Wednesday 23 May 2007

American Diversity Project

Image Courtesy American Diversity Project-All Rights Reserved

The American Diversity Project's stated mission is to support documentary photography and those who produce it. This year's project was centered on Greenville, a small town in the Mississippi Delta, and features the work of 12 young documentary photographers and photography students.

I've long had the idea to photograph in the Mississippi Delta myself, focusing on the area's wealth of elderly blues musicians...visiting them at their homes and documenting their environment and their music. So it's no wonder to me that I found the multimedia section on the 86-year old blues man James "T-Model" Ford of Greenville, Miss. who offers us a glimpse of his guitar riffs and singing, just exceptional. He's well traveled to Europe and elsewhere, and regularly plays at the Blues Club in his hometown. I watched it over and over...enjoying T-Model's raw Delta blues. His multimedia section is the third from the left at the top of the multimedia browser window.

American Diversity Project's website is full of captivating photographs, sound, music, and oral history of the area, so explore and marvel. A job extremely well done by this group of emerging photographers.

REI | De Las Flores

REI by Tewfic El-Sawy on on Exposure