I am delighted to announce 3 new photography exhibits coming up:
In Vermont:
My After Chernobyl exhibit opens in Brattleboro, VT at the Vermont Center for Photography. Opening: Fri. Feb. 3, 5:30 pm, with a short talk by me at 6.
Photojournalism workshop focusing on nuclear power: Sat. Feb. 25, 10-4, at the In-sight Photo Project in Brattleboro, VT. (Register here.)
Public forum discussing how Vermont Yankee has affected Brattleboro for better and worse. Not a debate but a chance for people on both sides of the issue to hear each other. Sun. Feb. 26, 2 pm at VCP.
In New York:
Show of Face exhibit, Cherry Branch Gallery, Cherry Valley, NY. Opening: Sat., Feb. 4, 5 pm. Hours: Wed-Sun, 12-5 pm. Some of my Chernobyl portraits will be included in this exhibit.
Today is the release date for The Moment, a new book of stories about moments that changed our lives.
I am happy to be one of the 125 "artists famous & obscure" to be featured in the book. (Yep, I'm here to represent the obscure).
I have a photo and essay about the moment I fell in love with my baby son Jacob, who is now 5 and very proud to be featured.
Check it out: Editor Larry Smith is discussing the book today on NPR's Talk of the Nation. Fellow contributor Shalom Auslander's piece was in the NY Times Magazine on Dec. 18 – in the Lives column.
Our first reading from the book will be next Mon. Jan. 9, 7 pm, at McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince St. in NYC. Details here. Hope to see you there!
Flood cleanup in the Oakdale section of Johnson City, NY, near Harry L Drive, after the Susquehanna River overflowed the city during Tropical Storm Lee on Sept. 7-8.
Our Flood 2011 book has now officially been released. I understand it is selling quickly. You can order a copy here.
One of my photos from Chernobyl is featured in the new 2012 Peace Corps international calendar. You can order a copy here and help support some great programs.
When the Soviet government constructed Novo Ladizhichi in 1987 for Chernobyl evacuees, they built a public sauna but no church. Now the new church has been under construction for over a decade, as villagers have had trouble raising enough money to continue.
Last summer I spent a few lovely days at Essex Farm in way-up-north New York, shooting an alumni magazine story. The farm, a "full-diet CSA" (meat, dairy, vegetables, even maple syrup) runs on horse and solar power and was the subject of Kristin Kimball's great book The Dirty Life.
Anyway, the magazine story is now out, finally. Check it out here.
I spent a lot of time this fall photographing the floods and aftermath in upstate New York, in the Catskills and along the Susquehanna River valley.
Now my photos will be in this new book, Flood 2011, coming out next month from the Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin and Pediment Publishing. The book features my photos and photos by Casey Staff, Rebecca Catlett and others.
A set of my After Chernobyl photos are in this exhibit opening tomorrow at SUNY Oneonta's Martin-Mullen Gallery. The opening reception is November 3 from 5 to 7.
I was gratified to see my work on the front page of the New York Times this morning. Read the story here.
Last week I photographed this story about the battles between neighbors over fracking and banning natural gas drilling. I've shot for the Times before but I never know how the photos will get used, so it's nice to be featured on A1 of the Sunday paper.
UPDATE 10/31: An additional story and photo are now online here.
On Monday I took the day off and went to climb Hunter Mountain in the Catskills. Of course I brought my camera. Here is the result.
(Click on thumbnails to see larger versions.)
The hike was part of the annual Lark in the Park, a week of fall celebrations with outdoor activities organized by the Catskill Center and the Catskill Mountain Club. It was great to get up and out — lately it seems I'm only in the Catskills to photograph flood damage.
My fall nature photography workshop is coming up soon in Cooperstown, NY.
The class is Sat. Oct. 8, 3 to 6 pm, at the lovely SUNY Cooperstown Graduate Program facility near the Fenimore Museum. (Directions here and map here).
Workshop description: There is natural beauty all around us, but creating beautiful nature photographs requires patience and practice. Most of all, it requires us to slow down and look carefully. For this class, you should know how to use your camera, but the kind you have does not matter. Bring your camera plus two favorite nature photos (printed) with you to class- they can be yours or anyone's. If you have them, also bring your camera manual, tripod, macro and telephoto lenses. Wear comfortable shoes for walking.
A muddy flag hangs in a flooded basement in Binghamton.
It’s 9/11 and I am driving down Interstate 88 towards Binghamton, towards the flood. We live on the backside of the Catskills, a landscape of narrow valleys where a creek is never far away. Two weeks ago, half the towns in this corner of New York were washed out in Hurricane Irene.
Flood cleanup in Prattsville.
In villages like Schoharie and Margaretville and Prattsville, we were still digging out the mud, our boots and basements still wet, when we got hammered again by Tropical Storm Lee. Ten inches of rain in 24 hours and the rivers were soon muddy roiling torrents.
Silver Creek in Oneonta is usually a quiet, mossy trickle this time of year.
The Binghamton area, where the Chenango River spills into the Susquehanna, was the worst hit. 20,000 people are still evacuated. Water poured over banks and berms, flooding bridges and entire neighborhoods. Today I'm photographing the aftermath for the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin.
I drive through Otego. Three days ago, this valley was impassable. I-88 follows the Susquehanna River, as does NY Rte 7, and County Hwy 48. After the water covered the floodplains and cornfields, it came for the roads. I stood here near Exit 13, middle of the empty interstate, watching Otego Creek stream over the pavement before turning my car around. That day, it took me two hours on the mountain roads to find a way through.
Butternut Creek water rises over the bridge in Gilbertsville.
In Otego, the mud lines are clearly visible. A layer of silt coats every plant and wall, up to 2, 3, 4 feet off the ground. Now the water is finally receding. The highway is open except for a mudslide in Chenango. Mud and water, that’s all we’re thinking about now.
Johnson City. Many roads remain flooded three days after the storm.
In NYC, however, they are thinking not about water rising but planes falling. For 9/11, NPR is trying to broadcast simultaneously from Manhattan, the Pentagon and Shanksville, PA, while I drive downriver. The result is a disjointed potpourri of speeches and grief. Politicians recite poems and psalms. Bells toll for each plane crash. Amazing Grace, somber, a cappella. Two by two, the survivors at Ground Zero read from the endless list of names. But every time there’s another moment of silence, the damn Morning Edition announcer interrupts it. We are afraid of silence.
I pass Unadilla.On Thursday, they were underwater on 3 sides. A firetruck was the last vehicle down Main Street before they close it. I stopped then in the middle of the intersection:
The water over the road is the color of coffee with too much milk. A state trooper tells me: “I can’t advise you to cross, but I won’t stop you from trying.” I get out and walk into the moving water. There’s a sheen of oil on top, swirling. I feel the current as the river overtops my boots. I keep my eyes on the double yellow line and I’m soon across. A second officer is turning motorists back to the highway. I slosh back to my car and make it to Exit 10.
Houses underwater in Unadilla near Exit 10.
On NPR, the reading of names continues. Of all the speakers, it is Bush — the one we loved to hate, the one who marched us to war nearly a decade ago — who brings tears to my eyes. He reads a letter from Lincoln to
"the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.” Hearing that voice, I talk back to my radio: What might have happened had we sought peace? Why did you do it?
He answers: “I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.”
Clinton Street in Sidney.
It’s five miles from Unadilla to Sidney, same distance as Central Park to the WTC. I pass Sidney, where they are still underwater, and on to Ninevah when NPR plays the screams of eyewitnesses watching as the South Tower falls. Governor Cuomo, who was up here just last week, taking flood photos out the window of his SUV, quotes FDR on freedom from fear.
Photograph in Margaretville by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
In Chenango, I’m detouring around the mudslide when Paul Simon gets on stage. “Hello darkness, my old friend,” he sings. “I've come with talk with you again.” I’ve seen houses washed downstream. “Neath the halo of a streetlamp, I turned my collar to the cold and damp.” I’ve seen basements still full to the top step.
I think of my friend Andrew, who lives just up from the Pentagon. In 1999, when we moved to Kazakhstan, Andrew stored a box for us in his basement, and he recently shipped it back. I opened it last night and wondered at the familiarity of the past. How a dozen years can vanish in a moment. Here is a notebook with phone messages. A dinner receipt from Las Placitas. A book I’ve been looking for — I knew it would turn up, how is possible it’s been missing twelve years?
Shoes float inside a Sidney home.
“Fool, said I, you do not know, silence like a cancer grows.” I’ve seen people despair over what they’ve lost, but many more resolute, determined to salvage what they can. “Words, like silent raindrops fell, and echoed in the wells of silence.” I’m going to Binghamton to listen. So I can report how people are surviving the biggest disaster in their own lives.
Paul Simon performs on 9/11.
I feel no older, but how different the world is a decade after this all began. Can you remember 2001? We were so hopeful then. We thought there could be peace. Was it simply naiveté? Because I can see now, the wars and the floods, they are never going to stop. Not until we change the ways we live. Until we become brave enough to accept some blame.
From Ground Zero, Amazing Grace again, haunting on flute. Former Governor Pataki reads from Billy Collins’ poem The Names:
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea…
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.
Why do we memorialize our suffering? Will it really help us heal? In Binghamton, I get out of my car in the mud below Riverside Drive and get to work.
The Susquehanna River floods Sidney, NY, after Tropical Storm Lee.
First we were swamped by Hurricane Irene and now 10 days later we're drowning under Tropical Storm Lee.
I've been photographing the flood across upstate NY and I can hardly believe what I've seen. Today I was waist-deep on River Street in Sidney with the waters of the Susquehanna still rising.
I'm just posting this one photo for now and as soon as life calms down I'll share more.
You can also see a sampling of my flood photos on the Zuma Press website.
Campers at Flying Cloud, one of the Farm & Wilderness summer camps, dance around the massive bonfire during the camp's first naming ceremony of the year.
I have returned from my week at Farm & Wilderness and started to edit through the 5,000+ photos I shot for them. I definitely love having a week for an assignment as it gives me time to really settle into the rhythms of a place and understand where the best pictures are.
More F&W photos will show up eventually on the Education pages of my website.
What exactly is the Dead Hare Radio Hour? I'm still not 100% sure, but I participated in a forum for them on the links between art, nature and technology, and we talked about artist professional development.
Early this morning I arrived in Vermont for an assignment working for Farm & Wilderness camps. They've hired me to spend a week photographing daily life and activities at their five summer camps near Plymouth, VT. I'm looking forward to this – I can think of no place I'd rather be in July than in the woods, in the mountains, at camp.
Here, the mist rises over the Indian Brook apple orchard, seen across Woodward Reservoir before dawn.
This is the blog archive for Michael Forster Rothbart Photography: photos, experiments, news + comments about how photos were made. Updates averaged twice a month. For more current work find me on Facebook and Instagram.
Location
This week Michael is in: New York
Next week: Ukraine
Dec. 7 2010 - Feb. 5 2011:Fracking: Art and Activism Against the Drill.Exit Art, NYC March - April 2011: University of Chicago April 2011: Ukrainian Institute, NYC
April-May 2011: Ukrainian Museum, NYC April - June 2011: Swarthmore College June 2010 - Oct 2011: Traveling exhibit in 5 Wisconsin libraries.
Sept-Oct 2011:
After Chernobyl exhibit, UW Hospital, Madison, WI.
2010: Jan 22. 2010: Rochester Contemporary Art Center. 7 pm. Feb. 21. 2010: Montshire Museum, Norwich VT. 7 pm. April 1, 2010: Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA. 9 pm. April 26, 2010: Embassy of Ukraine, Washington DC. 11 am. July 1, 2010: Mau Mau Underground. Fontrodona, 35, Barcelona. 8:30 pm. July 17, 2010: Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY.
is a freelance photographer working mostly in New York, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. He is creator of the After Chernobyl documentary project, www.afterchernobyl.com
There is a war brewing in the hills of central Pennsylvania, between those who want to drill for natural gas and those who thinking fracking will destroy their hometowns.
In my commercial work, I photograph for colleges, universities and museums, helping them tell their stories to prospective students, alumni and visitors.
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