Meet CPA's New Executive Director Ann Jastrab

Norm Diamond photographed the last months of a dilapidated, yet beautiful old gym in Dallas, Texas. These stark images could have come from another era. They evoke themes of memory and loss. No modern gym looks like this. The owner, Doug Eidd, a grizzled 87-year-old, opened the gym in 1962. He could have emerged from a time capsule as well. His members did not care that the gym was run down or that Doug smoked cigars most of the day. They respected his expertise and loved the casual atmosphere he created. Although Doug was still fit, he did not resemble the muscle-bound figure of his youth. He knew that time would one day engulf him and the gym. This came to pass in the spring of 2018 when he was forced to close the gym on short notice. Diamond stayed to photograph the removal of the equipment as Doug’s Gym drifted into memory.

With a rising number of women throughout the world picking up their cameras and capturing their surroundings, this book explores the work of 100 women and the experiences behind their greatest images.

Traditionally a male-dominated field, street photography is increasingly becoming the domain of women. This fantastic collection of images reflects that shift, showcasing 100 contemporary women street photographers working around the world today, accompanied by personal statements about their work. Variously joyful, unsettling and unexpected, the photographs capture a wide range of extraordinary moments. The volume is curated by Gulnara Samoilova, founder of the Women Street Photographers project: a website, social media platform and annual exhibition. Photographer Melissa Breyer's introductory essay explores how the genre has intersected with gender throughout history, looking at how cultural changes in gender roles have overlapped with technological developments in the camera to allow key historical figures to emerge. Her text is complemented by a foreword by renowned photojournalist Ami Vitale, whose career as a war photographer and, later, global travels with National Geographic have allowed a unique insight into the realities of working as a woman photographer in different countries. In turns intimate and candid, the photographs featured in this book offer a kaleidoscopic glimpse of what happens when women across the world are behind the camera.

This series was commissioned by the Deichtorhallen and was shown for the first time at the Hamburg Triennial of Photography in 2015. It is currently on a tour to several European cities.

UNPERSON is one of the first photo books of North Korean Defectors. In George Orwell’s 1984, an unperson is someone who has been vaporized, whose record has been erased. As each defector begins their new life, they all start out as an UNPERSON. The 15 intimate portraits tell the stories of the brave people who decided to take the chance to flee to South Korea.

The road to South Korea is dangerous and can take years with the many different borders of Mongolia, Laos, Thailand and China. The people fleeing are filled with the fear of being arrested and sent back to labour camps. Once they arrive in South Korea, they often struggle to find a new identity: Lost between their North Korean past and South Korean future.