Exhibit Review: Of Women By Women, Charlotte, USA

Of Women By Women: Selections from The Do Good Fund
The Light Factory, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

The Do Good Fund is a Georgia-based charity building a museum-quality collection of post-war Southern photography. The fund lends its collections to museums, galleries, and other institutions interested in promoting photographic art, and its latest is on display at The Light Factory, a Charlotte, North Carolina gallery and institute of photography education.  Of Women By Women fairly well describes the exhibit theme, an unexpectedly powerful collection of images that left me wanting to see more. The images did not appear especially agenda-driven, apart perhaps from the preponderance of subjects that appeared to be working class and rural poor. The display, as can be seen in the photos here, was simple but effective.  On my visit a young lady welcomed our small group, explained the background to the exhibit, and then left our group alone to wander and view.  If I were living in Charlotte, I would be happy to explore more of Light Factory’s exhibits and education offerings.  It looks like a happening place in a happening neighborhood.

The Do Good Fund maintains an online catalog of its collection, for those who’d like to see what they’re doing but won’t be making it to the southeast United States.  Check it out at: http://www.thedogoodfund.org/

The Light Factory: http://lightfactory.org/

Susan Worsham

Margaret's Rhubarb

2010

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Exhibit review: A Life 1968--2017: Shunji Dodo, Tokyo

A Life 1968--2017:  Shunji Dodo
Gallery 916, Tokyo

This was the most inspiring exhibit of summer, the one that opened new possibilities in my own work.  The inspiration wasn’t terribly radical.  It was more like a sympathetic understanding of possibility, of seeing my work in Dodo’s, and his in mine, and realizing mine might one day look as interesting.  I appreciated seeing how what would seem ordinary worked well, which suggested I can perhaps look again at such scenes when they present themselves.  I saw many images which seemed excessively dark in their exposure and development, far more than I would be comfortable working with but suggesting that such images are not outside the range of possibility.  Dodo created both posed and spontaneous street portraits, the former largely in rural communities, the latter in urban. Despite their somewhat repetitive appearance (of groups of people smiling at the camera), I began to appreciate the posed images for revealing the character of the photographer, someone able to convince large numbers of strangers to participate in his work.  Two types of images made me want to try my own experiments:  still life of the commonplace, stuff you might come home with in your pockets or in your bag; and images of half-things, cars or people, for example, shown only partially and inviting the viewer to fill in the rest.

Publication: The Big Issue North - once more

No sooner had the first image been published than I was asked for permission to use this one, another from my Tbilisi collection.

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Street Portrait Sabkha

Following on from last Friday's workshop, I wanted to take advantage of the momentum established in collecting portraits, as well as get back to the neighborhood of Sabkha.  I found it wasn't at all difficult to approach strangers here.  Everyone was friendly, even the street girls selling their services (who suddenly became self-conscious when I asked to take a picture).  Perhaps the biggest challenge still is to take more than three or four shots per subject.

Following are some of what I consider some of the more successful shots.