Posts tagged with kyle chayka
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Ruddy Roye: Photography as Voice for the Voiceless
Radcliffe Roye (Ruddy to his friends) is inspired by, as he puts it, “the raw and gritty lives of grassroots people.” And so, as a self-taught photographer, his images — whether shot in his native Jamaica, where he spends two months each year, or adopted home of Brooklyn — document communities on the margins of society. Over the last decade, Roye has published rich, colorful photo essays on the Sapeur fashionistas of the Congo, Jamaican nightlife culture, single moms, and the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He’s also begun shooting daily with his iPhone, including a series of gritty, black and white images documenting the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy that were featured by the New Yorker. We spoke with Roye, 43, about his craft.
Tell us what it was like documenting Hurricane Sandy.
Very hard. I was the only black photographer among a group of four white photographers. They had to save me twice. Both times the people in the neighborhood looked at me and asked why I was there, because there were incidents of looting. And they didn’t know why I would be interested in photographing their neighborhood. How can anybody think like this? I try to answer these social questions in my work.
Do you think being a photographer of color gives you a different perspective?
I take pictures not because I am a photographer of color, but I also understand the importance of telling the colored story from a colored perspective. I am however honored that people see my work as important and that alone inspires and motivates me to take photos.
It seems like photography fulfills a social need for you.
All that I photograph comes under the umbrella of focusing on something that we sometimes might overlook. It’s something that I’m trying to put into focus, so it is not ignored.
You were a writer before you took photos. What drew you to photography in the first place?
When I was growing up, there was this oral tradition that’s always been a part of Jamaican culture. For me, photography came out of that need to tell stories. I returned to Jamaica when I was 28, as a writer for a newspaper. I was working with newspaper photographers. I would be telling them what pictures to take, and I started thinking, why don’t I photograph myself? For me, it was at the nexus of two things that I liked: writing and visually telling stories.
Tell us about documenting Jamaican dancehall culture.
In 2002, Vogue sent me to Jamaica to photograph the dancehall fashion look. I was on assignment, so I had to look differently at the subject. I started to see its colors, the pageantry, and the theater. All my senses were open for the first time to this culture that I grew up with. I came from working-class poor, and the subject of dancehall spoke to that level of society on downwards, to people who have been left, whose lives aren’t recognized. Dancehall allows me to get the people’s image.
You covered Hurricane Katrina as part of a collective. What did you take away from that trip?
Hurricane Katrina was heartbreaking. I had no idea that so much social and racial divide still existing in the South. Poverty was insanely high, not to mention the percentage of black men who were once incarcerated. As a result, I believe that the folks who were affected by the hurricane were discriminated against because they were black but also because they were poor, hardworking folks.
You often snap shots of your children. Do they ever come along with you on photo shoots?
Yes. I did a cover for Jet magazine with Whoopi Goldberg at The View where my son Mosi fired the shutter while I focused the camera. The boys like photography and understand its role in capturing memories and telling stories.
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The Book of Sarth: An Interactive Cyberpunk Tale
The influences of Brooklyn-based electronic musician Sarth Calhoun — of Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Trio — are, to put it succinctly, sprawling. Stretching from the surreal novels of Haruki Murakami to rock-opera bands like Pink Floyd and the innovations of sound-generating software system (he calls himself an “electronic alchemist”), his interests are so diverse that it becomes hard to peg him to any one genre. That ambiguity is particularly fitting for his latest project, The Book of Sarth, an interactive, multimedia iPhone and iPad app that combines original music with photography, illustration and ambient sound design. Calhoun calls it a “gralbum” — that’s short for “graphic album.”
The Book of Sarth (available on iTunes) sets off with two children who discover a mysterious piece of technology that emits unfamiliar sounds (music!) — sounds that could change the world, though the government attempts to cover them up. Set to Calhoun’s driving, synthesized electronic music, the graphics that accompany the unfolding narrative move from augmented photographs to cartoons and back again — an edgy match for a dystopian cyberpunk adventure.
The story is set in a kind of futuristic dystopia where there’s no music. How did that idea come about?
The story is an archetypical story. Kids find a device and it affects them in a certain way, the sounds it makes and the music affects them in a certain way. It’s symbolic, a meta-narrative about how music and technology can change people. The whole story was inspired by the music.
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More Than Twee: Pajama Pop with Lullatone
Once a week on a local television channel in Nagoya, Japan, viewers can catch a short segment in which a lanky white American guy teaches kids how to make instruments from household objects — in fluent Japanese. The DIY instruments range from rubber-band guitars to cardboard drums and a xylophone made from a paper roll.
The host of this unique little production is Lullatone — a husband-wife musical duo (one part Japanese, one part American) who have pioneered a genre that Shawn James Seymour (the American half) calls “pajama pop” (not to be confused with “twee”). With a blend of lo-fi instrumentation, soft vocals (from wife Yoshimi Tomida), and simple (like really simple) lyrics — Lullatone’s songs range from “Growing Up” to “Going to Buy Some Strawberries” — Lullatone has emerged as a critical voice in commercial sound design. They’re also just about the cutest band on the face of the planet. James fills us in on their easy mystique.
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Summer Art Fridays: Photographer Eddy Vallante
It’s the end of the summer, and thus our last selection for our Summer Fridays blog. To finish up on an excellent note, we chose the work of 30-year-old Brooklyn photographer Eddy Vallante, whose portraits of musicians make his Tumblr a must-see. This shot, however, is of a puppy, gazing longingly out the window at something just out of reach. It’s how we all feel looking out at the last warm days of August.
Describe the piece you submitted to Summer Fridays.
This is a photo of Elly. I was watching her one afternoon in Crown Heights for friends of mine who had just gotten married. I was tossing a toy around with her when something outside demanded her immediate attention. She just ran over and sat down. I don’t know what it is, but I love when dogs sit and stare like this. It’s hilarious.
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Summer Art Friday: Collagist Geoffrey Stein
For our second-to-last Summer Fridays feature, we chose the work of Geoffrey Stein, a New York-based artist whose collage — “NYC Sunset” — depicts that feeling of a fading summer day. How does the lawyer-turned-artist describe summers in New York? “Everything bakes,” he says.
Describe the piece you submitted to Summer Fridays.
For me there is an unrelenting heat to the city in summer. Everything bakes. I look up and see the sunset in the treetops, a building in shadow, a watertower. Storm clouds threaten to break the heat. I tried to capture this feeling in the piece. It’s a 10-by-8-inch piece created from acrylic and collage on canvas.
Explain your process.
This summer I have been making a series of small cityscape collages. The collages are based on photos I take or find on the internet. I begin the collages with acrylic on the canvas, and then I sand the acrylic and work back into the canvas with pieces of color cut from magazines and catalogues. I work back and forth between the acrylic and the collage until the color is right.
How did you end up making art?
I am a recovering lawyer who has been painting full-time since 2000. I am primarily a figure and portrait painter.
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Summer Art Fridays: Seoul-Based Photographer Shannon Aston
We chose the the work of New Zealand-born but Seoul-based photographer Shannon Aston this week, who submitted this quiet image of an open window in the apartment he shares with his girlfriend.
The contemplative atmosphere is all about the laze of summer, but there’s a stasis to the photograph that speaks to the August doldrums we’re all currently making our way through. Soon the fall will come, with cooler weather and a breath of fresh air.
Describe the piece you submitted to Summer Fridays.
It’s the bedroom window of my small apartment. It was shot during the late afternoon in the middle of a heat wave. Outside of the photo, my girlfriend is below me to the right, lying on the bed, passed out from the heat and a long working week. I knew she was in there snoozing in the sun. When I walked into the room and saw her resting there, the window, the light streaming in, and the warm winds circling the room, I thought, ‘Wow, this is a pure summer moment!’
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