Shawn Rocco Interview

Shawn Rocco is a staff photojournalist and multimedia producer at the News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, he has been honored by both the National Press Photographer’s Association and the North Carolina Press Photographer’s Association. Since 2007 he has pursued a style and produced a body of award winning personal documentary work, he also coined ‘Cellular Obscura,’ which is done with the camera on a Motorola E815 cellphone. Rocco’s work with cell phone photography has been profiled in The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Academy A: I first became acquainted with your work in one of my journalism classes this semester when we had to view a number of features on photojournalists. I felt your work stuck out the most; it’s so innovative and inspired. Why did you decide to explore this new avenue of cell phone photography?

James Whitlow Delano Interview

James Whitlow Delano has lived in and documented Asia for a decade and a half.  His work has been awarded internationally from the Alfred Eisenstadt Award (from Columbia University and Life Magazine), Leica Oskar Barnack, Picture of the Year International, Photo District News and others. Delano’s series on Kabul’s drug detox and psychiatric hospital was awarded 1st place in the 2008 NPPA Best of Photojournalism competition for Best Picture Story (large markets). His first monograph book, Empire: Impressions from China (Five Continents Editions) and work from Japan Mangaland have been shown at several Leica Galleries in Europe and Empire was the first ever one-person show of photography at La Triennale di Milano Museum of Art in Italy. His second monograph book, I Viaggi di Tiziano Terzani (Vallardi / Longanesi) was released in spring 2008.  His work has appeared in New York Times Magazine, National Geographic Books, GEO, Newsweek, Mother Jones, Time Asia, Internazionale, Le Monde 2, Vanity Fair Italia, and others.  His work has shown in international photo festivals from Visa Pour L’Image and Rencontres D’Arles to photo festivals at Angkor, Cambodia, Lianzhou, China, Noorderlicht, Netherlands, Rovereto, Italia and Foto Freo, Australia.

Academy A: To start things off, I guess we should start at the beginning. So forgive me if you’ve been asked this a million times, but when did you first know that a career in photography would be possible for you?

All The Lights

Watching you drown
I’ll follow you down
and I am here right beside you
the lights in the sky
have finally arrived
I am staying right beside you

—Nine Inch Nails, “Lights in the Sky”

© Paul Octavious — Same Hill, Different Day

Miss World

Contessa Christina Paolozzi died by the time she was 49 – a short (but very privileged and eventful) life with plenty of impact. Imagine, this photo appeared in Harper’s Bazaar in 1962, a magazine available at supermarkets! Where has that vision gone? Why aren’t we bringing art to the masses anymore? Giving people far outside the cultural hubs a taste of sophistication – that initiative should not have faded out.

TIME (Jan. 26, 1962):

There was still much ado about the nothing worn (above the waist, anyhow) by frail Model Christina Paolozzi, 22, in a full-page Richard Avedon photograph published by Harper’s Bazaar in the January issue. The clothes-horsing magazine identified Manhattan-born Christina as a “Contessa” (she insists she is not), proudly admired “the classic spirit, abhorring the demure and falsely modest.” But the photo was agitating the female press corps to its foundations. Tartly advised Syndicated Columnist Inez Robb: “The excursion into overexposure has unwittingly proved that not diamonds but clothes are a girl’s best friend.”

Credit: Contessa Christina Paolozzi, Hair by Kenneth, New York. June 1961. Gelatin silver print, 6 3/16 x 4 3/16″ (15.7 x 10.6 cm). © 2011 The Richard Avedon Foundation

Persona

© Egill Bjarki Jónsson

Animal Kingdom

Sharon Montrose does these amazing portraits of animals, currently for sale at 20×200. As a little Christmas present to myself I picked up her Lamb No. 3, which is the perfect blend of innocence and minimalism. The austere environment she shoots everything from giraffes to pigs in is a nice contrast to all their distinct and lively personalities. It sort of reduces them all to looking taxidermic — stuffed animals that wouldn’t be out of place in a child’s nursery.

© Sharon Montrose

Take Me Somewhere Nice

I came across the work of Kari Hartmann on Twitter, randomly. I was jumping around to different people my followers were following and stopped at Kari’s page, which was charming enough for me to click the link to her Tumblr and then her Flickr galleries. It was there that I became transfixed by her imagery–anything that captures a slice of life interests me immediately and this is what her photos are to me. They are little parts of a life, a full life of adventure and beauty. There are small, quiet moments and massive, loud ones that come alive the instant you lay eyes on them. Something to be thankful for, no?

I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much; my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst… And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain, and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life… You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry… You will someday.

–Lester Burnham, American Beauty

© Kari Hartmann