NOPA members' 'E2' works to be exhibited at Netherlands festival

NOPA members Elizabeth Kleinveld and Epaul Julien will have collaborative works from a series based on iconic imagery from paintings, photography, film and literature--and meant to spark discussion about stereotypes and prejudice--exhibited this summer at the Dutch national Zomerexpo 2012 art festival of the Municipal Museum of The Hague, Netherlands (Gemeentemuseum Den Hague).

According to the Octavia Art Gallery of New Orleans, which represents Kleinveld, the collaborative work selected by the Zomerexpo jury was submitted under the name "E2." The photographers' series of remakes of a "with a twist" sort was created with the cooperation of the Dutch National Theatre, which provided many of the costumes, wigs and props seen in the images.

The E2 selections chosen for Zomerexpo 2012 are "Ode to Rembrandt's Jewish Bride" (shown above) and "Ode to the Pinching d'Estrees Sisters." They will be on exhibit from June 15 to August 19, 2012.

Kleinveld and Julien, who hail from the Crescent City, previously worked together on the Before During After" project, which involved exhibits and a book of the same name, with the subtitle "Louisiana Photographers' Visual Reactions to Hurricane Katrina." The gallery suggests that their interest in addressing stereotypes and prejudice grew out of that experience.

Other works form the E2 series can be viewed at the Octavia and Kleinveld websites.

Image: "Ode to Rembrandt's Jewish Bride," by E2 (Elizabeth Kelinveld and Epaul Julien)

NOPA member's 'My Louisiana Love' preview showing at Loyola

My Louisiana Love Trailer from Sharon Linezo Hong on Vimeo.

A sneak preview of "My Louisiana Love," a documentary film by NOPA member Monique Verdin, will be screened on the evening of Monday, April 23 at Nunemaker Auditorium on the campus of Loyola University New Orleans. The showing will begin at 7:30 p.m.

The film, produced by Loyola alum Verdin and and Sharon Linezo Hong, concerns a young Southeast Louisiana woman’s quest to find a place in her Native American (Houma Nation) community as it suffers from decades of environmental degradation.

A discussion with the filmmakers will follow the screening. The event is free and open to the public.

The auditorium is located in Monroe Hall on the university's main Uptown campus. Free parking will be available at its West Road Garage, at the time of the screening.

Trailer for 'Yazoo Revisited' by NOPA's Morris premieres in Miss.

The trailer for a documentary film about the history of school desegregation and civil rights in Yazoo City by NOPA member David Rae Morris--a project partially funded by a Mississippi Humanities Council grant applied for via the Photo Alliance--premiered last Saturday, April 13, at the Jackson, Miss. area's Crossroads Film Festival.

Morris is now seeking pledges for additional funding of $15,000 through the crowd-funding site Kickstarter in order to bring to the project to feature length. Details regarding the fundraising drive are listed below.

The setting of "Yazoo Revisited," is the hometown of Morris' father, the late author and onetime Harper's Magazine editor Willie Morris. The elder Morris wrote extensively about Yazoo City in works including his memoir "North Toward Home." Another of his books, 1972's "Yazoo: Integration in a Deep Southern Town," concerned the desegregation of the town's schools.

It was not his father's writing per se that sparked the project, however, but Miss. Gov. Haley Barbour's news-making comments in 2010 about the town's Civil Rights Era history. More specifically, Barbour told the conservative Weekly Standard magazine that he did remember the era as being so bad for race relations.

Morris notes that he had always been a still photographer. Still, he decided that documentary film would be the more appropriate medium for a reexamination of Yazoo City story in the wake of Barbour's comments.

He now expects to have a 25-minute or so work-in-progress ready after the end of the June, when the initial grant period is completed. In order to expand the documentary to a planned feature length, however, he needs more funding. Consequently, he is seeking $15,000 in funding via the Kickstarter crowd-funding website, about $3,000 of which he had pledged thus far. If he does not reach his pledge goal by the morning of Sunday, May 13, he will not receive Kickstarter funding, and no money will change hands.

Morris noted that this funding would allow him to complete the first phase of his larger documentary project by the end of 2012. This phase will involve doing more interviews and research, securing archival footage and the completion of principal photography. Any funds raised over his goal will be applied to a second phase of the project, which will involve post-production, editing and the securing of rights for archival footage.

For more information, you may visit Morris' Kickstarter page, as well as his "Yazoo Revisited" page at Facebook.

Call and Response Opening, Saturday, April 21, 6-9 pm

NOPA, NOLA Film Society show Crewsdon doc at Prytania Sunday

NOPA and the New Orleans Photo Alliance are bringing director Ben Shapiro's film about legendary contemporary photographer Gregory Crewsdon, "Beneath the Roses," to town this weekend. The film will be shown at the Prytania Theater--located at 5339 Prytania Street in Uptown New Orleans--at 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 22. 

