DEEP LOOKING: Cultural Landscapes in Photography and Film

My contribution to this group exhibition will be my Widelux photograph of the Sedan Crater at the Nevada Test Site from "American Ground Zero: The Secret Nuclear War."  Exhibition began on August 18 and ends on October 6, 2010 at the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery of St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York. Other photographers include Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, Arthur Rothstein, Gary Braasch, Edward Burtynsky, Margot Anne Kelley, Mark C. Klett, Alan MacWeeney. Curator Anne Cuyler Salsich holds master's degrees in Public History from UC Santa Barbara and in Library and Information Science from Kent State University. Her article, "Collaboration: Paradigm of the Digital Cultural Environment," appeared in the Journal of Archival Organization in 2007. She is currently the assistant archivist at Oberlin College

Exhibition of photographs from "American Ground Zero"

 

My photographs from "American Ground Zero: The Secret Nuclear War" were part of an exhibition of the work of the Atomic Photographers Guild at the conference in Basel, Switzerland, of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, August 28-29, 2010.

A larger selection of these photos will be shown at The Cooper Union in New York City, September 30, 2010, on the occasion of the Nuclear Free Future Awards, as well as photographs of other members of the Atomic Photographers Guild.

Winter approaching, the season of best (interior) work.

While fame impedes and constricts, obscurity wraps about a [wo]man like a mist; obscurity is dark, ample, and free; obscurity lets the mind take its way unimpeded. Over the obscured [wo]man is poured the merciful suffusion of darkness. None knows where s/he goes or comes. S/he may seek after the truth and speak it; s/he alone is free; s/he alone is truthful, s/he alone is at peace. -Virginia Woolf (text feminized)

It is GOOD to be alone.

Now member of the International League of Conservation Writers

This August 2010, I have been honored, asked to be a member of The International League of Conservation Writers.

See http://ilcwriters.org/  

and also http://www.wild.org/blog/international-league-of-conservation-writers/

Keepin' on keepin' on, the day after the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

"At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands before our camera, to honor what is greater and more interesting than we are. We never accomplish this perfectly, though in return we are given something perfect -- a sense of inclusion. Our subject thus redefines us, and is part of the biography by which we want to be known." - Robert Adams

For an edited version of "Thank you, Mr. Avedon," retitled as "Transformations" and edited into pablum, see Daylight Magazine issue # 6, 2007.
http://www.daylightmagazine.org/store/issue-6-atomic-issue

ISBN 978-0-7391-3557-0 www.LexingtonBooks.com

Just published, "Filling the Hole in the Nuclear Future: Art and Popular Culture Respond to The Bomb" was edited by Robert Jacobs, with a foreword by Tom Engelhardt. Robert Jacobs is associate professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute of Hiroshima City University. Tom Engelhardt, esteemed editor of such authors as Studs Terkel, John Dower and Paul Boyer, is also an author (The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation" and "The Last Days of Publishing." He is the editor of TomDispatch, an online project of The Nation magazine, publishing some of the most influential writings on current American politics.

Contributors to this book include Mick Broderick, John Canaday, Carole Gallagher, Judy Hiramoto, Kenji Ito, Robert Jacobs, Minoru Maeda, Naoko Maeda, Yuki Tanaka, and Spencer Weart.

My essay about living downwind of the Nevada Test Site, as well as cultural difficulties and various absurdities one may encounter doing documentary work in Utah, "Thank you, Mr. Avedon," is included in this collection. It may read like a satire, yet it is 100% non-fiction.

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.

-John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

Happy Earth Day!

Here is an interview conducted by Helen Caldicott about my book, "American Ground Zero: The Secret Nuclear War," for her radio program, "If You Love This Planet."

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/40214

"American Ground Zero" was first published on Earth Day, 1993.