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John Edwin Mason

I teach African history and the history of photography at the University of Virginia.

Interests: jazz, documentary photography, carnival in cape town, racing and diversity, motor sports and diversity, and classical music.

Recent Activity

The ADRL U.S. Drags VI at Virginia Motorsports Park

Poking around in the nooks and crannies of American car culture with a camera in my hand... God help me, but that's my idea of fun. I like the people, the cars, and the race tracks (and other gathering spots) that are central to the culture. And I especially like... Continue reading

Posted Jun 12, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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VWs Gone Wild: Bug Out 73 at Virginia Motorsports Park, Part 1

I made a couple of promises to myself last January. First, I swore to have more fun hanging out at racetracks making pictures. Second, I was going to blog on a regular basis. I'm batting .500. I'm not complaining. I haven't been blogging, but I've sure enough been hanging. Hanging... Continue reading

Posted Jun 12, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Racing Photography

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Crazy for VWs: Bug Out 73 at Virginia Motorsports Park

I spent last Sunday in the company of about 1,000 crazy people. Or, to put it another way, I spent last Sunday with a bunch of folks just like me -- folks who don't think it's strange that seven out of the 12 cars I've owned have been VWs. They... Continue reading

Posted May 28, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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Wayne Miller, Photographer: 1918-2013

Wayne Miller passed away, yesterday, and with him went one of our last links to the that great company of mid-twentieth-century great American social documentary photographers. He was less well known (and a generation or two younger) than the likes of Dorothea Lange, W. Eugene Smith, and Gordon Parks, but... Continue reading

Posted May 23, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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Funky Friday: Gordon Parks, "Symphony for Shafted Souls"

Here's a post I never expected to write -- Funky Friday and Gordon Parks. Until a couple of days ago, I would have told you that it was more likely that Barry Manilow would show up on a Friday than Gordon Parks. As much as I admire him as a... Continue reading

Posted May 17, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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John Gutmann: The Photographer & the Automobile

It's no secret that I like cars. More precisely, I'm endlessly fascinated by car culture, especially in America. I've even got another blog that's all about cars and motorsports. A couple of days ago, I stumbled across this terrific video about an immigrant photographer and American automobiles. It's a short... Continue reading

Posted May 15, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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The Art & Science of Shooting 4-Wide Drag Racing

Four-wide drag racing at zMAX Dragway... It's been around for a few years now, and it's still something that's likely to start an argument. Some fans like it; others think it's a gimmick. Photographers, on the other hand, generally don't argue about four-wide because most of them think the same... Continue reading

Posted May 15, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Racing Photography

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Funky Friday: DJ Li'l Miss Dolemite, Part 2

This is the second time I've had the honor and privilege of featuring the fun and fabulous Li'l Miss Dolemite on Funky Friday. I love the mixes that she puts together -- great grooves with sprinkling of the absurd. "Up in Flames (What-a-Gas)" is especially trippy. Enjoy. Li'l Miss. * Continue reading

Posted May 3, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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David Goldblatt: ICP Cornell Capa Lifetime Achievement Award, 2013

There's no such thing as "the greatest photographer in the world," but, if there were, it would be David Goldblatt. Goldblatt is also something of a paradox. How is it that someone who has been honored so often by so many is still relatively unknown outside of his native South... Continue reading

Posted Apr 30, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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ChumpCar World Series at VIR, 30 March 2013, Part 2

Three weekends ago, I got up at the crack of dawn to drive down to Virginia International Raceway [VIR] for the ChumpCar endurance race. It was my first race of the season, and it was just what I needed. Wacky teams and cartoon-like cars that were improbably fast. Well, some... Continue reading

Posted Apr 24, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Racing Photography

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The New African Photography: A Documentary in Six Parts

"Don't photograph what you see, photograph what you feel." --Emeka Okereke * The New African Photography is bad for you. Let me explain. If I say the word "documentary" to my African history students at the University of Virginia, most will want to run screaming from the room. As far... Continue reading

Posted Apr 24, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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"Africa Let's Go Crazy": Coke's Other Africa

No one is crazier than Africans, because it's crazy to be kind. That's the premise behind Africa Let's Go Crazy, Coke's new advertising campaign across most of the continent. It's geared, Coke says, "towards inspiring and celebrating individuals who spread happiness on the continent by performing random acts of kindness... Continue reading

Posted Apr 21, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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Stanley Greene: Remembering Chechnya

The suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, have been identified as ethnic Chechens with ties to that region of Russian. At this point, no one other than the two young men can say what motivated them. Their acts (if, in fact, they are guilty) may have... Continue reading

