A Peek at the Nuru Print In Sarah's Apartment
JB: So how you did you find out about Nuru Project?
S: I learned about Nuru Project after some friends brought me to your website launch event. At the time, I didn't even know I was going to a charity event. I thought I was just going out with friends to the Bubble Lounge to have a drink. And then my friends said, "Oh, we forget to tell you there's this event…" Only then did Nuru Project come up. Once I was there, I fell in love with this photograph and so I bought it. And it's for a good cause. Amazing.
JB: And what drew you to Martyn Aim's print in particular?
S: What first attracted me to Martyn Aim's photograph was the color. Purple is my favorite color. Because of my Middle Eastern background, the image of Thai women going to morning prayer also attracted me. From the description, I read about the violence in the country that has cost more than 4000 lives. In contrast to the men with guns it describes, these women look angel-like. They are strong in how they're devoted to their prayer. I felt that prayer is their weapon that they use. I like that.
JB: Tell me about the story behind your frame. (detail below)
S: The frame found me more than I found the frame. I went to a frame shop having a totally different idea of how I would like to frame it. And then I saw this frame. I love the wood. I love the grey coloring. And I saw the rope within the frame as a symbol of strength, of holding things together. So I felt the symbolism matches with the theme of the photograph and that's why I chose it.
JB: I also see you've framed the Backstory alongside your print. I always wonder what our customers will do with those. Why put it on the wall instead of say, in a nearby drawer?
S: I framed the description next to the photograph as a reminder for me. You can have your own interpretation, but then again there is a story there as well.
Sarah Subaey is a student at Fordham Law in New York City. Her Martyn Aim print is displayed in her apartment on the Upper West Side. Sarah is proud to be of mixed Saudi and German heritage.
Dignity Boston - Preview 4
We're excited to partner with BOSTON+acumen on the Dignity Boston Photography Sale & Auction benefiting Acumen Fund on Saturday, March 3rd!
More information is available here and tickets are available here. This post is the fourth of five weekly installments previewing prints that will be for sale at the event. We hope to see you there!
Bob Miller. Nairobi, Kenya. 2010. Untitled.
"I met Kelly Nganga in a Nairobi slum one day in March, 2010. As a young boxer, Kelly's dream is to be picked up by the Kenya Armed Forces and box professionally. Each day at five in the morning, Kelly wakes up to train. In the evenings he returns again, using free weights he made from cement and plastic jugs. He's part of a hodgepodge group of adolescents, each from different tribes, that calls themselves the Kibera Olympic Boxing Club. The group's ethnic diversity is remarkable given Kenya's 2008 post-election violence in which people from several tribes were forced violently out of slums. Together, these boxers represent a nascent trend of cross-tribe brotherhood in a healing nation."
Tomas Munita. Varanasi. India. 2008. Untitled.
"India is full of contradictions. The feeling of spirituality is hastily tested by the surrounding reality. Nothing is what it seems to be, at least in the way that we foreigners want to understand it. The girl is not painting a heart on the blue wall. She is trying to erase it with a stick to prevent me from photographing it."
Christian Als. Nairobi, Kenya. 2008. Untitled.
"The world's population just passed the 7 billion mark, and for the first time in history, the majority of the world's population lives in cities. In Nairobi, Kenya, one million people are crammed in to a piece of land the same size as Manhattan's Central Park. After working on the Kibera story for a week, I decided to hire a small airplane to capture the density of the slum, and to my big surprise, I saw that the city's most prestigious golf course is situated right next door. Two worlds collide in one frame."
Yuri Kozyrev/NOOR. Cairo, Egypt. 2011. Untitled.
"Tens of thousands packed central Cairo Friday, waving flags and singing the national anthem, emboldened in their campaign to oust President Hosni Mubarak after they repelled pro-regime attackers in two days of bloody street fights."
Julia's Kirk Mastin Print
We LOVED getting this snapshot from Vancouver for Acumen member Julia Fan Li of the Kirk Mastin print on her wall. Her print purchase supported Acumen Fund. The text alongside looks great as well!
