Stanley Greene Wins W. Eugene Smith Award

Stanley Greene has won the 2004 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, one of the most prestigious and lucrative ($30,000) prizes in photojournalism, for his project "Chalk Lines: A Photographic Investigation of the Caucasus." The W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund has also awarded a $5,000 Fellowship Grant to Kalpesh Lathigra for his project "Brides of Krishna: Indian Widows."

Greene, an American photographer based in Paris and represented by l'Agence Vu, has proposed to explore the volatile, oil-rich region of the Caucusus that's still dominated by an increasingly diminishing Soviet in?uence. Greene has dedicated much of his time over the last decade to the region, focusing intently on the war in Chechnya, culminating in last year's critically acclaimed book Open Wound: Chechnya, 1994-2003 (Trolley). "Chalk Lines" will expand his focus to the often-overlooked people of Georgia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Dagestan and Ingushetia.

"The Caucusus are so volatile and it's so unpredictable, as proved by [recent terrorist attacks in] Beslan and North Ossetia. We really have to pay attention because this is a war that could actually draw superpowers into it for various reasons," Greene says. "You have a lot of volatile and explosive situations involved, and you also have money and corruption and power.... I hate to be a disaster tourist, so I hope to go back and maybe more insightfully try to understand what's really going on here."

Time photo editor Robert Stevens, a member of the Smith Fund's Board of Trustees, says Greene's uncompromising approach and personal devotion to his subject mirrors the way Smith worked.

"Stanley is an obsessed, passionate, dedicated and unwavering photographer," Stevens says. "Very much like Smith, he goes into a magazine and says, 'I want to do it my way.' If they don't like it, he walks out."

Greene credits W. Eugene Smith with encouraging him to give up painting to become a photographer. The two met by chance in 1970 while Greene was dating Smith's assistant. When Smith accidentally developed a roll of Greene's ?lm, he saw the young photographer's potential and encouraged him to enroll in photography school. (For more on Greene's history, see "The Wounds of Chechnya," PDN, September. 2003).

"When I met him I had no idea who he was or what he meant, but he had a really big effect on me on how I looked at life," Greene says of his mentor. "He haunted me. When I was doing rock and roll, he haunted me, and when I was doing fashion, he haunted me. Finally, he pulled me, if you want, into his world."
With his project, Kalpesh Lathigra "aims to challenge the perception that it is the destiny of...the 33 million Hindu widows in India who are often shunned by their families and blamed for the husband's death" and are forced to "live in poverty and follow a strict adherence to what Hindu tradition dictates."

This year's winning proposals were selected from 171 entries representing 30 countries. The jury, which was headed by Stevens, included Melissa Harris, editor of Aperture magazine, and Ryuichi Kaneko, curator at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

Finalists of the fellowship grant include Chris Anderson, Pep Bonet, Paolo Pellegrin, Alvaro Leiva Rodriguez, Allesandra Sanguinetti and Ilkka Uimonen.

Sponsored by Nikon, the W. Eugene Smith Grant recognizes photographers who have demonstrated a commitment to documenting the human condition. For more information or to ?nd out how to apply for next year's grant, visit www.smithfund.org.