National Geographic Society

FotoWeek Central in Georgetown
Photograph by Lynn Ackerson

When I was asked to write a blog for FotoWeek, my first thought was how much fun it would be to run around to all of the exhibitions, lectures, and parties. I overlooked one rather crucial fact--that I would need to leave time to actually write. And not only time to write. To have any chance of transforming my impressions into anything meaningful or even coherent (okay, semi-coherent), I'd also need time to absorb everything I was seeing and hearing throughout the week. It's dangerously easy to spit out the most superficial copy when there's no time to think about what anything means or to research any background.

This blog has been an interesting experiment for someone like me: a non-writer and a non-photographer (a double whammy). But even if I were good at doing both, I simply don't understand how anyone can write and photograph at the same time. I'm not ambidextrous, and I simply cannot juggle a camera and a notepad simultaneously. (I could have used twin brains, too.) What do mojos (mobile journalists) do?

Over 260 photo books on display at Artefacto Exhibit Space
Photograph by Lynn Ackerson

I'm thrilled to be getting my life back post-FotoWeek (and blissful at the prospect of sleep--I can't function on five hours a night anymore!). But even though all of the parties are over and all of the awards have been handed out--congratulations, by the way, to Mark Gong, who won Best in Show with his black-and-white series, Army Life--there are still a multitude of photography shows that will remain open for a few more weeks (see listings below). And we hear that the display of 260+ photo books at the Artefacto Exhibit Space will reopen soon. SO, DON'T STOP LOOKING AT THOSE PICTURES.

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My America
Photograph by Christopher Morris/ Agency VII

At a time when we're barely recovering from election obsession, and in a town already consumed by inauguration planning, "My America," the Christopher Morris show at Zone Zero, strikes a nerve. Drawn from Morris's book chronicling the George W. Bush presidency, the images in the exhibit deliberately turn away from the figure at the center of power and instead scrutinize those in the concentric layers around him, from the inner circle of dignitaries to the secret service agents to the adoring crowd. Within the security bubble that surrounds every public presidential event, Morris often closes in on details, precisely framing lips above a flag T-shirt or diamonds picking up the sheen of a green suit. The conservative fashion choices of his subjects seem oddly in sync with the spare, cool formality of his photographs.

Jean-Louis Atlan of Zone Zero (left) with Christopher Morris of VII (right) at the opening of "My America" at Zone Zero
Photograph by Elizabeth Krist

At the opening, Morris said of his aesthetic, "It's a Republican style for me," and insisted that it didn't work nearly as well when it came to photographing Democrats. In the first Bush term, fears in the aftermath of 9/11 fed a growing paranoia among those in power--an atmosphere that Morris jokingly likened to the X-Files with an ominous soundtrack. In many of his portraits from those years, even the selective exclusion of the eyes stealthily reinforces a seeming lack of humanity, as if Morris returned after years of covering conflict abroad for TIME magazine to find a disturbingly sterile homeland. But he now seems hopeful in the wake of the recent presidential election. He's excited to see what will happen the first time that President Obama goes out in public, and he's calling his next project New America.

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Robert Pledge (center) and Ronald Pledge (right)
Photograph by Elizabeth Krist

When I walked into the Artefacto Exhibit Space in Georgetown the evening before the opening of "Contact/s: The Art of Photojournalism," not a single piece of art was hanging on the walls or from the ceiling. Robert Pledge, co-founder and director of Contact Press Images, had arrived for the day to oversee the installation of the exhibit, but even after he raced out to catch a plane at 8 pm, there was still only one oversized contact sheet in place. And yet, when the opening began just 22 hours later, the exhibit was miraculously up and ready for prime time. The adrenaline of the last-minute just seems to be a grand Contact tradition.....

The show is an impressive look at one photography agency's journey through the last 30 years of news and human drama. But it is also a tribute to film in the digital age, celebrating the artifact of the contact sheet, which documents a photographer's step-by-step approach to a particular subject on a particular day. Not like today's slippery digital catalogues, with images diving out of sight or slipping out of order. Just the (in this case) black-and-white rectangles locked into their original sequence unfolding over time. As Ronald Pledge, Robert's son, wonders, will the next generation even know what a contact sheet is?

Contact Sheet - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran, February 1979
Photograph © by David Burnett (Contact Press Images)

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Tramway Station, U.S. Capitol, 1935-36
Photograph by Volkmar Wentzel

If you like National Geographic magazine and want to see photography by four of the all-time greats, come to the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C., before January 4 to see the "Odysseys and Photographs" show. Luis Marden, Volkmar Wentzel, Thomas Abercrombie, and Maynard Owen Williams shot a collective 162 years (!) for the magazine. They were intrepid explorers as well as photographers. Williams first came to the magazine in 1919 and Abercrombie retired in 1994, so this selection gives you an idea of how National Geographic saw the world through much of its history. I would bet even most photo buffs have never heard of these gentlemen, but as you will see in the book Odysseys and Photographs edited by Leah Bendavid-Val, their work is superb.

In addition to the exhibit at headquarters, come celebrate the lives and work of these four great National Geographic photojournalists, and check out the Odysseys and Photographs NGLive! event, Monday, November 10.

Woman and Coffee Blossoms, El Salvador, 1941
Photograph by Luis Marden

What's wonderful about the exhibition is the way it's captured the sense of adventure these men felt when they went into the field. You get a taste of their personalities not only from the photographs themselves, but also from the (often entertaining) telegrams they sent to their editors and even from the sound of their voices, which you can hear when you pick up one of those heavy, black, old-fashioned telephones installed in the museum. Kids especially seem to enjoy hearing the photographers talk about their exploits on these "telephones to heaven" (as one of my colleagues dryly described them). You can also see their black-and-white prints on a desktop and their color transparencies and even a few autochromes strewn on a lightbox, as if an editor had just stepped away.

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