Ken Light (photographer)

Kenneth Randall Light (born 1951) is an American social documentary photographer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the author of nine monographs, including Texas Death Row and his most recently published What's going on? 1969-1974. He wrote of Witness in our Time: Working Lives of Documentary Photographers, a collection of recollections and interviews with 29 of the world's most well-known photographers, editors and curators of the genre.[1] He has had his photographs included as part of photo essays and portfolios in newspapers, magazines and other media, has been exhibited worldwide and is part of museum collections such as SF Museum of Modern Art[2] and International Center of Photography.[3] Light was also a co-founder of Fotovision, the Mother Jones International Fund for Documentary Photography[4] and he is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts photography fellowships.[5][6] He is also a professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley where he holds the Reva and David Logan chair in photojournalism and he is the director of the school's Logan documentary photography gallery.[7][8][9]

Ken Light
Light in 2019
Born
Kenneth Randall Light

(1951-03-16) March 16, 1951
The Bronx, New York, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
OccupationPhotojournalist

Kenneth Baker[10] the San Francisco Chronicle's art critic described his black-and-white imagery as placing his work in the lineage of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Robert Frank.[11]

Early life

Light was born in 1951 in the Bronx, New York City, in the United States of America. He would later move with his parents to East Meadow, on Long Island in New York.[12]

Career

Light started shooting film photography when he was 18 years old while studying government and sociology at Ohio University (1969-1973). Having access to his father's camera, he documented important events such as Richard Nixon’s campaign in Ohio, the moratorium to end the Vietnam War in Washington DC and the Cambodia invasion protests on his campus. The photographs from this last event were the ones that caused his first break in journalism. Even though he was arrested that day because of his association with the "Underground Press", his film came back to his hands; he sent it to New York and it was published around the world.[13]

After he graduated in 1973, Light moved to California and he has been a freelance photographer focusing on social issues in America for more than 50 years (as of 2020). He has also been teaching photojournalism at the Graduate School of Journalism of the University of California Berkeley since 1983.[14][15][13] He holds the post of Reva and David Logan Professor of PhotoJournalism at the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. [16] He was the first photographer to become a Laventhol Visiting Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Work

Between 1983 and 1987 along the California/Mexico border, Light rode along with US Border Patrol agents in the middle of the night as looked for illegal aliens. The resulting strobe lit images caught against the dark of night of the caught illegal aliens were published in Midnight la frontera in 2020.

From 1999 to 2002, Light photographed rural poverty in Appalachia. This work was published in Coal Hollow (2005), with Melanie Light, his wife.[17]

Light spent five years photographic scenes in California's Great Central Valley, documenting the mix of poverty and wealth. He published photographs from this period, with commentary, in Valley of Shadows and Dreams (2012).[18]

He launched a Kickstarter[19] campaign to self-publish What’s Going On: America 1969-1974.[13] He reached a total of $41,342 from his $30,000 goal.

Victim of forgery

One of his early photos became the subject of copyright infringement controversy. This image showed John Kerry and Jane Fonda speaking together at an anti-Vietnam War protest but it turned out that Jane Fonda was never at that event. Ken Light's original photograph was digitally altered for partisan purposes and so it was published during the 2004 presidential election campaign.[20]

Publications

Books
  • Witness in our Time: Working Lives of Documentary Photographers (2005) ISBN 978-1588342980 - Editor. Published by the Smithsonian Institution Press. Words of Mary Ellen Mark, Sebastião Salgado and Eugene Richards and others.[16][21]
  • Coal Hollow. (2006) Published by University of California.[16] Written by Ken Light and Melanie Light with forewords by Orville Schell and Robert B. Reich.[21]
  • Valley of Shadows & Dreams. (2011) Published by Heyday Books.[16] Foreword by Thomas Steinbeck and text by Melanie Light.[21]
  • What’s Going On?. (2015) Published by Light² Media. Text by Ken Light.
  • ″Midnight La Frontera". (2020) Published by TBW
  • ″Picturing Resistance". (2020) Published by Random House/Ten Speed Press

Exhibitions

Curated exhibitions

These are exhibitions of the work of others, of which Light was the curator or co-curator.

