Melissa Springer
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Melissa Springer is an American photographer. Springer is very narrative in her approach to her work. As a well-known photojournalist, Springer has been featured in over 50 magazines, including Aperture, Elle, Forbes, Harpers Bazaar, The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Southern Living, The Village Voice and House and Garden. Springer's work has also been published in many books. Springer is what one would call an issue-focused artist. Opening doors into areas previously kept in the shadows. Springer is one of the first photojournalist to produce work about the AIDS epidemic with her series of "Michael."
She has shown across the countries in many different venues from private galleries to museums and not-for-profits and was the inaugural artist for Agnes, a photography gallery specializine in social awareness in Birmingham,Alabama. The name of this first show was "Julie Tutwiler Prison Series" and was acclaimed for portraying in-depth the struggles and class system of an Alabama prison for women. Springer learned how to relate to these ladies by actually spending time in the prison among the inmates and listening to their stories. this is typical of how Springer works. She likes to get to know people to place a snese of identy to them and for them to gain her trust. In this way, she can tell her stories one-on-one with the viewer. This work was part of the interview she gave about the Julie Tutwiler Prison for Women on CNN. this expose was also featured in Elle magazine.
In "The South By It's Photographers" Springer's work was included with many other Southern artists including Shelby Lee Adams, Walter Beckham, Debbie Fleming Caffery, William Christenberry, Chip Cooper, William Greiner, Birney Imes and Jack Spencer among others. This exhibition travelled from the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama to Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, South Carolina and Louisiana Center for Arts and Sciences;Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This exhibition was also made into a book by Susan Sipple Elliott, with an introduction by John E. Schloder "The South By It's Photographers".
Springer and Jim Neel, photographed the work for "Salvation on Sand Mountain" where rural worshipers base their faith on a single and literal translation of the Bible's Mark 16:18 "They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them..." They traveled the backroads of Appalachia into Alabama's Sand Mountain to Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky as well as West Virginia to document this diminishing type of religious service.
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[edit] Newest work
Springer is a faculty member of ICP International Center of Photography in NYC Springer's newest work doesn't require a camera at all. She has developed a method in which flower stems are placed upon photo paper, and then they are exposed to light. This light penetrates the stems and blooms to transfer their delicate image onto the finished photograph.
[edit] External links
- Melissa Springer
- "Salvation on Sand Mountain: Photographs by Jim Neel and Melissa Springer"
- Important Things, Classroom Book Project
- Tribe of Warrior Women: Breast Cancer Survivors by Melissa Springer and Marcia Ann Gillespie
- Gallery Hop features renowned photojournalist
- AGNES Gallery, Birmingham, Alabama
- The South By It's Photographers
