Dedicated to helping professional and student photographers produce photographs
that promote world peace and cultural understanding.
First, one of their grants helped me when I was a student, and then another grant helped advance my professional work. I feel very lucky about that, very appreciative.
For the past several years I've done a series of stories about rural California, each focusing on a different aspect of life. The Alexia grant helped me finish my work on one of those stories – the Black Okies. They're a group of sharecroppers who migrated to the Valley over a half century ago, and there are just a handful of them left. A lot of the people I photographed have since died. I really was in the nick of time. It's an important piece of history to have documented. (Read more.)
After a very successful exhibition at the UN, the Alexia Foundation Show is on its way to China. It will show at the Pingyao International Photography Festival from September 16-22. The Pingyao International Photography Festival will take place in the 2700-year-old walled city of Pingyao in the Shanxi province. PIPF is a huge celebration of the art of photography that has attracted the top photographers from all around the world. It's a week of workshops, presentations, lectures, and gallery browsing. For more information about the Festival see http://www.pipphoto.com/en/pip.html
The book that accompanies the show, Eyes on the World, displays the work of 18 past Alexia grant winners. You can view some of the photos from the show and preview a segment of the book here.
During the opening ceremony at the UN, The Alexia Foundation presented Robert E. Gilka with a lifetime achievement award. Gilka was director of photography at National Geographic Magazine for over 25 years, was adjunct professor of photography at Syracuse University for 10 years and is a permanent judge for the Alexia Foundation grant competitions. Also at the opening, Syracuse University Chancellor Dr. Nancy Cantor announced the establishment of the Alexia Tsairis Chair for Documentary Photography at SU.
