MY DAKOTA @ .CENT MAGAZINE

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Rearview Mirror,” from the book, “My Dakota”

I was originally a poet, and it’s taken me much of my creative life to learn to trust my process, an often slow, meandering path towards understanding life and death and the world through the process of photographing –– and sometimes writing about –– images that intrigue me for some reason.

Have you ever watched a three-toed sloth make its way across a tree limb?  It’s a kind of cross between sleepwalking and a drowsy half-awakening.   Image by image, my work moves me along toward understanding the world in a similar way. “The imagination gropes forward, feeling its way towards what it needs…reaches out, into the landscape in front of us,” to quote the poet Mark Doty, and these images act like a “container for emotion and idea… [to] hold what’s too slippery or charged or difficult to touch.”

And how does an elegiac image manage to offset its emotional heft with enough luminosity to lift it up into the realm of metaphor, the poetic term which literally means “carrying over”?  “One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather,” noted the French poet Paul Valery.—Rebecca Norris Webb, from the UK digital magazine, “.Cent,” which features “My Dakota” and Sebastiao Salgado’s “Genesis” photographs.

LINK TO FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO THE AUTUMN/WINTER .CENT ISSUE  (THE SALGADO/NORRIS WEBB PHOTOGRAPHS ARE ON PAGES 91-95).

EXHIBITIONS

——NOV. 8 2012-JAN. 27, 2012, LONDON, “CARTIER-BRESSON: A QUESTION OF COLOR,” group exhibition with Alex Webb, Trent Parke, Joel Meyerwitz, Harry Gruyaert, Helen Levitt, Saul Leiter and others, an exhibition curated by William Ewing.

——SEPT.21, 2012 – JANUARY 13, 2012, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, “Looking at the Land: 21st Century American Views,” A Collaboration with Flak Photo and RISD Museum of Art, group projection and online exhibition, curated by Andy Adams, with photographs by Rebecca Norris Webb, Brian Ulrich, Todd Hido, Joshua Dudley Greer, Christine Carr, and others.

UPCOMING 2012/13 WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

——JANUARY 12-19, 2013, STREETS OF HAVANA 2013 with Nordic Light, Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb workshop. For more information, including how to apply, click here

©Alex Webb, Havana, from “Violet Isle,” January 2013 Workshop

 RECENT LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

LINK TO THE NEW YORK TIMES LENS BLOG Q&A WITH REBECCA ABOUT “MY DAKOTA”

LINK TO NOTES ON “THE SUFFERING OF LIGHT’ BY ALEX WEBB ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO “MY DAKOTA” ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO ALEX’S EAST LONDON PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE AUGUST 2012 ISSUE OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

TO READ THE  FRACTION MAGAZINE REVIEW of MY DAKOTA CLICK HERE.

“LOOKING AT THE LAND” IN AMERICAN PHOTO MAGAZINE.

MEMORY CITY: Two Looks

©Alex Webb, Rochester, 2012, from “Memory City” (with Rebecca Norris Webb); Kodachrome processed as black and white

Rebecca and I are heading to Rochester, NY, to continue working on what may very well be our next joint book, which we’re calling “Memory City.” 

We’ll both be photographing Rochester during the last days of Kodak, at least as far as being the company it once was — known worldwide for its black and white and color film  (here’s the latest about Kodak’s bankruptcy).  

Since Rebecca is using one of the company’s last films, Portra, and I’m using my last rolls of Kodachrome — which these days can only be processed as black and white — we may not post until we’re back in December, because of film processing waiting period, those days or weeks which may be, according to Rebecca, “more mysterious and more integral to the creative process than one ever realized.”—Alex Webb 

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Flower Dress,” from “Memory City” (with Alex Webb); photographed on Kodak Portra

EXHIBITIONS

——NOV. 8 2012-JAN. 27, 2012, LONDON, “CARTIER-BRESSON: A QUESTION OF COLOR,” group exhibition with Alex Webb, Trent Parke, Joel Meyerwitz, Harry Gruyaert, Helen Levitt, Saul Leiter and others, an exhibition curated by William Ewing.

——SEPT.21, 2012 – JANUARY 13, 2012, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, “Looking at the Land: 21st Century American Views,” A Collaboration with Flak Photo and RISD Museum of Art, group projection and online exhibition, curated by Andy Adams, with photographs by Rebecca Norris Webb, Brian Ulrich, Todd Hido, Joshua Dudley Greer, Christine Carr, and others.

UPCOMING 2012/13 WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

——JANUARY 12-19, 2013, STREETS OF HAVANA 2013 with Nordic Light, Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb workshop with optional side trip and final edit Jan. 19-25, 2013.  For more information, including how to apply, click here or visit the TO CUBA WITH ALEX WEBB AND REBECCA NORRIS WEBB Facebook page.

@Alex Webb,, from “Violet Isle” (with Rebecca Norris Webb); upcoming Streets of Havana Workshop in January 2012 with Nordic Light

OTHER RECENT LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

LINK TO THE NEW YORK TIMES LENS BLOG Q&A WITH REBECCA ABOUT “MY DAKOTA”

LINK TO NOTES ON “THE SUFFERING OF LIGHT’ BY ALEX WEBB ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO “MY DAKOTA” ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO ALEX’S EAST LONDON PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE AUGUST 2012 ISSUE OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

TO READ THE  FRACTION MAGAZINE REVIEW of MY DAKOTA CLICK HERE.

“LOOKING AT THE LAND” IN AMERICAN PHOTO MAGAZINE.

TWO VIEWS: After Hurricane Sandy

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Post-Sandy Halloween Scene,” Brooklyn, 2012

We dedicate this week’s TWO LOOKS post to all our friends, family, neighbors, editors, curators, fellow photographers and bookmakers, and all the other New Yorkers who’ve weathered Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath with us this past week.   Our thoughts are especially with those families whose loved ones died or were injured this past week because of the storm and those New Yorkers who are still homeless or without heat, water, or electricity.  

Hurricane Sandy and its destructive aftermath brought to mind this poignant poem, “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” that was written by the Polish poet Adam Zagajewski in 2001.  It’s a poem that spoke to many in the days following September 11th when it ran in The New Yorker magazine.  We dedicate this TWO LOOKS post to the resilience, the strength, the humor, and the humanity  of all New Yorkers.—Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb

TRY TO PRAISE THE MUTILATED WORLD

Try to praise the mutilated world.

Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

—Adam Zagajewski (translated by Clare Cavanagh)

LINK TO NEW YORK MAGAZINE’S PORTFOLIO OF HURRICANE SANDY PHOTOGRAPHS, INCLUDING ONE BY ALEX AT THE LINK HERE.

EXHIBITIONS

——NOV. 8 2012-JAN. 27, 2012, LONDON, “CARTIER-BRESSON: A QUESTION OF COLOR,” group exhibition with Alex Webb, Trent Parke, Joel Meyerwitz, Harry Gruyaert, Helen Levitt, Saul Leiter and others, an exhibition curated by William Ewing.

——SEPT.21, 2012 – JANUARY 13, 2012, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, “Looking at the Land: 21st Century American Views,” A Collaboration with Flak Photo and RISD Museum of Art, group projection and online exhibition, curated by Andy Adams, with photographs by Rebecca Norris Webb, Brian Ulrich, Todd Hido, Joshua Dudley Greer, Christine Carr, and others.

——SATURDAY, OCT. 13-NOV. 4: “CONTATTI @ the Fucecchio Foto Festival,” which includes contact sheet and prints from Rebecca Norris Webb, Larry Fink, Mark Steinmetz, Albert Watson, Callie Shell, Vince Muesi, and other photographers from the book, “Contatti,” by the publisher, Postcart.  Fucecchio, Italy.

UPCOMING 2012 WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

 —SUNDAY, DEC. 9TH, 10-5PM, MASTER CLASS: MIAMI: A ONE-DAY STREET PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP WITH ALEX WEBB AND REBECCA NORRIS WEBB.  A one-day street photography workshop in conjunction with the first Miami Street Photography Festival, which also coincides with Miami Basel Art Fair. (If you wish, you can join a street photography group the day before (Sat., Dec. 8th) and photograph Little Havana, an assignment which the Webb will edit with you on Sunday.)  To register and learn more, click here.  THIS WORKSHOP IS NOW FULL; WAIT LIST ONLY.  TO BE PLACED ON THE WAIT LIST, PLEASE CONTACT REBECCA: rebeccanorriswebb@yahoo.com

——JANUARY 12-19, 2013, STREETS OF HAVANA 2013 with Nordic Light, Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb workshop with optional side trip and final edit Jan. 19-25, 2013.  For more information, including how to apply, click here or visit the TO CUBA WITH ALEX WEBB AND REBECCA NORRIS WEBB Facebook page.

@Alex Webb,, from “Violet Isle” (with Rebecca Norris Webb); upcoming Streets of Havana Workshop in January 2012 with Nordic Light

OTHER RECENT LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

LINK TO THE NEW YORK TIMES LENS BLOG Q&A WITH REBECCA ABOUT “MY DAKOTA”

LINK TO NOTES ON “THE SUFFERING OF LIGHT’ BY ALEX WEBB ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO “MY DAKOTA” ON TIME LIGHTBOX.

LINK TO ALEX’S EAST LONDON PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE AUGUST 2012 ISSUE OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

TO READ THE  FRACTION MAGAZINE REVIEW of MY DAKOTA CLICK HERE.

“LOOKING AT THE LAND” IN AMERICAN PHOTO MAGAZINE.

Slideluck with work by Webbs and others on Nov. 11 in Brighton, UK