Contact Press Images congratulates former Contact contributing photographer Louie Psihoyos, who won an Oscar for Best Feature Documentary for his film "The Cove," about a secret dolphin cove in Taiji, Japan, which is the site of the largest slaughter of dolphins in the world.
Psihoyos assembled a team of activists and special ops experts to covertly film the documentary using cameras suspended by mini ballons, helicopters and hidden in fake rocks around the cove. The film makers conducted raids on the secret dolphin cove for two killing seasons in spite of being followed by the police who had 24-hour surveillance on the film.
This is the second Oscar won by a former Contact Press Images contributor for Best Feature Documentary. Zana Briski won in 2005 for her film Born into Brothels.
Belgian photographer Paolo Pellizzari was at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada, using his signature panoramic style to create a unique perspective on the Games. Paolo first collaborated with Contact Press Images at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, where he also used a wide-format panoramic camera.
David Burnett lectured and presented images from his book 44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.
The event was moderated by Robert Litwak, Vice President for Programs and Director of International Security Studies at the Wilson Center.
Don McCullin’sSouthern Frontiers: A Journey Across the Roman Empire (released March 4th, 2010, in the UK), is the result of numerous journeys to the fringes of the Roman Empire by McCullin over the past several years. Taken with large format cameras, these images from historic sites across the Middle East and Northern Africa are reminiscent of the works of nineteenth-century explorers and photographers, yet remain consistent in mood with McCullin’s earlier landscapes of his native England and his famed images of conflict. The book contains an introduction and texts by Barnaby Rogerson, an authority on the Roman empire, and an author’s note from McCullin.
Simultaneously, the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, presents the largest ever UK exhibition about the life and work of the famed war photographer.
The exhibition contains over 200 photographs, a number of which are on public display for the first time. The exhibition catalog "Shaped By War," produced in book-form by Jonathan Cape, accompanies the show and can be purchased on the museum’s website.
Over the past six years, Dupont has traveled to Papua New Guinea, photographically documenting its changing face and the powerful impact of globalization on the fabric of its traditional Melanesian society. Guns and Arrows, the proposed project, will continue this work. From the recasting of tribal society into an urban proletariat and the effects of violence and lawlessness in Port Moresby to the westernization of traditional society in the Highlands, it will be an in-depth study of cultural erosion as well as a celebration of an ancient people.
He plans to use 35mm, 6×6, panoramic, and Polaroid formats for documentary street photography, landscapes, and portraiture; weaving single images, contact sheets, composites, and video grabs into multiple forms: a traditional exhibition at the Peabody Museum, a book with the Peabody Museum Press, and an interactive web presentation.
“I think these modern approaches are needed to fully exploit photography’s still-untapped power to move, motivate, and change the world,” says Dupont. The project will be “a reflection and a meditation on a unique place, and it may also be seen as a warning for other, seemingly more ‘secure’ cultures.”
Juliana Beasley will have two images showing at the Scope Art Fair in New York from March 3-7. Station Independent Projects selected the two images below as part of their presentation for Scope. The exhibit is called “Sway,” and explores how individuals influence each other with their behavior, dress, culture and in doing so how people effect and shape their environment. Taken on a larger scale, these gestures and beliefs go to construct the society we live in and shape all that is around us.
