Roger Ballen

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• Age: 54
• Roots: Born NYC
• Place of residence/work: Johannesburg South Africa
• Education: Doctor of Philosophy
• I started to photograph: I became interested in photography in my boyhood as a result of my mother working at Magnum Photos
• Cameras I use: Rolleiflex 6001 - 120
• Favorite photo-sensitive material: Ilford Photographic Paper
• I would like to meet: Nobody
• I take photos, because: it's my passion
• Pictures hanging in your apartment: I do not put photographs in my house and prefer paintings or empty walls
• Who does final processing? I work with Silvertone International
• Favorite photographer: I don't have a favourite
• Music, you are "killing" right now: Birds
• Last seen movie: The 7th Seal by Ingmar Bergman
• Book you last read/reading now: A book by Andre Gide
• Why black & white? I feel it is the most pure of the photographic formats

Biography

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Roger Ballen was born in New York in 1950. Since 1982 he has been living and taking photographs in South Africa.

His work is represented in many museums including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Maison Europeene de la Photographie in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In the summer of 2001, Ballen’s book Outland (Phaidon Press) received the Best Photography Book of the Year Award at Photo Espana 2001 and he was a finalist for the Citigroup Private Bank Photography Prize in 2002. Also in 2002, he won the Photographer of the Year Award at the inaugural Rencontres d’Arle Awards.

Ballen’s work has been recently exhibited in numerous museums in Europe and the United States and in December 2002 he had one-man shows in the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego and Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles.

Currently he is working on his sixth book of photography.