ZEKE Magazine: Fall 2021, Preview edition

ZEKEFALL 2021 VOL.7/NO.2 $15 US
THE MAGAZINE OF GLOBAL DOCUMENTARY
Preview Edition.
FEATURED ARTICLES
AWAKE IN THE DESERT LAND
Photographs by Sofia Aldinio
PATH AWAY
Photographs by Nicolò Filippo Rosso
FROM TULSA TO MINNEAPOLIS
Photographs by 27 Black photographers documenting
this extraordinary time in American history
THE EMPTYING OF THE ANDES
Photographs by Emiliano Pinnizzotto
Published by Social Documentary ZEKE FALL Network 2021/ 1

FALL 2021 VOL.7/NO.2
$15 US
2 | AWAKE IN THE DESERT LAND
Photographs by Sofia Aldinio
CO-WINNER OF 2021 ZEKE AWARD FOR DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY
Sofia Aldinio from Awake in the Desert Land
Nicolò Filippo Rosso from Path Away
Joshua Rashaad McFadden from From Tulsa to
Minneapolis: Photographing the Long Road to
Justice
Emiliano Pinnizzotto from The Emptying of the
Andes
14 | PATH AWAY
Photographs by Nicolò Filippo Rosso
CO-WINNER OF 2021 ZEKE AWARD FOR DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY
40 | FROM TULSA TO MINNEAPOLIS:
PHOTOGRAPHING THE LONG ROAD TO JUSTICE
Photographs by 27 Black photographers documenting this
extraordinary time in American history
60 | THE EMPTYING OF THE ANDES
Photographs by Emiliano Pinnizzotto
26 |
30 |
52 |
54 |
70 |
Migration from the Northern Triangle
The Last Resort to Stay Alive
by Daniela Cohen
ZEKE Award Honorable Mention Winners
Interview with Joseph Rodriguez
by Caterina Clerici
Photography & Social Change
by Emily Schiffer
Book Reviews
Edited by Michelle Bogre
78 | Contributors
Deborah Espinosa from Photography & Social
Change
On the Cover
Photo by Emiliano Pinnizzotto from The Emptying
of the Andes. Inside a bus heading in the direction
of Lima. Many of the people inside the bus are
leaving their homes forever, looking for a job and
a better life in the cities. See inside back cover for
a profile of Emiliano Pinnizzotto.

ZEKE
THE
MAGAZINE OF
GLOBAL DOCUMENTARY
Published by Social Documentary Network
Dear ZEKE Readers:
As I write this letter, Hurricane Ida has just completed its deadly flooding and destruction in Louisiana and the
Northeast exactly 16 years after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. Floods have killed 20 people in Tennessee.
Wildfires rage in the West and in Europe. And the Delta variant of COVID-19 extends its grip.
It has also been just a few weeks since the fall of Kabul as the Taliban swept into victory following the
American pullout after our 20-year failed effort at nation building. Now a chaotic and deadly evacuation
has ended for U.S. troops, American citizens, our Afghan allies, and nationals of other countries struggling
to flee the imposition of a harsh and despotic rule that we all know too well from the years prior to 9/11
when the Taliban last controlled Afghanistan.
While none of these events are presented in this issue of ZEKE, prior issues have featured numerous
articles on climate change and the U.S. "War on Terror." We continue to publish ZEKE because we stand
resolutely behind the importance of the documentary image, and the photographers who make them, in
bringing awareness, nuance, and humanity to global issues.
In this issue of ZEKE, we are thrilled to present the winners of the 2021 ZEKE Award for Documentary
Photography. Sofia Aldinio’s award-winning project, Awake in the Desert Land, explores migration and historical
memory as residents from Baja California, Mexico are uprooted from their land as a result of climate
change. Nicolò Filippo Rosso’s project, Path Away, follows migrants from the Northern Triangle countries
(Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador), as they flee violence and climate change to seek better opportunities
in the U.S. only to find the border sealed as they approach their destination.
We also present the extraordinary images by Italian photographer Emiliano Pinnozzotto and his project,
The Emptying of the Andes, documenting an important, under-reported, and all too common story, where
young people are fleeing their ancestral mountainous homes only to find a new form of poverty and alienation
in urban centers—in this case in Peru—as climate change makes it increasingly difficult to sustain life
at 13,000 feet.
It is no coincidence that migration is a central theme in these three exhibits as the existential threat of
climate change forces millions of people each year to seek less vulnerable environments.
We are also thrilled to present 27 submissions from a call for entries from Black photographers on the
theme “From Tulsa to Minneapolis: Photographing the Long Road to Justice” including first-place winner
Donald Black Jr. for his story A Day No One Will Remember.
In addition to these portfolios, Emily Schiffer has written a very provocative and inspiring feature article
on Photography and Social Change exploring photographic artists who are making a difference by challenging
the norms of both imagemaking and traditional structures of power.
Lastly, on a personal note, I am very saddened to report that the namesake
for ZEKE magazine, our thirteen-year-old beloved feline companion Ezekiel
(aka Zeke), passed away in July following injuries suffered from a valiant fight
with a wild animal. Barbara and I take solace that his exuberance for life, his
unbounding energy, and his persistent demand for dignity often denied our
non-human friends, live on in this magazine.
Matthew Lomanno
Glenn Ruga
Executive Editor
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 1

This ongoing photography project
by Sofia Aldinio documents
how climate change is uprooting
small, inland and coastal
communities in Baja California,
Mexico, that depend directly on
natural resources to survive and thereby
threatening cultural heritage.
The peninsula is facing stronger hurricanes,
changes in precipitation patterns
and streamflow, loss of vegetation
and soils and negative impact on fisheries
and biodiversity. It is estimated that
in Mexico and Central America, 3.9
million people will be forced to leave
their homes due to climate change.
Photographed in four different communities
across the peninsula, the work
presented here documents the tension of
the communities whose cultural heritage
is at risk, adds a new perspective on
the existing reports on climate change
and migration and starts a conversation
about how the loss of collective memory
has a direct impact on the mental health
of the next generation.
The newest cemetery in San Jose de
Gracia, Baja California, Mexico,
January 17, 2021. The small community
has at least four different cemeteries
generationally identified. The town lost
most of its population after Hurricane
Lester in 1992, the biggest storm the
community has faced in its history.
Since 2006, the community has lost 60
members and has a population of 12
today.
2 / ZEKE FALL 2021

Awake in the Desert Land
MIGRATION, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND HISTORICAL MEMORY
ZEKE AWARD FIRST-PLACE WINNER
By Sofia Aldinio
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 3

4 / ZEKE FALL 2021

Photo by Sofia Aldinio
Felipe and Olga drive to buy food
for their goats in San Juanico, Baja
California, Mexico, January, 23, 2021.
The land is parched after no rain for
three years, and the goats have been
having a hard time finding the wild
food that grows in the desert.
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 5

PATH
AWAY
TENS OF THOUSANDS FLEE VIOLENCE,
CLIMATE CHANGE, AND ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE FOR NORTH AMERICA
ZEKE AWARD FIRST-PLACE WINNER
By Nicolò Filippo Rosso
Two months after Hurricanes Eta and
Iota hit Central America in November
2020, leaving 4.5 million victims of
flooding and mudslides in their wake,
11 thousand people gathered in San
Pedro Sula, Honduras starting the
first migrants’ caravan of the year heading
towards the United States. 2021 began
with one of the most significant migration
waves of the last decade posing a difficult
challenge for the new administration of
President Joe Biden.
The migrants’ crossing through gangcontrolled
areas, deserts, and jungles
is made even harder by the pandemic.
International aid is scant, and many
migrants’ shelters and charity kitchens
closed their doors to avoid contagion.
Thousands of migrants have reached
Mexico while walking along its southern
border with Guatemala, continuing the
migration routes of the Gulf of Mexico, and
the northern border with the United States to
seek asylum. However, hundreds of families
are expelled and returned to Mexico. Their
asylum claims are denied with arguments
based on Title 42, a U.S. statute that allows
the expulsion of migrants from a country
where a virus such as COVID-19 is present.
This is their story.
6 / ZEKE FALL 2021

Left: Lesbia Vanessa Bovadia, 35 years old,
from Honduras, cries as she talks to a psychologist
in a charity shelter in Tijuana, Mexico.
After being separated from her children in the
United States, she was deported to Mexico in
2019. She doesn’t know where her children
are, and she’s desperate to find them. The
last time she saw them was in Chattanooga,
Tennessee in 2018 before being arrested by
the U.S. police.
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 7

8 / ZEKE FALL 2021

Photo by Nicolò Filippo
Rosso
Guatemalan police officers take
custody of a Honduran migrant
who attempted to break the police
barricade while driving a truck in
Vado Hondo, Guatemala.
January 18, 2021.
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 9

Migration from the
Phoenix
Channel
Islands
Mexicali
Guadalupe
Hermosillo
A
Chihuahua
G o l f o d e C a l i f o r n i a
La Paz
Culiacan
Durango
MEXICO
Saltillo
Ciudad Victoria
Monterrey
Zacatecas
Aguascalientes San Luis Potos
Tepic
Leon
Queretaro
Guadalajara
Morelia Pachu
Colima
Toluca
Mexico
Chilpancingo
P a c i f i c
Olga Marina Rodriguez
Gonzalez holds her two
babies while waiting for
the cargo train known as La
Bestia “The Beast.” People
jump on the moving train to
reach Northern Mexico, on
their way to the United States.
Coatzacoalcos, in Veracruz,
Mexico. February 16, 2021.
Photo by Nicolò Filippo Rosso.
O c e a n
10 / ZEKE FALL 2021

Northern Triangle
A last resort to stay alive
by Daniela Cohen
Little Rock
ustin
i
ca
City
MEXICO
Guatemala
The significant increase
in migration from
Central America to the
U.S. in recent years
indicates rapidly deteriorating
conditions
in the region that have left people
no choice but to flee in order to
survive. The majority of migrants
come from Honduras, Guatemala
and El Salvador, together referred
to as the Northern Triangle.
Around 311,000 migrants
from this region arrived in the
U.S. between 2014 and 2020
according to the Congressional
Research Service. In June 2021,
US Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) recorded almost 180,000
Baton Rouge
GUATEMALA
San Salvador
Jackson
EL SALVADOR
BELIZE
HONDURAS
Tegucigalpa
Managua
Havana
San Jose
Atlanta
Montgomery
NICARAGUA
COSTA RICA
Tallahassee
Columbia
migrants – including 15,000 unaccompanied
minors and 50,000
families – the highest monthly total
in over 20 years. But given that
one third of these migrants have
crossed the border previously, the
actual increase in migration may
not be as high.
“It’s one of the hardest decisions
people are often making,” says
Andani Alcantara Diaz, supervising
attorney of removal defense for
the Refugee and Immigrant Center
for Education and Legal Services
(RAICES) in Austin, Texas. “That’s
why you see people go through
really horrible things and still not
leave for a while because they
don’t want to leave their homes,
their families, everything they
know, behind. But at a certain
point, it’s the only thing they can
do to stay alive.”
The main drivers of migration
from the Northern Triangle are violence
and socioeconomic insecurity,
which frequently overlap, and are
exacerbated by climate change.
“Many migrants are fleeing
gangs or other sorts of dangerous
organizations that have harmed
them and their families,” says
Alcantara Diaz, “And they know
they can’t go to the government,
that the government in their countries
is not going to protect them.”
Many of these gangs originated
in Los Angeles in the 1980s and
were later deported back to their
home countries in the region.
Women and children are
particularly vulnerable to violence,
often within the home. Honduras
and El Salvador have some of the
highest rates of femicide worldwide.
Endemic corruption means
that the police are often involved
and those responsible are not held
to account. The threat of violence
by both gangs and family members
has led to a surge in unaccompanied
minors arriving at the U.S.
border since 2014.
Socioeconomic drivers of migration
include widespread inequality
and poverty and pervasive lack
CUBA
JAMAICA
Panama
Bahama
Islands
Nassau
Long Island
G r e a t e r A n t i l l e s
Caribbean Sea
of work opportunities. With 40
percent of the population under the
age of 20, youth can either stay in
precarious working conditions or
try to seek opportunities elsewhere.
Climate change has led to prolonged
droughts and crop losses.
The coffee industry has been hit
hard by both an increase in the
coffee leaf rust fungus and low
international coffee prices, jeopardizing
a critical source of seasonal
income for over a million families.
In addition, in 2020, the region
was devastated by the COVID
pandemic and back-to-back category
4 Hurricanes Eta and Iota,
which displaced over 500,000
people, leaving many homeless
and without access to clean
drinking water. According to the
World Food Programme, approximately
eight million people are
facing hunger, including a quarter
with emergency levels of food
insecurity. Almost 15 percent of
people surveyed in January 2021
reported plans to migrate, up eight
percent from 2018.
A Migrant Family’s
Journey
Angel Antonio Mejia Gonzales,
from Danli, Honduras, felt he
had no choice but to leave. The
33-year-old and his wife, Olga
Marina Rodriguez Montoya, 27,
had both been affected by violence
and wanted to protect their
children. Mejia Gonzales is eager
to work but says there were no
prospects for work in Honduras.
And Hurricanes Eta and Iota took
what little they had.
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 11

FROM TULSA TO MINNEAPOLIS
Photo by Joshua Rashaad
McFadden
After the last speech at the
Commitment March Rally on
August 28, 2020, thousands
of people flooded the streets of
Washington, D.C., to protest
police brutality in America.
14 / ZEKE FALL 2021

PHOTOGRAPHING THE LONG ROAD TO JUSTICE
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 15

FROM TULSA TO MINNEAPOLIS: PHOTOGRAPHING THE LONG ROAD TO JUSTICE
Several consistent themes arise across
the thousands of images documenting
the last year of racial justice
protests in the United States— the
raised Black power fist; a surge of
civilian bodies facing off against
a line of stony-faced police forces; eyes
raised to the camera in triumphant challenge
of the powers that be. Each of these
poignant moments draw from long histories
of photography on the American struggle
for justice within a country whose deeply
embedded racism spans centuries built of
settler colonization and the enslavement of
Black people.
An especially horrific part of that long
history of racial terror and subjugation in
America is the 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma massacre
of Black residents by a white mob.
While many Black Americans have long
held the memory of that deadly night and
the several preceding years of white mob
violence that erupted across the nation,
few photographs exist to bear ongoing
witness to the death and destruction. In the
decades since, however, Black Americans
have utilized the camera’s evidentiary
power as a tool in the twin struggles to
humanize Black lives and depict racial
injustice. The evisceration of Tulsa’s prosperous
Black community and the 2020
racial justice protests that represent the
largest social justice movement in U.S.
history are separated by nearly 100 years,
serving as troubling markers of how little
progress has been made on this long road
to justice. Yet, the influx of visual storytelling
by those whose lives are held in the
balance and social media’s access to a
rapt global audience offers new hope that
justice might yet be realized.
Since Black Lives Matter’s 2013 beginnings
as a hashtag following the 2013
shooting death of Black teenager Trayvon
Martin, the movement gained steam as
both a social media campaign and a
series of national protests in the wake of
each Black person killed by police brutality.
It’s vital to understand how much this
movement (and many other contemporary
social justice efforts) owes to the wide
circulation of visual evidence online. While
such egregious acts of racial violence and
police brutality have been rampant since
the advent of American policing, it is the
increasing presence of digital cameras that
have ushered in an era where racism can
be documented and therefore demand further
reckoning. As BLM builds on the visual
rhetoric of Civil Rights Movement photography,
the relationship between street-level
activism and the power of the camera is
increasingly revealed.
The collection of 23 photographs on
these pages is drawn from over 500
images submitted by photographers who
answered the call to share their visual
interpretations of the Long Road to Justice.
Importantly, the work is primarily made
by Black photographers whose lived
experiences of racial injustice and respect
for Black lives is tangibly felt across the
photo essay. From Brian Branch-Prices’s
intimate look at Black musicians to Kenechi
Unachukwu’s We Still Here, a picture of
Black resilience emerges. Donald Black
Jr.’s loving ode to Black childhood symbolizes
exactly what we fight for: a future
where the threat of police brutality against
our children, our mothers, our fathers and
brothers is a thing of the past.
The work to realize that future, however,
is far from over. Even as these images of
Black life compel the world to recognize
the shared humanity of all people, there
remains a stark disconnect between the
realities visualized by our photography
and the widespread realization of social,
political, and economic reform. The
struggle for racial justice continues and we
lift our cameras as we steady our resolve,
ready to meet the call wielding our choice
of weapons.
—Tara Pixley
Program Credits
Chair:
Lisa DuBois
Jurors:
Laylah Amatullah Barrayn
Lisa DuBois
Anthony Barboza
Eli Reed
Jamel Shabazz
16 / ZEKE FALL 2021

Best-of-Show Award
Donald Black Jr.
A Day No One Will Remember
A collection of images created by Donald
Black Jr. over the past 10 years. After returning
home to Cleveland, Ohio, he started creating
images that only an insider could see
and began making images that represented
his perception of his reality. Seeing himself
and where he came from has influenced
an obsession to photograph children in his
community.
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 17

FROM TULSA TO MINNEAPOLIS: PHOTOGRAPHING THE LONG ROAD TO JUSTICE
Above
Photographer: Titus Brooks Heagins
Exhibit Title: Where the Sidewalk Ends
This project represents a visual dialog
that interrogates the lives of those who
live in the margins of society.
Caption: Brittany and Brianna
Right top
Photographer: Brian Branch-Price
Exhibit Title: Rhythm and Praise, an
Epic Journey
This project reflects the expressions,
thoughts and actions of a people, of a
culture and of a folk who love to sing,
dance, shout, give, teach, preach, cut a
step all in the name of gospel music.
Caption: Percy Bady, Newark, New
Jersey
Right below
Photographer: Teanna Woods Okojie
Exhibit Title: Black Boy Joy
Black Boy Joy is a series of multiple
images spanning from 2013 to 2021
depicting young African youth and
young men in various environments
experiencing pure joy.
18 / ZEKE FALL 2021

Above
Photographer: Brian Branch-Price
Exhibit Title: BLM: The Third
Expressing the frustrations of an oppressed
community reacting to social injustices, economic
apartheid, Jim Crow, over-policing,
lynching, inhumanity, during peaceful and
confrontational protest in New York, New
Jersey, Philadelphia, Richmond, and D.C.
Caption: Livia Rose Johnson, 20, march
organizer during a Justice for George Floyd
protest and rally in New York on June 4, 2020
Left
Photographer: Raymond W. Holman, Jr.
Exhibit Title: COVID-19 in Black America
Environmental portraits of Black and brown
skin people with first-hand experience of
COVID-19 – having recovered, lost family
members, been mentally challenged by
social isolation, and figuring out how to
adjust and make a new pathway.
Caption: A Princeton University student
experiencing a year of online classes and
isolation due to COVID-19, but becoming a
stronger human being through this challenge.
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 19

Interview
JOSEPH RODRIGUEZ
Joseph Rodriguez is a New York-based photographer
whose career spans over 25 years. His
work has been published in National Geographic,
The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones,
Newsweek, New York Magazine and others. He
teaches at NYU and the International Center
for Photography (ICP), among others, and has
published several books including, more recently:
Taxi: A Journey Through My Window 1977-1987
and LAPD 1994. Below is an excerpt from our
conversation, edited for clarity.
By Caterina Clerici
Caterina Clerici: Can you tell us about
your background and how you got
started in photography?
and then dropped out and then got into
the drug scene, started doing heroin,
selling heroin, all that bad boy stuff. I
went to Rikers Island. First time I went in, I
was 17 years old. The second time I was
20, and I was a much tougher guy than
when I first went in. Rikers Island is not
a place that I can even describe to you.
How horrible that place is, that’s a whole
other story.
However, I came out at a very interesting
time because I felt the need to change
and those were the times of affirmative
action, the only way for most young people
to go to college without the ugly bank
loans we have today. Through education
I got myself together: got off methadone
at 26, got my GED and studied graphic
arts technology at the New York City
Technical College in downtown Brooklyn.
In 1980, I came out of school — first one
to go to college in my family — and got
a job in the printing business. You would
send us your chromes, and we would
make negatives, make plates and put
them on a printing press. I learned a lot
about color and printing and that helped
my photography later on.
I was making a lot of money in ‘80,
‘81, doing all those big ads you see
on the front pages of magazines, but I
found myself going back down a rabbit
hole, working 50, 60 hours a week. It
was a great experience, but I was really
unhappy. So I quit my job. My mother
was very upset. I went back to driving
a cab (taking photos that made up Taxi:
Journey Through My Windows 1977-
1987) and worked with a friend who had
a truck and an art moving business.
One day we delivered to a gallery in
Soho where Larry Clark was laying his
whole life’s work up on the wall. I went
up to him as if he was Jimi Hendrix, like,
“Oh, man! I really want to do what you
do!” and he said: “Just go make pictures.”
That’s all he said to me.
I went to ICP and started assisting in
the dark room, cleaning up the cibachrome
lab. Then they gave me a scholarship
and my life changed. I was schooled
by some of the greatest Magnum photographers:
Gilles Peress, Susan Meiselas,
Eugene Richards, Alex Webb, Raymond
Depardon, Sebastiao Salgado. The way
I work is the way they work. For weeks,
months and years. Anything personal is
going to take me years. I’m just coming
off following Mexican migrants throughout
the USA for 10 years.
I think about photography in time, and
I always felt great work takes a lot of it.
And, for me, it was always self-initiated.
There were no editors, no one telling me
Joseph Rodriguez: I was born and
raised in Brooklyn in 1951. I grew up
where I live right now, Park Slope, but it
was South Brooklyn then. And you know,
the Italian American history in New York
was very strong. It was a very mafioso
neighborhood and I’m not lying — we
had the Gowanus Canal and it was not
unusual for us to see floating bodies… It
was pretty much like the old Sicilian way.
In my Catholic school there were
only about 400 or 500 of us. There was
one Black kid and one Puerto Rican kid:
me. The other kids were all mostly from
Genoa, in Italy. Every single parent who
lived close by used to grow grapes in
the backyard and you would stop by to
try their wine. It was very old school.
But then the drugs came, and that’s what
brought a lot of the same problems you
have in so many other places.
I lost my way… got into high school
A young 18th Street Gang member being arrested. At the time this photo was taken the ATF (Arms Tobacco and
Firearms) were working with LAPD to try and take down one of the most notorious gangs in Los Angeles. The aim
was also to get as many guns off the streets as possible. Photo by Joseph Rodriguez from LAPD 1994.
20 / ZEKE FALL 2021

what to do. We just had that practice,
that discipline, which also brings a lot
of anxiety because you’re swimming
upstream and you’re always alone. The
practice is mapping out a story, which
then turns into something longer — like
when I went to LA in 1992 to photograph
gangs and I’m still revisiting that project
some 20 years later.
CC: Can you tell us how your project
on gang violence in LA started, how it
evolved, and the challenges you faced?
JR: When the Rodney King uprising
happened, immediately I wanted to
go, because I was missing America
(Rodriguez was living in Europe at the
time) and I understand the urban narrative,
no matter which city it is — Chicago,
Miami, New York, LA. I couldn’t do much
research while I was living in Europe,
because it wasn’t like now where everything’s
online, but one thing I did was listen
to music: all this gangsta rap, Eazy-E,
Tupac, Dre, N.W.A., Public Enemy. The
rhymes they were spitting out were the
newspapers of the streets. So I was listening
to guys like this Chicano rapper Kid
Frost, who’s totally East LA, and I was like
“Ok, I gotta go there.”
I flew in the middle of the night from
Stockholm to LA and arrived in my hotel
room. I didn’t know where I was going,
I had no connections and LA is huge!
So I grabbed three newspapers, turned
on the news and of course there was a
funeral and a drive-by shooting every
minute.
There was a lot of ground to cover,
so I stayed five weeks and worked
really hard. No sleep, just worked and
drove around, from one neighborhood
to another, also with the cops doing the
gang unit. But I knew our history already.
I began interviewing African-American
families in Watts, asking what was the
difference with the riots in 1965, in the
era when Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy
were assassinated and there was a lot
of city streets burning. The conversation
began and it opened up doors, and I
realized I wasn’t interested in just the
guns or the people dying. This was a
generational story that went back three or
Waiting for a fare outside 220 West Houston Street, an after-after-hours club. New York 1984. Photo by Joseph
Rodriguez from Taxi: A Journey Through My Window 1977-1987.
four generations. That’s when I really felt
the power of this story.
I went back to Stockholm and we published
what we could. I applied for an artist
grant there, and then I moved to LA in
September of ‘92. It was hard, I had left
the kids behind and just kept flying back,
trying not to be the absentee father that I
was. But that was the path I was on.
The gang project was very hard to
do and I paid the psychological price
for it, in terms of PTSD. At least eleven
kids are dead, in the East Side Stories:
Gang Life in East L.A. book. Children
were dying and parents were telling me
I needed to tell this story. Plus, sometimes
people thought I was an undercover cop.
I showed them my Spanish Harlem book
and my National Geographic stories to
prove that I wasn’t a cop, but paranoia
runs deep in the hood. That hung over my
head for a while — until the book was
published — and I was going to quit the
project, I felt I couldn’t handle it.
I also had guys come say to me: “Yo,
man, I’m about to go do a hit, you can
come and just take pictures.” This is ethics.
I said: “Look, I go with you, I photograph
you doing this scene. Detectives
come, they find out who’s who, they
take my film and they use the evidence
against you.” Some of the gang members
were 16 years old; they didn’t know how
the law worked. They didn’t understand
what a camera could do. They were so
enamored by their vanity and Hollywood
influence. With a camera comes a lot of
responsibility.
CC: How did your surroundings while
growing up influence your practice and
your understanding of photography, as
well as your mission as a “humanist”, as
you often define yourself?
JR: I grew up with my mother and her
sisters, and there were no men in my family.
My stepfather was a dope fiend who
died on the streets. There were a lot of
not nice things growing up, and that was
very tough for me.
One thing I remember is that my mom
would sit with her sisters in a very old
school, Italian way, they would have their
coffee and talk about the men. I would
hear these stories — it was unbelievable
— of abuse and cheating, and those references
helped me develop a feminine eye.
I’m always asking myself: “Why did
this photographer go photograph a gangster
with guns, bullets and drugs, but then
didn’t photograph a mother at the same
time, or the struggling parent?” That’s
always been very important in my work. I
didn’t always go for the guns.
“Raised in violence, I enacted my own
violence upon the world and upon myself.
What saved me was the camera, its ability
to gaze upon, to focus, to investigate,
to reclaim, to resist, to re-envision.” That
quote is from my journal. That’s how I
got here, that’s where this goal comes
from. That’s why I went back for East Side
Stories (Rodriguez’s long-term project
about gang violence in LA, shot between
1992–2017.)
Continued on page 70.
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 21

But before delving into how documentary
photography is evolving, it is essential
to first address the fight to change
the internal practices and structure of the
photo industry itself.
One of the biggest problems in
photography is the widespread percep-
Years ago,
tion among audiences that photographs
during an artist talk at a journalism
conference, I stated that I the extent to which a photographer’s
don’t lie. Most people don’t understand
don’t believe documentary photographs
create social change. A consume. This knee-jerk assumption of
personal biases impact the images we
colleague stood up and interrupted my objectivity allows audiences to accept
talk to disagree with me. Our impromptu an image as truth: forming hard-andfast
opinions about events and cultures.
debate--across an audience of photographers
and journalism students--exemplifies Without critical assessment from the viewers,
the photographer has tremendous
an important dialog within our industry
that is pushing the boundaries of how power over the value viewers assign to
photography is created and used. Our the lives of the individuals pictured. Such
power and representation have plagued
the industry since the advent of photography
as a medium. Recent momentum
in acknowledging and changing these
practices prompted the formation of
collectives such as Women Photograph,
MFON, Diversify Photo, Ingenious
Photograph, and the Authority Collective,
to name a few. Meaningful reflection
about representation, connection, and
accountability are imperative starting
points for anyone assigning, publishing,
Photography &
By Emily Schiffer
disagreement hinged on different definitions
of what “social change” looks like
and means. I was asserting that images
create awareness--which unreliably
evokes empathy, shifts mindsets, and
inspires action. He was arguing that
empathy is change. We were both right.
Differentiating between raising awareness,
fostering empathy, inspiring action,
and changing conditions enables photographers
to precisely define their goals
and approaches for individual projects.
A whole world opens up when
we think of images as the start
of a creative process—rather
than the end goal.
unchallenged authority creates a dangerous
paradigm. Historically, photographers
have been overwhelmingly white
and male, which means they produced
images of cultures, communities, and
people that were not familiar to them.
On top of that, editors, curators, critics,
and other industry gatekeepers have
also historically been white and male,
which further normalizes the white male
gaze within the industry writ large, and
silencing other perspectives. This set-up
causes glaring omissions in documentary
narratives. Practically speaking,
omissions amount to erasure, which is a
quintessential tactic of colonialism and
oppression. Despite important changes
in who is able to access the profession,
and in how we think about photography,
statistics show that the demographics of
the industry remain largely unchanged.
In 2020, 80% of A1 images in leading
U.S. and European newspapers were
created by male photographers. Issues of
exhibiting, or creating photographs, let
alone those attempting to create social
change through photography.
Sometimes, viewers need to physically
see the errors in the dominant narrative
in order to shift their mindset. Artists such
as Alexandra Bell, Wendy Red Star,
and Tonika Lewis Johnson visualize the
crisis of biased representation, enabling
viewers to reflect on their perceptions
of self and others. Bell redacts racist
language in New York Times articles and
sometimes changes the imagery to reflect
a more accurate depiction of the facts.
She then wheatpastes the before and
after versions of the articles onto outdoor
public walls: simultaneously holding the
media accountable, and forcing viewers
to confront their complacency when
consuming media. Similarly, Red Star
annotates photographs of Crow chiefs,
originally taken by Charles Milton Bell in
1880. Red Star uses red ink to provide
historical and contextual information,
22 / ZEKE FALL 2021

Photo by Dawnee LeBeau. From Women of the
Tetonwan, a portrait project celebrating the matriarchs
of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. ​
Winona Kasto is one of our Lakota Lolihan' (cooks).
It's a great honor to be able to offer food as nourishment
and healing, especially at ceremonies and
community events.
with individuals directly impacted by the
issues their work addresses. Still, for others
who photograph solo, like Dawnee
LeBeau, an ongoing and deep community
dialog dictates what is created and
shared. It is worth noting that all of the
aforementioned photographers identify
as part of the communities they document.
Even people depicting their own
cultures need accountability, and ceding
power enriches photographic work.
Listening, critical discourse, and reflection
Social Change
on one’s own biases are even more vital
for outsiders.
thereby informing the viewer and commenting
on non-Indigenous people’s lack
of knowledge about Indigenous culture
and history. Aware of how profoundly the
media impacts our sense of self, Johnson
created Englewood Rising, a communityled
billboard campaign created and
paid for with funds raised by Englewood
residents and activists to, “showcase
Englewood’s everyday beauty and
counter its damage-centered narrative.”
Created by the community, for the community,
and in the community, this wildly
popular project demonstrates how well
someone from the community can portray
other members within it.
Discussions about representation
and whether or not a solo perspective is
always desirable have prompted photographers
to share authorship and power
in the image-making process. More
horizontal approaches sometimes take
the form of a collective voice, composed
of many professional photographers, as
is the case with Kamoinge (founded in
1963), a collective working to “HONOR,
document and preserve the history and
culture of the African Diaspora with
integrity and insight for humanity through
the lens of Black photographers.” Other
artists, like Brenda Anne Kenneally, facilitate
decade-long photography workshops
With the politics of representation
fresh on our minds, and
the raising of awareness as a
baseline, we will look at examples
of photographers leading
our industry in a more responsible,
and impactful direction.
Whether making images collaboratively,
using them to create conversations,
creatively installing them in communities,
or amplifying existing grassroots
organizing, these projects engender
active engagement from both the people
impacted by these issues and the viewers
seeing these projects--even when there is
not an easy or clear solution.
More →
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 23

Photography & Social Change
Projects
That Inspire
Introspection
and
Challenge
Oppressive
Narratives
Ariana Faye Allensworth
Staying Power
Ariana Faye Allensworth’s
background in social work,
urban studies, African
American studies,
and education enables her to
deconstruct power imbalances
in the photo industry.
Her latest project Staying
Power, implements her critique
of how photography is
taught, and how narratives are
constructed and consumed.
Staying Power is “a collaborative,
multidisciplinary art and research project
celebrating the people’s history of New
York City public housing. The project
offers counter-narratives to the stereotypes
surrounding the New York City
Housing Authority (NYCHA) through
the lens of residents raised and living in
NYCHA.”
The project emerged out of
Allensworth’s collaborative work at the
Anti-Eviction Mapping Project (AEMP):
visualizing injustice by mapping open
data, collecting oral histories, producing
storytelling projects in collaboration
with tenants, facilitating mutual aid, and
researching real estate speculation and
corporate landlordism.
At AEMP, Allensworth worked closely
with residents displaced by the demolition
and downsizing of public housing.
New York City, home to the largest public
housing stock in the United States, is
privatizing and defunding many public
housing programs, a radical shift in
how these programs are managed and
operated. “It’s an important moment to
document public housing reform, and
to create room for people’s narratives,”
explains Allensworth. The dominant
‘failed public housing’ narrative stood
in stark contrast to the breadth of lived
experiences residents described.
Housed online, Staying Power is a
platform for publishing, discussing, and
presenting the NYCHA community’s
histories. The content is also available
through an open-ended series of booklets
and postcards, distributed to subscribers
through the postal service.
The project explores how this community
creates, cares for, and
builds their own archives.
“Memory is a valuable historical
resource,” explains
Allensworth. “Staying
Power explores how
photography, ephemeral
and personal collections
of objects, and interviews
with residents can offer
alternative modes of knowledge
that retell the public housing story. The
project positions residents as archivists
and storytellers.” Allensworth’s goal is to
refute stereotypes that eclipse people’s
lived experiences, and assert that all residents
are worthy of inclusion in NYCHA
history.
To gather material, Allensworth
facilitated photography workshops,
conducted long-form oral histories, and
photographed ephemera. Teaching
photography as a way of collaboratively
building narratives poses a challenge: on
the one hand, taking someone’s creativity
seriously by helping them develop
their craft is the ultimate form of respect.
On the other hand, traditional photoeducation
practices—which literally teach
how to see—undermine the message that
Image by Ariana Faye Allensworth. A poster created
for Staying Power featuring an image of Michael Casiano,
a resident of LaGuardia Houses on the Lower
East Side of Manhattan.
everyone’s perspective and story is valid.
Allensworth didn’t want her aesthetic
preferences to influence the work residents
created. She structured her workshops
using the “Photo Voice” model,
inviting participants to create visual
answers to questions about their public
housing experience. Instead of focusing
on aesthetics, the group discussed the
messages the images delivered, and critiqued
the artists’ visual communication.
Similarly, Allensworth’s method of
collecting oral histories positioned the
narrator to author their own story: “I
don’t show up with a predetermined set
of questions, so they’re not reduced to
whatever container I create for them.
They decide what it is that they want to
put on record.”
Though created primarily for NYCHA
residents, Staying Power is also an important
resource for educators, activists, and
policy makers looking to counter erasure,
claim space, and amplify residents’
experiences without filtering them through
a third party lens.
24 / ZEKE FALL 2021

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Contents of Fall 2021 Issue
Awake in the Desert Land
Photographs by Sofia Aldinio
Path Away
Photographs by Nicolò Filippo Rosso
From Tulsa to Minneapolis: Photographing the
Long Road to Justice
Photographs by 27 Black photographers documenting this
extraordinary time in American history
The Emptying of the Andes
Photographs by Emiliano Pinnizzotto
Migration from the Northern Triangle
by Daniela Cohen
Interview with Joseph Rodriguez
by Caterina Clerici
Photography & Social Change
by Emily Schiffer
Book Reviews
Edited by Michelle Bogre
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 25

26 / ZEKE FALL 2021

‘Tia’ (aunt) Sibilla in her hut
in the village of St Martin de
Porres, 15,000 feet above the
sea level, in Peru.
The Emptying of the Andes
By Emiliano Pinnizzotto
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 27

There is a very quiet and subtle
migration taking place in Peru. It is a
phenomenon of “rural-urban migration”
that has continued incessantly
for years, and is emptying the Andes
of people who are leaving their
lands under the illusion of a better future in
the big cities—Lima, Arequipa, Chimbote.
Many young people have escaped from
peasant life, only to end up in the favelas
of these cities, with no light, no gas,
nor running water. This migratory movement,
which is emptying the Andes of a
population that will end up in the slums, is
referred to as “invasions,” because of the
unstoppable number of arrivals.
This photographic project by Italian
photographer Emiliano Pinnizzotto follows
the stories both of those who remain in
their ancestral homes in the mountains, and
those who left for the big city and found
themselves passing from an imagined
dream into a real nightmare. The Emptying
of the Andes in an attempt to give voice
to a little-known story that in the next few
years will empty the mountains of native
people and culture and fill the cities with
those seeking a better life but often find
disappointment instead.
28 / ZEKE FALL 2021

Photo by Emiliano Pinnizzotto
Two women come back home with
their sheep after a day of pasture.
Grazing sheep is one of the main
activities in the mountains. Sheep
are raised principally for milk and
wool and for their meat.
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 29

BOOK
REVIEWS
EDITOR: MICHELLE BOGRE
I CAN MAKE YOU FEEL
GOOD
By Tyler Mitchell
Prestel, 2020
208 pages | $60
I
Can Make You Feel Good, Tyler
Mitchell’s second monograph,
evidences and envisions contemporary
Black joy. His work, which reframes
Blackness through portraits that challenge
prevailing racial stereotypes,
investigates the question: What does the
pursuit of happiness look like for Black
Americans?
Mitchell chronicles unguarded
moments of tenderness, tranquility, and
bliss among individual and intimate
clusters of young Black adults. Dramatic
silhouettes of sumptuously textured clothing
are interspersed with soft-focused
sensual gestures of gentle affection.
With his cinematic eye and deft use of
scale, composition, and perspective, he
animates a fluid compilation of full bleed,
mostly double-page spreads.
Mitchell, who was included in the
Aperture publication and exhibition, The
New Black Vanguard, pushes the conventions
of race, beauty, gender and power.
Aware of, and indebted to, predecessors
including Roy DeCarava, Gordon
Parks, Jamel Shabazz and 19th century
scholar, abolitionist and orator, Frederick
Douglass, he and his contemporaries
embrace the role of the Black body and
Black lives as subject matter. They expand
the visual culture conversation by documenting
and challenging their realities of
presence, absence, invisibility, appropriation,
desire, and objectification.
Mitchell’s images are subversive in
their disruption of what writer Junot Diaz
coins as the ‘default whiteness’ of our
American society. They are transgressive
in their assertion of a reality beyond
conventional representation. The wraparound
cover image is an apt example of
Mitchell’s intentional tableaux: It shows
five young shirtless men, three of which
face away from the camera with heads
bent, another is partially seen, his face
in profile, gazing somewhat pensively
across a flowering meadow to the edge
of a tree-lined woods. The fifth person,
and the only one facing the camera, has
his face in shadow as he seemingly tightens
the black belt at his waist. A thick,
intertwined chain of silver metal catches
the available light and grabs the attention
of the viewer. A white string of cotton is
tied as a single, loose bracelet on the
wrist of his active hand. The choice of
adornment and fashion accessory could
be codifiers of modes of bondage and
tools of slavery, and intersect with the
understated but obvious designer labels
of Valentino jeans (which retail for close
to $1000) and Ben Sherman underwear
(a fashion brand noted for attracting
youth culture).
Images of leisurely
picnics are sequenced with
people at play, frolicking
and actively engaging with
hula hoops, skateboards,
jump ropes, and a kite.
Mitchell acknowledges his
reference to Tamir Rice, the
12-year-old Black boy shot
in a Cleveland park in 2014
while carrying a toy gun.
Mitchell also reframes the
connotation of the hoodie,
following its presence in
the 2012 killing of 17-yearold
Trayvon Martin. Two
images purportedly use the
same man wearing a plush
cotton, powder-blue hooded
sweatshirt while lying on
a wooden floor. The first
features him face down
framed in a horizontal position with his
open-palmed hands interlaced behind his
back. In the second, he is face-up, with
his head, shoulders and arms filling the
bottom of the frame, his hands tentatively
holding the soft hood, a wide-eyed listful
expression, looking just above the gaze
of the viewer. Both images imply the
notion of an arrest and a mug shot.
A final example of Mitchell’s purposeful
challenge to codified visual language
is a vertical image of a man standing
in front of a peeling red-painted cement
wall. He wears flowing white pants
spilling over sleek brown leather loafers.
A green fabric sac, is held in hand, a billowing
bright yellow piece of silk is hung
with clothespins from black electrical
cording suspended above, obscuring his
head and torso.
This bold abstraction of Pan African
colors is perhaps a nod to poet, playwright,
and activist, Amiri Baraka, who
saw Black beauty as an act of justice.
His poem, Why Is We Americans?
proclaims, “What is the use of being
ethereal and being escapist and romantic?
Take the words and make them into
bullets. Take the words and make them
do something.” Tyler Mitchell’s images
create visual text to explode imagination
and claim sovereignty.
—J. Sybylla Smith
©Tyler Mitchell.
30 / ZEKE FALL 2021

OUR TOWN
by Michael von Graffenried
Steidl, 2021
121 pages | $50
“
The only way to achieve realistic
pictures is to steal them,” says
Swiss photographer Michael
von Graffenried (MvG as he calls
himself), whose most recent book, Our
Town, illustrates both the art of the steal
and MvG’s chosen path bringing people
together, or not. In Our Town, MvG catalogs
the divisions of racism in a small
town in America by photographing who
he observes—whites with whites and
Blacks with Blacks. There are common
moments that chronicle people together:
high school events, sports, political gatherings,
a wedding, a barbershop and
a strip bar. In the latter photograph, a
white male in erotic contact with a Black
dancer sadly illustrates the disparity that
is less blatantly represented throughout
Our Town.
MvG prefers using an old rotating lens
35mm Widelux film camera which has a
140 degree wide angle view because,
he says, he can hold the camera next to
his chest, and take photos without looking
through the viewfinder. “Today, photography
is no longer real...People know you
are coming and are putting on a show.
They are never themselves. That’s why
I use this camera. You can take photos
without looking through the viewfinder
and nobody notices when you are actually
pressing the shutter button. It’s the
only way to achieve realistic pictures,” he
said in a 2010 interview with Hans Ulrich
Obrist, held in the Serpentine Gallery,
Kensington Court, London.
Holding a large Widelux camera at
chest level does not make a photographer
invisible. It does increase MvG’s opportunity
to steal a picture by circumventing the
scene-altering effect of asking permission
to make a picture. MvG’s mandate to
bring people together seems to be related
to his camera’s ability to register everything
within its field of view. With the use
of this slow-tech camera technique, he
slices a story from his chosen environment
with an impressive mastery.
In 2006, MvG began his Our Town
project for the 300th anniversary of the
founding of New Bern, North Carolina.
The town was founded in 1710 by
MvG’s own Swiss ancestor Christoph
von Graffenried, who had traveled to
the Americas in 1710 and established
what became the sister city to Bern,
Switzerland.
After MvG’s first exhibition, New
Bern’s local newspaper, the Sun
Journal, ran the front page headline,
“Swiss Photos of City Nixed.” The
article by Sue Book reported “Many
of those on the 300th Anniversary
Celebration Committee and the Swiss
Bear Development Corporation board
thought Michael von Graffenried’s images
showed New Bern in an unflattering,
even racist, light.” The newspaper also
reported that neither sponsoring agency
would help to publish the photographs.
That response did not deter MvG from
spending multiple years on his project.
He returned to New Bern after the killing
of George Floyd to photograph the
underserved Black community. In the
book, he combines his original pictures
with his more recent work. He described
his creative process to Swiss Television in
2007, “. . . First, I want to understand if
I’ve understood something. I try to put it
in a frame that explains daily life. I try to
condense a story within one picture. I am
convinced a picture tells more about the
person who is looking at it than about the
one who took it.”
But the most successful pictures are not
about the photographer or the viewer.
Great pictures are about what is inside
the picture frame. MvG admits that he is
not a creator of iconic images. For him,
each photograph must be the story. There
are no photo captions or text, other than
his 124 word introduction. He intends his
panoramic views to chronicle both the
subject and the background details of a
complex reality. The reader is invited to
take cues from the book’s 120 images.
Many of his amazing compositions reveal
uncomfortable situations that are daily life
in New Bern. MvG is a late witness to the
plague of racism in America. There is the
hope that this testament will contribute to
the end of the racism common throughout
the United States.
—Frank Ward
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 31

Contributors
Sofia Aldinio is an Argentine-American
documentary photographer and storyteller
based between Joshua Tree, California and
Baja California, Mexico. As an immigrant
and Latina, Sofia’s work is guided by themes
like climate change, preserving natural and
cultural heritage, and immigration, amplifying
the stories of immigrants and refugees in the
Northeast of the United States.
Barbara Ayotte is the editor of ZEKE magazine
and the Communications Director of the
Social Documentary Network. She has served
as a senior strategic communications strategist,
writer and activist for leading global health,
human rights and media nonprofit organizations,
including the Nobel Peace Prize- winning
Physicians for Human Rights and International
Campaign to Ban Landmines.
Kirsten Rebekah Bethmann, aka Kirsten
Lewis, is a Colorado-based international
photographer, educator and public speaker.
She has traveled to over 40 countries to work
with organizations and individuals creating
documentary-based pictures to aid in fundraising,
advertising, awareness and personal family
archive builds, and is the primary force in
the genre of documentary family photography.
Donald Black Jr. is a Cleveland artist who
works with video, installation, and photography.
He is an alumnus of Cleveland School of
the Arts and attended Ohio University, where
he studied commercial photography. Black
received first place in SDN's From Tulsa to
Minneapolis Call for Entries and third place in
Nikon's international photo competition. His
work explores family relationships, racism,
environment, and identity.
Beginning as a freelancer for the Washington
Post, Brian Branch-Price became an intern
and staffer at various publications. As a content
provider, Brian contracts with Zuma Press
and also focuses on portraiture, reportage
and fine art photography. He had several art
exhibits at the Plainfield Public Library on his
legendary Black gospel artists and veterans.
Sheila Pree Bright is an acclaimed international
photographic artist who portrays
large-scale works that combine a wide-ranging
knowledge of contemporary culture. Known
for her series, #1960Now, Young Americans,
Plastic Bodies, and Suburbia, Bright has
received several nominations and awards.
Her work is included in numerous private and
public collections.
Born in Harlem, New York, Sean Josahi
Brown draws inspiration from the common
human experience to capture raw emotion and
share compelling stories that raise awareness
of social issues.
32 / ZEKE FALL 2021
Caterina Clerici is an Italian journalist and
producer based in New York. She graduated
from Columbia University’s Journalism School
and is a grantee of the European Journalism
Centre for her work in Haiti, Ghana and
Rwanda. She worked as a photo editor and
VR producer at TIME, and as an executive
producer at Blink.la.
Daniela Cohen is a non-fiction writer of South
African origin currently based in Vancouver,
Canada. Her work has been published in New
Canadian Media, Canadian Immigrant, The
Source Newspaper, and is upcoming in Living
Hyphen. Daniela’s work focuses on themes of
displacement and belonging, justice, equity,
diversity and inclusion.
Lisa DuBois is an ethnographic photojournalist
and curator with insatiable curiosity, who
raises public cultural awareness through work
focusing on subcultures within mainstream
society. She has exhibited her work internationally
and domestically, contributed to major
news publications and stock agencies, and
had her work for X Gallery recognized by the
Guardian and New York Times.
A Brooklyn-born photographer of a Jamaican
mother and Saint Lucian father, Imari
DuSauzay’s images range from portraits of
people on the street to those of interesting and
notable people. With a Masters degree in
Media Arts from Long Island University, Imari
has worked as an art educator and taught in
programs for children in urban communities.
Iyana Esters combines art with her expertise
in public health, using photography as a lens
to document the human impact of environmental
racism, practices, rituals, and sexualities
related to Black life. An emerging photographer,
Iyana works primarily in long-form
photography and documentary.
Marissa Fiorucci is a freelance photographer
in Boston, MA. She is former studio
manager for photographer Mark Ostow and
worked on projects including portraits of the
Obama Cabinet for Politico. She specializes
in corporate portraits and events, but remains
passionate about documentary.
Prof. Collette Fournier has been photographing
for forty years. She is a member of
Kamoinge, an African-American photography
collective. As an award winning photographer,
her specialties are portraiture, documentary
and nature photography. Fournier is
writing a personal narrative on her journey
into photography and lectures on her production
"Retrospective: Spirit of A People."
After taking a college course in photography,
Jonathan French began to teach himself.
While living in Washington, D.C., he captured
many historic events. Afterwards, he did international
travel and events, as well as many
live concerts. He has taught and has exhibited
nationally and internationally. He currently
lives in Panama.
Cheryle Galloway is a Zimbabwean-born
photographer based in Maryland. Pre-Covid,
Cheryle’s work focused on nature, street and
portraiture. Since February 2020, she has
focused primarily on telling more personal stories,
exploring issues of identity, gender and
race. Her project “Out of Many?” asks the
question, how does America heal to become
one nation?
Terrell Halsey is an artist based in
Philadelphia, PA. He seeks to create visual
poems of humanity while diving further into
his understanding of the world. After receiving
his Temple University BFA, he has exhibited
nationally and also been featured in publications.
His current project focuses on the
contemporary Black experience.
Titus Brooks Heagins is a documentary photographer
and educator adept at capturing the
full emotional and cultural spectrum of diverse
communities. Based in Durham, NC, he has traveled
extensively to produce a diverse body of
work exhibited in many private and public collections,
and taught photography and art history
courses at numerous colleges and universities.
LeRoy W. Henderson’s 40-year career
as a photographer includes photojournalism,
corporate events, public relations, aerial,
theatrical and advertising assignments. His
photographs have appeared in books and
films, including Ken Burns’ Jazz. His extensive
exhibitions include selection for the Virginia
Museum of Fine Arts and National Museum
of African American History and Culture’s
permanent collections.
Kay Hickman is a New York City-based
documentary photographer. With an inquisitive
eye, she offers a unique and empathetic perspective
into the everyday lives of the people
she photographs. Her work largely focuses on
documenting the human experience as it relates
to identity, human rights and health issues.
Shoun Hill is an African-American veteran
photojournalist and photo editor based in
New York City with a body of work spanning
different cultural, professional and human
interest areas. A documentarian for the African
American community, he is committed to documenting
the African American experience as it
unfolds in rapidly changing times.
Raymond W. Holman, Jr. is a documentary/corporate
photographer who aims to
create images that touch the human heart. His

clients include Politico, Washington Post, New
York Times, PECO and Philadelphia Health
Department. He creates long-term projects
about human challenges such as "Portraits of
Family Caregivers of People with Alzheimer's/
dementia" and "Covid-19 in Black America."
Kevin Bernard Jones was born and raised
in the community of South Central Los Angeles,
California. He focuses his camera on the communities
and places in the world that are less
traveled. Kevin finds great personal satisfaction
working with non-governmental organizations
who support local community initiatives.
Burroughs Lamar is a Harlem-born
self-taught documentary photographer who
acquired his skills from his personal project
documenting Black American life in Harlem,
began in 2008. His photographs are in
the Studio Museum Harlem book, Harlem:
A Century in Images, and in the Shomburg
Library permanent collection.
Misha Maslennikov was born in 1964 in
the Dobroe settlement, near Moscow, Russia.
He has been head of the Noga Creative Union
since 2006, and a member of the Russian
Photo Union and Russian Geography Society
since 2010. Last year, he also became an
independent photographer with the Incubator
Photo Gallery in Portugal.
A native Detroiter, Khary Mason has been a
member of law enforcement for over 20 years.
After realizing the failure of ageold methods
of fighting crime intertwined with systems that
take advantage of vulnerable populations,
Mason began to use his story and privilege
to create art that fights for the freedoms of
humanity.
Dana Melaver is a writer and artist. Her
work is rooted in the belief that everything is
interesting, and often acts as a bridge among
art, thought, and the sciences. Dana's most
recent projects include an experimental documentary
about sustainable aquaculture, and
an ode to the mischievous qualities of light.
Thaddeus Miles is Director of Community
Services at MassHousing and is responsible
for strengthening families and communities
in over 500 housing developments across
Massachusetts. He has had creator and
leadership roles with many non-profits, is an
internationally recognized and award-winning
photographer and animator and is a veteran
of the United States Air Force.
Deja Nycole's documentary work highlights
the beauty, struggles, and power of the African
Diaspora community. She captures moments
and writes in an effort to show people’s realities
while empowering each other to make a
difference across our global communities.
Born in Rome, Emiliano Pinnizzotto’s
signature style is photographic storytelling
and portraiture in a social vein, exclusively
using the natural light available. He highlights
the anthropological and spiritual aspects of
diverse people and cultures. With numerous
exhibitions and work published in books by
Graffiti Publishing House, he has won many
prizes and gained international recognition.
Tara Pixley, Ph.D. is a Los Angeles-based
visual journalist, curator, and professor, whose
work addresses the intersectionality of race,
gender, class, and visual rhetoric. Co-Founder
and Board Member of Authority Collective,
which aims to establish equity in visual media,
her work has appeared in the New York
Times, Wall Street Journal, and NPR, among
others.
Joshua Rashaad McFadden is a visual
artist and assistant professor of photography
at Rochester Institute of Technology. His work
explores African American male identity and
social justice issues such as police brutality.
Published in numerous magazines, he has
received multiple awards, and was named
one of the top emerging talents in the world by
LensCulture.
Nicolò Filippo Rosso is a Colombia-based
Italian documentary photographer, focusing
on stories of abandoned communities, mass
migration crises, conflict, and climate change.
Since 2018, he has spent much time walking
with migrants along migration routes from
Venezuela to Colombia, and in 2021 traveled
to Central America and Mexico to document
migrants’ crossings into the U.S.
Emily Schiffer is a photographer and
mixed media artist interested in the intersection
between art, community engagement,
and social change. She is a Co-founder and
Creative Director of We, Women, the largest
social impact photography project by women
and gender-nonconforming artists in the United
States.
Ashkan Shabani is a photographer and
visual storyteller based in Turkey with a focus
on exploring social questions and human rights,
especially LGBTQ+ rights in the Middle East.
Richard Sharum is a documentary and
editorial photographer based in Texas, who
focuses on socio-economic and cultural topics.
His work has been published and collected
internationally and his first book release,
Campesino Cuba, debuts in September 2021
with GOST Books.
J. Sybylla Smith is a visual activist who utilizes
the power of photography in exhibit and
book form to ignite individual and collective
change. As an independent curator, consultant,
writer and educator, she illuminates and
amplifies compelling visual narratives in text
and image as part of a global conversation.
Kenechi Unachukwu is a photographer
based out of Central New Jersey. Formerly
living in the Midwest, he has captured the
near daily protests that happened in Madison,
Wisconsin, over the course of 2020. He aims
to tell stories that have not been told and ask
difficult questions through art.
David Verberckt is an independent documentary
photographer, focusing on social
issues affecting people living on the verge of
existence. David builds a visual narrative aiming
to raise awareness of these often undertold
human stories. David is Belgian, currently
based in Budapest and working worldwide.
Frank Ward is a retired professor of visual
art at Holyoke Community College, Holyoke,
MA. In 2016, Ward received a National
Endowment for the Humanities grant and a
Mass Humanities grant for his photography
of Holyoke, MA. In 2011, he was awarded
an Artist Fellowship from the Massachusetts
Cultural Council for his photography in the
former Soviet Union.
Reece T. Williams is a New-York-based
photographer, writer, and audio and video
producer interested in telling stories about
culture as expressed through traditions, rituals,
and art forms.
Teanna "Tee" Woods Okojie has created
a special and unique way of integrating
her love for children and families through
photography. Her visual focus remains within
the documentary, humanitarian and non-profit
fields. She is a Brooks Institute of Photography
graduate, with work exhibited both domestically
and internationally.
Eva Woolridge (she/her) is an awardwinning
Queer, Black & Chinese conceptual
portrait photographer, public speaker, and
social activist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work
transcends surface-level labels of people of
color. A recipient of the Leica Women in Foto
Award 2019, Woolridge’s work has been
featured in publications such as Rolling Stone
and various exhibitions.
Michael Young is a street and documentary
photographer fueled by his love of light and
shadow. Based in the Bronx, New York, his
work has been featured in The New York
Times and Digital Photo Magazine and exhibited
at The Bronx Documentary Center and
Perspectives curated by Jamel Shabazz and
Laylah Amatullah Barrayn for Photoville.
ZEKE FALL 2021/ 33

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Contents of Fall 2021 Issue
Awake in the Desert Land
Photographs by Sofia Aldinio
Path Away
Photographs by Nicolò Filippo Rosso
From Tulsa to Minneapolis: Photographing the
Long Road to Justice
Photographs by 27 Black photographers documenting this
extraordinary time in American history
The Emptying of the Andes
Photographs by Emiliano Pinnizzotto
Migration from the Northern Triangle
by Daniela Cohen
Interview with Joseph Rodriguez
by Caterina Clerici
Photography & Social Change
by Emily Schiffer
Book Reviews
Edited by Michelle Bogre