Larissa Leclair

Planets © Elizabeth Fleming

After the rush of the past holiday, I took a moment to listen to Elizabeth Fleming’s interview at Thoughts on Photography. Her most well-known body of work, “Life is a series of small moments” (as seen in Aline Smithson’s piece @too much chocolate, UNseen curated by Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Blurb PBN Honorable Mention, Center’s Singular Image Award 2009, etc. etc.) is a wonderful narrative of childhood, as seen through moments of the fantastical and happenstance and their intersection with the reality of daily life and raising children. These moments are the in-between moments, the indescribable moments, moments that to an untrained eye would not be worth photographing. But they are what make Elizabeth’s work so special. Her photographs encapsulate a feeling. Listening to her describe her photographs and the process behind photographing, I reflected on my own family and children and those moments that have floated away. In retrospect, I always wish to have captured more.

The day after Thanksgiving was StoryCorps’ National Day of Listening which encouraged the public to capture – with audio – an interview, conversation, or story of a family member. As a visual person I must remember that sound recordings are also a meaningful way to document moments. Genevieve Russell of StoryPortrait Media has been documenting me and my moments over the last ten years. Through still photography, video and audio recordings, she has a way of capturing those moments you never remember happening but that you always want to remember.

So this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for Elizabeth Fleming in reminding me to cherish those moments, and for Genevieve Russell in helping me remember them.

© Genevieve Russell

Blagden Alley map.
FotoWeek DC listing.
More info.

I love photography books and this year for FotoWeek DC I was part of the Photobook/Publisher Exhibition Committee. Over 250 books are being displayed this week at FotoWeek DC on M Street in Georgetown from over 50 publishers. A unique inclusion this year, spearheaded by myself, are the Photography.Book.Now 2009 Winners. What amazing work! Congratulations to all the winners.

“Photography.Book.Now is an international juried self-published book competition, and a celebration of the most creative, most innovative, and finest photography books – and the people behind them.” The competition organized by Blurb and run by lead judge Darius Himes considers self-published books in three categories – Fine Art, Editorial and Commercial. More than 2400 submissions from 50 countries were entered in the competition. Rafal Milach, the Grand Prize Winner, won $25,000. Coincidentally, the FotoWeek DC exhibition InsideOutside: New Images from Russia, curated by Lucian Perkins, includes work by Rafal Milach.

Rafal Milach

Kurt Tong

• Black Sea of Concrete by Rafal Milach – Grand Prize Winner
• People’s Park by Kurt Tong – Editorial Category Winner
• Pose by Andrea Stultiens – Editorial Category 1st Runner Up
• In Case It Rains in Heaven by Kurt Tong – Editorial Category 2nd Runner Up
• F Ampersand by Duwayno Robertson – Editorial Category People’s Choice Award
• i sell fish. by Joshua Deaner – Fine Art Category Winner
• Some Fox Trails in Virginia by Susan Worsham – Fine Art Category 1st Runner Up
• +walker evans +sherrie levine by Hermann Zschiegner – Fine Art Category 2nd Runner Up
• Capturing the Light by Lewis Kemper – Fine Art Category People’s Choice Award
• Volume One by Dennis Kleiman – Commercial Category Winner
• Editorial Stories by Michael Creagh – Commerical Category 1st Runner Up
• portfolio by Sara Lando – Commercial Category 2nd Runner Up
• JASON JOSEPH photography by Jason Joseph – Commercial Category People’s Choice Award

I briefly caught up with Melanie McWhorter, one of the curators of the exhibition and friend from my Santa Fe days, to ask her a few questions.

A selection from Melanie McWhorter’s picks for the WPOW Annual Competition:

© Ashley Twiggs
Deborah Stockton holds one of her ducks on her farm in Ivy, Virginia. Stockton is a board member of Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Association that promotes farmer-to-consumer trade. She says that Albemarle County, Virginia could feed itself several times over with food grown and raised locally.

© Andrea Bruce
Six years ago they were fishermen, not ferrymen. But now, in the Haifa neighborhood of Baghdad, sewage runs through the narrow alleyways directly into the river. Waterside restaurants stand abandoned, their owners still afraid to open their doors. The fish have disappeared.

