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Kim Watson
Kim Watson
Kim Watson

Kim Watson

Country: United States

A multi-dimensional artist with decades of experience, Kim Watson has written, filmed, and photographed subjects ranging from the iconic entertainers of our time to the ''invisible'' people of marginalized communities. A highly influential director in music videos' early days, Watson has directed Grammy winners, shot in uniquely remote locations, and written across genres that include advertising, feature films for Hollywood studios such as Universal (Honey), MTV Films, and Warner Brothers, and publishers such as Simon & Schuster. His passionate marriage of art and social justice has been a life-long endeavor, and, in 2020, after consulting on Engagement & Impact for ITVS/PBS, Kim returned to the streets to create TRESPASS, documenting the images and stories of LA's unhoused. TRESPASS exhibited at The BAG (Bestor Architecture Gallery) in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, September 17, 2022 - October 11, 2022.

Statement
''I'm gonna be an artist!'' That was my childhood mantra—even before I knew what it meant. You see, growing up in St. Albans, Queens and with family roots firmly planted in Harlem, I was surrounded by artistic expression, much of it created by my own family and much more blooming from the talented artists like Count Basie, James Brown and others who lived in our community—a community that would also bring us Run DMC, LL Cool J and Tribe Called Quest.

Yes, I knew the path I would take but had no idea of the journey it would become. Untethered by labels, I have scratched my creative itch through writing, filmmaking, photography, and music; always aspiring to tell a story that touches and inspires us to see the world a little bit differently and with a little more empathy.

It was while living in Brooklyn as a ''struggling artist'' that I truly saw art being used as a powerful social and political tool, capable of engaging, influencing and changing hearts and minds for the better. Since then, I have had the good fortune of both performing and producing music on the New York scene, and following a return to film school, directing a variety of projects, including over 40 music videos with Hip-Hop innovators and Grammy winners alike, from Roxanne Shante to Al Jarreau, receiving Best Music Video nominations from MTV and the Soul Train Awards, as well as NAACP recognition for my presentation of positive images of African Americans. Did I mention a move to Los Angles? Oh well...

My passion for writing led to assignments for Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Simon & Schuster, Warner Brothers Films, MTV Films, Kidz Bop, movies of the week and the Universal Pictures hit HONEY, starring Jessica Alba. I have partnered on entertainment and tech ventures, consulted on engagement and impact for ITVS/PBS and written, blogged, filmed and photographed around the world, often on assignment and sometimes merely to feed my soul. I guess you could say that I am in love with everything about the creative process, no matter the medium. For these opportunities I am eternally grateful.

For the past year I have been immersed in TRESPASS... photographs and writing which bring focus to Los Angeles' homeless community; sharing the stories we need to hear and connecting with those too often unseen and unheard. I am thankful for the many relationships that have grown out of TRESPASS and the amazing individuals who share their world with me. Please take a look at Trespass as well as the other photo-essays, articles and more, I hope I have found a way to touch your heart, feed your soul and bring us all closer together.

