Carville, LA - The Separating Sickness, by Rebecca Solnit

Harper's Magazine sent me down to Carville, LA to photograph for a The Separating Sickness - How Leprosy Teaches Empathy, a story by Rebecca Solnit, whose work I have long admired.

The whole shoot had to be done in short notice, so I sent my whole darkroom down to Louisiana by FedEx, piece by piece and bottle by bottle, and re-built it in a rental SUV. I was sad to leave my truck (Harriet) behind, as my truck has become such a key element to what I do - it's where I sleep, where I eat, where I rest, and it makes a really comfortable stand-up darkroom. It's kind of like a giant camera bag with a darkroom, bedroom, and kitchen inside of it that I can drive around. I just love that truck. And it does great on gas mileage.

Here's a picture of what my living room floor looked like during the prep time:



Anyways, once I got to Louisiana, I picked up my brand-new ENORMOUS rental-car 36-passenger Chevrolet SUV with bright white interior. And suddenly, I realized that I would have to try my best not to get my new houseboat on wheels too stained up with photochemistry. Which, being clean and tidy is not particularly something that I am good at.

The grounds were immaculate and beautiful and incredibly saddening. The trees were enormous, and old, and some were missing limbs as though they had amputations. The landscape showed empathy. I shot over 30 glass negatives. Out of the 30 glass negatives, 5 images were published in Harper's magazine, and a sixth was published on their blog.

See it in the June issue of Harper's Magazine. Actually, you should probably just subscribe to Harper's magazine, 'cause it's super cheap to subscribe, and its a really incredible magazine that I love-love-love.

signing off,

Lisa

Bushwick Open Studios

This year, I was asked to participate in a group show at Silver Projects at the Bushwick Open Studios. I love the Silver Projects space, and I love their mission statement. It was an honor to be a part of their inaugural exhibition.

Then, a few days later, I saw this pop up on the internet:

10 Artists to Watch from the 2013 Bushwick Open Studios

Thank you, Silver Projects, and thank you, hyperallergic.com!

PDN's 30 2013

It is a great honor to have been selected for PDN's 30 2013!

Check it out here!

Everglades by Dale Hawkins

Dear William Henry Jackson,

Dear William Henry Jackson,

I am writing to you from the future. Or, perhaps I am writing to you, who are in the past. Either way, you have been dead for some time now, and it seems that we will not be crossing paths in this lifetime.

I, however, find you a very attractive man. I usually do not have a particular attraction towards photographers, but you are one of my exceptions. Plus, you are clearly a man who can both ride a horse, and shoot a gun - two essential traits every real man should have. If you come into the future, we can build us a cabin with our own hands in the middle of some thick, dense earth, way down some dirt road or up on a mountain, and have a vegetable garden and you and I can shoot things dead and we can cook them. It will be heaven. We can take lots of pictures and when we get sick of having too many prints around we can make them into paper airplanes and set them to flight, although I will probably fight to keep a few of yours because I love your work so. I know you like painting, so you can paint a whole bunch, and I can sit outside in the sun and bang on my guitar until I get good at it. We will dance on the grass in our bare feet every day. And I will happily cut that grass every few weeks with a large machete.

I hope you get this message, hop on that horse with that very large weapon of yours and come and rescue me from all of these modern day city boys.

Thank you very much.

Love,

Lisa

This month, I received a grant from the Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation for my American Folk series. It is an honor to have received this grant.

The foundation was created by Harold Chenven in memory of his wife, Ruth Chenven, a silversmith and jewelry designer. The foundation is presently run by a small group of their family and friends.

So, I would like to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to Ruth and Harold Chenven for giving me support to move forward with this project.



Marmet, WV. November 2011.

"What's In Your Bag?" article by David Carol

A few weeks ago, David called me up and asked me if I would want to participate in this article he was writing. An article, he said, about photographers and their camera bags. And I said, "But - I don't really have a camera bag - I kind of just throw everything in my truck and go." To which David replied, "Perfect!"

So, there I was, in Wharton State Forest, New Jersey, on my way home from West Virginia, pulling all of the relevant contents out of my truck. One by one I laid them all out on my tarp: my camera, lenses, my Bolex and its motor, film holders, wet plate back, tripod, boots, dark cloth, guitar, cable release, light meter, polaroid, fixins for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, extra 16mm reels and my leatherman. Okay, okay, obviously this isn't EVERYTHING that I have in my truck when I go out to work. But, this was a small edit of the items that are most essential that I use most often.



check out the full article by David Carol here.