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Books > Arts & Architecture > Photography & photographs > Photographic collections > Photographic reportage
Imagined as a sequel to the Old and New Testaments of the Bible by
Magnum photographer Jonas Bendiksen, The Last Testament features
visual accounts and stories of seven men around the world who claim
to be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Building on biblical form
and structure, chapters dedicated to each Jesus include excerpts of
their scriptural testaments, laying out their theology and demands
on mankind in their own words. Through Bendiksen's personal
testimonies and intimate portraits, The Last Testament investigates
the boundaries of religious faith, and a world in need of
salvation, yearning for a new prophet. Whether escaping an angry
mob in the streets with the Jesus of Kitwe, joining a Messianic
birthday pilgrimage in Siberia, or witnessing the End of Days with
Moses in South Africa, Bendiksen immerses himself among the
disciples of each Jesus. He takes at face value that each is the
one true Messiah returned to Earth, to forge an account that's both
a work of apocalyptic journalism and of a compelling artistic
imagination.
Mysterious, introspective, fiercely private, and self-taught,
street photographer William Gedney (1932-1989) produced impressive
series of images focused on people whose lives were overlooked,
hidden, or reduced to stereotypes. He was convinced that
photography was a means of expression as efficient as literature,
and his images were accompanied by writings, essays, excerpts from
books, and aphorisms. Gedney avoided self-promotion, and his
underrepresented work was largely unknown during his short
lifetime. He died at the age of fifty-six from AIDS. William
Gedney: Only the Lonely, 1955-1984 is the first comprehensive
retrospective of his photography. It presents images from all of
his major series, including eastern Kentucky, where Gedney lived
with and photographed the family of laid-off coal miner Willie
Cornett; San Francisco and Haight-Ashbury, where he attached
himself to a group of disaffected youth, photographing them as they
drifted from one vacant apartment to the next during the "Summer of
Love"; early photo-reportage of gay pride parades in the eighties;
Benares, India, Gedney's first trip abroad, during which he
obsessively chronicled the concurrent difficulty and beauty of
daily life; and night scenes that, in the absence of people and
movement, evoke a profound universal loneliness. The most complete
overview of Gedney's work to date, this volume reveals the
undeniable beauty of a major American photographer.
Publishing the results of the most recent annual World Press Photo
Contest, this exceptional book contains the very best press
photographs from the year 2016 - pictures submitted by
photojournalists, picture agencies, newspapers and magazines
throughout the world. Selected from thousands of images, these
prizewinning photos capture the most powerful, moving and sometimes
disturbing images of the year.
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