With consideration to the short-term shift from in-person gallery exhibitions to online presentation of meaningful projects and artwork, Wobneb Magazine is happy to help spread the word for the submitted new work by Cristóbal Carretero Cassinello.
Cristobal’s work has been featured in Wobneb Magazine previously, and has been awarded by Magnum Photography, and LensCulture in a number of contests.
From time to time I try to share work on the Wobneb Instagram feed (@wobnebmag). Pop over to check out the featured work, and don’t hesitate to tag your work #wobnebmag if you’d like to be considered.
When viewing the work of Jonathan Higbee, I am reminded of the metaphor of theater as applied to street photography. Whichever street corner, subway station, beachfront, or billboard Higbee selects as the tableau, it feels like a magnificent theater with a diverse cast of characters performing in an unscripted play on an ever-changing stage. As individuals interact with one another in these tightly-packed public spaces, occasionally extraordinary situations unfold that are unexpected, mysterious, humorous or poignant. A strange or wonderful juxtaposition may materialize and then vanish in a split-second. Such ephemeral events are often overlooked or quickly forgotten. Higbee captures these fleeting moments as evocative, richly-layered images that allow each viewer to enjoy the sense of wit and painstaking patience Higbee undertakes.
It is somewhat unappreciative to say his images are merely serendipity, or lucky happenstance. Jonathan Higbee spent years meticulously documenting these fleeting juxtapositions on the streets of New York. The intersections of pedestrians, street signs, billboards, and more take on new meaning and life: as a dancer on a stage of trash, graffiti unfurling from a backpack, or even a giant casually walking the streets of the city. Each photograph captures the wit, joy, and surrealism of everyday life in a sometimes chaotic world. The resulting images are a visual language of their own; an expression that is equivalent to the final situation captured. The sum is greater than its parts. The craft and attention required to make this body of work should prompt us to pause and reflect on how magical these instances truly are.
Coincidences by Jonathan Higbee
Foreword by Dustin Lance Black and an afterword by Jonathan Higbee
Hardcover
160 pages, 125 images
10 inches x 8.85 inches
ISBN 9781944860257
Anthology Editions is an independent book publisher based in Brooklyn, New York. anthologyeditions.com
Jonathan Higbee will be in discussion with photographer Harvey Stein at Rizzoli Bookstore, New York on December 11, 2019 at 6pm. See their website for information: https://www.rizzolibookstore.com/events
Jonathan Higbee is a New York-based photographer who is often noted for his street photography, but his portfolio also includes fine art and commercial work. His photos have been exhibited all over the world and have been featured in numerous publications such as Huffington Post, Daily Mail, and Buzzfeed. His unique vision has amassed a large following on social media, including a major presence for his Coincidences series on Instagram. He was awarded the World Street Photography grand prize in 2015, a LensCulture Street Photography Award in 2016, and most recently was a 2018 Hasselblad Masters finalist.
Dustin Lance Black is an American screenwriter, director, film and television producer, and LGBT rights activist. He has won a Writers Guild of America Award and an Academy Award for the 2008 film, Milk. Black is a founding board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights and writer of 8, a staged reenactment of the federal trial that led to a federal court’s overturn of California’s Proposition 8.
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With everything going on across the world, I know many of us will know, or know of, a person affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic. My heart goes out to all of you, and everyone who will be touched by this pandemic. Please take care, and be safe.
Best wishes, Cary Benbow
Publisher – Wobneb Magazine
Kevin Bubriski was on assignment in Syria in 2003, during the infancy of the U.S. war in neighboring Iraq. He was photographing the country’s ancient monuments, as well as documenting the daily lives and ordinary human stories of its citizens. Unbeknownst to him, within the decade, a war would break out in Syria, and destroy or damage much of what he had photographed. Legacy in Stone: Syria Before War is a collection of 100 black-and-white photographs immortalizing the ancient monuments of Syria.
Until the Syrian civil war in 2010, the Suq (an open marketplace) in Aleppo was considered to be the longest continuously inhabited place of commerce in the world, existing for well over two millennia. Bubriski photographed the Suq while it was still thriving, teeming with merchants and artisans. He also captured stunning, decisive images from the Dead Cities, the basilica of St. Simeon, the pilgrimage sites of Serjilla, al-Bara, Kharab Shams, Mushabak, Baqirha, Qalb Lozeh, Resafe, early Islamic sites near Raqqa, and the ancient Roman trade cities of Apamea and Palmyra.
Bubriski recalls a special sense of discovery and awe being in a place of such rich history and haunting beauty. He remembers holding his breath and seeing the ruins take shape on the ground-glass of his camera as he gathered and preserved these sites forever in photographs. In an interview with public radio station WBUR earlier this year, Bubriski and Syrian scholar Amr Al-Zam spoke about important aspects of the project and the photographs. Al-Zam wrote the foreword to the book, and he said, “Syria is very fortunate in that it is an extremely rich region in terms of the amount of cultural heritage that we have. So even as we have lost such amazing, beautiful sites and monuments, there is still a huge amount left. My concern is that our ability to then make sure that future generations can see, feel, and experience the same things that we have and if not the same way, in just as equally meaningful manner.” But Al-Zam has also been quoted saying… “the damage is phenomenal and it’s gone forever. It can never be returned or retrieved.”
Bubriski’s images of Syria feature the architecture, and in some cases, the people he encountered at a number of the sites he photographed. The living legacy of Syria, its people, will endure. This is in contrast to the ruins of cities, cathedrals, and infrastructure that had stood for centuries. Generations of Syrians will never get to experience the rich history firsthand. Bubriski’s images serve to document and educate. Roman columns and roadways, Suq rope makers and soap sellers, stacks of limestone abstracted in his compositions – in light of the destruction that has happened since the images were made, I felt lucky to be able to view these scenes. In the same WBUR interview, Bubriski says, “Everything has been damaged to some extent. Some things have been entirely destroyed. … This was a direct assault on the cultural history of place, and also the multi-ethnic cultural histories, because there were the ancient Romans and the early Christians and the Byzantine world, followed by the early Islamic world. All of that was targeted by ISIS and others.”
Some of the scenes Bubriski captured may never exist again. Without him as witness, and his photographs as evidence, this aspect of world history might have remained lost.
Kevin Bubriski’s fine art photography is in permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. He is a recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships. His books include Portrait of Nepal (Chronicle Books, 1993), Pilgrimage: Looking at Ground Zero (powerHouse, 2002), and Look into My Eyes: Nuevomexicanos por vida 1981-83 (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2016).
To see more of his work, and follow links to his books for sale, please visit https://kevinbubriski.com
Hair is so ubiquitous, it’s a common thread not unlike the weather. Seemingly everyone has a comment or observation about the subject. ‘How does my hair look?’, ‘I cried when my hair was cut,’ or ‘I’m having a ‘bad hair day’. Hair Stories is centered around the experience of women and their hair, yet the experience is still universal to some degree. Who among us has not had a bad hair day, bad haircut, or the experience of being happy when their hair looks exactly like they want? Through this project, Hoffman specifically addresses female identity, personality, femininity, history, and many of the aspects that are attached to the subject. Each woman in the book presents her own story about themselves and their hair. Hoffman also includes an inserted sheet where the reader can scan a QR code and hear excerpts of audio interviews of the women sharing their stories as well. By presenting the womens’ voices along with their portraits, I thought this made the stories even more personal.
In her essay in the book, Hoffman writes: “What I discovered is that hair is a language, a shield, and a trophy. Hair is a construct reflecting our identity, history, femininity, personality, our innermost feelings of self-doubt, aging, vanity, and self-esteem. Hair also has deep sociological roots. It can be indicative of a certain religious or political belief system and like its genetic code, is complicated and touches our very core.”
Hair Stories is a series of excerpted interviews and color portraits of a diverse array of women, that explores the complex relationship women have with their hair. Indian-born, Los Angeles–based photographer Rohina Hoffman used the interviewing skills she has developed in her training as a neurologist to establish an intimate rapport that allowed for a truthful dialogue about the role of hair in these womens’ lives. Though it was conceived and shot before the #MeToo movement, this salient project presents hair as a metaphor for identity, femininity and the manner in which women struggle for control over their own bodies in a misogynistic world. Hair Stories does not present itself as a politically charged story, however, and it also shows that hair is more than just style or aesthetics; it is a physical manifestation of the ongoing hope and history of women. I reflected upon the women in my own life in a way that was unexpected for me. The universal became personal. Being cognizant of their own hair stories, and the differences which make them strong individuals, allowed me to learn more about them in a way that is accessible to all of us.
Hair Stories
Text and photographs by Rohina Hoffman
Introduction by Emily Lambert-Clements, Art Advisor and Former Assoc. Fraenkel Gallery.
Essay by Esther R. Berry, Fashion and Gender Studies Scholar and Curator, Ryerson University.
Hardcover 7.25in x 10.5in
92 pages with insert 38 color photographs and excerpts of interviews.
ISBN 978-8862086400
Rohina Hoffman is a fine art portrait photographer working in southern California. Born in India and raised in New Jersey, Hoffman grew up in a family of doctors spanning three generations. While an undergraduate at Brown University, Hoffman also studied photography at Rhode Island School of Design and was a staff photographer for the Brown Daily Herald. A graduate of Brown University Medical School and resident at UCLA Medical Center, her training led to a career as a neurologist. Taught to be a skilled observer of her patients, Hoffman was instilled with a deep and unique appreciation of the human experience. Hoffman now works full time as a photographer.
