30 Days, 30 Photographers

We profiled one donating photographer every day during the month leading up to "Picture Equality" 2011. This past year's work spans from photojournalism to fine art, from social documentary to personal history, from aesthetics to activism and everything in between.

1: Mustafah Abdulaziz is a Brooklyn-based documentary photographer whose work explores social identification and cultural disconnect. He is a member of the international photography collective MJR and was the first contract photographer at the Wall Street Journal. His photos have been published in the New York Times, Newsweek, and many other publcations. You can see more of his work here.

"Fresh Pond Yard, Middle Village, Queens, New York City, 2010."

 

2: Ed Kashi is a photojournalist, filmmaker, and educator who has been documenting social and political issues for decades. A member of the photo agency VII, Mr. Kashi's images have been published and exhibited worldwide. His work has garnered many prizes, including UNICEF's 2010 Photo of the Year Award, and he has been published in National Geographic, the New York Times Magazine, TIME Magazine and beyond. For more information, visit his website here.

"Kirkuk, Iraq, 2005."

 

3. Mark Parascandola is a D.C.-based photographer interested in the movement of human population and architecture as evidence of social, environmental, and economic processes. Recently he spent time in the desert region of Almeria, Spain, documenting the remains of old film sets created for Sergio Leone's spaghetti western films in the 1960s and 1970s. Mr. Parascandola has exhibited in multiple venues in D.C. and Spain, and he was recently selected as a 2011 finalist for the Sondheim Prize. You can see more of his work here.

"Miami Marine Stadium."

 

4. Brian Derballa is a freelance documentary photographer living in Brooklyn, NY. Recent photo projects have centered around secular Muslims in America, moped gangs in Brooklyn, and onion farmers in Colombia. He has contributed work to The Wall Street Journal, Wired.com, MotherJones.com, and many other outlets. And at last year's Critical Exposure auction, one of these photos started a vicious bidding war! To see more of Bryan's work, visit his website and his blog.

"Farm in the Floodplains, Amazon, February 2011."

 

5. Danny Clinch is one of the premier photographers and videographers of the popular music scene. He has profiled Johnny Cash, Tupac Shakur, Bjork, Bruce Springsteen, as well as the two men featured below, whom we think you'll recognize. His work has been published in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and countless other publications. He has also earned two Grammy Award nominations for direction in music documentaries.  More of Danny's work can be found here.

"Bill Clinton & Sir Paul McCartney."

 

6. Susanna Raab and her camera have explored overconsumption in America, the lives of migrant workers in Immokalee, FL, and historical reenactments of Biblical events. She has also been recognized for her photo talents by the IPA/Lucie Awards, Ernst Hass, and the White House News Photographers' Association, and she has been published in Rolling Stone, Time, and the New York Times Travel section. But we this D.C.-based photographer most when she guest-teaches a Critical Exposure class! More of Susanna's work can be found here.

"William Faulkner’s Desk, Rowan Oak, Oxford, Mississippi 2007."

 

7. Norihisa Hosaka grew up in Tokyo as a self-described otaku ("geek"). He dabbled in writing and IT before finding his calling in photography later in life. In the series "Pax Technodelica," Hosaka explores the landscape of Tokyo as a Cyberpunk city, both from the perspective of the past and as a vision of the future. Shooting in black and white with an HDRI (high dynamic range imaging) camera, Hosaka creates a brilliant, ghostly portrait of the dynamic city of his birth. He was selected as one of PhotoLucida's "Critical Mass" photographers in 2010. You can see more of his work here.

From the series "Pax Technodelica."

 

8. Jason Florio has traveled the globe for more than twelve years as a photojournalist. He was in Afghanistan in August 2001 and at the foot of the World Trade Center in September. In 2004 he won a grant to produce "This is Libya," the first-ever assigned story for Aperture magazine. He trekked across The Gambia by foot in 2009, resulting in a project that won him first place in the International Photography Award's "People" category. In between he profiled pirates in Somalia, artists in Beijing, and cafe denizens in Baghdad. You've undoubtedly seen his work in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the Times of London. This guy must never sleep! You can see more of his work here.

From a series on India.

 

9. Keith Lane is a freelance photographer and multimedia producer based in D.C. Keith has degrees in both Documentary Studies (from the Salt Institute) and in Environmental Education, Policy, and Advocacy (from Lesley University). His dueling interests have taken him to Cambodia, Haiti, and Bangladesh to document climate change and community concerns. Next month the Hillyer Art Space in D.C. will open iwishyouwerehere, an "instant documentary" project comprised solely of photos taken on Keith's iPhone. We are thrilled that he is also donating to our auction. See more of his work here.

From "Reawakening Cambodia."

 

10. Greg Marinovich is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who cut his teeth (and won his Prize) covering the anti-apartheid movements in South Africa. He later wrote the book The Bang Bang Club, an account of that tumultuous period as seen through the lens of a photojournalist and his cohorts. Over the next 18 years of Greg's career, that photo and countless others have appeared on front pages and in magazines across the world -- Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian of London hto name but a few. Recently he finished as Editor-in-Chief of the World Press Photo and Lokaalmundial’s 2010 project, mentoring and training journalists, writers, photographers, radio journalists and multi-media practitioners from across Africa. See work from his long and varied career here.

 

11. Colin Winterbottom is a D.C. photographer through and through. Born and raised in the metropolitan area, self-taught in its environs, and perpetually fascinated by its landscapes, Winterbottom lives and breathes Washington. He has been awarded several fellowship grants from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts for the probing camera lens he uses to re-imagine D.C.'s most familiar landmarks and to excavate remnants of its forgotten history. He has been profiled in the Washington Post, the Washington Times, The Washington Blade, and Metro Weekly, and his work has been exhibited in galleries across the city including the Smithsonian Institute's prestigious Photographic History Collection. We're very excited that he has chosen to share a piece of D.C. history with us for our auction. To see more of his work, click here.

"St. Elizabeth's Mental Hospital, historic West campus."

 

12. Nikki Kahn has been a staff photojournalist at the Washington Post since 2005. For her coverage of Haiti after its devastating earthquake, Kahn received the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. Before working at the Post she had been a photographer and editor at Knight-Ridder Tribune Photo Service in D.C., as a staff photographer at the Indianapolis Star, and as an intern at the Washington Times, the News Journal in Wilmington, Del., and the Anchorage Daily News in Alaska. We are honored that Ms. Kahn has donated a print of one of her Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs. Please visit her website to see more of her work.

"'The Elderly.' Idamise Pierre leans against a tree, her withered skin resembling its bark, as she waits to bathe at the Azil Communal Home for the Aging. With weary resignation, the elderly have endured decades of Haiti's poverty and political turmoil and in their twilight years are now left with heavy hearts by the earthquake that eternally altered their lives. (Nikki Kahn, The Washington Post - March 13, 2010)"

 

13. Damon Winter's photography career is off the charts. His photo essay on sexual abuse victims in western Alaska was part of a portfolio that earned the 2005 National Journalism Award for Photojournalism. In 2009, after joining the New York Times, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for his coverage of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. And just recently, in September 2011, he received an Emmy Award in the "New Approaches to News and Documentary Programming” category for his NY Times multimedia project, " A Year at War," which chronicles the lives of a single American battalion over their yearlong deployment in Afghanistan. We are honored that Mr. Winter has donated a print from that Emmy Award-winning series for this year's auction, as well as a very special bonus photo! To see more of his work, visit his website here.

"A helicopter landed to evacuate Petty Officer First Class John Kremer after he stepped on a mine. Qurghan Tapa, Afghanistan. Sept. 17th."

 

14. Donald Miralle is a freelance photographer based in Southern California with over 30 international awards to his credit. He has covered nearly every major sporting event world-wide including six Winter and Summer Olympic Games, eight Super Bowls, The World Series, The Masters, and the Indianapolis 500 to name a few. He has also documented big wave surfing in Hawaii, wildlife in Tanzania, and Sumo Wrestling in Japan. His editorial work has appeared in Getty Images, Newsweek, ESPN the Magazine, and the Discovery Channel, as well as on the Today Show, ESPN, and NBC. We are very excited that he has donated such a stunning photo to our auction. See more of Mr. Miralle's work here.

Michael Phelps.

---6 DAYS OF LUCEO---

  Luceo Image is a photographer owned and operated cooperative with six members, all of whom have donated to Critical Exposure's auction this year. We wish to recognize their collective contributions by giving them their own 6-day week!

15.  Matt Slaby is a photographer based in Denver, Colorado. Before turning his attention to photography, he traveled the western United States as a wildland firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service Hotshots also working winters as an EMT with a metropolitan ambulance service. He also has a law degree. Slaby interned at U.S. News & World Report covering the 2006 congressional elections and the Washington, D.C. political circuit, including the White House and U.S. Capitol. His photos have appeared in U.S. News & World Report, Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian Magazine, Mother Jones, The Bureau of Land Management, Audubon Magazine, and the Human Rights Campaign. He has been a huge supporter of Critical Exposure, serving as a judge in our "Through Your Lens" contest and donating prints to our auction! See more of Mr. Slaby's work here.

"Cows #1."

16.  David Walter Banks is a conceptually based documentary and portrait photographer living in Atlanta, Georgia. His work is aimed at questioning the way in which we view the everyday reality around us. He has documented both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions of 2008, explored the allure of the road in the American psyche, and visualized the "fourth wall" that separates audiences from the fictional world presented to them in art, media, and culture. Banks was a candidate for the 2009 and 2010 PDN30, and his work was recognized by the 2009 Magenta Foundation Flash Forward 2009 census of emerging photographers. Mr. Banks' work has appeared in The New York Times, Stern Magazine, TIME Magazine, GQ, Spin Magazine, Interscope Records, and Bloomberg News, to name but a few. To see more of Mr. Banks' work, click here.

"Barack Obama delivers his acceptance speech as the Democratic Party's candidate for the President of the United States of America to over 70,000 people at Invesco Stadium on the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. 2008."

 

17. Kendrick Brinson is a member of Luceo Images and photographer based out of Atlanta, Georgia. She worked full-time as an intern and a staff photographer for newspapers for over three years after receiving a journalism degree from the University of Georgia in 2005. In 2009, she left the world of being a staff photographer to pursue personal projects and to work full-time with Luceo. Her current photographic interests include exploring the Deep South, as well as aging in the retirement paradise of Sun City, Arizona, for which she received the 2011 Houston Center for Photography Fellowship, as well as a nod by Critical Mass and inclusion in the 2011 Noordelicht Photofestival. In the past year, "Sun City: Life After Life" has been displayed in eight gallery shows. Kendrick's clients include TIME Magazine, Atlanta Magazine, AARP Bulletin, US News & World Report, and The FADER, among others. To see more of Ms. Brinson's work, click here.

"Rebecca Brinson stands on her grandparents' bicentennial cotton farm in rural Georgia at the harvest season." From the series "Facing South."

18. Daryl Peveto is a California-based photographer with a passion for social documentary storytelling. He has covered black market economies in Peru, nomadic communities living "off the grid" in Slab City, California, the Persian Jewish community in L.A., and the performance artist Miranda July. He is a graduate of the Visual Journalism Program at Brooks Institute, where he interned at The Ventura County Star and the San Diego Union-Tribune. He has been recognized for his work by Photo District News, College Photographer of the Year and the National Press Photographers Association. His clients have included TIME Magazine, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, US News & World Report, AARP, Der Spiegel, The New York Times, and MSNBC. He is also a member of the photo collective Luceo Images. See more of his work here.

Miranda July, 2011.

 

19. Kevin German is currently documenting Vietnam from the seat of a motorcycle, live-updating his website and geo-tagging the images to provide a window into a nation's challenges in the face of development. He has also covered the hidden stories behind the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and he has worked with homeless, LGBTQ youth in New York. After working for 5 years in newspapers from California to Florida, in 2008 he left the staff of The Sacramento Bee and moved to Southeast Asia to focus on humanitarian documentaries. That same year, he co-founded the collective Luceo Images. He is based out of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He has won numerous awards from the Pictures of the Year competition. In 2005 he was named Illinois Press Photographer of the Year. In 2009 he was named Southern Photographer of the Year. His clients include National Geographic, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal Asia, Time, Vanity and many more. You can see more of his work here.

"'Outside the Rings.' On August 8, 2008, the Beijing Olympic Games began. The choice of China as a host country was the subject of criticism by politicians and NGOs concerned about China’s human rights record.The Games saw 43 new world records and 132 new Olympic records set. Chinese athletes won 51 gold medals altogether, the second largest haul by a national team in a modern, non-boycotted Summer Games.The local Beijing people gave up the most for the Games. The homeless were banished from the city. The poor were covered by constructed walls. The culture was diluted to welcome Western tourists."

20. Last year Matt Eich created a project on collect.give to raise money to buy DSLR cameras for Critical Exposure's High School Fellowship Program (we wanted to make sure you knew that before we shared his bio). Mr. Eich has taken his camera to five continents as well as in his own back yard, often exploring communities, the issues they face, and their sense of identity. In 2006 he was named the 61st College Photographer of the Year, and in the summer of 2008, Matt interned with National Geographic Magazine, traveling to Peru, India, Rwanda and Botswana before returning to Ohio to complete his degree.  While still enrolled Matt began working as a freelance photographer for clients such as Newsweek, Mother Jones, TIME, Harper's, The New York Times, and New York Magazine. Recently he was awarded the HCP Juried Fellowship at the Houston Center For Photography, was named one of PDN's 30 Emerging Photographers to Watch, received the F25 Award for Concerned Photography and the National Geographic Innovation in Storytelling Grant.  His work has been exhibited internationally and his work is part of several permanent museum collections.  To see more of Matt's work, click here.

