Balloon Seller Number 2 Photograph

From a multiple Oscar-nominated and Sundance award-winning filmmaker who combines fine art sensibility with a passion for communicating the worlds of civilians caught up in conflict, Longley’s film and photography work witnesses places such as Gaza, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Through an approach best described as Slow Journalism, Longley creates a big picture view from an intimate perspective. Describing Longley's work in the Los Angeles Times in 2019, film critic Kenneth Turan wrote: "What is life like on the ground for ordinary people in another culture, another world? That’s been the bread and butter of observational documentaries for forever, but almost never is it done with the kind of beauty and grace filmmaker James Longley brings to his Afghanistan-set “Angels Are Made of Light.” As his 2006 Oscar-nominated “Iraq in Fragments” demonstrated, MacArthur Fellow Longley, who serves as his own cinematographer as well as directs, has an almost magical ability to envelope us in other realities. He does it via the poetry of his imagery as well as a gift for focused illumination that creates empathetic portraits of people who are both ordinary and intensely involving." ... In 2009 James was named a MacArthur Fellow, and in 2011 a USArtists Ford Fellow. These substantial awards helped to create his most recent filmed and photographic work. James has taught master classes at Hong Kong University, Duke University's Center For The Arts, The Goethe Institute in Kigali, and in Zurich for FOCAL. Longley has been nominated for two Academy Awards and won three Jury Awards at Sundance - for Directing, Cinematography, and Editing - among many other heartwarming accolades. 35mm prints of Longley's filmed work can be found in the archives MoMA, The Academy Film Archive, the Duke University Archive, Wesleyan University, The Northwest Film Forum and the Library of Congress. A portion of James' income from the sale of these images goes to support the people he has filmed and worked with the past - particularly in Afghanistan. Please visit James' portfolio site at for more photography and films, and to contact him for custom printing or to commission work.