Photojournalism – Page 112

On the Lifeline

From The Digital Journalist (link to gallery at bottom of page):

Rick Loomis says that survival skills he learned as a boy in Loxahatchee help him at the front. Zucchino observed that, “Raised in rural south Florida, Loomis is comfortable around guns, knives, fast cars and motorcycles. In other words, he’s part redneck. On a grueling three-week mission with a U.S. Special Forces team last winter, Loomis not only showed the Green Berets how to ford a river in a four-wheel-drive vehicle, he also beat them hands-down in an improvised distance-jumping contest with the soldiers’ own dirt bike.”
Here.

Blood Spilled in Kathmandu

Brian Sokol, from The Digital Journalist:

Twenty minutes later the calm broke when a volley of rocks and bottles began to rain down on police and protesters alike. Suddenly the air was again full of tear gas and I wiped feverishly at my eyes, trying to shoot frame after frame as figures darted in and out of the bitter fog. Protesters charged at the police screaming, “King Gyanendra is a thief, he stole our country,” and I found myself in a human pile, attempting to protect my cameras and body while being stampeded by the retreating security forces. When the air cleared, I found myself cut off from my friends.

Here.

Into the Heart of Unrest

From PDN:

Photojournalist Tomas van Houtryve has been covering political unrest in Nepal for years, from the rise in power of King Gyanendra Shah to the secretive Maoist insurgency. This spring, when popular outrage against the monarch reached a boiling point, he knew he had to return to Kathmandu.

“When we arrived in the neighborhood of Kalanki, a full street battle was taking place. A riot policeman initially screamed threats at me to stop taking pictures, but soon they were too overwhelmed by rock throwing protesters to worry about us. The air stung with tear gas as I followed charging police toward the crowd. One of the officers was firing an assault rifle just over the heads of demonstrators. My main challenge was trying to get between the two sides to take photos while finding enough cover to keep clear from the volleys of rocks and bullets. I raced into a field with retreating protesters and one pulled me into a room where injured people were splayed across the floor.”

Here.

Eugene Richards joins VII photo agency

From Journal of a Photographer:

“The work of Eugene Richards is a cornerstone of contemporary documentary photography and filmmaking. All of us at VII welcome Eugene and look forward to his comradeship and creative spirit.”, says James Nachtwey, president of VII. “I am very pleased to be a part of this very creative group of people,” says Eugene Richards.
Here.

The Great Disconnect: Chapter 2006

Photographer David Burnett, from SportsShooter.com:

Sadly, with so much photographic talent in one place (or more correctly, several places) that we photographers must necessarily take a back seat to lousy TV, well, it’s beyond stupid, and beyond tragic.

Here.

Nervous, sweating and dark. Backstage at the Oscars

USA Today photographer Robert Hanashiro, from SportsShooter.com:

“Remember to stay out of the way of the crew and for GOD’S SAKE, stay out of sight! If the producer or director sees your ass on one of the monitors everyone’s outta here,” a voice from a show rep says into his ear. “But do your work and try not to worry too much about getting tossed … if it happens, it happens.”

Here.

Abbas, Afghanistan

From Magnum Photos, Abbas portfolio from Afghanistan
Today in Afghanistan, girls go to school and to the university; the burqah is not compulsory for women who can walk the streets unaccompanied; they are not executed in public for adultery; men are not whipped for not sporting a fist-long beard. The influx of UN and NGO’s money have brought a certain prosperity to the cities which are patrolled by national as well as NATO forces. Presidential and parliamentary elections have taken place. But democracy is not an off-the-shelf commodity which can be purchased in a supermarket and applied to a country with centuries of feudal traditions. Democracy works better when preceded by a secular tradition..

Here.

History's First Draft Looks Much Better With Pictures

From the New York Times:

In photojournalism, the subject is considered more important than the aesthetics of the image. While clarity, composition and exposure have always been taken into account, it is news value that drives the profession. But in the 1980’s and 90’s, photographers like James Nachtwey and Gilles Peress established distinct visual styles in their coverage of war-torn regions like Bosnia and Chechnya; the way they observed their subjects, discerned in what they chose to shoot and where they stood, added new layers of information to the editorial image.

Here.