Feb 2015 spotlight
Dear SDN Readers:

This month there is so much great work to feature in Spotlight as a result of our Call for Entries closing on January 20 with more than 100 entries. It is impossible to feature more than just a fraction of the best work in this issue. Rather than trying, we will publish a second issue of Spotlight later this month to try to catch up on some of the amazing visual stories that have been submitted to our Call for Entries.

I am very pleased to present this month's Featured Photographer, �ke Ericson, for his powerful, enigmatic, and graphic black and white photos on Racism Against Roma People.

I  also want to thank the more than 100 photographers who submitted projects to our Call for Entries. The work is truly stellar and it has been a privilege to review each and every entry. The jurors are now reviewing the work  and the winners will be announced by Feb 23. Click here to view all the entries.

Glenn Ruga
SDN Founder and Director
Ericson. Featured photographer of the month
  Photo by ke Ericson from "Racism Against Roma People".

�ke Ericson/February 2015 Featured Photographer of the month
Racism Against Roma People
 
In this exhibit, �ke Ericson covers the poor living conditions of the Roma in Europe. The debate on France's expulsion of Roma and the Swedish police registration of Roma is a clear example for explicit racism. This is a long-term project by Ericson involving eight countries. He has covered the Roma situation in Slovakia, Sweden, Romania, Kosovo, France, and the Czech Republic.  
View Exhibit >>

Ake Ericson
�ke Ericson is a professional photojournalist with over 30 years of experience. He has made many long trips abroad for a number of clients including Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross. Ericson has had solo exhibitions of his work and and has participated in group exhibitions. He is the recipient of numerous awards including 2008 Press Photographer of the Year in Sweden. He has received other international photography awards as well. Ericson has been internationally published in Stern, the New York Times, Le Observateur, Paris Match and Newsweek. In summer 2010, he studied photojournalism at the New York Times on a scholarship from the National Press Club.  


February 2015 Spotlight

Theo Anderson
Orphans>>
by Theo Anderson/Dominican Republic

Human beings, of Haitian descent, living in or born in the Dominican Republic, are denied health care, education, a birth certificate and the most basic of human rights and dignity. The children I photographed are primarily orphans. They often live with another child's mother in a one room house...

Nima Taradji
Delia - A Transgender Female>>
by Nima Taradji/United States

Delia Marie K. (Dee), born David Murray K., experienced four marriages and three divorces, a major depression and many suicidal thoughts, before recognizing that life, as a man in a male body was not sustainable. In 2011, at age 54, and with the help of Penny, David's wife ...

Jordi Pizarro Torrell
The Believers Project>>
by Jordi Pizarro Torrell/India, Jerusalen, Poland, Malasya and Cuba

"Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe." -Voltaire.
Religion moves masses. It is a shared consciousness, expressed through rituals and symbols, preserved through tradition, and each claiming entitlement to truth. The Believers is a body of documentary...

Marietta Pathy Allen
TransCuba>>
by Mariette Pathy Allen/Cuba

This series of photographs represents four trips to different areas in Cuba, taken in 2012 and 2013. I spent almost all of my time in the company of three women, Amanda, Nomi, and Malu. Like most of the people who transition from male to female in Cuba, they have...

The New Promised Land>>
by Stan Raucher/Peru

This series documents Los Israelitas, an evangelical Christian sect living deep in the Amazon rainforest. The group was founded by Ezequiel Gamonal, a shoemaker from southern Peru, who converted from Catholic to Seventh-day Adventist. He then created this sect, which incorporates early Christian beliefs...

The Syrian's War>>
by Nish Nalbandian/Syria

This project documents the upheaval of the Syrian War on a human rather than political level. My intention is to put a human face to this big black hole of violence we call war. I am less concerned with presenting 'news images', or trying to paint a geo-political picture; and more concerned...

A Breed Apart>>
by Houck Medford/United States

In 1998, Pat Land left a career in dance and theater to start a rest farm for old horses. A life-time dream became a reality when Pat lost her mom and a portion of her estate was earmarked for discretionary purposes.  The "dream of a lifetime" farm became known as Annie's Farm...

La Vida No Vale Nada>>
by Lianne Milton/Guatemala

There's a common phrase Guatemalans say about violence in their country: 'La vida no vale nada.' Life is worth nothing. In 2011, the country elected Otto Perez Molina, a former army general to presidency. He emerged out of retirement with a mano dura, cabeza y corazon (a firm hand, head and heart)...

