Four Continents: 30 Photographers

For the third year, we’re celebrating the NEW YEAR with updates from some 30 members of our TWO LOOKS online photographic community from around the world, which includes first books, upcoming and current exhibitions, new blogs, and long-term projects.  Congratulations to all of you.  

In addition, we’d like to give a special thanks to everyone who’s supported Rebecca’s “My Dakota” book and upcoming exhibition in 2012.  We couldn’t have done it without your support.  (There is still one limited ed. of “My Dakota” available, as well as a few of the handmade artist books; please contact Alex for more information: rnorriswebb@yahoo.com).  Near the end of the column, you’ll also find two worthy projects you may want to consider supporting.  And, as some of you have requested, this column ends with a short list of some of our upcoming 2012 workshops.

So, to all of you, we’d like to wish you a very productive NEW YEAR, and — as always — please stay in touch.—Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb

Please leave your congratulations to fellow photographers in the comment section at the end of this blog posting or contact him or her directly through his/her website.

NEW BOOKS

Magdalena Sole, cover of her new book, "New Delta Rising"

Some of you may remember New York City-based photographer Magdalena Sole (originally from Spain) from the Venice and New York workshops.  Above, is the cover of her first photography book, NEW DELTA RISING, which will be available from Amazon in January.  You’ll also find, below, the cover of L.A.-based photographer Alia Malley’s new book, A CAVALIER IN SIGHT OF A VILLAGE (Havana and Brooklyn workshops), which was funded thanks to a very successful Kickstarter campaign, and Norwegian photographer Marie Sjovold’s DUST CATCHES LIGHT (Norway workshop), a book which was launched this fall in Paris.

We’ve also included covers of Austin, Texas photographer Bill McCullough’s limited edition book, TECHNOCOLOR LIFE: AMERICAN WEDDING (Woodstock workshop), Canadian photographer Richard Marazzi’s book on Cuba,  EPOCA (Toronto workshop), British photographer Justin Partyka’s FIELD WORK (Cadiz workshop), Canadian photographer Ewa Zebrowski’s artist’s book, SEA OF LANTERNS (Venice and Aperture workshops) with text by Anne Michaels, a book which will be launched at the Art Gallery of Ontario in May 2012, and award-winning Swedish photographer Per-Anders Pettersson’s catalog of photographs from South Africa, EKHAYA (Project Workshop @ Caption Gallery).

You’ll find more details about the above publications — including where to purchase them — on the photographers’s websites,  as well as on some of the additional links listed below (such as the Amazon link for Magdalena). — AW and RNW

–Where to buy Magdalena’s new book, NEW DELTA RISING: (will be available in January 2012)

Amazon.com: New Delta Rising (9781617031502): Magdalena Solé, Barry H. Smith, Rick Bragg, Tom Lassiter: Books

–Magdalena’s website: www.solepictures.com

Marie Sjovold, cover of her book, "Dust Catches Light"

–In U.S., the book will soon be offered by Photo Eye — http://www.photoeye.com,  Currently, here’s where it can be ordered in Norway and Sweden:

http://www.bokus.com/cgi-bin/product_search.cgi?search_word=Dust+catches+light&language=&ac_used=yes

http://www.adlibris.com/se/product.aspx?isbn=9197887641

http://www.tronsmo.no/index.php?action=sok&enkelt_filter=tittel&enkelt_query=dust+catches+light&x=50&y=5

–Marie’s website: www.mariesjovold.no

Alia Malley, cover of her book, "A Cavalier in Sight of a Village"

Book is available at:  http://www.aliamalley.com/cav_book.html

Alia’s website: www.aliamalley.com

Richard Marazzi, "Época"

Richard’s website:  http://www.richardmarazziphoto.com/

Bill McCullough, from the book "Technicolor Life: American Wedding"

Bill’s website: http://www.billmcculloughphotography.com/

Justin Partyka, "Field Work"

 Justin’s website: http://www.justinpartyka.com/

Ewa Zebrowski, from the artist book, Sea of Lanterns, text by Anne Michaels

Order “Sea of Lanterns” at this link on Photo Eye.

