Amanda Greene Comes Home

Athens, GA--based photographer Amanda Greene is now featured on the Bitter Southerner blog with work made since her return to the South after seventeen years in California.

Greene grew up in Georgia, then found her way to California for her education as a photographer and for the early stages of her career. 

Her work shows us the kinds of things that look distinctive to someone who has been away. Here, the ordinary becomes compelling, the familiar becomes strange.

Greene also has a great eye for light, especially that Southern light that is strong and pervasive and difficult to photograph.

We noticed Greene's work before, when she was featured on Jeff Rich's Eyes on the South, back in July of 2013.

Good to have this reminder of her fine work from the Bitter Southerner.

UPDATED -- Southern Photographers in the News -- Late Spring, 2014

Several items of interest at the mid-point of May:

1. Los Angeles-based -- but Southern educated -- photographer Kristin Bedford (see image above) has a major show of her work opening on May 30th, 2014, Daylight Project Space at 121 W. Margaret Lane, in Hillsborough, NC.

This show is entitled The Perfect Picture: A journey into the mystery and nature of enduring faith. For more information on the work, go here.

Bedford's work addresses basic issues in Southern history and culture, that is, as she puts it, the question "of where we live – the streets we walk down, the places we worship in, the homes we create, and the spaces between it all."

 2. The Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris has up now through July 27th, 2014 a major retrospective show of the work of Distinguished Southern Photographer Emmet Gowin (see image above).

Definitely worth a look, if your summer travels take you to Paris.

3. Nashville-based photographer Tamora Reynolds (see image above) has had work from her Southern Route portfolio chosen for inclusion in the  American Photography Annual, issue 29 and issue 30.

She will also have work in the Communication Arts Photography Annual for 2014 when it comes out later this year.

4. Fayetteville, GA-based photographer Donna Rosser has had a photograph (see image above) chosen through the Open to Interpretation competition as the cover art for the book Love + Lust, available here.

5. Dallas-based photographer Brandon Thibodeaux (see image above) has had work from his When Morning Comes portfolio featured on the New York Times' Lens blog, here.

6. Chapel Hill, NC-based photographer Lori Vrba (se image above) is interviewed in the latest issue of Art Photo Feature magazine, here. 

7. Atlanta-based photographer Kendra Elise (see image above) is touring the country this summer making tintype portraits and giving workshops in this ancient but still vital photographic practice.

There will be a send-off party for her travels at Fall Line Press, 675 Drewry Street, in Atlanta, Thursday, June 5th, 2014, from 6:00 pm.

8. Finally, for now, the photographers featured on Jeff Rich's ongoing series Eyes on the South on the Oxford American blog since last we checked are:

Sarah Hoskins (see image above)
Tracy Fish + Tim Hodge (see image below)

Glenn Hall (see image below)

Rich has now started a series of entries called "Best of Eyes on the South." The first of these compendiums of images is here.

As always, folks, more to come!

Bull City Summer at the Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh

The second installation of work from the Bull City Summer project is now up at the Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) in downtown Raleigh, through August 31st, 2014.

The first installation is up at the NC Museum of Art, and we reported on that here. 

The show at CAM opened last night with a heavily-attended reception that included a guest appearance by Wool E. Bull himself (see image above by Ivan Weiss), a cappella performances of ballpark classics by the vocal group Stella, scratch-made ballpark food from Posh Nosh, a Merge Records playlist,  and samples of local craft beers.

My teacher Leah Sobsey was there, to enjoy watching people admire her work. Other photographers were in the house, including my friend David Simonton, and Allen Thomas, the patron of all things photographic in eastern North Carolina.

This Bull City Summer exhibition includes work by photographers Alex Harris, Frank Hunter, Kate Joyce, Elizabeth Matheson, the aforementioned Leah Sobsey, Alec Soth, Hank Willis Thomas, Hiroshi Watanabe, Ivan Weiss and Jeff Whetstone.

The installation also features a 90-minute feature documentary film by Weiss, and two short films by Joyce and Thomas.

The book of work from this project, Bull City Summer, from Daylight Books,is also on display at CAM, and available for purchase at CAM's shop.

Bull City Summer, as a concept, and as a project, continues to grow. It now has a trailer, see below,  a concept that has, or ought to have, something to do with the movie Bull Durham (aren't trailers invitations to see a movie), but doesn't.

Although this trailer does explain some of the complexities of the project, especially for photographers.



 If you are interested, go here for the trailer for the movie Bull Durham.

And for one of the greatest moments from the movie, go here.

Here is a five-minute highlight video of the movie.

But, photography aside, if you haven't seen Bull Durham, you really need to see it. If you have seen it, you know what I mean.

There will be another show of work from Bull City Summer at the American Tobacco Warehouse complex across the street from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.

Details later.

Roger May is having a great 2014, and the year's only begun

Raleigh-based photographer Roger May is having a great 2014, and it's only, well, May.

May he continue to thrive.  Here is some of what's been going on.

May's new book Testify is out from Horse and Buggy Press, and selling like hotcakes. This is a beautifully-done book in two volumes, classy, full of fine images of Appalachia.

If you don't have a copy yet, go here.

A portfolio of May's work, A Love Letter to Appalachia, has appeared on the first-class online eZine The Bitter Southerner.

