Friday 13 November 2015

Posted: 13 Nov 2015 05:00 AM PST

The waters of bay run red with the blood and offal from an adjacent slaughterhouse, the sand dyed black with thick oil running back into the ocean. The fish are dying, and the scent is fowl and unforgettable, and as much as the scene resembles something from the apocalypse, the end of days, it actually happened. This is Hann Bay in Senegal, a once beautiful beach now poisoned by waste and closed to the swimmers and surfers that once called it a paradise. For The Prophecy, Dakar-based photographer Fabrice Monteiro paired up with designer Doulsy and the Ecofund Organization to tell the frightful tale of pollution in West Africa.
Unlike other initiatives to clean up the Senegalese environment, The Prophecy draws on African spiritual heritage to narrate a story that is at once true to life and inspired by mythology. It is the legend of Gaia, the Greek goddess of the Earth, who sent her jinn— a group of supernatural beings conceptualized by Monteiro, played by models, and outfitted by Doulsy— back to the people of Earth to warn us of impending doom. The figures, shrouded in garments that incorporate actual trash elements pulled from the surrounding environment, are at once fantastic and dread, revealing a vision of the future that is both likely and unfathomable.
The ten photographs are set in Senegal’s most contaminated areas, ranging from Tambacounda, where 70 million acres of lush woodland are razed to the ground each year, and Mbeubeuss, a waste dump that has become home to a group of disenfranchised citizens fighting for survival. As much as The Prophecy might mirror ancient fairytales, religious reveries, or scenes from a nightmare, they do indeed unveil a bitter and tragic reality.
That reality, however, is one that can be corrected, if not undone. Monteiro hopes to raise awareness about the sobering situation, about the fishing nets left behind to pollute the sea, about the heavy erosion caused by the removal of tons of sand from the shores, about the slash-and-burn agricultural practices, and perhaps most of all, the overconsumption of plastics. In conversation with The Mantle, the photographer reports seeing plastic bags littering treetops, blocking foliage entirely from view.
The Senegalese government and its future generations, along with governments and citizens around the world, carry the responsibility for rectifying the damage that’s been wrought. The eradication of plastic bags, the limiting of charcoal use, and the education of the public, says Monteiro, are good places to start. When asked whether he feels hope for the future of our planet, the photographer says simply, “We don’t have any choice; things have to change for our own salvation.”
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All images © Fabrice Monteiro
The post Apocalyptic Photographs of Divine Beings Warn of a Dark Future for Planet Earth appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Photographer Chris Arnade on Street Addiction and the Devastation It Leaves in Its Wake

Posted: 12 Nov 2015 07:37 AM PST

© Chris Arnade

On June 26th, Feature Shoot hosted the second edition of The BlowUp, a new quarterly event in which we ask a selected group of NYC-based photographers to tell the story behind one of their favorite images. This time, the theme was Subcultures, and Chris Arnade, who left his career as a Wall Street trader to photograph and share the stories of those struggling with drug addiction in the Hunts Point area of the Bronx, selected this image of Neecy, a woman who has become his collaborator and friend.
Neecy has battled addiction and lived in the streets for a quarter century with her found street family. Just a day prior to the moment of this photograph, she was living clean, but after a relapse, Niecy beckoned the photographer to her shelter beneath a bridge, where she stood naked and devastated. She asked him to capture the moment: “I want everyone to see how fucking shitty this life is.”
The next BlowUp event will take place on the evening of December 10, 2015 at ROOT (Drive In) from 6:30-9:00 PM, and this time, the theme will be photography that has gone viral. We have some incredible photographers lined up to speak including Sophie Gamand, Arne Svenson,Caroline Tompkins, Victoria Will, Kristine Potter, and Allaire Bartel. More photographers will be confirmed soon, but in the meantime, you can purchase tickets here.
The BlowUp is generously sponsored by Agency Access.
The post Photographer Chris Arnade on Street Addiction and the Devastation It Leaves in Its Wake appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Powerful Portraits of Interracial Couples Paired with the Hateful Comments They’ve Received from Others

Posted: 12 Nov 2015 06:06 AM PST

©DonnaPinckley_Ifshecan'tusehercombDon'tbringherhome

If she can’t use your comb, Don’t bring her home!

Don’t like Black women?
Interracial couples have been free to marry—and to have their love recognized in the eyes of United States law—for nearly half a century, but as a new portrait series by Arkansas-based photographer Donna Pinckleysuggests, the American public still has a long way to go not only in accepting and tolerating interracial couples but also in acknowledging the degree of racism that still pervades day-to-day life for many of these families. For Sticks and Stones, Pinckley photographs a diverse range of couples from all age brackets across her own state and throughout Southern territories like Mississippi, Tennessee, and Louisiana, before pairing their image with a hateful comment that has been thrown their way, handwritten below.
The professor and photographer has spent much of her career following a group of children, watching them grow into early adulthood, and listening to their stories. Sticks and Stones was born with one of these youngster’s burgeoning love story; after Pinckley had photographed the girl and her boyfriend, who happened to be African American, she sat down with her mother, who divulged the ways in which her daughter had been berated and degraded by her peers. Startled to learn that this generation, like so many before, held on to prejudice and ignorance, the photographer set out to help other couples share their own experiences.
Once she began, word of Pinckley’s project spread, and she found subjects eager to participate. Some said no to the invitation, but the overwhelming majority felt instantly at ease with the photographer and opened up to her about the difficult moments of their relationship. Sticks and Stones, however, is not about the “difficult moments” inflicted by others; more than anything else, it’s about the fortitude of true love and the self-assurance of its protagonists. First and foremost, says Pinckley, she hopes to capture the love and abiding spirit of these couples; these portraits are meant to celebrate the partnerships these people have built, the bonds that remain unbroken even after others have tried to tear them asunder.
©DonnaPinckley_Thereotherblackgirlsoutthere