Chris Hondros Memorial Exhibition

The multiple-award-winning (and Raleigh, NC-based) photographer Chris Hondros was killed last year while on duty for Getty Images in Libya.

Now, Raleigh's Artspace is hosting a memorial exhibition of Chris' work, opening Friday, April 6th, at Artspace's downtown gallery space at201 East Davie Street, beginning at 6:00 pm.

This show of Chris' work will be up through May 26th, 2012.

Since the late 1990s, Hondros covered most of the world's major conflicts including wars in Kosovo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Kashmir, the West Bank, Iraq, and Liberia.

His work appeared on the covers of magazines such as Newsweek and The Economist, and on the front pages of most major American newspapers, including The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.

Hondros received dozens of awards for his work, 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 2004 Hondros was a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Spot News Photography for his work in Liberia, and in 2006 he won the Robert Capa Gold Medal, war photography's highest honor, for his work in Iraq.

Chris was also named a 2007 "Hero of Photography" by American Photo magazine, and was a 2008 National Magazine Award finalist.

In the Galleries, Spring 2012, Part One

Some updates on photography shows, current, and to come --

Raleigh-based photographer Shawn Rocco is having a show of his camera-phone photographs (see example, above) at the Ackland Museum of Art on the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, up now through April 7th, 2012.

For a nice review of Shawn's show, go here.

There is also a show up at the NC Museum of Art now through May 27th, called Presence/Absence.

This show features work by photographers well-known to readers of this blog, including Jeff Whetstone, Pamela Pecchio, Taj Forer, Rob Amberg, David Simonton, and John Menapace.

The NCMA says of this show, "The photographs in this exhibition, all from the North Carolina Museum of Art’s permanent collection, reveal the constant mutual exchange between an environment and its inhabitants. Each image in Presence/Absence strongly implies human presence, even though we do not see any figures."

And, speaking of Chapel Hill-based photographer Taj Forer, he is opening a show of his work a long way from home, in Los Angeles, in fact, at the LeadApron Gallery, 8445 Melrose Place, in Los Angeles, 

The gallery says this is a show of photographs and objects from Taj's Stone by Stone portfolio, and describes what it will have on offer as "Forer’s masterful and poetic exploration of the materials that make our world," work offering "more than an ode, but a cry of the wild to add to the folklore of where we are today as a species reconnecting us with the magic of our past and a premonition  of our abuse of power."

Further, "Forer’s synesthetic approach to storytelling lures us back, beyond the gloss and gimmickry of the artifact of culture to regions of our pre-verbal brain and yet fast forwards us to the present reminding us of our duty and responsibility to mother earth."

Yes, well, there you have it, and it will be up from April 6th - May 19th of 2012.

To See Ourselves as Others See Us: Interesting Discussion of the South as a Region

 
There is a long, and thoughtful essay on images of the American South in the media on Salon.com, today, by Kristin Rawls, illustrated by the image above, from Jon Haynes.

Rawls says that "Each election cycle the press portrays the region as rural, stupid and monolithically conservative. We're not."

Of course, those of us who have lived here a long time can think of plenty of times when things happened that made it seem like the South is in fact rural, stupid, and monolithically conservative.

I can think of some of those things that are going on right now. And they aren't limited to the geographical South.

But of course there's a lot more to the South than that. Kristin's essay is helpful in pointing some of them out.

You will find it here, from Salon.com.

Chip Simone Chosen as One of the 15 Exciting Contemporary Photographers You Need to Watch

AIPAD is over for 2012, but Atlanta-based photographer Chip Simone continues to get noticed for his participation.

The blog Flavorwire's Paul Laster visited AIPAD and decided to include Chip on his list of the 15 Exciting Contemporary Photographers You Need to Watch. 

This is great recognition for Chip, and for the photography scene in Atlanta.

Laura Noel on the Consciencious Blog

 

Atlanta-based photographer Laura Noel has caught the attention of Joerg Colberg on his very influential blog Conscientious, go here. 

This is for Laura's ongoing series Smoke Break (see image above).

  

Colberg says,  "I think that you want to look at Laura Noel’s Smoke Break first and foremost as good portraiture and second as a body of work about smoking. It’s funny, smoking has always had all kinds of things attached to it - the idea of being cool, and now the social stigma (in a society where all kinds of almost equally unhealthy habits are widely accepted)."

If you are a smoker in Atlanta and want to be immortalized by art, Laura says on her blog that she is "till looking for subjects, if anyone knows of smokers in the metro Atlanta area or the Southeast who would like to have a portrait made" so you might want to contact her (contact information here).

Laura has gotten some well-deserved recognition lately. Her work on this project has also caught the attention of the folks at aCurator magazine, here.  AND her book Law & Order Gets Me Through the Night is now available through the Photo-Eye Online Bookstore.

Laura is a photographer who ought to be on anyone's list of the best photographers in the South. 

Be sure to check out her work.