Xpress Slideshow

Here is a link to a slideshow and audio commentary of my work in the current Mountain Xpress issue and a link to the online article. Thanks again to the everyone at the Xpress and especially Jon Elliston, Jason Sandford and Jon Welch for the opportunity to publish the story and their continued interest and support in my work.

Lauren Greenfield at RCC

Lauren Greenfield will be speaking at RCC on February 18th at 7pm. The best part is admission is free. I will be attending so any persons interested in carpooling, let me know. Lauren’s website is quite good; there’s an interesting multimedia presentation on her main page. Lauren is very versed in multimedia and uses it with great acumen. Her first video documentary was the acclaimed HBO Documentary Film entitled Thin. Her second film is Kids and Money.

Acclaimed photographer Lauren Greenfield is considered a preeminent chronicler of youth culture as a result of her groundbreaking projects Girl Culture and Fast Forward.  Her photographs have been widely exhibited and are in many museum collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the International Center of Photography. She was named by American Photo as one of the 25 most influential photographers working today. Greenfield’s first feature-length documentary film, THIN, aired on HBO, and is accompanied by a photography book of the same name (Chronicle Books, 2006).  In this unflinching and incisive study, Greenfield embarks on an emotional journey through the Renfrew Center in Coconut Creek, Florida, a residential facility dedicated to the treatment of eating disorders. The feature-length documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006 and was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Direction in 2007.  It won the Grierson Award for best documentary at the London Film Festival, and Grand Jury Prizes at the Independent Film Festival of Boston, the Newport International Film Festival, and the Jackson Hole Film Festival.  The project was featured on The Today Show, Good Morning America, Nightline, and CNN and was excerpted in People Magazine. The Thin Book was honored by the 2007 International Photography Awards as well as the Photo District News Annual. THIN is also a traveling museum exhibition curated by Trudy Wilner Stack that debuted at The Women’s Museum in Dallas, Texas in February, 2007 and will travel through 2010. Girl Culture, Greenfield’s last traveling exhibition, has been seen by over half a million people in more than twenty-five venues around the world.  Fast Forward and Girl Culture were both optioned for development as feature films at Columbia Pictures and Universal Pictures. Her latest project, an original short film entitled kids + money, premiered at the AFI Film Festival where it won the Shorts Audience Award. The film went on to screen at the Sundance Film Festival and also won the Michael Moore Award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival and a Gold Plaque at the Hugo Television Awards.  It has also screened at Hot Docs as well as more than 40 other festivals throughout 2008. The film is a conversation with young people from diverse Los Angeles communities about the role of money in their lives. From rich to poor, Pacific Palisades to East L.A., kids address how they are shaped by a culture of consumerism. kids + money debuted on HBO November 28, 2008. Greenfield graduated from Harvard in 1987 and started her career as an intern for National Geographic. Since then, her photographs have been regularly published in the New York Times Magazine, Time, ELLE, and American Photo and have won many awards, including the International Center for Photography Infinity Award, the Hasselblad Grant, the Community Awareness Award from the National Press Photographers, and the Moscow Biennial People’s Choice Award. She is a member of the VII Photo Agency, an international photographic cooperative, and is represented by the Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York and the Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles. She lives in Venice, California with her husband, Frank Evers, and their two sons.

Press for Jeff Rich’s Watershed

Kudos again to Jeff Rich. His Watershed project keeps getting national exposure.  Daylight Magazine now features a podcast of his project along with an audio commentary.

Evangelical Documentary

The Mountain Xpress is running a cover story on a project I have been working on about the evangelical community in the Asheville Area. I’ve been photographing for a few months and have a good body of work so far. The article comes out on the 28th and is the first time the photos have been published anywhere. Corresponding with the print story is an online slideshow with some additional photos and statements by me about the photos. Be sure to check it out on the Xpress website. I’ll add a link once its up.

Here are a few photos from the project. Some document the events and ceremonies such as baptisms and sermons as well as portraits of the evangelical community, such as women at a bible study group.

