Honoree Deborah Willis, Photo © Ray Llanos 2011

On the evening of November 1st, the En Foco familia gathered at the home of board member Sid Baumgarten, and Terri Paladini Baumgarten, to celebrate the achievements of photo curator, historian, and woman extraordinaire Deborah Willis, and to raise funds for our nationally traveling permanent collection exhibition En Foco/In Focus: Selected Works from the Permanent Collection.

En Foco’s co-founder and director-emeritus, Charles Biasiny-Rivera, wrote an essay in the late 80s which still rings true today. In it, he emphasized the importance of “creating our own mentors, seers and visionaries who are found among our communities, who remind us of our own destiny – and the strength & dignity resulting from that knowledge.” Deborah Willis has long been a mentor for not only our organization, but also for many of the photographers we have worked with and in this spirit, we presented her with En Foco’s first award for making a notable difference in photographic history and beyond.

Named among the 100 Most Important People in Photography by American Photography magazine, Dr. Deborah Willis is Chair and Professor of Photography and Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. She is one of the nation’s leading historians of African American photography and curator of African American culture, as well as a 2005 Guggenheim and Fletcher Fellow and a 2000 MacArthur Fellow. Among all these achievements, her pride and joy is also sharing that she is Hank Willis Thomas‘ mom.

Her projects include Posing Beauty –African American Images from the 1890s to the Present, Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits, Black Venus 2010: They Called Her ‘Hottentot’ (editor), Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present. Most recently, Dr. Willis’s book, Michelle Obama, The First Lady in Photographs, garnered her the 2010 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Biography/Autobiography, and she is the recipient of the 2010 Society of Photographic Education‘s  Honored Educator Award. On this evening, it was truly an honor to present her with En Foco’s Award.

Curator Elizabeth Ferrer and honoree Deborah Willis, Photo © Mark Denning 2011

Just as our honoree has brought to light so many photographers of the African diaspora, our permanent collection aims to do the same with artists of diverse cultures. Since it’s founding almost forty years ago, En Foco has celebrated the right of artists of Latino, African, Asian and Native American heritage to self-representation and a space where they can be welcomed, validated, and encouraged to be active participants in the art world. As a leader in documenting the efforts of these artists, En Foco developed a permanent collection of images spanning the past four decades.

Honoree Deborah Willis and longtime En Foco supporter Bill Aguado, Photo © Ray Llanos 2011

In an effort to get this work seen by the public, we worked with curator Elizabeth Ferrer on a nationally traveling exhibition, En Foco/In Focus: Selected Works from the Permanent Collection, which opened this fall at Light Work in Syracuse, New York. Thanks to the Art & Cocktail ticket purchases, donations, and Print Collectors Program purchases we were able to raise $8,000 help meet to the matching fund requirement for our National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces grant. These funds will hep toward our goal to travel the show around the country and publish an extensive exhibition catalog.

We extend our heartfelt thanks to the following contributors for helping to make An Evening of Art & Cocktails a huge success:

Board Secretary Sidney Baumgarten, Bill Mindlin, Anthony Beale, Board Chair Susan Karabin, Photo © Ray Llanos 2011

Bill Aguado
Lacy Austin
Sidney Baumgarten
Geraldine Botwinick
S Brookes
Mark Brown
Martisa Cholmondeley
Crosswell Collins
Gerald Cyrus
Anne Damianos
C. Danny Dawson
Ana de Orbegoso
Roni Diamond
Douglas Eklund
Elizabeth Ferrer

Board Member Frank Gimpaya and Executive Director Miriam Romais, Photo © Ray Llanos 2011

Lola Flash
Reggi Reich Gerber
Frank Gimpaya
Terrence Jennings
Donna Marie Jones
Harold Kooden
Saori Kurioka
Ayana Jackson
Anders Jones
Mariamma Kambon
Susan Karabin
Ray Llanos
George Malave
Nancy Mercurio

Hostess Terry Paladini Baumgarten and Paula, Photo by © Ray Llanos 2011

Groana Melendez
Bruce & Jennifer Miller
William Mindlin
Miraida Morales
Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe
John Nicholas
Lorie Novak
Jacqueline Nussbaum
Ann O’Connor
David Pacheco
Terry Paladini
Sandra Perez
Alex Picciano
Gloria Picciano

Lola Flash, Miriam Romais and Ana de Orbegoso, Photo © Ray Llanos 2011

John Pinderhughes
William Robbins
Luis Rodriguez
J. Thomas Roland, Jr.
Shari Rueckl
Donald Taffurelli
Hank Willis Thomas
Len Walker
Lewis Watts

We still have a little way to go to meet our grant match — if you would like to contribute towards our Permanent Collection project, you can still make a secure online tax-deductible donation HERE, or by calling En Foco at 718-931-9311.

Lewis Watts, Miriam Romais, Hank Willis Thomas, and Lacy Austin, Photo © Ray Llanos 2011

Photo © Ray Llanos 2011

Photo © Ray Llanos 2011

Photo © Ray Llanos 2011

John Pinderhughes and Deborah Willis, Photo © Ray Llanos 2011

M. Liz Andrews and Awam Amkpa, Photo © Ray Llanos 2011

Anthony Beale, Deborah Willis and Ayana Jackson, photo © Ray Llanos

Miriam Romais, Deborah Willis and Lorie Novak, Photo © Mark Denning 2011

Groana Melendez and Lola Flash, Photo © Ray Llanos 2011

Jamel Shabazz, photo © Ray Llanos

Betty Wilde-Biasiny, photo © Ray Llanos

Alex Picciano (left), board member Miraida Morales (middle), and friends, photo © Ray Llanos

Hilary Thorsen and Danny Dawson, photo © Mark Denning

© Richard Koci Hernandez, untitled

Street photographers Orville Robertson (New York), Richard Koci Hernandez (San Francisco) and Ibarionex Perello (Los Angeles) recently got together to speak about the topic of street photography and how they each practice and observe the tradition. This article is an extended version of Words on the Street, published in Nueva Luz Volume 15#3 (2011).

Ibarionex Perello: Is it easier to define what street photography isn’t rather than what it is?

Orville Robertson: One thing is that a lot of people don’t even want to call it street photography. I call it street photography but for a lot of New York street photographers that I know, it’s just simply photography.

Richard Koci Hernandez: I approach it from a different place in that I’ve always known it as street photography. Like even when you Google street photography, you are going to get the school of street photography. So, to me it’s more of a traditional thing. I think in general this is the one thing the most street photographers don’t care about is what it’s called. We know it when we see it.  We know how to practice it and so the label isn’t that important.

Robertson: I love the word. I think it’s very descriptive of what we do.

Perello: With landscape and portraits there seems to be a very fixed idea of what makes a good image. With street photography, it seems more fluid, less rigid. For you, what’s involved in good street photography?

Koci: For me I’m after one thing and I respond to one thing and for me it’s the sense of mystery. It’s that sense of other-worldliness. The more ambiguous the image is sometimes, the more I read into it, and the more I respond to it. When I take a look at great photographs by Garry Winogrand, Leonard Freed, Elliot Erwitt or Robert Frank there’s always this sense of mystery, but also a sense of the absurd or odd, even if it’s just odd body language or light.

© Richard Koci Hernandez, untitled

Robertson: I don’t really know what I want when I go out there. I’m just reacting.  It’s like there’s a voice inside my head that when something interesting happens, it screams at me to press the shutter. And I don’t squeeze my shutter; I slam my shutter to get that instant that this voice tells me, “take the photograph now”. My photographs are all about the timing for the most part.

Perello: Yes. For me, it’s about observing and catching the moment where all these disparate elements that normally don’t have a relationship to each other suddenly converge within the context of the frame. It’s that moment of recognition and the ability to capture it especially when that moment includes that telling gesture.

Robertson: You can be fooled by that. I mean I know that I have my own trigger point. When somebody points, I automatically take the picture. I’m like Pavlov’s dog. And I notice this with a lot of photographers that there are certain gestures that people make in their photographs that they fall sucker for and sometimes it turns out to be just a bad photograph. However, there are times where it helps to create magic and you have to look at it. But when it happens you look at it and go I don’t know how I did it and it takes on an almost out of body experience.

Perello: Do you instantly know that you’ve got it or does that come later?

Robertson: There are plenty of times when I take a photograph and I don’t even realize it, but when I go back and look at the negatives, even with stuff ten to fifteen years later, I can remember taking it, but not necessarily feeling that it was remarkable at the time.

Koci: You are really hitting on something that I’m really glad to hear you talk about, because I don’t think a lot of people talk about it because I think it sounds a little weird. I mean there is a voice. It tells you, Now! Now! Now!  And I’m trying to listen to it all the time. Your voice may be slower, but mine is very fast. I think that in a funny way that there is that moment of clarity, that moment of being lost. You are shooting, but your lost. It’s almost like what you said, ‘out of body’. And when you go back and review what you did, you can’t believe it. This is a rare time where I’ve heard someone else share that experience.

© Richard Koci Hernandez, untitled

Robertson: Yes, it’s kind of scary sometimes You look at some of the pictures you’ve taken and it’s not even admiring how good or bad they are, but it’s just that you are wondering what came up from within you to recognize this moment. A lot of people who don’t shoot street photography don’t understand how quickly we have to react. Sometimes, you see the moment building up slowly but sometimes the moment between reaction and taking the picture is like one-tenth of a second.

Perello: With street photography, the challenge for me seems to be less about controlling what’s happening in front of the camera, but rather getting myself into a state of mind to be receptive and ready for those moments when they happen. How do you prepare yourselves?

Robertson: One simple thing that I do when I first start shooting is I make eye contact as much as I can with people and I hold the eye contact. That’s the key for me because I’m paying much more attention to what’s going on. It’s always intimidating for me. I don’t care how long I’ve been doing it, to take out the camera and start shooting. So, I know I’m ready when I can hold eye contact.

Koci: I love this. We share inner moments, but our approaches are completely different and I love that. And I’m not expecting it to be the same process.

Robertson: That’s what makes it all so magical.

Koci: Absolutely. I on the other hand have a different approach. I have difficulty walking and holding a conversation with someone. I can’t do that, because all I’m thinking about is pictures and what’s happening around me. The moment that I get on the street and I have to take more than twenty-five steps anywhere, I’m in the moment. I can’t focus on anything else. From walking out my door to where my car is parked, I’ve already looked at three places just to make sure that there isn’t something to be photographed. A thousand things are going through my head, my eyes are darting and I begin to take pictures in my head, even before I’ve taken them with my camera. I am somehow forced or trained or lucky or just push myself to feeling like I’m in that zone all the time. It’s a very exciting place to be.

© Richard Koci Hernandez, untitled

Robertson: It’s a rush. When you are seeing things in front of you, it’s truly like there are pictures everywhere. There’s always something interesting going on. I mean you sometimes see these videos of these famous street photographers running around like monkeys taking pictures, but that’s not really how it happens, but that’s how you feel inside. Internally it’s exciting, but on the exterior it appears very boring, because to everyone else it looks like you are just walking around. It’s really unbelievable the concentration that you can summon up.

Perello: What do you make of the trend of street photography as a group event?

Robertson: I always, 99.99% of the time, shoot alone. Once in a while a friend of mine will come into the city and we’ll get together and we may or may not shoot, but to me you shoot alone. You don’t end up with your photographs looking like all the other photographers you’re working with. I really get annoyed when I see people like that. They are in love with the idea of street photography but when you take a look at their work… and I’m being a little bit rude and cruel – I don’t look at many of them as what I call real street photographers.  There are a lot of people who think that they are, but they are not.