A question-and-answer session with Shapiro will be held after the screening. The Photo Alliance has a limited number of tickets for NOPA members. Please e-mail Morgan Sasser to reserve tickets as soon as possible, if you are interested.

Volunteers sought for PhotoNOMA 2012 portfolio night May 11

The New Orleans Museum of Art and NOPA are seeking volunteers for assistance with PhotoNOMA 2012, which is to be held on the evening of Friday, May 11. (See the post below!) What is mainly needed is help in "wrangling photographers," as organizers put it, moving tables around, and manning the museum entrance table.

If you are free for the night and can help out, please contact either NOPA's Morgan Sasser, or the museum's Judy Cooper.

PhotoNOMA 2012 registration open, limited to first 100

The New Orleans Museum of Art, in partnership with NOPA, will present PhotoNOMA 2012, a photographers' work showcase night at the museum, on the evening of Friday, May 11. Registration is open as of today, but limited to the first 100 applicants.

The event will be held from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the museum, which is located in New Orleans' City Park.
Registration is open to all, from beginners to established photographers. A wide range of work has been on display at past PhotoNOMA events, so no particular style or technique is sought or encouraged by the museum or NOPA. The event is great for exposure and engagement with the public, given that it typically garners large crowds.

Otherwise, please note that PhotoNOMA attendance is open to all photography enthusiasts and the public at large, and that this is an event where attendees can meet and engage with artists. General admission is $10, while entry is $5 for Photo Alliance members, and free for those with museum memberships.

All photographers who are interested in participating should register here.

Presbytere hosts Deepwater Horizon oil spill panel on Thursday

The Louisiana State Museum of New Orleans will present, "The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill:
Two Years Later," on the evening of Thursday, April 19 at the Presbytere in Jackson Square on Thursday, April 19.

The event will begin at 6 p.m. A reception will follow.

The event is free and open to the public as part of the museum's "Coastal Conversations" series. The series focuses on environmental and climate-oriented issues explored in "Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond," an ongoing multimedia exhibit at the Presbytere.

The moderator for the Thursday evening panel is Dr. Doug Meffert, Executive Director of Louisiana Audubon Society. Panelists will include Dr. Michael J. Blum. Arnold Early Career Professor in Earth and Ecological Science at Tulane University, and Cynthia Sarthou, Executive Director of the Gulf Restoration Network.

Image: Installation by Patrick Shay, Grand Isle, La. 2010. Photograph by NOPA member Mark J. Sindler of the Louisiana State Museum.

Ogden Photo Openings, April 19

The Ogden Museum is opening several environmentally themed photography exhibitions on April 19.

Shifting: Photographs by Michel Varisco
Colleen Mullins: Elysium
Woody Woodruff: Field Work
Nell Campbell - Duck Blinds: Louisiana
CC Lockwood: Photographs from the Ogden's Permanent Collection


Read more about each exhibition here: www.ogdenmuseum.org/exhibitions/upcoming-exhibitions.html

Opening Thursday, April 19, 2012
Opening reception: 6 p.m.

"What is a photograph?" opens at NOMA this Friday

What is a photograph? How do we define its history? This exhibition, compiled mostly from NOMA’s permanent collection, examines many forms of photography from the 1840s to the present, in order to explore these questions. Over the past 190 years, photography has infiltrated almost every aspect of modern life, from birth to war and science to religion. During this time, the photograph has taken many forms, such as the daguerreotype, cyanotype, and gelatin silver print. Scholars and historians have often found it difficult to write a history that gives equal weight to each of these distinct forms, but recent technical developments in photography have made it even more complicated. With the advent of the digital era, it appears that we must once again begin rewriting photography’s history to include not only images on metal plates, paper, and cloth, but also images on laptop screens and handheld devices, images that have no physical support and may never physically exist at all. It has become clear that a history that narrowly defines photography as one medium is insufficient. Photography, it seems, is not one medium, but many.

This exhibition describes and includes many of the most common photographic processes (daguerreotypes, salted paper prints, gelatin silver prints, and inkjet prints), but it also includes objects, artifacts, and practices that have typically been considered marginal to the history of photography (reproductions of photographs in ink, negatives, camera-less photographs, cartes-de-visite, color processes, and even a piece of jewelry). These disparate works invite you to consider what—if anything—links them together within the history of photography.

"What is a Photograph?" will be on view from April 20 to August 19, 2012 in the Templeman Galleries.

New Orleans Museum of Art

Richard Sexton open studio set for evening of Thursday, April 12

NOPA member Richard Sexton will be hosting an open studio on the evening of Thursday, April 12, from 4:30 to 8 p.m.. His temporary studio and site of the event is 113 Lavergne Street in the Crescent City's Algiers Point area, three short blocks from the Algiers Ferry's West Bank landing.

