Fotografen - Einzelansicht

"Ernesto Bazan was born in 1959 in Palermo, Italy . He received his first camera at age 14. He started photographing daily life both in his native city and in the Sicilian countryside. In 1977, before graduating from high school, God's voice revealed itself in a dream. He was told to become a photographer. Since that very day, he has followed his dream. Photography has been for him more than just a profession, it has been a passion, a true mission.

In 1979, he moved to New York to attend the School of Visual Arts. In 1982, he received a B.F.A. with major in photography. The same year, he won the Young Photographers contest in Arles and was one of the youngest photographers to join the photo agency Magnum. The following year, he won the "Photo Reportage News" contest in Arles. These first two prizes allowed him to take up a seven-month trip across Asia sponsored by the French magazine Paris Match. In 1984, disillusioned by the dispassionate and selfish behavior of some of the members of Magnum he left the agency.

For the last two decades, Bazan has been photographing for American and European publications. His work has been widely published by many magazines including Life, Time, News Week, Natural History, Cigar Aficionado, Max, Sette, Io Donna among others.

In the last several years, Bazan has been teaching photography through The Maine Photographic Workshop, The Julia Dean Workshop and La Fundacion de Nuevo Periodismo IberoAmericano funded by Garcia Marquez among others. He is currently working to create his own workshop which will be launched in January of the year 2003.

He has had shows both in Europe and the US and his images have been widely collected by collectors and museums including the MOMA and ICP in New York, the SFMOMA, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, the South East Museum of Photography in Daytona, the Fondazione Italiana della Fotografia in Turin, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and the Musee Rattau in Arles.

In 1985, Bazan published his first book The Perpetual Past a four-year in-depth documentation of the Italian American community in New York and its vicinity.

In 1987, he started a project on refugees around the world highlighting their plight long after the medias have lost attention to their drama.

In 1992, his second book Passing Through was published. The images dealt with common feelings and emotions that human beings, at different latitudes and cultures in the world, have shared for thousands of years such as love and death, joy and sorrow, compassion, solidarity, closeness and separation."

www.contrasto.it

Contrasto is a unique enterprise in the field of photography. Contrasto was born in the 80's to be a point of reference for quality photojournalism.

The agency's photographers, in addition to its close contact with the information and culture worlds, allows Contrasto to be a leader in the field of author photography.

Its vast range of activities (production and distribution of images for journalism, advertising and image consulting, fashion and publishing, archives available online) is guaranteed by the various resources it draws from; Most notably Magnum, the prestigious agency founded by Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Contrasto is publishing house as well, working to realize photographic books, and exhibits in cooperation with Italy's public and private institutions.

The high level of Contrasto photographers' amounts to a gallery of unique images suitable for collecting purposes as well."

www.contrasto.it