4xafrica

Chris Smith

Elaine Ling

Brendan Bannon

I'm heading to San Francisco this week for the opening of the exhibition 4xAfrica at the RayKo Photography Center. If you are in the bay area, please stop by and say hello. The opening reception is Thursday night from 6 - 8 PM. RayKo is located at 428 Third Street.

From the website:

"Four artists, four takes on one continent. Or rather, four very different approaches to capturing the essence of what they’ve experienced in Africa. Gloria Baker Feinstein travels to Uganda photographing the orphaned children whose stories swell our hearts. Her images are at once tragic and beautiful, lyrical black and white portraits of innocence and experience. And then there is Brendan Bannon who normally photographs what others find difficult to view: refugees, AIDS patients, Somali pirates, dumpsites, but here at RayKo he will show the pictures that came in between his journeys across the continent: pastoral Africa, with images like the smallest boy minding the largest herd of camels I’ve ever seen. Another photographer, Elaine Ling has become obsessed with the Baobab tree, the gigantic trees, 1,000 years old, tower over the humans that share the land with them. Elaine, thanks to her 4×5 camera, attempts to make prints as big as the Baobab itself. Chris Smith, magazine writer and photographer based here in San Francisco, focuses on a part of Africa fewer folks think of: Urban Africa, with his raw color photographs of the unexpected beauty of some of the grittier cities on the continent. This RayKo exhibition displays four diverse views of one mysterious and amazing place: 4xAfrica."