Andrew Henderson
This image is of a traditional Christian Funeral for Matiah Nalla, in a leprosy colony on the outskirts of Khammam, India. An elder who lost his hands and feet as a result of leprosy, his son Nathaniel is washing him as they prepare him for burial, which is uncommon for India because the skyrocketing land prices.
Before attending Rochester Institute of Technology, Andrew Henderson was altered by the experiences he encountered during a two-month trip to South Africa and Botswana. Since 2001, he has worked on photographic essays in collaboration with organizations in Mexico, Uganda, Rwanda, and India. In 2007, he completed staff photographer internships at the Concord Monitor, The Virginian-Pilot, and National Geographic Magazine. Currently, Andrew attends Syracuse University, and will be interning at The New York Times in Summer 2008. Awards include: College Photographer of the Year, POYi, The Alexia Foundation, and PDN, among others. Publication credits include The New York Times, Newsweek, US News and World Report, The FADER, Washington Post Magazine, The Sunday (London) Times, and National Geographic Magazine. He is a member of aevum photo collective.
John Loomis
Aboard the London Eye flight, from the project “Tourists”
John Loomis began his photography career as a stringer for the local newspaper at just 15. A dozen+ years later again back in his native Florida, Loomis specializes in action, documentary, editorial, portrait, and travel work for a diverse group of magazine and advertising clients. Deeply passionate for long-term photojournalism, John is also the Editor in Chief of Blueeyes Magazine. Select editorial clients include: AARP, Architectural Digest, Audubon, ESPN the Magazine, Elle, Essence, FADER, Fast Company, Fortune, Mother Jones, New York Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Outside, People, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, and The London Sunday Times Magazine.
About the Photograph:
“The image of the London Eye flight at dusk struck me because of the metaphor turned physical reality of a group of tourists floating in a bubble above one of the world’s great cities. I think to a lot of people that’s how they want to travel… in a giant bubble that allows them to see everything but not get too close to experiencing something authentic or spontaneous, and even bring a bit of what is familiar to them along. What is of course a bit ridiculous about the image is that I’m in another bubble myself, photographing the other bubbles, instead of the sinking sun over the smoggy edges of the horizon.”
“The Tourists project explores how when people go on vacation the real work begins. Armed to the teeth with recording devices of every medium, the entire trip is spent in an intense effort to create an archive filled with proof that they were really there. From within their group travel package specials and double-decker tour buses, in Rome, London, Prague, New York City, or Tokyo, they tirelessly search for the right spots for their loved ones, or a willing stranger, me, to snap a picture of themselves crowned as emperor in their newly conquered territory. This is the beginning of an essay trying to understand tourism culture in America and abroad.”
Carolyn Drake
Traditional Uyghur Home, Western China
Carolyn Drake is a documentary photographer based in Istanbul. Her work has been supported through grants from the Fulbright Program, Duke University, and National Geographic and honored by UNICEF, World Press Photo and POYi. She was chosen as one of Photo District News’ 30 emerging photographers to watch in 2006 and as one of the Magenta Foundation’s emerging photographers in 2007. Her photo career began at the age of 30, when she decided to leave her multimedia job in New York’s Silicon Alley to learn about the world through personal experience. She studied history and media culture while in college at Brown University and later learned photography at ICP and Ohio University.
About the Photograph:
“The photo was taken at prayer time inside a Muslim home in Xinjiang, the autonomous Uyghur region in western China, where traditional life has been in decline for the last 100 years. In Xinjiang, many Uighurs still hold fast to rural traditions, working family farms, and traveling between vast stretches of mountain and desert to trade and mingle, but this lifestyle is quickly deteriorating under China’s vigorous modernization policies. The world’s powerful empires fold together here, influencing ethnic cultures that are among the world’s oldest. I traveled to Xinjiang at the end of a two month journey through the former Soviet Republics of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. It was fascinating to step over the border into China after spending so much time thinking about the region in relation to the Soviet Union.”
