Focus on Photographers is a new, potentially annual exhibit that opens at the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon on Saturday (Jan. 13) with a reception from 1 to 5 p.m.
Curated by Larry Kershberg and Ronnie Beth Sauers, the exhibit will begin in a big way, with free talks by photographers William Snyder and David Burnett.
Snyder, who will speak at 2:30 p.m., is the director of the photojournalism program at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner. His subjects have included an exposé on the deplorable conditions in Romanian orphanages, a National Transportation Safety Board crash investigation, Hurricane Katrina and athletes at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
Snyder also was the official photographer for The Who for 19 years, has shot the Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters and Pink and is the co-author, with Eddie Vedder, of Join Together (With The Band).
“I’m not interested in basic, good-looking, clean, safe, predictable photographs,” Snyder has said. “I want what it feels like. I don’t always get it, but it’s my goal.”
He will be followed at 3:30 p.m. by Burnett, whose work has been published in National Geographic, TIME, Newsweek, LIFE, STERN and Paris Match, among other publications. He also has published collections of his work such as 44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World; Soul Rebel: An Intimate Portrait of Bob Marley and, most recently, with Raymond Depardon, September in Chile 1971-1973, which documents the coup against Salvador Allende.
Burnett is also co-founder of Contact Press Images, a longstanding New York agency, and was on American Photo’s list of the 100 most important people in photography.
In recent years, he has worked with Photographers for Hope to create a workshop for homeless news vendors in Glasgow, Scotland; in 2017 the group visited Newburgh for two weeks to shoot and mount a show that also became a book, Newburgh Rising. Today, Burnett has a studio in Newburgh.
Other photographers participating in the exhibit are Sandra Belitza-Vazquez of Newburgh, who specializes in nature and travel; Tony Cenicola of Beacon, a staff photographer for The New York Times; Pierce Johnston of Beacon, who shoots the Hudson Valley; William Loeb of Beacon, who uses Photoshop to enhance and modify his images; and Jane Soodalter of Cold Spring, who focuses on macrophotography.
The Howland Cultural Center, at 477 Main St. in Beacon, is open most Saturday and Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. The show will continue through Feb. 25.
