Rising Photographers / I

All About Photo is pleased to present 'Anonymous Citizens' by Michael Ruggiero. Harvey Stein is the curator of the show that will be featured for the entire month of October 2021.

These portraits are a small representation of my final project documenting the men, women, and land of a region in far west central Illinois (the prairie state) once known as Forgottonia.

The autumn of life is often more complex in reality. It is a period of life filled with loss and awareness to the travails of growing old and the potential of mental illness. My project, Memory Keepers, examines these elements, as two of my family members are afflicted with dementia. I am not focusing on the painful loss of them, but rather on the fear of my own possible cognitive illness, and the inevitable isolation that coincides.

Photographed in Zimbabwe and Kenya in late 2020, The Day May Break is the first part of a global series by acclaimed photographer Nick Brandt, portraying people and animals that have been impacted by environmental degradation and destruction. The people in these photographs have all been badly affected by climate change—some displaced by cyclones that destroyed their homes, others such as farmers displaced and impoverished by years-long droughts.

Photographed in Zimbabwe and Kenya in late 2020, The Day May Break is the first part of a global series portraying people and animals impacted by environmental degradation and destruction. An ambitious and poetic project picturing people who have all been badly affected by climate change - some displaced by cyclones that destroyed their homes, others such as farmers displaced and impoverished by years-long severe droughts. We asked Nick Brandt a few questions about the project.

I call this series Wide Range because of the open range nature of the American West. The series focuses on human intrusion on the environment. All done in camera, objects are juxtaposed against the broad expanses of the landscape, colluding and colliding with the natural environment.

Many years later now that I am 63 years old, I have learned that it was in my early 20's when I had found my voice. It was then that I realized that my point of view had value and that I had something important to say and share with the world. I was capturing poignant scenes in our communities that I felt were significant for how they described the American culture, moments that captured American as well as universal sensibilities. Scenes that captured essential truths about people's hopes and their successes, their challenges and despair, their individuality and their relationships, during their day to day lives in our American communities. Scenes that defined an American way of life for me.

To celebrate the centenary of the American photographer and film maker, Ruth Orkin (1921 - 1985), Hundred+ Heroines will present an online exhibition and talk with Orkin's daughter on her work on 3 September (Orkin's date of birth).

What does it mean to witness? Is it to view from afar or stand in solidarity? Is it to stumble by chance upon an event, or intentionally seek out an encounter? We are familiar with the idea that to hear is not the same as to listen. But how do we define a conscious mode of looking? For photographer James Bannister, his "way of seeing" is at the crux of his philosophy of the medium.