Felicia Webb
“The voice constantly whirrs round in my head :
‘I’m too fat, too big, taking up too much space.”’ Natalie
Felicia Webb is a documentary photographer engaged in humanistic projects on various social issues. She has worked all over the world including Africa, Asia, Latin American, USA and Europe. Her work has been published by the Sunday Times Magazine, New York Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek, Le Monde , Telegraph Magazine, Independent Magazine, among others. She has worked for several charities and NGOs including Christian Aid, Save the Children, Oxfam, and others. Her projects have received many awards including World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, the NPPA/Nikon Documentary Sabbatical Grant, the Visa D’Or Magazine, a Hasselblad Foundation grant and the World Press Masterclass. Her work has been exhibited in the USA, UK, Norway, Sweden, Holland and France.
About the Photograph:
For the past three and a half years, Felicia Webb has closely followed the lives of a handful of Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa sufferers. Eating disorders have become an increasingly pervasive malady in the United Kingdom and the United States, and it has been Webb’s mission to portray these conditions in a truthful, personal, and sensitive light. Her photographic essay “Nil By Mouth” couples personal testimony with compelling portraiture. Through this presentation, she aims to raise awareness about the severity and complexity of the illnesses, dispel many of its common misconceptions, and to encourage and educate sufferers, youth, and politicians to be proactive and resourceful in their encounters with eating disorders.
Markus Marcetic
View From a Mobile Clinic Window. Qalqilya, West Bank
Markus Marcetic (b.1972) is based in Stockholm, Sweden. After studying media/communications, eastern European and African studies at Uppsala University he switched to photojournalism and has worked as a photojournalist since 1998. Focusing on human rights issues Markus traveled in Africa, Asia and eastern Europe on assignment with numerous NGO’s. Markus has worked for most major Swedish magazines and newspapers and foreign publications. He has also worked as a photo editor for the largest daily in Sweden. He also often lectures on photography and photojournalism and has been awarded prizes in the Swedish Picture of The Year competition in 2004 and 2005. Markus is a member of the Swedish photo agency Moment.
About the Photograph:
“I was in the West bank on assignment for the Swedish NGO Diakonia, an organization I have been working in close cooperation with for years”. Markus has recently published a book called “Kids”. It’s a collection of photos from different stories in Europe, Africa and Asia. “Often these images summed the story I was trying to tell in a way that images of adults rarely do. Children are as much a part of conflicts and human tragedies as adults are, but rarely they get to be the center of attention in stories we read or see in newspapers and magazines. Still around half of the world’s population is made up of children and young people under the age of twenty-four.”
Samantha Reinders
Port Elizabeth, South Africa 2006
Samantha Reinders (b.1977) is a freelance photographer based in her native Cape Town, South Africa. She moved back to South Africa after completing her MA at Ohio University, and interning, in 2005, for US News & World Report magazine. She is not 100% certain when her career actually began – but thinks it was either somewhere in the hills of Appalachia, or sandwiched between two other photographers in the press pool in the Oval Office. Either way, she’s glad it did because it has, among other things, allowed her to chase penguins, fly on Air Force One, swim with sharks and meet a collection of interesting people – from business men to homeless men, and from grannies at a bake-sale to a triple murderer behind bars. In this way she thinks the profession of photojournalism is a privilege. Some of Samantha’s clients include: US News & World Report, Time, The New York Times, L’Express, Der Spiegel, Park Avenue, The Chicago Tribune, SLAM, National Geographic Books, Smithsonian, Readers Digest and The London Financial Times.
About the Photograph:
“This photograph is from a larger essay on Township Tourism in South Africa – a phenomenon with increasing popularity since the countries first democratic elections in 1994. What is today a million-dollar industry has been the center of much controversy over the years. Is it a voyeuristic, making poverty into a theme park – or does it do much to bring money, jobs and opportunities to areas that need them most? This 2006 image shows a Dutch couple that had visited New Brighton Township in Port Elizabeth in 2000. Overwhelmed by what they encountered, they spent the next few years fundraising back home and sent several ship container loads of furniture and school equipment back to the township. Here they visit one of the schools and meet some of the students."
