Alison Zavos

Photo: Robin Cracknell

Photo: Alla Mirovskaya

Photo: Tony Fouhse

Photo: Seb Tec

Photo: Sarah Jackson

Photo: Stuart Cripps

Photo: Olivia Martin McGuire

Photo: Nicky Fordyce

Photo: Natalia Engelhardt

Photo: Michael Bach

Photo: Meera Margaret Singh

Photo: Malin Fezehai

Photo: Jennifer Long

Photo: Jeff Singer

Photo: Ian Addison Hall

Photo: Saul Robbins

Photo: Emmanuelle Bosse

Photo: Dick Simon

Photo: Clare Hewitt

Photo: Catherine Abegg

Photo: Carolina Lamberti

Photo: Carol Dass

Photo: Andrew Esiebo

This show was curated from reader submissions.

Mother and Child photographed by Marisa Portolese

In honor of Mother’s Day, the topic for the next Feature Shoot online group show will be portraits of mothers.

Photographers are invited to submit images and captions to:
submissions@featureshoot.com

Up to five images can be submitted (480 pixels wide, 72 dpi, saved for web under 65kb). The deadline for submissions is May 9, 2013.

Al Jazeera English has produced a six episode documentary series, The New African Photography, that explores the current photography climate in Africa. This first episode profiles Invisible Borders, a non-profit organization that embarks on yearly photographic expedition that takes African artists on a road trip throughout the continent.

via Pro Photo Daily

“I consider myself to be masculine because I have been working out all of my life and I am a man. I am male so all males should consider themselves to be masculine.”

Philadelphia-based photographer Chad States explores how one defines masculinity for themselves in a series of portraits created over two years. The answers are intriguing, the images equally so. We recently asked him a few questions about the project, entitled Masculinities.

“I am strong emotionally, have always stood up for myself and fear nothing. I happen to be physically strong but that isn’t where I derive my masculinity.”

“Men aren’t being men anymore; they aren’t taking care of women.”

“First off I’d say I’m masculine because of how I feel inside, who I am and how I carry myself. In a lot of ways my masculinity is tied to my male gender role and how I want to project that and be perceived by others.”

Why the subject of masculinity?
“Growing up as a gay man in the U.S. I have always been aware of how men were supposed to act and I judged myself against these ideas. Masculinity was always something that was attractive to me but when I tried to unpack what made someone masculine I found it hard to define. Masculinity seemed based on relativity and shifted in different circumstances and cultures. I wanted to investigate how others defined their own masculinity to try to create touchstone for the term.”

“I consider myself to be masculine because I spent time in the Marine Corps, I work out, I have a mohawk, I have tattoos. I’m a tattoo artist, I cuss a lot and that’s all I can think of right now.”

“I want to show that, despite stereotypes, that gay men can be masculine too.”

“I have been called a SNAG (sensitive new age guy), a renaissance man, a male in touch with his feminine side, etc….I think that I am masculine in the sense of self reliance.”

How did you find the subjects for this series?
“I found most of my subjects through Craigslist, posting in multiple areas to try to cast as wide a net as possible. I would simply ask the question, “Are you masculine?” in the heading of the post. I would then invite myself over to the respondents home to photograph them. We would meet for the first time as strangers which required a lot of trust on both their part and mine. The people who were then willing to go through with the project were a small fraction of those who actually responded.

“The structure of the project created a special circumstance in which those who were still willing to participate had a strong need to have their own masculinity confirmed by the photograph. I would collaborate with the subjects on making the photograph. They would decide what to wear as well as how they wanted to construct themselves for the camera. I used a 4×5 camera only taking about 8-10 shots per sitting, so the poses and choices are very intentional on part of the sitter. The quotations are pulled from email exchanges before the shoot in which I ask them to tell me why they think they are masculine.”

“I feel masculine when I am home, I can take care of myself. I often feel emasculated when I leave the apartment though, with everyone asking me if I need help. I don’t need any help.”

“I feel that I am not only masculine in gender but also in speech, the way I act and the way I posture myself. It has been like this from birth. I like to pass as a guy, I just don’t want to have his stuff.”

“I am fiercely competitive. Not that women can’t be also, but there is something about being a man and having a competitive drive.”

“To be masculine is to dominate in one’s field of study.”

“Masculinity is an attitude. I feel that I’m masculine because I carry myself as such. It doesn’t have anything to do with what you drive or how many women or kids you have.”

“When I wear men’s clothes I feel comfortable and confident in how I look on the outside which now matches the inside.”

“I feel most masculine when I am lying in bed naked.”

Photo: Brenda Stumpf

Photographers of all levels and styles are invited to enter Exposure 2013, the 4th annual international photography competition presented by See.Me, offering over $30,000 in awards.

Work will be reviewed by an esteemed panel of jurors, including industry experts from Monocle Magazine, Phaidon, The Photographers’ Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art Montreal, and more.

The Grand Prize photographer will receive a $10,000 cash grant, an exhibition at NYC’s Aperture Foundation, and a printed feature in the EXPOSURE 2013 photography book.

Deadline to enter is Tuesday, April 30, 2013. Submit your work here.

Photographers: Squarespace Commerce is a new feature that allows you to manage and sell products on your website. It works with all Squarespace template designs—which are 100% customizable—and makes it easy to market your recent photography endeavors, whether it be creating an online print shop or selling digital goods.

The LayoutEngine integration allows you to display products anywhere on your site, ensuring a most custom online store created by you. Payments are accepted via Stripe, which is securely integrated with Squarespace, and to help build a loyal customer base, MailChimp integration allows customers to sign up for email communications from the store at checkout.

If you’re looking for more ways to grow your business, Squarespace Commerce is a helpful tool. As always, Squarespace offers a 14-day trial with 24/7 support.

*Squarespace is a Feature Shoot sponsor.

Photo: Aaron Fallon

Photo: Cynthia Wood

Photo: Jackie Furtado

Photo: Kathleen Hayes

Photo: Tim Gruber

Photo: Jonathan Lipkin

Photo: Gareth Phillips

Photo: Tim Morris

Photo: Robin Cracknell

Photo: Janine Autolitano

Photo: Daniel Porter

Photo: Rickett and Sones

Photo: Patricia Karallis

Photo: Mark Yaggie

Photo: Andrei Nacu

Photo: Matt Wilson

Photo: Chus Khairuddin

Photo: Lauren Pisano

Photo: Lou Mora

Photo: Hollis Bennett

Photo: Geralyn Shukwit

Photo: Gabriel Dominguez Duran

Photo: Florian Rainer

Photo: Caesar Lima

Photo: Erin Leydon

Photo: Emese Benko

Photo: Ellie Smith

Photo: Dragos Bardac

Photo: David Kimelman

Photo: Ágnes Jakab

Photo: Jessie Chaney

Photo: Yiorgos Kordakis

Photo: Amber Parker

*This show was curated from reader submissions.

Lost in Living is available on DVD.

via Motion Arts Pro Daily

A young girl walks by a caravan of police vehicles during a security sweep looking for criminals and drug dealers. Law enforcement officials along the border say that increased border security has resulted in more drugs staying in Mexico, which has elevated crime and created a variety of social problems. The consequences of this conflict are felt, and exhibited, throughout the daily lives of many communities in Mexico.

Heavy Hand, Sunken Spirit documents the social costs and consequences of Mexico’s violent drug war. We recently talked to Detroit-born, Haiti-based photographer David Rochkind about his experience photographing a conflict that he says is increasingly “melting two worlds together, making a singular Mexico defined as much by violence and tension as by history and culture.”

How long did you work on this project? Did you live in Mexico the entire time you were working on this series?
“I started the project in 2007 with a trip to Nogales, Sonora. At the time I was living in Caracas, Venezuela and didn’t know the exact shape that the project would take. In 2009 I decided to move to Mexico City to be able to work on the project more consistently and with more depth. The last images I shot for this were in 2011.”

This stretch of the border divides Nogales, Arizona at left and Nogales, Sonora at right. There has been little violent spillover into the US, though recently US citizens have been killed with more frequency in Mexico. In March of 2010, two US Consulate workers were gunned down in Ciudad Juarez.

It looks like you had an incredible level of access. Can you talk about how you came across most of your shots/subjects?
“Every situation required a different approach, but the most important thing is just to be kind to people. You have to make sure that the people you are working with understand that they are not simply props in a tableau that you are creating; that you are not only interested in them to the extent that they can help you make an interesting picture. I found that people are usually open if you are honest with them and are truly interested in the story they have to tell.”

Members of a Norteño band sit in their tour bus after giving a show in Mexico City. Many Norteño groups sing corridos, or ballads, that tell a story. Some of these are narco-corridos, ballads that tell the stories of famous drug dealers. There has been a wave of killings of musicians that sing narco-corridos.

Followers of La Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, attend a mass that takes place on the first day of every month. Many drug dealers and criminals follow Santa Muerte, as it is believed that she looks after those that the Catholic Church rejects. Saint Death is one part of a broad Narco Culture that is emerging in Mexico.

You started this project in 2008. How do you think the situation in Mexico (in the cities where you were photographing) has changed since then?
“In the years that I was working on this and living in Mexico I did see the situation change. On my first trip to Nogales, for example, people were just barely starting to talk about the violence and its effect on the community. But over the years, in the north and beyond, the violence and the number of deaths grew. It became a constant presence on the TV and in the newspapers and peoples lives were altered by it.”

Members of the Mexican army burn a field of Marijuana in the state of Sinaloa. Mexico was once primarily a transit route for drugs to the United States, but the country is increasingly becoming a producer of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetimines.

I imagine that you put yourself in some pretty compromising situations in order to make these photographs. Can you talk a bit about how you were able to make these images without being harmed?
“You always have to determine what level of risk you are willing to take. I think the most important thing is to understand that you are working in a potentially dangerous situation and you are not immune to that. It is important to do research before you go so you can understand what the potential dangers are and how to minimize them. I almost always worked with local contacts and journalists who better understood the situation on the ground and could help me navigate it. And if something ever felt too dangerous, even if I couldn’t say exactly why, I would leave. It is important to trust your instincts.”

Drug use and drug addiction has risen over the past 5 years, bringing with it a variety of social problems that the country will be dealing with long after the violence ends. As security on the border tightened more drugs remained in Mexico allowing the cartels to create a homegrown market. In addition, small time dealers have been increasingly paid with product instead of money. Here, a woman shoots heroin in front of her lover and a baby they are supposed to be caring for.

A pregnant 14 year old girl was shot in Ciudad Juarez. Her father and 2 siblings have also been killed, leaving behind a grieving family trying to make sense of their new reality.

What were some of the more memorable moments you experienced while making this work?
“I was especially struck by some of the personal stories of loss that I heard. If you spend enough time covering the conflict in Mexico you are bound to witness truly heartbreaking things—children killed at a birthday party by masked gunmen, a pregnant teenager shot and killed in the street, or a man killed while waiting in his car at a traffic light.

“So much horror was happening and, in some cases, perhaps by necessity, it seemed like the violence became a seamless part of people’s lives. But amidst all of this, you still found warmth, generosity and beauty. I remember a group of migrants offering me food and water on top of a train as we all headed north. They knew that I was American, had an expensive camera and probably had a wad of cash in my pocket and could get off the train at any time, but they were still looking out for me and offering to share the little that they had.”

Central American migrants ride atop a freight train carrying cement as they head north in an attempt to enter the US. Traveling by train has become more dangerous as kidnappings and robberies have risen in recent years with increased drug cartel activity.

Your book, Heavy Hand, Sunken Spirit: Mexico at War, was released in 2012. How did you know when this work was complete and ready for publication?
“It is hard to know exactly when any work is complete. The issue doesn’t end and you never finish telling the story of every angle of the issue. But there does come a point when you have told the story you wanted to tell in a way that has a beginning and an end, and that really shows what you saw and felt.”

A man who has just been returned to Mexico after trying to illegally enter the US stands right across the border at a Mexican customs and immigration office in Nogales, Sonora.

As you are currently based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, do you find many similarities between the ongoing situation there and what you found in Mexico?
“The issues that people are dealing with on a daily basis really are quite different in Haiti. There is extreme poverty, public health disasters and a total lack of infrastructure. But I find that in many places there are several overarching themes that remain the same—corruption, lack of educational opportunity and lack of economic opportunity.”

A prostitute undresses in a short-term love motel in Nogales, Sonora, where she entertains both American and Mexican customers. The drug cartels have been increasingly diversifying their business into prostitution and human trafficking.

Two young men are arrested for burglary in Mexico City, Mexico. Violent crime throughout Mexico is rising. The intimidation and reach of the drug cartels affects witnesses, police and lawyers, many of whom are afraid to get involved with any type of criminal trial. Impunity throughout the country is spreading.

You mention that for people of Mexico the scars will linger on long after the violence subsides. In your opinion, what must be done/what will it take for the violence to subside?
“I really don’t know. It is a difficult question and not one that I set out to answer. It is important to deal with the issues of corruption, education and jobs, but I don’t know if that is enough or everything.”

via A Photo Editor