Ewa’s website: http://www.ewazebrowski.com/

Per-Anders Pettersson, cover of catalog, "Ekhaya"

Per’s website: http://www.peranderspettersson.com

Susan Berger, Jersey City, NJ 2010

NEW EXHIBITIONS/GALLERIES

CONGRATULATIONS to many of you with recent and upcoming exhibitions, including U.S. photographer, Susan Berger‘s, MARTIN LUTHER KING BOULEVARD, which will be on view at the Griffin Museum of Photography near Boston from January 5, 2012 to March 1, 2012. (Susan was recently in our Book Weekend Workshop @ Radius this past fall.) Also, New England photographer Chris Chadbourne‘s STATE FAIR photographs (Photo Project  @ Caption Gallery) will open next June at the Griffin Museum, and then travel to venues in Las Vegas, Nevada, and North Carolina (the work was also shown at the New England Photo Biennial –see photo below).  San Francisco-based Jane Paradise , recently who attended our UNBOUND workshop at LOOK3, has work in a group exhibiton at the Bedford Gallery near San Francisco, including this photograph below from her BLUE COMMA series from Cape Cod, which was selected for the Bedford Gallery show by SFMOMA’s Sandra Phillips and Oakland Museum’s Drew Johnson (here’s a link to a video interview of the two curators about the exhibition).  Jane will also have work in Buenos Aires and near Boston at the Griffin Museum in 2012.

For all of you who remember Norwegian photographer Tone Elin Solholm (Venice and Barcelona workshops), she will be having an exhibition of 20 photographs from her first book,  THE GIANTS’ LIVING ROOM, at the noted Oslo gallery, Fotografiens Hus (House of Photography) from February 9-26, 2012, which will include the poem Rebecca wrote for the book (Tone’s photograph and Rebecca’s poem below).

U.S. photographer Susan Cardona (CPW Workshop) will have an exhibition, IN WASHINGTON COUNTY, this summer in Eastport, Maine.  New York City-based British photographer, Shane Gray, will have an exhibition of his STREET PHOTOGRAPHS this spring at the Lunasas bar at 126 1st Av. (between 7/8 St.), and you can see his latest projects and the exact dates of the show on his website. One of  Minny Lee‘s photographs from her Self-Portrait series is currently featured in the group exhibition, DREAMS, at the Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, until January 7, 2012.

Belgium photographer Serge Maes — who some of you may remember from the Barcelona and New York workshops — currently has photographs in a joint show in Bussum, the Netherlands, until the end of December, and will have a new website up and running soon.  And one of the youngest photographers in our community, Austrian photographer MAFALDA RAKOS (Photo Project @ Caption Gallery), will have some of her photographs of her fellow teenagers in the photography festival in Braga, Portugal, “Entcontros da Imagem,” in fall 2012.

Lastly, we are pleased to announce the opening of a new collective gallery in Seattle by two of our former PCNW workshop photographers, Minh Carrico and Carina del Rosario — along with a third photographer, Su’J’n Chon.  The gallery is called  IDEA Odyssey.

Jane Paradise @ the Bedford Gallery in California

Tone Elin Solholm, from her upcoming House of Photography exhibit, "The Giants' Living Room," in Oslo in February. Rebecca's poem -- "Seven Rooms" -- will also be included in the Fotografiens Has exhibition.

 Remember when the world had seven rooms?

Ours had a back staircase and pocket doors. 

One winter, I had a room under the wingback chair only I could enter.

Next summer, I hid in the flowering plum for hours, & my mother called & called.

Flattening their wings, bats crawled under any closed door.  No one was safe.

Falling asleep, my book half open, I dreamt I was flying.

Since then, I’ve visited six continents and three oceans.

Now, the world with seven rooms lives inside of me.

Slowly I climb the back staircase.

My dead brother swings me around and around — finally lets go.

I fly through the air.

–Rebecca Norris Webb

Chris Chadbourne, installation view of the 2011 New England Photo Biennial

Sue Cardona, Lobster Fisherman, Jonesport

Shane Gray, Dining Hall Scaffolder

Minny Lee, Self-portrait, Mestre, Italy 2011

 

S.M. Maes, Barcelona, Spain

Mafalda Rakos

Carina A. del Rosario (right) with IDEA Odyssey gallery co-founder Minh Carrico. (The third co-founder, SuJ'n Chon, is not pictured.)

NEW PHOTO AGENCY

Sebastián Liste, from the series "On This Side of the Mountain"

SEBASTIAN LISTE — who some of you met at our UNBOUND workshop @ LOOK3 this summer —  is now a Featured Photographer at Reportage by Getty Images.  And, in case you missed it, here’s Sebastian’s two-part interview with photographer, writer, digital tech and our studio manager, TRENT DAVIS BAILEY, on Daylight Magazine earlier this year:  Link to Part I.  Link to Part II.

NEW BLOG

As a commercial photographer, how do you continue to inspire your personal photography?  For Colorado wedding photographer PRESTON UTLEY, he decided to start a blog devoted to his personal work, called THE SNAP SHOT DIARIES.  We look forward to following Preston’s new blog in 2012.

