Luceo Images

Weekly Roundup | 7-30

Luceo Images — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:33:03 +0000

Who would have guessed that one of the LUCEO gang would have their personal Twitter account blown up by an Ashton Kutcher retweet this week? Such is the power of social media, albeit sometimes an interesting race to the bottom. At any rate, we’re pleased to be back in rhythm with our weekly social media and have made a little extra room for the participants from a few Facebook conversations this week. It’s a long list, but take a minute to visit some of these folks (if they’re not already counted amongst your friends).

If you’re new to our social media posse, click on the Facebook and Twitter icons located in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and check us out. We’re always happy to see new faces in the mix.

FACEBOOK

Louis Sparre

Jenn LeBlanc

TWITTER

badamsphoto

cococello

JenniferCabral

Nathan_Armes

COMMENTS AND LINKS

Liton

Alex Manning

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS?

Have news that you’d like us to post or tweet? Reach us on Facebook or Twitter and we’ll add your news to the queue.

It’s a Jungle Inside

Kendrick Brinson — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:08:42 +0000

Con Dao Islands for Travel & Leisure Southeast Asia

Kevin German — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:35:08 +0000

Last month Travel & Leisure Southeast Asia picked up some of my work that was originally shot for the New York Times on the Con Dao Islands in Vietnam.

From the Archive

Kevin German — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:20:55 +0000

From the Archive is a regular column that features one image from our archive and appears every Thursday. LUCEO Images has a thorough group archive (keyword search bar, top right) and it can be found here.

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Read the rest of From the Archive (320 words)

The Motorbike Diaries: In My Backyard

Kevin German — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:32:47 +0000

I keep notebooks that are labeled by topics: Politics, Health, Education, Economy, Urban Development, Post War, Overseas Vietnamese and Climate/Environment. I cut out stories every day from several English-speaking newspapers that I think are pertinent to these topics and staple them in.

Today I came across an article with the headline: City dumps 80% of sewage into rivers. The story goes on to talk about legal and illegal dumping of raw sewage into the city’s water supply. Water pollution is no secret or surprise. You can smell it almost every time you are near a river, depending on its flow. But seeing that actual number was alarming to me.

So for this column I decided to steal fellow photographer Matt Eich’s column idea and simply show you my backyard. I live in a large apartment complex on the Thi Nghe Canal, which is a tributary of the Saigon River. When the winds blow just right, I can catch a scent of the sewage.

You’d think that alone would be enough to keep people away but this is Vietnam and it is sweltering. My local neighbors swim in the water every day after school. The boys will gather on large concrete beams extending out into the water and take turns diving in.

Nearby boats load and unload fruits and vegetables to sell at markets. In the distance, major throughways jammed with traffic cross over the water. But the sound seems to dissipate by the time it reaches me. The curve of the canal shelters me from the city’s distractions and for a moment I feel at peace.

When I photograph such universal things, I forget that there are cultural differences. Boys swimming in a river or lake are the same everywhere in the world. The expressions are the same. The actions are the same. Even the taunting is the same. If I could put them all on mute, I would probably mistake it for my hometown back in the States.

This is where I live, for better and for worse. The laughter and the splashing offers just a bit of solace from that 80% figure. You can only hope that Vietnam attempts to make some changes to how it treats the environment in the developing years to come.

***

Kevin German is a photographer who lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. His column, “The Motorbike Diaries” appears every other Wednesday. He is a founding member of LUCEO.

However I did not grow up this way. I lived on a dirt road in a neighborhood with few children to play with. My older sisters had better things to do than to play games with me. I had classmates who had cabins at the two lakes near my town but it was seldom I could actually go. So in this sense, this local community is far richer than I have will ever be.

***

Kevin German is a photographer who lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. His column, “The Motorbike Diaries” appears every other Wednesday. He is a founding member of LUCEO.

Six Photos to D.C.

Kevin German — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:21:24 +0000

I love being around other photographers. I am always filled with such a sense of belonging and inspiration. LUCEO is my new newspaper staff. The camaraderie that I miss dearly in newspapers is strong with my colleagues. And when we are together it seems to be a nerdy commercial for Canon with a camera in your face every five seconds.

Yet I always seem to have a hard time making pictures during these visits. I like to sit back and watch everyone else. Keep those moments for myself. This past trip to D.C. was no different. One intense week of trying to move our photography forward in a struggling industry. I took only six photographs during that time. Six frames of my fellow photographers. My friends.

Legal Left, Meet Creative Right -LOOKBetween 3

Matt Slaby — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:26:01 +0000

This post is a continuation of a conversation started at LOOKBetween. The introductory post can be viewed here:http://luceoimages.com/2010/06/legal-left-meet-creative-right-lookbetween-1/

I’m going to deviate slightly from my initial outline for today’s post and jump to discussing how our partner program works and why it’s something that we believe is important as an organization. During the breakout sessions at LOOKBetween, the idea of photographers partnering with organizations that provide auxiliary services drove a large part of the overall discussion. Personally, I think these kinds of partnerships are great and are symptomatic of an industry that is trying to regain its health. New methods of delivery and consumption require a new kind of expertise to produce and package that content. The fact that photographers are thinking in this direction really says something about an industry trying to heal itself from the bottom up.

Our own system tends to follow a ‘devil-you-know’ type of philosophy –except that we believe that the proper noun should be ‘angel.’ Over the last couple of years, LUCEO has had the pleasure of interacting with several different individuals and organizations in various capacities. Good group projects tend to go that way because of a combination of personality and talent. I think the buzzword, is ’synergy,’ but its really a matter of finding people common and complimentary visions.

The interesting thing about these kinds of loose associations is that it provides a fairly direct answer for a common problem that our clients face: trying to piecemeal together a team of people for a project comes with a lot of uncertainty. This uncertainty relates to how the group will work, how they will arrive at a common vision, and the basic difficulties of diverse personalities. By establishing a network of partners, we are able to help our clients vault this hurdle because we are already familiar with each others’ product and workflow. Essentially, through our partner network, we are able to quickly put together a group of people that will guarantee our clients a quality product, efficient workflow, and a higher degree of consistency from project to project.

Beyond building a list of partners, we believe that a good group of associates have a long-term benefit to each other as well as to the client. From the client’s perspective, a team that has worked together for a long time is more efficient and that efficiency translates to savings. From the perspective of a photographer, these relationships help retain a degree of creative control by providing for better communication between the photographer and the partner organization. For us, it’s a win-win scenario. The client gets a quality product without sacrificing photography.

A detailed description of our partner network, as well as a listing of our partners, can be found here: http://luceoimages.com/about/our-partners/

***

Matt Slaby is a Colorado-based attorney (and photographer). Matt attended the University of Denver College of Law on a full public interest scholarship. His experiences in law school include a PILG clerkship for ongoing civil work with El Centro Humanitario’s legal clinic as well as handling wage claims and contract issues for DU’s Civil Litigation Clinic. He is a founding member of Luceo and, in addition to his photography, brings his legal background to the organization. Questions, comments, and ideas for future posts are welcome. Please add them to the comments section or reach me here: mattslaby@luceoimages.com

**DISCLAIMER: Luceo Images LLC and Matt Slaby assume no liability for the information provided above. This information may not be correct when applied to your specific situation. Moreover, the information provided is not intended to create an attorney/client relationship and shall not be construed as legal advice.

Exhibition to Benefit Cancer Hospital

Kevin German — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 14:18:28 +0000

If you’re in Saigon this Friday, please stop by my group exhibition benefiting the Ung Buou Cancer Hospital. Details of the event are below:

“Transit” exhibition will capture the state of mind of courageous people who make striking paradigm shifts in their lives. Artists presenting work to capture such emotions and ideas are Kevin German, Cynthia Le, Yong Soek Lee, and Tran Trung Linh. Each artist has their own unique styles, diverse background, and enlightening experiences. The combination of the artwork from the four together is what makes this exhibition profoundly compelling.

“Transit” will be presented exclusively for you to experience at contemporary Gala Royale, nested in District 3 at 63 Mac Dinh Chi, on Friday, July 30th from 7PM to 11PM. Intoxicating free flow wine will be served by Warehouse, savory appetizers will be presented by Elbow Room, and trendy beats will be provided by Edge Pamute from Dose.

Tickets are available at the door at 200,000 VN Dong, all proceeds will be donated to the Children’s Ward of Ung Buou Cancer Hospital in HCM.

Weekly Roundup | 7-23

Luceo Images — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:23:57 +0000

We’ll put our big news first: you can now buy Matt Eich’s Carry Me Ohio book again! Check out this latest edit and at the bottom you will find a link to purchase a copy of this amazing body of work edited by LUCEO partner Mike Davis and designed by the talented Deb Pang Davis. http://luceoimages.com/2009/07/carry-me-ohio/ If you missed it on the limited edition run, here’s your chance to make up a little lost ground.

This piece of gigantic news is only offset by a slower roll on our social media charts. Here’s our short list of favorites for the week of 7-13. Be sure to check them out.

FACEBOOK

Deb Pang Davis

TWITTER

samuelhodgson

imfinetoday

Nathan_Armes

jasminedefoore

kasiapilat

COMMENTS AND LINKS

Alison Yin

Tim Lamorte

Courtney

vickie burick

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS?

Have news that you’d like us to post or tweet? Reach us on Facebook or Twitter and we’ll add your news to the queue.

The Fourth Wall: Natural History

David Walter Banks — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:01:30 +0000

With a complete lack of historical record and first-hand account, it’s no wonder we are so apt to find fascination with the ancient natural history of our world. While scientists, geologists, palaeontologists, and historians have made huge discoveries and advances in understanding of a world that came before us, we are still left with a bit of an enigma in prehistoric life. Our conclusions are often times grounded as much in our own imaginations as they are in fact, leaving us with a fantasy world containing perhaps only hints of truth. I traveled to two different places with prehistoric accounts bordering on opposing sides of the spectrum of reality. The more informative and grounded of the two was Georgia’s Fernbank Natural History Museum which serves as more of an educational institution. The second and more sensationalized stop took me to The Dinosaur Park in Bastrop County, Texas, where ‘life-size dino replicas’ lay in wait for young birthday party attendees along a footpath through the woods on the outskirts of a trailer park. Both worth checking out given the opportunity – I mean, who wouldn’t want to walk with dinosaurs.

From the Archive

Luceo Images — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:35:39 +0000

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Off to Heaven

Matt Slaby — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:57:09 +0000

3-6-10, turning 31 behind the wheel of a rental car. The Highline or thereabouts. Winter, clearly. Places with two faces, the green of summer, the white of winter, the transition between the two little more than the blip out the window, towns passing, clouds passing, the blue-grey palette of the sky indistinguishable from the ground. I am floating, or so it seems, hovering and humming along through the snow crisp quiet, Havre, Chinook, Zurich, Harlem, Dodson, Malta, Saco, Glasgow. No doubt I forgot one or two, it wouldn’t be the first a town had passed by out my window unnoticed. It’s nothing personal, just that heaven isn’t necessarily a place too concerned with names.

Summer

Kendrick Brinson — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:24:01 +0000

Miltown Malbay, Ireland

Heaven

Lebanon, Kansas

Austin, Texas

In My Back Yard: In My Grandfather’s House

Matt Eich — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:34:31 +0000

The last time I saw my grandfather was a few months after Madelyn was born, in December of 2007. Now 83, he is noticeably more frail. I remember him being a very engaged and loving grandfather when I was a child but that he pulled away from our family after my grandmother died of Alzheimer’s and cancer when I was about 9 years old. Not long before her death he and I went on a road trip through the mountains and he loaned me a point and shoot camera to record our travels. I remember little of this trip other than returning home and getting the images back and seeing one photograph from Cades Cove, Tennessee that transported me back to that place and to the feeling of being there. I was intrigued – art became a living and breathing thing and I wanted to create, to record, to remember. This single moment altered the course of my life and I can hardly write about it without my eyes welling, full of gratitude for his ability to unwittingly put me on the path that has led me to this point.

His name is Henry Eugene Martin but his friends call him Gene. I am the oldest of his six grandchildren and we have always called him Papaw. He managed a Sears store for years and retired before I was born. He doesn’t own a computer and to my knowledge has never experienced the internet first hand. His hair has thinned into strands that he brushes over his scalp. A large knot protrudes from his forehead and I can’t even keep straight the stories he told us as children about it’s origin. Known for his sweet tooth, my mother always had to fight to get us to eat vegetables when we visited, much to our delight. There are so many things about him that come through to me in fragmented memories but I feel fortunate that he is still around, our last living grandparent. Melissa, Madelyn and I were able to visit him at the end of June, staying with him at his home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for the weekend. For some reason it felt like the first time I was able to openly speak with him, more man-to-man. The morning after we arrived we walked into the living room where he was already perched in his usual reading chair, with the newspaper on his lap. “Did you know I passed away last night?” he asked, nonchalantly. Taken aback by the question we laughed awkwardly until he presented us with an obituary that bore his name, though this man who had passed away was nearly 20 years younger than my grandfather. The deceased’s birthday was the same as mine ironically, just a different year. Papaw clipped the obituary out of the paper, placed it in an envelope and told me to take it to my mother and tell her that “we just got there too late.” This sort of pranking sums him up pretty well.

While in his house I record obsessively, either in photographs or audio or written words, not wanting to miss any of the details. The way he speaks or the slowing shuffle of his feet or the way he loves his girlfriend Ann, who he met not long after my grandmother’s death. She lost her husband the same week he lost his wife and they have comforted and supported one another for years now. She is likely the reason he pulled away from our family, to be with her and to give her his attention, but she is a wonderful woman who has doubtless added years to his life.

