Ron Haviv Email & Phone Number

VII is a storied photo agency founded a few days before 9/11 to challenge the convergence in the photography business when the trend for giant companies swallowing smaller independent agencies started. VII went small and photographer-owned, believing in the power and energy of collective effort when everyone else seemed to be going big and corporate. VII remains a disruptive and innovative business unafraid to swim against the prevailing currents.VII has turned its gaze far from the frontline of its foundation. It has earned a reputation for uncompromising photography immersed in the great issues of today. VII photographers and filmmakers are as likely to be found focusing on race, gender and identity as they are on migration or conflict. Amplifying local voices and addressing the complex political, environmental, and social questions facing families everywhere, VII places great value in the power of images to tell important stories. The members of VII are motivated by issues and are proud to elevate those issues above the cult of the image or the cult of the photographer.www.viiphoto.com

The VII Foundation is an independent, charitable media and education non-profit organization. It was founded by Ron Haviv and Gary Knight in 2001 when they recognized that media funding for long term projects was diminishing. In order to continue to produce work that addressed complex social, economic and human rights issues they started the Foundation as an independent non-profit structure to secure support for continuing documentary practice and education.www.theviifoundation.org

New York, United States

New York

The Lost Rolls America project opens the magical reencounter with the past to anyone who possesses unprocessed film rolls. Contributors provide one roll of film, which is developed and scanned free of charge by FUJIFILM North America Corporation, and made available back to them. Participants then choose one image and, in a small write-up, explore the meaning of the photo and the significance of re-viewing a piece of their personal, sometimes lost past. Ultimately, these observations offer points of identification, through descriptions of similar memories or associations, for other viewers of this collective experience.Lost Rolls America ensures the creation of a national archive of images from the public’s lost rolls, and acts as a digital repository of visual memories living on PhotoShelter’s unique platform. This is a form of collective memory that prioritizes the role of photos in constructing our personal and shared pasts. In revisiting the past, this project also encourages contemplation of how the present and future will be remembered: Which artifacts do we use to record and remember history? How do these artifacts evolve with time? In what ways has the shift from analog film to digital impacted our relation to our own personal memories?The inspiration for this national project grows from a book by award-winning photojournalist Ron Haviv, who processed over 200 rolls of his own undeveloped analog film that had been put aside and forgotten over the years. Those images, some dating back over two decades, were collected in his book The Lost Rolls, which feature moments from Haviv’s professional career, like political events and historical crises, as well as personal figures from the photographer’s own life. The photographs bear evidence of light leaks, pooling dye, mold, and other vagaries of time, and taken together, present a mesmerizing visual display of Haviv’s once-lost past.www.lostrollsamerica.com