James Lerager
James Lerager is director of the Documentary Photography & Research Project [www.WebPhotoEssay.com]. He holds a Master’s Degree from the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley.
James is the author of the book ‘In The Shadow Of The Cloud’ [Fulcrum Press, 1988], and the forthcoming books ‘Nuclear History – Nuclear Destiny’ and ‘Mexico: Portraits of Complexity’ [México: Retratos de la Complejidad]. He has had 35 solo photography exhibitions at universities, museums, and galleries in the United States, South America, and Europe. Solo exhibits include Fotofest International [2008, Houston], Princeton, MIT, Duke, UC Berkeley, and the Universidad de AntioquÃa. He has been published in books, magazines, and newspapers in some 30 countries. He is currently photography editor for the journal ‘Latin American Perspectives’ [www.LatinAmericanPerspectives.com].
James was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in MedellÃn, Colombia in 2004 – 2005, where he taught documentary photography and photojournalism at the Universities of AntioquÃa and MedellÃn, and created the exhibition “MedellÃn Reborn” [Medellin en Renacimiento]. In 2007, he received a second Fulbright, to return to MedellÃn and continue his work there. James was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia and Ghana, where he began his photographic journeys by documenting the peoples, communities, and environments where he lived. Those photographs became the exhibition “People and Place in West Africa,” and were exhibited at UC Berkeley’s Museum of Anthropology, and the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. He makes his home in Berkeley, California.
In his photographic work, James uses series of photographs, together with words, to tell stories. His intention in his own work is to use the power of photographs to communicate about complex issues, to engage and inform an audience, and help generate positive societal change. The majority of his photography exhibitions, publications, and book projects are based in extended essays, using photography’s inherent strength as a potentially potent symbolic language to engage and inform the viewer, in ways that words alone seldom can.