Legendary snapper Martha Cooper will be photographing the 2009 Red Bull BC One Event at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom on November 18.
Her career began when she was a photography intern at National Geographic in the 1960s, and from there she went on to be a staff photographer at the New York Post in the 1970s. It was while she was at the Post that Martha made her name when she began to document the New York graffiti scene in the late '70s and early '80s. Originally drawn to taking pictures of the children in her neighbourhood, it was through this that she met the main characters behind the graffiti, and from there on she began a lifelong obsession with the culture.
Donald White, or 'Dondi', a graffiti writer from east New York, was one of the main figureheads of the scene, and Martha became a frontline reporter and was nicknamed Kodakgirl by the city’s B-boys and B-girls. Her 1984 book Subway Art – a collaboration with film-maker Henry Chalfant – captured graffiti’s golden years, and went on to sell half a million copies, becoming the movement’s bible. An updated, large-format 25th-anniversary edition, was published by Thames & Hudson earlier this year.
She continues to live in Manhattan and is the Director of Photography at City Lore, the New York Center for Urban Folk Culture. She also has a website – www.kodakgirl.com – which champions other female photographers, as well as having further examples of her work at www.nycitysnaps.com
To keep up to date with developments on BC One, keep an eye on the www.redbullbcone.com site.
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