Snapshot of America: Documenting Large Issues at Play in Small Towns

By Amanda Arnold
October 2020 issue News

Each decade, the U.S. Census Bureau pinpoints the mean center of the U.S. population—the location where “an imaginary, flat, weightless, and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all residents were of identical weight,” its website states.The concept intrigued photographer and Maryland Institute College of Art professor Nate Larson. So he set out from Baltimore to find the first recorded mean center in Chestertown, Maryland. To reach the exact center spot he had to... Continue Reading >

Jonathan Higbee Photo Book Captures Coincidence

August 2020 issue News

Sometimes a figure in the foreground lines up with a figure in the background, and just like that: an alternate reality. These serendipitous and often humorous moments are the subject of Jonathan Higbee’s book “Coincidences” (Anthology Editions), a collection of his New York City street photography. In the book, you’ll discover smoke rising from a man’s head, Mickey Mouse wearing a trench coat on the subway, and a man drawing a yellow line on a building. Or so it seems. Continue Reading >

Sudan Protest Image Wins 2020 World Press Photo of the Year

By Amanda Arnold
July 2020 issue News

A young man recites poetry amid a crowd of chanting pro-democracy demonstrators whose mobile phones illuminate the scene. Yasuyoshi Chiba’s image “Straight Voice” was selected by the World Press Photo Foundation as 2020 World Press Photo of Year in its 63rd annual World Press Photo Contest.© Yasuyoshi ChibaThe photo was made July 19, 2019, in Khartoum, Sudan, in the wake of a military massacre of nonviolent protestors calling for civilian rule. At the time the photo was made,... Continue Reading >

Photographers Without Borders Enables Photographers to Give Back

By Amanda Arnold
April 2020 issue News

After photographing weddings and portraits for almost 20 years, Ron B. Wilson felt he’d hit a wall. He wanted to reconnect with his first love, photojournalism, which he’d studied in college, so he plugged “photojournalism projects abroad” into Google. That’s when Photographers Without Borders, which connects professional photographers with nongovernmental organizations around the world, appeared. “I clicked on the website, and within two or three minutes of reading their bio and... Continue Reading >

Photographer Documents the Drama of Storytelling

By Amanda Arnold
April 2020 issue News

Much of a story is told through the subtle (and not so subtle) movements of the face and hands, as evidenced by Neal Schlosburg’s photo series “My Picture Tells a Story.” For the sessions, he asks each subject to tell him a story as he silently makes photographs with his Fujifilm X-T2. “Sometimes I shoot more rapidly than others,” he says. “The stories always dictate the pace of those shots.”He makes as many as 500 to 1,000 photos in a session and selects just six for each final... Continue Reading >

Heroes at Work: First Responder Photos Win Prize

By Amanda Arnold
April 2020 issue News

On assignment with the European Pressphoto Agency, Christian Monterrosa arrived at the scene of a wildfire in Sylmar, California, that later became known as the Saddleridge Fire. Arriving shortly after the blaze was announced over the radio, Monterrosa noticed a neighborhood perched on a ridge directly in the path of the oncoming flames. He parked his car in a safe place and walked to the homes. The engine crew from Santa Clarita was on site there and at the ready, he explains.“When... Continue Reading >

Road blocking: Series documents nature in path of proposed interstate

By Amanda Arnold
March 2020 issue News

What’s now picturesque desert could someday be hot asphalt if a proposed Arizona interstate is approved by lawmakers.But not before photographer Frank Staub has documented its beauty.Staub, who lives just miles from the proposed path, says Interstate 11 would carve a road through both untouched desert and rural residential neighborhoods. “Almost everybody who lives there doesn’t want it,” he says, “because it will destroy a lot of wild desert and it goes close between two national... Continue Reading >

Playing cards: A new medium for street photography

By Amanda Arnold
February 2020 issue News

Street photographer Amy Touchette wanted to print her popular New York City street portraits, but the pages of a book seemed an all-too-ordinary medium.“I really opened myself up to how my photography could be presented outside of the usual places—exhibition walls and book pages,” says Touchette.After two years of brainstorming, she settled on a poker-sized deck of playing cards called “New York City Street Dailies,” which are now on sale at the National Portrait Gallery in... Continue Reading >

Todd Antony chronicles Bolivia’s Flying Cholitas

By Amanda Arnold
December 2019 issue News

“Each year I try to undertake one to two personal projects to keep myself fresh from a creative standpoint,” says commercial photographer Todd Antony. Often these projects highlight a subcultural group he finds intriguing, e.g. his recent series on Bolivia’s Flying Cholitas, a group of women wrestlers who wear traditional dress while engaging in their sport. The Cholitas first began wrestling in the early 2000s, says Antony, partly for recreation and partly as a way for women who’d... Continue Reading >