Exclusive Interview with Kim Watson

Websites

www.kimwatsonart.net

@kimwatsonart

 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Edward S. Curtis
Edward S. Curtis
United States
1868 | † 1952
Born in 1868 near Whitewater, Wisconsin, Edward Sheriff Curtis became one of America's finest photographers and ethnologists. When the Curtis family moved to Port Orchard, Washington in 1887, Edward's gift for photography led him to an investigation of the Indians living on the Seattle waterfront. His portrait of Chief Seattle's daughter, Princess Angeline, won Curtis the highest award in a photographic contest. Having become well-known for his work-with the Indians, Curtis participated in the 1899 Harriman expedition to Alaska as one of two official photographers. He then accompanied George Bird Grinell, editor of Forest and Stream, on a trip to northern Montana. There they witnessed the deeply sacred Sundance of the Piegan and Blackfoot tribes. Travelling on horseback, with their pack horses trailing behind, they emerged from the mountains to view the valley floor massed with over a thousand teepees - an awesome sight to Curtis and one that transformed his life. Everything fell into place at that moment: it was clear to him that he was to record, with pen and camera, the life of the North American Indian. Edward S. Curtis devoted the next 30 years photographing and documenting over eighty tribes west of the Mississippi, from the Mexican border to northern Alaska. His project won support from such prominent and powerful figures as President Theodore Roosevelt and J. Pierpont Morgan. From 1911-1914 Curtis also produced and directed a silent film based on the mythology of the Rawakiutl Indians of the Pacific Northwest. Upon its completion in 1930, the work, entitled The North American Indian, consisted of 20 volumes, each containing 75 hand--pressed photogravures and 300 pages of text. Each volume was accompanied by a corresponding portfolio containing at least 36 photogravures.Source: www.edwardscurtis.com Edward S. Curtis was born near Whitewater, Wisconsin. His father, a Civil War veteran and minister, moved the family to Minnesota, where Edward became interested in photography. In 1892, Curtis purchased an interest in a photographic studio in Seattle. He married and the couple had four children. He later settled in Los Angeles, where he operated photographic studios at various times on La Cienega Boulevard and in the Biltmore Hotel. As a friend of Hollywood producer Cecil B. DeMille, Curtis was commissioned to make film stills of some of DeMille's films, including the epic, The Ten Commandments. In 1899, he became the official photographer for the Edward Harriman expedition to Alaska and developed an interest Native American culture. Curtis is best known for his documentation of Native American cultures published as The North American Indian. From about 1900 to 1930, he surveyed more than 100 tribes ranging from the Inuits to the Hopi, making more than 40,000 photographs. He made portraits of important and well-known figures of the time, including Geronimo, Chief Joseph, Red Cloud, and Medicine Crow. Source: Etherton Gallery
Chris Rainier
Chris Rainier
Canada
1958
Chris Rainier is a National Geographic Society EXPLORER and documentary photographer/filmmaker - who is highly respected for his documentation of endangered cultures and traditional languages around the globe. In 2002 he was awarded the Lowell Thomas Award by the Explorers Club for his efforts on cultural preservation, and in 2014 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society of London/UK -specializing in cultural preservation He is the Director of The Cultural Sanctuaries Foundation - a global program focused on preserving Biodiversity and Traditional Cultural Knowledge. During his continued tenure with the National Geographic Society he has been the co-founder and co-director of both the Enduring Voices Language Project and Director of the All Roads Photography Program, designed to support indigenous groups with modern technology desiring to document their traditional culture and create sustainable solutions to preserve the planet in the 21st Century. In addition as a NG Fellow he was an Editor for NG Traveler focused on documentation of traditional culture. Rainier has completed photographic projects for the United Nations, UNESCO, Amnesty International, Conservation International, the Smithsonian Institution, Time Magazine, the New York Times, LIFE Magazine, and the National Geographic Society. Rainier has photographed global culture, conflict, famine, and war in such places as: Somalia, Sarajevo/Bosnia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Iraq for TIME Magazine, - and for NPR Radio. In the early 1980's Rainier was Ansel Adams last photographic assistant- during his tenure with the noted photographer- he worked with Mr. Adams to amplify the use of Art Photography as a social tool - helping to preserve threatened wilderness areas and National Parks. Rainier went on to collaborate with UNESCO and IUCN on a Global Project using photography to preserve endangered wilderness areas around the world. Rainier's photography and books have been widely shown and collected by museums around the world, including the Australian Museum in Sydney, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the International Center of Photography in New York, the George Eastman House International Museum in Rochester, New York, The National Geographic Society, and the United Nations.
Susan Burnstine
Susan Burnstine
United States
1966
Susan Burnstine is an award winning fine art and commercial photographer originally from Chicago now based in Los Angeles. Susan is represented in galleries across the world, widely published throughout the globe and has also written for several photography magazines, including a monthly column for Black and White Magazine (UK) Nominated for the 2009 Santa Fe Prize for Photography and winner of B&W Magazine's 2008 Portfolio Spotlight Award. Susan's first monograph, Within Shadows, has been published by CHARTA Editions and was released in Europe at the The Venice Biennale in June 2011. Additionally, Within Shadows, earned the Gold award for PX3 Prix De La Photographie Paris in the Professional Fine Art Books category and a Bronze overall. Source www.vervegallery.com
Lynn Karlin
Lynn Karlin
United States
Lynn Karlin's move to Maine after 13 years as a successful commercial photographer in New York City brought her back to her love of fine-art photography. Growing up in Queens, New York, Lynn graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Her career took off when she was chosen as the first woman staff photographer for Women's Wear Daily and W, where, day and night, she photographed the rich and famous. Back then, her portraits featured everyone from trendy fashion designers to celebrities. She went on to freelance for the New York Times Magazine, House Beautiful, New York Magazine, Country Living, and other major publications. When Lynn left NYC in 1983 for a new life on a farm in Maine, she helped run a market garden while co-authoring, with Stanley Joseph, the now-classic Maine Farm: A Year of Country Life (Random House, 1991). She also took on assignments for garden magazines, winning awards world-wide. Her life after the farm led her down yet another road photographing the best-selling Gardens Maine Style (Down East Books, 2001), with writer Rebecca Sawyer-Fay. Then, in 2008, after seeing an amazingly beautiful cauliflower at a local farmers' market, Lynn began photographing and styling a series of still-lifes called The Pedestal Series which celebrate vegetables by elevating them to a place of honor-on a pedestal. Thirteen years later she moved from produce back to people after spotting a remarkable young man named Paul, whose ruffled hair and strong features led her in an entirely new direction: Stories in Profile, a series of portraits that have won international competitions and currently show in galleries and private collections from New York to Paris. Stories in Profile Lynn chooses her Stories in Profile subjects for their distinctive features. In these portraits, she celebrates the contours of the face, the qualities of hair, and other prominent traits that render each subject simultaneously elegant and mysterious. Lynn uses natural directional lighting in her studio to highlight topography, creating texture and dynamics and giving her work the painterly feel of 17thcentury master painters. This soft, directional light has an unpredictability that is energizing and keeps her alert and focused. While shooting, Lynn concentrates on design, form, light, and negative space as she reaches for a story to emerge through the profile of her human subjects. As a photographer, the more limited constraints of a profile are challenging. One senses a person's courage and vulnerabilities. She seeks to capture a personality distilled to its strongest form. Rarely do we look at others, or ourselves, from this side view. Each profile is a discovery as she sets out to record the moment when her subject's inner self emerges, direct and stunning.
Joy Celine Asto
Joy Celine Asto
Philippines
Joy Celine Asto is a writer and film photographer from Manila, Philippines. She regularly contributes to photography and creative publications, including The Phoblographer, where she is currently the News & Culture Editor; and Whattaroll, an online magazine celebrating the outstanding works of film photographers like herself. Primarily a portrait photographer influenced by emotive and conceptual styles, her works have appeared in print and online magazines such as She Shoots Film: Self-Portraits Issue, Casimir Magazine, ANON Magazine, EMUSLIVE, and Film Shooters Collective. Her portraits have also been been selected for Flickr's Your Best Shot in 2016 and 2017. Joy also self-publishes zines and photobooks, with Stories from Year Twenty-Nine (a personal year-long project documenting the last year of her twenties) being her most important self-published work.
