Zack Wittman​ October 12, 2015

Dorchester, Mass, USA 2014

Zack Wittman​ (b.1992, United States) recently graduated from Central Michigan University’s photojournalism program. He has been featured in Time Lightbox, PDN Magazine and various newspapers including The Boston Globe, where he interned in 2014. Zack was an intern at The Flint Journal and is interested in continuing to work as a newspaper photographer. He is the three-time Michigan College Photographer of the Year, placed second in the 2014 Hearst Photojournalism Championship and was selected for the Nikon Award at the Eddie Adams workshop in 2014.

About the Photograph:

“The Globe’s office is right off the water, just a few blocks from the beach. It was an overcast, slow day in the newsroom and after sitting restless behind my computer for a while I went out looking for a feature. In my experience, I always have more luck finding features when walking instead of driving, so I took a stroll through some Dorchester neighborhoods and found myself at Castle Island beach. The only people out in the sand that day were this lovely Haitian family who welcomed me to take photos while they buried the little ones in the sand! I sometimes get nervous approaching people for features, but I always think back on photos like this as a reminder of the work that can come from feature hunting!”

Paulo Patruno October 4, 2015

Orlando, Florida 2014

Paolo Patruno (b. 1972, Italy) is a freelance photographer and video maker. He traveled throughout Africa over the past ten years, documenting topics such as health care, education, human rights and sustainable development. Since 2011 he has ben working on a long term project called Birth is a Dream about the rising awareness of maternal health in Africa. The project has already been shot across Cameroon, DRC, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda and Zimbabwe. His clients include Amref, Save the Children, United Methodist Women, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Paolo’s works have been awarded by MIFA, Pollux Awards, PhotoAnnualAwards and the Photo Philanthropy Activist Award.

About the Photograph:
“This image is from my documentary project called American Dream about maternal health for African-American women in the USA. The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized country in the world. And while the vast majority of countries have reduced their maternal mortality ratios, for the past 25 years the numbers of women lost during pregnancy, birth or postpartum have increased dramatically in the US. African-American women in the US are at especially high risk. They are nearly four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications compared to European woman. Last March, I traveled to Orlando, Florida and documented women’s maternity experiences. Joanne is 32 years old and mother of five children and pregnant with the sixth. I took this photo of her and her son Alfonzo at he end of a full day just when I had already started packing my gear. That seems to be the rule, the best photographs, the most intimate ones, arrive after having built a personal relationship with the people of the stories.”

Thomas Boyd October 1, 2015

Rodeo dance in Eugene, Oregon.  2007

Thomas Boyd (b.1966, USA) graduated from Portland State University after a four-year enlistment in the Marine Corps. In 1993 he was hired as a staff photographer at The Columbian newspaper in Vancouver, Washington. In 1997 he was hired as a staff photographer at The Register-Guard where he was recognized as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Thurston High School shooting. In December, 2007 he joined the The Oregonian. His work has been published in a broad range of publications such as National Geographic Traveler, Sports Illustrated, the Washington Post, ESPN The Magazine and U.S. News and World Report. In 2006, he was a featured speaker and team leader at the Eddie Adams Workshop.

Chris Occhicone September 23, 2015

Amateur boxers line up for registration and weigh-in. Passaic, NJ 2012

Chris Occhicone (b.1978, USA) is photojournalist based in Northern New Jersey. Before coming to photography he received his BA in history from Fordham University and did graduate work in public health at Harvard and international relations at the Whitehead School of Government. He decided to pursue his passion for photography on a full time basis by enrolling in ICP. His project Fringe was screened at the 2014 Visa Pour L’Image festival in Perpignan Chris attended the Eddie Adams Workshop and was awarded the Time Magazine Award for his work there. His photographs have been published in TIME Lightbox, and Al-Jazzeera.

