Ken Light

Adjunct Professor/Photo Director
510-642-4825  |   Send E-Mail

Ken Light is curator of the Center for Photography and freelance documentary photographer. He is author of 5 monographs, including “Texas Death Row,” “ Delta Time” and “To the Promised Land.” His latest book, "Witness In Our Time" will be published in Fall 2000. It is a text with 22 interviews of photographers working in this genre and looks at how photographers work, live and struggle to complete projects and get work into the world. His work has appeared in numerous magazines including, Rolling Stone, Granta, Time, Newsweek, Mother Jones, The National Journal, Speak, L'Internazionale and Camera Arts.

Ken Light's home page

Books:

Witness In Our Time

Witness in Our Time traces the recent history of social documentary photography in the words of twenty-nine of the genre's best photographers, editors, and curators, showing how the profession remains vital, innovative, and committed to social change. The second edition includes a new section of interviews on documentary photography in the field and an exploration of the role of photojournalism in 21st-century media. Witness in Our Time provides an insider's view of a profession that continues to confront questions of art and truth while extending the definitions of both.

 

Texas Death Row

Ken Light and his camera were permitted unparalleled access to Texas Death Row. His stark, powerful images show where and how the condemned live. In the year he took these pictures, fourteen men were executed in Texas.

Suzanne Donovan's accompanying essay, "Shadow Figures: A Portrait of Life on the Row," draws upon her interviews with the condemned men and with prison authorities, family members, and members of victims' families

Whoever opens this book will want to look away, for the pictures and words force us to gaze intimately into the eye of death.

 

Coal Hollow

"America's coal industry remains a laboratory test for 'free market' capitalism and government's efforts to control it. The people who live in it, as captured here in words and pictures by Ken and Melanie Light, are obstinate, wounded, witty, profane, and definatly human." - John Sayles, Independent Filmmaker"

 

Delta Time

Light's duotones of Mississippi provides a strong blend of artistic talent and documentary photography, depicting black cotton workers and field laborers' homes in the rural Delta region. The ultimate result is to portray how little the poverty of the region has changed in the past three decades: his works are gripping, indeed. -- Midwest Book Review

 

With These Hands

"Ken Lights images of workers reveal a compassionate concern for people that places them in the tradition of the socially motivated photographs of Lewis Hine and Dorothea Lange." Walter Rosenblum & Naomi Rosenblum With an introduction by Cesar Chavez and text by Paula DiPerna.

 

To The Promised Land

To The Promised Land gives an intimate view of a situation of enormous and often tragic proportions. The photographic portraits and reportage of the long dangerous journey from Mexico to the United States in photographs and is supported by a brilliant essay by Richard Rodriquez. The images take us from rural Mexico to the U.S.-Mexican Border and finally to the communities of Southern California, where these undocumented immigrants try to create a new life.

 

Published Stories:

Creators Across America

Copyright Alliance

Copy right and You; Creators across America is a video program that features creators of media and other forms of intellectual property and how the © has protected their work

What Is The Power of A Photo

KALW 91.7 FM

What is the power of a photograph a conversations about polotics, arts and media with host Rose Agulair and Ken Light, Steve McCurry and Trevor Paglen

From Organizer To Photographer

Public Presentation

A public lecture at The Annenberg Space for Photography

Ken Light Talks About Sebastiao Salgado's Work

KQED-TV

Ken Light does a walk through of the images of Sebastiao Salgado on view at the Brower Center in Berkeley, California.

The Valley of Shadows

Newsweek.com

The Central Valleys fertile land supplies nearly half of all U.S. fruits, nuts and vegetables. But drought and neglect are leaving ghosts towns in its wake. A five part multi media presentation.

Coal Hollow

Digital Journalist: A Multimedia Magazine for Photojournalism

From: Digital Journalist: A Multimedia Magazine for Photojournalism: "Adjunct Professor Ken Light's black-and-white photography and Melanie Light's oral histories give us a documentary that goes far beyond the news to show the enduring damage coal mining has done to the people and environment of Appalachia. "

Tell It On the Mountain

Salon.com

For Salon.com, Sarah Karnasiewicz reviews a powerful new book of photos and oral histories by adjunct professor Ken Light documenting the ravaged lives of West Virginia's coal miners.

Other Works:

A story by UC Berkeley Media Relations about the three weeks Ken Light spent this summer working on his extended documentary project in West Virginia on the coal industry. Some of the photographs were on exhibit in the school's North Gate Gallery in April 2002.  Read more...

Ken Light, the director of UCB's Center for Photography, talks in detail about three of Sebastião Salgados photographs from the "Then and Now" exhibition at the David Brower Center, which runs May 14, 2009 through January 31, 2010. Produced by SPARK for This Week in Northern California.  Read more...

Courses Taught by Ken Light:

Fall 2011: Visual Storytelling: Advanced Documentary Projects-Blurb Book

Fall 2011: News Photography

Spring 2011: Visual Storytelling: Advanced Documentary Projects-Real Eyes Magazine

Spring 2011: Photo Essay

Spring 2011: MINI: The Journalist as Freelancer (7 Weeks)

Fall 2010: Visual Storytelling: Advanced Documentary Projects-Blurb Book

Fall 2010: News Photography

Spring 2010: MINI: The Journalist as Freelancer (7 Weeks)

Spring 2010: Photo Essay

Spring 2010: Master's Project Seminar

Fall 2009: News Photography

Fall 2009: Visual Storytelling: Advanced Documentary Projects-Blurb Book Photo Project

Fall 2009: Master's Project Seminar

Spring 2009: Photo Essay

Spring 2009: MINI: The Journalist as Freelancer (7 Weeks)

Spring 2009: Master's Project Seminar

Spring 2009: Visual Storytelling: Advanced Documentary Projects-Real Eyes Magazine

Fall 2008: Master's Project Seminar

Fall 2008: Visual Storytelling: Advanced Documentary Projects-Blurb Book Photo Project

Fall 2008: News Photography

Spring 2008: Master's Project Seminar

Spring 2008: Photo Essay

Spring 2008: Visual Storytelling: Advanced Documentary & Real Eyes Magazine

Fall 2007: Visual Storytelling/ Advanced Documentary Photography

Fall 2007: News Photography

Fall 2007: Master's Project Seminar

Spring 2007: News Photography

Spring 2007: Visual Storytelling: Advanced Documentary & Real Eyes Magazine

Spring 2007: Law and Ethics

Spring 2007: Master's Project Seminar

Fall 2006: News Photography

Fall 2006: Master's Project Seminar

Fall 2006: Visual Storytelling/ Advanced Documentary Photography

Spring 2006: News Photography

Spring 2006: Visual Storytelling/ Advanced Documentary Photography

Spring 2006: Master's Project Seminar

Fall 2005: News Photography

Fall 2005: Visual Storytelling: Communities in Transition

Fall 2005: Master's Project Seminar

Spring 2005: News Photography

Spring 2005: Visual Story Telling

Spring 2005: Master's Project Seminar

Spring 2002: News Photography

Spring 2002: Documentary Photography

Fall 2001: Master's Project Tutorial

Fall 2001: News Photography

Spring 2001: Master's Project Tutorial

Spring 2001: News Photography

Spring 2001: Advanced Documentary Photography

Fall 2000: Master's Project Tutorial

Fall 2000: News Photography

Fall 2000: Advanced Photography

Spring 2000: Master's Project Tutorial

Spring 2000: News Photography

Spring 2000: Documentary Photography

Fall 1999: News Photography

Fall 1999: Advanced Photography

Spring 1999: Advanced News Photography

Fall 2004: News Photography

Fall 2004: Master's Project Seminar

Fall 2004: Doc Photo: Still Images of A World In Motion

Spring 2004: News Photography

Spring 2004: Visual StoryTelling

Spring 2004: Master's Project Seminar

Fall 2003: News Photography

Fall 2003: Documentary Photography

Fall 2003: Master's Project Seminar

Spring 2003: Master's Project Seminar

Spring 2003: News Photography

Spring 2003: Visual StoryTelling

Fall 2002: Master's Project Tutorial

Fall 2002: News Photography