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Rogan Coles
Rogan Coles
Rogan Coles

Rogan Coles

Country: South Africa/United Kingdom
Birth: 1954

I was born in 1954. Photography is what I do. The stories lie therein.

In presenting this body of work I want to explore something that is often overlooked - as in the intrinsic value of photography. As one of his mantras, Jack Ma, the founder and now former CEO of Alibaba and a person whose tenacity I admire, said this, "I always look 10 years ahead". While I'm not going to suggested that this is what I do with my photography or when I am about to embark on a project. But and quite often, there's something prescient in what I do and how I approach my work as a photographer.

When I set out to document Smithfield Market in London, this is more or less what happened. Besides all the talk of closing down the market, there were suggestions that the market was going to be refurbished and, in the process, brought up to European Union health standards.

At around this time, I used to take a short cut through the market's precinct as I walked from one side of the city to the other. Of course, during the day, there was nothing there. Well, let me qualify, there were no people there. Working hours were from just around midnight until the early hours of the morning.

With these various stories doing the rounds, I wanted to investigate. In the process I made contact with the market's management. As a result, I was granted to two week window to document the market and the activities there. This was back in April of 1991. Yes, nearly 30 years ago.

This is what I mean, the "intrinsic value of photography". I don't know what these images are worth. I have never exhibited them or ever had them published in any form. No real reason. Then as now, perhaps I didn't have a compelling enough story that publications or curators could buy into. "Intrinsic value" is not going to see this work through to anything significant. Perhaps something like "British working class heroes", "End of an era" or "Times are a changing" may have done it. But, we live on in hope.

I have long admired photography of Vivien Maier and see her work in much the same way - and that is, for its intrinsic value. Through her work, Maier more or less defined the Chicago of a particular era.

Another photographer's work who I much admire is Max Yavno. Again, the strength of his work lies in its intrinsic value. Through his work, he more or less defined Los Angeles and San Francisco of an era and, to some degree, Cairo. His work is iconic - just as is Maier's.
 

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Beth Galton
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Beth Galton is a photo-based artist, with an educational background in the natural sciences and three decades of experience as a professional photographer in the editorial and commercial arena. These elements of her history are the lens through which she explores the world. Her work has been recognized by organizations including Graphis, Communication Arts, the Tokyo International Foto Awards, Julia Margaret Cameron Award, IPA Awards, AAP, and the PDN Taste Awards. The Cut Food series was exhibited in Montpellier Contemporain, Aperture, and Beth Urdang Gallery. It was part of ‘The Fence’, a 7-city, traveling outdoor exhibition, it was published in the Washington Post, and covered by NPR. Both Lenscratch and Rfotofolio picked up the Memory of Absence series. Additionally, A Vita Plantae, and Memory of Absence have been exhibited at Wave Hill, Soho Photographic Gallery, The Center for Fine Art Photography (CO), The Center for Photographic Art (CA), The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Griffin Museum of Photography, Praxis Gallery, and SE Center for Photography. The Washington Post recently published Beth’s work from her series Covid Diary, a document of her time in confinement. About Cut Food "What started as a ubiquitous burrito shot, turned into an exploration of iconic food through a fresh perspective. We chose subjects which we felt were symbols within our Western food culture, and sought to move past the normal “appetite appeal” to look deeply and with curiosity into them. My intention was to give the ordinary a sense of magic show quality. Real, but also astonishing." About A Vita Plantae "This collection explores the relationship between art and science in a three-part series of organic images: Roots, Potato Love, and Time Preserved. These images seek to reveal some of the long-hidden truths of plants: their movement and grace, the nature of time, and the almost unbearable fragility of life. " About Memory of Absence "In 2017, my mother and father—who had not lived together for 50 years, died within 3 days of each other. In this series, I sought to convey a sense of memory and loss through the composition of found ephemera and botanical matter. The volatile botanicals represent the ever-changing nature of memory —an unstable and profoundly unreliable process."
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James Van Der Zee
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1886 | † 1983
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In 1916, Van Der Zee and Gaynella Greenlee launched the Guarantee Photo Studio on West 125th Street in Harlem. They married in 1918. His business boomed during World War I, and the portraits he shot from this period until 1945 have demanded the majority of critical attention. In 1919, he photographed the victory parade of the returning 369th Infantry Regiment, a predominantly African American unit sometimes called the "Harlem Hellfighters." During the 1920s and 1930s, he produced hundreds of photographs recording Harlem's growing middle class. Its residents entrusted the visual documentation of their weddings, funerals, celebrities and sports stars, and social life to his carefully composed images. Quickly Van Der Zee became the most successful photographer in Harlem. Among his many renowned subjects were poet Countee Cullen, dancer Bill ("Bojangles") Robinson, Charles M. "Daddy" Grace, Joe Louis, Florence Mills, and black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. 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Angela Fisher
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