prize has done what all these new prizes popping up every year should: It publicizes someone too few people know about, and it gives them a bunch of money to keep making excellent art.

Definitely check out Winship's website...I promise you'll be blown away.

~Miki Johnson

Where to Go and What to See

I'm happy this week to be able to highlight a few photographers that American Photo has worked with in the past and that I know personally. We featured Michal Chelbin in our March/April 2007 portraitists issue and are delighted to see she now has her first monograph, with Aperture. Titled Strangely Familiar: Acrobats, Athletes, and Other Traveling Troupes, it explores the liminality between childhood and adulthood, performance and play...the strange and the familiar, if you will.

William Greiner is a New Orleans native and keeps attention on the problems that have persisted there since the Katrina disaster with his photoblog. Now his saturated, structural images of the city are on view at Klompching Gallery in Brooklyn.

Finally, Zoe Strauss, the quintessential Philadelphia photographer (and herself a big photoblogger), is taking full advantage of the city she calls home and putting up her annual outdoor exhibition under an I-95 overpass  there.

~Miki Johnson

(Photo: © William Geiner, "Apartment near levee, New Orleans, 2005")

Click on the link below for details on these and many more photography events around the country.

Colbert Explains the Miley Cyrus Thing

I've been trying to be the only person with access to a blog to not talk about those photos of Miley Cyrus by Annie Leibovitz. But when I saw Stephen Colbert's commentary about the story, I caved. It's hilarious! And...when was the last time anyone on television talked about photography with this kind of knowledge? (After a nice runthrough of Annie's career, he even mentions baby photographer Anne Geddes.) I'm a little shocked at the reaction these images have caused. Then again I'm not a tween girl, and my own daughter is too old for "Hannah Montana." But to me the pictures seem classy enough. I put the blame on all the media who irresponsibly said the images show Miley "topless," which they didn't. At least the New York Times apologized for doing that. Meanwhile, the New York Post merely said the images were "near nude," which is a Rupert Murdoch way of saying "not nude."
    I heard this morning that the Cyrus family feels they were misled by Annie, while Vanity Fair says mom and pop Cyrus were shown computer-generated mock-ups of what the images would look like. (The Cyruses wouldn't lie just to protect all that Disney money  would they?) Meanwhile, Perez Hilton noted that an old photo of Diana Ross by Annie looks suspiciously like her recent Miley picture. --David Schonauer

Pictures in the News: A Perspective

1.    Austria’s House of Horrors
Some news photos are exploitive. Some simply feed our interest in the macabre and horrible. The shot above is a little of both, but also absolutely necessary. It shows the interior of the cellar pf the Austrian house in which Josef Fritzi, imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth for 24 years. During that time, as we know now, he fathered seven children by her. When I heard first heard the story I began to prepare myself for the photos that would inevitably follow. But I also needed to see this chamber of horrors. The photos provide evidence that is crucial to our ability to really understand the story. What seems impossible to believe can be believed after seeing this image. What contradicts our common understanding of human behavior is proven to in fact have happened. Fritzi’s acts are not fable or superstition—not simply evil—because we have seen the room where it really happened. We need the photo to give the story meaning.

2.    The Texas Polygamy Ranch
Photographer Tony Gutierrez of the Associated Press has been covering the story of the Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, and his images have appeared in publications around the world. The ranch was home to a polygamist sect and was raided by state authorities after they received allegations of physical abuse by a 16-year-old girl. The authorities removed some 400 children and arrested leaders of the sect. Gutierrez has pictures of the aftermath of the raid, including aerials of the ranch’s compound and shots of members being loaded onto busses by child welfare officials. The shot below shows a member of the sect holding a picture of his family, now in state custody. I found it online today, along with the latest news to emerge from Texas—authorities announced that more than half of the teenage girls taken from the ranch have children or are pregnant. Here, the picture is given meaning by the context of the news. And the news isn’t good.--David Schonauer

