Inspiration and Resources #4
Tom Rankiin
Photographers of Interest:
New Voices in Southern Photography
When people envision the South, they may conjure images made by photographers who stylized the “Southernization” of aesthetics during the last century. Walker Evans, Gordon Parks, Sally Mann and William Christenberry. There are the pastoral landscapes covered in Spanish moss; the storybook scenes of small towns and people whose lives have only known those small towns; historical images of segregation and stereotypical images of impoverished Americans in crumbling homes. These images have had a lasting impact, but at a cost.
Wendy Ewald
When Wendy Ewald arrived in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains in 1975, she began a project that aimed to reveal the lives, intimate dreams and fears of local schoolchildren. Tasked with finding authentic ways of representing the lives of these children, she gave each of them a camera and interviewed them about their childhood in the mountains. Through these intriguing transcripts and photographs, we discover the lives of families as seen through the eyes of their children: where domestic, rural life is understood with startling openness and depth. In Portraits and Dreams, life’s most mysterious realities – love, loss, violence, death, new life – are given voice through an altogether novel discovery: the camera. We learn the eloquence and originality with which children see the world and we see a generous new way of engaging children in the possibilities of the photographic medium.
Books:
I Wanna Take Me a Picture: Teaching Photography and Writing to Children
Video:
PBS - POV - Portraits and Dreams
Eyes Open by Susan Meiselas
Compiled by Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas, Eyes Open is a sourcebook of photography ideas for kids--to engage with the world through the camera. Twenty-three enticing projects help inspire a process of discovery and new ways of telling stories and animating ideas. Eyes Open features photographs by young people from around the globe, as well as work by professional artists that demonstrates how a simple idea can be expanded. Playful and meaningful, this book is for young would-be photographers and those interested in expressing themselves creatively.
Blind Photographers
You don’t need perfect vision to create a great image, as new book The Blind Photographer proves, showcasing the beautiful work of visually impaired artists from South American and Europe.
Seeing in the dark: blind photographers talk about their work
The Red Hand Files - Nick Cave
How or when or do you shut the voices of all your influences to listen to yourself, to become you or to believe that what you create is your own?
In my view, John, worry less about what you make — that will mostly look after itself, and is to some extent beyond your control, and perhaps even none of your business — and devote yourself to nourishing this animating spirit. Bring all your enthusiasm to bear on the development of that good and essential force.
