SO NOW THEN

The Festival of Contemporary International Documentary Photography across Hereford.

Produced by the Hereford Photography Festival

30 September - 28 October 2006

EXHIBITIONS

COUTYARD CENTRE FOR THE ARTS
Gallery
Massimo VitalI (Italy)
Large-scale luscious colour photographs depict human interaction of modern leisure time on the beaches of the Mediterranean. His work has been shown in many international galleries and museums, plus his work is regular reproduced in magazines across the world.

An-My Le (Vietnam)
Large black/white photographs depict US military exercises in the US military exercises in the North American desert in preparation for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. She was born in Saigon, Vietnam and came to the United States in 1975 where she study at Yale. Since the mid 1990’s has had many solo exhibitions and her work has been collected by a number of major collections.

Lower Canyons
Julio Grinblatt (Argentina)
Photographic prints from People Facing Their Birthday Cakes portray the faces of people celebrating their own birthday illuminated only by candles at the moment of their wish.

LEFT BANK
Shelby Lee Adams (USA)
Each year for extended periods of time, over three decades, Shelby Lee Adams has returned to his home state of Kentucky to photograph the people who live in the Appalachian Mountains. The resulting study of isolate rural communities has created its share of controversy because his photographs are both raw and complex at the same time. Many of his portraits feature friends and relatives that give a depth to his work that can be easily missed with a casual glance. His work requires active engagement of the audience in the process of understanding the life of a community that we have little direct relationship with. The photographer has exhibited extensively across the US.

Chien-Chi Chang (Taiwan)
In his recent completed project Double Happiness Chien-Chi Chang looks at the wedding industry and the work of marriage brokers in Asia. Young Vietnamese women are displayed in front of groups of Taiwanese men who are seeking brides. If a man chooses one of the women, and she accepts the proposal the marriage takes place within three days. In 2001 he produced the acclaimed publication The Chain that portrayed mentally disturbed inmates from the Lung Fa Tang Buddhist sanctuary in Taiwan who are permanently chained
together in pairs. Chien-Chi Chang was born in Taiwan. He has worked as a staff photographer on newspapers, and recently became a member of the Magnum agency He has exhibited widely including the Sao Paulo Biennial and the Venice Biennial.

WATERSHED
Weng Peijun (China)
The economic and urban developments taking place in China has become the subject of the moment. Many photographers are travelling to document the enormous physical changes taking place in this country, but it is the Chinese photographers who are taking a more personal view of these changes. Weng Peijun is one of these Chinese photographers who are dealing with the new urbanisation. From his two series Bird’s Eye View and Sitting on The Wall schools girls from a high vantage point look at their future of the growing cityscape in front of them. His work had been included in recent major group exhibitions on contemporary Chinese photography.

Trent Parke (Australia)
The photographer Trent Parke has produced a unique view on his hometown Sydney titled Dream/Life and Beyond. By using light and shade with scale he has created a sinister vision of the city where people are burnt out by light, where shadows are larger than life, and where the sky is always dark. These moody black/white prints are the opposite of the imagery we have learnt from travel publications prompting tourism to Sydney. In Parke’s world Sydney is a frightening place in which to inhabit. He was the first Australian photographer to join the Magnum agency.

Michael Wesely (Germany)
Michael Wesely has been developing a unique form of making photographic images for the last ten years by extending the exposure time to sometimes as long as three years for one exposure. He has used this approach to explore major urban construction projects like the rebuilding of the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. In 2001 he was commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York to photograph the re-development of the museum that resulted in an exhibition and publication at the Museum. He has shown extensively internationally.

ART GALLERY
Paul Shambroom (USA)
Paul Shambroom has produced large-scale panoramic images from his body of work titled Meetings which deals with an important subject rarely photographed, the workings of democracy. Between 1999 - 2003 he travelled across America to attended over 100 council meetings. From this journey visiting small towns with populations not over 3000 he has produced group portraits of the local councillors at work. These images of civic power, working at the most local level are compelling in their detail and by showing the theatricality of politics. He has made many one-person exhibitions in the US and Europe. Meetings was published in book form in 2004 by Boot Books.