american soldier

I am one lucky girl. The Nelson-Atkins Museum is basically in my back yard. I've been hearing about this upcoming exhibit for some time now and am eager for it to open. "American Soldier" will grace the walls of the museum soon, and I am really looking forward to seeing it. Below is the notice about the show from the Huffington Post.

'American Soldier' Photos Expose The Many Faces Of Modern War

 “What does a soldier look like? Once you reduce the term to a specific type of serviceman or woman -- taking into account the era, the country, the war, the branch of the military, the rank -- can you settle on a particular image of a soldier? Is she, or more likely he, wearing fatigues or full regalia? Is she being honored or is he in the midst of fighting? Is she stationed in your city or is he currently living in barracks across the globe?

Of course, the actual faces of a sharp shooter in Gettysburg, a Marine Captain in South Korea, and a Private First Class in the Gulf are wildly different. Their daily lives are distinct, their psychological experiences are personal, and as a result, the ways we think about and remember these individuals varies too. But the term ‘soldier’ holds some universal meaning, conjuring scenes of both honor and embattlement, hierarchy and chaos, pride and regret. The many ways we perceive and interpret the concept of ‘soldier,’ in all its complexities, adds up to our collective understanding of conflict around the world.

‘American Soldier,’ an upcoming exhibition at Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, explores this collective understanding. Through 50 portraits of American servicemen and women, from the Civil War to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the show presents a range of emotionally charged images of all contexts.

Judith Joy Ross, American (b. 1946). P.F.C. Maria I. Leon, U.S. Army Reserve, On Red Alert, Gulf War, 1990.

Larry Burrows, English (1926–1971). Reaching Out, First-Aid Center During Operation Prairie, 1966

Larry Burrows, English (1926–1971). The mission over, Farley gives way, from Yankee Papa 13, 1965.

David Douglas Duncan, American (b. 1916). Marine Capt. Ike Fenton, Naktong River Permieter, No-Name Ridge, South Korea, 1950. 

Joe Rosenthal, American (1911–2006). Raising of the Flag on Iwo Jima, February 23, 1945.

W. Eugene Smith, American (1918–1978). Frontline Soldiers with Canteen, 1944. 

Photojournalists and documentarians, artists and loved ones captured these images, focusing on the faces of soldiers as they stand to attention, sleep amidst equipment or beg for medical assistance. From the grim to the glorious, many of these images have or will become part of the visual history of war in the modern age. Just as the photos echo civilians' varied glimpses into the military machine, they reflect the ways in which photographers frame conflict from all sides. W. Eugene Smith focuses on the beads of sweat dripping from a helmet, Joe Rosenthal sees the raising of a very famous flag, Larry Burrows snaps a fleeting grimace and the late Tim Hetherington captures the shadows of a dorm in Afghanistan.

The exhibit will be on view from January 23 to June 21, 2015. The museum is also soliciting images of your own (or your loved ones') military experience. Share your photos on social media and use the hashtag #AmericanSoldierKC to share with the museum.”

from The Huffington Post  |  by Katherine Brooks

ray k. metzker

The world lost one its greatest photographers last week. Ray K. Metzker died at the age of 83. For those of you who had the opportunity to see the gorgeous Metzker exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 2011, I trust you fell in love with his work then - if you hadn’t already been a fan. Metzker’s talk in Kansas City was, at it turned out, his last major public appearance.

Keith F. Davis, curator of that sweeping survey of Metzker’s work (the show also traveled to the Getty in LA and the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle), had this to say then about the work, the man and NAMA's collection of prints:

“Metzker’s photographs strike a unique balance between formal brilliance, optical innovation, and a deep human regard for the objective world. Ray Metzker is one of the most dedicated, innovative, and influential American photographers of the last half-century. His work is at once varied in approach and rigorously unified in creative sensibility: he is interested in both the reality of the world and in the inventive potential of the photographic process itself. Thanks to a 2009 gift from the Hall Family Foundation, the Nelson-Atkins now has the largest institutional holding of Metzker’s work (92 prints) in the country.”

“Ray had a relentless pursuit of personal growth as an artist,” long-time dealer Laurence Miller said of the photographer, whose career spanned six decades. “It didn't take him long to realize a single-frame image is not as interesting as a multi-frame image. He kept exploring and pushing.

“Over the years, the graphic qualities of his work became more emotional. Where black and white images were about light and shadow [in his early work], in his later work they became more about light and darkness as a spiritual thing. The pictures became richer and richer.”

Metzker used a variety of in-camera and darkroom techniques to create his work, including multiple exposures, superimposition and juxtaposition of negatives, and solarization.

He was born in Milwaukee in 1931. After earning a degree at Beloit, he attended the Institute of Design in Chicago from 1956 to 1959. There, he studied under Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, among others.

“What Callahan and Siskind gave to Ray was the belief that you could pursue a lifetime of making pictures, that it was worth doing, rather than being a journalist, or fashion photographer, or commercial photographer as most others did,” Miller said. “Ray chose to live a humble life and make pictures. His work wasn't on the cover of Vogue. He didn't need to scream out, I'm great. He did it very quietly.”

After graduating from the Institute of Design, Metzker spent about two years in Europe before settling in Philadelphia in 1962. In his earliest work, he photographed unaware pedestrians in unassuming urban landscapes, concerning himself with the interplay of light, shadow and graphical elements.

From the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s, he created several ground-breaking bodies of work, including his Composites series, using entire rolls of film to creating single images that could be read in various ways; and his “Pictus Interruptus” series, for which he held objects in front of his camera lens to partially obscure the scene, creating abstract images that juxtaposed in-focus and out-of-focus elements.

During the last three decades of his career, Metzker returned to photographing cityscapes, particularly in Philadelphia, making poetic images that incorporated the vocabulary and technique he had honed over the years.

Ray was an extremely gentle and caring human being who possessed very little ego,” Miller said last week. “He really cared about the average person. His subjects were just ordinary people like you and me. There was no fashion, no models, and it was just about the everyday world. I think that reveals a lot about him. He had a great sense of humor, but he still took things very seriously.”

"He discovered things you'd never notice, never expect - the pattern on something or some cubbyhole," said his wife, the photographer Ruth Thorne-Thomsen. "And the world would never be the same again."

Ms. Thorne-Thomsen would occasionally walk with her husband through Center City, into South Philadelphia, all over the city.

"He would squint, leave one eye open, and then look at his watch," she recalled. "That was so he'd know what time of day it was."

What emerged from his darkroom - Mr. Metzker never used digital technology - "was rich, endlessly rich," she said. "Everything was to be mined, a treasure to be mined."

[some excerpts from an article in PDN were used in this post]

high school photo scholars

Photo Scholar Emma 

Back in February and March I helped teach a class at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The students were high school photographers - recommended by their respective teachers and then hand-picked (based upon their portfolios) by a review panel made up of our teaching team at the museum. The class was built around Robert Frank's "The Americans" and the kids had to shoot as "outsiders" in various situations of their own choosing. The students had critiques with each other, the others teachers on the team and from me. They were treated to presentations by both April Watson and Keith Davis from the museum. And they learned, thanks to Natalie Boten and her team (Molly Hess and Mary Susan Albrecht), how to write a good artist statement (not an easy thing to do). In the end, they each created a small body of work based on the theme of outsider shooting. 

Last night was the opening reception for their show at the museum. It was great fun to see the work on the wall and to see such a big crowd taking it all in. Everyone was impressed. These kids have a lot of talent, and many will be on their way to art school or university in the fall to continue studying photography. I have a feeling we'll be seeing more of their work in the future!

Please take some time to look at these selected images and read the accompanying statements. I think you'll agree there is a lot of good work being made in the high schools of Kansas City and environs. Congratulations to their teachers (many of whom I had the pleasure of meeting last night), to their families for supporting the camera habit and to the photo scholars themselves. 

And thanks to Natalie for talking me into teaching for the first time. I told the kids last night I learned way more than they did. I've heard teachers say that before, and I always thought it was kind of corny, but now I know how true it can be.

The body of work I have created illustrates my personal experiences with individuals in my life and community. The images reflect themes of cooperation, isolation, camaraderie, and compassion. I have captured scenes of individuals in close proximity to one another who simultaneously express a profound sense of loneliness. I am fascinated with my neighborhood, my city, and all of the people that inhabit it. My portraits are just my observations of the human condition as I see it, up close and personal. - Andrew Hartnett

The anxiety I get from unfamiliar situations drives me to make my images. I’ve found I’m very drawn to the things and places that make me uncomfortable. I get this undying curiosity to get up close and explore regardless of unfamiliarity. The need I have to break out of my ever unchanging routine provokes my curiosity. The unfortunate thing about curiosity is doing one thing is simply not enough; you need more, I need more. I look at uncertainties as somewhat of a challenge, I see something I don’t understand and my lack of understanding causes these feelings of anxiety, this is when I am provoked. My images tell the story of my undying curiosity. - Bailey Becvar

Growing up in suburbia has hidden from me the true intrigue of rural America; the hard-working rural America that is untainted by the guise of its pop-culture portrayal in my mind. This collection of images was taken on a short, eye opening trip to a farm near Washington, Kansas where Louis and Iola Carter still maintain a fully operational farm despite their age. The images are aimed to capture the peaceful solidarity found in their simple lives and to express the small joys like companionship primarily through macro portraiture. - Drew Zerbe

The environment that surrounds a specific person or place motivates me to tell my subject’s story. It is in the space surrounding my subject that I discover the real identity of what I am photographing. The small details that surround a person speak volumes of whom that individual is and where they have come from. Being able to enter someone’s space and show interest in what they do allows me to photograph a person intimately, yet indirectly. By allowing my viewers to see parts of what I saw I hope to show a piece of who my subject is through photographs of things that make up who they are. 
- Kat Zahner

The overall sentimental attachments and wondrous shapes of stones is what first attracted me to the Olathe Cemetery. The eerie atmosphere of a grave yard is forbidden land to me. It is a place I have been blessed to be unfamiliar with, and a place I hope to stay that way. It is a place filled with memories and mementos for loved ones who have been lost. I lost one of my best friends in 9th grade, but I never had to watch him be buried. So as I stepped into this cemetery, shivers went down my spine as my heart ache for the rows and rows of stones representing those who have passed away. It was important to me to face my fears of death and loss and to remember those who I have personally parted ways with. Saying goodbye is ultimately the hardest part of life we all have to face and it was time for me to stop avoiding it. - Heather Burton

The past is beautifully inspiring to me, especially since we are all locked in a forward motion. Each decade passes by with its own elegance, leaving behind memories I’ll never be able to feel or know. I photograph the past because it’s the buildup of generations giving to the future. Their legacy is laid out before us, and I have learned to stop, look, and appreciate. From color choice to cropping, it’s for my viewers to recognize the value of what has been granted to us from a previous time. - Bridget Wray

Feeling invisible is something we all suffer at some point in our lives, making us feel mundane and unnoticeable. In my work I show how special an individual can be, even a stranger you might not even give another glance. I think a person’s true uniqueness comes out when they are not being noticed and going along with their day. Not only are a person’s thoughts shown through their facial expressions, but also their body positions. Some people easily show their emotions, while others have learned to hide it. My photos capture the distinctiveness of each person and how they portray themselves to the people around them. This may be from the way they walk, hold an object, or communicate to another person. I want to show the individuality of everyone and everything they do, and let people know that they are noticed. - Delaney Rundell

I am a suburban young adult who lives in the midst of Johnson County. Where I live, the buildings are small, alike, and boring. Because of seeing the same-old, same-old, I went to a place that is unique to me—the city. It is an area that I occasionally visit but I have never gone there to wander around. There, I stood next to buildings hundreds of feet off the ground and I looked like a tiny five foot ant compared to any one of them. As I took in their various characteristics, the buildings broke away from the humdrum repetition that I seem to see every day. While I explored the scenery even more, I found that I constantly kept my head up in awe at the skyscrapers. I have a strange attraction to the city, even though I rarely visit. The city makes me wonder because it represents my dreams. It represents where I want my future to be. - Zanah Maggio

Photography has helped me notice the little things in life. My photos are primarily of nature or landscapes, and being able to notice the small stuff has changed my perspective. I am able to notice the patterns, textures, and shadows that haven’t been touched or altered. Photography has helped me step out of my comfort zone; I now talk to people that I might not have before or go somewhere that might be scary. It helps break the boundaries that people have. - Reagan Key

With this group of photographs I decided to show a side of America that has been replaced. Society is forever evolving into something bigger and better. As society changes, objects that were left behind are looked at as being no longer important. On this path of destruction the existence of identity is dying and leaving these areas to fend for themselves. Light is often thought to symbolize life. The light shown in each photograph represents this life the areas have developed separate from today’s society. From an outsider’s perspective, this life is often overlooked. But for this group of images I wanted to show the lives that still exist in areas that are no longer inhabited. - Ashley Castillo

My photos are about being an outsider — not only that, but they are about being uncomfortable in my surroundings. Forcing myself to be in an unsettling environment produced cohesive photos with a sense of tension or uneasiness, both in open, expansive spaces, and closed, inaccessible spaces. The closed off, confined perspectives of my photos reflect my mentality while taking photos, of being focused on my work, and ignoring the outside world—the world which scares me and makes me uneasy—the unknown. Through photography, I can take what unnerves me and control it. Through this control, I can know my subject. - Nina Friesen

My photography depicts an array of emotions one encounters upon entering an infrequently visited neighborhood, ranging from a state of rejection to one of acceptance. I often happen upon places or situations in which, by the rules of society, I should feel estranged or uncomfortable, but my experience is quite the contrary. Even if I feel somewhat shut out at first, it is only due to the fact that what I am experiencing is new, but then all that I am left with is the chance to explore. Though I may be placed in a different area of the city, in a different social class with different norms, life is actually eerily similar in many respects wherever you go. Unfamiliarity should not stand as an obstacle but rather an opportunity to widen boundaries. By including varied subjects, narrative and not, I hope to encourage viewers to consider all terms of encountering boundaries so they, too, can pursue unknown territory with a sense of connection. - Emma Girson

As an immigrant from Russia, my view on America has never been typical. I have experienced two vastly different cultures firsthand, and feel equally out of place in both. I grew up in a country where misery and poverty were prominent as the societal norm, and the transition to the United States, a place so colored by a false feeling of carefree joy and commercial prosperity, was overwhelming. I feel like an outsider almost everywhere I go, and I cannot relate to the American dream. Since I’ve never truly felt like an American, I depict the country as a foreigner would; vast, proud, disparate, and often uninviting. My work often has themes of pervasive consumerist culture, erroneous grandeur, and isolation. I depict people in solitude or alienation, despite their favorable circumstances and collective ideology, to reflect my own perceptions and experiences. - Veronica Loskutova

Natalie wore this fabulous camera skirt to the opening

One of the first reviews of the show came in yesterday from the director of the museum, Julian Zugazagoitia:  

"I just walked the photo exhibition and was really taken by its diversity and quality. Also by the artists statements. Very strong. I particularly connected with the statement from the young Russian emigrant who expresses her feeling to be assimilated neither here nor there; the perfect position for the observer, the photographer…"

The exhibition will be on view in the Ford Learning Center at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art until June 29th. I hope you'll make some time to check out.

an outsider

Yesterday during the Photo Scholar class I'm helping teach at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, I made a presentation about photographing as an "outsider." Below you can read what I had to say and see a few of the pictures I shared.

When I went to Uganda for the first time in 2006, I was as much of an outsider as I could possibly be. Here I was in one of the poorest countries in the world, surrounded by Christian and Muslim people with very dark skin who spoke little or no English. Poor sanitation and disease are rampant in Uganda, and in this one African country alone, there are 2.5 million orphans.

I am a white, Jewish girl from a comfortable middle class family, raised in Kentucky. I’ve never truly been hungry. I’ve always known where I would lay my head at night. I’ve had access to clean water, good medical care and a loving, supportive family my whole entire life.

On day one of the two-week long photography workshop I was taking, our teacher gathered us for an orientation meeting. I was still hung over with jetlag from the long flight, and I was nervous about being in Africa and being with a group of 15 photographers I’d never met before. After a brief presentation, he told us all to go down to the curb in front of the hotel. Within a few minutes, he had rounded up 15 motorcycle taxis, and he instructed us each to hop on one. My heart was racing. No helmets, no idea where we were going and no introduction to the very black man around whose waist I had suddenly wrapped my arms.

Thatcher, my teacher, totally in his element

me: terrified but excited

We flew through the streets of Kampala, weaving our way around cars and pedestrians. I quickly realized the next two weeks was going to be the most exhilarating experience I’d ever had. I decided right then, on the back of that motorcycle, that I was going to dive into Uganda head first and as fully as possible. Why else venture so far from home?