I am so happy to have photographs of my grandfather with his first great grandchild. They will serve as the key to Madelyn’s memory of him. Below a journal entry I found from the last time I saw my grandfather and a few photographs from that visit, nearly three years ago. Please forgive this self-indulgently loose edit of family photos. A scrapbook if you will.

‘

12.27.07

My grandfather’s house:

Memories. The rocking horse in the basement (old jumper, my grandfather calls him), the pictures on the walls. My grandmother, her eyes nearly vacant years before Alzheimer’s had taken its toll. The nick nacks around the house. The tricycle in the basement and how fast it seemed to move as we rolled down the driveway. The bird house out back where we would pop squirrels with his pellet gun to keep them from eating his bird food. The lassie looking dog statue that sits watch in his front hallway. Its been years since I’ve been here and not a single thing has changed. its as if I stumbled upon a time capsule full of childhood memories.

In the picture I make he sits in a chair in his basement, holding my daughter. She’s asleep and hangs limply like a rag doll. He holds her awkwardly, but happily. Not wanting to give her up when we decide to retreat to bed.

________________________________________________

Matt Eich is a photographer who is based in Norfolk, Virginia. His column, “In My Back Yard” appears every other Wednesday. He is a Founding Member of LUCEO Images.

Ireland: This is Love

Kendrick Brinson — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:13:31 +0000

I could call this set of images the outtakes from my Ireland trip, but that would completely diminish their importance. The heaviness and personal importance that they carry. Less than a year ago, we threw my mom a small party picnic. It was her 60th birthday and she’d been talking about taking a family trip for years so we said, ok, you’re 60, no more talking, let’s do it. She chose Ireland and 10 months later, my boyfriend, my brother, his wife, my step-sister, my mother and the love of her life boarded a plane to Ireland.

The trip was perfectly timed. The trip was magic.

When I got back from Ireland, I wrote about how important it can be to just relax and enjoy yourself. How important this can be for passion. This trip, I got to unwind and enjoy the people who matter most to me.

What an absolute gift.

Belated LUCEO Midterm

Matt Slaby — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:25:08 +0000

Belated, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care. Since LUCEO’s midterm meeting in early June, I’ve been running almost nonstop. It’s forced me to make two separate lists of stuff –work that needs immediate attention and things that can wait for a few days. This set of pictures has been sitting on the latter list. One of the things that always surprises me when I’m around photographers is which ones live with their cameras and which ones leave them behind. I know there’s a pretty good argument for putting it down every now and again, but the one thing that I really enjoy about my colleagues is that, as a group, we don’t really fall into that category. Assignments extend into life, life extends into assignments. It blurs the line between significant and insignificant and, in my opinion, is puts those things that we consider ordinary into their rightful place as something that is beautiful nonetheless.

The frames from this selection are from our midterm meeting in D.C. as well as at LOOKBetween in Virginia. We were able to dovetail the two trips into one. On both counts, a great experience.

Sin and Salvation in Baptist Town

Matt Eich — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:08:21 +0000

Winky takes the .40 and checks to see if there’s one in the chamber, stepping behind the abandoned building where the teenagers often hang out. POP! POP! POP! He shoots three times into the air. The woman raking her yard with a child 100 feet away doesn’t pay him any mind. The other kids are startled and Brandon jumps up and hurries away saying, “Damn Winky, that was some dumb shit.” They stash the gun under the abandoned building and continue rolling blunts, waiting for the cops to show but knowing that they won’t. Winky tells the other kids they’ve “gotta be hard”, and as the oldest of the group at 27, they believe him. He was sent to prison at 14 for seven and a half years. How can anyone expect a young man to reintegrate into society as a productive citizen after that?

In a place like Baptist Town, Mississippi there are two paths you can take in life but the people I have encountered tread the line between the two, walking both in light and shadow. They are neither good nor evil, they are simply human. This is the beginning of a two-part examination of contemporary race and class disparities in the Mississippi Delta town of Greenwood.

Cut off on all sides by train tracks, Baptist Town is home to around 500 residents with an estimated 90 percent unemployment rate. These photographs, made between April and July 2010, are about the dichotomy between light and dark, sin and salvation in Baptist Town. They are about the inheritance of slavery and how it continues to impact generations of Americans. A place like Baptist Town should not exist in the post-racial society we like to believe we live in.

While we may live in a time where civil rights is taught in history classes, the legacies of racism in the South continue to impact people economically and culturally, in persistent and often pernicious ways. I want to focus our collective attention on this complicated inheritance by documenting Baptist Town for the remainder of 2010. In 2011, I will look at the affluent white neighborhood in Greenwood. These neighboring communities are separated by fear, distrust and a history of exploitation. By visually introducing neighbors to one another in an honest and intimate way, my goal is to foster understanding, dispel uncertainty and fear while bridging the gap between these two worlds.

