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Oct 6 | By Joerg Colberg
Lydia Panas’ portraits, which typically contain at least two, if not more people, possess that little something that lifts them above a lot of other portraiture and that at the same time is so undefinable, so indescribable. In Lydia’s case, the magic seems to be coming from the interaction between the subjects. Group portraits often contain an element of heroism - this alone would be a good topic for a longer discussion (see an example here) - and that heroism is absent in Lydia’s work. Instead, there are trust and displays of intimacy.
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Oct 5 | By Joerg Colberg
Photographically, the continent of Africa, home of around one billion people and cradle of humanity, seems to be in a bit of a tight spot. While there is a lot of different work being produced about or in Africa, the most visible types of photography, the ones we get to see most often, are either photojournalistic depictions of war and/or poverty or what Jim Johnson called the freak show. David Wright’s Alebtong, Uganda was thus a very pleasant surprise for me: A young photographer going to Africa and producing images that do not center on photojournalistic clichés or on the overly exotic.
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Oct 1 | By Joerg Colberg
After publishing my review of Christopher Anderson’s Capitolio, I ended up exchanging emails with him about the work and its purpose and reception. Things got so interesting that I thought this would be a great opportunity to take things public and to have a conversation with him on this blog. Thankfully, Chris agreed. Note that larger versions of all images (all of them, of course, are copyright Christopher Anderson) can be seen by clicking on them. The b/w images are from the book, and they are presented just like in the book (see the conversation for details).
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