Perello: A whole new generation of street photographers have been inspired and influence by watching street photographers on YouTube. And until fairly recently, you never had much of an opportunity to see a street photographer at work beyond what you saw in their images or read in a book. Do you think this is resulting in a lot of lackluster mimicry?

Robertson: I mean we all mimic. You know that there are so many photographs that have been taken that you can’t go into it believing that you are going to be astonishingly original. It’s all been done. It’s the way that you photograph it, without being preoccupied with how to make it distinct. It just happens. You just photograph. That’s all there is to it.

Koci: Just to piggyback on that thought. I really think that Orville is so right. When you really look at the heart of street photographers that are true artists, they look at themselves as “the vessel”. They are not looking to be this or that. They are just like, ‘I have to do this and nothing can stop me from doing this’. I mean I think you really know when you can go out in the street and you can shoot for two hours and you know that if there weren’t any film in the camera, it would still be okay. Then you are on to something, because then you are doing it out of pure joy.

Robertson: Yes, when I’m out there I’m just thinking about making my next picture. That’s it.

Koci: Yes, and what’s good is that all the pictures that I miss, what I tell myself is if I got the pictures all the time, I’d never come back.

© Richard Koci Hernandez, untitled

Perello: What impact has the use of the camera phone having on your approach street photography?

Robertson: I shoot with my iPhone as well. I call them little snaps, but the iPhone is a serious camera, because it does one things that these other digital cameras don’t do which is when I push the button, it takes the picture. It has almost no shutter lag. I know of several street photographers who are using their camera phone very seriously.

Perello: It’s interesting to see how the ability to immediately share the images impacts how I share the work. Before, you would be very selective what you would share, but with the iPhone, the images can be shared almost instantaneously.

Koci: I take it very seriously. Tools for me have never been very important. I bought early into this idea that I needed a Leica. I broke the bank, ate top-ramen for years until I finally bought a Leica and then I saw these other guys with Pentax K1000s and they were seriously kicking my ass. I realized early on that it wasn’t about the gear, but it’s about the person behind the gear. So for me, if the thing records an image – I don’t care – I am on it. I want the tool to serve my purpose. Right now, the reason why I take my phone so seriously is because it serves my purpose.

Perello: How does our society’s obsession with electronics, particularly cameras have on street photography?

© Richard Koci Hernandez, untitled

Koci: For me, there’s too much awareness of the camera and I think it’s a society thing. The moment that people see a camera, they know it’s a camera. We are very image conscious. Look, I am very, very sneaky, like ridiculously sneaky. So, the phone helps that even more now. I cannot tell you how many pretend phone calls I’ve had where I’m not talking to anyone, but I’m making a picture.

Robertson: Yeah, I’m really starting to notice that too.

Koci: You can get closer to people with the phone. The other thing I do is wear headphones all the time, because when you have headphones one you don’t exist to people. They think you ‘re listening to music.

Robertson: And they don’t bother you.

Koci: And when it comes to sharing, I like to be more of a curator. I like to make the stream of my images very, very tight. If you look at my images, even with a quick glance on a page or a screen, it’s very consistent and I’m not very impulsive with what I share. I actually think that the key to whatever success I enjoy with social media and the number of people that follow me is based on the idea of scarcity. I mean I look at a Cartier-Bresson or a Robert Frank book and I’m thinking that those one-hundred and twenty pages comes out of their entire life. I mean that’s curated to no end.

Robertson: I post a lot of work on Facebook. I’m kind of known as one of the Facebook mega-posters. I love doing it. It’s kind of my way of exhibition. I really am enjoying it – more than I used to – the idea of a virtual exhibition.  I think that they are wonderful. I still love the physical print, because you can see much more detail. You can be much more in control as with your website. It’s an amazing process, which I’m starting to love more and more as I get involved with that.

