Willingly or no, whether or not they consider themselves “photographers” or “artists” or whatever, these individuals and many others are exploring the same field of ideas. That field of ideas is built into and springs from the medium of photography itself; it has a history and tradition of its own which is operative on many levels of our culture. […]
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The substantial distinction, then, is between treating the external world as a given, to be altered only through photographic means (point of view, framing, printing, etc.) en route to the final image, or rather as raw material, to be itself manipulated as much as desired prior to the exposure of the negative. … […] Carl Chiarenza’s images, though nominally two-dimensional, suggest other things, sometimes beings but more often scapes — deep, complex, convoluted spaces through which the viewer’s eye seeks to wander, drawn almost irresistibly into the intricate folds of this purely illusory terrain. […] Michals embraced the theatrical frame and the directorial mode; for him the viewfinder is a proscenium, models are dramatis personae. Another benchmark of his work is its exploration of the forbidden. A third is his insistence on stretching the boundaries of what a photograph is allowed to be. A fourth is the profoundly sacral essence of his seemingly profane and deeply disturbing vision. […] Salgado combines what Fred Ritchin calls a “stately lyricism” with an alertness to the drama embedded in the everydayness of hardscrabble subsistence, marginal survival and imminent death. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |