See who’s in focus at this year’s Look3 Festival of the Photograph, June 13 through 19 in Charlottesville.
One of 11 featured artists, National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting launches the week with his natural history images hanging from the TREES on the downtown mall. Showing the world through animals’ eyes, Lanting says his mission is to use photography to help create leverage for conservation efforts from local initiatives to global campaigns. He’ll discuss his mission at 7:30-9 p.m. Wednesday June 15 at the Paramount Theater. “No one turns animals into art more completely than Frans Lanting,” says The New Yorker.
Since 2001, fine art photographer Nick Brandt has been documenting the vanishing natural world and animals of East Africa through haunting portraits of elephants, giraffes, lions, gorillas and rhinos. In a series of panoramas, he’s recorded man’s impact where animals used to roam. In each location, Brandt erected life size panels of his animal portraits, setting the panels within a world of explosive urban development and toxic wasteland to raise awareness of the fragility of wild animals and the destruction of the natural world. His arresting, wide views are published in Inherit The Dust and will be exhibited at the McGuffey Arts Center. Brandt will discuss his work with author Vicki Goldberg, 7:30-9 p.m. on Thursday June 16 at the Paramount. Goldberg’s books include The Power of Photography: How Photographs Changed Our Lives and Light Matters: Writings on Photography.
Graciela Iturbide, a premier artist of Latin America, will make a rare public appearance at LOOK3. She will speak in her native Spanish –English translation provided– from 5 to 6:30 Friday June 17 at the Paramount. Iturbide won the 2008 Hasselblad Foundation award with due praise: “Graciela Iturbide has developed a photographic style based on her strong interest in culture, ritual and everyday life in her native Mexico and other countries. Iturbide has extended the concept of documentary photography to explore the relationships between man and nature, the individual and the cultural, the real and the psychological. She continues to inspire a younger generation of photographers in Latin America and beyond.” Naturata can be seen at Neal Guma Fine Art, 105 3rd Street NE.
Former TIME Magazine photographer Christopher Morris will speak on War Politics Fashion with Mary Anne Golon, Director of Photography at The Washington Post at 5 p.m. Saturday, June 18 at the Paramount. Beginning his career as a documentary conflict photographer, Morris “redefined political coverage in America” covering the White House from 2000 until 2009, and further expanding his portfolio to include work from the world of fashion.
Six emerging artists will also showcase their latest projects. At 22, Olivia Bee is the youngest artist to join Look3’s roster. Bee established her career by sharing photographs largely focused on her own life and that of her friends on social media. Her first monograph, Olivia Bee: Kids in Love, was recently published by Aperture. Bee will join photographers Binh Danh, Mary Calvert, and Ruddy Roye in talks from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, June 17 at the Paramount. Bee’s photos can be seen at the New City Arts Welcome Gallery, 114 3rd Street, NE. New York Magazine described Bee’s work as “dreamy, seventies-inspired photographs of maybe-wasted, increasingly famous young people who just want to have fun.”
Mary F. Calvert, an independent photojournalist committed to using photography to affect meaningful social change, is known for producing work on under-reported and neglected gender based, human rights issues. She believes that journalists have “a duty to shine a light into the deepest recesses of the human experience and provide a mirror for society to examine itself.” Among others on stage from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., June 17 at the Paramount, Calvert won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award twice and is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist in Feature Photography. Missing in Action: Homeless Female Veterans can be seen at the Pop Gallery, 306 East Main Street.
Radcliffe “Ruddy” Roye’s talk, “When Living is a Protest,” also will be part of the June 17 program from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Paramount. Roye uses his camera as a tool that allows him to document the world around him as he sees it. “Photography is finding a piece of me in the eyes or essence of everyone and everything I photograph. It has always been a collaborative effort,” says Roye.
In 2013 while photographing under-recognized living leaders of the Civil Rights movement, Sheila Pree Bright made a connection between young social activists taking a stand against the same struggles their parents and grandparent endured during the 1960’s. Her project 1960Now examines race, gender and generational divides to raise awareness of millennial perspectives on civil and human rights. 1960Now reveals a photographic portrait series of emerging young leaders affiliated with the Black Lives Matter Movement. Bright and photographers Doug DuBois and Joe Riis will share to Paramount stage from 11 am. to 1 p.m. June 18. 960Now also will be on display at the African American Heritage Center, Jefferson School, 233 4th Street, NW.
Also on June 18 from 11 to 1, Doug DuBois will show his project, My Last Day At Seventeen, described as “capturing the bravado and adventure of childhood with an eye towards its fragility and inevitable loss.” DuBois shot over five years in the town of Cobh, County Cork, Ireland. “My idea,” says DuBois, “was to contemplate the threshold that marks the time between childhood and the advent of adult responsibilities.” His photos will be exhibited at the New City Arts Welcome Gallery, 114 3rd St. NE.
Binh Danh’s Reflections in the National Parks, are created as full-plate daguerrotypes, celebrating the Centennial of the Parks while honoring the history of photography and its giants whose images of the natural world helped establish public recreational lands. Danh will join Olivia Bee and Sheila Pree Bright from 11 to 1 on June 18 at the Paramount. “My sense is that our special connection with the national parks comes from the fact that we’re a nation of immigrants,” says Danh. “We’re a nation of people for whom this is not our home, and the national parks are what anchor and root us on this continent. They are the meaning of home for many of us…”
Wildlife photojournalist and field biologist Joe Riis rounds out the June 18 morning line up. His Yellowstone Migrations, published in the current National Geographic, explores migrations of animals in the Greater Yellowstone region, highlighting science and research expeditions, connecting viewers to some of the most remote and rare wild animals on the planet. Binh Danh and Joe Riis exhibitions both will be in a pop up gallery at 111 E. Main Street (former Jean Theory store).
An expanded educational program will offer seminars on creativity and entrepreneurism for photographers at all levels. LOOK3 EDU kicks off on June 14th, with the free program, Photo District News: 30 Emerging Photographers Panel. The program continues on June 15th and 16th with Creativity Meets Technology and Artists Meet your Markets + LOOK3 PITCH seminars.
The also free, popular Evening Projections on Friday, June 17th at the Sprint Wireless Pavilion, will feature shows curated by the photo editors of TIME Magazine. On Saturday, June 18th, the Evening Projections shows will be presented by MediaStorm at the outdoor IX Art Park.
A full listing of events can be found at www.look3.org/schedule.
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