Preston Utley, "Snow Capped," from his new blog, "The Snap Shot Diaries"

Preston’s website

FUNDRAISING

What better way to start the NEW YEAR than to contribute to documentary projects??  Below are two we think you should consider: The first is Russian photographer OLGA KRAVET’s GROZNY: Nine Cities (Olga was in our Moscow Workshop in 2007), a collaborative project with two of her fellow Russian photographers, Maria Morina and Oksana Yushko.  Here is a link to the Grozny fundraising page. The second is L.A.-based photographer and documentary filmmaker SARA TERRY’s FOLK (the doc’s cinematographer, HENRY JACOBSON,is also a photographer whose work was recently featured on VISURA). Any amount you give will help support these very worthy projects.

Sara Terry, FOLK a feature-length documentary

NEW PROJECTS

David Bacher

We think it’s fitting to end FOUR CONTINENTS where it all begins — by taking a look at some new and ongoing photography projects from around the world.  First we’ll start in Europe with three talented street photographers — Paris-based DAVID BACHER, French photographer DAVID BELAY (You may remember David Belay from our recent Munich workshop and our Peru workshop), and Dutch photographer BAS LOSEKOOT (Caption Gallery workshop).   We’ve also included from Argentina, ALEJANDRO KIRCHUK  and his moving portraits of his grandparents, as well as Venezuelan-born GUILLERMO DE YAVORSKY’S tender and surreal Skype portraits of friends and family around the world, and many of these screen shots were taken in St. Barts where he now lives.  We end with Greek photographer DIMITRI MELLOS  and his photographs from the streets of New York, where he’s based, and Chinese photographer MAX WANG, who recently finished a second comprehensive project photographing and interviewing 100 people across Canada, ages 1 to 100 (Max recently did a similar project in China, as those of you may remember from the Unbound Workshop at LOOK3 this past summer).

David Bacher’s website: http://www.davidbacher.com/

David Belay

David Belay’s photos: http://maddav.jalbum.net/4continents/index.html

Alejandro Kirchuk

Alejandro’s website: http://www.alejandrokirchuk.com.ar/

Bas Losekoot, from "Sao Paulo and the Urban Millennium"

Bas’s website: http://www.baslosekoot.com/

Dimitri Mellos, 2011

Dimitri’s website: http://www.dimitrimellos.com

Yinan Max Wang, Aunjelica, 2011

Max’s website: http://www.yinanmaxwang.com/

Guillermo de Yavorsky, from the series "FarAway So Close (Skype Portraits)"

Guillermo’s photos:

http://web.me.com/deyavorsky/South_African_Football/index.html

http://web.me.com/deyavorsky/Skype_portaits/index.html

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

–THE STREETS OF HAVANA, Sunday, Jan. 22 thru Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012.  There are only a few places left in this upcoming workshop sponsored by Norway’s Nordic Light.  For more information follow this link.

–WEEKEND WORKSHOP IN SINGAPORE, Friday evening, March 9, 2012, thru Saturday, March 11, 2012.  An intensive weekend workshop with the Webbs and Radius Books creative director and noted book designer, David Chickey. More information about this workshop will appear soon on the Magnum website and on the workshop page of the webbnorriswebb website.

–WEEKEND WORKSHOP @ APERTURE, NY, Friday evening, March 23, thru Sat., March 25, 2012. Do you know where you’re going next with your photography –– or where it’s taking you?   An intensive weekend workshop with Alex and Rebecca. Check the Aperture site midJanuary for details about fees and how to apply.

–FINDING YOUR VISION WORKSHOP @ CAPTION GALLERY, BROOKLYN, NY.  Sunday May 20 thru Friday May 25, 2012.* A week-long photographing and editing workshop where each photographers begins to explore his or her own way of photographing and how to edit intuitively.  Will include exercises, light room tutorials, and a presentation by a noted book editor. Applications open January 9, 2012, and early acceptance notification will start on February 9, 2012.  Check the workshop page of the webbnorriswebb website for fees, application process and further details.

*If there is enough interest, we will explore offering a second session of the Finding Your Vision Workshop @ Caption Gallery the week before —  Sunday May 13 thru Friday May 18, 2012.

NEW BOOK: Book Launch @ Aperture, June 1st

Alex Webb, cover of "The Suffering of Light" (Aperture), with an essay by Geoff Dyer

 

Please join us to celebrate the launch of Alex’s new book, The Suffering of Light, at Aperture at 6:30pm, which will include a conversation with photographer and critic Max Kozloff and a booksigning afterwards. (To take a look inside Alex’s new book, follow this link to the PhotoEye site.) And here’s a link to a portfolio of Alex’s work from the new book on the La Lettre site, courtesy of the Robert Klein Gallery in Boston, which will have a joint show of our work on Saturday, September 17th, from 2-4pm.

And below you’ll find a rough, homemade video of our Violet Isle show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, an exhibition mentioned in The New York Times on Sunday and reviewed in The Boston Globe on Tuesday, May 31st.   For those who are part of the “Two Looks” online community, please let us know if you get a chance to see Violet Isle at the MFA, Boston, which will be up until January 16, 2012.

By the way, if you visit the MFA by June 16th, be sure and stop by and see the photography show, “Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection,” which includes work by such noted photographers as Lee Friedlander, Diane Arbus, Julia Margaret Cameron, Wright Morris, Alec Soth, William Eggleston, Robert Frank, Mitch Epstein, Larry Sultan, Mike Smith, and Helen Levitt.–Rebecca Norris Webb

VIOLET ISLE at the MFA, BOSTON

Rebecca Norris Webb, "Havana, 2007" from the book, "Violet Isle"

What better way of celebrating our exhibition of Violet Isle at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, than with our work set to our favorite Cuban duet, “Silencio,” just launched as the latest Magnum in Motion?

We’d like give a special thanks to the Magnum In Motion team, especially to Phil Bicker and Adrian Kelterborn, who produced this presentation of Violet Isle.—Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb

Alex Webb, Cienfuegos, Cuba, 2007, from "Violet Isle"

TEXT AND IMAGE: World Poetry Day

To celebrate WORLD POETRY DAY, we’ve decided to post one of Rebecca’s prose poems from her first book, “The Glass Between Us,” both in English and in Chinese, the latter thanks to the wonderful translation by fellow photographer and translator, Monica Lin, who is based in Hong Kong.  We are dedicating the poem to all the Chinese photographers we’ve met — both in the Hong Kong workshop, at our Hong Kong slide talk, and through the TWO LOOKS online photographic community.  In addition, since the poem takes place in the Caribbean, we decided to pair it with a relatively unknown photograph of Alex’s from Puerto Rico, which will appear in his new book, “The Suffering of Light.”–=Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb

Alex Webb, Pinones, Puerto Rico, 1990, from the book "The Suffering of Light"

Reflections: 4

Sailing in the Caribbean, I catch a mahi mahi.  It takes two men to lift its four-foot body from the sea.  On the hot teak deck, I watch the creature shift its tint, from teal to indigo to aquamarine, like having a tiny sea, beautiful and raging, at my bare feet.  As it flips and flops, I feel a little afraid of this great hulking dying thing.  I wish it would fly.  I wish it would be still.  I’m ashamed how hungry it makes me feel.

Within minutes, I slip a piece of deep red sushi between my lips.  The   freshest fish I’ve ever tasted, it is heavy and sweet and otherworldly, like a slice of mango or sex in the sun after swimming in the turquoise Caribbean.  What I hope my own death will taste like.—Rebecca Norris Webb, from the book, “The Glass Between Us”

镜像：4

航行在加勒比海，我捕到一条马头鱼。把这四英尺长的大家伙从海里拖上来竟需要兩個男人。在滚烫的柚木甲板上，我看着這個造物变换颜色，从湖蓝到靛蓝到海蓝，像我赤裸的足邊一處小小的海洋，美丽而狂暴。看着它拍打翻滚的样子，我突然有点害怕这个垂死的大家伙。我希望它飞。我希望它静止。我为自己因它而饥肠辘辘感到羞愧。

几分钟后，一块深红色的生鱼片滑进我的双唇。这是我尝过最新鲜的鱼肉了，它厚实、鲜甜、超凡脱俗，如同一片芒果，又像在宝石般的加勒比海水中暢泳之后開始的性爱。真希望自己的死亡也有同樣的味道—Rebecca Norris Webb, translated into Chinese by Monica Lin, from the book, “The Glass Between Us”

WEBBWORKS: Alex’s Book, Rebecca’s Poem

We’re back in Brooklyn, and wanted to give our TWO LOOKS online community the first glimpse of two new WebbWorks:  Alex’s first advance copy of his survey book, THE SUFFERING OF LIGHT, and a new poem Rebecca recently wrote on a ranch in South Dakota for her upcoming book, MY DAKOTA, which is a photographic elegy for her brother, Dave.   Again, we both apologize for our rough, at times out-of-focus homemade videos (Unfortunately, the IPOD touch doesn’t focus very precisely, not to mention Rebecca’s shivering hands in the -15 F Dakota blizzard.)

Alex’s book will be available May 1 from Aperture (US), Thames and Hudson (UK), Contrasto (Italy), and Textuel (France).  We will keep you posted about upcoming book signings and other events in May and June in New York, Madrid, London, Boston, and Charlottesville.—Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb