Category Archives: film

2023 De Young Open

Snaps from the 2023 #deYoungOpen artist preview from yesterday, Tuesday, September 26, 2023. Pictured above (top left) is my photograph, designated as number 20 in the exhibit, titled What it Says, a Covid-19 slice of life. Above my photograph is a beautiful quilt depicting the American Sign Language alphabet.

The exhibit is five or six rooms of impressive art forms that will awe you and instill pride in the richness of expression, humanity, and creativity. Just so impressive! I am honored to have my photograph included.

Community open day is this Saturday, September 30, 2023. There will be live music, pop-up food trucks, and film screenings. Mark your calendar! For more information please visit here and https://deyoungopen2023.artcall.org/pages/web-gallery 

CAPTIONS (top, left to right) Participating artists only day! Overall view images of artists enjoying each others work, milling about. A colorful rainbow entry greets all entering The deYoung museum.

Vertical image: Alberto, intake curator gives me a smile and notes that my photograph is officially in his hands and catalogued as part of the 2023 deYoung Museum Open. I smiled right back. My photograph titled What it Says, a Covid19 slice-of-life was taken while walking on Market Street, during a shopping trip for essentials during the shelter-in-place order.

Next series are images viewed through the gallery app. Enter the image number in the search field to obtain the artist name, title, artist statement and description.

Images 052 and 053: The top image, number 52, Untitled: from the series of Racial Portraits by Mark I. Chester and below image number 53 titled: Happy: A Marin Homeless Encampment by David Santschi.

Image 793: Photograph titled Ghosts from the Past, by Yunfei Ren, selected for the 2023 deYoung Museum Open.

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From my archive, a two-minute portrait of attorney Sarah Weddington, during a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, in Orange County, California. Sarah Weddington is the attorney who argued the landmark case Roe v. Wade.  

Today, Thursday June 18th, 2020 we await a potential,  pending decision from the Untied States Supreme Court regarding, a woman’s right to decide for herself, her most intimate and private rights over her body, and her access to health care services, independent of religious beliefs or constructs.

For so long legislation has imposed and seized a woman’s body to determine what rights, control and access she has or had over her own body – this has/had expressed itself through healthcare choices, pregnancy, birth control or contraception, fertility choices, a right to choose (abortion as an option), or significantly in the employment of Eugenics in the enforced sterilization of women.

For the love of (wo)mankind, it appears that the male driven paradigm has determined both sides of the coin for far too long. No longer. You cannot have it both ways. NO longer should this paradigm decide for women, especially women of color who is fit to give birth, who is mandated to be sterilized,  when or if a woman gives birth or not. It seems to me that enforced sterilization is a method of birth control justified by racist and discriminatory policy.  This white male paradigm has owned our bodies for too long, we are not you chattel.

Image copyright Ana Elisa Fuentes and licensed through Alamy. 

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I was looking over my photos today and rediscovered this image from Haiti. I had split from my group and decided to take my Holga for a walk when I came upon a group of mausoleums. I observed the reddish-brown demarcation on the mausoleum where the floodwaters had risen,…..when from nowhere this young boy, walked into the frame. I was relieved that I was not seeing an apparition. This relief was based on my sense of rawness – from that sense of bearing witness to collective thirst, hunger, and misery. When we had arrived with our supplies we were not rushed upon as people had grown too weak… this was compounded by an eerie sense of quietude – as all the animals had either died in the flood or eaten to survive.

Image © AnaElisaFuentes/Archive

Anasazi

Anasazi ruins near Durango, Colorado. Photographed on Panatomic-X black and white 35mm film, using a red filter to enhance texture. Below the stairs is the word “kiva.” A kiva is the portal from which humans were believed to have emerged. photo copyright anaelisafuentes

Anasazi ruins near Durango, Colorado. Photographed on Panatomic-X black and white 35mm film, using a red filter to enhance texture. Also known as ‘Cliff Palace,’ the dwelling may be visited at Mesa Verde National Park

photo copyright anaelisafuentes

Portrait Sir Ben Kingsley

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From my archive  – portraits of actor, Sir Ben Kingsley, taken in Santa Barbara, California. One of the many reasons I love photography is that I get to meet people from many different walks of life.

However, I must say that this portrait session was a memorable.

Not only was it an honor to photograph this genius of an actor, but he was/is also very genuine, honest, and kind. He is a spiritual man; after all he did portray the Mahatma, in the multi-award winning film Gandhi.

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I’ve been working on my portfolio website, looking through thousands of images; but  more importantly looking at them through different eyes – and different apps. The images posted on my blog were recorded on Kodak Black and White Tri-X film; which I developed myself, and color slide film. For the black and white image, I did a painless adjustment using Priime and instagram.

Words, pictures, images copyright Ana Elisa Fuentes

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

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Portrait of a  veteran who went on an off duty mine sweep.

First Place Award in Portraiture.

Donald Trump – Shame on You!

Photograph copyright Ana Elisa Fuentes

World Refugee Day

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World Refugee Day

Nomadic Woman, Plateau of Tibet

Photograph copyright, Ana Elisa Fuentes

Photographed on film donated by Kodak.

Sea and Sky

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Contemplation. Sea and Sky. Bahamas.

Copyright Ana Elisa Fuentes

Women’s Empowerment Exhibition Media


Recent press of my Women’s Empowerment: A Global Perspective exhibit at the Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County, in honor of Women’s History Month.  Prints from the exhibit are available here. Thank you Soundcliffwritingspa, New York Newsday, PortableExhibit UK & CUNY