Celebrating Three Years of Jeff Rich's Eyes on the South

EYES ON THE SOUTH

The folks at the Oxford American are celebrating three years of Jeff Rich's weekly feature EYES ON THE SOUTH, which the Oxford American (and lots of the rest of us too!) regards as one of their "most admired online projects."

Each week, Rich brings us us work by an exceptional Southern photographer. 

As Rich does this, he demonstrates a fine and discriminating eye for Southern photography.

Rich also demonstrates remarkable persistence in maintaining this challenging schedule while meeting all his other responsibilities as an artist and a professor in the School of Art and Art History at the University of Iowa. 

Jeff says he is always on the lookout for new work, and you can submit yours at oa.eyesonthesouth@gmail.com.

Photographers featured by Rich on EYES ON THE SOUTH since we last checked include Columbia, SC-based photographer Elle Olivia Anderson (see image above and story here).

 

Also Atlanta-based photographer Maury Gortemiller (see image above and story here).

Also Columbus, Ohio-based photographer Ari Gabel (see image above and story here).

 Also, Atlanta-based photographer Rusty Miller (see image above and story here). 

Also,  New Orleans-based photographer Cate Colvin Sampson (see image above and story here).

 
Finally, Durham, NC-based photographer Aaron Canipe (see image above and story here).

Congratulations to all these fine folks, and to Jeff Rich for bringing their work to our attention. 

More, later, about EYES ON THE SOUTH -- keep watching this space.
 

Maude Schuyler Clay Celebrated in the New Yorker

Work from Greenwood, MS-based photographer Maude Schuyler Clay's portfolio Mississippi History has been celebrated by Richard Ford in The New Yorker's Photo Booth blog, go here.  

Ford says of Clay's images that they " are especially human—in their subject matter, and in the photographer’s insistence that we be moved by art to look closely, and that photographs are good when they are as complex as we are."

"History is largely what historians demonstrate it to be, and the photographer’s guiding thought, here, for how to portray history is no more a casual affair than is the character of each individual image."

To Ford, these images "bespeak the informality of life lived in a place. 

"They seem in their acute anecdotal particulars—a woman’s facial set, a man’s brimming eyes, a child’s posture of seeming indifference to the camera—to be the product of human relationships.

"In spite of their seductive informality, there is never a deflating sensation of the impromptu about these pictures, never a feeling of their subjects being casually caught, or of life being camera-stolen. 

"Instead, each image affects us as an enactment, a photographic performance.

"Informality, familiarity, and candor are transformed by this authority and persistence and deftness into an aesthetic quotient. 

"And these qualities spell out, as well, the work’s moral position: that to see humans more closely, more discerningly, is life-affirming and good."

Thanks to Ford for thoughtful meditations on Clay's work, and congratulations to Clay for earning this well-deserved recognition.

South by Southeast Photo Magazine for Late Fall 2015

Nancy McCrary and all the fine folks at South X Southeast Photomagazine have released their second issue under the new, all-online format.

With the November/December issue for 2015, South by Southeast Photomagazine is all on the web, and on the new website, and entirely free.

Photographers whose work is featured in this issue include Marilyn Suriani (see image above), Beatrice Chauvin (see image below), and Simon Brann Thorpe (see image below Chauvin's).

And a whole bunch of other photographers, too numerous to mention, as well as all the interviews, book reviews, and other features we have come to expect of McCrary and her colleagues at SxSE.

This is not to be missed. Check it out today.

What a gift to us all, this SxSE publication!

Updated -- Beatrice Chauvin Reports From Paris

Honorary Southern Photographer Beatrice Chauvin lives in Paris when she is not photographing in the Mississippi Delta. 

The image of her above was taken during her show of work from her UNBROKEN portfolio at the BB King Museum in Indianola, MS, back in October. 

She now reports from Paris that she is fine, and has posted this statement on her Facebook page for her friends in the American South:

"I just saw in one of our biggest newspapers that "Les Français sont plongés dans l'effroi," meaning that we French people are scared to death after the attacks. 

"I am shocked to read such words, and I am writing these lines in English on purpose. 

"We are not scared to death-- yes we are worried, we are concerned, of course we are. 

"Our pain is big and the scars will take time for healing. 

"Behind our everyday life, our everyday gestures like getting up, making coffee, taking the metro and going to work, going to the "boulangerie" or chez le "boucher", making dinner, meeting friends-- behind all these gestures and behind our smiles, are tears. 

"It will last long. But we are brave and resistant and we carry on our lives, finding comfort in beautiful moments shared with our families, or watching a colored sunset on Notre -Dame, or listening to the peace of a garden in the early morning, or drinking a glass of wine with friends with baguette and cheese (Roquefort or Chèvre or Camembert).

"We must keep hoping. And we do."

Chauvin says she aspires to continue walking in the light by working on her new portfolio of Delta photographs, called Slivers of Luminescence.

This portfolio will include the images above, made during her most recent trip to the Delta. 

Good to hear about light in a dark time. To quote Leonard Cohen, there is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

Shannon Johnstone's Landfill Dogs

Raleigh, NC-based photographer Shannon Johnstone has published her book Landfill Dogs, portraits of dogs who would make great pets but who are incarcerated in shelters and -- unless they are rescued -- are on the way to the landfill. 

This book documents the tragedy of the careless overpopulation of dogs that results from our thoughtless treatment of dogs as property, as well as celebrating the infinite variety of joyful dogginess. 

Johnstone loves dogs, and is a genius at capturing their spirit. This book is for dog lovers, and lovers of stunning images of our canine best friends.

You can get the book here. Ten dollars from the sale of every book goes to Have a Heart, a fund that provides treatment for heart worm disease to shelter dogs.