Foto Forum Santa Fe Award
Honorable Mentions 2023
Jim brozek
Ore Boats
From 1979 to 1985, photographer Jim Brozek worked the repair docks of Milwaukee Harbor's Jones Island with
camera at the ready. By working alongside the crews, Brozek was able to capture these men and their work in
candid and dramatic ways.
Justin Carney
Those Left Behind
Those Left Behind is my journey to understand the grief of my family members and I, after the death of my grandmother, their mother. I question what bonds keep us together as well as drive us to separate. My grandmother, Michal Louise Carney, was at the center of all our lives. She still is the center. Her death has shifted the dynamics of my family, one that I took for granted. It has changed how often we see each other, for how long, where, and in what context, and it has shifted the amount of effort it takes to get everyone together. Our connection has been fractured.
My work focuses on a struggle with loss, coping with grief, as well as the joys of being alive and the intimate moments spent with family. Those Left Behind not only shows the effects of death but also visualizes a celebration of life. In capturing those intimate moments with family, as ordinary as they may appear, there is a realization of unity, of togetherness that death may change but never fully take away.
Dan McGarrah
Urban Noctures
These photos are from a project - 'Urban Nocturnes' - that I have recently been resurrecting. Between 1989 and 1997 I photographed around San Francisco at night with B&W film. I shot images that have a poetic and/or metaphoric feel. There is a certain sensibility I would experience walking along about the city at night, and I wanted to capture that sensibility in my photographs. What distinguishes our experience of Night vs Day? I think most of all; one's awareness and sensations are amplified at night. Wonder, excitement, anticipation, fear, mystery, and such are stronger forces in the dark. I also feel that, with the absence of sun and sky, what remains visible has greater weight. Buildings, walls, cars, etc feel heavier than they do during daylight. Often no facial features show of individuals, which contributes to the metaphorical sense of the photos. They aren't mere documentation.
Rebecca Moseman
The Irish Travelers
The Irish Travelers are an insular ethnic group that has lived on the fringes of mainstream Irish society for
centuries. They live an itinerant lifestyle, with long traditions and gender-based roles passed down from
generation to generation. Discrimination is widespread, school dropout rates are high, domestic violence is
rampant, and suicides are increasing. However, the lives of Travelers are changing in many positive ways.
Teenagers are trying to stay in school, and pursue careers outside the Traveler community. Young women are
waiting to marry and have children. For better or worse, the Travelers are being assimilated. My Irish Travelers
series is ongoing. I have been gratified with the success it has enjoyed online, in print, and on exhibit. Travelers
are eager to have their stories told, and I believe it is essential to create a record of a fast-disappearing lifestyle
and collect a photographic record of unique people before they are gone.
Jenna Mulhall-Brereton
Sacred/Sagrado: Festivals of Mexico
I began the project Sacred/Sagrado: Festivals of Mexico in Oaxaca in 2011. Since then, I have continued traveling to various communities to witness and document traditions that are part of the fabric of Mexican culture. The term "sacred" invokes two distinct definitions of the word: that which is holy, and that which is a cherished part of the life of a community. Though all the festivals I have photographed tie back in some way to the religious calendar (Mardi Gras, after all, is the day before Lent), only about half of them celebrate the deeply held beliefs of the Catholic faith. Other images portray a profound sense of tradition, identity, and community that is every bit as keenly felt. All of the images are captured on film and printed in my analogue darkroom as selenium toned silver gelatin prints.
tim Smith
The Hutterites, anabaptists whose roots trace back to the Radical Reformation, live communally on colonies throughout Canada and the US. Their culture continues to be preserved through deliberate separation from mainstream society and economic self-sufficiency.
Hutterites are provided for throughout their entire lives and on the whole experience less of the loneliness and isolation prevalent in the modern world.
Hutterites believe that their separation from society offers them a better way to god, but the system also provides lessons in connection and sustainability that we can all learn from. Colonies are kept small, typically under 200 people to maintain strong social bonds, and emphasis is placed on the community as a whole rather than any individual. The Hutterites are the most successful model for communal living in modern western history.
The photographer has spent 14 years with the Hutterites, creating the most in-depth visual archive of their culture on record.
