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Portraits of Struggle
Photography by Orin Langelle
Photos from 1972-2023
North and South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, Asia
About the Book
Portraits of Struggle is a new book by award-winning photojournalist and documentary photographer Orin Langelle, co-founder of Global Justice Ecology Project.
Portraits Of Struggle highlights Orin Langelle’s captivating images documenting interconnected global struggles for environmental, social, and economic justice across six continents and five decades. This work took him to cities and jungles, protests and occupations across the globe.
Forward by Nnimmo Bassey, Nigerian poet, activist and author.
Portraits Of Struggle is published by GJEP on their 20th anniversary with support from Dan Higgins, The Photo Lounge, Vermont.
Orin Langelle
Co-founder of Global Justice Ecology Project,
Award-winning photojournalist and documentary photographer
Orin Langelle’s passion for activism began was when he was a high school student in Missouri in 1969 standing up against the Vietnam War. It was through his anti-war work that he got involved in photojournalism. He honed his photographic skills at the International Center of Photography in New York City, and with the guidance of Cornell Capa, understood the meaning of concerned photography.
Langelle says,
“I approach my role as a concerned photographer by not merely documenting struggle, but by being an active part of the struggle. This has enabled me to garner the trust of many of the subjects I have documented, allowing me access that would not have been possible otherwise. In this way, I have been able to expose the truth that is so often hidden. I believe using my photographs to shine a light on peoples’ struggles helps empower those striving for justice because they know they are not alone.
“My photographs are not merely a chronicling of these struggles, however, but a call out to inspire new generations to participate in the making of a new history.
“The concerned photographer finds much in the present unacceptable which he tries to alter. Our goal is simply to let the world also know why it is unacceptable”
– Cornell Capa (1918-2008).
“Orin Langelle’s unique work documents hidden and forgotten histories of the resistance against the war on the planet and the majority of its population. His images provide glimpses of possibilities– when ordinary people act collectively to fight imperialism, war and colonialism, and confront ecological devastation, to build a different world. Langelle’s inspiring photography simultaneously zooms in on the soul of the struggle, and zooms out to take us beyond the image in front of us, willing us to address the root causes at the heart of the matter, rather than offer band-aid solutions.”
Aziz Choudry, scholar, activist and founding Board Member, Global Justice Ecology Project (1966-2021)
Portraits of Struggle has been featured in:
