2004

Friday, October 1st

7:00pm

Award-winning American Photographer Eugene Richards

Richards is renowned for his moving black and white images, which confront difficult aspects of contemporary society with compassion and integrity. This exhibition is the photographer’s personal selection, drawn from three decades of quiet, watchful, passionate observation. It includes work from “Few Comforts or Surprises”, Richards’ earliest documentary on the Arkansas Delta; his ground-breaking “Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue”; and his recent projects in Mexico and Uganda. His gentle and respectful working style places him in the worlds of the people whose stories he is driven to tell. The photographs do not speak about some generalized Humanity; rather, these compelling, demanding pictures involve us with particular people, living in complex times.

Born in 1944 in Dorchester Massachusetts, Eugene Richards studied photography at MIT under Minor White. He is the author of 11books and the recipient of numerous awards for photography, including a Guggenheim fellowship, the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Journalism Award for his coverage of the disadvantaged. Richards established a reputation for being the most significant and original figure of contemporary photojournalism with “Dorchester Days” (1978 & 2001), and subsequent books including “Exploding Into Life” (1986) documenting his wife Dorothea’s struggle with breast cancer, which won the Nikon Book of the Year award; “Below the Line: living poor in America” (1987) for which he was named ICP Photojournalist of the Year; “Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue” (1994) received the Kraszna-Krausz Award for Photographic Innovation and “Americans We” (1994) won the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Award.

Richards’ second film, “but, the day came” (2000), won the DoubleTake Jury Award for Best Short Film, the Eastman Kodak Cinematography Award and the Best Documentary Award at the Hope Film Festival. It was premiered in Ireland at the Doclands Documentary Film Festival during the exhibition.

SPONSORED BY

Center for Photography at the Graduate School of Journalism

LOCATION

Room 105 - North Gate Hall

Get directions to Room 105 - North Gate Hall