What is telling the story?

What do you think about the following photo?

© Kevin Kunishi

It’s OK, right?

You can place any number of stories on it but you probably won’t even bother doing that. You’ll take a glance and move on.

Now read the quote that accompanies it:

“When I came home from school they had hung my brother from a tree along the street. They killed him and lit his body on fire. When I saw his body I wanted to kill as many of those fuckers as I could.” Alfredo Guitierrez, Contra

Everything changes. Story is what matters, its what lingers with us.

More info here taken from the Blue Earth Facebook page:

Blue Earth is pleased to announce that Kevin Kunishi’s project “Los Restos de la Revolución” is the winner of the Blue Earth Prize For Best Project Photography at the PhotoAlliance 2011 Our World Portfolio Review, held March 11-13, 2011 in San Francisco.

This award is offered in partnership with PhotoAlliance and is intended to provide recognition for photographic work best representing our mission: To raise awareness about endangered cultures, threatened environments and social concerns through photography. View a gallery of photos from his project.

Project Concept: In 1979, after over a decade of struggle, the socialist Sandinista movement in Nicaragua overthrew the famously corrupt dictator, Anastasio Somoza. The Sandinistas quickly began the work of applying their social and ideological values in the hopes of creating a better Nicaragua.

Unfortunately, the United States government had other plans. In the cold war environment of the 1980s, the prospect of a socialist/communist government gaining a foothold in Central America was deemed unacceptable. The CIA began financing, arming and training a clandestine rebel insurgency to destabilize the government.

These anti-Sandinista guerrillas became known as the contras. Between 1980 and 1990, Nicaragua would become the battleground of sharply conflicting political ideologies; the promise of a bright future was lost as the nation descended into civil war.

This series consists of portraits of Sandinistas and their opposing Contra veterans, as well as artifacts and landscapes significant to that volatile era.

Although these two sides held polarized political philosophies, both in their foundation and practice, their survivors are united by the burden of a war-torn history.

As political ideology evolves, dilutes, or disappears, the horrors of war endure.

Biography: After graduating from college, Kevin traveled for six years, circled the world twice and explored 21 different countries. It was during this time that his fascination for the alchemy of photography flourished and became an all-consuming passion. The camera offered him freedom, a new way of seeing – a medium though which he could understand and communicate something about the human experience.

Kevin Kunishi has been based in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2004, where he continues work on numerous projects both at home and around the globe.

His work has been recognized by American Photo Magazine, the New York Photo Festival, PDNedu, CMYK magazine, Photographer’s Forum and Prix de la Photographie, Paris (PX3).

Please take a few minutes to view a gallery of his project photos. Our congratulations to Kevin!

– Bart J. Cannon, Executive Director