Sarah Wilson at PhotoNOLA 2009

Sarah Wilson,  a Louisiana photographer now based in Austin, Texas, was the winner of the 2008 PhotoNOLA Review Prize for her portfolio, “Blind Prom,” images of the prom at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Her work is featured at this year's PhotoNOLA, on display at the New Orleans Photo Alliance, 1111 St. Mary Street, in New Orleans, from Nov 27th, 2009 – January 20th, 2010.

Luceo Images

Luceo Images is a collective of 6 photographers, all but two of whom are based in the South. They include David Banks and Kendrick Brinson, based in Atlanta; Matt Eich, based in Norfolk; and Tim Lytvinenko, based in Raleigh. Strong work here -- well worth checking out.

Resources Update

Arts Critic Atlanta is a very useful blog, focusing on the arts scene in Atlanta, with a special Visual Arts section that -- being in Atlanta -- has a lot of information about photography. There are, for example, a number of stories and reviews here about events that were part of 2009's Atlanta Celebrates Photography.They include the above image by Jeff Rich up at Agnes Scott College.

I found this blog through the Arts Journal blog, which has a list of regional and big-city arts blogs, much worth exploring. One of the things worth noting, however, is that there are only three blogs listed for the entire southeastern USA, one the above blog from Atlanta, one for the Nasher Museum at Duke, and one based in Miami.

These are all fine, but what's missing is a fine resource for the arts in the southeast. There are more blogs for the arts scene in the city of Denver than for the whole region from Maryland to the Mississippi.

Someone needs to take up this project.

Hollis Bennett -- a Southern Photographer to Watch Out For

Hollis Bennett, a photographer from Tennessee, has just been featured on the Fraction Magazine blog. His work will soon appear in Burn Magazine and Daylight Magazine. As he says in his blog, 2009 is being good for him. He's definitely a Southern photographer to watch out for.

Joerg Colberg reviews Sally Mann's Proud Flesh

Joerg Colberg's Conscientious blog is one of the most interesting of the (by now) millions of photography blogs. Joerg roams widely around the world of internet photogrpahy resources and always comes back with fascinating photographers and their sites. A good number of the more interesting Southern photography items I've used on this blog had their start with a reference on Joerg's site.

Now, he's done a thoughtful and challenging review of a book of Sally Mann's Proud Flesh, new images of her husband, recently noted here during their exhibition in NYC at the Gagosian Gallery. The review is definitely worth reading in its own right, but what interests me is his reaction to Mann's earlier work. He celebrates the achievement of her Immediate Family but finds her later work, especially Deep South and What Remains, to be "weak," in effect communicating an idea but not any feeling.

I've had the good fortune to see Deep South at Jackson Fine Art in Atlanta and What Remains at the Corcoran in Washington, DC and my reaction in both cases was profoundly different. Perhaps these images have to do with a southern sensibility; perhaps they point to something distinctive about a southern photographic aesthetic.

The images in Deep South are enormous images of southern landscapes; to me they are powerful evocations of both a deep connectedness to the land, to this southern land, and a profound ambivalence about the legacy of that connectedness. This paradoxical set of feelings gets picked up again in the What Remains series, with the images of Civil War battlefields that stand alongside images of haunting faces and rotting corpses and animal skins.

Sally Mann has the power in this work to look, and to invite us to look, at places and histories and their painful, haunting legacies, and our involvement in those legacies. She's the closest person I know to a Faulkner of American photography. I have not seen the What Remains images, but it sounds like she continues to build on her past work in what is apparently a series of loving meditations on her husband's body.

Maybe in these elements of her work there are clues to what makes a southern photographic practice really southern. More later.

NC Photographer Chris Hondros to Show Work at FOTOWeek DC, Speak at the Corcoran Gallery

NC photojournalist (and alumnus of NC State -- go Pack!) Chris Hondros will show and discuss his work at the Corcoran Gallery at 500 Seventeenth Street NW in Washington, DC on Saturday, November 14th from 4-5 pm, as part of FOTOWeek DC.

Chris also has work in an exhibition in Washington entitled "Iraqi Voices," on the wall at Fotoweek Central 3, 3307-D M Street NW, in Washington, through November 14th, 2009. This show also has work by other photojournalists, including Andrea Bruce, Mimi Chakarova, Lori Grinker, Amro Hamzawi, Chris Hondros, Farah Nosh, Robert Nickelsberg, Moises Saman, and Peter Van Agtmael.

Chris is an exceptionally fine photojournalist who has been in dangerous places since the late 1990s, including wars in Kosovo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Kashmir, the West Bank, Iraq, and Liberia.

His work has earned him numerous awards, including multiple honors from World Press Photo in Amsterdam, the International Pictures of the Year Competition, the Visa Pour L'Image in France, and the John Faber award from the Overseas Press Club. In 2006 Hondros won the Robert Capa Gold Medal, war photography's highest honor, for his work in Iraq.

In spite of all this, when he spoke in Raleigh recently, he was in good spirits and could talk about making photographs in dangerous situations with candor, wit, and good humor.

FOTOWeek DC seems to be more about photojournalism and the international photography scene than other photography festivals held in the South. This seems appropriate for a city that is a world capital where history is being made all the time. The proximity of the National Geographic Society also means FOTOWeek DC shows lots of travel and nature photography. So its good to have someone as part of the program who brings a southern perspective to the world.

And if you don't think Washington, DC is in the South, you obviously haven't been there in the summertime.

Liza Faktor Photographs the South, Speaks at FOTOWeek DC

The highly-regarded Russian photographer Liza Faktor will show some of the latest photography emerging from Russia in her talk in the Abramson Family Recital Hall, Katzen Arts Center, American University, at 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, in Washington.

Her talk will be at 2:00 pm on November 7, 2009. Also on the panel will be Lincoln Schatz and Tim Hetherington.

Liza also has work in the show, InsideOutside: New Images from Russis, curated by Lucian Perkins, on display from November 7th, 2009 through November 11th, 2009, at Fotoweek Central 2, 3306 M Street, NW, in Washington, DC. This show of environmental portraits of Russians also includes work by Alexander Gronsky, Olya Ivanova, and Rafal Milach.

Both these events are part of this year's FOTOweek DC, Washington's annual celebration of photography.

So why is Liza showing up in a blog devoted to Southern photography? Because her latest project, Private/Public, includes a large number of images made in Cameron and other places in North Carolina, including Ocracoke,  like the image, above, "Ivan, Ocracoke, NC, 2008."

Liza tells me she visits North Carolina now about two times a year to catch up with friends and to extend this body of work. So, welcome to the South. They say its warmer here than in Russia. Even though Ivan looks a bit chilly in Liza's image.

Southern Photographers at APG Gallery

Atlanta Photography Group is hosting one of the final events in this year's Atlanta Celebrates Photography,with a show featuring Southern Photographers at the APG Gallery, in the Tula Art Center, 75 Bennett Street NW, Space B-1, in Atlanta.

This show was juried by Lisa Hostetler, curator of photographs at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Artists featured include Jeremiah Ariaz, Martin Battilana, Vicki Hunt, Willard Pate, Teresa Sims, and Lee Whittle.

This show opens Friday, November 13, 2009, at 7:30 p.m. Works will be on exhibit through January 15th of 2010.  Lisa Hostetler will talk about the work she chose for this show on Saturday,  November 14, 2009, 11:00 a.m. at the APG Gallery.

I'd love to ask Lisa what she sees as "southern" about the work of these photographers. I will try to engage her via email and will report back if she responds.