2008 CDS / Honickman First Book Prize in Photography
Jon Lowenstein - Honorable Mention
Jon Lowenstein is a freelance photographer based in Chicago. He has been photographing the story of undocumented Central American and Mexican immigrants since 2000. Jon started by documenting day laborers looking for work on Chicago's Northwest Side. Eventually, he got to know some of them and gained access to their homes and witnessed their incredible struggles to survive. Every year since, Lowenstein has recorded the migrant trail that stretches from Central America to the United States.
The black-and-white images of Shadow Lives USA documents, "the collision between the massive influx of Latino immigrants... the United States' criminal justice system's increased efforts at deterrence, and the recent anti-immigrant backlash in the wake of failed immigration reform."
He has received a Getty Award for Editorial Images, a World Press Photo Award, an Alicia Patterson Fellowship, a USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism Racial Justice Fellowship, and a New America Award from the National Press Photographers Association, among others.
Solo exhibitions of Lowenstein's work have been held at the Chicago Cultural Center; Giola Gallery, Chicago; and Governor's State University, Illinois. He is represented by the Noor photo agency in Amsterdam.