"The Federation, Los Angeles, California." 

 

21. Stephen Crowley is a staff photographer for the New York Times' Washington bereau. Over the last 25 years he has tried to find insightful moments in the midst of breaking national and international news that can sometimes define, in a single image, politics and culture. In his political photographs, Mr. Crowley shows his Washington subjects warts and all. "Washington is all artifice and show business even more so today than when I started," Mr. Crowley said. On Feb. 5, 2002, Crowley, a graduate of the photography program at Daytona State College, was cited as "Photographer of the Year" by the White House News Photographers' Association for a portfolio that included his essays "Voices of Afghanistan" and "A  Day in the Life of President Bush."  In 2002 the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography was awarded to Crowley and four other photographers at The New York Times for work produced during the war in Afghanistan.  That same year he received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees from the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, D.C.  In 2005 American Photo Magazine included Crowley on its list of the 100 Most Important People in Photography.His personal photography has been exhibited in shows at the Library of Congress, The National Geographic Society, and the Corcoran Art Museum. You can see more of his work here. (Portions of this article were from a New York Times profile here.)

"Jesus and the Tourists, 1993."

 

22. Rick Loomis is a photojournalist based in L.A. whose work focuses on war and the environment. He has covered assignments in more than 25 countries including Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Vietnam, Kuwait, Mexico, Haiti and Cuba. He has been a staff photographer for the L.A. Times since 1994, during which time he spent more than two years in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. An avid scuba diver since the age of 15, Mr. Loomis won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting for "Altered Oceans: A five-part series on the crisis in the seas," a fascinating multimedia exploration of humanity's impact on bodies of water. In addition to many other accolades, in 2003 Mr. Loomis won the National Press Photographers' Association's Photographer of the Year award, and in 2004 he was recognized as Journalist of the Year by the Los Angeles Press Club. He is a frequent guest lecturer, speaking at places such as UC Berkeley and USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism, and his work has been exhibited at the Annenberg Space for Photography, the Smithsonian Institute, the Chiostro di Voltorre Gallery (Varese, Italy), and elsewhere. Mr. Loomis once said, "My mission is simple. I strive to tell important stories. I want to make a difference." We are honored to have one of his photographs in Picture Equality 2011. You can see more of Mr. Loomis's work here.

From 'Altered Oceans.' "Midway Atoll is a major rookery for white terns, albatross and several other species of birds. In 2006 President Bush declared it part of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument, the world’s largest marine preserve."

 

23. Callie Shell has documented five presidential campaigns. Currently a contract photographer for Time magazine, she began working in the White House in the fall of 1992 when she was asked to cover the Clinton/Gore inauguration and their first hundred days in office. Those six weeks turned into eight years at the White House as she became Vice President Al Gore's official photographer. She met Barack Obama in 2004, while covering John Kerry's presidential campaign for Time magazine. Ms. Shell sent her editor more photographs of Obama than Kerry. When asked why, she said, "I just have a feeling about him. I think he will be important down the road." Her first photo essay on Obama appeared in Time magazine in 2006, and she has been alongside his team ever since. More than any other photographer, Ms. Shell was able to capture the private side of Obama the Candidate in unguarded moments. It is estimated that to date she has captured nearly 400,000 images of the Obama campaign and the events that surround it. Ms. Shell states, "We just got on really well. He has two children, I have one - his daughter and my son are almost the same age. And he's really funny." The photographer's book, "President Obama: The Path to The White House" reached the New York Times Bestseller List in 2008. See more of her work here.

"'Barack Obama, Waiting.' Barack Obama listens from a stairwell as he is introduced to a crowd in Muscatine, Iowa on November 7, 2007."

24. Sol Neelman is a failed athlete turned professional photographer. From 1997-2007 he was a newspaper photojournalist, on the staff at the Oregonian for seven of those years. In 2007 he and several other staffers won the Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Photography for their coverage of a missing family in southern Oregon. Over the years his photos have appeared in National Geographic, ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, and in many other publications. In 2007 he decided to pursue his three interests: sports, travel, and weird stuff. Thus was born the book Weird Sports, which truly lives up to its name. This year we have the cover image for auction. See more of Mr. Neelman's work here.

"Bring Your Own Big Wheel Race."

