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The Month of Photography Los Angeles (MOPLA)  celebrates photography by engaging the photo and art community with exhibitions, discussions, out door projections and myriad other photo-related events. Once again, the month-long celebration kicks off at Bergamot Station on Saturday night, April 3 with Opening Night hosted by Frank Pictures Gallery and Robert Berman Galleries and including a super-sized outdoor projection of Los Angeles Times images. The Lucie Foundation, whose mission is to honor master photographers, discover and cultivate emerging talent and promote the appreciation of photography worldwide, is committed to growing MOPLA into a signature event, in the same vein as The Lucie Awards,  now in its eighth year.  The Lucie Awards has found a permanent place in the vernacular of the photography world.

With last year’s opening night attendance of nearly 1000 supporters, the second installment of MOPLA promises to delight the photo community of Los Angeles. Programming will include the launch of Pro’jekt LA, the outdoor projection component of MOPLA; Double Take, the curated visual storytelling presentation from Los Angeles Times photographers; traditional exhibitions in our host galleries featuring the work of David Hume Kennerly (Frank Pictures), Jeff Charbonneau + Eliza French (Robert Berman Gallery), “Another Nude Show” and the XTO Image Awards (Robert Berman Gallery). Special highlights will also include the debut of a restored motor home featuring “Group SC - An Intimate View of Southern California” through the eyes of 50 photographers. Award-winning installation artist Tiffany Trenda will perform “Entropy” and guests will be treated to a photo booth take-away picture generously provided by Samy’s Camera.  MOPLA Co-Founders Hossein Farmani and Cat Jimenez are pleased to be able to organize Los Angeles’ photography community under the umbrella of MOPLA.   Both Farmani and Jimenez stated, “…from Santa Monica to North East Los Angeles, we are privileged to boast one of the densest populations of visual artists.  MOPLA is the platform to showcase these creative individuals and organize on their behalf.”
 
Pro’jekt 1, MEXLA: Our Neighbor Mexico - Through the Eyes of Jeff Antebi, Livia Corona and Marc Smith.
Jeff Antebi is best known for his blending of art photography and photojournalism, especially in wars and conflict areas. These include Afghanistan and Haiti as well as murderous drug cartels in Juarez, illegal squatter slums in Brazil, Roma gypsy refugees and the insurgency in South Thailand. He was the first photographer to be represented at the renowned StolenSpace Gallery in London. NPR, Rolling Stone and GOOD to name a few have featured his work. www.jeffantebi.com
 
Livia Corona's field of interest is in what people do, how they interact with their environment, how they tune it in to fit their needs, against all odds. She recently was selected as a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow for her photography project “Two Million Homes for Mexico”. Corona’s work for this effort centers on the surge of mass-scale neighborhood developments in Mexico, exploring their role in the ongoing transformation of the ecological, social and cultural landscape of the nation and its citizenry. www.liviacorona.com
 
Marc Eugene Smith attended art school at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia before he was approached by the Disney Studios to work as an artist on feature films. He developed a deep fascination of the people and the stories they tell with just there body language. One fateful day, as his girlfriend dug though her purse for a piece of gum, she handed him her camera to hold. Just then, a 400-pound man carrying a 2-pound dog rounded the corner. He used the camera, and a passion was born.
 
Los Angeles Times’ Double Take – will take an intriguing look, or re-look, at the photographs of our lives -- images that were made to tell a story of a place, person or time in the fleeting moments of daily photojournalism.  The Los Angeles Times’ award-winning photography staff is a leader in the field of storytelling.  Every day, Times’ photographers encounter something different, capturing images of war, breaking news, politics, daily life, sports, business, Hollywood and celebrities. They do it all to cover the world we live in, record history and bring the stories to you.
 
Exhibitions:
Frank Pictures features David Hume Kennerly who has been shooting on the front lines of history for more than 40 years. At 25 he won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for his photos of the Vietnam War, and two years later was appointed President Gerald R. Ford’s personal photographer. Most recently he produced Barack Obama: The Official Barack Obama Inaugural Book, with Bob McNeely, who was President Clinton’s official White House photographer.  This is his Vernissage, catch it before it’s gone!
 
Robert Berman Gallery hosts Jeff Charbonneau + Eliza French. Jeff Charbonneau and Eliza French have been working together since 2004, when a mutual interest in the photographic medium brought them together.  Their performance-based images are created through a partnership from conception to finish, and have been exhibited in group shows and international art fairs since 2006.   The artists are currently represented by Robert Berman Gallery at Bergamot Station, Santa Monica.  “Another Nude Show” and “XTO Image Awards” Winners’ exhibition will also be displayed in his second gallery at 2525 Michigan Avenue, D5, Santa Monica. Winners were chosen from among more than 1,000 pieces of work submitted from 53 countries. The competition was aimed to acknowledge and promote visual artists whose work is primarily inspired by the human form. www.x.to

GroupSC 2009 offers a photo based, multi-media hub that will travel to various event sites during the month of April. This restored motor home will display the work of 50 Los Angeles-based photographers who share their stories about their neighborhoods creating “An Intimate View of Southern California”. Group SC has documented their neighbors and inviting you to be a part of the adventure. Santa Ynez is the North West Boundary, San Diego, the South West Boundary, Anza Borrego, the South East Boundary, and Apple Valley the North East Boundary.  Under the direction of Helen K. Garber and in collaboration with MINARC/Gallery Skaart, it will have its’ inaugural installation debut during the opening night festivities.

Special Highlights Include:
A performance of Entropy by video installation artist Tiffany Trenda. Tiffany Trenda's work is an investigation of how we are defined and redefined through the integration of technology. She questions how the machine has become an intrinsic part of the body and how the inorganic fused with the organic is a collage of time and space. Her central process is to take technology (LCDs, video projectors, cameras, etc.) and create a digital environment with an embodied performance that simulates the human psyche inside a nostalgic digital world.