Why can't I look anywhere these days and not see a new exhibit or a new book about street photography. SDN photographer B.D. Colen's Alone, Together documentary taken exclusively

From Alone, Together by B.D. Colen

underground in the Boston metro was recently featured on WGBH Radio, a Boston-area station. At least three of the exhibits out of seven in this month's Spotlight (West London Tales, Boston Street Portraits, and July 4th 2015) can be considered street photography. A genre exemplified by the late Garry Winogrand, street photography is the still photography equivalent to cin�ma v�rit�, allowing the camera to reveal an underlying truth, but in this case on public thoroughfares. Rather than looking for challenging themes of the human condition to document, street photographers often just turn their cameras at the urban streets with nothing extraordinary other than the complete spectacle of humanity splayed out for all to see. Documentary has many sub-genre's and street photography is one that challenges us because the best work has no text and relies just on the confounding truth of the image.

From Mourning Koban� by Maryam Ashrafi

This month's featured photographer is not a street photographer. This is the second time that SDN has given this award to Maryam Ashrafi, an Iranian born photographer now living in Paris. Maryam has made repeated trips to Kurdistan in Iraq and Syria to document Kurdish women fighters. In her most recent trip, she had to sneak across the border from Turkey to document Syrian Kurds returning to Koban� after liberating their city from the Islamic State. This work has taken on a greater significance this past week because of fighting between Turkey and the Kurdish militant group, the PKK. Meanwhile the Kurds are the most effective ground forces fighting the Islamic State and the recipient of US military aid.

In Ashrafi's words, "the story of Koban� is not only about the war and its consequences but also the story of the power of humanity, courage, and solidarity."