Aleksander Rodchenko
Aleksander Rodchenko
Russia
1891 | † 1956
Aleksander Rodchenko was a Russian and Soviet artist, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer who emerged following the Russian Revolution. He was one of the founders of Russian Constructivist and a Productivist artist, married to artist Varvara Stepanova. He began his career as a painter and graphic designer before moving on to photomontage and photography. His photography was socially involved, formally creative, and anti-painting. Concerned about the necessity for analytical-documentary picture series, Aleksander Rodchenko frequently shot his subjects from unusual angles—usually high above or low below—in order to shock the viewer and delay recognition. "One has to shoot several distinct photos of a subject, from diverse points of view and in varied settings, as though one viewed it in the round rather than looking through the same key-hole over and over," he wrote. Only the camera seems to be really capable of describing modern life. -- Aleksander Rodchenko Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko was born in St. Petersburg to a working-class family that relocated to Kazan when his father died in 1909. He became an artist without any prior exposure to the art world, relying mostly on art periodicals for inspiration. Aleksander Rodchenko began studies at the Kazan Art School in 1910, under Nicolai Fechin and Georgii Medvedev, when he met Varvara Stepanova, whom he eventually married. The critic Osip Brik, 1924© Aleksander Rodchenko Following 1914, he continued his artistic education at the Stroganov Institute in Moscow, where he created his first abstract drawings in 1915, influenced by Kazimir Malevich's Suprematism. The following year, he took part in The Store, an exhibition organized by another formative influence, Vladimir Tatlin. Rodchenko's work was influenced heavily by Cubism and Futurism, as well as Malevich's Suprematist compositions, which featured geometric forms deployed against a white background. Aleksander Rodchenko was Tatlin's student and assistant, and the interest in figuration that characterized Rodchenko's early work faded as he experimented with design elements. He created his paintings with a compass and ruler, with the goal of eliminating expressive brushwork. Rodchenko worked for Narkompros and was one of the RABIS organizers. RABIS was founded between 1919 and 1920. In 1920, the Bolshevik government appointed Rodchenko as Director of the Museum Bureau and Purchasing Fund, with responsibility for the reorganization of art schools and museums. He became the secretary of the Moscow Artists' Union, established the Fine Arts Division of the People's Commissariat for Education, and assisted in the establishment of the Institute for Artistic Culture. From 1920 to 1930, he was a teacher at the Higher Technical-Artistic Studios, a Bauhaus organization with a "checkered career." It ceased operations in 1930. In 1921, Aleksander Rodchenko joined the Productivist group, along with Stepanova and Aleksei Gan, to advocate for the incorporation of art into everyday life. He abandoned painting to focus on graphic design for posters, books, and films. He was profoundly influenced by the ideas and practice of filmmaker Dziga Vertov, with whom he collaborated extensively in 1922. Impressed by the German Dadaists' photomontage, Rodchenko began his own experiments in the medium, first using found images in 1923, and then shooting his own photographs from 1924 on. In 1923, his first published photomontage illustrated Mayakovsky's poem About This. Rodchenko created his most famous poster in 1924, an advertisement for the Lengiz Publishing House titled Books, which features a young woman with a cupped hand shouting "Books in all branches of knowledge," printed in modernist typography. Photography has all the rights, and all the merits, necessary for us to turn towards it as the art of our time. -- Aleksander Rodchenko Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, 1924© Aleksander Rodchenko From 1923 to 1928, Rodchenko worked closely with Mayakovsky (of whom he took several portraits) on the design and layout of LEF and Novy LEF, Constructivist artists' publications. Many of his photographs were published in or used as covers for these and other publications. His images were concerned with the placement and movement of objects in space, as well as the elimination of unnecessary detail. During this time, he and Stepanova painted the well-known panels of Moscow's Mosselprom building. Varvara Rodchenko, their daughter, was born in 1925. Rodchenko's work was very abstract throughout the 1920s. He joined the October Group of artists in 1928, but was expelled three years later after being accused of "formalism," an accusation first leveled in the pages of Sovetskoe Foto in 1928. In the 1930s, as the Party's guidelines governing artistic practice shifted in favor of Socialist realism, he focused on sports photography and images of parades and other choreographed movements. In the late 1930s, Aleksander Rodchenko returned to painting, stopped photographing in 1942, and produced abstract expressionist works in the 1940s. Throughout these years, he continued to organize photography exhibitions for the government. In 1956, he died in Moscow.
Pat Rose
Pat Rose
United States
Pat Rose is a photographer based in Portland, Oregon. Her work includes landscape, street, portrait and botanical photography. She is a retired teacher of English as a Second Language who has taught in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as in Austin, Texas, and most recently at Portland State University. After picking up her first digital camera a few years before her retirement about a decade ago, she quickly developed many photographic interests. Landscape and street photography appeal to her love of wandering and exploring new places, while her interest in portraiture stems from a desire to work collaboratively with her subjects. In late February 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic was gaining traction in the world and just starting to spread in the US, she began exploring the genre of scanner photography, an alternative form of photography involving the use of a flatbed scanner rather than a conventional camera to make digital images. This kind of work seemed an excellent way to continue her creative efforts as she started practicing self-isolation at home during the growing pandemic. For her scanned images she has been using flowers and other botanical specimens to create "virtual" bouquets as a celebration of the beauty and grace still to be found in the world during these troubled times. Pat has shown her work in a number of group exhibitions in galleries across the country. In Oregon, her photography has been juried into exhibitions at the LightBox Gallery in Astoria and the Black Box Gallery in Portland, and her Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest series was juried into the 2018 Pacific Northwest Photography Viewing Drawers at the Blue Sky Gallery in Portland. Her work has also been juried into exhibitions in the A Smith Gallery in Johnson City, Texas, the SE Center for Photography in Greenville, South Carolina, and PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury, Vermont, among others. In addition, one of her landscapes graces the cover of the 2016 edition of The Creaky Knees Guide, Oregon published by Sasquatch Books in Seattle. Another of her landscape photographs appears in the 2017 German edition of the National Geographic Guide to National Parks of the United States, a travel guide published by NG Buchverlag GmbH in Munich. Pat has received several awards for her photography. Her landscape image titled Enchanted Forest was selected for the Juror's First Award at the 2017 Nature's Way exhibition at the LightBox Gallery in Oregon, and the image won the Grand Prize in The American Landscape 2021 Photo Contest presented by Outdoor Photographer Magazine. Her portrait titled Sophia With Roses won a Director's Honorable Mention in the 2020 Portraits exhibition at the A Smith Gallery in Texas, and the image won Second Place in The Face, 2020 Portrait Photo Contest presented by Digital Photo Pro Magazine. Her cityscape image titled Random Chaos won a Director's Honorable Mention in the 2020 Vistas exhibition at the A Smith Gallery in Texas. And her botanical image titled Still Life with Roses & Raffia won an Honorable Mention in the Still Life Amateur category in The 14th Annual International Color Awards. Pat also writes about photography for Oregon ArtsWatch, an online magazine about culture and the arts in the Pacific Northwest. Much of her photography and her CV can be found on her website.
Sean Perry
Sean Perry
United States
1968
Sean Perry is a fine-art photographer living and working in New York City and Austin, Texas. His photographs and books center on architecture, space and light - expressing the ambiance felt within built environments. He is currently completing three series/books on New York City entitled Monolith, Gotham and Fotopolis, as well as exhibiting a recently completed body of work on the dreamscape of temporary environments, Fairgrounds. Perry attended Berklee College of Music and was a working musician before turning to photography in 1996. His photographs and books have been acquired by notable private collectors including Manfred Heiting and Alan Siegel in addition to being held in the permanent collections of the Museum Fine Arts Houston, the Amon Carter Museum, Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern & Mexican Photography, and the Harry Ransom Center. Cloverleaf Press published Perry's first limited edition book, Transitory in 2006, and followed with a second title, Fairgrounds in the Fall of 2008. In 2009 he was selected as a finalist for the Hasselblad Masters award for his work and book Fairgrounds. His photographs have been published widely including the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Graphis, Camera Arts, New York Magazine, Billboard and American Photography. He has served as an adjunct Professor of Photography in Austin since 2001 as well as an adjunct Professor for the School of Visual Arts in New York City since 2006. Perry frequently contributes his photographs to auctions that benefit photographic and social concerns. His work is represented by the Stephen L. Clark Gallery, Austin. Interview with Sean Perry All About Photo: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer? Sean Perry: When I was younger I didn't know or have access to any professional photographers, but I really loved movies and looked at a lot of books. At that time I got into music and everything else was just secondary. As a musician I always thought about pictures and the visual atmosphere great songs provoke and in my thirties I started photographing and haven’t stopped. AAP: Where did you study photography? With whom? SP: I don’t have a formal background studying photography but it’s not quite right to say I'm self taught either. One of my old bandmates, Jeff Miller is a brother to me, a great photographer and my first teacher - I learned about cameras, making good pictures and printing in the darkroom. That experience was also my first big introduction to contemporary artists like Joel-Peter Witkin and The Starns. I later had important mentors in a photographer I assisted for, Frank Curry and a sculptor who has had a tremendous influence on me as an artist and photographer, John Christensen. AAP:Do you have a mentor? SP: I have a few friends and colleagues who I admire and trust that I ask for insight and guidance with various things... Elizabeth Avedon, Jace Graf, Stephen Clark - there are others. I ask different people, different questions for different reasons if that makes sense. I think it's important to deeply consider who you ask and why. I've been a client of Mary Virginia Swanson for many years and her savvy is always invaluable, I truly owe her a great deal. I'm always learning and seeking out the chance to improve and grow. AAP: How long have you been a photographer? SP: I have been making pictures consistently since 1996 and started working professionally in 1998. AAP: Do you remember your first shot? What was it? SP: What I remember most are the pictures that when I saw the film, they made me feel that the image was somehow better, or more than my capability at the time. It would lead to months of chasing and trying to catch up to the image. The first time that happened was of a barren tree in the wintertime, backlit. I remember making the other pictures from that time, but the experience of seeing something unexpected back on the contact sheets always sticks with me as meaningful. AAP: What or who inspires you? SP: Music always. Also the discovery and study of people that give themselves to their pursuits with the discipline and heart to be excellent. New York City. Late fall leading to snow and cold weather makes me happy. AAP: How could you describe your style? SP: A little romantic but not sentimental - sci-fi but not overtly conceptual. I always work to make beautiful images and objects that don’t apologize for their consideration of aesthetic and design. My experience has taught me there is a strange, small line between beautiful and pretty, arbitrary and yet often substantial. I think my favorite word or aim for my work is earnest, and hopefully elegant. I try to be consistent and to quote someone I deeply respect, Paul Rand – "Don’t try to be original, just try to be good." AAP: What kind of gear do you use? Camera, lens, digital, film? SP: I’m fluent in digital tools and use them to manage images online etcetera, but I have used the same camera gear for over twelve years. Hasselblad 501CM with a 120mm lens and 25A Red filter. Tri-X film in A12 backs. Processed in D76, 1 to 1. Silver gelatin prints bleached and then toned in combinations of sepia and selenium or platinum–palladium prints from enlarged negatives. AAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images? SP: I tend to run film and then not look at it for a while.... I then go through the contact sheets and make work prints of the things that seem to have promise. As the series and work evolves the process of editing, sequencing and design kicks in. After the edges of a project are more or less in place, I’ll go back again and see what I may have missed on the contact sheets. AAP: Favorite(s) photographer(s)? SP: If I am only allowed one, Irving Penn – hands down, no one else. I love books and too many favorites to list, but in no particular order others would be Saul Leiter, Ted Croner, Robert & Shana Parke-Harrison, Tom Baril, Louis Faurer, Edward Burtynsky, Albert Watson, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Berenice Abbott and Matt Mahurin. AAP: What advice would you give a young photographer? SP: Fearlessly make all the bad pictures you need to in order to get to the good ones. Not thoughtlessly in the number of images, but without hesitation in the intent to chase your ideas. When you are disappointed, try to understand why specifically – was it a technical mistake your effort and experience will resolve over time or was it about vision in what you could or could not see at that moment. The technical things are usually easier to improve upon, I have found the other takes additional perseverance and courage. For myself there is always the confrontation of closing the distance between the potency I’m after and the many challenges at hand while guiding it there. I think the biggest secret is simply not to quit. AAP: What mistake should a young photographer avoid? SP: Everyone is different, so very hard to say. I believe one truth for myself has been it’s more valuable to invest time in what your pictures, your life, your point of view are all about and less energy worrying about the urgency sometimes encouraged in technology and shorter term concerns. Play long ball. AAP: An idea, a sentence, a project you would like to share? SP: I am currently administrating an ambitious project that connects college students with high school students, creating mentorship and the development of visual language. For the college students it is to illustrate the value of mentorship from both sides, as well as create meaningful dialogue about photography and image making. It provides a mechanism for high school students to share and express their photographic work with a new audience and has direct, tangible advantages for everyone involved – accenting the importance of communication and emphasizing the photography community's tradition of portfolio review. Visit The Picture Review. AAP: Your best memory has a photographer? SP: All of my favorite memories are darkroom related. My first darkroom was in John Christensen's studio, I deeply miss those days and that place. I would often print all day and all night - it's where I learned about photo-chemistry and the subtleties of split-toning and other irresistible alchemy. AAP: Your worst souvenir as a photographer? SP: My checking account. AAP: If you could have taken the photographs of someone else who would it be? SP: It's an interesting question but it reminds me of a rock & roll story, urban legend I remember as a kid and recently retold in Esquire Magazine. When Van Halen was touring in the late 70’s they were opening for Ted Nugent who admired Eddie Van Halen's guitar tone. Among other things, Eddie would hide one of his effect pedals (a tape echo) in an old bomb casing, adding to the mystery of his great tone and why he sounded the way he did. Everyone believed he had a "magic" black box. During sound check, Ted Nugent got the chance to play through Eddie’s rig and was disappointed to discover his guitar tone was unchanged – he sounded like he always did and whatever he loved about Eddie's tone was in his hands and not in the gear. I think photographs are like that, there are many pictures I would be thrilled if I had produced but in the end I can only make what is in my hands and heart. The images I love that others have made don't represent my life and could never belong to me. I remain a fan and audience to my heroes, happily so.
Carol Beckwith
Carol Beckwith
United States
Thirty years of work on the African continent have carried Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher across 270,000 miles and through remote corners of 40 countries in exploration of more than 150 African cultures. In the process, this team of world-renowned photographers has produced fourteen widely acclaimed books and made four films about traditional Africa. They have been granted unprecedented access to African tribal rites and rituals and continue to be honored worldwide for their powerful photographs documenting the traditional ceremonies of cultures thousands of years old. As an intrepid team of explorers, they are committed to preserving sacred tribal ceremonies and African cultural traditions all too vulnerable to the trends of modernity. The Beckwith-Fisher images are the result of a long, enduring and deeply respectful relationship with African tribal peoples. This, combined with their photographic skills, creates an intimate portrayal of ceremonies long held secret that might have never been recorded. Their work preserves and presents the power, complexity and celebration found within the rituals of African tribal life. Their extraordinary photographs are recorded in fourteen best-selling books and in their films. Their new book “Painted Bodies” (2012) follows “Maasai” (1980), “Nomads of Niger” (1983), “Africa Adorned” (1984), “African Ark” (1990), “African Ceremonies” (1999), “Passages” (2000), “Faces of Africa” (2004), “Lamu: Kenya’s Enchanted Island” (2009), and “Dinka” (2010). The special limited-edition books, hand printed in Santiago, Chile, are titled “Surma,” “Karo,” “Maasai,” and “Dinka.” “African Ceremonies,” their defining body of work, is a double volume, pan-African study of rituals and rites of passage from birth to death, covering 93 ceremonies from 26 countries. This book won the United Nations Award for Excellence for “vision and understanding of the role of cultural traditions in the pursuit of world peace.” Honored twice with the Annisfield-Wolf Book Award in race relations for “outstanding contributions to the understanding of cultural diversity and prejudice,” Angela and Carol are also winners of the Royal Geographical Society of London’s Cherry Kearton Medal for their contribution to the photographic recording of African ethnography and ritual. The photographers have made four films about traditional Africa, including Way of the Wodaabe (1986), The Painter and the Fighter, and two programs for the Millennium Series Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World. Numerous exhibitions of their photography and films have been shown in museums and galleries around the world. In 2000 their Passages exhibition opened at the Brooklyn Museum of Art featuring 97 mural photographs, six video films and a selection of African masks, sculpture and jewelry. This exhibition has traveled to seven museums on three continents. Aware that traditional cultures in Africa are fast disappearing, Carol and Angela are working with an urgency to complete the third volume of their ongoing study of African Ceremonies with the goal of covering the remaining traditional ceremonies in the 13 African cultures in which they have not yet worked.Source: carolbeckwith-angelafisher.com
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Art, Activism, Policy, and Power is an educational framework offering resources and opportunities for high school students to engage with artist-activists. The program focuses on various justice topics, utilizing the MoCP’s exhibitions, visiting artists, and collections as teaching tools. Students explore how artists incorporate research into their work to amplify urgent social issues, while also gaining insight into the power of the arts in advancing activism.
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Exclusive Interview with Jaume Llorens
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Jaume Llorens
Jaume Llorens, born in Porqueres, near Girona, has been passionate about photography since his teenage years. Though he began exhibiting his work later in life, his artistic journey has quickly gained recognition on the international stage. His work is characterized by a deep, contemplative connection with nature, where silence and observation shape his artistic vision. His poetic project Gaia, inspired by this reflective approach, earned him the December 2023 Solo Exhibition. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
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Exclusive Interview with Asiya Al Sharabi
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Asiya Al Sharabi
Asiya Al Sharabi is a Yemeni-American visual artist whose work has been recognized both nationally and internationally. She began her career as a journalist and photographer before shifting her focus to artistic photography, using her lens to explore the complexities of identity, culture, and migration. Now based in the U.S., her work is deeply rooted in the experiences of Middle Eastern women, young adults, and immigrants—themes that continue to shape her creative vision.
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Exclusive Interview with Members of Circulo Collective
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Members of Circulo Collective
Círculo Collective is a photography group dedicated to fostering unity and shared humanity during these challenging times. This exclusive collective brings together photographers from five countries: India, Tanzania, Iran, Brazil, and Poland. In a world increasingly defined by division and conflict, the mission of Círculo Collective holds profound significance. Through their work, they seek to remind us of the connections that bind us and the power of community in overcoming adversity. We reached out to them with a few questions to gain deeper insights into their project.
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Exclusive Interview with Manuela Federl
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Manuela Federl
Manuela Federl is a journalist and documentary filmmaker with over 15 years of experience. She studied languages, economics, and cultural studies, focusing on the Mapuche people in Chile, which became the subject of her published thesis. In 2016, she founded her company, bergjournalisten, and has since created award-winning documentaries like 100 Hours of Lesbos and THE GAME. Gambling Between Life and Death. For the past two years, she has traveled extensively, documenting social issues through photography and storytelling. Her series The Roma Princesses earned her the January 2024 Solo Exhibition.
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Exclusive Interview with Dona Ann McAdams about ’Black Box’
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Dona Ann McAdams about 'Black Box'
Black Box, a memoir by award-winning American photographer Dona Ann McAdams, combines fifty years of black and white photography with the photographer’s own short lyric texts she calls “ditties.” The book brings together McAdams’ striking historical images with personal reflections that read like prose-poems. Her photographs, taken between 1974 and 2024, document astonishing moments and people across decades of American life.
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Exclusive Interview with Grace Weston
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Grace Weston
Grace Weston’s staged photography transforms miniature vignettes into powerful narratives that explore psychological themes with a playful yet profound touch. Her meticulously crafted scenes invite viewers to delve into stories of power, identity, and human complexity. Weston’s innovative work has earned international recognition, including winning the November 2023 Solo Exhibition. We asked her a few questions about her life and work.
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