History of Photography - Term Paper Example

? Eugene Richards Eugene Richards’ Background Considered by his peers as being outspoken but to some extent feisty, Eugene Richards was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Coming from a common socio-economic lifestyle Richards grew up the hard way with a loving yet dysfunctional family. Richards graduated from Northeastern University with a degree in English and Photo Journalism. In college, he studied with Minor White. “I was wired to him and his idea of teaching in a lot of ways,” Richards says. “It was more in a spirit of meditation and study I found totally insane—like the worst of going to church! In retrospect, it became a whole different world that I came to treasure. White taught me to look at light and to slow down and see things in a more meditative fashion, to become more involved.” (Cited from Rosalind Smith, shutterbug.net) In 1968, Eugene resisted a military draft and instead of being sentenced, he was offered a position with VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) which is a federal program of the “war on poverty”. About a year and a half later after working with VISTA in Arkansas Eugene became a co-founder for a social service organization and community newspaper known as “Many Voices” which reported on black political action as well as the Ku Klux Klan. Today Eugene stands as one of the most talked about photographs in the field of Photojournalism, well exhibited and the proud recipient of many awards in his field. Not known for doing happy photographs, but they are most times relatable. This Photographer can shoot photographs that tell stories to fill the pages of many. Gettyimages.com reported that Eugene’s photographs have been extensively collected and exhibited in more than 40 solo shows in the United States and abroad. Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles, the International Center of Photography in New York, Centre National de la Photographie and the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris and VISA pour l’Image in Perpignan are but a few of the many institutions that have hosted his exhibitions. In June 2007, Eugene was honored with a large-scale retrospective, Thirteen Books, at the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, Virginia. Eugene Richards’ Career Once he returned to Dorchester, Richards decided to photograph his racially developed neighborhood-after which he published a book “Dorchester Days”. Eugene then worked as a freelance magazine photographer, undertaking diverse assignments such as; the American family, drug addiction, river blindness, Pediatric AIDS etc. Richards has published a lot of books another being “Exploring Life” which was inspired by his first wife’s battle with breast cancer. There are instances when Richards reverted to some old-fashioned or yet sometimes hardcore brutal reporting which was depicted in a series he shot in Mexico while working with a Human Rights group. He shot a men’s psychiatric ward, the emptiness and the barely clad inmates alongside a pool of urine cascading through the center of his frame. Undoubtedly one of the greatest photographers of our era, Richards and his work are one. He is always deeply involved. He photographed a young Sicilian woman moments after she has given birth, holding the infant to her as tears of joy slide down her cheeks. Her husband bends to kiss her, still draped in his surgical gown. The photograph, part of the “American Family” series, was done for Life magazine. (Cited from Rosalind Smith, shutterbug.net) Emotions ran high as Richards documented the joint parenting of two gay couples. The series titled “Here’s to Love” borders on the edge and the magazine assignment became history when Richards photographed the innocent picture of the baby in a bathtub with one of the men. “The editor said the baby was learning sexuality from the father,” Richards tells us, “and I tried to make a point to this editor asking, ‘Well, what have you learnt about sexuality from your parents? Probably about as much as I did—nothing!’” (Cited from Rosalind Smith, shutterbug.net) A leader in his field, Richards has presented some real life photography-with some of his most popular photographs being “The Blue Room”, “War is Personal”, “Stepping through the Ashes”, “The Fat Baby” and Dorchester days”. The Blue Room In an interview with Leo Benedictus, Richards’ expressed that he is not a spiritual person but he finds abandoned houses more spiritual more than churches because it so much more silent. Shot in Corinth, North Dakota, and is perceived by authors of the Ecotone (2009-2010) as being the instability of an in-betweeness of visual tales of abandoned houses gathered over the course of Richards’ travel through rural America. “On a snowy day three years ago, with the temperature about 30 degrees below zero, I was wandering around the town and I went into this general store, which had probably been abandoned for 30 years. You could just push your way into these places, which were all full of trash and broken windows. In the back I found this door, opened it, and inside was a bedroom”. (Eugene Richards cited from the Guardian) “I'm not sure what went through my head, but I just thought the bed was very beautiful. I had to work fast, because after a while in that cold you can't move. The only other issue I had was trying not to go through the floor, which was almost collapsing. In North Dakota they have these deep basements, and if you went through, and you were alone in 30 below zero then, without wanting to be melodramatic, that would probably be the end”. (Eugene Richards cited from the Guardian) The War is Personal Richards noted that he was thinking of his 17-year old son Sam when he came up with