SocialDocumentary.net

SPOTLIGHT/August 19, 2012   

    

Featured Exhibits   

The exhibits featured below have been submitted to the SDN website since our last Spotlight was published in July. There are currently 484 live exhibits live on the SDN website. This email Spotlight is sent to 5,000 readers. Click here to view the SDN home page.  
 

 

Nathalie Bertrams

Photograph by Nathalie Bertrams. Ah Dalibandla - Sangomas and Traditional Horsemen of Mthatha. 

 

Ah Dalibandla - Sangomas of Mthatha
South Africa
    

Photographs by Nathalie Bertrams    

The Sangomas of Mthatha are welcoming a group of strangers in a powerful and deeply emotional ceremony. These traditional healers are the guardians of old knowledge and traditional medicine in the Xhosa culture, the spirit mediums between this world and the next, authorities in the channeling of ancestral powers. They represent the weight and conscience of the community. In healing and guiding them, they help to maintain the balance between nature, man, and the spiritual world.

 

View the exhibit.  


Summer Discount Extended Through August 22!
25% off. 

Create a new exhibit or renew existing exhibits and receive a 25% discount through August 22. 

Frame prices are now just $0.75 per image. You can purchase frames now for future exhibits and they never expire. Click here for details. 
Other Recently Added Exhibits

Don Unrau

The Revolutionary Moment: Portraits of Viet Cong

Don Unrau
On Don Unrau's most recent visit to Vietnam, he began making portraits of Viet Cong, the revolutionary soldiers who fought against him more than 40 years ago.
Rub�n Salgado Escudero

21st Century Maasai

Rub�n Salgado Escudero
The Maasai is Kenya's most symbolically important tribe. This semi-nomadic tribe prides itself in its age-old customs and traditional ways. Known as skilled warriors, they were one of the few to stand against slavery due to their bravery.

Hilary Duffy

Free Enterprise in Cuba, 2012.

Hilary Duffy
Under Ra�l Castro's leadership, Cuba has sanctioned private business since 2010 when the state announced layoffs of half a million workers. With the objective of raising productivity and reviving the economy, the reforms have opened the path to an extensive and emerging small private business sector.
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Framing Beyond the Walls
Nicosia, Cyprus 
Photographs by Tijen Erol

Tijen Erol

Photograph by Tijen Erol. These wires keep soldiers from both communities away from each other to prevent problems along the Buffer Zone.

 

Nicosia is the only divided capital in the world and the last divided city in Europe. When you walk in Nicosia, you are more likely to come to a dead end where a barbed wire fence, a concrete wall segment, a sandbag, or a watchtower stops you, which is a symbol of the continuing conflict. However, the divided city is surrounded by a circle of solid Venetian city walls creating a whole.

View the exhibit. 


Milk Bread Beer
Photographs by  T Vann

T Vann

Photograph by T Vann.  Baptist Town, Greenwood, MS.

 

The Mississippi Delta is the richest agricultural land in North America yet produces its most impoverished citizens. Its population, descended from slaves and cotton sharecroppers  resides in communities undone by the mechanization of the region's cotton economy. The landscape bears witness. Spaces devoid of human figures bear the imprint of people who inhabit them. Religious iconography and the ubiquity of alcohol speak to intensity of spiritual need. Vacant businesses hint at prior commerce. Words and symbols inscribed on buildings give voice to absent people.

 
View the exhibit. 


The Abandoned Silk Mine
Photographs by  Jay Dorfman

Jay Dorfman

Photograph by Jay Dorfman. Abandoned shoes.

 

The silk mill in Lonaconing, MD was in operation from 1907-1957. Initially, silk was imported from Japan  and China and the factory produced silk thread, and, during WW II, rayon. In the 1920s, the payroll included over 300 people, but in later years fewer than 200 worked there. and by the 1950s antiquated machines in a small mill made competition with larger facilities impossible. In 1957, the mill closed for good. The silk mill still stands in Lonaconing, as it did 50 years ago.

 
View the exhibit. 


