I have been invited to give a solo exhibition of my work from Virginia, Echo Valley, which can be seen on this site, at the Second Dali International Photo Festival, in Yunnan Province, CHINA, from August 1 to 10, 2010 |
I’ve just completed two one-week workshops for photojournalists from Myanmar, conducted in the economic capital, Yangon. The focus of the courses was documentary photography, drawing on some of the historic greats in this field, and overseeing the projects of the participants. It was an awful lot of fun, and the participants really invested themselves in the experience. I have posted a gallery of my own work from Yangon (in color) here. |
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Atlantic magazine runs a modest slideshow of images taken during my trip on the Tazara Railroad in Tanzania and Zambia. They accompany my article: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/04/the-next-empire/8018/ |
The Kemper, in St. Louis, exhibited 10 of my prints in an encore show of my work. |
Cold weather has come unexpectedly early this year, driving people indoors - photographers included. I hope to continue my efforts in nude portraiture, samples of which I've been adding recently to this site. Please contact me if you are interested in sitting for me and exploring this form. |
The International Herald Tribune ran my final Letter from China column of the summer, using images of mine from the final leg of my 5-year Disappearing Shanghai effort. This summer was spent photographing inside the homes of hundreds of working-class people. I'll be posting a gallery drawn from this work here very soon. Meanwhile, viewers can read the column and see the images that ran with it here: |
The BBC website has posted a photo essay drawn from my Disappearing Shanghai book project. It can be viewed here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8136969.stm |
I am in Shanghai for the summer, teaching a course on China at East China Normal University and working hard simultaneously on finishing two longstanding projects: my Africa novel and my Disappearing Shanghai photography project, which I hope to find a publisher for next year - the year of the 2010 Shanghai Exposition. This final leg of work for Disappearing Shanghai involves photographing the home life of the working class people who are the principal subject of the entire project. DS is shot in black and white, primarily on medium format and 135mm film, and I'll be spending time in New York in the fall scanning five years' worth of negatives and preparing a dummy to show around to publishers and galleries. |
My Shanghai photography, along with an essay I wrote, have been published in the newly-released book: China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance, by Kate Merkel-Hess (Editor), Kenneth L. Pomeranz (Editor), Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom (Editor), and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. |
I have just posted a new gallery, Echo Valley, which holds a special importance to me. Thematically, as all who view it will quickly understand, it is a departure for me, consisting of quiet, pastoral landscapes. It is very special for other reasons, though. The lands from which these landscapes are drawn constitute my homeland in truest sense of the word. Every image featured here is taken within a five mile radius of the Virginia countryside where my ancestors lived and worked as American slaves -- the property of James Barbour, friend of Thomas Jefferson, governor of Virginia between 1811 and 1814, United States Senator and Secretary of War. My family resides on land that was once part of the Barbour Estate; land where my mother's forbears toiled as slaves. Throughout my life, I have lived and thrived in some of the world's greatest cities: Washington, where I was born; Abidjan, in Ivory Coast; New York; Honolulu, the largest Pacific island city; Tokyo and Shanghai. I've been at home in each of these places, but the region featured in these pictures has been and will always remain my spiritual home: the land of cows and horses and rolling hills, two-laned roads and forested piedmont where I bring my bones to rest and my soul to recharge. Although I have always reveled in this simple, soothing countryside, this photographic project took shape largely because of an accident: the discovery of a working farm on a stand of land down a little road with a corny name, whose discovery three years ago took my breath away. Eagerly, I began returning to it every year, walking its hills and breathing it all in with camera in hand, discovering some new secret of its beauty with each visit. In a part of the country where gun ownership runs high, and distrust of strangers runs deep, the owner, who will remain anonymous, has been good enough to let me trespass at will, and for that I am deeply grateful. He makes his livelihood from this land with his family with minimal resort to modern machinery and to the cash economy. This album is a work in progress, and my hope is that visitors will find that it both grows and improves with time. |
My photography of Shanghai is included, along with an essay, in this book bearing this title, which is due of soon. |
My Disappearing Shanghai work has been selected for display in the Fourth Lianzhou International Photo Festival, from December 6-12, 2008 in China's Guangdong Province. The Lianzhou Festival is one of China's two most important photography shows. Naturally I am very happy that my work will show. I'm trying to figure out how I can be there... |