CUBA--Hasta Siempre>>
by Magdalena Sol�/Cuba

A photographic journey of a country on the brink of change, where the past is still visible, but the future not yet in focus.

ORGANIC>>
by Francesco Mastalia/United States

ORGANIC: Farmers & Chefs of the Hudson Valley
The Hudson Valley (New York) has become an epicenter for the local, organic, sustainable food movement. With its rich agricultural land, the awareness for sustainable living, and the growing demand for local, organic food, the 'locavore' farm-to-tab...

Love From Manenberg>>
by Sarah Stacke/South Africa

Love From Manenberg is not about gangs, poverty, or drug abuse, even though all of those things exist here. Love From Manenberg is about relationships and the understanding that nobody is perfect all the time, it is what is in the heart that binds us. Manenberg, a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa,...

Before everything gets lost forever>>
by Carmelo Eramo/Italy

Three years ago I began this travel of discovery-rediscovery of my land, starting a journey diary in Puglia, where I live, and in Lucania, a land that I love so much. Here I try to capture, and maybe save, moments and scenes of ordinary daily life, atmospheres, instants, faces, feelings, looking for...

Ethiopia? China Calling...>>
by Rudi Dundas/United States

Mobile phones now cover 70% of Africa. But in Ethiopia, less than 20% have cell phones and only 2.5% have access to the Internet compared to 40% in neighboring Kenya. Ethiopia is the last big African telecom monopoly. The Government and Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC), monitor all I...

Midwives For Haiti - Delivering A New Generation>>
by B. D. Colen/Haiti

Though the views of the surrounding mountains are breathtakingly beautiful, the Central Plateau of Haiti is a mean place. In this poorest region of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, maternal and infant mortality, and the death rate for children under five, are all the highest in the ...

Fishing: A livelihood in Peril>>
by Keith Bratton/Ghana

Fishermen and those in supporting occupations which serve fishing communities in Ghana are facing severe economic hardships. The hardships can be attributed to climate change, governmental aquaculture policies, and economic instability.  This exhibit represents some of those who endure ...

Cork extraction in North Alentejo (Portugal)>>
by Jorge Sarmento/Portugal

 This work was made for APCOR (Portuguese Cork Association) during 2014 summer. The first part (Cork extraction in the north of Portugal (2013)) was made around a family during an extraction season: from the tree to the pile. It is a ...

Chinlone in the Dump>>
by Daniel Roca/Myanmar

Chinlone is Burma's national sport, with over 1500 years of history. It combines sports and dance, a team sport without teams. It is a non-competitive game, the goal is not winning or losing, but seeing who makes the most beautiful pirouettes with the ball, made of rattan (a type of reed)...


Advisory Committee
Kristen Bernard
Lori Grinker
Steve Horn
Ed Kashi
Reza
John Sevigny
Jeffrey D. Smith
Stephen Walker
Frank Ward
Jamie Wellford

Glenn Ruga
Founder & Director

Barbara Ayotte
Communications Director

Caterina Clerici
Special Issue Editor  

 
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SDN News
DocClassEight-week Documentary Master Class with Glenn Ruga
Eight Tuesdays starting March 3
6:30 - 9:00 pm
Digital Silver Imaging, Belmont, Massachusetts
Tuition: $550
Level: Intermediate-Advanced
Portfolio Master Class Designed for photographers who are working on, or are interested in working on, a body of documentary work culminating in a portfolio or a multimedia presentation. Developing skills of conceptualizing a project, shooting, printing, editing,  sequencing, and communicating the concept of a project are the objectives of this Master Class. More information and to register >>.

Center2
CENTER Call for Submissions 
CENTER Project Development offers $5,000, two exhibitions and more for a work-in-progress. Juror: Sarah Greenough, Senior Curator, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The Choice Awards offers exhibition, presentation and more for images in three categories, Curator's Choice, Editor's Choice and Director's Choice Awards. This is the second and final call for entries annually CENTER offers. The deadline is February 19, 2015.
More information and to enter>>.

CIC
Environmental &  Social Justice Photography Competition
Critical Information Collaborative Critical Information Collective's new annual environmental and social justice photography competition is open for entries until 28 February 2015. The 24 winning images will be printed and exhibited in Paris during the UNFCCC climate change summit in November 2015. More information and to enter>>.

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About Social Documentary Network
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.