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Portraiture

Southall, West London through local resident Manny Melotra’s lens

At first glance, the suburban district of Southall, West London seems the epitome of harmony. Home to 70,000 people, nearly half of whom were born outside the UK, it boasts Sikh Gurdwaras, Christian churches, Islamic Mosques, and Hindu temples. The dominant population is Asian, earning the area the nickname Little India and bilingual English/Punjabi signage. But for Manny Melotra, who was born in the area and still lives there, that apparent harmony is an illusion. “If you’re a resident, you know a completely different Southall,” he says. 

1 February 2018

David Brandon Geeting’s Amusement Park on show in New York

There is something frantic about David Brandon Geeting’s photography. In his latest collection, Amusement Park, the Greenpoint, Brooklyn-based artist creates a mood that is exhilarating and vibrant, but also verging on collapse, as though its tether could snap at any moment. Where his 2015 book, Infinite Power, was energetic and kinetic, with Amusement Park he’s aiming for “information overload”. “I’m not afraid of making people confused or dizzy,” he says. “I wanted it to be an onslaught of colours and forms and things that don’t make sense.”

29 January 2018

The shortlist is out for the Hyères Festival photographie grand prix

It’s one of the most interesting prizes for emerging photography, with previous winners including Sølve Sundsbo, Anouk Kruithof, and Lorenzo Vitturi – it’s the Grand prix du jury photographie at the International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Fashion Accessories in Hyères and the 2018 finalists are: Eva O’Leary (Ireland, USA), Teresa Eng (Canada), Pascale Arnaud (France), Laetitia Bica (Belgium), Sarah Mei Herman (Netherlands), Allyssa Heuse (Philippines, France), Jaakko Kahilaniemi (Finland), Csilla Klenyánszki (Hungary), Sanna Lehto (Finland), and Aurélie Scouarnec (France). The ten shortlisted photographers will present their work at a group show at the Villa Noailles from 26 April-27 May; the winner will be announced during the festival, which takes place from 26-30 April.

29 January 2018

Q&A: Robin de Puy on photographing Randy

Robin de Puy’s new series, Randy, started on a 2015 road trip across the US, after she spotted him by chance in Ely, Nevada, and she asked if she could take his photograph. Back in The Netherlands she found he stuck in her mind, and returned to see him at the end of 2016, in February 2017, and in May 2017, taking “hundreds” of portraits. An exhibition of this work, which includes photographs and videos, is on show at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht from 26 January-13 May; Hannibal also recently published the series as a photobook. 

24 January 2018

Great British Welcome highlights refugees and their hosts across Britain

Shot in peoples’ homes, these intimate portraits and their accompanying captions show how refugees and their hosts in Britain have learned to live together – and how both have benefitted from the arrangement. From a Syrian teenager who found a new home in Epsom to a 72-year-old Eritrean who evaded life on the streets thanks to a Birmingham couple, the collection shows acts of compassion – but also the human face of a refugee crisis so often portrayed in negative stereotypes. These refugees have brought warmth and happiness to their new homes, say the hosts involved in the project. “Even after everything he has been through he is such a gentle soul and such a lovely, positive person,” says Shoshana of Faraj, a devout young Muslim forced to flee Aleppo and now living with her and her family in Cambridge.

24 January 2018

Sociologist-turned-photographer Kevin Faingnaert shows alternative life at the ZAD

Since 2009, around 400 acres of land in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, a commune in the west of France, has been home to Europe’s largest rural protest camp. Led by a mix of environmental activists and locals, the ZAD (which roughly translates to ‘Zone To Defend’ in English) developed in opposition to the construction of an international airport that would wipe out the wildlife and villages of the area. Though these plans have stalled for several years now, the ZAD has taken root, growing into a self-sufficient community complete with its own markets, bakery, brewery, theatre space, newspaper and even a pirate radio station. Intrigued by people and the structures that bind them, sociologist-turned-photographer Kevin Faingnaert spent a month documenting the ZAD as part of his participation in World Press Photo’s most recent Joop Swart Masterclass.

23 January 2018

Finding a new voice for strong Native Americans

With more than 560 federally recognised tribes across the US, the Native American community is as diverse as it is geographically sprawling. In 2013, Italian photographer Carlotta Cardana and writer Danielle SeeWalker, an enrolled tribal member of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, set out to build a portrait of contemporary Native American identity through words and images. An ongoing work, The Red Road Project has so far taken them 15,000 miles across the States. The pair first met in drama class at school in Nebraska, then began working together after SeeWalker invited the now London-based photographer to attend a ceremony at Standing Rock. What began as a collaboration between two close friends has grown into a project of epic proportions with one clear mission: to challenge the reductive stereotypes and damaging narratives that characterise media representations of Native Americans, who now comprise just 1 per cent of the US population.

23 January 2018

Susan Meiselas on shooting Carnival Strippers

“It’s getting near show time!” the voice would boom out over the cheers of the punters. Susan Meiselas would hover at first near the back of the tent. “Don’t be shy, take your hands out of your pockets, take your money out of your wallets. Rest your elbows on the stage and look up into the whole, the whole goddamn show. Show time! Where they strip to please, not to tease!” Susan Meiselas was 24 when she started Carnival Strippers. It was the summer of 1972, and her photography experience was limited to portraits of her housemates in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She had just completed an MA from Harvard, yet she still was shy and unsure of herself – very unlike the direct intellect of today, who treats Magnum’s offices like second homes.

22 January 2018

Going from Town to Town across the UK, Niall McDiarmid makes a portrait of a place

“The term ‘Britishness’ has changed so much over the last ten years, I don’t really know what it means anymore to say ‘I’m British,’” observes Scottish photographer Niall McDiarmid, who has spent almost a decade photographing people in the street across Britain. In 2011 he started work on his latest series, Town to Town, which has just been published as a book and which will be shown at the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol, UK from 31 January-12 May. Initially focussing on London, it soon expanded beyond the capital city and ended up covering 200 towns, tracing a journey around Britain and its diverse inhabitants.

19 January 2018

The Hyman Collection donates 125 photographs to Yale Center for British Art

London-based collectors Claire and James Hyman have donated 125 photographs to the Yale Center for British Art, gifting key works by leading figures in British photographic history – including Bill Brandt, Bert Hardy, Roger Mayne, Tony Ray-Jones, Martin Parr, Chris Killip and Anna Fox – to the 44-year-old institution in New Haven in the US. It’s a move that could be interpreted as a damning indictment of UK institutions’ commitment to collecting British photography – particularly as, the last time BJP caught up with James Hyman (our May 2015 issue), he said building such collections has been “left to private individuals, and it shouldn’t have been”. In the same interview Hyman also singled out Birmingham Library and its curator of photography collections Peter James for praise – yet in the intervening time, both the photography archive and James’ job have fallen victim to funding cuts. But Hyman says the donation should be viewed in a positive light as evidence of the growing interest in British photography abroad – an interest which may spark more commitment in the UK.

18 January 2018
Hinged on a connection between photographer and subject, portraiture is, in many ways, the ultimate collaborative act. In this collection, we showcase the best of contemporary photographic portraiture.