Masters of narrative ROGER BALLEN Roger Ballen was born in New York City, New York, USA in 1950. He has lived in Johannesburg since the 1970s. Beginning by documenting the small dorps or villages of rural South Africa, Ballen starting photographing the inhabitants of these places in the late 1980s and early 1990s. http://www.rogerballen.com/asylum-of-the-birds/ http://www.asylumofthebirds.com were all taken entirely within the confines of a house in a Johannesburg suburb, the location of which remains a tightly guarded secret. The inhabitants of the house, both people and animals, and most notably the ever-present birds, are the cast who perform within a sculptural and decorated theatrical interior that the author creates and orchestrates. JIM GOLDBERG A major mixed media exhibition by Goldberg concerning homeless children in California entitled Raised by Wolves began traveling in 1995 and was accompanied by a book of the same title.[⁹] A review of the exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art noted that Goldberg made reference to other artists and photographers; used photographs, videos, objects, and texts to convey meaning; and "let his viewers feel, in some corner of their psyches, the lure of abject lowliness, the siren call of pain."[⁹] Although the accompanying book received one mixed review shortly after publication,[¹⁰] it was described as "a heartbreaking novel with pictures",[⁹] and Martin Parr and Gerry Badger in their book The Photobook: A History praised it as "complex and thoughtful."[¹¹] http://vimeo.com/39715337 http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx? VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL53ZHEN Joan Fontcuberta A detail from The Miracle of Levitation, 2002, by Joan Fontcuberta. PR Career of hoaxes. In 1968, during a routine space walk, the Russian cosmonaut Ivan Istochnikov and his dog went missing. When Soyuz 3 was dispatched to find them, its crew found only a vodka bottle containing a note, floating outside the empty, meteorite- damaged ship. Nothing was heard about Istochnikov for nearly three decades: it was as though the Soviet authorities had airbrushed their cosmonaut from history. Hydropithecus of Cerro de San Vicente, 2006, from the Sirens series. Solenoglyph Polipodida, 1987, from the Fauna series "reality doesn't exist before our experience. Photography is one of the tools that helps us construct reality. It is not an innocent medium.” http://fontcuberta.com Kathryn Cook Kathryn Cook is a documentary photographer whose current work focuses on memory and collective consciousness in post-genocidal society. Her projects in Turkey, the Middle East, and Rwanda reflect the historic character that developed through a peoplesʼ struggle to recover their lives, and the impact it has on a societyʼs ability to move forward. Her work confronts the post-war devastation of neglect and isolation and how it transforms both the people and the land they inhabited. http://www.prospektphoto.net/reportages/kathryn-cook-memory-of-trees/ ED KASHI http://edkashi.com/project/drought/ Ed Kashi is a photojournalist, filmmaker and educator dedicated to documenting the social and political issues that define our times. A sensitive eye and an intimate relationship to his subjects are signatures of his work. I TAKE ON ISSUES that stir my passions about the state of humanity and our world, and I deeply believe in the power of still images to change peopleʼs minds. Iʼm driven by this fact; that the work of photojournalists and documentary photographers can have a positive impact on the world. The access people give to their lives is precious as well as imperative for this important work to get done. Their openness brings with it a tremendous sense of responsibility to tell the truth but to also honor their stories. Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel From 1975-1977, Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel selected photographs from a multitude of images that previously existed solely within the boundaries of the industrial, scientific, governmental and other institutional sources from which they were mined. The project, “Evidence”, was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was one of the first conceptual photographic works of the 1970′s to demonstrate that the meaning of a photograph is conditioned by the context and sequence in which it is seen. The resulting collection exhibits a brilliant sensibility for the absurd and a keen awareness of the complexity that the single image possesses when viewed outside its original context. Some of the photographs are hilarious, others are perplexing, but itʼs in their isolation from their original context that these images take on meanings that address the confluence of industry and corporate mischief, ingenuity and pseudo-science. The book has been recognized as a precursor to subsequent postmodern strategies of photo practice. c Oliver Sieber seeks out the sub-culture 'misfits' who refuse to play by society's rules... Oliver Sieber seeks out the sub-culture www.we-heart.com Oliver Sieber seeks out the sub-culture 'misfits' who refuse to play by society's Alec Soth alecsoth.com Looking at “Evidence,” One of the ’70’s www.theparisreview.org In 1977, Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel pored over thousands of photos from .