Taryn Simon: Photographer

I truly admire the work of Taryn Simon.  She chooses intense subject matters and executes them flawlessly with a large format camera.  This video she explains her work for TED / Ideas worth spreading.  With An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, Taryn Simon goes on the hunt for America’s dirty secrets. Gaining entrance to places as diverse as a white tiger breeding facility, the JFK Airport quarantine area, abortion clinics and virus-research labs, Simon shows the things that are integral to America’s foundation, mythology and daily functioning, but remain inaccessible or unknown to a public audience. In her earlier book, The Innocents, she shot portraits of more than 80 wrongly accused death-row inmates who were exonerated by DNA testing, and investigated photography’s role in that process.