  • 2017: Resistors: 50 Years of Social Movement Photography, Berkeley Art Center.[29]

Awards and grants

Awards
  • 1990: Media Alliance - Meritorious Achievement award for photography
  • 1990: Thomas M. Storke International Journalism Award from the World Affairs Council[30]
  • 1992: Judges Special Recognition (Cannon Photo Essayist) in the Annual University of Missouri/NPPA Pictures of the Year competition[31]
  • 2012: Valley of Shadows & Dreams received the California Book Award -gold medal- for "Contribution to Publishing" by the California Commonwealth Club[32]
  • 2015: What's going on? - POY award Best Photography Book - Judges' Special Recognition, Ken Light, Light Squared Media (Light2 Media),[33]

Grants
  • 1973: International Fund for Concerned Photography
  • 1975: The California Arts Commission, Artist in Communities
  • 1978,1982: The Film Fund (w/LOHP-U.C. Berkeley)
  • 1983,1985,1995,2003: The Max and Anna Levinson Foundation
  • 1985: The Rosenberg Foundation[34] (w/National Farm worker Migrant Ministry)
  • 1994: Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation
  • 2000: Puffin Foundation[35]
  • 2005: The Open Society Institute[36]
  • 2017: Jonathan Logan Family Foundation[37]

References
  1. "Ken Light". Rayko Photo Center. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
  2. "Ken Light". SFMOMA. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  3. "Ken Light". International Center of Photography. 2016-03-02. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  4. "Mother Jones International Fund for Documentary Photography". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2017-07-29.
  5. "well-defined-start". well-defined-start. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  6. LensCulture, Ken Light |. "Ken Light | LensCulture". LensCulture. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  7. "Interview with SF Gate". SFGate. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  8. Harris, Chuck. "Faculty–UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism". journalism.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2017-07-28.
  9. Staff, J-School. "Reva and David Logan Gallery of Documentary Photography opens at the J-School–News–UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism". journalism.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2017-07-29.
  10. "Kenneth Baker, art critic". www.artnet.com. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  11. "'Valley of Shadows and Dreams'". SFGate. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  12. "Documentary Photographer Releases Photos of Bronx Life in the 1970's". Bronx Times. Retrieved 2017-07-29.
  13. Gilbert, Andrew (February 19, 2015). "Exposing a tumultuous era: Photographer Ken Light". Berkeleyside. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  14. "Powerful Photos From America's 1960s and '70s". Slate. 2016-07-04. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2017-07-27.
  15. "OU Alum To Publish Book Of Early '70s Photos". WOUB Digital. 2015-03-09. Retrieved 2017-07-27.
  16. "Ken light: Reva and David Logan Professor of PhotoJournalism". Berkeley Journalism. University of California. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  17. Estrin, James (April 28, 2010). "A Photographer's Trail to Appalachia". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 July 2017.
  18. Light, Ken; Light, Melanie (May 20, 2012). "The Vanishing Valley". The New York Times. p. SR6. Retrieved 29 July 2017.
  19. "What's Going On: America 1969-1974". Kickstarter. Retrieved 2017-07-29.
  20. California, Berkeley Daily Planet, Berkeley. "Kerry Photo Altered, Used for Political Attack. Category: Features from The Berkeley Daily Planet". www.berkeleydailyplanet.com. Retrieved 2017-07-30.
  21. "Ken Light's Publications". www.kenlight.com. Retrieved 2017-08-12.
  22. Grann, David (August 31, 2009). "Trial by Fire". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
  23. "Ken Light: Coal Hollow". International Center of Photography. 2016-02-23. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
  24. "Coal Hollow - Smith College Museum of Art". www.smith.edu. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
  25. "Picturing Modernity". SFMOMA. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
  26. "Ken and Melanie Light: Valley of Shadows and Dreams | Oakland Museum of California". museumca.org. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
  27. "World-Renowned Documentary Photographer Dorothea Lange's Political Retrospective to Open at Oakland Museum of California in May 2017 | Oakland Museum of California". museumca.org. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  28. "Exhibitions". Berkeley Art Center. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
  29. Wood, Sura (27 July 2017). "Resistors: Power to the people!". Bay Area Reporter. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  30. "Awards | The Center for Investigative Reporting". cironline.org. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
  31. "Pictures of the Year". NPPA. 2012-10-16. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
  32. "California Commonwealth Club Award" (PDF).
  33. "POYi 73 Winner's List". poyi.org. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
  34. "Our Grantees – Rosenberg Foundation". rosenbergfound.org. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
  35. "The Prison Industrial Complex". www.puffinroom.org. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
  36. "Ken and Melanie Light". Open Society Foundations. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
  37. "Our Grantee Partners - The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation". The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. Retrieved 2017-09-21.
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