© Carol Guzy
“Every minute, every hour, pregnant women die in Sierra Leone.” -Amadu Sesay, brother of Jemelleh Saccoh who died giving life. Women lay on threadbare gurneys in a ward infested with mosquitoes and the stench of urine and death. Bintu Kamara, 28 years old, waits in the labor ward of Princess Christian Maternity Hospital in Freetown. She survived an emergency C-section but her baby was stillborn.

© Gabriela Bulisova
Three generations of Iraqi women — a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter — were violently separated and forced to flee to three different countries. Now, after three years of experiences none of them want to recall, they are finally living together as new American residents. However, even in the United States, they live in hidden exile, unable to reveal their identities for fear of being discovered by their male relatives and Iraqi anti-American forces. The mother, a former Coalition Provisional Authority employee, was labeled a “collaborator” and targeted with assassination attempts. They rely on their strong Christian faith to remain hopeful about their future in the U.S.

© Yanina Manolova
After Molly Hoopes, 18, a heroin addict, spent 28 days in prison, she was court-ordered to live at a residential treatment center for adolescent addiction known as “Bassett House,” in Athens, Ohio. A month earlier, her twin sister, Morgan Hoopes, was in treatment at this same facility for drug addiction. “I came here the day she left. We’ve never been apart for more than 12 hours until we were sent to jail. I’m court- ordered not to see her and can’t talk to her. She was sneaking drugs to me. But I love Morgan. She is the only person I want to be with,” Molly Hoopes said.

Thank you Melanie for answering my questions in the midst of releasing flash flood: issue two! Check that out here. And come to the opening for “LAUNCH” tonight!

FotoWeek DC opens tonight in Georgetown along M Street and I am busy wrapping up things for the Publisher Exhibition of contemporary photobooks including the 2009 winners of Blurb’s Photography.Book.Now competition, a post about Melanie McWhorter and her curatorial role in the exhibition Launch at Honfleur Gallery that opens tomorrow night during FotoWeek DC, and my own curatorial venture – Christopher Colville -  that opens this Thursday November 12. I look forward to seeing many of you there. Blagden Alley is hard to find. The alley is between 9th and 10th Street NW and you can enter from M Street or N Street. The closest metro is Mt Vernon Sq 7th St-Convention Center Station on the Green and Yellow lines. Here is the map.

Radius Books has just published Violet Isle, a poetic photographic portrait of Cuba, by Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb. This unique softbound book with a recycled cardboard-esqe slipcase is yet another great example of Radius’ creative approach to photography book design. Ricco Maresca Gallery in Chelsea is hosting the book launch party and reception for the exhibition this evening, Thursday, November 5 from 6-8pm. The exhibition at Ricco Maresca will be up until January 2, 2010. There is also a gallery talk and book signing this weekend at the gallery on Saturday from 4-6pm.

If you are in DC next week, Violet Isle, as well as seven other recently published titles by Radius Books, will be on display in the Publisher Exhibition of FotoWeek DC at 3333 M Street NW. Darius Himes will also be in town giving a talk, “Who Cares About Books?” on Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 5pm at 1215 Blagdens Alley NW. Come by!

"Contact Sheets" © Parsley Steinweiss

The voting for Critical Mass 2009 technically wrapped up today and I was pleased to be one of the reviewers this year. I took my time and looked through work from the selected 175 photographers over the last few weeks. It has been both exhausting and amazing. One photographer on my “Wow” list was Parsley Steinweiss and her “Stacks” series.

About her work, she states, “I have always found it natural to look at things from a close perspective. By cropping my subjects closely I become intimate with them and also abstract them. By this treatment, familiar subjects become unrecognizable and require new investigation. The shape-shifting ambiguity made possible by the photographic lens resonates with my general sense of a world unseen by the naked eye, a world of possibilities. As a general theme I am interested in patterns of growth. Over the past couple of months I have been stacking things and taking photographs of the various accumulations.  The photographs catalog documents that surround me: books, papers, magazines, journals, sketchpads and photographs. In “Contact Sheets” I have stacked hundreds of photographic contact sheets and prints that I have created over the past ten years. The result is a series of lines, each representing a print that I have made, a sedimentary record of creative growth.”

Jen Bekman’s 20×200 Wednesday edition last week featured Parsley Steinweiss and her “Contact Sheets” photograph. You can own an 8″x10″ print, in an edition of 200, for just $20! Just click here.