Our teacher took us to a huge outdoor market and told us to go in and make pictures - that we should return to our motorcycles in half an hour. The market was wall-to-wall people – a sea of bodies pressing against each other. The sounds and the smells were overwhelming. I was terrified, and I was thrilled beyond belief. As soon as I started making my way through the crowd, my camera poised for action, people started calling out “Muzuungu! Muzuungu!” I was such an outsider I didn’t even know what the word meant (slang for white person I found out later). I managed to shoot a few pictures, but mostly I was overcome with the realization that - other than my classmates, who had been swallowed up by the teeming crowd in a matter of minutes, I was the only Caucasian in sight.

How does one even begin to make images of a place and a group of people that are miles beyond her understanding? And why should she even try? How could I possibly begin to tell the stories of the people around me? But wasn’t that the reason I had come to Africa in the first place?

Of course, I couldn’t really tell anyone’s story that day. All I could do was tell my own: my trepidation, my curiosity, my eagerness and my excitement definitely showed through in the pictures I made that day (unfortunately all of those pictures except one very small digital file were lost when my laptop was stolen a few days later).

I think the whole point of the assignment was to make us dig deep and consider what we, as photographers, were really made of. How willing were we to step outside our comfort zones?  If we were willing stretch ourselves, how would we navigate that new terrain, and what kind of pictures would we ultimately want to make?

The next day, I went to a boxing gym to make pictures. Rather than hang on the sidelines, I got right in the middle of the action, making it clear I was there because I was a serious artist and that I was highly respectful of the men and women training there. There was a lot of joking around, too. I had recently been doing some kick boxing back home, and I showed them some of my moves. I think that made them feel more comfortable having me there. I just kept it honest and respectful and loose and fun.

A couple days later, we boarded a rickety old bus headed for the southwestern part of the country. After a daylong drive, we arrived at a very small, rural village where no one spoke English. Each of us was assigned to a family, with whom we would spend the next three days. My family consisted of Margaret and her several young children, nieces and nephews. She farmed a small piece of land behind their mud hut.

 So, we couldn’t communicate with one another verbally – only nods and smiles and a lot of pointing. The first thing I realized was that it was best to leave my camera in its bag until we all figured out a way to feel comfortable around each other. Remarkable things started to happen once I just let myself BE with them… sharing a meal, kicking a beat up old soccer ball around with the kids, walking with them to the water hole, meeting and greeting the family goat. We all opened ourselves to each other, because we were curious (these kids were not accustomed to seeing a Muzuungu) and well, we eventually figured out we were all just regular old human beings.

When I did bring out my camera, they were fascinated by it. The novelty wore off after a bit, though, and then they didn’t pay much attention to it. I was able to make pictures without the kids hamming it up or even feeling self-conscious because it was clear that I was truly interested in what they were doing at any given moment.

I tried not to let my camera come between us as we forged our relationships. And because I was not a threatening presence, the family went about its business – eventually forgetting I was even shooting pictures. (Examples of this work are few, because most of those, too, were stolen along with my laptop.)

My next overwhelming assignment was to do an extended body of work at one particular NGO. Mine was St. Mary Kevin Orphanage Motherhood, a place I innocently entered one day thinking I’d just take some pictures and leave. Little did I know this would be a place I would return to year after year. It has taken time and patience to gain the full trust of the people there. I am still an outsider, but maybe not quite as much as I was in 2006.

These first two pictures reveal the mistrust that was evident on some of the kids’ faces. Who could blame them? But as the days went by, and we began to know one another, I was able to make pictures that were less about me being a voyeur and more about me being an image-maker and a storyteller.

So here are my tips for you to consider as you make your own outsider photographs:

- Don’t greet your subjects with your camera. Greet them with your hand extended.

- Do what you can to make them feel comfortable around you.

- Be respectful. Treat your subjects with dignity.

- Establish some kind of rapport before you even start shooting.

- Let your subjects know somehow that you are in this together; it’s a dance, a collaboration of sorts.

- Understand that nothing will change the fact that you are an outsider.

- Realize that because of that context, your pictures will take on an importance and meaning of their own. So embrace it.

- Remember that while you are telling their story, you are also telling your own.

In the end, the stories I’m telling are all from an outsider’s point of view. How could they be anything else? The challenges inherent in making images so far removed from my own reality have taught me a lot about a different culture, and in turn… a lot about myself.  The fact that these are outsider photos, and nothing I can do will really ever change that, ultimately helps define what this body of work is all about.

My two cents. For what it's worth.