For more information about the photographer, go to: https://www.rohinahoffman.com. To purchase a copy of Hair Stories, please visit the website here: https://www.womenshairstories.com/buy/hair-stories
This year a number of different things came together in a confluence of good for photography in Indianapolis. I was introduced to Mary Goodwin and the Aurora PhotoCenter (APC). In its inaugural year, the APC conducted a number of events, first of all being the workshop held at the Indianapolis gallery space, Tube Factory at Big Car. Keliy Anderson-Staley held a tintype workshop and individual portrait sessions. I sat to have my portrait made, and watched as other portraits were made and observed the process Anderson-Staley took to prepare the tintype plates, expose the plate with a person or small group of people sitting for exposures; commonly in the neighborhood of 10 seconds. This is an eternity compared to the ability of a person to snap and post a photo on Instagram in less time than it takes for Anderson-Staley to make one exposure. It is a beautiful process and resulting image transported me back to first time I ever saw a photographic image developing the darkroom. Pure magic.
I sat down that same morning with Mary Goodwin and had a discussion about how the APC came into being and she gave me a tour of the gallery. Mary has previously served as Associate Director at Light Work in Syracuse, NY, and she actively contributes to photo events and workshops around the country, and she is the founder and publisher of photo books at Waltz Books. She hopes to incorporate some of the same purpose in Indy that Light Work serves to its home community. We discussed the first exhibition the center hosted: [hyphen] American by Keliy Anderson-Staley. The exhibition was in tandem with a tintype workshop and portrait sessions. Keliy’s growing collection of tintype portraits in the project, mine included, would be exhibited along with historic tintype photos from the Indiana State Museum collection. The main focus of the exhibition showcased portraits made during her stop in Indianapolis in June 2019, as well as subjects photographed in other American cities from New York to Cleveland to San Francisco.
After Mary and I spoke for a while, we were joined by another of the APC founders, Adam Reynolds and the discussion moved into the direction the center would take for exhibitions in the coming year. The third founder of APC is Craig McCormick. Craig is an architect and photographer and is a Principal at Blackline Studio for Architecture, founder of procurement and maker company Co+Effect, and creator of MarshallStudios.net. Craig is active in the photography scene in Indianapolis, and boards for arts organizations including Harrison Center for the Arts, Big Car, and Pattern.
The second exhibition hosted by the center was also held at Tube Factory from Nov 1st to Nov 22nd 2019. Respecting POTUS & National Trust was an exhibition that featured work by Andrew Miller, whose interiors, architecture, and portraiture explores the intersection of people and politics that is found in the urban environment. The other images in the show were by Jay Turner Frey Seawell who explores appearances and perceptions of historical structures to political spectacles and media culture, and they are all inextricably tied to superficial appearances and perceptions.
The third exhibition hosted by APC in 2019 was Is Everyday Extraordinary? A Photography Show. This exhibition was hosted in partnership with Indianapolis art venue, Gallery 924 for the month of November as well. Is Everyday Extraordinary? was billed as an exhibition that celebrates photography’s power to extract the extraordinary from everyday moments. The show featured work by photographers based in central Indiana, and work from about three dozen photographers was shown. I’ve shown work in gallery exhibitions only a handful of times in the past ten years; as online exhibitions are the norm now. It was great to view the work in that setting and talk with other photographers in the show. One of my professors from college, Mark Sawrie, had several pieces in the show as well. It is always an honor to be included in an exhibition alongside work made by the people who I learned from.
It’s difficult to stop myself from coming up with some optimistic statement on the outlook for photography in the coming year. What does 2020 hold for Indianapolis and the midwest in general? I have felt for a while that serious events and meaningful work gets created somewhere else; and if it starts out in the squishy areas of the midwest, it quickly heads for someplace like Chicago, Cincinnati, Madison, Detroit, or Kansas City. If the author John Green can develop an affection, dare I say pride, for Indy, then who am I to argue? Great work can come from here and maybe it just takes enough people to speak it into recognition. I will write more soon about the work of Keliy Anderson-Staley and her book, On a Wet Bough. Let’s all start talking more about photography. Let’s have meaningful dialog and share the work we create.
Parker James Reinecker is a Street / Documentary Photographer, Writer and Educator based in North Carolina. He is currently working in Northern Georgia, Northeastern Pennsylvania, and the American Southwest. Growing up in coal country, Scranton Pennsylvania, with a bar and a church on every corner, his work touches on the experience and struggle of growing up in the blue-collar United States. Drawing inspiration from his own struggles with personal identity, crime and homelessness which can be conceptually suggested within the compositions of heavy highlight and deep shadows. Parker’s images and series develop symbolic narratives while immersed in his relationship to the broken landscape of “Small Town America” and the conflict of poverty and beliefs, values and traditions, hope within the broken dreams and some touches of humor within it all.
Reinecker’s work has been exhibited in various galleries and museums in the United States including the Colorado Photographic Art Center, the Academy Art Museum and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. His work has also been featured in various national and international publications/platforms including C41 and Eyeshot Magazines, Dodho Magazine and The Photo Review. Parker is an MFA recipient from Savannah College of Art and Design and is a full-time Visual Arts Professor at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College in Salisbury, North Carolina.
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To see more work by Parker Reinecker, please visit his website at http://parkerreineckerphoto.com or on Instagram @in_the_park_
