In no city does photo-history weigh heavier than in Paris. Eugene Atget, Jacque-Henri Lartigue, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, Andre Kertesz, Robert Doisneau, Edouard Boubat, Robert Capa and on and on have cast long shadows on this mind-blowing city, not to mention so many historic, art and literary figures who have piled layer upon layer of […]
We had heard something about an approaching typhoon but news in mid-1990’s Tuguegarao was sparse. Dondi, John Deer and I set off under a blue sky in the early morning for a 4-hour hike to the edge of some the last old growth forests where the Agta Negritos lived. The Agta were the first humans […]
Silent entreaty: girl humbly holds placard asking passersby to help pay for her education. Fengjie, Sichuan Province (now, Chongqing Municipality), China from my first monograph, “Empire: Impressions from China” / (Five Continents). The title tells only part of the story. In 1997, we were walking down one morning to the Yangtze River. Most of the […]
One day, when I was in Afghanistan, a friend and I decided to hire a taxi out to the Panjshir Valley, the impregnable natural fortress of a valley where the Northern Alliance held off attacks by the Taliban, and earlier, the Soviets for many years. We wanted to have a look at Ahmad Shah Massoud’s, […]
A photo friend Eric Beecroft sent me a text written in 1933 by Japanese writer, Tanizaki Junichiro lamenting the loss of Japanese traditions to mass-produced, run of the mill modern, read western, conveniences. For a moment I did not realize that I was reading an 81 year-old text because it read so current. Unlike in […]
A rice farmer stands watching to the eruption of Merapi Volcano’s biggest eruption in over 100 years, Muntilan, Java, Indonesia. The final death toll from the volcanic eruption was 353 people. Coming off several years of intense reportage from disaster zones and countries with long simmering civil conflicts, I decided to get away and document […]
Paradita, Dulce Maria (Sweety Mary) 28 years old from the Mexican state of Guerrero, reclines on bed in hotel used by sex workers on Coahuila Street, Zona Norte, Tijuana, Mexico. Paraditas, or “Standing Girls” are sex workers who may legally ply their trade in Zona Norte, less than 500 m from the Mexican / US […]
From “Black Tsunami: Japan 2011” book (FotoEvidence): Cow and her unseen calf housed in a barn right in front of a barrier to the Fukushima nuclear no-entry zone in January 2012, the borderline for the territory too contaminated for human habitation and yet cattle were raised here, and their milk, exposed to the contaminated winds […]
I had never frightened anyone to the point of fleeing me on sight until I had some of the most bizarre series of encounters in the Tanah Towa area in the south of Sulawesi, Indonesia in 1994. I arrived in Bira to photograph “pinisi perahu” ship building (right photo), once employed by Bugis pirates to […]
This 1987 photo was made exactly half a lifetime ago. I was full of dreams/plans, rarely had more than this month’s rent, lived in a beach town in Southern California, and waited on tables at night in an Italian restaurant (got to love the value of a university education!). In my off hours, I’d take […]
A Photo Back Story / James Whitlow Delano 