The story was just not coming together. It had sounded very strong when we had been researching it – an examination of the economic and social communities that emerged around an important Sufi shrine, and what this meant for the creation of a tolerant and pluralistic culture. Details »
The Spinning Head
A Photographer Confronts His World
For Edward Said: Remembering 25th September 2003
Edward Said passed away on 25th September 2003. I am re-reading his Representations of the Intellectual, a book that has had a major influence on my own way of negotiating the world, in his memory this week. Though I never met him when I was at Columbia he was a powerful intellectual force at the campus, and even us on the far edges of his universe could not help but be pulled towards his ideas and views. And we continue to be, with his works Reflections on Exile, After The Last Sky, Humanism & Democratic Criticism, The Politics of Dispossession, On Late Style, Musical Elaborations and Culture & Imperialism repeatedly being taken down from the bookshelf as references or as reminders of ways of thinking Details »
Spreading Democracy Around The World…By Getting Into Bed With One Maniacal Dictator At A Time
Speaking of a history of ugliness, that lovely man shaking the hands of our Secretary of State is Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the President of the nation of Turkmenistan. This photo was taken on September 21, 2009. At the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. Quite the address. Details »
Student Work: Jessica Bidgood / The Aftermath/EXPOSURE Workshop, Ajmer India 2009
Her’s was a very personal walk. Each day Jessica would take a rickshaw to Ajmer’s Delhi gate, negotiate her way through the narrow alleys around the Gharib Nawaz dargah – clogged each day with tens of thousands of pilgrims anxious to enter what is quite possibly the most important pilgrimage center in South Asia for people of all faiths, and begin the slow near two kilometer trudge uphill to the shanties on the hills where the community of illegal Bangladeshis lived. Details »
Why I Shoot Film And Why You Should Give A Damn!
“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” – Erich Fromm
Do you prefer to shoot digital or film? – Many have tried to answer this question, and yet I find that I remain unconvinced by most all the answers. Repeatedly, a number of well known photographers shooting on film seem to struggle to offer a simple, clear answer to this question. Most just give up. Details »
Make Mine Bigger Or Maps And What They May Say About History And Us
A friend recently pointed to a poster on her wall and explained that it a Peter’s Map. An area accurate projection of the world, its first publication in 1974 provoked a minor firestorm. Perhaps because it revealed how the world’s powers were in fact geographically tiny nations – as if size and land mass may have had something to do with cultural, intellectual, military and social superiority. China was finally seen to be nearly 4 times the size of Greenland. Africa was 14 times the size of Greenland. Its just not cricket! Details »
Student Work: Saloni Bhojwani / The Aftermath/EXPOSURE Workshop, Ajmer India 2009
Hers was perhaps the subtlest way of working, one that allowed her to quietly, unobtrusively blend into a space and be forgotten. Rarely have I seen a first time shooter with such a knack for becoming inconspicuous so easily and so precisely. Details »
Student Work: Elizabeth Herman / The Aftermath/EXPOSURE Workshop, Ajmer India 2009
It took only a few hours after her arrival in Ajmer for Elizabeth to realize that the story she had hoped to do did not exist. Details »
Student Work: Radhika Saraf / The Aftermath/EXPOSURE Workshop, Ajmer India 2009
Her nervousness was palpable; sitting in the corridor late at night I watched her and her fear. For the last three days she had been exploring the lives of the Cheeta-Mewati community in the Beawar region of Rajasthan. Details »
- :