this theme. In 2006, he began working on a series of photographs and short text focused on the lives of the people affected severely by the war. In a online publication by Getty Images, Richards’ explained the nature of his project. “I spent time with 26-year-old Tomas Young, who had been shot, paralyzed, four days into his tour in Iraq. Tomas had accidentally overdosed on his meds the morning I visited. I photographed and interviewed Carlos Arredondo, whose Marine son had been killed in combat, then traveled to see Mona Parsons, who was trying to prevent her dutiful son from returning to his military unit in Iraq”. “In the months that followed I attended a funeral service for Army Sergeant Princess Samuels; spent close to a week in a VA Hospital in Massachusetts documenting a woman’s struggle to keep her brain-injured son alive; interviewed and photographed a former combat medic who, upon returning home, had to deal with his escalating post-traumatic stress disorder; traveled to a small town in Minnesota to do a story on a single mom whose guilt-ridden Marine boyfriend had taken his life”. Eugene also expressed that with further assistance from Getty Images, he would like to undergo several other pieces including; one on a soldier who after serving months in Iraq fled to Canada with her family and another on a family of Iraqi refugees who relocated to America. He also mentioned that all these will be collated into a book and a multimedia piece all aimed at highlighting the consequences of the Iraq war. Stepping through the Ashes Eugene described this one as being in a state of bewilderment. The gloom, the pungent odor, police restrictions, emergency vehicles rushing past, the vast swaths of emptiness, the missing persons’ photos that line the streets of Manhattan. All these characteristics are presented in “Stepping through the Ashes” influenced by the attacks. (eugenerichards.com) The Fat Baby Shot in Niger Africa, the title ‘Fat Baby’ does not refer to an overly fed baby instead it referred to a desolate and poverty stricken place, where Richards visited to report on village health conditions. Richards described harsh conditions of living and the death of a young child probably by AIDS or chronic malnutrition as the story behind the photograph. The mother didn’t want Richards to leave with just photos of a dying baby so she urged him to take more photographs-this time with a fat baby. She found the plumiest baby in the village for that photograph. Here that fat baby can be seen as a symbol of hope for the village. Dorchester Days These photographs were shot by Richards after working in the South as a Social Worker and Activist. It marked his return home to the Northeast and depicts his neighbourhood with its cross section of young and old people, black and white, middle class and poor. The artist’s signature cropping and close up style is evident in the unsparing but tender look at the Massachusetts neighbourhood in which he was raised. Eugene Richards’ Achievements Eugene is perhaps best known for his books. Exploding Into Life, which chronicles his first wife Dorothea Lynch‘s struggle with breast cancer, received Nikon's Book of the Year award. For Below the Line: Living Poor in America, his documentation of urban and rural poverty, Eugene was named Photojournalist of the Year by the International Center of Photography. The Knife & Gun Club: Scenes from an Emergency Room received an Award of Excellence from the American College of Emergency Physicians. Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue, an extensive reportorial on the effects of hardcore drug usage, received the Kraszna-Krausz Award for Photographic Innovation in Books. That same year, Americans We was the recipient of the International Center of Photography's Infinity Award for Best Photographic Book. Stepping through the Ashes, an elegy to those who lost their lives in New York on 9/11, received the Golden Light Book Award for best collaboration with a writer. More recently, Pictures of the Year International chose The Fat Baby, an anthology of 15 photographic essays, Best Book in 2005. (Cited from sudest57.com) Among numerous photography honors, Eugene has won a Guggenheim Fellowship, three National Endowment for the Arts grants, the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award, the Leica Medal of Excellence, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, two Olivier Rebbot Awards from the Overseas Press Club, a Lucie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Journalism Award for coverage of the disadvantaged. But, the day came, a film written and directed by Eugene, was named Best Short Film at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. (Cited from sudest57.com) Works Cited Page Artknowledgenews.com, Eugene Richards-Dorchester Days, (n.d.) retrieved from: http://www.artknowledgenews.com/node/1509.html Benedictus, L. Eugene Richards’ best shot, (Feb 12, 2009), The Gaurdian.co.uk, retrieved from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/feb/12/my-best-shot-eugene-richards Ecotone, The Blue Room, (2009-2010), retrieved from: http://www.cna.public.lu/pictures/photos/pictures-photo/presse/presse-ecotone_EN.pdf Gettyimages.com, Eugene Richards, (1996-2009), retrieved from: http://corporate.gettyimages.com/marketing/grants_editorial/richards.asp Shaw, M. The Fat Baby: Stories by Eugene Richards, (2005), oxfordjournals.org, retrieved from: http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/1/205.full Smith, R., Personal Documents of our world (Nov 2005), Shutterbug.net, retrieved from: http://www.shutterbug.net/features/1105eugene/ Sudest57.com, Eugene Richards’ Biography, (2005-2006), retrieved from: http://www.sudest57.com/en/eugene_richards_biography-2.html Read More