Wednesday 2 July 2014

Viviana Peretti | Happy Pride

Photo © Viviana Peretti-All Rights Reserved

I was out of town so this was the second time in a row that I've missed photographing the annual New York City's Gay Pride parade. The neighborhood I live in witnesses the end of the parade, and the cornucopia of characters who participate in it, as well as those who come to watch it, provide incredible images to those photographers who prefer to shun the parade itself, and congregate in the West Village for more close and personal street photography...as I did in 2012.

That said, I'm glad to have seen Viviana Peretti's Happy Pride iPhone photographs of the event, which are much more personal than those I've seen so far of the event.

For those who don't know, June was chosen as LGBT Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall Inn riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969. As a result, many pride events are held during this month to recognize the impact LGBT people have had in the world. The Stonewall is a gay bar at 43 Christopher Street in New York City, and is traditionally where the parade comes to its end.

Viviana Peretti is an Italian freelance photographer based in New York where in 2010 she graduated in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism from the International Center of Photography (ICP).

In 2000, after graduating Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Anthropology from the University of Rome, she moved to Colombia where she specialized in photojournalism and spent nine years working as a freelance photographer.

Viviana has received fellowships and awards from the International Center of Photography, the Joannie M. Chen Fund in New York, CNN, the Fondation Bruni-Sarkozy in France, FotoVisura, the University of Salamanca, the Spanish Embassy in Colombia, the Photo Museum in Bogota, and the Colombian Ministry of Culture. In 2010 she has been selected for the Eddie Adams Workshop, Barnstorm XXIII. In 2013-2014 Viviana has been an Artist-in-Residence at L’École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (ENSP) in Arles, France.

Her work has been published in a number of international media outlets including The New York Times, Newsweek, BBC, CNN, L'Oeil de la Photographie, New York Magazine, Le Journal de la Photographie, and L'Espresso.

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