Client Spotlight!

CMD client Lori Needleman has been chosen for the PDN Photo Annual 2011!

Lorineedleman.com has been recognized as one of the best photography websites of the year by Photo District News (PDN) Photo Annual 2011. The international magazine and contest features the best of photography and was judged by an esteemed group of photography industry photo editors, curators, and creative directors. Congratulations Lori!  Read more about Lori and her latest project…

Lori Needleman’s: ESPAÑA

Many people envision living in another country, but few actually do. American photographer, Lori Needleman, has been living in Spain for two years in a remote small town, quite a distance from the well-known cities of Madrid and Barcelona. To infiltrate a culture that is slowly being affected by other countries, she is able to observe from a native point-of-view the dynamic and diverse culture of Spain.

Lori examines how Spain is lingering between an economic crisis, a traditional Catholic culture, and a “moderno” future. The culture has been based on strong old world religious beliefs, but today, it seems to be making changes with a new generation taking steps for equality and change.

Moreover, see why Spanish families are so deeply close and how they celebrate each holiday with grand fiestas. Spanish people work to live, far different from a Western culture of live to work. Families are of the utmost importance and the mother is treated as almost holy. See how this nation is shaped and why it is loved by so many.

With just over 46 million people (308 million in North America), the Spanish people still find a way to keep to their traditions alive. They strongly believe in their culture and share a common bond through community and festivals.

In Spain today, as well as other Mediterranean cultures, the mothers are strong-willed and models of female power. Their influence on the family and community is powerful keeping families bonded together in an almost tribal-like clan. They live close together, sometimes within blocks, and spend long Sunday’s eating, talking and playing games.  What keeps the family so connected and simultaneously strong? Lori  has been researching a mother’s influence on the family as well as Spanish culture, a traditional culture, that is currently being challenged by American and International television, film, music and advertising.

Lori Needleman is an award-winning American photographer now living in Spain. She has a Communications degree in Advertising from Boston University and has continued her photography studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, Santa Monica College, and Otis Art & Design College. Her images have graced the pages of In Style Magazine and Destination Weddings Magazine, among others. She has received recognition for her work from The International Photography Lucie Awards, PDN Photography Annual, Lűrzer’s International Archive, and Women in Photography International Awards. She is available for fine art commissions, editorial and advertising work as well as fine art destination weddings. You can visit her business photography website at:  diegoandlori.com.

{What is your particular style/genre/area of interest in photography?}

Before photography, I had this existential emptiness about the world. I felt that life had little meaning. Something was missing.  After reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, I kept thinking about his words, “The salvation of man is through love and in love.”  My love, my passion was always photography. Once I picked up the camera seriously, a new meaning came to me.

I am passionate about photography in general from documentary to digital photographic arts.  In my own particular style, I believe my work is a combination of documentary, realism, and romanticism. I like to see the beauty in everything, but love combining it with the disintegration of people, society, a culture, or community.

I have always liked being up close and direct with my subjects, setting the subject in their own natural environments.  Keeping the subjects in their own environment allows them to open up more to you as a photographer.  Being invited into a person’s home is quite personal and we observe a part of their lives that tells so much about who they are. I hope in my portraits that people think, “Wow this seems like a fascinating person. I want to know more.” With landscapes, I have learned that I love to beautify emptiness and isolation. There is a feeling of being alone, quietly meditating away from the distractions and chaos of our very complicated lives.

 {Name at least 2 photographers who have influenced your work and why?} 

Annie Leibovitz: In contract to Arbus, I am influenced by Annie Leibovitz. She is an amazing photographer with a long career.  (Although I would not want to take the same trip as she has, I admire her evolution as a photographer.) In her beginning days, she evolved photographing musicians in documental situations. She found fascinating moments in every day events. Today, as she shoots for major magazines and advertisers, she still needs to find the extraordinary sometimes in the most ordinary of places like a studio. To think of new ideas and to be creative all the time is quite difficult.  She somehow seems to pull it off. After watching her documentary, Life Through A Lens, I appreciated her candidness about failing (with the cover of Rolling Stone magazine) and then learning from that mistake to become a better photographer. I have fears of failing, but have learned how to learn from those mistakes and push myself to be a better artist as well as a better person. I do hope to find a mentor, as she had to help me take my work to the next level.

 {What are your short term and long-term goals as a photographer?}