Fresh Loaf

I took this picture Nov. 16 as I was walking down Luckie Street. This group of people were outside the Tabernacle and they were there to see Monday’s AFI (A Fire Inside) show. I spoke with Katie Cannon, 20,  (far right on steps) about her experience.

“The show started at 8:00 p.m. We got there at 8:30 a.m. so that we could be the first people inside. We had just come from their concert in Myrtle Beach the night before. We drove it straight through to Atlanta. We started in Greenville, SC where I live, we left there at 4 a.m. on Sunday morning and drove straight through to Myrtle Beach for their show there Sunday night. It was amazing! After the show in Myrtle Beach, S.C., we drove all night directly to the Tabernacle. We got there at 8:30 a.m. and started waiting in line for the 8:00 p.m. show,” said Cannon.

(more…)

Bookmark It

This photo was shot at 2:22 p.m. at the corner of Marietta and Peachtree streets in downtown Atlanta. The photo is of a sign advertising for Eddie’s Gold Teeth. I shot it really tight to emphasize the weirdness of all the open mouths.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

Yesterday was the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. A group of Atlanta activists, who are part of a state wide “counter recruitment” effort, gathered on Ponce de Leon Avenue after a day of protesting recruitment tactics at various military recruitment centers around the city, as well as at Grady High School. At the recruitment stations they delivered an ACLU drafted resolution that called on recruiters to comply with International Protocol on the Rights of the Child which forbids any contact between military recruiters and children younger than 17.

According to American Friends Service Committee organizer Tim Franzen, this is a common practice by recruiters in high schools around the country. At Grady, Franzen said, they passed out counter recruitment literature with a couple of current Grady students which he says exposes some of the negative truths about recruitment practices and veterans lives after serving their country — including that 40 percent of homeless men in the United States are veterans. Another of their goals, according to Franzen, is to promote non-military options for low-income youth. The “counter recruitment” effort was  sponsored by the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition and the American Friends Service Committee.

Their campaign comes against the backdrop of last weekend’s ambush of American marines that caused eight American military deaths — the biggest loss of American military lives in Afghanistan in over a year. Last week in another military combat death, Staff Sgt. Alex French IV from Milledgeville, Ga., was killed in Afghanistan. It is expected that President Obama will soon announce his decision on his strategy for the Afghanistan war.

 Loading …

Bookmark It

I saw this hole in the ground Monday morning. I had never seen a sink hole and was surprised by how intense it was that a whole world of water existed right under the road.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

"Humble" Bob Shoudt

On Sept. 13, 12 people competed in the Krystal hamburger-eating contest at Lenox Square Mall. The person who could consume the most Krystal and Big Angus hamburgers in eight minutes won a seat at the final table of the Krystal Square Off VI World Hamburger Eating Championship Sept. 27 in Chattanooga, TN where the top eaters will compete for $50,000 in cash prizes.

The winner at Lenox Square was “Humble” Bob Shoudt, “Humble” Bob consumed 41 Krystal and 5 Big Angus hamburgers in the eight minutes in a stomach-turning display of eating ability.

After the competition “Humble” Bob admitted to feeling a little guilty that he was not out protesting for clean water for the poor. “The world heath organization estimates over 400 people die a day because of poorly treated water,” “Humble” Bob said after consuming 46 hamburgers, “I feel guilty I am not protesting the use of treated water on soccer and football fields when it could be used to help those who have no clean water.”

Check out more photos from the Krystal hamburger eating contest.

(Photo and text by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

Mexico Citys Club America defeated AC Milan 2 -1 at the Georgia Dome

Soccer fans in Atlanta should burn more candles to the fútbol gods as last night’s game between Mexico City’s Club America and AC Milan proved to be an exceptional match and who knows when the city will get to witness quality soccer again.

The “Aguilas” edged their Italian counterparts 2-1 before an estimated crowd of over 50,000 fans.

Club America came out strong on attack all first half, while AC Milan played a more passive game, but both teams went to the locker rooms at half-time with a nil-nil draw.

The Mexican team took the lead in the 55th minute off a brilliant finish by Enrique Estrada, beating American defender Oguchi Onyewu on the run. Onyewu was making his debut with AC Milan.

On the 65th minute, Filippo Inzaghi equalized capitalizing on a long pass into the goal area.

Daniel Marquez’s header at the 84th minute sealed the victory for Club America.

(Photo by Alejandro A. Leal)

Bookmark It

The Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials [GABEO] gathered this morning at the state Capitol to announce a week of activities commemorating the victims of lynchings across America.

The events will culminate with the 5th annual reenactment of the Moore’s Ford Bridge lynching that took place in Monroe, Ga., on July 25, 1946. Five people died at Moore’s Ford Bridge that day, two couples and an unborn baby who was cut out of her mother’s womb by the Ku Klux Klan.

GABEO met underneath the statue of former Georgia Gov. Eugene Talmadge, who was a gubernatorial candidate at the time of the Moore’s Ford Bridge lynching. “Talmadge played a major roll in inciting the Ku Klux Klan to raise up and put down African-Americans,” state Rep. Tyrone Brooks said.

Walter B. Reeves, who will be playing the governor during the reenactment Saturday, added: “Gov. Talmadge made a career out of race-baiting.”

The point of the reenactment is to raise awareness of the brutal history of lynching in this country — and specifically in Georgia — and to demand the arrest and prosecution of killers who are still living.

(more…)

Bookmark It

DANCING FOR JOY: Our photo site just does that for some people. Check it out at clatl.com/photos.

We know you’ve been thinking to yourself, “CL should create a space for all the awesome photos they shoot.” And if you weren’t thinking that, then all the visual desires you never even knew you had have just been fulfilled.

We now have a spot where you can access all the latest galleries shot each week, a new Photo of the Day posted (you guessed it!) every day, and new videos going up every week. You can also check out the thousands of images uploaded by your fellow Atlantans to the CL Flickr feed or read up on what the deal was with each week’s Time and Place photo.

There’s international photo and video news, tidbits and gear updates, along with info on upcoming Atlanta photo community meet-ups and shoot-outs.

Missed the No Doubt concert? We’ve got the photos to make you feel just a little better about it.

Wondering how the hell they get all that sand out of the Decatur Square after the Decatur Beach Party? We’ve got the lowdown on that through video interviews.

Check it out at clatl.com/photos_video.

Of course, we want to hear your feedback. So give us your joys, your grievances, your Atlanta photo knowledge! Send it all our way to photos@cln.com.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

This spiritual community held their yearly festival June 4-6 and a parade through Little Five points, replete with chanting and ceremony, was a part of the festivities.

Click here for more photos from the Rathayatra and Panihati Festival.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

June 6, 2009, 5:54 p.m., 1634 McLendon Ave. N.E.

Photography is a way to interpret reality and this is a tribute to afternoon beer drinking. When on those rare days you are able to have a beer in the afternoon, these are the sort of photos you take. It was taken at the Fellini’s in Candler Park on June 6.

For more photo tidbits, galleries and CL TV video, check out our new Photos and Video site.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

May 11, 2009, 10:02 a.m., Fairlie and Marietta streets N.W.

This photo was taken on Marietta Street May 11. It is a picture of a homeless man named William Gazaway. William is disabled and can barely walk. He shuffles around on a walker. William has been homeless ever since he got out of prison ten years ago. The night before I took this picture he slept on the street near Grady Hospital. “I got so many health problems it’s not even funny,” he said. He stopped receiving his disability check a while ago and now gets nothing, he does not know why. He has been in Grady Hospital recently but says they didn’t do anything for him but keep him doped up. “Its horrible being homeless” he said, “you never have any peace of mind.”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

The Monster Energy AMA Supercross FIM World Championship came to the Georgia Dome Saturday, Feb. 21. The evening started with “Sweet Home Alabama” blaring over the loud speakers at the almost-filled-to-capacity arena. Then in the most surreal moment of the night amongst cheers and shouts and following the blaring of “Born In The USA” at tremendous volume (“I had a buddy at Khe Sahn, Fighting off the Viet Cong, They’re still there, He’s all gone”), a group of youngsters were marched to the center of the arena and stood behind American flags as they were sworn into the United States Air Force. “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” boomed a voice over the loudspeakers “against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States.” Thundering fireworks then shook the stadium like bombs with smoke and fire and the individual riders were dramatically introduced by an excited announcer, and then finally, the race was on.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

See more photos of the Supercross here

Bookmark It

See more photos from Foxy Shazam’s show at the Masquerade.