Sexton noted that he is starting the event a bit early to avoid the worst of rush hour traffic on the Crescent City Connection, and closing a bit later for those enjoying the first day of the city's popular French Quarter Festival.

The studio is located only three short blocks from the Algiers Ferry's West Bank landing.

The open studio is being held in celebration of the following, all of which feature Sexton photographs from New Orleans and the surrounding region:

• 2012 reissues of "New Orleans: Elegance and Decadence" and "Vestiges of Grandeur: The Plantations of Louisiana's River Road."
• The fall 2011 publication of the Sydney and Walda Bestoff Sculpture Garden, by Scala Publishers, in association with the New Orleans Museum of Art. (Miranda Lash, editor.)
• A sneak preview of new work from the forthcoming "New Roads and Old Rivers: Louisiana's Pointe Coupée Parish," due this fall from LSU Press. (Text by Randy Harelson, with Brian Costello.)

Wine and cheese, as well as beer and chips, will be served.

Image: "Center Hall, Lakeside Plantation, home of painter Hunt Slonem," by Richard Sexton. (From Pointe Coupée Parish.)

Documentary photo slideshow & party at NOPA Gallery April 14

Momenta Workshops, a Washington DC-based photojournalism and social documentary photography organization, is inviting anyone with an interest in photography or the work of local nonprofits to a slideshow and party presented in connection with its Project New Orleans 2012. The event will begin at 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 14 at the NOPA Gallery.

A cocktails and conversations hour will kick off the event, with the slideshow set to begin at the gallery at 8 p.m. The NOPA gallery is located at 1111 St. Mary St. in,  the Crescent City's Lower Garden District.

The slideshow and party is formally billed as a celebration of the work of New Orleans nonprofits. It will feature the work of students of its Project New Orleans workshop, which is aimed at assisting photographers interested in documenting the work of nonprofits, communities and others involved in the city's post-Katrina recovery.

The organization's New Orleans workshop (classes are now full) begins Wednesday, April 11, at the NOPA gallery, with final lectures set for the afternoon of Sunday, April 15.

YPA Mentoring Program Accepting Applications

The Young Photographers Alliance is now accepting applications for its summer 2012 Mentoring Program, which will run in sixteen cities, including New Orleans.

The purpose of the Young Photographers Alliance mentoring program is to provide encouragement and assistance to young photographers entering the field, through a project that explores the power of photography to communicate, document and inspire. The program gives emerging photographers the ability to work with successful photographers to fine tune their craft, create images for their portfolios, develop business skills and explore markets for their work. At the same time they experience the power of photography to build community awareness and support around an important environmental or social issue.

Anyone aged 18-29 or currently enrolled in a photography course may join YPL ($21 youth membership) then apply online: www.youngphotographersalliance.org/apply/index.php

The New Orleans group will be led by Daymon Gardner and Jennifer Shaw. The ten week program will take place from June 1 - Aug 15, 2012.

Read more about the program, and this year's theme, "Hometown," at www.youngphotographersalliance.org/2012-mentoring.php.

Deadline to apply is May 14.

NOLA female photographer collective's first exhibit opens April 9

The first exhibition of a Southerly Gold, a collective of four photographers who live in New Orleans photographers and also happen to be female, will open on Monday, April 9 at the Crescent City's May Gallery. An opening reception, combined with a celebration of the group's website launch, will be held from 6 to 9 p.m.

The gallery is located under the Claiborne bridge in the city's St. Claude area of the Ninth Ward, at 2839 N. Robertson St., Suite 105.

The photographers of Southerly Gold include NOPA member Aubrey Edwards, along with Ariya Martin, Akasha Rabut and Elena Ricci.

As their first collaborative project, each member chose a color from the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and key/black) spectrum to photograph in either literal or figurative fashion. The final exhibit includes 50 images.

After the opening, the exhibit will be open through May 6, by appointment only. For more information, please see the Southerly Gold website.

socialdocumentary.net competition for NY Photo Fest is April 6

The website socialdocumentary.net is seeking submissions for a photo competition, "The Art of Documentary," with the winners to be exhibited at this year's New York Photo Festival, set for May 16-20. The deadline for entry is Friday, April 6.

According to the organizers, entries should look for photos which make the case that an image's formal qualities--and being grounded in the traditions of fine art--helps provide insight into the image's underlying content.

Entries can be submitted via the SDN website's work standard submission tools, which now feature an option to designate a submission as a competition entry. Images already uploaded to SDN can be converted for competition entry. The entry fees is $25 for anywhere from six to 36 images.

For further information, you may write to info@socialdocumentary.net.