About the Photograph:

“I had really just started photographing and considering changing directions career wise and a few lessons that came out of taking this photo have been important. After meeting some trainers at a gym in Passaic, NJ I had started shooting amateur boxers in gyms in Passaic, Patterson, and Newark. I had seen a lot of the younger kids train in the gym and was always impressed by their confidence. When I saw them lining up for registration and weigh-in they looked much more vulnerable than at the gym. The guys running registration all had the hard look of older fighters and I wanted to see what they saw. So, I squeezed behind them and shot a few frames. What’s funny is that, while I was shooting one of them grabbed me and dragged me out and started to loudly say you like taking pictures of little boys with no shirts on, telling me he was calling the cops and I better erase the images.”

“My first reaction was to laugh at the absurdity of his accusation. They were live streaming the event- an event where the same kids were going to shirtlessly punch each other in the face in front of a crowd with cameras. He didn’t find my observation funny. Also, the guy had been a boxer so I didn’t have a chance to physically back him off. I had gotten to know a lot of trainers, several of who were local law enforcement and I waved them over to explain that I was not some pervert. The whole incident taught me how important it is to shoot what I see as an important moment and deal with any problems afterwards. It also was a good lesson in dealing with people who don’t get what you are doing and in standing my ground as a photographer. I knew I had the photo I was looking for and there was no chance I would delete it.”

Lydia Panas September 21, 2015

Turning to the Phoenix. Kutztown, PA in 2007

Lydia Panas (b. 1958, USA) has degrees from Boston College, School of Visual Arts, New York University and ICP. Her work has won numerous awards and has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, Photo District News, Popular Photography and is held in numerous public and private collections including the Brooklyn Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; and the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego among others. She has received a Whitney Museum Independent Study Fellowship. Her first monograph The Mark of Abel (Kehrer Verlag), was named a best book of 2012 from PDN and the Daily Beast.

About the Photograph:

“I was working on a series of portraits about family relationships when I made this photograph. Vanessa is a gentle and quiet woman. She is fiercely political, but always soft and discreet. I admired how she spoke about her daughter. She and Abby’s father divorced early and Abby was raised between two homes. I remember thinking how difficult it would feel to share my daughter with another woman/mother but Vanessa was always generous about the time Abby spent with her father and stepmother. I would ask her, how do you feel having to share? Do you resent it? Do you feel pushed aside when she is with them? Vanessa, measured perhaps, but also thoughtful indicated that Abby had a second perspective and extra love in her life. I think it was somewhat painful, but she did not waiver, referencing Abby as most important in the equation.”

Anne Rearick September 13, 2015

Glenn’s Ferry, Idaho 2014

Anne Rearick’s (b. 1960, United States) work as a photographer has taken her from exploring life in Basque villages in the French Pyrenees to the culture of amateur boxing in the US and Kazakhstan, to post-apartheid South African townships. Anne has received numerous awards and grants in support of her photography, most notably a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright and the European Mosaique Prize among others. Anne Rearick’s Eye, a monograph of her Basque photographs, was published by Editions Atlantica in 2004.  She has recently completed work on her latest book, Township, Life after Apartheid, slated for publication in 2016.  Collections include the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Centre Nationale de L’Audiovisuel in Luxembourg, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.  Her work is distributed by Agence VU.

About the Photograph:

“This  photograph was made on a scorching  July day in Glenn’s Ferry, Idaho. Glenn’s Ferry is a small town (population 1319) located on the Snake River in southwestern Idaho. I’d parked a few blocks away and was walking up and down streets looking for pictures. It was a ghost town, I hadn’t seen a soul.  Finally, I came across this group of teenagers. Hot and bored, they were lounging under a great tree, totally unaware of me. One of the boys, the oldest I think, had a pellet gun trained on the house across the street. I approached the group and talked with them for a bit about what they were up to. The boy told me that he was waiting for his older brother to come out of the house they shared with their father and stepmother. He was going to shoot at him for laughs. Thankfully, the brother never came out, and I stayed and photographed the kids for awhile. They reminded me of myself as a teenager, trying to survive those long hot summer days.”