Perello: Do you guys have any other ideas about street photography that are important that you don’t think we’ve touched on?

© Richard Koci Hernandez, untitled

Robertson: I think it’s important to say that I think too many street photographers are unwilling to discuss their work. They think that from what they read that photographers like Winogrand didn’t talk about his work. Winogrand talked obsessively about his work. It just didn’t happen so much in the classroom as it did on the street when he was photographing. That’s where he was happiest.    If you aren’t able to talk about your work, you don’t have a clue as to what you’re doing.

Koci: The good final thought about the practice and tradition of street photography is that it’s like a fine wine. What you do now will get better over time. When we are out on the street, in the moment, it’s not that sexy. It’s so familiar to us. The power that street photography has is that the best work of street photographers ages well over time. It becomes a record of time and the times we are living in.

Resources:

Richard Koci Hernandez
www.richardkocihernandez.com

Orville Robertson
http://www.enfoco.org/index.php/photographers/photographer/robertson_orville
www.newyorkstreetphotography.com

Ibarionex Perello
www.thecandidframe.com

This podcasts features Dee Campos talking about her work in El Salvador. Part of En Foco’s Touring Gallery Community Exhibitions program, Dee shares a black and white series that documents children living in El Hogar Del Niño orphanage in El Salvador. Through portraits, urban scenes and landscapes, she depicts the tension between the innocence of childhood and the grittiness of their surroundings.

Dee’s work will be on view through September 5, 2011 at

Harlem Library/NYPL
9 West 124^th Street
New York, NY 10027

Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Juan Sanchez has typically created politically charged bodies of work. Touching upon the struggles of Puerto Ricans, his work tends to address the battle many disadvantaged Puerto Ricans face here in the States. But Abuelita is different.  Created on a fleeting moment of remembrance, Abuelita stands strong in contrast to previous works of art Juan had created.

It’s a side of me that is not usually exposed through my art, its presents a more vulnerable side, a universal human sentiment.

Juan Sanchez’s daughter’s first steps were the inspiration for Abuelita (1991/2003). The experience of seeing his daughter gain enough strength to take her first steps in contrast to witnessing his mother, in her older age, quickly lose that strength created a sense of melancholy and nostalgia yet an overwhelming vigor to nurture a new life journey.

The instantaneous sight of his daughter and his mother was enough to spontaneously create this piece. Working straight from the heart, he create Abuelita in less then an hour. Abuelita was created from an original black and white gelatin silver print, shot back in 1979, collaged onto patterned paper. Oil pastels and ink were also used in this collage. Eventually this piece was scanned and digitized specifically for En Foco’s Print Collectors Program.

Abuelita became about the cycle of humanity. Feet tend to symbolize one’s journey, possibly the hardships of that journey as well as the continual drive to keep moving forward. While his daughter’s journey was just beginning, his mother’s journey had already come to an end. Though Juan tends to speak about a Puerto Rican experience in his work, this piece was meant to cover a human experience. Recognizing that that photograph was taken at a point in his mother’s life where the parental-child role began to reverse itself, he knew this piece expressed a universal experience of growing older.

How many people remember their grandmothers in worn down slippers? That image, even though it is just a photograph of feet in worn out slippers, it is an iconic image. Those are the feet of a middle aged Puerto Rican woman, but could just as well be an Italian woman, or a Jewish woman. It’s iconic because it’s universal.

There is a limited quantity of this iconic image, Abuelita (1991/2003) available in En Foco’s Print Collectors Program, so if you are interested in owning a piece that speaks to the journeys of life, be sure to claim yours soon!

If being out of focus means not being recognized, acknowledged or being in the present in the eyes of the dominant group, then this condition can be useful while you plot your subversive act of injecting yourself into their psyche or consciousness – by the time they recognize your presence it is too late.”  —-Adál, 2006

En Foco offers a beautiful limited edition print of Adál's Memorias Olvidadas (Forgotten Memories) —a gelatin silver print measuring 7.5 x 7.5 inches

Puerto Rican artist, Adál Maldonado, has over the years, created a large body of work that continuously questions the particular conditions of Puerto Ricans in the United States. Adál’s continual exploration of double/dual identity and what that means for Puerto Ricans in the United States has allowed for a discussion to emerge surrounding the conflict of double identity, and the psychological split between these identities.

Puerto Ricans have a interesting colonial history. We’re trying to preserve a national identity, and at the same time there is another identity being imposed on us… its like living in a schizophrenic world of not knowing.”

Adál’s work is not only created to address the general conflicts of Puerto Ricans in the United States, but used as an exploration of self as well. His work is almost always self-referential, and used as a therapeutic tool. It is a visual way of working through conflicts and a calming tool to encourage a healing process.

Memorias Olvidadas (1974), was inspired by a long lost melodramatic poem, written by Adál at the age of 14. This poem is about taking a walk within one’s self, a journey of self-exploration.  This piece was created while still attending the San Francisco Institute of Art. Adál crafted this image as a therapeutic tool, a response to a conflict he was facing at the time.

Fashioned in a similar structure as Surrealism, he searched for his own interpretation of Surrealism and Dadaism, and found his own voice. When discussing Memorias Olvidadas, Adál goes on to explain how he grew up with a sense of a “surreal language” and how he has always been inspired by Surrealism.

This piece is his own interpretation of what that “surreal” language has meant to him. This photo collage consists of a photograph of him writing in a journal, collaged onto an image of a shelf with a mirror hanging in the background and then re-photographed in its entirety. If looked at with a magnifier, one is actually able to read the poem that was written by a 14-year-old Adál.

Adál’s work has not only allowed for his own voice to be heard, but has allowed for other voices to become accessible as well. In an art world that has historically been dominated by a colonial force, artists like Adál are crucial in order to begin breaking down institutionalized colonialization that is so prevalent in today’s art world.

Hopefully one day, we will all have the opportunity to find our own voice.

There is a very limited quantity of Memorias Olvidadas prints available in En Foco’s Print Collectors Program (three left from an edition of 10), so if you are interested in owning a piece of history, be sure to claim your dibs soon!

Currently, Adál is in a solo-exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico in Santurce titled, Out of Focus Traffik Signs, on view through August 7^th, 2011.

He will also be part of a group show on the History of Photography in Puerto Rico at Museo del Arsenal de la Puntilla, Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico, from August 25 – October 22, 2011, where two of his fotonovelas will be shown.

In addition to learning more about photographers of diverse cultures from En Foco’s website, you can learn more about Adál’s current work at:

www.mambopera.com
http://blip.tv/coconettv

Dr. Frank Guridy, at the Black in Latin America conference at the DuBois Institute at Harvard.

Click HERE to listen

The interview took place during the Black in Latin America Conference at the W. E. DuBois Institute in January of 2011, where Guridy was a presenter at the roundtable discussion titled, Race in Latin America - a critically important discussion, considering over 11 million Africans were taken to South America and the Caribbean during the slave trade years of 1502-1867 (vs. 450 thousand to the U.S.).

Black in Latin America was Harvard’s first major multinational conference on the African Diaspora in Latin America. Inspired by Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s documentary, “Black in Latin America,” (aired on PBS, April 19, 2011)—the conference gathered scholars from Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Perú, Brazil, Mexico, and the U.S. to discuss a variety of issues related to race relations of Afro-descendants in the Caribbean and in Latin America.

Here, Dr. Guridy shares his thoughts about growing up in NYC, living in the Bronx, Ugly Betty, the West Side Story, Yankee Stadium, and how it all relates to the hypervisibility and invisibility of Latinos in the U.S.