I love the expressions on the faces from the event below. It was at a Franklin Graham Festival which was well attended and featured many contemporary christian-themed bands who had quite a following themselves.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

New York Dolls

Weekend post, how bout some New York Dolls and a little personality crisis.

Frozen Reeds

After several days of cold weather and snow, some of the small ponds and lakes have frozen over. We don’t see that happen too often here. I took the opportunity to walk around a trout pond in Madison County yesterday and photograph the reeds protruding through the frozen water.  The minimalism and contrast of the snow and reeds is compelling.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Sign

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Verve Article

Article here from Verve Magazine that just came out with my portrait of Susan Collard.

Dreaming

Deborah Harry was so smokin. If I had been twenty years older she would have been my girlfriend. I love the clothes of the people dancing, lets bring that back. Especially all you women.

More Buffalo

Couple more from last month. More new stuff soon, my camera is in being cleaned and I’m without it for a week or so. I’m so used to shooting with my Hasselblad now that I don’t want to get out any other camera. I do have my Mamiya that I may use in the meantime. There’s going to be some interesting weather tomorrow so I may just have to head out and see what I can find.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Instructing Rant

There have been some things puzzling me lately. As I gear up towards applying for graduate schools for an MFA, I’ve looked into the academia profession a little. One thing that I’ve noticed is that the community colleges are asking for MFAs for adjunct faculty positions. Are you kidding me?  This must be a joke. First off, if I had an MFA, I wouldn’t consider for a moment instructing at a community college. I have a BA and its already a stretch. One of the reasons is money. First, just my BA  and most people’s undergraduate degrees cost them about $40,000. Add on to that an MFA and we’re talking another $20,000 or so. Definitely these estimates can go higher, these are more the low end. And the pay for an adjunct is, .   .    . well its low, lets put it that way. Even a full time position is probably only $30,000 a year. Its a joke to think someone would consider that salary with a graduate degree.

Second the teaching is rather low-brow. Most of these schools don’t have good programs. Some may not even offer a degree, certificate or concentration in photography. Where do these colleges get instructors? I know they miss out on a lot of talented people.  Just here in Asheville I know at least a dozen professional photographers who would be amazing teachers but alas wouldn’t be considered should they even be interested because not one of them has an MFA. These are people who have been awarded Guggenheims, worked at Life Magazine, have spent careers working at the top of the industry. In part this is why our education system is so messed up. You look at the early modern art education schools, whether they be the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, the New Bauhaus and the San Francisco Art Institute and they had distinguished artists instructing not artists with post grad degrees.  Also, these were some of the most prestigious institutes of art instruction, not some lowly community college. Many of the distinguished photographers or artists probably have no interest in teaching, let alone at a community college.  I just find it disgraceful that these requirements are put in place that would hinder the truly talented and gifted to apply because they don’t have a piece of paper.

Joel Sternfeld’s American Prospects

I’ve been reading Joel Sternfeld’s American Prospects, which is great. Got it from the library and feel its Stern’s best work. Its nice to see a body of work in book form, I’m familiar with Stern’s work from seeing individual images but never a complete book before. Sternfeld was also Alec Soth’s teacher and looking at American Prospects it really shows. While reading the intro, I noticed a strong similarity to that of the intro to Soth’s Sleeping By the Mississippi. Both mention Walker Evan’s American Photos, Robert Frank’s The Americans and the fictional Huckleberry Finn. Sternfeld’s work definitely has a bit more humor than does Soth’s but I definitely see his influence. Its one of those books that you have to own, so I’ll be searching for my copy now. I’m not sure its even in print, the thing came out like two decades ago.

The cover features one of my favorite of Sternfeld’s images, the burning house and pumpkin patch. I always thought it was staged, that it just couldn’t be documentary, but it is. Just amazing.  Seems like something Crewdson would do. I also saw some images from nearby Gatlinburg and my home state of Florida, which I thought was well represented and fairly depicted.

Copyright Joel Sternfeld

BCS Title Game

Nice tone to start the game. Should repeat next year. If you’re not a Gator, you’re Gator Bait.

Edith Piaf

Some Edith Piaf for the end of the week.

Untitled

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener