Interview: Paul McDonough
Issue 12
Raised in New Hampshire, Paul McDonough attended the New England School of Art in Boston to study drawing and painting. Finishing his studies in 1963, Paul met Tod Papageorge, the noted photographer recognized for documenting the chaotic tension between fans and athletes in professional sports during the height of Vietnam. Swapping ideas and inspired by Tod’s recommendation, knowledge, and passion for the medium, both photographers formed a friendship that would resonate later in Paul’s career trajectory. He moved to New York City in 1967 where he was transfixed by the city’s soul and kinetic energy. In the city, Tod introduced him to renowned photographer Gary Winongrand, and so begun the transferring between souls.
Interview: Andy Adams & Larissa Leclair
Andy: Online publishing and community collaboration are inspiring forces in my photo work and this project is another part of my mission to promote significant artists to a global audience of people who are passionate about photography. Like Flak Photo, I consider 100 Portraits a public art project, so I mounted a complementary digital exhibition so it would be immediately accessible to an international online audience. The community has been amazingly supportive of the project and Larissa and I are sincerely grateful to everyone who mentioned the exhibition in their blogs and on Facebook and Twitter. Since launching last fall 100 Portraits has been viewed by more than 54,000 visitors from 24 countries, which far surpassed my expectations. So, in a way, the project really celebrates the role that the online audience plays in the discovery and dissemination of work produced by photographers in the Internet Era.
Interview: Brenda Ann Kenneally
I became interested in photography at 30, when I went back to school. Just prior to that I read a book about Diane Arbus and I really identified with the way she used photography to be a part of life. It said that she felt disconnected, and photography was her way of connecting. Both of my parents were disabled—my mother with a physical disability and my father with a mental and psychiatric one. I sort of found the interest and beauty within my family. At this time, much like Diane Arbus, I was looking for a way to connect to the world. These are things that got me interested in photography.
Interview: Jessica Ingram
Five years ago, while wandering around downtown Montgomery, Alabama, I picked up a walking tour trail, and found myself facing a large, ornate fountain, situated on a brick pavilion. A Historical Site sign said that I was standing in the former Court Square Slave Market, where slave traders sold men, women, and children to the highest bidder. It presented cold facts, detailing dollar values for slaves at the time and how none were given last names.
Interview: Mikko Takkunen
I'm originally from Finland, but I've been living in the UK now for nearly eight years having first moved to Scotland in 2002 to study Politics and International Relations in Aberdeen University. I didn't pick up a camera until I was 25. I bought my first proper camera just to record hiking trips with my university friends, but soon photography became a passion and by the time I was graduating from Aberdeen University in 2006, I had already decided that I wanted to become a documentary photographer and I ended up enrolling on another university course, this time BA Photojournalism in Swansea Metropolitan University in Wales.
Interview: Michael Itkoff
Often it is easier to leverage an editorial sensibility, to superimpose a cohesive narrative, when shooting a subject with more distance. Personal projects can be more difficult to produce successfully since intimate associations and allusions will not necessarily translate to a viewing audience.
Interview: Hye-Ryoung Min
I was born and raised in Korea. Since I was a kid, photography was always a big part of our family life, and an essential activity not only during family events but also everyday life. All of us were used to taking pictures of each other and also used to being photographed. My family was also put in charge of photographing big events.
Interview: Mark Murrmann (Mother Jones)
The Photojournalism part of the Mother Jones website reflects the same kind of photography we run in the magazine. We focus primarily on documentary work, photo essays and portrait projects. I like to get a mix of work on the site. Very simply, I generally look for great bodies of work that tell a story. That can be something like Danny Wilcox Frazier's amazing "Driftless" series on Iowa, Anthony Karen's work on the Ku Kux Klan or Ellena Dorfman's "Fandomania" project.