Dr. Guridy is the co-editor of Beyond El Barrio, and author of Forging Diaspora:

Family, Huanchaco, Peru, Cholita series, 2011 © Susana Raab 

An editorial photographer by trade, Susana Raab has been telling visual stories for years. It’s no surprise then that social perception and cultural identity heavily influence her current project. Peruvian by birth and father, Raab left the country at the age of three following her parent’s divorce. When she first returned to visit a decade ago, she was surprised to find herself nicknamed Cholita Gringa by local friends. Cholo, a racial slur assigned to Peruvians of mixed American Indian ancestry, is a complicated word with connotations that range from disgust to affection. Similarly, the photographer’s childhood was complicated by an upbringing that straddled two cultures. Raab has spent the past two years photographing modern coastal Peruvians in order to connect with her cultural roots. Her Cholita series turns common stereotypes on their head: instead of poncho-clad natives, llamas and rural mountain paths, Raab shows us middle-class families at the seashore, urban architectural landscapes, and suburban interiors. Cholita is an ongoing exploration of the photographers’ fractured cultural identity and a personal journey to understand her place in a lost homeland.

Lunchtime, Miraflores, Peru, Cholita series, 2009 © Susana Raab

Surf and Burger, Huanchaco, Peru, Cholita series, 2011 © Susana Raab

Paula and her Nanny, Playa Asia, Peru, Cholita series, 2009 © Susana Raab

Julia, La Costa Verde, Lima, Peru, Cholita series, 2011 © Susana Raab

Susana Raab is the recipient of En Foco’s New Works Photography Fellowship Awards, an annual program selecting three or more U.S. based photographers of Latino, African or Asian heritage, and Native Peoples of the Americas and Pacific, through a national call for entries. The New Works program helps artists to create or complete an in-depth photographic series exploring themes of their choice, and provides the infrastructure needed for national visibility and a professional exhibition of their new work in the New York area. More about her on her En Foco Photographers page and at SusanaRaab.com

Susana’s work is on view as part of New Works #14, at Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation’s Skylight Gallery in Brooklyn, through July 1, 2011. Please join us Thursday, April 28, 6-8 pm for the opening reception and Saturday, April 30, 2-4 pm for the artist talk.

Andy Adams is the founder and editor of FlakPhoto.com, a contemporary photography website that celebrates the culture of image-making by promoting the discovery of artists from around the world. An online art space + photography publication, the site provides opportunities for a global community of artists and photo organizations to share new series work, book projects, and gallery exhibitions with a web-based photography audience. More about him at AndyAdamsPhoto.com

Suicide with Gun, Male, 40 years old (II), At the Hour of Our Death series, 2010 © Sarah Sudhoff

One of photography’s distinctive qualities is its ability to reveal subjects that are invisible to the eye. But carefully considered images can also make visible ideas that we find difficult to think about or discuss. Dying, for example, is an act that is frequently shielded from view, presumably to protect the living from facing fears of what happens when life ceases to be. Sarah Sudhoff’s At the Hour of Our Death, takes as its starting point writer Phillipe Aries’ observation that “death’s invisibility enhances its terror”.

Like most of her work, these pictures are inspired by personal experience. As a teenager Sudhoff lost a friend to suicide. While visiting his home after learning of the tragedy, she witnessed a clean up crew efficiently removing all physical traces of his final moments—the stuff of death we prefer to quietly avoid. Brightly illuminated and full of vibrant color, Sudhoff’s large-scale photos present swatches of bedding, carpet and upholstery marked with the signs of a passing life. Seemingly grim at first blush, the series is a fascinating and beautiful work of conceptual art. By making abstract the thing we fear most, Sudhoff brings it into stark focus.

Suicide with Gun, Female, 60 years old, At the Hour of Our Death series, 2010 © Sarah Sudhoff

Illness, Female, 60 years old, At the Hour Our Death series, 2010 © Sarah Sudhoff

Heart Attack, Male, 50 years old (II), At the Hour of Our Death series, 2010 © Sarah Sudhoff

Overdose, Female, 40 years old, At the Hour of Our Death series, 2010 © Sarah Sudhoff

Sarah Sudhoff is the recipient of En Foco’s New Works Photography Fellowship Awards, an annual program selecting three or more U.S. based photographers of Latino, African or Asian heritage, and Native Peoples of the Americas and Pacific, through a national call for entries. The New Works program helps artists to create or complete an in-depth photographic series exploring themes of their choice, and provides the infrastructure needed for national visibility and a professional exhibition of their new work in the New York area. More about her on her En Foco Photographers page and at SarahSudhoff.com

Sarah’s work is on view as part of New Works #14, at Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation’s Skylight Gallery in Brooklyn, through July 1, 2011. Please join us Thursday, April 28, 6-8 pm for the opening reception and Saturday, April 30, 2-4 pm for the artist talk.

Andy Adams is the founder and editor of FlakPhoto.com, a contemporary photography website that celebrates the culture of image-making by promoting the discovery of artists from around the world. An online art space + photography publication, the site provides opportunities for a global community of artists and photo organizations to share new series work, book projects, and gallery exhibitions with a web-based photography audience. More about him at AndyAdamsPhoto.com

Play, Lensvik, Norway, Moving Forward, Standing Still series, 2010 © Rona Chang

The world moves forward at a dizzying pace, each of us audience to the moments that materialize before our eyes. One of the pleasures of photography is its power to pause time, to create a memory of something before it disappears. For the past 10 years, fellowship winner Rona Chang has been making photographs of her travels with an attentive eye on human interaction with the natural world. Chang’s Moving Forward, Standing Still is an ongoing series of landscapes that explores themes of architectural infrastructure, urban sprawl, and industrial activity. Like a street photographer, she waits for moments to fill the frame, capturing commonplace glimpses of the everyday: workers repairing the Colosseum in Macau, swimmers playing in a spring pool in the mountains of Oaxaca, an outdoor shaving business on the river banks of Wuhan. Observing from a space outside the focus of activity, Chang’s photographs reflect a unique combination of conceptual order and practical chaos. Though sometimes appearing staged, her careful compositions are entirely improvised, recalling classical paintings. Chang’s pictures bear witness to her experience as a traveler and remind each of us—no matter our time and place in the world—to be still for a moment of quiet reflection.

Gambling, Yulong River, Guangzhou, China, Moving Forward, Standing Still series, 2006 © Rona Chang

Coal Shack, Yangtze River, China, Moving Forward, Standing Still series, 2006 © Rona Chang

Kite Siblings, Cholula, Mexico, Moving Forward, Standing Still series, 2010 © Rona Chang

Men Working, TGDP, Yichang, China, Moving Forward, Standing Still series, 2006 © Rona Chang

Rona Chang is the recipient of En Foco’s New Works Photography Fellowship Awards, an annual program selecting three or more U.S. based photographers of Latino, African or Asian heritage, and Native Peoples of the Americas and Pacific, through a national call for entries. The New Works program helps artists to create or complete an in-depth photographic series exploring themes of their choice, and provides the infrastructure needed for national visibility and a professional exhibition of their new work in the New York area. More about her on her En Foco Photographers page and at RonaChang.com.

Rona’s work is on view as part of New Works #14, at Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation’s Skylight Gallery in Brooklyn, through July 1, 2011. Please join us Thursday, April 28, 6-8 pm for the opening reception and Saturday, April 30, 2-4 pm for the artist talk. Rona will also lead the Photographing Your Neighborhood workshop for youth on Saturday, May 7, 1-3 pm. All events are free and open to the public.

Andy Adams is the founder and editor of FlakPhoto.com, a contemporary photography website that celebrates the culture of image-making by promoting the discovery of artists from around the world. An online art space + photography publication, the site provides opportunities for a global community of artists and photo organizations to share new series work, book projects, and gallery exhibitions with a web-based photography audience. More about him at AndyAdamsPhoto.com