After publishing my review of Christopher Anderson’s Capitolio, I ended up exchanging emails with him about the work and its purpose and reception. Things got so interesting that I thought this would be a great opportunity to take things public and to have a conversation with him on this blog.
“Capitolio,” the new book on Venezuela by Magnum photographer Christopher Anderson, offers a stunning view into Caracas’s descent from its perch as one of Latin America’s most economically advanced, if unequal, cities into a place gripped by low-intensity chaos and fear.
Early into Christopher Anderson’s Capitolio we are faced with a horned demon exorcised by a cross held aloft over its head. It is this one image which metaphorically sums up the presidency of Hugo Chavez and the polarized nation of Venezuela. The poor tend to see Chavez as a saint while the wealthy few – the four hundred year old elite – paint him as the anti-Christ.
Seeing as four out of eight of my my favorite things (1/2!) involve food and photography, I appoint myself an expert on food photography. And as said expert, I crown Magnum photographer Christopher Anderson’s illustrations for New York Magazine’s Where to Eat story the best I’ve seen in 2009.
Via Magnum Photos
Recently, this point was brought home on the Magnum photo site when Christopher Anderson’s bare-bulb approach to photographing presidential candidate Mitt Romney came under fire from some viewers. Anderson’s approach was the “anti-photo op.” Tired of making the same stale and banal images that most of the press pack gets of the candidates, Anderson blasted Romney through what appears to be a rain-splattered lens.
Check it out here.
New Hampshire Primary: “New Hampshire’s primary is the second high-profile battleground in the state-by-state process of choosing candidates for November’s election to succeed George W. Bush as president. The race for the White House now heads into an intense month of campaigning culminating on Super Tuesday on February 5, when some 24 states pick presidential candidates.”
From Magnum Photos, essay by Christopher Anderson:
Tensions in Gaza and the West Bank rise as Palestinian factions begin fighting with each other and violence between the Palestinians and Israelis takes a new turn.
Here.