Stanley Greene & Friends Launch Noor Photoagency

Stanley Greene is one of the craziest people I know. He's usually all in black leather in the dead of summer, toting a kilo of jewelry, sporting strange hats or a newly razed and shiny head and is often just off the plane after a month photographing a war zone. (Photo © Marion Mozzi)

Greene, who won the prestigious Eugene Smith Award, has long worked for the Paris photoagency VU, but has now launched his own – NOOR – with eight other high-octane award-winning photographers: Samantha Appleton (United States), Jodi Bieber (South Africa), Philip Blenkinsop (Australia), Pep Bonet (Spain), Jan Grarup (Denmark), Yuri Kozyrev (Russia), Kadir van Lohuizen (The Netherlands) and Francesco Zizola (Italy). The group has a gritty black and and white outlook on the world. These will not be pretty pictures, but they will be in your face. "Yeah," says Stanley. "There's still a lot of death out there."

I met Stanley years ago when he needed someone to scribble some text about a chemical pollution story for The New York Times Magazine. That city, Dzerzhinsk, "wasn't even on official maps, planes weren't allowed to fly over it and people lived off of gnarled carrots and roots from their fields opposite the 'White Lake' – a toxic pond the size of the 4th arrondisdement," says Stanley. Originally from Harlem, he's more at home getting shot at in the mountains outside of Grozny (where bullets have actually grazed his ass). Over the years my American friend would bop in and out of Paris in between trips to Kabul, Baghdad, New Orleans, Chechnya (his best known work), Haiti or the latest global disaster and we always got together for a writing session (applications, captions, rereading the manuscript for his book, Open Wound – now published by Trolley Press, left) or a drink and a chat. Or when he asked Lalande to adjust the color on the Chechen solider (below, right) and produce a large print (75 x 56 cm) for an exhibition here in Paris. Tech wizard Robert Ruscoe worked for several hours with Stanley to get the skin tones just right.

Noor's official launch is Thursday evening, 6 September at Visa Pour L’Image photojournalism festival in Perpignan this and next week, during a screening of work of the member photographers.

LALANDE DIGITAL ART PRESS is happy and eager to work with professional photographers producing limited-edition, signed prints. We use a variety of paper and canvas supports and produce high-quality prints for exhibitions. Contact Lalande to discuss your projects.