LATFILEphotographyGALLERY is pleased to present PRESS PASS, which will open on Friday, February 14th and run through Friday, March 14th. The show will feature the work of award winning photojournalists Scott Strazzante and Jon Lowenstein, as well as Vaughn Sills, author/photographer of the book “One Family”. In the project room, NIGHTLIFE, will highlight the work of Chicago celebrity photographer Philin’ Phlash. In addition, a small collection of Aron Packer’s crime-photo collection will be shown for sale under the title CRIMINAL POSSESSION.

This exhibition marks the first showing of photojournalism and documentary photography by the gallery, who for its nearly three years of operation, has consistently shown fine art photography, video and photo-based art. The appeal of these photographers is that they are not only extraordinary documentarists whose photographic technique is superb, but that the stories they have chosen to portray are woven into a fabric of truth and beauty. These are photographers who are able to see the larger picture; artists who are gifted at capturing the interior of the human heart.

Scott Strazzante has been a staff photographer at the Chicago Tribune since October, 2001. Prior to that, Strazzante was employed at The Herald News in Joliet, Illinois (1998-2001) and at the Daily Southtown in Chicago(1987-1998). While in Joliet, Strazzante earned the title of 2000 National Newspaper Photographer of the Year from the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) and the Missouri School of Journalism. In 2000, Strazzante also won Photographer of the Year awards from the Southern Short Course in News Photography, Region 5 of the NPPA (for the second year in a row) and the Illinois Press Photographers Association (IPPA).

In May of 2000, Strazzante was honored at the United Nations in New York City by the International Photo Council for his contribution to photojournalism. In 1996, Strazzante was presented the Outstanding Young Alumni Award by Ripon College, his alma mater, where in 1986 he graduated cum laude with a double major in Art and Business Management. Strazzante is a past Director and Associate Director of the NPPA's Region 5 and is the current President of the IPPA. Strazzante lives in Frankfort, Illinois with his children Betsy,7, and Cameron,5.

Jon Lowenstein was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. He attended the University of Iowa, spending the fall semester of 1992 in San Sebastian, Spain, and graduated with a degree in English in 1993. He participated in Barnstorm 7:The Eddie Adams Photographic Workshop in 1994 and then interned at The Bakersfield Californian, The Dispatch of Moline, and the Arizona Republic. From 1997-99 he worked for Copley Chicago Newspapers.

Lowenstein has been a documentary photographer for more than ten years and although he is still unsure whether documentary photojournalism effects real social change, he does hope that people can learn from viewing his pictures. In December 1999, he was chosen as one of eight staff photographers for the multi-million dollar not-for-profit CITY 2000 (Chicago In The Year 2000) project, during which time he started an ongoing project focusing on Mexican day laborers in Chicago. He has been the recipient of many awards, including the 1998 National Press Photographers Association Region 5 Photographer of the Year Award, the 58th Missouri Pictures of the Year Magazine Photographer of the Year Award and Fuji Community Awareness Award. He was also recently a finalist for the Gordon Parks Photo Competition and the International Fund for Documentary Photography.

Lowenstein’s work has appeared in Time, US News and World Report, Fortune, Elle, The New York Times and Chicago Magazine, among others. Lowenstein has been a faculty member of Western Kentucky’s Mountain Workshop and the Southern Short Course. Recently, Lowenstein completed work on his first book, which explored the lives of developmentally disabled people in Illinois. He currently teaches two classes a week and has been commissioned to photograph a book about Grant’s Crossing, a neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. Jon lives in Chicago.

Boston-based photographer Vaughn Sills will be showing and speaking about photographs from her book "One Family. The book, which bridges the gap between documentary and portrait photography, chronicles the complex lives of the Toole family in rural Georgia over a 20 year period. Sills, a professor of photography at Simmons College in Boston, has exhibited her work nationally and been awarded grants by The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities and the Polaroid Foundation through the New England Foundation for the Arts. Photos from" One Family" can be viewed at the Polaroid Artists Studio. (http://www.polaroid.com/studio/exhibit/sills/index.jsp)

Born in Boston, Chicago photographer Philin’ Phlash has become an icon in his own right, and can be seen on almost any given night, dressed in 40’s film noir style, complete with fedora and shooting the rich and famous. Far beyond being a mere paparazzi, Phlash is well-known for his portrayal of the club scene, and all manner of creatures of the night. His candid and celebrity portraits will cover the walls of our project room from floor to ceiling

Chicago gallerist Aron Packer has been collecting crime and ‘perp walk’ photos for about five of the fifteen years he’s been in the gallery business. Flea Markets and antique fairs have been raided by Packer for these photos he considers an affordable collectible. This is the first time Packer has offered portion of his collection for sale.