Tag: Naomi Harris

It’s hard for me not to love Naomi Harris’ photographs. A medium format film camera, a flash, a sense of humor, a sense of adventure, a global perspective, intelligence, and a really nice person all combines into a party that I want to attend. Her new series, EUSA, takes a look at the globalization of nationalities, where people in Europe are celebrating the American West, and people in the United States are celebrating various European traditions. Naomi visited over two dozen American-themed places in Europe and European-themed places in America providing a humorous look at our desire to feel part of a culture not our own.  As Naomi states, “These exaggerated reconstructions bear little authenticity and rather are a perception of fantasy, a sense of what the other wishes the reality to be. And through this spirit of camaraderie, if only for that moment, the participants are granted membership to another’s culture.”

Canadian born NAOMI HARRIS is primarily a portrait photographer who seeks out interesting cultural trends to document through her subjects. Personal projects include HADDON HALL in which she documented the lives of the last remaining elderly residents at a hotel in South Beach. For this work she received the 2001 International Prize for Young Photojournalism from Agfa/ Das Bildforum, honorable mention for the Yann Geffroy Award, and was a W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography finalist.

It’s difficult to place the subjects of Naomi Harris’s photo series “EUSA.” Some look as if they were photographed decades ago, while others appear to be living in the contemporary world. Then there’s the scenery, which often seems at odds with the attire of the people pictured.

There has to be some irony that Canadian born photographer, Naomi Harris, has spent years on a long term project about Canada and just recently took her exam to become an American citizen. Her in-depth work on Canada and Canadians is a reflection of a photographer who has the ability to commit herself fully to exploring a community, no matter how daunting the task

After a summer on the road, Naomi Harris pulled into her parents’ driveway in Toronto in September 2011 and photographed her odometer. She had driven just over 22,000 miles — more than four times the distance across Canada. Ms. Harris, a self-described “professional hobo,” had traveled the country in a car she bought on eBay, taking portraits of people she met along the way