May has also been featured in Rural Life, a new magazine published by the folks at American Guide, that also features more Southern photographers among the contributors, who aalso include Tammy Mercure,  EE Berger, James Bernal, Mitch Borden, Aaron Canipe, Dan Caruso, Michael Cevoli, Matt Curtis, Breonne DeDecker, Elicia Epstein, Christian Hendricks, Ben Hinceman,  Noelle McCleaf, Peter Spear, Rob Walters, and Tara Wray.

May is also IN American Guide, here. 

Roger has also started a new project,  Looking at Appalachia | 50 Years After the War on Poverty, for which contributions are being solicited. He also participated in a symposium, Portraying Appalachia, for the Oxford American, here, that also includes work by Stacy Kranitz, May, Rob Amberg, and Kate Fowler, all experienced photographers of Applachia..

Last March 29th, Roger and Stacy Kranitz moderated a panel on contemporary photography in Appalachia, featuring Kate Fowler, Jared Hamilton, Lauren Schneiderman, and Jeff Whetstone.

His photographs (see image above) documenting the aftermath of the Great Chemical Spill in West Virginia recently appeared in the Guardian (UK), here.

Congratulations to Roger May on all this fine recognition, and initiative, and achievement!

S[x]SE for May/June 2014

The latest issue (Volume IX, Issue 3) of South by South East (S[x]SE) Photography Magazine is now out for May/June 2014, and it has all the fine photography and engaging features we have come to expect from S[x]SE.

Editor Nancy McCrary features in this issue portfolios of work that all deal in one way or another with the subject of the flora and fauna of the American South.

Portfolios offered here are by the photographers Chip Cooper, Christian Harkness, James Knudsen, Jody Fausett (see image just above), Don Norris (see image at the top), Frank Fuerst, David Foster, Kent Krugh, Rick Smith,  Shaun Kelly, Stephanie Bryan, Carolyn Meltzer,  Andrew Feiler,  Barry Udis, and Dede Lusk (see image below).  

In addition to all this fine photography there are book notices and reviews and other features we have come to expect, and value, from S[x]SE.

And you can have access to all this fine -- and award-winning -- work for a very reasonable fee, a very reasonable fee indeed.

To subscribe, to do the right thing, go here.

Don't put it off any longer. We Southern photographers need to support our basic institutions,

You know you should subscribe. You know it, you really do.

Richard Sexton at Rebekah Jacob Gallery

We generally think of the American South as historically and culturally as well as physically connected to the rest of the United States.

But much of the coastal South also shares deep historical and cultural ties with lands and peoples to the east and south, among the islands of the Caribbean as well as in Central and South America.

New Orleans-based photographer Richard Sexton has a show opening May 20th, 2014 at Rebekah Jacobs Gallery in Charleston that reminds us of this fact.

Called Creole World: Photographs of New Orleans and the Latin Caribbean Sphere, this show uses chiefly images of architecture to demonstrate ties between cities like Wilmington, NC, Charleston, SC, Savannah, GA, and especially New Orleans and coastal cities in Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Haiti, and particularly Cuba.

As Rebekah Jacob points out, all these places are "uniquely and historically connected . . . through the trade in cotton, indigo and slaves in the 19th century."

These port cities were founded as New World outposts of Old World empires. Their ties in the 18th and 19th centuries were more often with each other than they were with inland parts of their own countries.

 

Sexton brings strong compositional skills, an unerring eye for form, and an uncanny feeling for light to this work.  

Opening festivities for the show include a lecture by Sexton on Tuesday, May 20th at 6:00 pm, and a formal opening reception with the artist on Wednesday the 21st beginning at 5:30 pm, all at Rebehak Jacob Gallery, 502 Upper King St., in downtown Charleston.

 Sexton already has a book out featuring this portfolio of his work. You can learn more about the work, and the book, if you visit Sexton's website, here.

Rebekah Jacob has this show up through June 30th of this year. Clearly well worth a visit!

News from LOOK3 -- the Festival of the Photograph

The folks behind LOOK3, the Festival of the Photograph, in Charlottesville, Virginia, will be staging their next signature event in 2015, but they have been busy lately with a host of activities.

Victoria Hindley has taken over as Executive Director of the Festival, bringing an extensive background in arts management and promotion.

There is a new website, here. 

As for programming, two events are coming up this summer in Charlottesville.

Starting on  May 16th and running through July 8th, LOOK3 will transform Charlottesville's historic downtown into an immersive public art space featuring the work of National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore.

Sartore will give an Artist's Talk on June 18th, at 7.30pm in Charlottesville's Paramount Theater.

Go here for more information on Sartore's work, on this exhibition, and on Sartore's talk.. 

Plans are also in place for this summer's LOOKbetween and LOOK3 Mentorship Programs, focusing this year on 2 days of programming set for June 12th and 14th at Deep Rock Farm, a spectacular setting nestled in the Shenandoah Valley.

Tickets are on sale now for two evenings of dinner parties and outdoor projections featuring the work of emerging photographers from around the world.

Go here to learn more about LOOKbetween and the LOOK3 Mentorship Program.

The LOOK3 Festival is a splendid festival, worthy of our support and attendance.

If you are so inclined, and it would be a fine thing if you were, you can help out on May 6th, 2014, by participating in Give4 Good, a national online Day of Giving sponsored by the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation.

Your tax deductible donation will help the folks at LOOK3 realize their plans.