Tag Archives: Karen Smul

30 For 30: Kudos!

To celebrate Women’s History Month, we’re featuring items from the PWP Archives* each day on this blog. In looking back, we see not only where we started, but how far photography, women, and the world have come since 1975.
2011 WIN Award to PWP

2011 WIN Award to PWP

PWP was founded in the 1970s to encourage women photographers, but has always reached out to help other groups. In recent years it has been recognized for some of these efforts.

In 2009, PWP’s Community Service Committee chaired by Andy Mars and Karen Smul began to work with the organization Women In Need (WIN). Images taken by committee members of WIN people and events were used in reports and publications, helping the nonprofit raise awareness of its mission. A mentoring program was also begun to teach WIN children and their mothers about the art of photography. In 2010, in recognition of their service, Women In Need honored the PWP Community Service Committee with its Suzanne Pincus Commit to WIN Award.

Andy Mars at the 2010 WIN Awards

Andy Mars at the 2010 WIN Awards

In 2011, PWP was included in the WQXR Star Initiative that recognizes excellence in the arts.

WQXR Star Initiative

WQXR Star Initiative

In 2012, a PWP blog about PWP photographer Jane Hoffer and her images of the first NYPD women on patrol was named to Photoshelter’s list of Best Blogs of 2011:

Screen shots of the PWP Blog and Photoshelter Blog featuring PWP's article on Jane Hoffer

Screen shots of the PWP Blog and Photoshelter Blog featuring PWP’s article on Jane Hoffer

Image from the PWP blog "Sgt Pepper Uncovered" ©Jane Hoffer

Image from the PWP blog “Sgt Pepper Uncovered” ©Jane Hoffer

There has always been a lot of talent in PWP, and for many years Shoshana Rothaizer paid tribute to it each month with her compilation of member accomplishments. Called “Kudos!”, this feature listed all the shows and publications PWP photographers were in, as well as any awards they won. It was was recognition of our own, and was a much-loved feature of PWP. Though Shoshana left us too soon, she lives on in our hearts, and in the spirit of PWP to which she contributed so greatly.

1999 PWP "Kudos!" list produced by Shoshana Rothaizer

1999 PWP “Kudos!” list produced by Shoshana Rothaizer

– Catherine Kirkpatrick

*The PWP Archives were acquired by the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library of Emory University

Links to all the 30 For 30 Women’s History Month blogs:
Help Me Please! Hopelessly Waiting…
Exhibition and Anger
Spreading the Word
Early Ads On Paper
Cards and Letters
A Lady, a Truck, a Singing Dog
Women of Vision
A Show of Their Own
Taking It To the Street
Sisters of Sister Cities
Sold!
Education and More
Face of a Changing City
Digital Enabling
Expanding Walls and Other Possibilities
A Wonderful Life–Lady Style
Branding–the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Great Change Sweeps In
PWP Goes Live!
Honoring the Upcoming
Continuity Through Change
Reaching Out
Eye a Woman Naked
Rapidly Multiplying Alternative Options
Women In the World, As Themselves
Kudos!
Friends Who Overcame and Inspired
Reversing the Gaze
Photography and More
Chicks Telling It Like It Is
Looking Back With Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

30 For 30: Reaching Out

To celebrate Women’s History Month, we’re featuring items from the PWP Archives* each day on this blog. In looking back, we see not only where we started, but how far photography, women, and the world have come since 1975.

A few years back, PWP member Andy Mars read an article about how children who’d had their picture taken by a professional photographer were more likely to be adopted than those who hadn’t. Realizing the good photography could do in the world, she began the PWP Community Service initiative.

PWP-WIN mentoring student photographing his mother

PWP-WIN mentoring student photographing his mother

Each year the committee would choose a deserving nonprofit to help with the gift of creative photography. The first organization selected was historic University Settlement House, founded in 1886 to help immigrants on New York’s Lower East Side.

PWP Community Service Poster

PWP Community Service Poster

The second organization the Community Service Committee worked with was Learning Leaders, an effort that culminated with images by the PWP photographers displayed in the lobby of the Metropolitan Museum. When PWP began working with Women In Need (WIN), it not only photographed their events, but developed a mentoring program to teach photography to some of the children and their mothers.

PWP Community Service photographers working with WIN children

PWP Community Service photographers working with WIN children

PWP-WIN student work exploring different angles and perspectives

PWP-WIN student work exploring different angles and perspectives

PWP-WIN student pet portraits

PWP-WIN student pet portraits

PWP-WIN mentoring student

PWP-WIN mentoring student

– Catherine Kirkpatrick

*The PWP Archives were acquired by the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library of Emory University

Links to all the 30 For 30 Women’s History Month blogs:
Help Me Please! Hopelessly Waiting…
Exhibition and Anger
Spreading the Word
Early Ads On Paper
Cards and Letters
A Lady, a Truck, a Singing Dog
Women of Vision
A Show of Their Own
Taking It To the Street
Sisters of Sister Cities
Sold!
Education and More
Face of a Changing City
Digital Enabling
Expanding Walls and Other Possibilities
A Wonderful Life–Lady Style
Branding–the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Great Change Sweeps In
PWP Goes Live!
Honoring the Upcoming
Continuity Through Change
Reaching Out
Eye a Woman Naked
Rapidly Multiplying Alternative Options
Women In the World, As Themselves
Kudos!
Friends Who Overcame and Inspired
Reversing the Gaze
Photography and More
Chicks Telling It Like It Is
Looking Back With Thanks

 

 

PWP Community Service Workshop for Young Adults

©Photo Student

©Photo Student

On April 9th, PWP members Tanya Ahmed, Bonnie Geller-Geld, Carolyn Karsten, Andy Mars, Sheila Smith and Karen Smul had the unique opportunity to lead a photography workshop for young adults who are currently participating in the Young Adult Internship Program run by the NYC Dept. of Youth and Community Services. This program provides training for and placement in short-term internships for 16-24 year-olds who are not working and are not in school. The photography workshop was held at LaGuardia Community College where the young adults meet each week to work on job skills and other work related training.

©Andy Mars

©Andy Mars

As part of our workshop, we introduced photography concepts using selected images from our own work and other favorite shots. After initial introductions, the photographers led smaller groups on photo walks, giving hands on photo instruction with DSLRs. Finally, the groups reunited to view the just-shot images and present information on photography related employment.

©Andy Mars

©Andy Mars

M’Shell Paterson, the Assistant Director of the Workforce Education Center at LaGuardia, summed up the day:

©Photo Student

©Photo Student

“I just wanted to say thanks again for an awesome day. The workshop gave participants an opportunity not only to express themselves through  photography, but also to understand how finding and doing what you are  passionate about can be fulfilling and rewarding. They [the young adults] were all very impressed that all the photographers had such great stories to tell about their various  careers and how coming back to doing what they are passionate about  …photography…is what is making them happy.”

– Karen Smul

©Andy Mars

©Andy Mars

 

©Andy Mars

©Andy Mars

30 By 30: Karen Smul / Dorothea Lange

30 Women Photographers and the Women Photographers Who Inspired Them
A Blog Series in Honor of  Women’s History Month, March 1 – 31

Untitled ©Karen Smul

Untitled ©Karen Smul

Karen Judlowe Smul graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Electrical Engineering in 1985, and from Stanford Law School in 1988. She has studied at the International Center of Photography and served on the board of Professional Women Photographers, where she is currently co-chair of the Community Service Committee.

In her personal work, Smul is currently focusing on a series of environmental portraits called “Home Alone,€ which explores the lives of professional woman who chose to give up growing careers to raise children. As the children grow up, these women find they are still caught up in the “problem with no name€ identified by Betty Freidan in her 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique.

Smul also created her own company, 501SEE Photography, to provide images to non-profits for use in annual reports, brochures, websites, and to build up their photographic archives.

She lives in New York City with her husband and three children.

Which woman photographer inspired you most?

Untitled ©Karen Smul

Untitled ©Karen Smul

KS: There are several women photographers who have inspired me-for different reasons. I have always loved the work of Dorothea Lange and particularly her image “Migrant Mother.” The image is so powerful to me both for its visual impact of the timeless mother’s face and hand, and for its for its documentary power. It is impossible to look at this photograph and not relate to the subject.  Her despair, unfortunately, is still very real today. Other influential photographers are Nan Goldin and Tina Barney. During a photography class at ICP, I realized that I enjoyed their work, and particularly their portraits, because they opened an honest window on their worlds (even if posed shots). These photographers were documenting their own lives, families and culture. I suddenly understand that photography was much like the old maxim for writing-”shoot” what you know.

Untitled ©Karen Smul

Untitled ©Karen Smul

What led you to start 501SEE?

KS: I have always gravitated to portraiture. As I started to grow as a photographer, I volunteered at my children’s schools, my synagogue and other non-profits in order to improve my skills and to gain access to new faces and environments. After a year or two, I realized that this type of photography was a passion-I wanted to make my career in this field. By photographing for non-profits, I have been able to get an insider’s view of many different microcosms of New York City, and to participate in a range of successful programming for needy families and children.  It is a very meaningful field and is particularly rewarding because so many of the subjects want to be photographed. I have found that many of the people pushed to the side of our society are grateful to be recognized by the focus of a camera. One of my favorite experiences took place at a senior center which is part of University Settlement. I captivated by an elderly Asian woman in a hairnet with an unusual face. I took several photographs of her and was worried that perhaps I was bothering her. As I began to walk away, however, she gestured to me. Although she didn’t speak any English, she reached in her pocket, gave me some candies and smiled.

In another role, I taught photography to seniors at the Manhattanville Housing Project as part of a Housing Authority arts program. Again, it was a wonderful entry into a completely new and interesting community in New York. My students were great-attentive and excited. They documented their lives from their apartment windows to their churches and included wonderful images of their family members. It was a fantastic learning experience for me too.

Can you also address the resistance many photographers have about giving away pictures?

KS:I understand the resistance of photographers to volunteer their time and work without pay. If non-profits or other organizations demand only “free” photography, they do not necessarily appreciate the skills of a professional photographer or the value of great image. Still, non-profits rely on volunteers in all aspects of their programming. It is important to make the determination of whether I am volunteering or am providing professional services which should be compensated.

Untitled ©Karen Smul

Untitled ©Karen Smul

You have a body of work called “Home Alone€ about women who gave up careers to raise children. Can you talk about the tough choices women have to make between their personal and professional lives?

KS: As I wrote in my statement accompanying the series, I think women still have a long way to go in order to solve Betty Friedan’s “problem with no name.” When my second child was born, I stopped working and took only part-time or volunteer jobs for several years. As my children grew older, I started to second-guess my decision to leave behind a very hectic but rewarding legal career. I sensed that other women felt the same way. In the series, I try to capture the ambivalence I feel about leaving a full-time career for motherhood, particularly as my children grew older and needed less of my time and attention.

What are you currently working on?

KS: I am a volunteer in the college office at Murry Bergtraum, helping juniors and seniors there prepare for the college process. Most, if not all, of the students I help require a very large financial aid package in order to attend any college. The students work incredibly hard to apply for scholarships, grants and other forms of financial aid. I would like to start a project photographing my students and then recording all the different sources of funding for their college educations.

_____________________________

Dorothea Lange was born in 1895 in Hoboken, New Jersey. When she was seven, she was stricken with polio which left her with a permanent limp; at twelve, her father abandoned the family.

Lange learned photography in a class taught by Clarence White at Columbia University, then apprenticed at several New York studios, including that of Arnold Genthe. In 1918, she moved to San Francisco, opened a studio of her own, and two years later married painter Maynard Dixon, with whom she had two sons.

When the Depression came, Lange started photographing the homeless and unemployed, and began working for the Resettlement Administration (which later became the Farm Security Administration). In 1935, she divorced Dixon and married Paul Schuster Taylor, an economics professor at the University of California. Together they began to document sharecroppers and migrant laborers, bringing their plight to national attention.

In 1941, Lange was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, but gave it up. In 1942, she was hired by the War Relocation Authority to photograph the relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps. These images which were sympathetic to the displaced and showed them as loyal Americans, were impounded by the army, but are available today through the National Archives and the University of California, Berkeley.

In later years, Lange taught at the California School of the Arts and was one of the founders of Aperture Magazine. She died in 1965.

- Catherine Kirkpatrick, Archives Director

______________________________
30 By 30 blog series:

Intro: Dianora Niccolini / Women of Vision
Lauren Fleishman / Nan Goldin
Darleen Rubin / Louise Dahl-Wolfe
Dannielle Hayes / Diane Arbus
Meryl Meisler / Via Wynroth
Shana Schnur / Louise Dahl-Wolfe
Claudia Kunin / Imogen Cunningham
Gigi Stoll / Flo Fox
Robbie Kaye / Abi Hodes
Alice Sachs Zimet / Lisette Model
Juliana Sohn / Sally Mann
Susan May Tell / Lilo Raymond
Nora Kobrenik / Cindy Sherman
Caroline Coon / Ida Kar
Lisa Kahane / Jill Freedman
Karen Smul / Dorothea Lange
Claudia Sohrens / Martha Rosler
Laine Wyatt / Diane Arbus
Ruth Fremson / Strength From the Many
Greer Muldowney / Lee Miller
Rachel Barrett / Vera Lutter
Aline Smithson / Brigitte Lacombe
Ann George / Josephine Sacabo
Judi Bommarito / Mary Ellen Mark
Kay Kenny / Judy Dater
Editta Sherman / The Natural
Patt Blue / Ruth Orkin
Vicki Goldberg / Margaret Bourke-White
Beth Schiffer / Carrie Mae Weems
Anonymous / Her Mother

Interview with Harvey Stein on the Occasion of the Publication of Coney Island 40 Years

©Harvey Stein, Schiffer Publishing

©Harvey Stein, Schiffer Publishing

By Karen Smul

(From the Spring 2011 issue of IMPRINTS)

Harvey Stein is an award-winning photographer, author, educator, curator and lecturer with four other photography books to his credit. His photographs are in over 50 museum and private collections; his work has been exhibited in more than 70 one-person and 140 group shows worldwide. He teaches at the International Center of Photography and the School of Visual Arts in New York City.  His newest book, Coney Island Forty Years, contains 214 black/white photographs taken from 1970-2010. It is available from Schiffer Publishing Ltd.

K SMUL:  Tell me about your photographic approach:

H STEIN: I love photographing people. So on the street I’m always looking for interesting situations and people. My approach is to engage them directly, close up and wide angle. My long lens is a 35mm, I mostly use a 21mm lens. I talk to my subjects, get to know them for a minute or two, and photograph them in an environment and context that the wide angle lens provides, hoping to reveal something about them and myself.

K SMUL:   You have documented life in many different countries in your work, including Mexico and Italy for over ten years and various cities in the US. Are you interested in capturing a unique sense of place for each area or are you more interested in universal themes?

H STEIN: I’ve also photographed in Ecuador for the last four years, Peru last year, and I recently returned from a trip to Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. I think my themes are universal, obviously I bring my sensibility and outlook with me everywhere I go so my images are similar no matter where I am. That is, involved with people and how they behave close-up.

K SMUL: I understand that you were very involved in the new Coney Island book design. What elements were most important to you?

H STEIN: I want the book to be as “experiential€ as possible, almost to surround and involve the viewer with images. No spread has more than two photos. I wanted most photographs to bleed to the edge of the page. I wanted to minimize white borders; the effect is both lively and engaging.

The book also contains a timeline that is a novel feature, especially for a photography book. The timeline runs from 1609-2010, and was written by the well known former Brooklyn Borough historian John Manbeck. I asked a friend and long-time Coney Island figure, Lola Star, to write the introduction. Lola owned a roller rink on the boardwalk for two years and still runs one of only two boardwalk businesses to survive the current gentrification.

K SMUL: Both your Coney lsland books contain wonderful portraits of the many spirited locals and visitors to the area. Did you feel there was any change in the makeup or openness of the subjects you photographed over the forty year time span?

H STEIN: No. The people are still quite approachable. I think people open up more at Coney Island than if you met them on the street. They feel freer, happier, more relaxed at the beach and at the amusement area. Also, people are used to being photographed there. The people at Coney these days are hipper and younger, and probably more well off then when I began shooting in 1970. Then it was more ethnic and poorer, much like the city itself.

KSMUL: Your previous book Coney Island is in color. The new book Coney Island 40 Years is strictly black/white.  Does the film choice change your perception of Coney Island or the tone of each book?  Do you think the film choice will affect the viewer and if so, how?

H STEINThese are tough questions. I have always preferred black/white photography to color. For me, black/white is more personal and abstract. Color can be more picturesque, more about color than content. While photographing at Coney Island between 1970-2000, the place was quite edgy, sometimes dangerous. I think black/white suits Coney Island’s mood and ambiance better than color. That my first Coney Island book, consisting of 94 images from 1970-1997, is all color is really the choice of the editor who wanted to do a color book. I was fine with that, excited to get some color work out into the world. The new book is more my selection and interest, and the images are completely different than the first book. Because it’s black/white, Coney Island 40 Years is more intense, more gripping, might I say, than the color book. At least for me. It’s hard to say how the film choice will affect the viewer.  My hope is that viewers will respond positively, of course.

KSMUL: What do you think you gain/lose in each film choice, if anything?

H STEIN: With black/white images, I gain intensity, and I think involvement. In black/white, it’s more moody and revealing and more about history, the past, nostalgia, and memory.  Black/white helps to speak about what Coney Island has been for the past 40 years.  I lose the hallucinatory color that Coney Island sometimes provides. The color is warmer than black/white, less personal and perhaps more entertaining. Again, on balance, I prefer black and white to color, any day.

K SMUL: In your notes from your previous book on Coney Island, you write that the area “still has an irrepressible optimism about its future.€ Do you still feel that way?

H STEIN: That was about 13 years ago, and we are still awaiting that future, but the future is closer than before.  It was a down and out area in the 1970s and 80s and even into the late 90s. It had a dangerous but funky vibe. This past year, though, the attendance numbers at the beach and amusement parks were greater than in the last 46 years.  In fact, it is getting difficult to photograph because the beach and boardwalk are too crowded in the summer.  A new company has a 10-year lease on the boardwalk and has added 19 new rides, including a spectacular aerial ride. The new buildings and park attractions are wonderful but at the same time, the area is losing historic buildings. Rudy’s Bar, which opened in 1934, for example, is being forced to close. The “Shoot the Freak€ attraction closed this past winter. Obviously, this gentrification is good and not so good. I just hope Coney Island holds on to its edge and history.

K SMUL:  Where can we find you next?

H STEIN: I have workshops coming up at ICP, the Photographic Resource Center, and many other places. To see the full schedule and more of my images, please visit my website www.harveysteinphoto.comAnd I have at least six new books ready to go; just have to find publishers for them.

By Karen Smul