Posted Apr 19, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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Bunny Burkett and the 48th Annual Easter Sunday Funny Car Show, Eastside Speedway

For the last decade or so -- the amount of time that I've been documenting the quirkier ins and outs of American car culture -- Easter Sundays have found me impaled on the horns of a dilemma. (Ouch! is right.) Do I go to church to praise the Risen Lord... Continue reading

Posted Apr 14, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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Bunny Burkett: The 48th Annual Easter Sunday Funny Car Show, Eastside Speedway, 2013

For the last 48 years, the good folks at Eastside Speedway, in Waynesboro, Virginia, have celebrated Easter Sunday with a carnival of tire smoke and speed. And for most of those years, Bunny Burkett -- the legendary Bunny Burkett -- has been the main attraction. Bunny has been drag racing... Continue reading

Posted Apr 14, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Racing Photography

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ChumpCar World Series at VIR, 30 March 2013

I spent a warm, sunny Saturday photographing the ChumpCar World Series at Virginia International Raceway [VIR]. It was a lot of fun. VIR is beautiful. The people were friendly. And ChumpCar is a hoot -- racers have to build fast, safe, durable machines that can be worth no more than... Continue reading

Posted Mar 31, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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ChumpCar World Series at VIR, 30 March 2013

It's been over a year since I posted something new on this blog. In blogging terms, that's a very long time. The problem is not what I've been doing, although my day job has its stresses and strains. No, the problem is what I haven't been doing. My cameras and... Continue reading

Posted Mar 31, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Racing Photography

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Chinua Achebe, 1930-2013

I was very sad to hear that Chinua Achebe died yesterday. I had never met him, but it was a bit like losing a friend. Achebe was one of my favorite novelists. Re-reading his books is always a pleasure. It's something I do at least once a year because I... Continue reading

Posted Mar 22, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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Gordon Parks/Life Magazine: American Teenagers in Paris, 1952

Gordon Parks was a serious man. His claim to greatness as a photographer and essayist rests on the work that he did for Life magazine, between 1948 and 1971, on some of the most pressing issues facing the nation and the world, especially poverty and racial injustice. But Parks had... Continue reading

Posted Mar 20, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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Funky Friday: Isaac Hayes, Gordon Parks & "Shaft"

Bringing together three of my favorite things this Funky Friday: Isaac Hayes, Gordon Parks, and Shaft. Hayes was, of course, one of the legendary composers and performers of the Soul era. Parks, in the '50s, '60s, and well into the '70s, was one of the best known photographers in America.... Continue reading

Posted Mar 15, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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Gordon Parks' "Harlem Family" Revisited

"A Harlem Family" was one of the most powerful photo-essays that Life magazine ever published. Gordon Parks' words and photos combined to pack a terrific punch. When the essay appeared in March 1968, it was an immediate journalistic triumph. That triumph quickly became a tragedy, in ways that I described... Continue reading

Posted Mar 5, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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Look3, the Festival of the Photograph, 2013: On the Verge of Greatness

Look3, The Festival of the Photograph, has just announced its lineup of participating artists for 2013, and it's a stunner -- Carrie Mae Weems, Susan Meiselas, Gregory Crewdson, Josef Koudelka, Richard Misrach, and more. Each of these men and women has had a long and distinguished career, and they've all... Continue reading

Posted Feb 15, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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Magnum's Morbid Symptoms

File this under "WTF were you thinking, prestigious Magnum photo agency?" [Edit, 22 February 2013: This, I now know, is the wrong question. Or, at least, the wrong first question. CNN initiated "War and Fashion," not Magnum. It was CNN's idea. See the comments below from Magnum photographers.] In what... Continue reading

Posted Feb 12, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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Cristina de Middel and the Signifying Afronaut

...signifying is a "technique of indirect argument or persuasion," "a language of implication," "to imply, goad, beg, boast, by indirect verbal or gestural means." "...signifying... the language of trickery." --Henry Louis Gates quoting Roger D. Abrahams in "The 'Blackness of Blackness': A Critique of the Sign and the Signifying Monkey."... Continue reading

Posted Jan 30, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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WTF America? Higher Education Edition

I found this poster via my friend Stan Banos, who writes the fine Reciprocity Failure blog. It really doesn't need an introduction. Click directly on the poster to see an even larger version. * * * You can find the poster and many more good things on Occupy* Poster's tumblr. Continue reading

Posted Jan 21, 2013 at John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

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