It used to be that if you wanted to have an in-depth learning experience from a master photographer, you had to attend a workshop or if you were lucky, serve as their assistant. The first could be prohibitively expensive, especially if travel was involved. While the latter was only available to those talented and persistent enough to secure such a position when they became available.
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photo: Yvonne Venegas
The Candid Frame #324 - Yvonne Venegas
As the daughter of a wedding photographer, Yvonne Venegas’ work emerges from a reflection of portraiture charged by an analysis of social class and self-representation, particularly that of the Mexican upper middle class. She is interested in problematizing the idea of the perfect or official memory, by seeking moments of fragility or un-preparedness for the camera. Inhabited by upper middle-class social rituals, ideas of celebrity and beauty, upper class leisure, animals from a private zoo, beauty queens, or young wealthy children, she seeks to represent a fractured version of the images and situations that are traditionally understood to bring status and/or respect. Her experience growing up in the border has established in the way she views her subjects as well as the photographic practice itself, where she constantly looks for blurring lines between portraiture and documentary as well as explores the pulsating space between the perfect image and one that social studio photography could consider an error.
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The Candid Frame #250 - Thomas Allen Harris
Thomas Allen Harris, an award-winning Director, is the President of Chimpanzee Productions, a company dedicated to producing unique audio-visual experiences including feature length films, performances and multimedia productions. Chimpanzee’s innovative and acclaimed films - Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People (2014), Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela (2005), E Minha Cara/That’s My Face (2001), VINTAGE – Families of Value (1995), - have received critical acclaim at international film festivals including Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, Frameline, FESPACO, Outfest, and Sithengi/Cape Town and have been broadcast on PBS, the Sundance Channel, ARTE, as well as CBC, Swedish broadcasting Network and New Zealand Television.
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Photo: Ellen Jacob
The Candid Frame #223 - Ellen Jacob
Ellen Jacob is a photographer and artist. Her work focuses on people and their relationships that powerfully affect life and largely go unnoticed. Her images are about the things that seem natural but aren't.
Ellen started her career as an art director for the advertising agencies BBDO and Grey. She was a creative lead in children’s publishing and head of her own book design and packaging company, creating books and apps for HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and many others. Her work has been recognized by the Society of Publication Designers, the Art Director’s Club, the Webby Awards and other organizations.
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