Alley, 2007 © George Awde. Courtesy of the Artist.
This photograph by George Awde has stuck with me since the first time I saw it in 2008 at the Blind Spot Auction at David Zwirner. The print was part of the Yale portfolio being auctioned off. Inspired by A Photo Student’s Appreciate a Photographer Week, I contacted Awde, complemented his work, and asked him about this image. By email from Dubai, he said:
“It was shot in the mountains above Beirut in 2007. title: Alley 2007. The photograph is part of a series that explores nationality and masculinity in Lebanon and Syria -”Quiet Crossings“. My work strives to capture homo-social spaces that act as an outlet for male bonding and love. At play in these spaces are the relationships of masculinity, class, and nationality in the social landscape.”
- George Awde
Thank you George for your work and I look forward to following your career.
Kevin J. Miyazaki is featured today on Flak Photo as part of the WINTER PICTURES special. I’ve been following Kevin’s multifaceted contributions to the photography community over the last year and it was a pleasure to connect with him about this photograph. While Kevin makes a living as an editorial photographer shooting portraits, travel and food assignments for magazines, I know him for his other work. Kevin is the genius behind collect.give. He teaches the Professional Practices class at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design with its accompanying resourceful blog MIAD-FA382, including the extensive list of interviews (699 and growing). His personal projects include Camp Home and Early Places and he has self-published the photobook(let) titled 38. This snowball photograph is not tied to a specific project but is part of work featured on his personal blog. He says “the blog has been really important to me in the past few years – it’s the platform onto which I can toss little visual thoughts. I come from an assignment-driven background, so I became used to passing up interesting images if there wasn’t a logical place for them. With the blog, they have a home.” I enjoy the journey that Kevin gives the viewer in his “visual thoughts.” I asked him to talk about his wonderful white on white study of a snowball and this is what he had to say:
“I made this picture last winter on Christmas eve, just after shoveling my walk. I packed the snowball and brought it inside to shoot, both on black and white pieces of paper. To me, this kind of picture is like a quick sketch (it only took about five minutes to shoot) – but is also a fully realized photograph. I like making pictures in a variety of ways, and not being limited by particular situations, conditions or equipment. I think we photographers all first began making pictures with a great deal of excitement and wonder, looking through the viewfinder with a really open mind. I hope to never stray too far away from that type of visual freedom and curiosity. It’s important to me to just always be making pictures, whether it’s part of a large scale project, or in fact, just a small, quickly melting snowball.” – Kevin J. Miyazaki
Christmas Eve snowball © Kevin J. Miyazaki
Christmas Eve snowball, 2009 © Kevin J. Miyazaki
Thank you Kevin!