 

25. Alfredo Jaar is an artist, architect, and filmmaker. In installations, photographs, film, and community-based projects, Mr. Jaar’s work examines military conflicts, political corruption, and imbalances of power between industrialized and developing nations. Subjects addressed in his work include the holocaust in Rwanda, gold mining in Brazil, toxic pollution in Nigeria, and issues related to the border between Mexico and the United States. In his multimedia work “Muxima” (2006), Mr. Jaar portrays and contrasts the oil economy and extreme poverty of Angola. The artist has received many awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award (2000); a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (1987); and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1987); and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1985). He has had major exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2005); Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2005); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1999); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1992). Jaar emigrated from Chile in 1981, at the height of Pinochet’s military dictatorship and now lives and works in New York. Visit his website here or chek out the PBS special on his work here.

From the multimedia piece "Muxima." 

26. Dai Baker was born in South Wales but is now based in Washington D.C., where he is one of two US Bureau cameramen for the respected British television network ITN. He has received the prestigious White House News TV Photographer of the Year award for the last three years running.  Winnning the award has taken Mr. Baker into the heart of the White House, meeting President George W. Bush in the Oval Office and even getting a seat next to him at the WHNPA Awards Gala in May 2005. Despite his success with a TV camera, Dai's real passion is for still photography. It's a passion he's pursued for years as his day job has taken him all over the world. Everything from panoramic landscapes of his native Welsh valleys to informal, reportage-style wedding and portrait work is in his repertoire. We think his panoramic views of D.C. aren't too shabby either, especially when they're printed over five feet wide.

"Georgetown at Dusk."

 

27. Josh Cogan is a photographer and anthropologist, whose work focuses on documenting vanishing cultures and exploring social issues through photography and new media. In addition to his personal work on Diaspora Judaism in India, Ethiopia and Israel, Cogan has pioneered a number of innovative projects with the award-winning multimedia firm BlueCadet. The partnership has produced a number of heartfelt, interactive narratives for the web, including a study of how high school students displaced by Hurricane Katrina have coped with the loss of their homes. Another project, a revelatory look at the silenced voices of HIV-positive Jamaicans enduring the stigmas of their society, was produced by the Pulitzer Center and won an Emmy for New Approaches to Documentary. Cogan's work has appeared in the New Yorker, GQ, Washington Post, and the New York Times, and he is currently a Travel Channel Photographer in Residence. He's also taught a few Critical Exposure workshops! See more of his projects here.

"Diwali."

 

28. Rob Finch is a two time Newspaper Photographer of the Year in the Pictures of the Year contest – first in 2000 and again in 2003 (he was runner-up in 2001). Much of his work focuses on Portland, OR, where he has documented Cyclocross, blues musicians, and politics. He was selected to exhibit his work in Perpignan, France at the Visa Pour L’Image festival and was a member of the World Press Masterclass in 2002. Photo District News named him one of 30 emerging photographers to watch. In 2007, Mr. Finch was part of a team of journalists at The Oregonian awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for his role as a multimedia producer. And in 2009, Mr. Finch left daily photography to become the Visuals Editor at The Oregonian. He has been a faculty member of the NPPA’s Flying Short Course, the Mountain Workshops, the NPPA Multimedia Immersion and lectured at variety of universities. See more of his work here.

Portland Cyclocross.

 

29. Blake Gordon was trained as a landscape architect and now explores the intersection between natural and man-made vistas. We are particularly fond of his photo stories -- especially "Reality TV," a juxtaposition of mass media culture and the natural landscapes of America. Our donated print below was a part of this story. His work has been published in National Geographic, Outside Magazine, Photo District News, and in many other landscape and architecture publications. Mr. Gordon is currently studying Land Arts through a Masters of Fine Arts in Design degree at the University of Texas at Austin. You can see more of his work here.

"Roaring Fork, CO." From the series "Reality TV."

 

30. In addition to his work as a photojournalist, Chip Litherland recently created the FOCUSED Project, in which five fully manual 35mm cameras will be pre-loaded with a single roll of film and packed into five separate camera bags. The bags will be shipped across the world from one photojournalist to the next – one in a small town in the middle of the U.S., another among relief efforts in a natural disaster zone, or working the White House press pool. Each photojournalist will get only one click of the shutter. All cameras, film canisters, and notebooks will be retained as a historical record of the project and be used in future gallery showings and print publications. In addition, all of the money raised through unused donations, print sales, book sales, etc., will go to fund youth photography programs globally -- including Critical Exposure! We're very excited to be a part of FOCUSED and also to have one of Mr. Litherland's most visually striking photos in our auction. To see more of his work, click here.

"Black and White and Red All Over."