Sunday Showcase: Gregory Halpern
Sunday Showcase shows a collection of work from one photographer- from a startup to an established shooter- each Sunday. Ideally, it will be a nice place to visit, with coffee in hand on Sunday mornings, possibly as you nurse a hangover.
This week showcases features Gregory Halpern’s body of work, Living Wage Campaign, in its entirety, as well as a selection of images from a second body of work, Omaha Sketchbook.
Gregory writes of Living Wage Campaign, “Between 1994 and 2001, the endowment of Harvard University tripled, making the school the wealthiest non-profit in the world, second only to the Vatican. In the same years, Harvard heavily outsourced many service jobs to lower-paying companies, thus resulting in average wage cuts of 30% for the schools’ custodians, food-workers and security guards. In response, I got involved with a student group called the Harvard Living Wage Campaign and I began this project. My goal was to publicize the situation, to share the stories of a number of service-workers I had come to know, and to raise questions about the prevailing class-structure at Harvard and on college campuses in general.”
If you have questions for Gregory about his work, please feel free to leave a comment for him to respond to.
From Gregory’s Omaha Sketchbook series (available for purchase from J+L books here):
Fantastic work. Really great to see a substantial selection from Living Wage Campaign, and Omaha Sketchbook is stunning. Too much chocolate? Perhaps, but I can’t get enough of this Halpern dude.
The Harvad photos paired with the captions are incredible. I wish I had done something like this in college.
[...] If you’re not aware of the work of Gregory Halpern (which I wasn’t until a week ago), then please, please, please spend some time reading Asim Rafiqui’s account of his work here, and then spend some time with the photographs here. [...]
I love that Mr. Halpern actually used his photography to help bring about change for those that were less fortunate than him. Props to you Mr. Halpern. Mad props.
beautiful, well done, inspiring. Words and pictures live and work together and have a real meaning. And also a versatile photographer. Great!