Send us a snapshot of your framed Nuru print to jb.reed@nuruproject.org and we'll post it here!
- JB
What does Luxury mean to You?
Christian Bobst. Kullu Valley, India. 2009. Reflection.
“Luxury,” says British essayist Pico Iyer, “is a function of scarcity.”
In Mumbai – where the clamor of construction begins outside my bedroom window at four a.m. and where my neighbors watch me do living-room yoga to the backdrop of pigeon squawks – luxury is
space
and quiet.
In Bombay, high-rolling clubs like Breach Candy and Bombay Gymkhana afford the city’s wealthy and their expatriate guests such luxuries as space for swimming pools the size of intersections and shrubbery planted solely to block out the racket of traffic.
Upon first glance, the life of Christian Bobst’s monk seems luxurious to someone like me. And I imagine many Mumbaikers deprived of space and tranquility would feel the same. But after reflecting on the photo’s backstory, I see the discipline and sacrifice required for the monk to live this way. And I wonder, if Christian Bobst’s monk were to look at a photo of me banging away at my white-collar job in a new seventh-floor apartment, would he see a picture of luxury, or something else?
- Mark
FREE ART - Nuru Project is giving away a free 20" x 24" Christian Bobst print if our Twitter following grows to 2000 by Friday as part of Social Media Week in NYC. Promote @NuruProject using #SMWnuru to be eligible. Watch a video with more info here.
Mark Hand is an Investment Associate at First light Ventures, which invests in young social enterprises in India. He is especially proud of his new leather-sole Dan Post western boots.
#SMWnuru to Win a Free 20x24!
Promote Nuru Project this week using #SMWnuru as part of our 'Share Nuru' Social Media Week campaign. If we reach 2000 Twitter followers by Friday, we're giving away the 20x24 prints on this wall to three people who used #SMWnuru.
Prints on Offer:
Aaron Huey - http://bit.ly/nuruhuey1
Christian Bobst - http://bit.ly/nurubobst1
JB Reed - http://bit.ly/nurureed2
Dignity Boston - Preview 3
We're excited to partner with BOSTON+acumen on the Dignity Boston Photography Sale & Auction benefiting Acumen Fund on Saturday, March 3rd.
More information is available here and tickets are available here. This post is the third of five weekly installments previewing prints that will be for sale at the event. We hope to see you there!
Jody MacDonald. Dauji, India. 2010. Onset of Spring.
"Imagine the energy and power and excess that Mother Nature herself puts into spring - the blooms, the growth, the surge of life. Then imagine people imitating this raw energy and that's Holi, the Indian festival celebrating the onset of spring. Dense, frantic, unorchestrated, insane, messy, beautiful and at times, dangerous. Holi is like a bee hive that's being rattled. Women beat men with sticks. Colored chalk rains down like a flood. I dressed up like a local, wrapped my camera in plastic and tape and tried to blend in. With all the chaos, it wasn't hard to do."
Ami Vitale. Varanasi, India. 2006. Untitled.
"In Varanasi, I visited the ghats, steps leading down into the River Ganges where according to Hindu mythology, the soul is liberated from the human body. Every day two million people ritually bathe in the holy river. Thousands come there at the end of their lives, simply to die.”
Kirk Mastin. Chennai, India. 2009. Woman Wading in the Bay of Bengal.
"I followed this woman out into the water during Pongal, the Tamil New Year festival. She was one of thousands if not millions, that day on Chennai's Marine Beach, the second longest in the world. On the third and final day of the festival, families throng to the beaches, irrespective of socio-economic class. She was having a personal moment away from the crowds and was unaware of me."
Teru Kuwayama. Siachen Glacier, Kashmir. 2002. Untitled.
"The Siachen Glacier has the dubious distinction of being the world's highest and coldest theater of war. For more than 20 years, the Indian and Pakistani armies have fought a low-intensity conflict at altitudes over 20,000 feet and at temperatures 50 degrees below zero. The glacier has no clearly identified strategic value, and both sides concede that there is no military solution to the war."
Everybody Hurts
8"x10" - $50 | 11"x14" - $75 | 16x20 - $175 | 20"x24" - $250 | 24"x30" - $500 | 30"x40" - $1000
Emotion is something all humans experience, common across cultures, across sexes, even across periods in history. What draws me to Aaron Huey’s print is curiosity about the emotion that the man in his photograph is experiencing. After inspecting him closely, I believe he is mourning. I don’t know this man. I don’t know his history. I don’t know his character, or who or what he might have lost. But seeing how tenderly he clings to the wall, I know what he is feeling, for I have lost as well.
Only after I’ve finished examining this man does the rest of Huey’s photograph appear to me. The shrine is indescribably ornate. Birds explode into flight. Given all this rich visual detail, why am I so glued to a man who takes up only a tiny fraction of the frame? It’s because Huey captures raw human emotion that I can feel. With one click of his camera, he suspended in time a universal aspect of humanity and that made a tremendous connection with me.
- Jeff
Jeff Mueller is a Captain in the United States Marine Corps, a former F/A-18 flight instructor, and currently a student at Columbia Business School. Jeff specializes in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and does not like skinny jeans.
We recommend that you benefit Kiva with your Aaron Huey print purchase. Kiva connects people through lending to alleviate poverty. Kiva works with local partner Asasah in Pakistan.
Dignity Boston - Preview 2
We're excited to partner with BOSTON+acumen on the Dignity Boston Photography Sale & Auction benefiting Acumen Fund on Saturday, March 3rd. More information is available here and tickets are available here.
This post is the second of five weekly installments previewing prints that will be for sale at the event.
Unable to attend? You can buy all these prints on our website!
Espen Rasmussen. Balakot, Pakistan. 2005.
"It was my last day in Balakot, Pakistan, covering the aftermath of the massive earthquake that killed tens of thousands and left large areas in ruins. I went to the main mosque to view the Friday prayer. The place was turned into a pile of rubble, but still people attended in large numbers. As the prayer started, the mosque was covered with worshippers. This represented hope for me. No matter the size of a tragedy, no matter how hopeless it seems, people will cope, come together and search for strength in their faith."
JB Reed. Nairobi, Kenya. 2005.
"I spent a year in Kenya from 2004-2005 photographing the everyday life of young men living in Nairobi's Mathare Valley slums. One of the most charismatic people I met was Charles. He was tall and muscular with an easy smile and a bottomless sense of humor. If Charles's hands were idle, they would automatically start twisting the baby dreads he was growing at the time. When I met him, he was trying to become the first from Mathare Valley to play for the National Team. It was a long shot though. His semi-professional soccer salary couldn't even cover his bus fare to games. In the end, he didn't make it. After I left Kenya, he got engaged to a Canadian woman from the U.N. named Victoria who I had introduced him to. They asked me to photograph their wedding in Toronto. Looking at the wedding photos, I marveled at how long his dreads had grown. They live in Ottawa now. I saw on Facebook recently that Charles shaved his dreads. Maybe be did it to better fit into his new environment. Or maybe he just felt he'd outgrown them. Either way, I know deep down he's still the same old Charles."
Laura El-Tantawy. Delhi, India. 2008.
"I grew up in a moderate Muslim household in Cairo. My parents practiced Islam with an open mind and raised my sisters and I with a liberal mindset. This used to be typical of middle-class Egyptian families. My particular experience with Islam has fueled an interest in other Muslim cultures and a curiosity about religion and spirituality in general. I took this photograph of Muslim celebrations of Eid in India. It's the festival following the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. This was my first trip to India. This morning in New Delhi was different than other Eid prayers I'd experienced. Whereas I'd always spent Eid celebrating and eating with family, on this day I was alone - an observer. What struck me most about Indian Eid was the color as hundreds of worshippers bowed together in prayer at the break of dawn. I will never forget that morning."
Palani Mohan. Kohlapur, India.
"Kushti wrestlers throw clay all over themselves to improve their grip before fights. Since India’s wrestlers took home medals from the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, the spotlight has been turned on the 3,000-year-old martial art that is arguably the antecedent of the Greco-roman style. Bouts take place in a pit lined with red river soil. Each morning Hindu prayers are said in the pit, which wrestlers treat as a temple. Kushti is a demanding sport. Wrestlers cook, eat and sleep together. Many have been away from home for much of their lives and consider fellow fighters family. One wrestler told me, "We cannot drink, smoke or have sex. We cannot even think of girls. Even in our dreams it’s forbidden. If we want to be good wrestlers we must live a pure life."
Sunshine From Rain
Bhopal, India was the site of an industrial catastrophe in 1984, when gas and other chemicals leaked from a nearby Union Carbide pesticide plant. A memorial at the site bears the words: The suffering continues, so does the struggle. The brother of the subject of Alex Masi’s photograph suffers from lower body paralysis as a result of the disaster and the village suffers from ongoing contamination. But the daily struggle, the ability to find solace in simple moments of peace, goes on as well.
In Alex Masi’s photograph, the fresh rainwater on Poonam’s face will soon be absorbed into the earth and contaminated by the chemicals that continue to pollute her village. And yet we find Poonam relaxed, eyes closed, wet hair stuck to her chin, appreciating the simple pleasure of cool rain on a hot day.
There are so many thing I take for granted in my daily life. Living in Los Angeles, the sun is always shining. And yet, on the day I write about Poonam, I open my door to the sight of rain. She helps me remember that's worth appreciating too.
- Jessie
BUY THIS PRINT - At Nuru Project, we connect photojournalism with causes. We recommend supporting Acumen Fund with your Alex Masi print purchase.
Jessica Lawson is a marketer and freelance writer in Los Angeles. Facing the end of her twenties, she recently started a blog called When I Was 30 relating the reflections of successful people on the pivotal age.
Can Art Help Communities Regain Hope?
I'm lucky enough to be tagging along with my wife in Davos, Switzerland this week as she covers the World Economic Forum for TIME Magazine. One of the most interesting people I've met so far is Michael Haefliger, a Juliard-trained violinist who now curates the Lucerne Music Festival in Switzerland. Recently, he's taken an interest in putting art to social use with a project he calls Ark Nova.
Ark Nova is an inflatable music hall designed by Japanese Architect Arata Isozaki and modeled after Anish Kapoor's inflatable sculpture, "Leviathan" (below). Michael wants to tour the tsunami-affected region of Japan putting on free orchestral musical performances inside the inflated hall. You can watch a video of his vision here.
One question that Michael has been getting as he presents his idea publicly is whether resources are best used on such projects in a country that is still rebuilding? Such criticisms pose a larger question: is art important in helping people recover from disaster?
Often times, art is thought of as a nice extra, as non-essential. When education budgets get tight, arts funding is often the first thing cut. In the context of disaster relief, most people think of "essential" services as things like healthcare and housing. But in Michael's vision, art is also an essential human service. When I asked him why it is important that people affected by the tsunami have access to these performances, he replied that music can raise the spirits of those who are suffering. Michael believes that in addition to traditional relief services, people coping with disaster also need hope.
- JB
The Ark Nova vision:
The exterior of Ark Nova, which would inflate out of the back of a truck, so that it can move around the tsunami-affected area of Japan:
Anish Kapoor's "Leviathan", which inspired Ark Nova:
Look Beyond the Horizon with Kevin Tachman
"What drew me in to photographer Kevin Tachman's print from Sri Lanka is the deep sense of calm he cultivates. The trees feel like drawn curtains, allowing a glimpse into a quiet family moment. Five kids and a mom, their bodies all angled in slightly different directions, stare into the distance. The mother points to space outside the frame. Her arm is straight, no bend, signaling with conviction some future destination. The girl seated on the middle stone leans left, caught up in her own vision—whether present or imagined. And by shooting his subjects from behind, Kevin allows us both to observe them and share their gaze across the water. We too get to experience that timeless feeling of seeing what’s in front of us and wondering about all that is beyond."
- Gwendolyn
BUY THIS PRINT - Nuru Project sells photojournalism prints to support compelling non-profits and storytellers. Print sale revenue is shared 50/25/25 between our non-profit partner of your choice/photographer/Nuru Project. We recommend you benefit Architecture for Humanity with your Kevin Tachman print purchase. Architecture for Humanity is building a more sustainable future through the power of professional design and has completed a number of projects in Sri Lanka, including a community complex, tsunami-resistant houses, a school, and a livelihoods center.
Gwendolyn Oxenham teaches writing at Orange Coast College and Irvine Valley College in Southern California. Her first book, Finding the Game, a travel memoir about the search for pickup soccer in 25 countries around the world, will come out with St. Martin's Press in June 2012. Little know fact about Gwendolyn: she became the youngest Division 1 athlete in the history of the NCAA playing soccer for Duke at the age of sixteen.
Dignity Boston - Preview
We're excited to partner with BOSTON+acumen on the Dignity Boston Photography Sale & Auction benefiting Acumen Fund on Saturday, March 3rd. More information is available here and tickets are available here.
This post is the first of five weekly installments previewing prints that will be for sale at the event.
Unable to attend? You can buy all these prints on our website!
Aaron Huey. Multan, Pakistan.
"A man embraces the corner of a Sufi shrine in the city of Multan, Pakistan's City of Saints. This tiny shrine, hidden in a quiet dilapidate neighborhood, does not attract the crowds of the famous central mosques, but it made for a beautiful image with only the birds and its humble caretaker. This image is part of a larger series I did on Sufism in Pakistan to highlight the mystical branch of Islam known for peace, love, and poetry instead of violence, extremism, and sectarian conflict."
Alex Masi. Bhopal, India. 2009. Poonam.
"Poonam revels in the rain as it dispels the unbearable August heat in her impoverished neighborhood in Bhopal, India. Bhopal was the site of a 1984 gas leak from a Union Carbide pesticide manufacturing plant, often cited as the world's worst industrial disaster. Thousands died as a result of the leak and many thousands more have suffered long-term health impacts, including Poonam's brother, who has lower limb paralysis and skeletal deformity. The image won a cash prize from 'The Photographers Giving Back Award' that has been used to build Poonam's family a new home, start a business and pay for education expenses. I have witnessed much injustice in India, but on this particular day something real happened that made at least Poonam's world a little better."
Benedicte Kurzen. Lagos, Nigeria.
" 'Who feeds you, controls you.' - Thomas Sankara
This little girl appeared to me in the streets of Lagos, Nigeria. My attention was caught by the way she walked, the bread on her head, and her red t-shirt. I am a color photographer and I react strongly to colors. Red brings life to a picture. I was on assignment for the New York Times. The article was about the price of wheat, the growing demand for food, and the economy of agriculture. On one side of the planet, the American farmers flourish, and on the other side, Nigerians struggle to buy bread. This little girl reminds me of the world being a global village and how, for the best but too often for the worst, everything is interconnected. That's why any form of power implies responsibilities.
I remain an incurable idealist and always wish for economic, social, political systems which reflect humanistic values. Systems which serve the people and not the other way around."
Christian Bobst. 2009. Kullu Valley, India. Reflection.
"The Dagpo Shedrub Ling Monastery was started in the Indian Himalayas by monks fleeing the 1959 Chinese takeover of its Tibetan namesake. To this day, young novice monks still risk their lives crossing the border from Tibet to India to get there. They say they're sad to leave their families, but happy to practice their religion in peace. While there, I caught the isolated face of this young monk looking up from his studies, while the the monastery and the mountains of the peaceful Kullu Valley reflected in the window. Monks must memorize passages of a book called The Great Lam Rim and prove their knowledge in daily debates. The monastery is renowned for its strict application of the rules of monastic discipline."
The Gravitas of Gradualism
In 1795, James Hutton, known as the father of geology, wrote, “It is the little causes, long continued, which are considered as bringing about the greatest changes of the earth.”
The moment I viewed Rony Zakaria’s print, Hutton’s words immediately came to mind. The image is alien, yet oddly familiar. It seems to bookend geologic time: volcanoes and humans, with 4.6 billion years in between. Everything is in motion. The cars streak, the stars smudge, the steam pours, the ground seems to be flowing towards the viewer.
In contrast to the action in Zakaria’s image, the entire landscape, and all of Java for that matter, was created by imperceptible movement. Two inches per year. This is the rate that the Indo-Australian plate slides under the Eurasian plate. Unnoticeable and unimpressive. Yet after 80 million continuous years, it has resulted in the island chain of Indonesia, magnificent volcanic peaks, and the setting Zakaria captured.
Mounts Bromo and Batock anchor the image. They conjure the proto-earth, nascent humanity, and the most foundational of processes. Vapor and gas escape from Mount Bromo the same way they have breached the Earth’s crust for billions of years. Like the ticking hands on a watch face, these peaks are suggestive of the much larger and more complex mechanisms below.
Tectonic plates collide and one ocean floor dives below another. The oceanic crust melts and the buoyant molten rock steadily climbs. Super heated water vapor and gases build pressure and break through to the surface. Volcanoes erupt, grow, and become mountains. Mountains erode and become beaches. Beaches erode and are strewn across the ocean floor. Tectonic plates collide and one ocean floor dives below another.
After purchasing Zakaria’s print from Nuru Project, the image became more than a cryptic geologic watch face. It is my connection to Architecture for Humanity, the organization I chose to support with my purchase. By providing access to powerful art, as well as allowing consumers to be active philanthropist through their purchases, Nuru has provided a platform that combines our inclination for both creative exploration and compassion. Nuru has presented the cause, but it is up to us to ensure that it is long continued.
In the end, Hutton’s words are about so much more than geology.
- Thomas
BUY THIS PRINT - Nuru Project sells photojournalism prints to support compelling non-profits and storytellers. Print sale revenue is split 50/25/25 between our non-profit partner of your choice/photographer/Nuru Project.
Thomas Steinwinder is an Industrial Environmental Engineer. He speaks Mandarin, loves to eat fried chicken livers, and at one point there was a YouTube video of him using Kung Fu to break a board in half with his hands.
How Photographers Actually Spend Their Time
Great post from APhotoEditor:
Soccer Stripped Naked
I am the director of a documentary film called Pelada, a journey to 25 countries around the world in search of pick-up soccer on side alleys, concrete courts, jungles, rooftops, prisons, and any other crazy location. The word Pelada literally means "naked" in Portuguese - it's the term used in Brazil for pick-up games, the version of the game stripped of all rules. It took three years to make the movie and we returned home with many amazing stories of every-day people who play. When it became clear that the film might enjoy some success, we began a search for our key art. We had taken hundreds of photographs during our years on the road, and while many were great, none fully captured the essence of pick-up.
Then we came across a photo from Kenya by JB Reed, Co-Founder and CEO of Nuru Project. It was shot in Mathare, a slum in Nairobi and the site of one major story from the film. Mathare is an amazing place - a feast for all the senses, and JB's photo captures the nrighborhood's end-of-the-day soccer games that rage until nightfall. We loved the photo because it could have been taken anywhere in the world. The silhouetted people could be of any race, religion, or gender. By taking the details out, JB allows the viewer to experience the unadulterated joy and pure adrenaline that often accompanies casual games. To us, it is the perfect "naked" photo of the game, the embodiment of what pelada means for people around the world.
- Ryan
BUY THIS PRINT - Nuru Project connects photojournalism with non-profits. We suggest selecting Kiva as the benefit non-profit at checkout with your JB Reed print purchase. Kiva connects people through microlending to alleviate poverty.
Ryan White is a documentary filmmaker from Doraville, GA. His latest project is Good Ol' Freda, a documentary film in-progress about the untold story of Freda Kelly, the Beatles' trusted secretary and friend throughout their rise to fame.
