TWO LOOKS: NYTimes, Nat’l Geographic

©Alex Webb, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, 1976

Q. Jim Estrin, New York Times Lens Blog:

Had you ever been to Mississippi before? Was it similar to anything you had seen before or different?

A.  Alex Webb:

It was my first trip to Mississippi. I had photographed in some small towns in Alabama prior to visiting Mound Bayou; however, those towns were segregated — unlike Mound Bayou, there were no black town officials, no black police officers, and if there were black-owned businesses, they were in the black part of town.

Visiting Mound Bayou for the first time, I was completely unprepared for the intensity of the emotional experience of being welcomed and embraced by a culture so different than my own. I recall one moment when Ellie, the woman whom I first met at Smitty’s, suddenly turned to me, reached up and put her two hands on either side of my head and said, “I ain’t never touched the hair of a white man before.” Needless to say, as a young, white kid from Cambridge, Mass., I was stunned and deeply moved.

Link to read the rest of the Q&A with Jim Estrin and see the complete Mound Bayou slide show:

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/alex-webb-looks-back-in-black-and-white/?smid=tw-share

ALEX’S PHOTOGRAPHS FROM INDIA’S KUMBH MELA IN FEBRUARY 2014 ISSUE:

 

 

 

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/kumbh-mela/spinney-text

 

©Alex Webb, Kumbh Mela in February 2014 issue of National Geographic Magazine

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS, EXHIBITIONS,  AND TALKS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA:

——Saturday May 3 thru Friday May 10, FINDING YOUR VISION, NEW YORK.  A few spots left in this annual workshop. For more information including how to enroll, please visit: 

https://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAXO31_3&VBID=2K1HZOQ8HF290Z&IID=2K1HRG8E8ABS&PN=3

——Friday, Dec. 13 thru Feb. 22, 2014: BEFORE THE SHIFT: The Early Black-and-White Work of Alex Webb, Lynne Cohen, Martin Parr, and Stephen Shore at at the Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago; opening reception with Alex, Friday, Dec. 13, 5:30-8pm:

http://www.stephendaitergallery.com/dynamic/exhibit_display.asp?EventID=2&Exhibit=Currrent&ExhibitID=175

 

©Rebecca Norris Webb, Junipers, from A Field Guide to Silence

A shelter

or a ship

these junipers?

 

A black bough flies into the night.

Now even the snow

is the shadow of an owl.

—Rebecca Norris Webb, from “A Field Guide to Silence”