Here's a post I never expected to write -- Funky Friday and Gordon Parks.
Until a couple of days ago, I would have told you that it was more likely that Barry Manilow would show up on a Friday than Gordon Parks. As much as I admire him as a photographer, writer, and filmmaker, his music has never done much for me. If you'd asked me to describe it, I'd have used words like "sappy," "sentimental," and "ersatz classical."
Well, yes. And no. Sometimes -- such as when he was forced to produce the soundtrack for Shaft's Big Score, the second of his films about the black private dick who's a sex machine with all the chicks, in only two weeks -- he came up with a real gem. Can you dig it?
Gordon Parks, Symphony for Shafted Souls. Soundtrack, Shaft's Big Score (1972).
Whatever you make of it, this music sure isn't ersatz classical.
Parks, the director, hadn't expected to write the soundtrack for the movie, but Isaac Hayes, who had won an Oscar for his work on the original Shaft, couldn't come to terms with the studio. So Parks stepped in a the last minute, knowing that he had to capture something of Hayes' magic. He did a pretty good job.
Here's what the funk and soul blog never enough rhodes has to say about Parks' effort:
Gutmann came to the US from Germany, in the late 1930s, and was dumbfounded by the central place -- the sometimes fun, sometimes infuriating, and always absurd central place -- of the car in American culture. He was my kind of guy. I like the way he talks about cars. And I like his photos a lot.
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You can learn more about Gutman and see many more of his photos, here. You can watch the entire film, here.
There's no such thing as "the greatest photographer in the world," but, if there were, it would be David Goldblatt.
Goldblatt is also something of a paradox. How is it that someone who has been honored so often by so many is still relatively unknown outside of his native South Africa?
Tomorrow night, Goldblatt will receive yet another well-earned accolade -- the International Center of Photography's prestigious Cornell Capa Lifetime Achievement award. Photo District News asked me to mark the occasion by examining his long career and, along the way, explaining the paradox. You can read what I have to say, here.
If I say the word "documentary" to my African history students at the University of Virginia, most will want to run screaming from the room. As far as they're concerned, documentaries are things professors like. Like medicine, sobriety, and a good night's sleep, they're good for you, but not a whole lot of fun.
If the first episode of this new six-part documentary from Al Jazeera's Artscape and Resolute Films is anything to go by -- and I think it is -- The New African Photography is going to be bad for you. That is, it's going to be hugely entertaining and often very, very funny. Here's a preview:
Please don't tell anybody, but the series is also sharp as a tack. Its goal, as the filmmakers say, is to show how a new generation of African photographers are using their cameras to celebrate, question, and represent a continent on the rise. Historically, few regions of the world have been more misrepresented in photographs than Africa. These photographers, however, are taking control of Africa's image and creating a more nuanced picture.
The first episode -- the one I watched last night -- features the well-known Nigerian photographer Emeka Okereke and the Invisible Borders Trans-African Photography Project. The show follows Emeka and fellow Nigerian photographer Lilian Novo on the most recent journey, from Nigeria through Cameroon and Gabon. It's simply brilliant. (And bad for you.) You can watch the whole thing below. It's about 25 minutes long and definitely worth the time.
Subsequent episodes will be showing up on Artscape's website over the next few weeks. Here's what to expect:
2. The Red Dress (29 April 2013) Barbara Minishi is a leading fashion photographer in Kenya. For her latest project, Barbara swapped skinny models for normal people, photographing a wide range of women all wearing the same red dress, as a symbol of unity and national identity in the aftermath of the 2007 post-election violence in which more than 1 000 Kenyans were killed. Barbara says: "Don't look at Africa and think one thing. How come this view of Africa is always the soldier or the starving child?"
3. George Osodi (6 May 2013) Nigerian George Osodi is a former Fuji African Photographer of The Year Award winner who's also been shortlisted at the Sony World Photography Awards. He's renowned for his hauntingly beautiful pictures of the oil devastation in the Niger delta. "I think it's my responsibility as the man with the camera to find a way to represent this [situation], so that it becomes appealing to whoever sees it. At first sight you're like, `What a beauty,' but then behind it is a huge Armageddon." He hopes his latest project, in which he photographs Nigeria's traditional monarchs, can offer a more positive way forward.
4. Neo Ntsoma (13 May 2013) South African Neo Ntsoma is the first woman recipient of the CNN African Journalist Award for photography. She revisits DJ Cleo and the stars of South Africa's new democratic dawn, to take new portraits and discover the effects of 20 years of freedom. Neo moved away from news because she didn't want to reinforce African stereotypes. "My dream was to be an advertising photographer and take pictures of beautiful things. Black people feeling good about themselves, dressed well. But it was a picture that the apartheid regime didn't want to show to the world. They wanted to paint black people as barbarians."
5. Congolese Dreams (20 May 2013) Executive produced by Viva Riva director Djo Munga, Congolese Dreams follows photographer Baudouin Mouanda as he explores the idea of marriage in Congo. The Congolese photographer burst onto the global photographic scene with his colourful photographs of Brazzaville members of SAPE (The Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People). As Baudoin says, "Africa will surprise everyone. There are lots of images of war, so I want to show another image of Africa."
6. Mario Macilau (27 May 2013) Emmy-winning documentary director Francois Verster follows former street child Mario Macilau, as he uses photography to investigate the growing gap between rich and poor in Mozambique. "There is no longer a middle class in our country," says Mario.
The Tsarnaev's connection with Chechnya makes this a good moment to listen to photographer Stanley Greene talk about the region and about his extended photo-essay, Open Wound, an examination of the violence that engulfed it between 1994 and 2003.
Greene's photos hit like a sledgehammer. He himself is both mesmerizing and sobering. But he offers no easy answers. Listen to the three-part interview below.
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