Over the past forty years I have developed an impressive client list that has included: The Ford Foundation; United Way Worldwide; NFL Partnerships; The Commonwealth Fund; UNICEF: Ethiopia - New York - Swaziland; World Food Program, Sénégal; Oxfam; Rockefeller Bros. Fund; The Carnegie Corporation; The World Economic Forum, Addis Ababa; Towers Perrin; Young and Rubicam; McCann Erikson; European PressPhoto Agency; The New York Times; and a host of magazines and record labels. May I help you?
My clients receive fully edited, print / web ready files in any digital format upon completion. Depending on the duration of the assignment, my turnaround time is typically 48 hours. I work with a Pentax Medium format camera, Leica M9, and a few full-frame Canons. Lighting kits will vary according to the specifications.
I learned photography the old-fashioned way - with a piece of black fabric over my head as I focused a 4x5" view camera upside down. My hands smelled of sodium sulphite as I developed B/W prints and negatives in my kitchen at midnight. I can't what kind of photographer I would be today without that in-depth training.
Digital photography does not make anyone a better photographer just as Microsoft Word doesn't make anyone a better writer. It merely speeded up the editing process. And there is a downside to that - a lack of editing acumen. If you've ever heard anyone say we can fix it in photoshop, it means they couldn't get it right during the shoot.
In 2001 my first book, "Brooklyn Kings" was published. Since then, I have learned to design and composite my own independent projects. It is still a relaxing pleasure in 2022 to sit down with a good book. Story-telling is a time-honored process. And I think I'm pretty good at it.
My name is Martin Dixon and I am photographer from New York City. As the author of "Brooklyn Kings: New York City's Black Bikers", "The Kingdom of Original Man: Addis Ababa", "Dakar Noir", "Small World", and "The MAAFA Suite." I graduated from The Cooper Union (BFA) and The University of Michgan (MFA) programs. Since 1991 I have made a career of delivering high quality, visually stunning images. Photography is an art form and I believe in the influence of powerful images. It was the images of Life Magazine photographers in the late 1960's that made the world aware of the loss of life in the Vietnam conflict. Images of courage mobilized youths from Tunisia to Ethiopia to stand up to government oppression. Photographs must speak to us or they just become mere depictions. When your brand identity is on the line, and the file must make it to press, edited and print/web ready, you need a professional who is cool under pressure. So let me put your mind to rest. I am that professional. As I tell my assistants all the time, "It's not what you do when everything is going well, it's what you do when things go wrong. If you want sunshine, prepare for rain."
The extended photo essay is probably the hardest body of work to produce - you never know when you're finsihed. It would be very easy to just sit back and ride out into the sunset. But there is so much more I want to do and see.
My graduate thesis for the Univeristy of Michigan was a series called 'The Nation State.' It was a visual analysis of extreme nationalism and who in reality represent authentic American values. I used many motifs from recent history such as the Black Panther Party and other revolutionary movements.
I spent two years in Ethiopia one night. Things got so bad I was sending encrypted files back home via Fed-Ex. It turns out that everything I had photographed and shared was literally illegal according to the government. Local journalists we being rounded up and sent to prison to be re-educated.
This is my second rodeo, we were here in 2005. Time and distance offer us a unique perspective. As Dakar grows and expands, the streets become smaller and smaller. The traffic longer and later. History will show that Sénégal was ahead of the curve. But violent neighbors lower the curve.