Interview: Claire O’Neill (NPR Picture Show)
Manipulation may be a trend—but it’s photography with a story, a point, a voice, a personality that stands the test of time. “Contemporary,” after all, can mean this minute, this year, this past decade or the past 50 years. The work of Cartier-Bresson can be just as contemporary, relevant and compelling as that of today. It depends on how we situate ourselves.
Feature: The Bulletproof Series by Milagros de la Torre
Photography still intrigues me for its potential to trigger new codes, concepts, memories in a particulate private way to each viewer; for the ambiguities of the photographic act; and, how—through the essence of its own technique—it destabilizes its authority as a record or document of the real.
Interview: Nathalie Herschdorfer (Curator, Musée de l’Elysée): reGeneration project
Five years ago, the Musée de l’Elysée celebrated its 20th anniversary. For this anniversary, the museum wanted to have something new and look into the future. We were talking about the future and were wondering who will be the finest photographers in a twenty years’ time. The first question was where photography itself was going at the digital age. If 20 years is the age of maturity for a photographer (museums like the Elysée regularly show mature photographers with substantial accomplishments) , which of the young photographers emerging today, we wondered, will be fully mature in twenty years?
Interview: Brian Storm (MediaStorm)
What we value most is story. Of course, we are big believers in the power of still photography and the still image plays a vital role in our projects. We try to advance the context of a single moment by adding audio, video, music and text. For example, Danny Wilcox Frazier’s project Driftless is a classic picture essay produced with a more cinematic focus.
Interview: James Estrin & Josh Haner (NY Times Lens Blog)
We’re always looking for stories that are different in subject, approach and visual language. We see hundreds of projects a month. There are scores of stories on Gaza, African immigrants in Europe, and drug/gang violence in Latin America, Which doesn’t mean that these are not important subjects. It just means that to get attention it has to have a different approach or style. It’s exciting when we see a well-photographed story on a subject that we haven’t seen before.
Interview: David Alan Harvey (Burn Magazine)
The key for photographers today is that they must be idea people. Concept people. It is no longer any advantage to have technical skills. Today one needs idea skills, to really have something to say, either journalistically or artistically. I see photography as a language far, far from dead. In my opinion, just being born. I look for visual literacy in a body of work. The makers must be visually literate and the audience must be visually literate as well.
Interview: Nelson Ramírez de Arellano (Curator, Fototeca de Cuba)
I look for the capacity to give, to communicate its ideas, the capacity to surprise and catch you into its world. For me photography as any form of art is a way to understand “reality and existence”. Nothing can be as inspiring as exploring new forms to acquire knowledge, both as information and as a form of aesthetical knowledge.
Interview: Jon Levy (FOTO8)
It doesn’t mean anything to me, though, no doubt, I am guilty of using the term too much myself. I think I rather use the term contemporary photographers more than photography. All photography is kind of contemporary no doubt due to its short life span in the grand scheme of things. There are a lot of terms bandied about to dress up new works by exciting photographers.
Interview: Ricardo Viera (Curator, LUAG)
The term “Latin American” no longer only refers to those living within the boundaries of Central America, South America and the Caribbean. Today the United States has an increasing Latino constituency, including distinguished artist/photographers. To be Latin American is to claim an ethnic identity based on cultural heritage, ancestry and geographic origin.
David González on Angel Franco (NY Times)
From my earliest days at the Times, Franco and I have collaborated as often as possible on a wide range of stories. If anything, our partnership rests on a desire to document the lives and neighborhoods of Latino New Yorkers, especially Puerto Ricans. At the same time, we have been passionate about chronicling the margins of the city seeing how the less fortunate have been faring in this land of plenty.
Interview: Idurre Alonso (Curator, MoLAA)
Since photography in Latin America encompasses all types of aesthetics including documentary, conceptual and experimental formats, among others, heterogeneity is probably its only unifying element. What is clear to me is that Latin American photography moves in multiple ways; in some instances the works reflect the contextual realities of their site production while in others they reference global issues.
