ROBIN BOWMAN

Robin Bowman, a W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fellow, has been a freelance photojournalist for the last 36 years, specializing in portrait and documentary photography. A concerned photographer acting as witness to the human condition in crisis and its aftermath, Bowman’s work has taken her around the world, including Mexico, Haiti, Israel, Bosnia, Finland, Peru, Nepal, Tanzania, Rwanda and Cuba, to cover stories that have appeared in international publications such as The New Yorker, Life, People, Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, Stern, Fortune, The New York Times Magazine, and Sports Illustrated. She has been widely exhibited and is part of many collections, including the International Polaroid Collection, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Her book projects include two presidential Inaugural committee books, and the esteemed A Day in The Life book series, specifically “A Day in the Life of the US Armed Forces”, and “A Day in the Life of the American Woman”.

“It’s Complicated: The American Teenager” (Umbrage Editions, Nov. 2007) is the culmination of five years criss-crossing the country to produce 419 “collaborative portraits” charting the coming of age of the largest generation in U.S. history. The entire collection of portraits and transcripts was purchased by the New York Public Library for its permanent collection, and was compared to the Depression Era documentary work of the legendary WPA and FSA by the NYPL’s Curator of Photography. Bowman has been honored with two International Photography Awards for the “It’s Complicated” project, and the book won the Gold Medal winner for Best Photography Book, an Independent Publisher Book Awards, an award for Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults (YALSA), and the Nautilus Awards Silver Medal. Bowman received an Audience Participation Grant from the Open Society Foundation.

While shooting “It’s Complicated: The American Teenager”, Bowman headed the photography department at Friends Seminary in Manhattan. Now, highlighting the issues raised by the project as a springboard, Bowman gives presentations to promote tolerance and social awareness for students and teachers. When a speaker at the Ideas Boston conference, Robin Bowman stated that her project “underscores the similarity and diversity that make up this country and this generation, and reminds all of us that people are not necessarily who they appear to be.” Bowman believes, “now is a crucial time to continue the conversation about inclusion, power, and who we are as a nation.”