Black Panther Party Rise Against Racism, 1969
Photographs by  Janine Wiedel

Janine Wiedel

Photograph by Janine Wiedel. Huey Newton, one of the founding members of the Panthers, had been wounded during a shootout with the police. While in the hospital he was charged with killing a policeman and sentenced to prison.

 

These photographs were taken in California in 1969, when the Black Panther Party was being heavily targeted by the police and the FBI. The Panthers had emerged from the Black Power Movement in 1966. The Civil Rights Movement had not significantly changed attitudes. Martin Luther King had been killed. America was racially divided.

 
View the exhibit. 

SDN News  

A Conversation with Catherine Edelman and Shelby Lee Adams on Flak Photo      

Flak Photo features this conversation in support of Shelby Lee Adams' new book, Salt & Truth, a collection of the photographer's Appalachian portraits  

 

Shelby Lee Adams Photo by Shelby Lee Adams, Billy Ray, 2003. 

  

Read this conversation between Shelby Lee Adams, one of America's foremost documentary photographers, and Catherine Edelman, Director of the Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago, as they discuss Adam's career, work, and new book, Salt & Truth.

Read conversation >> 


The 4th Edition of Anthropographia, Human Rights Through Visual Storytelling

 

Anthropographia, Walter Astrada Shattered Myths, Violence Against Women in Norway, by Walter Astrada 

  

Tina Ahrens, co-founder of Emphasis, James Estrin, founder of the New York Times' Lens Blog, and Matthieu Rytz, founder of Anthropographia reviewed submissions to the 4th Edition of Anthropographia, Human Rights Through Visual Storytelling. The team narrowed down the entries to 12 photo-essays and 6 multimedia projects, selecting Shattered Myths, Violence Against Women in Norway by Argentine photographer Walter Astrada as the overall winner for the photo-essay category and Afrikanerblood (South Africa) by Dutch photographers Elles van Gelder & Ilvy Njiokiktjien as the overall winners in the multimedia category.

More information >>


Children's Eyes on Earth  

SDN Co-sponsors this International Youth Photography Contest, Festival and Exhibition  
 

Childrens Eyes on Earth The International Youth Photography Contest, Festival and Exhibition raises awareness about important environmental issues through the eyes of children. It unites children and youth from around the world to promote public awareness and inspire adults to take action.

 

Participants' challenge is to cultivate an environmental connection through imagery. It's a unique opportunity to explore photography as an artistic medium that addresses crucial issues, bringing them to families, professionals, decision-makers, and the international community at large.

 

The festival and traveling exhibition is an international event. They will be held in major metropolitan cities all over the world. Organizations, institutions and international medias, will raise awareness on environmental issues worldwide.     

 

More information and to get involved >>  


Glenn Ruga, SDN Founder, to Teach Eight-Week Documentary Master Class at Photographic Resource Center, Boston    

Mondays, September 10 through November 12
6:00 - 9:00 pm
PRC Gallery, 832 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston 
$590 General Public | $550 PRC Members 
Level: Intermediate-Advanced 
Limited to ten students

 

Glenn Ruga

Photo by Glenn Ruga, Sabaheta, a widow from Srebrenica, living in Ilijas, Bosnia, 2007.

 

This exciting studio class is designed for photographers who are either working on, or are interested in working on, a serious documentary project and want to engage in a learning environment that will provide consistent feedback and discussion with an instructor and other class members. The weekly class will involve analyzing work by accomplished documentary photographers, developing concepts for documentary projects, and regularly reviewing work from an ongoing project. In addition to the photography, the class will also focus on the writing to accompany a documentary project--an incredibly important aspect--and how best to integrate the images with the text. Guest lecturers will also be part of the class.      

 

While the core of the class is based on still photography, video or motion may be used as part of the project. Students will be expected to present a final project at the end of the class to the instructor and fellow classmates.  

 

More information and to register>>   


About SocialDocumentary.net
SocialDocumentary.net is a website for photographers, NGOs, journalists, editors, and students to create and explore documentary exhibits investigating critical issues facing the world today. Recent exhibits have explored oil workers in the Niger River Delta, male sex workers in India, Central American immigrant women during their journey north, and Iraqi and Afghan refugees in Greece.Click here to view all of the exhibits.