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Daniel 13 Press and photo-eye announce the release of a collection of photographs by Pamela Pecchio in 509. Gleaned from the childhood home of Daniel 13 owner, Jefferson Holt, the book takes an intimate look at the nuances that make a house a home over time.  The music industry veteran and publisher invited photographer Pamela Pecchio into the Burlington, North Carolina home two years after his Father passed away.

In Pecchio's words:  "When Jefferson approached me for this project, I was thrilled by the opportunity. My work explores my deep interest in connection to place, and well lived in homes are rich with subject matter. Before I made the work, I walked through the house with Jefferson and his mother. Both shared stories about each room and its contents. …I had time and freedom to explore, two things I value most in my photographic life. I worked through the house room by room. …carefully taking in each detail, connecting some to the stories I had been told and inventing other stories of my own. “

"Winner of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for a Documentary, RESTREPO chronicles the deployment of a U.S. platoon of courageous American soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, considered to be one of the most dangerous postings in the U.S. military. From May 2007 to July 2008, Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger dug in with the men of the Second Platoon, Battle Company of the 503rd Infantry Regiment (airborne), stationed at Restrepo, sharing duties and shooting more than 150 hours of combat, frustration, routine, jokes, terror and bravery during daily life at the outpost. Hetherington and Junger, have made a film unlike any other about men in harm’s way. We see their courage. We experience their frustrations. We share their bonding. We hear the music they listen to, and we see the snapshots of their kids that they pass around. It is something that audiences have never before experienced. As they fight the Taliban, these 15 men win our hearts and minds in a way no fictional film can."

Check here for screenings in your city.

On August 17th, the Wapping Project Bankside, will showcase work by each of the Gallery's artists. From fashion to documentary work, the London based gallery, shows a wide variety of photography, film and video.

The show will include photographic work by Elina Brotherus, Peter Marlow, Lillian Bassman, Deborah Turbeville, Annabel Elgar, Susan Meiselas and Stephen Morgan.

The Wapping Project - Bankside is located at 65a Hopton Street (adjacent Tate Modern) London SE1 9LR and is open Tuesday – Saturday 10.00-18.00 hrs and on Monday by appointment only. Closed Sunday.

Like many other photographers, I first became aware of the existence of Hart Island via the 1998 Scalo book of Joel Sternfeld’s photographs and Melinda Hunt’s collage pieces in the book, Hart Island. It is one of the off-limits places in NYC, a bit like Governors Island once was, but even moreso. Located near City Island offshore of the Bronx, Hart Island is only about 100 acres, and has lived a few different lives. It was purchased from Native Americans in 1654, and since then has hosted a game preserve, an amusement park, a workhouse, a hospital, prisons, a Civil War internment camp for Confederate prisoners, a reformatory and a Nike missile base. It currently is home to ruins of a couple of these previous uses, plus the city’s Potter’s Field, which contains the remains of 850,000 people. Burials are in mass graves, but with a lot and number system to locate the dead who might later be claimed by family. The remains would then be disinterred and shipped for a more proper, single, private burial. The mass graves include mostly adults, but also infants and the stillborn. Social workers give poor mothers the option for a “city burial,” according to Hunt, but they don’t really explain that it will be a difficult-to-visit mass grave. There are even the bodies of those who have given their bodies to science, once the medical schools have exhausted them. (This is only in the cases where the family does not stipulate the return of the remains afterwards.) It is a quiet, solemn and very sad place.

The site is off-limits to anyone but Department of Corrections officials and inmates from Riker’s Island who bury the unclaimed, unwanted or unidentified dead. Families who can prove that they have a relative buried there are permitted to visit. (I tried to gain access to make my own visit, but the bureaucratic wall is unbelievably high, even when I was an employee of the Municipal Archives, the city agency that houses the burial records for posterity.) Over a decade ago, Hunt and Sternfeld were granted permission to make the pictures that let the rest of us know of the existence of this place. Hunt’s project is not finished, though. She has made it practically her life’s work to create the Hart Island Project: http://hartisland.net/. It is a great resource open to all. The artist, not the City of New York, designed and put up an online database of all the burials, plus worked to give voices to the gravediggers who work there and the dead who were buried there.

Hunt began the project when she wanted to follow in the footsteps of Jacob Riis, who went immediately to Potter’s Field once he acquired a camera, according to the artist in a recent interview found here: http://beta.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2010/aug/02/hart-island/ I think many photographers can relate to that impulse. It still seems like the city would prefer to keep the place a secret and not let more citizen visitors make the pilgrimage to this place, the largest publicly-funded cemetery in the world. Watching Hunt’s recent documentary might be the next-best thing to having the privilege of going there yourself: http://www.newfilmmakersonline.com/movie-download/8514,2542/Melinda-Hunt...

Online, there is even documentation of a couple illegal trips to the island at one of my favorite NYC websites, Scouting NY: http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=504 and at: http://kingstonlounge.blogspot.com/2008/08/hart-island.html The latter photographer visited with my colleague, the artist Marie Lorenz, who took him there on her Tide and Current Taxi, an art project of hers involving her little boat: http://www.marielorenz.com/ It sounds like they were terrified the whole time. I doubt they will ever go back.

A single night, a single man, a single photographic stand. Jackson Eaton’s third solo exhibition in Perth, entitled Single, will be a photo presentation, created and exhibited within a 24 hour time frame, examining the idea of the ‘one night stand’.

Eaton will spend the night in the Free Range gallery with a stranger, documenting the experience with Polaroid photographs, before opening the gallery to the public the next day. Photos taken over the course of the previous night will be on display, as part of a site-based installation of the night’s activities.

In line with Eaton’s previous work, Single explores themes of intimacy and identity, boldly questioning wherein the appeal of ‘playing the field’ lies. Treading the hazy line between fiction and reality, Single aims to take a tangible approach to life after the demise of a significant relationship.

Critically, Eaton will use rare Polaroid Fade-to-Black film for the show. The film itself is a discontinued experimental material which, following development, drifts through different colour schemes before finally turning to blackness after 24 hours. Having been created over the course of the night the works in the exhibition will range from near full-colour to near total black and continue to change over time, offering a different viewing experience for each patron.

Eaton states, "The temporal degradation of the images serves as a metaphor for the experience of a one night stand, mirroring the fading of memory and judgement that tends to occur after (and sometimes during) the said event. More broadly, it relates to how these acts of emotional and sexual vulnerability influence the hardening or healing of our hearts following experiences of loss or loneliness in our lives.î

Single will be open for viewing for one day: Tuesday, August 31, from 8am to 8pm. Audiences are encouraged to visit the gallery more than once throughout the day, as the images will change significantly during the 10 hour time frame.

Free Range Gallery

Jackson Eaton

Date(s): 31st August 2010 (Tuesday), 8am – 8pm
Address: Free Range Gallery, 339 Wellington St, Perth