Results from our 1st Quarter Online
We sold 116 prints, raising $6775 for our non-profit partners and more than $3000 for our photographers!
Photographs are Risen Wonders
I just spent a few minutes looking at the photographs in the Nuru Project cache. Such speedy browsing, the blessing and the burden of the Internet. Bursts of color and place and moments. Flashes. Half-seconds of meaning.
It's a simple exercise, one I encourage you to take right now, if you are reading this. Take two minutes. Click SHOP at the top of this page. When all the images load, slowly linger down the roll, only letting your eyes pause for a single second on each photo. Fifty images should take you about one minute. Once you do this, catch your mental breath then scroll back up the thumbnail roster and let yourself choose one image to click. Don't think. Just choose the one that pulls you most.
I'm no psychologist. I'm a writer. But smart men have told me the two professions live on the same Jungian cul-de-sac. So, for the sake of this exercise, I'm going to describe how it worked for me.
First, the initial run-down. I'll be honest, I cheated on the first row of images. Little crouched Poonam from India, letting the rain hit her sweet face, so trusting, reverent. You cherish her. Then, ticking by like a clock's hand: the diver, the red dress, the soccer silhouette. I'm lulled by a succession of black and white imagery; it's somehow slower. It's more stilled. Then, the bright day and three birds. And Christian Hansen's Haitian boy, more than a boy, chiseled and resolute, calm inside that crumbled moment. He makes me remember our girl Poonam, in the summer rain, from about 13 seconds ago. Then the long line of marooned monks, the simple table, the shaving yard: these feel like a new day around the world. The blurry celebration, the chalkboard, the wall, the water, the leaping, the surreal moment of purple surf. The viewing has momentum now, a forward movement I can't slow down, though I want to. I want to linger in places I imagine to be thousands of miles away. Rugged hills and Pacific atolls and houses of worship. Jungles, cities, mountain passes. Until my eyes settle on the last, a ripe blue of a wall, a dye blue that makes me think of Easter eggs. I am finished. And in the last possible instant, I see the girl, scratching out some white line.
That was 60 seconds, a lush and powerful minute. I'm happily spent in the holiday feast sort of way. Yet, I am anxious to scroll backwards, knowing already what I want to see for longer. At least I think I know.
I go up, passing the faint balloon man, the Bolivian shade tree, the five fisherman. I see my elephant sooner than I expected. Buoyant, childlike, but with a largess and tonnage you fear. That elephant. I can't not click it. Which is why I am so surprised to find myself clicking the other image, the one next to the bathing elephant. Thick woods, a trampled scene, and another set of creamy white tusks in the background.
I click.
It wasn't all that long ago that the first photograph surfaced into being. Can you imagine it? The scene. 1829. France. When the pewter plate began dissolving, like seltzer, and some vagueness took shape. They'd have used words like sunprint and camera lucida. Surely the early photographs took on the risen quality of a wonder.
That's how this hesitant, curious elephant appears for me. He appears. He wasn't there, then he just was.
Taylor Bruce is a freelance writer from LaGrange, Georgia and a Master's Candidate in the Brooklyn College MFA program. If you leave him alone in a room of bourbon and boiled peanuts, kiss them goodbye.
All Nuru Project print sales are split 50/25/25 between our non-profit partner of your choosing/the photographer/Nuru Project.
Quotes
Some odds and ends we've published via social media the last couple days. Food for thought headed into the new year:
"What is Fair Trade when you boil it down other than basic human politeness? It seems sad that we are rewarding fundamental decency with its own label." - comedian John Oliver
"Photography is subversive not when it frightens, repels, or even stigmatizes, but when it is pensive, when it thinks." - Roland Barthes via David Campbell
"I have been to your malls. They are cathedrals to bullshit." - comedian John Oliver
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein
December Recap
That means $4500+ for our non-profit partners and $2250+ for our photographers!
In Defense of Simplicity
Saw a 3D movie recently. Wasn’t moved.
Honestly, video doesn’t excite me much either.
I like photographic prints - flat, tangible, silent, still:
