“I’ve found strength in being able to hold and see myself at this moment in time.”
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/19/arts/black-photographers-self-portraits.html
Self-Portraits From Black Photographers Reflecting on America
While on assignment in Cuba, Angel Franco used a Widelux camera to work close to people while capturing a feeling of space.
via Lens Blog: https://archive.nytimes.com/lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/a-wide-yet-intimate-view-of-cuba/
Angel Franco has been a staff photographer for The New York Times since 1986. He worked on assignment in Cuba in 1994 and made a series of wide photos there. They are on display at the King Juan Carlos I Center at New York University as part of an exhibit, “Barrios,” by Seis del Sur, an informal collective of six Puerto Rican photographers who started documenting the South Bronx in the 1970s and ’80s. The other photographers are Ricky Flores, Joe Conzo, Francisco Reyes, Edwin Pagán and David Gonzalez, who is the co-editor of Lens
Four months after a gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida, an exhibit highlights the global outpouring of love and support.
Ángel Franco had been staking out a medical facility in Orlando, Fla., photographing grieving families who had just identified relatives slain in one of the nation’s largest mass shootings, when he found himself thinking: “What am I doing here?”
In covering narcotics trafficking and use, photographers work hard to bring back pictures that almost never show their subjects’ faces.
via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/when-drugs-ruled-new-york-streets/
In a week when public attention has refocused on the dangers of being a war photographer, it’s worth recalling the risks taken by photojournalists much closer to home who set out to document drug dealing and drug use. The territory is every bit as treacherous, the enemy every bit as implacable, the peril every bit as real.
Thirty years ago, a murder occurred about every five days on average in the 46th Precinct in the west-central Bronx (Fordham, University Heights, Morris Heights and Mount Hope). There were more detectives than on any other squad in the borough, but the precinct felt enough under siege to be nicknamed “Alamo.” Angel Franco, a freelance photographer who had grown up and lived not far away, made it a mission to accompany officers and detectives from the Four-Six every day he could, from 1979 to 1984.
Link: Cops, Neighbors and a Camera in Between – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com
In a devastated quarter of Port-au-Prince, Angel Franco of The Times met Sony. Together, they recorded their encounter.
via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/assignment-38/
When I travel I take — in this case — a Holgaroid; a Holga with a Polaroid back. It’s a plastic camera. It’s very light. And I can fit those two things in my camera bag besides all my work equipment. When I am done working, on the day before I leave, I’ll go find things of interest and keep a journal of where I’ve been. Wherever I go — across the country or around the world — I always carry a notebook or a drawing pad. I buy little Crayolas, and draw and paint in the notebooks. And I always find someone who is of interest and who has touched me and ask them, if they don’t mind, if I may take a Polaroid of them and if they would write something in the notebook about themselves and their experience. I’ve been doing that for years. I have a lot of books.