Will Steacy Explained

Will Steacy (born 1980) is an American writer and photographer based in New York City. His work is held in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago.

Life and work

Steacy "descended from five generations of newspaper men. His great-great-great-grandfather started the Evening Dispatch in York, Pa., in 1876 and his father was an editor for The Philadelphia Inquirer."^[1] He received his BFA from the Tisch School of the Arts, at New York University in 2003.^[2] Before becoming a professional photographer, he worked as a union laborer.^[3]

Sean O'Hagan in The Observer described Steacy's Down these Mean Streets (2012) as "a merging of his own photographs with newspaper clippings, journal entries and various found material pertaining to the long death of the American dream, from Reaganomics in the 1980s to the current economic recession."^[4]

In 2011 he photographed paper money, "removed from circulation but not yet destroyed, and photographed them with a large-format film camera".^[5]

For five years from 2009, Steacy documented the struggle and decline of The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper, published as a book, Deadline (2016), and as a tribute newspaper.^{[6] [7] [8] [9] [10]}

Publications

Publications by Steacy

• Photographs Not Taken: A Collection of Photographers' Essays. Chapel Hill, NC: Daylight, 2012. Second revised edition. .^[11] With an introduction by Lyle Rexer and essays by Dave Anderson, Timothy Archibald, Roger Ballen, Thomas Bangsted, Juliana Beasley, Nina Berman, Elinor Carucci, Kelli Connell, Paul D'Amato, Tim Davis, KayLynn Deveney, Doug DuBois, Rian Dundon, Amy Elkins, Jim Goldberg, Emmet Gowin, Gregory Halpern, Tim Hetherington, Todd Hido, Rob Hornstra, Eirik Johnson, Chris Jordan, Nadav Kander, Ed Kashi, Misty Keasler, Lisa Kereszi, Erika Larsen, Shane Lavalette, Deana Lawson, Joshua Lutz, David Maisel, Mary Ellen Mark, Laura McPhee, Michael Meads, Andrew Moore, Richard Mosse, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Laurel Nakadate, Ed Panar, Christian Patterson, Andrew Phelps, Sylvia Plachy, Mark Power, Peter Riesett, Simon Roberts, Joseph Rodriguez, Stefan Ruiz, Matt Salacuse, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Aaron Schuman, Jamel Shabazz, Alec Soth, Amy Stein, Mark Steinmetz, Joni Sternbach, Hank Willis Thomas, Brian Ulrich, Peter van Agtmael, Massimo Vitali, Hiroshi Watanabe, Alex Webb, and Rebecca Norris Webb.
• Down These Mean Streets. Zürich: B.frank, 2012. Photographs by Steacy with newspaper clippings, journal entries and various found material. . Edition of 400 copies.
• Deadline. Vol. 1. Zürich: B.frank, 2015. Photographs by Steacy and essays by various journalists. . Newspaper format.
• Deadline. Vol. 2. Zürich: B.frank, 2016. Photographs by Steacy and essays by various journalists. .^{[12] [13] [14]}

Publications with contributions by Steacy

• The Photographer’s Playbook: 307 Assignments and Ideas. New York: Aperture, 2014. . Edited by Gregory Halpern and Jason Fulford.

Exhibitions

• Down These Mean Streets, part of Looking for America – Diffusion, Cardiff International Festival of Photography, 2015, Ffotogallery, Cardiff, Wales^{[15] [16]}

Awards

• 2011: Photo District News 30 Emerging Photographers to Watch^{[17] [18]}
• 2015: Special Jurors’ Mention, PhotoBook of the Year, Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards, for Deadline.^{[19] [20] [21] [22]}

Collections

Steacy's work is held in the following permanent collection:

• Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago: 2 works (as of September 2020)^[23]

External links

• • "The death of the American newsroom – in pictures" at The Guardian

Notes and References

1. Web site: 2020-09-07. Art notes: Declining Philadelphia Inquirer has consequences beyond its walls. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
2. Web site: 2020-09-08. CV. Will Steacy.
3. Web site: 2020-09-08. BIO. Will Steacy.
4. Web site: 2020-09-07. The best photography books of 2012: an alternative selection. 21 December 2012. The Guardian.
5. Web site: 2020-09-07. Where Does Money Go When It Dies?. NPR.org.
6. Web site: 2020-09-07. The slow death of the great American newsroom. 21 March 2015. The Guardian.
7. Web site: Jon. White. 2020-09-07. End of an era: Photos show decline of the US newspaper industry. New Scientist.
8. Web site: 2020-09-07. Book chronicling Philly newspaper is a portrait of journalistic 'valor'. Columbia Journalism Review.
9. News: Jakob. Schiller. 2020-09-07. Philly Inquirer's Hard Years Are Microcosm of Newspapers' Long Goodbye. Wired. 18 April 2013. 1059-1028.
10. Web site: 2020-09-07. Will Steacy: Chronicling Difficult Times at the Inquirer and Daily News. 14 August 2014. Philadelphia.
11. Web site: 2020-09-07. Photographs Not Taken: what makes a photographer freeze?. 15 March 2012. The Guardian.
12. Web site: 2020-09-07. Will Steacy – Blood and Ink. 9 April 2015. British Journal of Photography.
13. Web site: Lewis. Bush. Lewis Bush (photographer). 2020-09-07. Review – Deadline by Will Steacy. 23 November 2015. disphotic.com.
14. Web site: 2020-09-07. My Photobook of 2015? 'Deadline' by Will Steacy. 27 November 2015. prisonphotography.org.
15. News: 2020-09-07. In pictures: Looking for America. BBC News. 1 October 2015.
16. Web site: 2020-09-07. Looking for America – Diffusion: Cardiff International Festival of Photography returns. 8 October 2015. British Journal of Photography.
17. Web site: 2020-09-08. Sneak Peek: PDN 30 Emerging Photographers to Watch 2011. 25 February 2011. Photo District News.
18. Web site: 2020-09-08. 30 photographers to watch. Japan Today.
19. Web site: Announcing the Winners of the 2015 PhotoBook Awards. 13 November 2015 . 13 November 2015 . .
20. Web site: Winners Announced for 2015 Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards. Rachel . Lowry . 13 November 2015 . 13 November 2015 . .
21. Web site: 2020-09-07. The Paris Photo-Aperture Photobook Award Winners Reflect the Terror and Anxiety of Now. 7 December 2015. prisonphotography.org.
22. News: Sean. O'Hagan. 2020-09-07. Les Rencontres d'Arles 2014 review – a fascination with the traditional. The Observer. 12 July 2014. 0029-7712.
23. Web site: 2020-09-07. Museum of Contemporary Photography. www.mocp.org.