Annie Griffiths Belt on Cameras and Diapers

If you missed hearing the interview with National Geographic Photographer Annie Griffiths Belt (above) on NRP  NPR last Sunday, you can go here to listen. It’s really a terrific insight into the working life of a photographer. And the whole thing is absolutely charming, since it’s about Annie.
    The interview coincides with the release of Belt’s new book, “A Camera, Two Kids, and a Camel: My Journey in Photographs.”  The book tells of how Belt, one of the first female photographers at National Geographic, managed to combine her professional life and her personal life. In the interview, she talks about how she learned to pack in order to take her two young children with on assignments. She found that diapers could fill dual uses—for her kids’ bottoms and to wrap about fragile photo gear. She says diapers are in fact the best cushioning material she’s ever found.
     That’s very practical advice. It got me to wondering what other everyday items people repurpose to make their photographic lives easier...let's start a list. —David Schonauer

Ballad of the 'Tween Angel

Photographs © VanityFair.com

"You can't just say no to Annie." That was part of the explanation given by 15-year-old superstar Miley Cyrus after photographs were made of her "backless" and clutching a blanket by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair. (A VF behind-the-scenes shot is above.) "I think it's really artsy," she told the magazine at the time. "It wasn't in a skanky way."

But by yesterday, Cyrus was backtracking. "I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed," she said in a publicist's statement. She further criticizes the magazine in a People article, as the more financially minded press mulls over the fallout  expected to hit Cyrus's Hanna Montana phenomenon and its parent company, Disney.

What gives? Having shot to the heights of international fame at such a young age, is Cyrus an example of media exploitation or, rather, a reflection of prudish attitudes about portraiture?

Seven Photographers Win Guggenheim Awards

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced the recipients of it Fellowship grants for 2008. Among the 190 awards, seven went to photographers. Go here for the complete list of winners. These are the photographer recipients:
     1. Michael Berman, artist and photographer, San Lorenzo, New Mexico.
     2. Elijah Gowin, photographer and Assistant Professor of Art and Art Histroy, University of Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri.
     3. Builder Levy, photographer, New York City.
     4. Fredrik Marsh, photographer and Senior Lecturer in Art, Otterbein College, Columbus, Ohio. (The image above is by Marsh.)
     5. Greg Miller, photographer, Coventry, Connecticut.
     6. Ardine Nelson, photographer and Associate Professor, Department of Art, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
     7. David J. Taylor, photographer and Associate Professor of Photography, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico.
     If you noticed that Columbus, Ohio was well reprsented among the winners, you're right, but it gets better: Ardine Nelson and Fredrik Marsh have been life partners for 27 years.
     According to the Guggenheim Foundation, the 190 winners were chosen from a group of 2,600 applicants.--David Schonauer

Flickr Superstar Profiled in Times Magazine

I’ve been keeping a secret for a while now, and it’s time I just let it out, so here goes: I totally don’t follow the whole Flickr thing. I check out images there from time to time, but I don’t know who the big stars and major personalities are. By now I should be an upstanding member of the Flickr community, since I write about photography, but instead I spend all my spare time working.
    So I was really interested in a piece in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine by Vigrinia Heffernan about Rebekka Guoleifsdottir, describes as “one of Flickr’s most popular photographers.
    The point of the story was that some savvy photographers have learned how to perfect a “Flickr style”—images that look good in thumbnail form, with fulsome digital manipulation—and how to work the social networking aspect of the site to make herself more popular.
     As the piece points out, Guoleifsdottir, who lives in Iceland, isn’t shy about posting images of herself (above, for example). She eventually became so popular on Flickr that she was hired to do a Toyota ad campaign.
      I’d be interested in hearing from Flickr members if they believe there is particular style of photography that defines a new aesthetic. Do film images really get shouted down because they seem out of focus? Is it wrong to game the Flickr system in order to become popular? (Analog artists have been doing that forever.)–David Schonauer