Boris Swatrzman
Old and New Shanghai. China 2007
Boris Svartzman is a French-Argentinian freelance photographer based in Shanghai. He has lived in China for seven years, including two years studying at the university in Chengdu and Shanghai. He graduated in France with a degree in philosophy and sociology. Photography and social studies are two complementary ways for him to describe the world. His series on China’s demolition has been selected in the Paris Match Students Photojournalism Competition (2005), in Visa pour l’Image Photojournalism Festival (2006), and published in Foto 8. He is represented by Prospekt Photo Agency in Italy.
About the Photograph:
“This photograph is part of a series about the demolition of old neighborhoods in Shanghai which I considered the first chapter in the urbanisation of China. It took time to gain access and trust to photograph the living conditions of the underpaid workers.. They weren’t used to having human relations in a city where they are forced to hide from the public. They are recycling materials of the demolished traditional houses in this photograph. After talking and showing an interest in their work some of them opened their doors and invited me to dinner.”
Kathryn Cook
Memory Denied: Turkey and the Armenian Genocide
Kathryn Cook (b 1979) is an American photographer based in Istanbul who is represented by Agence Vu and Prospekt fotografi. Her project on Turkey examines the impact of the Armenian massacres of the early 20th century and the scars it left on the country’s national identity. Turkey still refuses to officially label it “genocide,” a word Cook uses in the title of the project. Cook has worked as an Associated Press photographer in Panama, freelanced for a variety of publications including Time and The New York Times, Stern, Newsweek and was featured in PDN’s 30 emerging photographers. Her project Memory Denied was the recipient of aftermath Project award the in 2008.
About the Photograph:
“An Armenian man from Aleppo holds the photo of his mother, who survived the journey through SE Turkey to Aleppo, Syria. His memory is of course created out of her memory, as she passed down what she saw to him. Another reason the photo isn’t in focus in this picture. This passing down of memory is also an interesting aspect to this project, as it happened so long ago that children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren have a different collective memory. The diaspora and politics have also influenced it. In Turkey this is especially interesting because of the political situation with not recognizing or discussing the past. What does a memory/collective memory “denied” feel like? And for me, what does it feel like visually? That is one of the main themes I am trying to explore… among others.”
Lucia Nimcova
Instant Woman, Slovakia
For the past 10 years Lucia Nimcova (b 1977, Slovakia) has been creating books, multimedia and exhibits. Her projects expand the documentary concept and explore personal, social and cultural issues in Central European society. Lucia’s awards and grants include: International Studio & Curatorial Program, NYC., Leica Oskar Barnack Award, Germany, Fotografia Baume & Mercier Award, Italy, Asia-Europe Foundation, Singapore, World Press Photo Master Class and many others.
About the Photograph:
“I have been documenting the life of women in Central Europe since 2002. I began as a student, because I wanted to find answers to my personal questions. I needed to deal with the fact that I am a woman and through my work I was searching for what it is to be a woman in Slovak society. Eastern European societies have undergone massive transformations in the past few years. Woman are taking examples from and idealizing western ways of life. Traditions are disappearing and intergenerational conflict is inevitable. The focus of life is becoming less immediate and increasingly aspirant.”
“I have been documenting the life of women in Central Europe since 2002. I began as a student, because I wanted to find answers to my personal questions. I needed to deal with the fact that I am a woman and through my work I was searching for what it is to be a woman in Slovak society. Eastern European societies have undergone massive transformations in the past few years. Woman are taking examples from and idealizing western ways of life. Traditions are disappearing and intergenerational conflict is inevitable. The focus of life is becoming less immediate and increasingly aspirant.”
