Sonora Friend and Civil Rights Era Icon...Charles Moore
Former Tuolumne County resident and nationally renowned photographer, Charles Moore, passed away in March, 2010. Charles lived in Columbia and Sonora during the ‘80s and early ‘90s. He was on the board of the Central Sierra Arts Council in Tuolumne County and pushed the Council’s InFocus Photography Exhibition to new heights. Charles encouraged local photographers and helped bring statewide recognition to the show by inviting judges from the Bay Area and the San Francisco Chronicle. The 2011 InFocus Exhibition will present the Charles Moore Excellence in Photography Award, selected by Kim Komenich, one of the judges Charles brought to the show in 1994.
Charles visited the Mother Lode from his Oakland home studio in 1979 and spent three years photographing for his pictorial book, “The Mother Lode.” Charles’ spectacular photos and the descriptions by then wife Kristin Moore highlighted the best of the Mother Lode – the scenery, the history and most of all the eclectic and engaging people. That was Charles, focusing on the people to tell the region’s story. He was excited by people because that was the soul of the subjects he shot, and that was where he started in photojournalism.
Charles Moore was a national icon of the Civil Rights era. An award-winning photojournalist working for Life Magazine. He started his photo work in the Marines and after went to work for The Montgomery Journal in Alabama. Charles photographed with sensitivity and strength the civil rights struggles of black people in the South where he grew up. His book “Powerful Days,” chronicles those days with his in-your-face photos and the story behind those photos by fellow journalist, Michael Durham. One of Charles’s “favorite” Civil Rights images from that book shows three young black demonstrators pinned to a storefront by the blast of a high-pressure fire hose. The person holding the hose is not seen and critics have suggested that this fact implicates the whole nation. Many of those pictures, appearing in Life Magazine and others during the heyday of photojournalism, has been credited by politicians and the news media industry with helping to pass the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
Charles was a supporter of the arts. In a 1993 Sierra Seasons’ interview, Charles suggests “that for one month all arts would disappear from this community… Then I’d ask, isn’t there something incredibly important missing?”
24TH ANNUAL IN-FOCUS PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION & EXHIBITION: Entry Form
February 5 – March 5, 2011
Awards Reception during downtown Sonora’s 2nd Saturday ART NIGHT–Saturday, February 12th, 5pm to 7pm
Entry Deliveries at NEW CSAC HQ January 27th, 28th, & 29th from 10am to 4pm
193 S. Washington St. downtown Sonora. For information call (209)532-ARTS/2787.