Communication Arts 51st Photo Annual

Matt Slaby — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:36:20 +0000

I’m pleased to announce that my image of a woman watching hot air balloons returning to roost at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta has been honored with placement in Communication Arts 51st Photography Annual. This particular photograph has also been selected for American Photo 26 as well as for CENTER’s Director’s Choice Award. It will be displayed at the Newspace Center for Photography this August as part of a group showing of CENTER winners. This year’s Communication Arts Photo Annual contains work from 135 photographers and is available for purchase here: www.commarts.com/annuals/2010-photography

I really owe a debt of gratitude to the other LUCEO photographers for their help and encouragement throughout the winter entry season. Having a group of people at my disposal who are willing to provide honest and direct feedback has really had a huge impact on my own path this year. I’m especially pleased to see the same contest fortune spreading itself throughout the ranks of our photographers; it’s fitting karma.

You Guess It

Luceo Images — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:04:55 +0000

Please pardon the You Guess It vacation, we’re back with a brand spankin’ new round.

Every other week we at LUCEO post iPhone and archive photos as part of a challenge that involves you, dear photography lover. We post photos Monday through Thursday based on a secret theme provided by a photographer or blogger or anyone in the photo industry, then we wait for you to guess the theme and write it in the comments by Thursday. Every other Friday, we will announce who guessed right first. If you play your cards right, there might just be a prize involved. (Keep in mind, not every photo has to blatantly follow that theme, but all the photo clues together will spell it out.)

This week’s theme picker is LUCEO partner Brad Horn. He works for National Public Radio in Washington, DC. His audio pieces have aired on NPR member stations around the country and on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. He has been the executive producer of several collaborative multimedia projects, most recently the Veterans Listening Project which was done in conjunction with the oral history project, StoryCorps. He also teamed up with us with Still Hoping, our group multimedia project to the Obama administration from 2009.

Let the guessing begin!

UPDATE: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! Despite Tim LaMorte’s extremely noble effort of our all-time most guesses on a post (13), amazing photographer (and guesser, apparently) Chip Litherland rather freakishly guessed the theme on Day 1. We were all a little surprised when that comment came through. Chip, email Kendrick and tell her you’re ready for a prize (kendrickbrinsonATluceoimages.com) and Tim, what the heck, you do the same.

FRIDAY CLUE:

Brad Horn Photo

THURSDAY CLUES:

David Walter Banks Photo

Kendrick Brinson Photo

WEDNESDAY CLUES:

Matt Slaby Photo

Matt Eich Photo

TUESDAY CLUES:

Kendrick Brinson Photo

Daryl Peveto Photo

MONDAY CLUES:

Matt Slaby Photo

David Walter Banks Photo

Weekly Roundup | 7-16

Luceo Images — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:47:22 +0000

We’ve all made it back to our respective homes and we’re back in the social media saddle again. This week was marked by a small number of significant milestones and congratulations to our friends at Fraction Magazine and MediaStorm. First, a big high-five to David Bram, founder of the amazing Fraction Mag, for being honored as a Rising Star by the esteemed Griffin Museum’s 2010 Focus Award! (LUCEO’s got a cool thing cooking with Fraction to announce in the upcoming months). Second, and equally significant, congratulations to our talented friends at MediaStorm for three Emmy award nominations!

Lastly, we were pleased to see another flattering post from Aphotoeditor, linking an ongoing discussion related to our newest, group project. Haggart always brings and interesting perspective to the conversation and his readership has, no doubt, been a welcome addition to our discussions this week. Thanks again for the kind words, Rob.

With that, we’ve got a long list of social media favorites for this week. Be sure to friend, follow, and share the love with these folks:

FACEBOOK

Erin Pyles Corbett

TWITTER

charlesludeke

shawnrocco

badamsphoto

MediaStorm

COMMENTS AND LINKS

Kat Hill

Bill Crandall

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS?

Have news that you’d like us to post or tweet? Reach us on Facebook or Twitter and we’ll add your news to the queue.

Sisterhood: Kathleen and Emily

Kendrick Brinson — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:15:06 +0000

“Sisterhood is unconditional friendship and support, it’s raucous laughter, it’s celebrating and mourning together. It’s not always easy and is sometimes quite complicated, but in the end, you’re sisters and there just isn’t another bond like it.” -Kathleen Poe

My favorite part about this exploration of sisterhood is it gives me a chance to feel closer to my own sister. She’s in Boston this summer, South Carolina in the fall, and then planning to realize her calling and moving to India in the spring. That’s a lot of distance between my favorite person and I and getting to spend time with women who are bonded so tightly makes me love and appreciate her even more. Like Kathleen and Emily, when Rebecca and I catch up, we’re laugh a lot and probably sound insane to a person listening on. I love that about my sister–no matter how serious things can get, she and I will talk about everything like it’s a ridiculous joke and that break from reality can be so necessary.

A lot of these photos are sequences because the laughter gives a better feel of who Kathleen and Emily are as a pair.

We met at sunset right when the light was starting to work it’s magic, so we hopped into the shoot immediately. They both share a love for music, something that bonded them as the Poe Sisters (their last name) when they were younger. Emily is the older sister (like I am), and four years older than Kathleen. She said when Kathleen was a baby, she’d guard her little sister like a hawk and that having a little sis is like having a “perma-sidekick.” I absolutely agree.

They’ve always been close, they agreed, though their relationship has done some switching around as they’ve grown up together. Kathleen said she proudly still identifies herself as Emily’s little sister and when she was young she was a bit of a “hanger on.” Emily laughs and said she’s more of the hanger on now. They share a circle of friends. They are each other’s anchor.

From Emily:

When we were little I always had someone to play with. And because I was the (admittedly sometimes bossy) older sister, she generally went along with whatever I wanted. And at Halloween, she always gave me her Reeses cups because she doesn’t like peanut butter.

As we’ve gotten older, she’s become less of a sidekick and more of a best friend. She definitely knows me better than anyone else on the planet. And I find myself looking for her approval more than bossing her around now. Ha, I hope she’ll back me up on that. I guess, as an offshoot of that sentiment, I would say that sisterhood is a very unique and close connection. There are times where Kathleen and I will communicate exclusively in stupid movie quotes or just through facial expressions, and she will get it, and I will get it and no one else will get it… I think, though, at the end of the day, sisterhood allows for the ability to be uniquely honest with each other; certainly, we have had our differences (I tend to be more of a hothead than her) but at the end of the day, I know she has my back, she knows I have her back and I don’t think in a million years either of us would doubt that.

From Kathleen:

What I love about my sister is that we basically share the same brain. Not on everything, but we definitely share the same quirky sense of humor, and we’re often able to communicate through looks alone. Otherwise, it appears to many people that we speak in an odd sort of code.

Few people can make me laugh as hard as Emily does, or will laugh with me as heartily as she does. Our jokes never get old! To us, at least. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I grew up at her elbow — her pop culture was my pop culture, her music became my music — so we have largely the same cultural reference points, which is hard to find in another person. Growing up the youngest of three definitely shaped a lot of who I am.

Emily:

I would say that sisterhood is a very unique and close connection. There are times where Kathleen and I will communicate exclusively in stupid movie quotes or just through facial expressions, and she will get it, and I will get it and no one else will get it. Her husband, Jon, is starting to catch on, but he’s got a ways to go. I think, though, at the end of the day, sisterhood allows for the ability to be uniquely honest with each other; certainly, we have had our differences (I tend to be more of a hothead than her) but at the end of the day, I know she has my back, she knows I have her back and I don’t think in a million years either of us would doubt that.

Kathleen:

Having a sister is awesome, obviously… I can’t imagine the life of an only child — how lonesome I would be! I bet I would have annoyed the shit out of my parents if I had been an only child. I have someone to roll my eyes about dad/our brother with, someone to harmonize with in the car, someone to demand that I play with her hair and scratch her back (the joys of being the youngest!). Even though I certainly don’t do everything with my sister, it’s sort of like I know I’ll always have a companion if I need or want one, especially since we’re both in Atlanta. I think we’ve definitely gotten closer since we’ve been in the same city. We both look out for each others’ happiness, which is an important thing. I would do pretty much anything for Emily, and I’m sure she’d do the same for me.

Thank you so much Kathleen and Emily for sharing the sunset with me and reminding me of how much I love my own little sister.

**********

Kendrick Brinson is a photographer who lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. Her column on Sisterhood appears every other Friday. She is a founding member of LUCEO. You can find her other columns on this subject here.

Houston Center for Photography Show

Kendrick Brinson — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:16:00 +0000

My image of dancers Velta and Gene from my Sun City: Life After Life essay is currently on display at the Houston Center for Photography. The editioned piece, which is 16 x 23.5 inches, shares walls with a photo by LUCEO’s Matt Eich, as well as four photos by David Walter Banks. They’re all part of the 28th Annual Juried Membership Exhibition juried by Hannah Frieser, Director, Light Work (Syracuse, NY).

To see the rest of the show: head to the amazing center in Texas before August 23rd, or you can sneak a peek of the other selections online here.

Also, a big thanks is in order to LUCEO partner David Wright, who printed all of our photos.

From the Archive

David Walter Banks — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 13:58:31 +0000

Purpose, Process, and Polaroids

Matt Slaby — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:27:42 +0000

I had a nice talk with Cheyenne-based filmmaker Chris Bagley this afternoon. One of the themes that he tends to repeat is that he’s hoping that someone will discover his hard drives after he’s long gone and make some sense out of the hours of film that he’s compiled and left for some unnamed posterity. I’ve always found that approach to be honest in as much as it values the process over the outcome. Audience becomes an afterthought in some regards, though I think that it is a perfect recipe for leaving self-consciousness behind when it comes time to produce. I know that particular sentiment is not popular in the strict sense of photojournalism because audience and recognition are two of the first things on the checklist. That said, it’s this precise issue that has left me wondering about what’s behind the big T in the the truth photojournalism has stuck its flag in.

The conversation started with trying to schedule a time to get a hand working Final Cut on some stop motion pieces that I shot for LUCEO’s rural project and quickly degraded (or upgraded) into a far more weighty conversation about method and purpose. I’m long overdue for my contribution to the first chapter of our group project and, assuming Chris and I can avoid talking about esoterica long enough to wrangle Final Cut to finish the pieces, I should have something to share in short order.

Tied to the wide arc of process and long-term projects is another installment of Polaroids that I’ve been nabbing over the last few months. As this project has developed, I’ve become more judicious with the frames that I take. No need to repeat old stuff, so I’ve been adding on things as I see them and slowly stacking them on my desk at home. The flight home from Louisiana yesterday finally left me with enough time to work through a big stack of scans. Denver, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas, and Nebraska are all represented in this take. There’s even a Polaroid from our group project hiding in the mix.

New Eyes

Kendrick Brinson — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:22:24 +0000

There’s this thing a lot of people don’t realize about running a photography business and that’s that we never sleep. We rarely have days off. We don’t have a lot of time to go out with friends or to enjoy lazy Sundays. Granted, we’re living our dreams. We’re doing exactly what we want to do but that comes at an exhausting cost some days.

I just got back from 11 days in Ireland. At the point I’d boarded the plane, it’d been more than 40 days since I’d had a day off. One single day off. I guess the only person who can be blamed for that is my boss, me. Understand though, I’m not complaining, I’m explaining.

LUCEO’s David Walter Banks and I led a workshop at the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar last winter (gearing up for another one at a school in the fall, too) about how we at LUCEO do things and how both of our lives ran after being staff newspaper photographers. We explained to the mixed crowd of professionals and students all the ins and outs of marketing, showed them our work, talked about how fulfilling it is to be able to call the shots in our professional lives. We talked about passion and business savvy. We didn’t really talk about 14 hour days six or seven days a week.

Again, not complaining, explaining.

So I didn’t realize when I boarded a plane to Ireland that a day later I probably would have just broken down if I hadn’t crossed that ocean. The trip came at the most perfect time. The trip came around the time that I was just too overwhelmed to appreciate all the beauty and traveling I’d experienced the two months before. I’d been to Lebanon, Kansas to start a new project, Austin, Texas for a shoot, upstate New York for the first time but I hadn’t had a chance to edit down those photos, let alone truly let myself enjoy the moments. I was smiling, I was happy but I wasn’t fully present. I’m a huge worrier. I was worrying about what I had to do and where I had to be tomorrow and how I’d find time to pack.

It took me a few days to unwind in Ireland. I felt really guilty about having time for myself at first, too. The scenery was breath-taking and, even better, I was there with the man I love and my precious family, whom I rarely get to spend time with.

I hadn’t realized how important this trip would be. My eyes needed a chance to relax. My eyes needed a chance to savor the beauty and the laughs. To take deep breaths. My eyes needed the chance to pass by photos because there were no expectations and there was no cost for missing the shot. This is something that I think is so important for us to do, even if it’s briefly, even if it’s once a year. We have to slow down.

Our photos will be better for it.

Our passions will be better for it.

We stayed the first week in the countryside, in a rented 500-year-old castle, no less. No internet, no phone service. I didn’t even bring a computer. It took time to stop worrying about the emails or phone calls I was missing, but, for a few days, I finally did. I savored the precious time. I stayed up late (well, as late as I could with the time change) playing cards, listening to live music, watching people dance, laughing until I cried, all instead of staring at a computer.

The funny thing is, I’m telling you all this and acting like I didn’t work. I came back with thousands of images. Photography is my job. Photography is my passion. Photography is my life. All those lines often blur. This trip, though, I left the job at home.

This 11 days has brought me back with a fresh outlook (albeit I’m already back in the grind, already feeling stressed again). It’s brought me back rejuvenated. It’s brought me back with happier eyes. Eyes that were given a break from the pressures of deadlines and editor and client expectations.

All that’s to say, I’m back. with new eyes.

Back to Colonel Poole’s

Kendrick Brinson — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:01:23 +0000

On the way to a Wall Street Journal assignment in North Georgia in June, I passed Colonel Poole’s BBQ. I’d photographed the Colonel himself in 2008 whilst working on my Facing South project. It has sparked me to hop back on this project, so I’ve dug out my old lists of what I wanted to shoot. Here’s to never-ending projects!

Big Boi for The New York Times

David Walter Banks — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:44:00 +0000

I recently photographed a secret show at the YAARAB Shrine Center in downtown Atlanta with Big Boi and Friends for the New York Times. I haven’t photographed much hip-hop this year, and was reminded how much I enjoy it while on this assignment. Not to mention that it’s always great to see a living music icon perform who in many ways helped shape Southern rap as well as those he’s predicted as the next generation, like YELAWOLF. The place was packed with energy and fans who received notice of the show via text at the last minute. I’m not big on concert photography as my interests normally lie outside the life on stage, but the sheer excitement of the crowd got me revved up. If you were there, I was the photographer front-stage facing the crowd while all the others had their lenses aimed at the performers on stage. Here’s a few images from the evening, the first one shot backstage as the man himself headed out from the green room with his ever-present swagger. For a different and less-optimistic view on the show, check out the NY Times article here.

Emily Saliers for The Wall Street Journal

Kendrick Brinson — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:31:38 +0000

Emily Saliers is one half of The Indigo Girls, a folk rock band. I’ve been singing along to her and Amy Ray’s music since I was in elementary school so when Carrie Levy of The Wall Street Journal called and asked if I would photograph Emily, her home, and her Decatur restaurant Watershed, I was thrilled.

It’s not often we get to meet people who inspire us and even more rare that we get to create art of artists, so this was a treat.

Emily’s home was lovely (she has a huge wine cellar filled with 2,000 bottles of wine and, of course, a huge CD collection). She was so kind and didn’t slap me when I told her I used to sing along to her music on the way to field trips in the daycare van. She even raved about my tattoos to her girlfriend. I’m looking forward to dinner at her southern restaurant that’s not far from me, too.

If you’re the type who likes peeking into celebrity homes, you can check out the photoshelter gallery (linked at bottom) or read the interview and view the gallery at WSJ HERE.

Find these photos in our archive »

East 6th Street

David Walter Banks — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:46:18 +0000

Beefy men in undersized t-shirts shout about dollar shots but are nearly drowned out by the music spilling out onto East 6th Street in downtown Austin. Girls in miniskirts and heels stumble by and the stench of liquor and last night’s spoils hangs heavy in the air. I can’t help but feel a sense of deja vu as memories of wandering down Bourbon Street flash through my mind, but this place has an underlying twangy mood that can only be bred by Texas. With all the dive bars selling sin and begging for patrons, it seemed only appropriate to give in to one of the most forthright of them all – Coyote Ugly. Here are a couple frames from the night.

From the Window, I See America

Daryl Peveto — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 07:40:02 +0000

In March, earlier this year, while spending time with my family in Hawaii relaxing and teaching my new son to swim, I made the decision to take a three week trip with the Tea Party Express across the country. I had been working on the idea for sometime, but everything sort of fell into place about a week before the tour was to begin. I had pitched the idea to several pubs, but TIME Magazine came through with an assignment to help fund the first leg of the trip.

This was also the day after I was set to get home. So it was a mad dash to get everything together and drive to Las Vegas. Fortunately, my friend Troy Harvey helped me with the drive and early logistics. It was tough leaving my three month old son again for such a long time.

Within a day I was clearly overwhelmed with the intensity of the trip. I began to look at details of my journey and tried to use my camera not just to document the story, but also the personal aspects of the trip. I shot the view out of my hotel room each morning. I photographed where I was each time I missed my son and wife – well I missed them constantly, so I shot when it felt so strong that I felt I was about to lose it. I also shot the Tea Party experience aboard a bus travelling 7,000 miles across America. This was the part that really began to resonate with me as an additional component to the story. The regular events were so canned, as all political events really are. But the view from the bus of the scenes unfolding really felt real. Below is an edit of some of these moments. Over the next couple of weeks I will continue to post different elements of the trip culminating with an edit of the Tea Party Express on my portfolio page. Please stay tuned. Cheers.

To view the Tea Party Express galleries, visit: darylpeveto.photoshelter.com/gallery-collection/Tea-Party-Express-2010/