(Photo by Perry Julien)

Bookmark It

D.I.Y. AND DO IT RIGHT: A volunteer demos a machine for color photo printing.

The Photographer’s Print Studio is a darkroom cooperative “for photographers by photographers” organized by a group of locals including Michael David Murphy, Kathryn Kolb, Laura Noel, and those two adorable Click Clique founders, Stephanie Dowda and John Paul Floyd. It’s the only darkroom co-op of its kind in Georgia and the Southeast. The studio will open its doors to the public this Sat., Feb. 21 with a reception from 2-5 p.m.

Earlier this month Photographer’s Print Studio kindly invited me to check out its Decatur facility located on New Street, just around the corner from Figo and PushPush Theater. Although I’m no expert, I can attest that, yes, the lab has all the gadgets and gizmos necessary for printing your high-quality color photographs (including access to two separate dark rooms). Plus — for greenhorns and veterans alike — the studio has a knowledgeable staff of volunteers on-hand for answering questions on printing techniques, equipment, and the basic aesthetics of the camera-wielder’s art.

Services will eventually include workshops and tutorials, art markets featuring contemporary and vintage photography, and of course, gatherings of the “social” nature.

More from the event flyer:

Tour our studio, watch print demo, enjoy refreshments, converse with TPPS photographers, membership discounts, and enter for free photographic supplies!

130 New Street, Decatur GA

The Photographer’s Print Studio is dedicated to the art of the traditional color photograph. Owned and operated by photographers for photographers, we offer the only darkroom facility of its kind in the Southeast! Our clean and expertly maintained studio accommodates printing negatives from 35mm to 4×5 and our RA-4 processor handles paper up to 31 inches wide.

Amateurs and professionals welcome!

For further details, go to the Photographer’s Print Studio website or send an email to Kathryn Kolb (kathrynkolb@bellsouth.net).

(Photo by Brittany Collins)

Bookmark It

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

Jan. 20, 2009, 11:51 a.m., at East Capitol and First Streets N.E., Washington, D.C.

Neither the cold nor the crowds were as bad as people projected. Sure, the lines stretched for city blocks. Yes, the temperature was well below freezing. But, this was history. Frosty fingers and long wait times would not deny me the right to say in my old age “I was there.”

I decided on November 4 that I would be in Washington D.C. on January 20. I didn’t know how I would get there, where I would stay, or if I could get remotely close to the main action. During the months in between, I begged, borrowed, and dealt my way. By a few days before the inauguration I had hopped in a backseat of a car headed to D.C., commandeered a couch in Georgetown, and found a gleaming golden ticket to one of the closest sections to the capitol. I felt like Charlie in the chocolate factory, or rather in the Chocolate City.

Armored with several layers, I went into the cold on the big day. The trains were crowded but not impossible. I waited in line not too far from Chris Tucker and his mother. Throughout the festivities (and I do mean festivities) you could smell alcohol on the breath of some, reaffirming the sense that this was a college homecoming. When Bush came out, the people closest to the Capitol building sang out “na na naa na, hey hey hey, good bye.” Like Obama who would take Bush to task later, we let him know once and for all how we felt, dismissing him to irrelevance.

Looking down the Mall to the Washington Monument, I felt a like a drop in a powerful sea, turning the tide of change and roaring “O-BA-MA!”

