Friday, May 15, 2009, 6:00pm (sharp!) - 7:30pm
St. Ann’s Warehouse, 38 Water Street, Brooklyn

Mark Peterson follows the antics and excitement of youth, from a JROTC member preparing for her prom and debutantes at their coming out party held at New York’s Plaza Hotel to tailgating at an Louisiana State University game against Ole Miss.

Talk about the relationship between college football and binge drinking culture, specifically LSU tailgating as a way for young people to let off steam.

I don’t think many college students need a football game to binge drink. When you’re at that age you are suddenly free and on your own for the first time so you do things to the extreme. I think the football games just allow the behavior to come out in the open.

When you decided to photograph LSU tailgating what did you originally intend to depict? How does that compare to what eventuated?

I wanted to show the good time natural of being a kid. I wasn’t looking for any thing evil or wrong in the behavior. With the whole youth project, or at least what I shot, which included debutantes, JROTC and prom prep I wanted to show this period where everything is new and fresh and maybe a little scary because your leaving one world and entering the next faze of your life. Like they had just spring off a diving board but hadn’t hit the water yet.

The selected images avoid identifying individuals, they tend to picture groups and sometimes an action, can you talk about the significance of peer groups and tribalism in these photographs?

When we’re at that age I think we look to our peers and their behavior to shape how we act in any situation. It’s kind of the Stockholm syndrome where you enter the school and are being held hostage by your roommate or your fraternity or your sports team and they indoctrinate you into their rituals.

Darcy Padilla documents the confronting gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” and how opportunity and misfortune shapes the lives of youths in America, from beggar to Obama volunteer, Darcy’s photos show drastic range.

Out of your four subjects featured in American Youth, two are successful kids filled with hope and two are down trodden unfortunate youths trapped in poverty or jail. Can you talk about the experience of depicting this range in lifestyle?

I would walk through the Tenderloin Loin (TL), where Pepper begs for spare change, to the campaign headquarters to photograph Ruby. The TL is a neighborhood littered with SROs, drugs and home to the highest crime rate in the city. Ruby was young and excited about the campaign. Pepper I found sitting on the ground near the cable car turn around hoping that tourists would spare some change. I spent time with both Ruby and Pepper, asking them about there life. Pepper is the one I often think about—hoping her life changes for the good. I have looked for her each time I am downtown. Still looking.

As I was photographing Pepper I heard from behind me someone call my name–it was Ruby on her way to the Obama campaign headquarters a couple blocks away. It was two days before election night. I was heading to Chicago on a red-eye and Ruby was organizing the election night party in San Francisco. I introduce Ruby to Pepper who was sitting on the ground with a clear plastic cup in front of her legs filled with a few coins. And told them they were both a part of the same book project - blocks from each other, but worlds apart.

Pepper is a 20-year-old female, homeless and an alcoholic in San Francisco. What did she hope for?

Pepper young with ponytails and a green jump suit on with the words free beer tattooed across her knuckles had lived a life that many could not image. Homeless at age fifteen because of her drug addicted mother kick her to the curb. Her life she thought was normal until her father left her one afternoon and never returned. Pepper was seven.

Pepper’s hands were stained with tattoos and soot from the grime of the street. Her face wore a left over black eye a gift from her ex-boyfriend who had beaten her with a pipe finishing his rage with punching her in the eye.

What did she hope for… another drink, beer, vodka anything. That her dog “corduroy” would be at her side forever and most all that she would not run into the ex who had beat her so many times.

As, I took pictures of Pepper with streetlight hugging her face. The smoke from her cigarette created a cloud for her to escape into. Her face young, innocent still did not show the hard time that she had lived. Pepper reminded me of a woman named “Julie” that I have been documenting for the last 16 years, six kids later, a drug addict with AIDS—and I hoped that Pepper’s life would somehow be different.

Ruby is 23, a college graduate and Obama campaign volunteer. What did she wish for?

Ruby a 23-year-old college graduate who worked for a law firm during the day and then volunteered at the Obama headquarters at night. Young with cell phone in hand usually texting or taking a call. At the headquarters — she would call restaurants trying to hustle food for volunteers or for the debate nights that were held at local nightspots. She would hang signs, before and clean up after. The first debate, after setting up her and another volunteer went to the bar ordered a corona and went to listen to Obama and McCain. She sat nervous with beer and cell phone in hand. Texting a friend each time she was worried, listening to each answer. After interviews with CNN and a local station she was off to cleanup — taking down signs. Ruby was the person who thanked those for donating their money and those who volunteered. What did Ruby wish for? For Obama to win.

Darcy Padilla is a photojournalist and documentary photographer based in San Francisco. She has received awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the Open Society Institute.

From the solitary antics of videogame-obsessed teens to couples in love, Erika Larsen offers insight into how teens relate to one another and to the world around them.

You shot many young couples in love, what can you say about their relationship ideals and how they might be unique to their generation?

I think their ideals are very American and quite similar to the past generations. They are in love and will stay that way forever. I think the difference in their mind is that they have learned from their parents, what mistakes they will not make and that they believe their decisions are well informed and are their decisions! Meaning they have made the choice to be with their partner based on their mind and no one else’s.

This may vary on past generation where family influences may have been more prevalent.

I also found that they were dealing with complex issues like teen pregnancy, single parent raising a child, homosexuality, mixed race relationships, a marriage where the first year married they will be separated by war, a relationship in separate cities because of choices to attend different colleges but still trying to make it work, planning to have a child with same sex partnership. These are signs that speak of this generation.

I think with all this said the couples were as ideal as ever that love lasts forever and their relationships will stand the test of time. That the choices they have made are theirs and they will take that responsibility.

I was inspired and impressed by this.

You also shot a more solitary group of video gamers, can you talk about their lifestyle, are they shy and isolated or are games just a pass time?

I think gaming is a big part of their social life and I do not think they are isolated. They are actually communicating with more people in a variety of countries just through technology instead of physical and in person contact. I also see that friends get together at each other’s houses and game together.

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Erika Larsen’s work appears in magazines both in the U.S. and internationally, covering a range of topics including family life, religion, and spirituality in rural America. Her most notable work to date is her immersion into the world of hunting, which began in 2003 and led to her becoming a contributing photographer to Field & Stream Magazine. Her work has been recognized by: World Press Photo, American, Society of Magazine Editors, American Photography, Society of Photographers, New Jersey State Council of the Arts, and others. She is currently working on a project in the Scandinavian Arctic. Erika is based in New York City.

Redux Pictures is an editorial and commercial agency based in New York City representing photographers around the world. The agency photographers have been awarded every top prize in photography, have received numerous grants and fellowships and have been exhibited extensively. Redux Photographers include Marc Asnin, Ben Baker, Nina Berman, David Butow, Peter Frank Edwards, Danny Wilcox Frazier, Eros Hoagland, John Keatley, Andy Kropa, Erika Larsen,Gina LeVay, Joshua Lutz, Preston Mack, Kevin J. Miyazaki, Darcy Padilla, Mark Peterson, Michael Rubenstein, Greg Ruffing, Q. Sakamaki, Erin Siegal, Angie Smith, Ben Stechschulte, Brad Swonetz, Nathaniel Welch, and David Yellen.

Founded in 1995, Contrasto is a leading Publisher of high quality photography books for the global audience. Contrasto’s mission is to create, publish, and distribute the finest photographic culture around the world with books that are beautifully designed, sumptuously printed, and comprehensive in subject matter.

Contrasto’s main themes include contemporary society and current affairs. We give careful attention to the historical photography heritage, as well as to new authors, new views and retrospectives.

Contrasto’s books and authors won the most prestigious international awards, as the Kraszna-Krausz Book Award, the Photo District News Annual Book Award, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, and the World Press Photo Award.

www.contrastobooks.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, please contact Miss Sara Rosen

Email: misssararosen at gmail dot com

Redux Pictures and Contrasto invite you to the May 2009 launch of

American Youth

By the photographers of Redux Pictures

at The New York Photo Festival

Friday, May 15, 2009, 6:00–7:30pm

St. Ann’s Warehouse, 38 Water Street Brooklyn

RSVP or festival pass required: Tel: 917.902.8515 or email: AmericanYouthLaunch@gmail.com

American Youth, a collection of stories by the photographers of Redux Pictures, edited by the country’s pre-eminent magazine photography directors, and published by Contrasto, will launch on Friday May 15 at the New York Photo Festival from 6:00–7:30 at St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn. The evening will feature a panel discussion with Redux photographers Gina LeVay, Mark Peterson, and Nathaniel Welch alongside photography directors Bill Black (Reader’s Digest), Bruce Perez (Redbook), and Allyson Torrisi (Popular Mechanics) moderated by Janene Outlaw (The New York Times). Following the panel talk with be a reception with many of the photographers featured in the book. Additionally, an exhibition of work from the book will be on view at the Festival from May 13–17.

For the book, the LeVay, Peterson, and Welch shot subjects as far ranging as Iraq War Widows, a JROTC member on the way to her prom, debutantes coming out at New York’s Plaza Hotel, tailgaters at an LSU football game with Ole Miss, and what New York youth would ask God. It was then the work of Black, Perez, and Torrisi to edit the work into a definitive visual narrative that could be told over the course of a few pages in a compendium of stories that provide an unvarnished glimpse into the striking stories of struggle between self determination and tradition in our country’s newest generation of 18 to 24-year-olds.

Poignant in their ability to reveal the strength of rebellion alongside the inevitable vulnerability of adolescent existence, the photographs stand in both contrast and correspondence to each other. The lives of Muslim teens, Mormon missionaries, AGs (macho lesbians), and wannabe models are shown with an edgy empathy that defines the Redux Pictures’ collective.

Featuring the work of 25 photographers over 240 pages, the photographs featured in American Youth were edited with the help of Bill Black (Reader’s Digest), Karen Frank (Conde Nast Portfolio), Jeanne Graves (BestLife), Armin Harris (Fortune), Katherine Harris (The Daily Beast), Jane Hwang (ABCNews.com), Michelle Jackson (freelance art buyer, owner of SnapIndigo), Nadja Masri (GEO), Brenda Milis (Men’s Health), Bruce Perez (Redbook), Dora Somosi (GQ) and Allyson Torrisi (Popular Mechanics). The book featured an introduction by Steve Appleford, whose writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, GQ, and Spin. To preview the book, please visit http://www.reduxpictures.com/ayb/americanyouth_galley.pdf

Gina Levay was born in Chicago and holds an MFA in Photo and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts. Inspired by the diversity and energy of people, LeVay works both in the U.S. and abroad for editorial, advertising and music clients while pursuing independent projects. Her award-winning work, The Sandhog Project, was exhibited as a large-scale photo and video installation at New York’s Grand Central Terminal in 2006 and will be published by powerHouse Books in Fall 2009.

Mark Peterson is the author of Acts of Charity, (powerHouse Books, 2004). He has won numerous awards and honors, including the W. Eugene Smith Grant, 1st place Feature Picture Story in the Pictures of the Year International Competition, and has been included in the World Press annual book and traveling exhibition. He is an editorial photographer based in New York who works on assignment for The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, GEO, and many other publications.

Nathaniel Welch is a New York City-based photographer specializing in portraits for magazines, advertising, and record covers in the U.S. and abroad. The author of Spring Broke and Jesse James and His Beautiful Machines (powerHouse Books, 2004 and 2006), Welch’s favorite movie is Star Wars; his favorite food is the famed “Runza” from Nebraska.

Bill Black has been involved in photography for over twenty–five years. He has worked at Travel & Leisure, American Express, and Travel Holiday, where the magazine won unprecedented 85 awards for photography, most notably 26 from Communication Arts and 19 from American Photography, during Black’s seven-year tenure. Since1996, Black has worked as the Director of Photography at the Reader’s Digest Magazine. The American Society of Magazine Editors nominated the magazine for General Excellence in 2009. Black has also collaborated with numerous photographers by editing several major monographs of their work, including Antonin Kratochvil’s Broken Dream. Black has lectured and taught workshops in the United States and Europe, as well as served as a juror for the prestigious Communication Arts photography annual, as well as other photography competitions. He is currently a member of the Society of Publications Designers.

Bruce Perez has loved magazines and photography since he was given his first camera at age eight and his subscription to American Photo when he was 12. He has been in the industry for over 22 years at various publishers including Time Inc, Conde Nast, Hearst, and Reader’s Digest and has also produced shoots for major retailers. Currently he is the photography director of Redbook magazine and has been working on the gradual rebranding and redirection of that title. Born in Brooklyn, he currently lives with his fiancé and dog on the upper west side of Manhattan.

Allyson Torrisi has been involved in the world of photography for over twenty years. She began her career producing fashion advertisements for Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Ave, Nordstroms and many others. She was on the launch staff of InStyle and was a photo editor there for 7 years. After InStyle she was Creative Director at Turner Broadcasting Systems in Atlanta, and was responsible for several award winning pr campaigns for Turners (TNT & TBS ) original movies. She has lectured at SVA, taught at both Parsons and ICP. She has juried competitions and served on the digital photo and archive management team at Hearst. She has curated several photo shows and edited several monographs, such as Jesse James and his Beautiful Machines (powerHouse Books, 2007). She has been Director of Photography at Men’s Journal and is currently serving as Director of Photography at Popular Mechanics, the award-winning magazine published for over 106 years.

Janene Outlaw graduated with a BFA in Fine Art and Photography from Cornell University and has worked as a photo editor at an array of publications that include New York magazine, The Village Voice, Entertainment Weekly, and Fortune magazines, among others. Outlaw instructed senior Photography majors at The School of Visual Arts in a class titled the Photographer and the Photo Editor and curated A World Less Seen, a photography exhibit at the Time Warner Gallery, New York. She has also photo edited and consulted on music and art photography books as well as produced record packaging for major recording labels. Before being the photo editor for the Thursday Style section, she photo edited the Weekend Arts section at the New York Times.

Redux Pictures is an editorial and commercial agency based in New York City representing photographers around the world. The agency photographers have been awarded every top prize in photography, have received numerous grants and fellowships and have been exhibited extensively. Redux Photographers include Marc Asnin, Ben Baker, Nina Berman, David Butow, Peter Frank Edwards, Danny Wilcox Frazier, Eros Hoagland, John Keatley, Andy Kropa, Erika Larsen,Gina LeVay, Joshua Lutz, Preston Mack, Kevin J. Miyazaki, Darcy Padilla, Mark Peterson, Michael Rubenstein, Greg Ruffing, Q. Sakamaki, Erin Siegal, Angie Smith, Ben Stechschulte, Brad Swonetz, Nathaniel Welch, and David Yellen.

Founded in 1995, Contrasto is a leading Publisher of high quality photography books for the global audience. Contrasto’s mission is to create, publish, and distribute the finest photographic culture around the world with books that are beautifully designed, sumptuously printed, and comprehensive in subject matter.
Contrasto’s main themes include contemporary society and current affairs. We give careful attention to the historical photography heritage, as well as to new authors, new views and retrospectives.

Contrasto’s books and authors won the most prestigious international awards, as the Kraszna-Krausz Book Award, the Photo District News Annual Book Award, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, and the World Press Photo Award.

www.contrastobooks.com

Happy Earth Day!

Here are some outtakes from Greg Ruffing’ series on students from Oberlin College working on a group experiment called SEED (Student Experience in Ecological Design), a new eco-house in Ohio.

Outtakes for Earth Day! - Images by Redux Pictures

Outtakes from Eros Hoagland’s series on young soldiers in Iraq. 

Ben Baker discusses his project for the book:

Talk about your snapshots, where is this generation headed in 2050? 

My portraits of hundreds of American Youths, was to follow a Pew research project that shows the demographic shift by 2050. By then America will look very different. The current majority – Caucasians, will be in the minority following a large increase in Hispanic and Asian populations. America will be majority brown or mixed. The interesting part is that the current immigrants will play the biggest part in this, as its their children that will change the numbers so quickly. 

What social issues do you think they could face and how are these different to the current and previous generational experiences of adulthood? 

That’s a big question … you would think that the Hispanic and Asian populations would face greater needs for representation in politics, business and the media to reflect their majority. 

And on the flip side the Caucasian youths who will be growing up in the minority of a nation that has for ever used imagery of white America as the dominant color will have to find/see themselves far differently than their parents or grand parents. 

Hopefully, it will enable a closer more involved and considerate society, but there definitely could be friction and challenges on that path. 

Talk about any comments made on the Pew Center Research predictions by your subjects. What was their opinion on it? 

I didn’t really talk to my subjects too much about it. I really wanted them to be as real as possible, they were found on the streets. This is a still and video project so I wanted to get casual and spontaneous moments with the subjects. We gave them a flyer explaining the project but when I had 5 minutes with them it was about them offering their thoughts on growing up in America now. 

When I spoke to my subjects about the project it was focused on how they felt as American youths, they said a lot, about how they are proud yet saddened by America. That it offers all the opportunities but far to many stresses and expectations. You can imagine if I interviewed a few hundred people the results are all over. 

In respect to the questions relating to the pew study, they didn’t seem to care, I think younger Americans (and those in NYC especially) are so used to living and growing up in diverse country, I think its the older generations that are concerned, but it was very clear that the youth didn’t really think it was a big deal. If that’s true for all, it is very heartening. Just like the election of Obama … Young Americans are more concerned with if he could do the job, not his color.

Outtakes from Peter Frank Edwards series on young Fishermen. 

Two portraits from Marc Asnin’s series on Boxers in New York City.