Screening in Barcelona July 1

Photos from my After Chernobyl project will be screened this week in Barcelona:

SLIDELUCK POTSHOW BARCELONA IV
DONDE: Mau Mau Underground. Fontrodona, 35
CUANDO: Dijous, 1 de julio a les 20.30h.
El encuentro gastronómico empezará a las 20.30h y las proyecciones se podrán ver a partir de las 21.30h y terminarán alrededor de las 23h.

More details here: http://network.slideluckpotshow.com/events/slps-barcelona-iv

Photo District News

Sorry to brag again. Just wanted to share that I have a collection of Chernobyl photos featured on the PDN website today: www.pdnphotooftheday.com

Those of you who are not photographers may not be familiar with Photo District News. It's a monthly magazine for professional photographers, focused on contemporary photography and useful business info.

Ahem. Since I seem to have your attention for the moment, I'd like everyone to know: I’m pregnant. No, excuse me, I meant: I'm looking for a publisher for my Chernobyl book. Anyone, anyone?

Upper Catskills exhibit

A Ukrainian teenager passes a closed storefront covered with signs, including many offering jobs. High unemployment is a problem in many Ukrainian communities; the problem is especially acute in radiation-affected areas, which new businesses have avoided due to the stigma of Chernobyl.

My work is part of a new exhibit of Central New York artists at UCCCA, the Upper Catskill Community Council of the Arts. (Note "Central NY": what New Yorkers refer to as "upstate").

The exhibit runs until July 25. More details here.

Update:
At the exhibit opening they announced that my above photo won the first place award for photography. Very kind of them, since there is a lot of excellent work in the show.

another photo a day

I am flattered to have another photo of mine chosen for A Photo A Day. (Reading this later? Find the photo here, under June 14.)

APAD is a fabulous daily sampling of the best of contemporary photojournalism, direct from the photographers themselves. Since APAD does not include captions, here is more about the photo above:

Late on a long winter's night, Nina Dubrovskaya and her friend Lena Priyenko walk home to their village Sukachi, Ukraine, from the nearby town of Ivankiv, 2 miles away. The two women, both divorcees, went out to the bars in Ivankiv in search of company, but found all 4 bars they visited nearly empty. "When the money gets short, people just get drunk at home," says Dubrovskaya.

thinking of kyrgyzstan

Osh, Kyrgystan. A soldier at Osh City Military Base practices using his gun during an evening drill. There are long-standing political and ethnic differences between the northern and southern halves of this mountainous country, and the southern borders with neighboring Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have repeatedly been the scene of violent local conflicts since independence.

Once I've lived someplace I find I am always listening for news from there. Over the course of several assignments I spent 8 months in Jalal Abad and Osh, Kyrgyzstan. The news, unfortunately, is worse than I ever imagined.

For large part, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz have lived peacefully together. But as happened in the former Yugoslavia, it seems those with a political agenda have been inciting violence between neighbors. A Red Cross official today estimated 700 dead in Osh; if true that would make it worse than the 1990 riot in nearby Kara Suu that killed 300.

Even though it's hopeless, I feel a need to quote Rodney King here:

"People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for the older people and the kids?... It’s just not right. It’s not right. It’s not, it’s not going to change anything. We’ll, we’ll get our justice....Please, we can get along here. We all can get along. I mean, we’re all stuck here for a while. Let’s try to work it out. Let’s try to beat it. Let’s try to beat it. Let’s try to work it out."

This footage of mob victims arriving at the hospital in carload after carload is very hard to watch.

(Note: the above video is emotionally disturbing but not graphic. More footage here, some of which is graphic: www.citizentube.com/2010/06/kyrgyz-mobs-burn-slaughter-during.html )