I've just relocated to NYC and have a number of projects cooking. I'm re-scanning my Disappearing Shanghai work and expect soon to have a revised, second edition catalog of those images. I'm shooting on the streets every moment I can and having a blast. I am also eager to meet some new models for studio and "location" portraiture. If you're interested, by all means please get in touch. I've also got some new work on commission for clients, about which I'll speak in greater detail soon. There are plans afoot, meanwhile, to have my work shown in China at the Pingyao Festival late this year, and I'll be eager for a return trip. |
The June edition of Hong Kong Photo Magazine ran a two page article on my Shanghai photography, including reproductions of four images from my Disappearing Shanghai show. The magazine can be found at http://photo.popart.hk |
With this month's Image of the Month, which appears on the opening page, I am introducing color on this site. Fans of black and white need not fear. It will retain pride of place here, and it remains my default mode of photographic expression, and very happily so. The plan, though, is to structure the site so that color work, which I'll be adding very gradually, can exist in its own, meaning separate space. For the time being, there's just this one picture. Those who stay tuned, though, will be treated to a roll out of ever more content. In other news, I'm down to the very last few copies of my Disappearing Shanghai catalog, which is a faithful reproduction of the very first gallery show of this work, in October 2006 at Gallerie Zero in Berlin. I am in discussions with printers about a catalog of the fully updated, indeed I would venture definitive version of this work, which was shown concurrently in Shanghai (M97 Gallery) and St. Louis (Mildred Lane Kemper Musuem). The Kemper acquired nine of the images for their permanent collection. Details of the new catalog to come. Orders of prints and folios from the show have been strong. Please contact me directly in you are interested in acquiring either. Finally, I will have some important and exciting personal news to share here soon concerning a major career move. Howard |
I am including an article below by Jamason Chen, which appears in the April 29, 2007 issue of China Photo News about my recently completed project, "Disappearing Shanghai." I've been a little remiss in keeping this news page up to date, and a lot has been happening. Disappearing Shanghai was shown in its definitive version in nearly simultaneous shows in China and the United States in February. Here in Shanghai, the work appeared in a 51-image exhibit at the gallery M97, and the work was displayed concurrently at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum in St. Louis, MO. Kemper has also acquired nine of my medium format images from the show for its permanent collection. In April, there were smaller shows of the work at Carleton College and the University of Minnesota, and I gave talks about photography and about this work in specific at both schools. The Shanghai-based arts magazine, Zing, also published some of the work in April, along with an essay of mine. It is my hope that with my move back to New York in the Fall, that I'll be able to arrange a proper gallery showing for the work in the city. Inquiries are of course welcome. (I'm having trouble with making the Chinese language text appear correctly on the site. Text to follow.)
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This Shanghai newspaper ran a feature about my Shanghai photography on its arts page in its weekend editions of February 23-24, 2008. I'm sorry to be a little late in posting this, and will place a link here soon if I can find it. |
This appeared in the Shanghai Daily on Feb. 18, 2008, two days after the opening of Disappearing Shanghai in... Shanghai. The writer, Qiu Xiaolong is the well known author of the Detective Chen novels, which are all set in the city. The Shanghai Daily By Qiu Xiaolong came to know Howard French because of his "Shanghai complex." As he wrote in an e-mail, it's "our common passion" - in my novels and poems, and in his articles for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune. Then I made a new discovery. His passion simmers not only in his articles, but also in his photographs. Recently, while reading the proofs of "Red Mandarin Dress," I told him how a 20-year-old picture from my father's cabinet of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) motivated me to write the book. He immediately sent me a collection of his pictures, some of which are on display in Shanghai now. I like photography but I got such a shock viewing French's, as if being transported into a poem. One of the pictures "All Bets Off," comes with a short note underneath saying, "a mahjong parlor at the end of a long day. Shanghai, China." It shows an overcrowded room which functions as kitchen, living room and dinning room all at once. In the middle, a table littered with mahjong pieces and there's a tea stand beside with an ashtray on top. In the foreground, a dining table holding a basin of vegetables; to the left, a kettle on top of a microwave placed on top of a refrigerator. To the right there's an old-fashioned ladder leading precariously to a retrofitted attic, and on the attic wall, a fluorescent light, a black electronic clock with its white hands pointing to 5:47. The light falls streaming on the mahjong table, a focus in contrast to the shaded foreground and background. The mahjong players are gone, leaving a white cat on the table. Such a scene may not seem extraordinary, typical of old Shanghai housing and part and parcel of ordinary people's lives. It becomes meaningful though through the angle the photographer chooses, at the instant he presses the shutter. And it's meaningful to me because I grew up in an old house like that. For my family, a single room, even more crowded than in the photograph, functioned as the living room, dinning room, and bedroom. Only one table there served for both writing and dining. The housing conditions were (and still are) pretty much the same for my neighbors. In the communal kitchen, or communal parlor, families would cook and talk together, and in the corridor, people would set up makeshift tables for meals or cards. Gazing into the picture, I think of a similar retrofitted attic at my friend's home. He cleaned it up for me to study there quietly during the daytime when he was away at work. That "All Bets Off" is both intimate and moving is not, however, just because of nostalgia. French's pictures pulsate with such a spirit of the city. There's the family having dinner in the street on a summer evening; the recycler on a junk-loaded tricycle; the street corner bike repairer reading a newspaper. French says what is most attractive to him about those neighborhoods is the extraordinary sense of intimacy that prevails within them. Recently he wrote in The New York Times: "Over and over again, I have been asked by the people of these neighborhoods what is my purpose in taking pictures of these lives? Am I trying to show a bad side of China? To make fun of poor people? I have no trouble answering, and my reply is effective more often than not because it is sincere." In the phenomenal changes sweeping over Shanghai, French is concerned not with the materialistic glitter and glamor of the city, but the traditional way of life and values disappearing in the midst of the extraordinary urban redevelopment. As one who grew up against the backdrop of those pictures, I thank French for his efforts to keep alive the historical and cultural memory of Shanghai. |
Happy New Year - belatedly - everyone. I've been offline for a while due to unexpected complications in switching web hosts. That's all happily behind me now, though, and I'll be updating the site with new material steadily in the weeks ahead. My documentary photography project, "Disappearing Shanghai" has reached full maturity, and will be making its premiere in China with a show opening mid-February at gallery M97 in Shanghai, alongside the work of the well-known photographer, Robert van der Hilst. A smaller collection of this work is also showing at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, at Washington University, in St. Louis, opening on January 29, 2008. There are still 50-image catalogs available of an earlier version of this show, which premiered in October 2006, in Berlin, and they can be ordered through this site, or by contacting me directly. While pulling together the definitive gallery version of Disappearing Shanghai, I've turned my photographic attentions in a new direction, and am building a portfolio of fine art nudes, which begin to make their appearance here as of today. Prints are available for sale through this site. If you are interested in modeling, please contact me at: globetrotter@howardwfrench.com. Finally, there have been several publications of my work since I went offline. Newsweek select featured it in late December, as did Shanghai's "Hint" magazine. Stay tuned. |
China's Xinmin weekly ran a feature about my Shanghai photography in its 11/2/07 editions. The feature included a critical essay by Qiu Xiaolong, a native Shanghainese and celebrated author of the Detective Chen novels. The original essay can be found at this link: nhttp://www.howardwfrench.com/archives/2007/11/25/xinmin_weekly/ |
In its October 1, 2007 issue, the Chinese magazine, New Weekly, published a special all-photography issue featuring the work of 29 foreign photographers on China. My images we included along with those of people like Robert Van Der Hilst, Edward Burtynsky, Daido Morayama, Greg Girard, Fritz Hoffman and Philip Gostelow. There were old masters in the issue, too. Giants like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Marc Riboud. nhttp://gruppof.blogspot.com/2007/10/invited-guest-howard-w-french.html |
My work was featured in this photography blog this week, and can be seen here: nhttp://gruppof.blogspot.com/2007/10/invited-guest-howard-w-french.html |
On Oct. 2, 2007, Michael Johnston's popular site, The Online Photographer, published an essay of mine about Flickr. You can find it here http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/ 2007/10/how-to-use-flic.html |
Autoportret, a Polish magazine of photography and design featured my Shanghai photography in its fall issue. See: http://www.autoportret.pl |
The online magazine, Small Swords, has published an interview with me about my work which can be found here: http://www.smallswordsmagazine.com/articles/text/howardwfrench.html |
The Shanghai-based publication, The Bund, 外滩 画报 ran a five page article (including cover photo in its Lifestyle section) on my "Disappearing Shanghai" photographs. The feature appeared in the weekly newspaper's June 28 editions.
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On May 30, 2007, Tip Berlin, featured my images in an article about Shanghai. |
Howard French's Shanghai street photography, including an online slide show, was featured in the Travel section of the June 10, 2007 editions of The New York Times. Click here to see the article. Work from Howard's Disappearing Shanghai project premiered in a solo exhibition at Gallerie Zero, in Berlin, in October 2007. Disappearing Shanghai has since been shown at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the second annual Angkor Photography Festival, in Cambodia. A major show of the work is under preparation for Shanghai in Fall 2007. Howard's work has been appeared in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Max (Germany), Chinese Photography, Unity, City Weekend (Shanghai, China), PhotoChina, Tip Berlin (magazine) and many other publications. |