(Photo by W. Hassan Marsh)

Bookmark It

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It

CUTTING IT CLOSE: “Michael”

Given the sheer volume of stuff bursting Flickr’s virtual seams and tumbling out of studios belonging to everyone from fine artists to part-timers at Sears, is there anything new to discover about the overexposed, early 21st-century human form? Self-taught photographer Thomas Dozol wades into this glut of human images in a new solo exhibition at Opal Gallery. And with some aplomb he manages to peel back yet another layer of the onion that is our shared humanity. (more…)

Bookmark It

Self-portrait, San Francisco, 1970

What was it like to work side-by-side with Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe? What did it take to earn Mick Jagger’s trust? What was John Lennon doing in the hours leading up to his murder in 1980? Photographer Annie Leibovitz answers such questions and more in her new book, Annie Leibovitz: At Work, which chronicles her singular experiences capturing some of contemporary culture’s most mythic personalities and moments. Leibovitz comes to the MJCCA’s Zaban Park location for a sold-out appearance Wednesday, Dec. 10, as an extension of the center’s book festival.

Would you talk about the writing process and how you developed the narrative to accompany your photos?
It’s been a process over the years to learn how to talk and to mean what [I] say. With Susan Sonntag, you know … she was the one who helped me have a voice. After Susan died, I sat down with Sharon [Delano] to work on the introduction for A Photographer’s Life and there were about five sessions where she literally put it together. She says I said everything on some level, but you know she put it together in a way where for the first time you could really hear my voice. You’re hearing me and it has emotional context to it.

I had always wanted to do a book on the making of the photographs, you know the making of a photograph. (more…)

Bookmark It

Today marks the 28th anniversary of John Lennon’s assassination by Mark David Chapman. The event’s been chronicled and dramatized in books, films and other media, but perhaps the most intriguing and heart-wrenching tribute is Annie Leibovitz’s photo taken hours before Lennon’s death. The image ran as Rolling Stone’s cover shortly after, with no text save the magazine’s logo. Twenty-five years later, the American Society of Magazine Editors named the image the No. 1 magazine cover of the last 40 years.

In Leibovitz’s new book, Annie Leibovitz: At Work, the photographer offers a detailed account of the story behind the photo, her moments with the couple just before Lennon’s murder, as well as the aftermath, including a devastated Yoko Ono laying in a dark room reacting to the image.

From the book:

I photographed them at their apartment in the Dakota early in December, and then a few days later I came back with something specific in mind. … I thought about how people curl up together in bed, and I asked them to pose nude in an embrace. … I made a Polaroid of them lying together and John looked at it and said, “You’ve captured our relationship exactly. … The picture looks like a last kiss now.

Leibovitz’s experiences capturing such singular moments fill At Work, an endeavor intended as “a textbook for a young photographer,” she said when I interviewed her last month. But the book transcends any sort of Photo 101 primer to offer a backstage pass to some of contemporary culture’s most mythic events and personalities: “I had this idea about a pamphlet and I was going to pick 10 photographs and try to talk about them in a way from beginning to end, everything about them — the making of them. … it was gonna be just this small little book … and I started talking about the pictures and I realized “God there’s so much more to say about them” than I had thought, and we went from 40 pages to 240 pages.

Leibovitz appears in Atlanta this Wednesday, Dec. 10 at the MJCCA’s Zaban Park location. Check back tomorrow for my Q&A with Leibovitz.

(Photo by Annie Leibovitz/Courtesy www.magazine.org)

Bookmark It

Our staff photographer Joeff Davis will be covering a number of events around town tonight, and he’ll be posting images on this post. Check back later for updates, and stay tuned for our election results liveblog at 6 p.m.

(Photographs by Joeff Davis)

(more…)

Bookmark It

This week’s Time and Place photo was shot at 11th and Peachtree Street NE. For me, one of the benefits to living in the city is that the mirrored buildings create living canvases that change dramatically throughout the day. I like this photo because it combines that element of the city with another of my favorites — the workers who dangle fearlessly from buildings while they complete their daily jobs. To me, they are heroic. I also like the multidimensionality of this image — how the reflected building forms one world and the surface of the lines of steel form another dimension. The worker, seemingly walking at the top of the reflected building while touching the sky, forms yet another.

(Photo and text by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark It