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Documentary
Photographer
J. Nash Porter
Makes Transition to Join the
Ancestors
(27 October 2007)
J. Nash Porter was
born 24 May 1942 (died 27 October 2007) in New Orleans
and raised in an Uptown neighborhood surrounded by the
sights and sounds of the urban streets. His
career combines documentary and commercial photography,
and photo-journalism. "Through the lens of my camera, I
share with others the exciting tradition that I grew up
with. Hopefully, I can ignite a spark of enthusiasm and
bring about an awareness in other communities for the
New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians," said Porter.
Formally trained at San Francisco
State University and the University of California at
Berkeley, Porter has owned and operated a photography
studio since 1972. Although his most prolific work is
with the New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians, his
photographic exhibits encompass an amalgam of African
American blues and jazz musicians, and traditional
cultures of the American South, West Africa, and the
Caribbean. The prints in this exhibit, selected from
thousands of negatives accumulated over the past 30
years, reflect his vast experience in portraiture, as
the majority of the Mardi Gras images are portraits in
context. "This type of shooting is not an easy task,
particularly during the revelry of Carnival," said
Porter. "I cannot control lighting, background,
movement, and atmosphere -- conveniences usually
available in studio work. Framing and composition
decisions must be made instantly, without delay, in the
context of this colorful street theater.
Source:
Mardi Gas Indian Exhibit
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Services for J.
Nash Porter were held at 10a.m. Friday, November 2nd,
at the Greater King David Baptist Church 222 Blount Road
in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Interment will be at the US
Military Cemetery at Port Hudson.
In lieu of flowers,
a special J. Nash Porter Memorial Fund for Cultural
Crossroads, Inc. has been established at the J.P. Morgan
Chase Bank. Contributions may be sent to the bank at
8751 Siegen Lane, Baton Rouge, LA 70810.
A number of persons were interested
in sending condolences. Those may be sent to
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Dr.
Joyce M. Jackson
1324
Brookhollow Lane
Baton Rouge, LA 70810
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Plans are being made for a memorial
service in New Orleans at this mailing no information is
available.
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Through the lens of
my camera, I share with others the exciting tradition
that I grew up with. Hopefully, I can ignite a spark of
enthusiasm and bring about an awareness in other
communities for the New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians.—J.
Nash Porter
More than illustrations that
express the aesthetics and creative eye of the
photographer the images are subjective interpretations
of an African American folk tradition in one particular
region of Louisiana.—Dr. Joyce M.
Jackson
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J. Nash Porter was one of the first
individual to present the Mardi Gras Indian Tradition
outside of Louisiana more than 35 years ago when he was
residing in California. Over the years he has documented
the Indian and secondline traditions and has presented
his work nationwide including a recent exhibit at the
Anacostia Museum of the Smithsonian institution.
We spent a lot of time together on
the streets on Mardi Gras day snapping photos. Nash
also had a great collection of shots that he took on his
trips to Senegal.
He and his wife/partner Dr. Joyce
Jackson dedicated much of their time to the
documentation and presentation of African cultural
continuities in Louisiana and the U.S.
Joyce is the
anthropologist/ethnomusicologist, one of the tops in her
field. She's been through a rough few months taking
care of him. Both have a special place in all our
hearts because after Katrina, they took people in and
provided shelter for their friends (Mona Lisa Saloy was
one of those - I know you guys are friends). To
say that we owe them a debt of gratitude is an
understatement. I've known Nash since 1991 and,
save for when he was out of the country, we talked once
or twice a week over those years. As my wife says,
some relatives share blood but some who become more than
mere relatives share . . . spirit.—chuck
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For the last
thirty-five years tirelessly J. Nash Porter documented
the Mardi Gras Indians in their natural setting—the
streets and sidewalks of New Orleans while they danced
and paraded. Nash, along with his beloved wife Dr.
Joyce Marie Jackson, documented Mardi Gras traditions
around the world: Trinidad, the Bahamas, Senegal, and
Ghana.
He loved making
connections between New Orleans and the African
Diaspora, collecting bold images such as his powerful
"Door of No Return." He enjoyed the opportunity for
exhibits throughout the state of Louisiana, and his
photographs were exhibited most recently at the
Smithsonian this spring, at the
Anacostia Museum. Joyce trained me in Folklore,
and she and Nash put me up after Katrina displaced us.
The work and legend of J. Nash Porter will live.—Mona Lisa
Links for more info:
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Audio:
My Story, My Song (Featuring blues guitarist Walter Wolfman Washington)
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He’s The Prettiest
A Tribute To Big Chief Allison "Tootie"
Montana's
50 Years Of Mardi Gras
Indian Suiting
By
Kalamu ya
Salaam
The Mardi Gras Indians
are called folk artists essentially because
they are self-taught, non-institution
sponsored, seemingly craft-centered
artisans. They have been studied but never
definitively defined, documented but never
successfully duplicated. Do we understand
them by focusing on their hand-sewn suits or
on their rituals, the skill of a particular
chief at sewing, singing, or dancing--can
any part be comprehended without some feel
for the whole? Indeed, who and what are the
Mardi Gras Indians? . . .
Louisiana Folk Life
Big Chief Allison Tootie Montana |
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1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus
Created
By Charles C. Mann
I’m
a big fan of Charles Mann’s previous
book
1491:
New Revelations of the Americas Before
Columbus, in which he
provides a sweeping and provocative
examination of North and South America
prior to the arrival of Christopher
Columbus. It’s exhaustively researched
but so wonderfully written that it’s
anything but exhausting to read. With
his follow-up,
1493, Mann has taken it to a
new, truly global level. Building on the
groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby
(author of
The Columbian Exchange and, I’m
proud to say, a fellow Nantucketer),
Mann has written nothing less than the
story of our world: how a planet of what
were once several autonomous continents
is quickly becoming a single,
“globalized” entity.
Mann not only talked to countless
scientists and researchers; he visited
the places he writes about, and as a
consequence, the book has a marvelously
wide-ranging yet personal feel as we
follow Mann from one far-flung corner of
the world to the next. And always, the
prose is masterful. In telling the
improbable story of how Spanish and
Chinese cultures collided in the
Philippines in the sixteenth century, he
takes us to the island of Mindoro whose
“southern coast consists of a number of
small bays, one next to another like
tooth marks in an apple.” We learn how
the spread of malaria, the potato,
tobacco, guano, rubber plants, and sugar
cane have disrupted and convulsed the
planet and will continue to do so until
we are finally living on one integrated
or at least close-to-integrated Earth.
Whether or not the human instigators of
all this remarkable change will survive
the process they helped to initiate more
than five hundred years ago remains,
Mann suggests in this monumental and
revelatory book, an open question. |
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Age of Silver: Encounters with Great
Photographers
By
John Loengard
Age of Silver is iconic American
photographer John Loengard’s ode to the
art form to which he dedicated his life.
Loengard, a longtime staff photographer
and editor for LIFE magazine and other
publications, spent years documenting
modern life for the benefit of the
American public. Over the years he
trained his camera on dignitaries,
artists, athletes, intellectuals, blue
and whitecollar workers, urban and
natural landscapes, manmade objects, and
people of all types engaged in the act
of living. In
Age of Silver, Loengard
gathers his portraits of some of the
most important photographers of the last
half-century, including
Annie Leibovitz,
Ansel Adams,
Man Ray,
Richard Avedon,
Alfred Eisenstaedt,
Henri Cartier-Bresson, and many,
many others. Loengard caught them at
home and in the studio; posed portraits
and candid shots of the artists at work
and at rest. Complimenting these
revealing, expertly composed portraits
are elegant photographs of the artists
holding their favorite or most revered
negatives. This extra dimension to the
project offers an inside peek at the
artistic process and is a stark reminder
of the physicality of the photographic
practice at a time before the current
wave of digital dominance. There is no
more honest or faithful reproduction of
life existent in the world of image
making than original, untouched silver
negatives. Far from an attempt to put
forth a singular definition of modern
photographic practice, this beautifully
printed, duotone monograph instead
presents evidence of the unique vision
and extremely personal style of every
artist pictured. Annie Leibovitz is
quoted in her caption as once saying, “I
am always perplexed when people say that
a photograph has captured someone. A
photograph is just a piece of them in a
moment. It seems presumptuous to think
you can get more than that.” —PowerhouseBooks |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 31 October 2007
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