SDN Spotlight

SPOTLIGHT/Number 129, November 2013
Featuring exhibits submitted to SDN in September & October 2013

Dear SDN Readers: 

 

I would like to update our readers and photographers on our Call for Entries on Promoting Global Awareness. We received 140 submissions from all parts of the world on many different themes. All submissions can be viewed here. Our NGO partner, Management Sciences for Health, is now reviewing finalists and we hope to announce the winners within a few weeks. I want to thank the jurors and everyone who has submitted to this Call for Entries! I also hope you will join us for the opening reception for the exhibition at powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn on February 27.  

 

This week we are very excited to feature Carol Allen Storey as the Featured Photographer of the Month for her essay on the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda. In her artist statement, Carol says "My aim is to be an evangelical Peace Photographer, illuminating the positive aspects of building peace which is visually challenging as war is 'sexy'." We congratulate Carol for focusing on post-conflict peace building, a story that is so often untold.

 

This past month has been an exciting time for SDN. On October 25, we hosted a panel discussion in New York at the PDN PhotoPlus Expo, and on November 5 photographs from the 2012 Photo Fellows were displayed in Boston to accompany a panel discussion at the Institute of Contemporary Art hosted by NPR's Tom Ashbrook. See below for photos and further information on these two events.

 

In our last Spotlight we tried a new format where we linked to a webpage with the featured exhibits. We found out that very few people either saw the link or clicked further to see the exhibits. This month we are returning to our traditional format of having all the exhibits on this page. We hope this works better for our readers.

 

Glenn Ruga
Founder and Director 



November 2013 Featured Photographer of the Month       

 

Carol Allen Storey  
Fractured Lives: The Aftermath of Genocide
Rwanda
 

Carol Allen Storey
Photograph by Carol Allen Storey. Conselata and Jeandamscenu. "I believe if God permitted me to live, I must find forgiveness for all those who committed crimes in the war. This thought gives me peace."

This photographic essay focuses on the daunting task of rebuilding a fractured society through the eyes of  the perpetrators, ex-combatants and survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide along with the vulnerable generation of young Rwandans growing up in an atmosphere clouded by conflict. The aim of this series was to provide a view of the long-term implications of war and, the solutions on the ground to rebuild these fractured lives.

Carol Allen Storey Carol Allen Storey is a London-based award winning photojournalist specializing in chronicling humanitarian and social issues. Storey is a graduate with distinction of the Central St. Martins, Master Photography programme, 2000. She also earned a BA at Syracuse University and her MA at Columbia University. Her work has been exhibited and published internationally. 

 
View her exhibit and complete biography on SocialDocumentary.net.>>

November 2013 Featured Exhibits

The exhibits featured below are from work submitted to SDN in September and October 2013. Normally our Spotlights feature work only from the previous month, but in September we received an abnormally high number of submissions due to our Call for Entries, and we are including some of that work in this Spotlight.

Marginal Trades >>
by Supranav Dash/India

'Marginal Trades' is my ongoing photographic project (2011- present), that documents the rapidly vanishing trades, businesses and professions and its practitioners in India. These trades that never changed, never updated themselves were being passed down for generations from father to son, a...

A Bavarian family >>
by Pedro Corage/Germany

These photos showing a family with three children in their daily life. They live on a ranch in Bavaria, in a small city called Aidenbach. The father works with agriculture and the mother half-day, the rest of the day she spends with the children. In the days of today, where the technology robs all...


Ritornare (To Return) >>
by Daniel Tedeschi/Italy

ritor'nare: to return; (andare/venire indietro) to go/come back; (ricorrere) to recur; (ridiventare) to become again. Since 2008 I have been returning to my grandparents hometown, Guardia Lombari, in Southern Italy to photograph my distant relatives and the area's culture and traditions.

We, from a French little town >>
by Dom Lortha

I did this series of portraits during winter 2013. I wanted to create a memory of the inhabitants of a working-class area of Roanne, a french little town in decline. I asked parents to come in a classroom accompanied by their sons and daughters,  and to pose in front of the blackboard. I hope ...

Batch of 2013 >>
by Bart Manoguid/Philippines

For school  year 2012- 2013, the Department of Education (DepEd) welcomed 21.49 million students in public school, 5.76 million were in secondary alone. March is the graduation season of secondary school students. It is the culmination of their efforts and hard work in high school. Stephan...

Burned to Ashes >>
by Kumar Bishwajit/Bangladesh

3 February, 2013 More than 500 shanties were gutted in a fire that broke out at a slum near Agargoan passport office in the capital city Dhaka, Bangladesh. Witnesses said the fire caught from a shanty around 12:15 pm and soon engulfed the slum, leaving several hundred people homeless. One of the v...

Cowboys of No Man's Land >>
by Saud A Faisal/Bangladesh

Bangladesh and India share a border of 2,429 miles. A number of pillars mark the border between the two states. In many areas India has built fences with barbed wire along with the borderline. The border is used as a route for smuggling livestock, medicine with others from India to Bangladesh ...

Waiting >>
by Maurizio Gjivovich/Italy

This report describes the life of some refugees after the war of Libya. Many people arrive from many countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. In Piedmont, the total number of refugees is about 1650. In December 2012, the center will close.

Grace Before Dying >>
by Lori Waselchuk/United States

A life sentence at Angola, Louisiana's state penitentiary, means life. Because Louisiana has some of the toughest sentencing laws in the United States, about 80 percent of the 5,100 prisoners at Angola are expected to die there. In the past, prisoners died alone and unattended in the prison ...

The Changing Tide of Reproductive Health in India >>
by Jessica Scranton

Urban Health Initiative, FHI360 and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are working to curb the high levels of poverty and low health indicators among urban poor in Uttar Pradesh, India by making modern family planning methods a norm amoung communities.  The initiative is changing the tide of reproductive...

Midwives Save Lives >>
by Paolo Patruno/Ethiopia

Midwives are women, mothers, who devote their life to providing safe motherhood to others women and mothers. Access to skilled care from a trained midwife during pregnancy, childbirth and after delivery is key to saving a mother's life and that of her child. Midwives, who are overwhelmingly ...

Seeds of Hope/Destruction
by Mohammad Naser/Bangladesh

Bio-engineered seeds such as genetically modified (GM) crops and hybrid seeds promise a lot. But do they come without a price? Asking this question, as a Bangladeshi, bears utmost importance since the country is on the verge of introducing BT brinjal, a GM variety of eggplant, as we speak. This ...


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panelSDN Hosts Panel Discussion at PDN
Panelists: Michelle Bogre, Ron Haviv, Ed Kashi, and Amy Yenkin
PDN Panel
Photo by Caterina Clerici

Moderated by SDN's Glenn Ruga, four leaders in the field of documentary photography and photo journalism had a lively discussion on the role of citizen and professional journalists in the media today. Other topics included new means of income for young photographers,  alternative methods of distribution, the role of social media in professional journalism, and the age old concept of how a single image can create lasting change.

photosView Photos of 2012 SDN/MSH Photo Fellows Exhibit at Discussion Moderated by Tom Ashbrook of NPR's On Point      
Photo Fellows

Tom Ashbrook was the host of a panel discussion presented by Management Sciences for Health at the Institute for Contemporary Art on "Envisioning a World Where Everyone has the Opportunity for a Health Life." On display were photos from the 2012 Photo Fellows: Rui Pires, Todd Shapera, and Warren Zelman.

View photos >>

Call for Entries:
Aperture Portfolio Prize 2014
 
   
Deadline: November 27

The 2014 Aperture Portfolio Prize is now open for submissions! The prize aims to identify trends in contemporary photography and highlight artists whose work deserves greater recognition. The first-prize winner of this international photography competition receives a cash prize and an exhibition at Aperture Gallery. 
More information >>

PhotoPhilanthropy Activist Awards 
Grand Prize: $15,000
Deadline: November 15
 

PhotoPhilanthropy

The PhotoPhilanthropy Activist Awards identify outstanding work done by photographers in collaboration with nonprofit organizations worldwide, with prizes ranging from $2,000-$15,000. 

 

For the first time in the history of the awards, PhotoPhilanthropy is offering this year a mobile photography award in addition to its traditional professional, amateur, and student category awards for most compelling documentary photography essays completed on behalf of nonprofits.

 

Since the Activist Award's inception in 2009, PhotoPhilanthropy has received work from over 500 photographers in 88 different countries, showcasing the work of 435 nonprofit organizations.

 

More Information >> 

 


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.