Iris Rising: "A Woman's Eye"

The exhibit is an array of exciting IPC Visual Lab students' works by four women who, each equipped with a unique personal and professional vision, interpret life in South Florida through visual symbols.  Their documentary photography is driven by a wide range of emotional forces – humanistic and aesthetic – distinctly synergized by the feminine perspective.

The exhibit is curated by Carl Juste, an award-winning Miami Herald photojournalist who most recently, co-curated the highly acclaimed “I Witness” exhibit at the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery – a seminal body of work by international photojournalists.   Jenny Babot Romney co-curates and exhibits her own work.

Commenting upon the importance of showcasing the female perspective, Juste says, “Women offer a holistic approach and try to find a more complete picture.  Rather than searching for visual impact, they offer more of a visual stroke.”

Exhibiting artists, all photography students at the IPC Visual Lab co-founded by Juste, come from four different walks of life:

Jenny Babot Romney is Presentation Manager for the Advertising Division of the Miami Herald Media Company.  Romney began studying photography 8 years ago and she freelances as a portraiture and wedding photographer.

 

Jennifer Kay is a Miami-based journalist for the Associated Press.  Kay has twice been a finalist for the South Florida Society of Professional Journalists’ Sunshine State Awards, honored by the National Association of Caribbean-American Journalists, and won a 1999-2000 Virginia Press Award for a front-page story about gang activity in the D.C. metro area.

Sacha Suarez is Senior Manager, Partner Relations at Univision.  Her true passion and calling since age 14 has been art – drawing, painting, and molding any medium.  Suarez is a professional artist and freelances for the Miami Herald and private engagements.

 
Nanci Thomas founded the Oscar Thomas Foundation in 1997 as a vehicle to perpetuate the memory of her late husband, his achievements, and to carry on his dream of a better life for others through the power of art.  Thomas’ husband was an iconic billboard, mural, and portrait artist who was once described by NBC News as “the country’s leading artist of Dr. Martin Luther King.”  Thomas, who once studied art with her late husband, reclaimed her artistic voice through learning photography.

“A Woman’s Eye is a project inspired from observation and a feeling of passion for South Florida where so much of life is lived out in the open, in the streets, as well as in its natural environment, “comments Jenny Babot Romney.  “South Florida is a vibrant and colorful place that takes center stage through the eyes of these four female photographers.”

Whereas each woman brings a different viewpoint, the exhibit as a collective showcases the possibility of visual storytelling.  “The exhibit,” says Juste “is a conduit for creativity and an opportunity to channel it into something positive.  Together these women can speak a greater truth not achieved individually.”
 

“A Woman’s Eye” runs through June, 2012 Monday to Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with other hours available by appointment by calling (305) 751-8367.  The exhibit is free.

 What:       "A Woman's Eye"

When:      Saturday, April 21, 2012

                  6:00 pm - 10:30 pm

Where:     ACND Gallery of Art

                 Archbishop Curley Notre Dame Prep

                 4949 NE 2nd, Avenue

                 Miami, Florida 33137

Contact:  305-751-8367

Link:        www.acnd.net  

iPhone Irony

The Irony of the iPhone

The Irony of the iPhone

Recently, I picked up the new iPhone 4S.  It was really exciting to finally get 'the phone'.  After carrying an old Palm Treo phone for 8 years...it worked, I saw no reason to replace it.  I was really looking forward to all the amazing things I had heard about with regards to this phone.  Downloaded a few 'apps' and started to explore.

It wasn't long before I discovered that shooting with the built-in camera was surprisingly good, far better than I anticipated.  Here was, for me a business tool, that I used for emails, reading PDF's, keeping track of contacts and clients and of course phone calls.  Recently, I had to travel for business and normally I always make a point of carrying one of my cameras.  But on this recent trip, I chose to leave my smaller second body home and my primary camera I just sold as I plan to purchase a new body.  It was a short trip and I didn't think I'd be able to dedicate time to shoot.  But as is the case all too often, my flight was delayed.  So I tried to keep myself entertained.

I found myself looking around and seeing images that I wanted to capture.  The more I shot, the more I enjoyed the challenge of making images that I found interesting, dynamic and worth sharing.  I had heard and read of iphoneography and thought it was something Apple junkies created just to worship the brand.  But here I was getting more and more invested in creating images that I would have been happy to make with my more serious 'tools'.

The more I shot, the more I felt this was a viable new tool for me to use.  To some extent, I started to feel a sense of guilt.  Here I was shooting with a camera phone, no control over my exposure settings and a tiny sensor and miniscule lens.  While at home, sat a bag of expensive lenses, some valued at over $1000 dollars that I painstakingly researched, and purchased that took a real commitment at work to justify.  Was I cheating myself, my gear, my commitment to the art image-making?  Was I becoming a casual less serious shooter?  These images could never be enlarged to the same size as images made with my brick full frame DSLR. Was this bad?

It's been a few months now, and I have a collection of over 150 images that I truly like very much shot with my iPhone.  It has now become a challenge for me to put together a collection of images shot strictly with my iPhone that could be displayed in a gallery.  The images shared here are the images from that initial business trip that started the whole self-imposed challenge.  So the irony for me is that I find myself reaching for the iPhone to shoot instead of my optically superior lenses and camera.  Someone mentioned to me recently that if I had made those same images with one of my cameras they would be far superior and more usable.  I don't disagree but I lustfully enjoy watching people's reactions when they look at some of the images and gasp and say "you shot that with a phone?!?!"

Spring Break just passed for my wife and son and we took a trip to Puerto Rico for a few days.  On the trip, I chose to carry one of my cameras but I also had my iPhone with me, for work of course...
I hate to say it but I prefer the images that I shot with my iPhone to those shot with my camera.  So this is my new irony!  Do I continue to shoot with my iPhone or shoot with my camera?

Iris Rising: Processing in the Lab

This is Jennifer Kay's first entry to her photo diary.

Visual Diary by Jennifer Kay
 
“Photography is part history, part magic." 
 Photojournalist Seamus Murphy, VII

Entry 1 - Monday, April 3, 2012

Seamus Murphy is one of a dozen or so photojournalism bylines that sticks with me, because his photographs stick with me. I read somewhere that the Irish-born Murphy got his start in photojournalism relatively late, in his late 20s. Part of why I remembered his name was because I liked that he wasn’t a prodigy, that he was someone who put in the work, and that it wasn’t too late to start making visual stories.

Murphy has won at least half a dozen World Press Photo Awards for his work from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America. He’s recently begun exploring film making -- his photography from Afghanistan, “A Darkness Visible,” is being extended into a film, and he recently shot 12 short videos to accompany PJ Harvey’s album “Let England Shake.”                                                                                                     

 There are elements of Murphy’s work that I hope to emulate this semester with the IPC Visual Lab:

               • isolating figures with the frame
               • vanishing points
               • silhouettes and repeated forms
               • creating opportunities out of restrictions  
                  (for example, using photo bombing to isolate figures)

Jennifer Kay is partaking on a visual journey and this semester she will share pages from her
photo journal. Here are several images from upcoming entry.

On April 1, 2012 several thousands of Trayvon Martin supporters gathered at Bayfront Park in Miami to lend their voices to the outcry for justice regarding the slain Miami-Dade student who was killed during a brief visit to Sanford, Florida.  Jennifer Kay documented some of the participants of the rally with the new acquired awareness of her visual mentor Seamus Murphy.