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Joey Milledge has a plush replica of his late father Army Sgt. Joseph B. Milledge at his home in Gig Harbor, Washington. “I like to sleep with it because it gives me good memories of my dad and sometimesÉ and good dreams, too,” he said.
Touched base with my old mucker Erika Schultz this week. She’s great, her colleagues are great, The Seattle Times is great. It’s a paper that allows its photographers to dive into projects deep. All my buds who shoot at the Times work super hard. It’s not easy, but it can be rewarding. Usually, it’s important.
I tacked on a question to my email to Erika about the photo she’s made recently and most proud of. Erika replied:
An image from a video and photo project on two local woman (and their sons) who lost their husbands in the Iraq War. The women — who were similar ages as me — thought it was important to share their stories on Memorial Day to remind the public of the human cost and sacrifice of war, and keep the memory alive of their husbands for their children.
I was listening to a radio program round up of the latest announcements by politicians for the 2016 Democratic ticket. One of candidates is Lincoln Chafee. He was a Republican U.S. Senator (1999-2007) and later a Governor of Rhode Island (2011-2015) but as an Independent. Well now he wants to challenge Hillary.
Chafee’s distinguishing feature is that he was the only Republican Senator to vote against authorising the use of force in Iraq. Will it matter? Probably not; the radio commentators suggested past wars aren’t of any importance to most Americans, now. Sad.
It’s easy to forget that moving on and away is difficult-to-impossible for some.
Here’s the video. put together by Corinne Chin and Lauren Frohne.
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Erika is Wyoming born, a SeattleTimes staff photographer. Co-founder NWphotoJ. board member SPJWash.
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I spoke recently with photographer Kike Arnal about his experience documenting a crafts work program in the low security Quencoro Prison in Cuzco, Peru.
The World Bank/United Nations wanted to loan resources to the Peruvian government in order to replicate the programs in other prisons in the country. The World Bank also wanted to extend the educational programs being afforded the prisoners at Quencoro. Arnal had virtually no track record of photographing in prisons but the assignment opened his eyes and heart.
“I wanted to document the hardships and (if there was any to see) the positive aspects of prison life. To tell the story of the daily lives in a prison on the Altiplano of Peru. I did not anticipate what I was going to find at all, but once I was inside I was inspired by what I saw,” says Arnal.
Read our Q&A and see Arnal’s photographs large at Vantage: That Souvenir Andean Rug of Yours? Woven by a Prisoner in Peru, Probably
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I’m one of the critically massive pool of jurors for this years Critical Mass. I take bribes like FIFA.
The 4-week Robert Rauschenberg Foundation sounds sick!
The blurb:
Registration is now open for Photolucida’s Critical Mass competition! Awards include a monograph prize, a solo exhibition at Blue Sky Gallery, a group exhibition juried by Alison Nordström, and a prestigious four-week artist’s residency at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation’s Captiva Island estate.
Registration deadline is July 28th
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Image: Brandon Thibodeaux, Maw Maw’s New Braids, Duncan, MS 2009. (Source)
“I made these pictures while employed as an English tutor to one of China’s most celebrated actresses, Fan Bingbing. The job took me all over China, to Macau and Hong Kong and Bangkok, travelling with the starlet and her entourage of assistants and sycophants. We stayed in luxury hotels, dined with media moguls and raced with police escort to single-song performances at soccer stadiums (Ms. Fan is also a noted pop singer). The opulence and spectacle of fame were shocking, but without a frame of reference her renown meant little to me. I came to recognize celebrity as the sum of its parts—an elaborate reality masking as humble performance.” — Rian Dundon
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FAN, a book by Rian Dundon
Essays by Jonathan Landreth and Erik Be
Design by Modes Works
5.5″ x 8.5″ (13.97 x 21.59 cm)
Black & White Bleed on White paper
208 pages
ISBN-13: 978-9187829260 / 9187829266
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© Eric Smith
I’ve been getting really anxious about screens, for good reason. I’m planning my exit strategy from writing. I can’t be in front of backlit rectangles for 8 hours or more every day any more. There are many components to this transition. This piece about Eric Smith’s viral whale pic which I wrote earlier this year for Actually People Quarterly is one of the more cathartic components.
‘A Metaphor For Digital Idiocy’ seemed to be a popular phrase. It fairly sums up my none-too-veiled urge to y’all to be outside more.
“Maybe the whale came to the surface to impart wisdom. Maybe she’s using her humpback to gesture at the man on his phone? Maybe she’s wagging a finger? Or maybe she’s waving? Maybe she’s putting her body on the line because it’s that important folks.”
“I spent so much time counting down the days to my court date when I would sit in this very holding cell for about 7 hours. If court is at 9, they bring you down to the holding cell at 5AM and don’t bring you back up until after 2PM count. On one hand it was nice to have all that time to think, on the other the anxiety was a full-time job,” says ihatechoosingausername.
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Yesterday ihatechoosingausername posted some snaps from jail alongside stock pics and some funnies too. It is niftily titled So I Just Came Home From Jail.
In 13 images (make sure to click to see the full gallery after the 10th image) and a few words she describes her entry and exit from Henrico County Jail in Virginia. her past addiction and wish to stay clean, her new felony record, the struggles to find work, her imminent homelessness and her frank cluelessness on what is next.
It went viral. Over 340,000 views at the time of writing.
In an update, ihatechoosingausername said:
Wow, Imgur, the support I’ve received after making this post has been absolutely amazing! Thank you so much for the kind words. Also, through this post I got to talk to one of the people who fed me while I was homeless in the park last winter and let him know just how much good he’s doing in the world by giving sammiches to the homeless.
This is not an obvious feel good story but there’s a realness about ihatechoosingausername’s words that leave us hoping it will become one. Time will tell. I wish ihatechoosingausername the best of luck.
No trolls in sight. To you Internets, well done for not being a dick.
“If a book can have a trailer, I guess this is sort of that,” wrote Steve Davis in his email this morning.
Me Steve have a long history* but that in no way discredits what I am about to say. Whether I am biased or not (I am) this video absolute nails it. Why? The process of image-making is often messy. It get messier the more people are involved. Making photographs inside a prison — for Steve and his students — involves local authorities, management and staff. Everyone thinks they have a say or a role. If everyone is a photographer, then everyone is a photo-critic, or worse, everyone is the Photo Police.
Steve saw nice things and he saw absolutely devastating things. He met kids raised to be racists and they were very personable. He encountered kids stuck in the system and devolving to the oppressed and hardened personalities required for survival. He met staff who were moving heaven and hell to give these troubled kids the best shot at the rest of their lives, and he met adults who had already written them off and goaded the kids.
As Steve says, layers of contradictions and complex challenges exist in juvenile detention facilities. These images will not give you any easy answers; they will probably throw up more questions.
This is the best, quickest and truest introduction to Steve’s series Captured Youth that currently exists. If you like what he says an dyou like the images then pre-order the book of this work Unfinished at Minor Matters Books.
Prison Photography 