I just found a new exhibit with excellent images for discussing the "photo
essay."
FiftyCrows Gallery
Evidence
An exhibition of the 2003 Award winning Photo Essays
http://www.fiftycrows.org/index.htm > FiftyCrows invites you to come explore our gallery. On these walls hang
> windows that, once traveled, become narrative portals.
>
> You will enter and emerge from them in unexpected, personal ways. Think: What
> did you know when you walked through the door? How did you know? How far could
> you see? Experience these photographs; they deliver us evidence through our
> own eyes.
> Real life, real reactions, real change.
> This is documentary photography.
> The story of a photograph, however, does not begin and end with the
> immediately visible. These images are not fast facts, nor impersonal,
> objective transparencies. Each and every photograph is a searingly personal
> document; the contours of its conceiver are registered like a fingerprint.
> These essays are evidence of their inquiries, insights and histories, their
> valor. Evidence, then, also bears witness to those photographers whose trials
> and excavations illuminate life for us and pioneer the expanses of change.
>
> Think of the words of this yearıs photographers as a guide into their work:
> Demystify, destigmatize, challenge; expose, investigate, advocate; understand,
> remember, touch.
>
> We need these images to begin to know.
> We need these stories because they are meant for us.
>
> The FiftyCrows International Fund for Documentary Photography seeks to draw
> social action from your visceral, unique viewing experiences. We want these
> photographs to empower you. We want you to be transformed, and then transform
> the world.
>
> Viewing these essays, we are all witnesses to EVIDENCE.
>
> Written by FiftyCrows Intern, Tao Fei
> Curator and Creative Director for EVIDENCE was Lillian Sizemore
