The question of how the different members of society are represented make for some of the most heated debates in photography. Whether it’s the New York Times showing pictures of distress in Kenya, the distancing strategies used by Richard Mosse in his installation featuring migrants on their journey to Europe, or even Dorothea Lange’s image of Florence Thompson, the Migrant Mother, the question of who is represented, where they are represented and how they are represented is never far from the surface.
Four jurors for this year’s Magenta Foundation Flash Forward emerging photographer competition have withdrawn in protest of the competition’s major sponsor, TD Bank Group. TD is one of several financial institutions that have provided financing for the Dakota Access Pipeline, the $3.8 billion oil pipeline from North Dakota to Illinois that is the subject of ongoing protests by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other indigenous people and their supporters. Three photography organizations, Authority Collective, Natives Photograph and Women Photograph, also wrote an open letter to the organization asking it to reconsider its funding from TD Bank. At issue is the disconnect between Flash Forward’s effort to promote indigenous photographers while accepting funding from a bank that is directly financing a project that harms indigenous communities.
Tony Northrup recently decided to create a video celebrating photographer Steve McCurry’s most famous photo, the iconic “Afghan Girl” portrait featured on the cover of National Geographic. But upon researching the shot, Northrup learned the other, more disturbing side of the story that’s more hidden from public view.
From person-to-person coaching and intensive hands-on seminars to interactive online courses and media reporting, Poynter helps journalists sharpen skills and elevate storytelling throughout their careers.
“We have been fact-checking since November 2016,” the Boom Live managing editor tweeted on Monday. “Never before has one incident taught us so many things about new forms of #fakeimages.”
I want to give you a brief overview of an investigation that began almost five years ago, led by me but involving the efforts of photojournalist J. Ross
Our project, in a nutshell, dismantles the 74-year-old myth of Robert Capa’s actions on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and the subsequent fate of his negatives. If you have even a passing familiarity with the history of photojournalism, or simply an awareness of twentieth-century cultural history on both sides of the Atlantic, you’ve surely heard the story; it’s been repeated hundreds, possibly thousands of times:
Lisa Saad is considered one of Australia’s top photographers and has won numerous prestigious photo contests both in her country and internationally. But
Lisa Saad is considered one of Australia’s top photographers and has won numerous prestigious photo contests both in her country and internationally. But Saad has now come under fire with serious accusations of stealing other people’s photos without credit for her prize-winning photos.
Which made it all the more astounding when, a few years after his death in 2007, the truth came out. Starting in the early 1960s, Withers had spent nearly two decades as a paid informant of the F.B.I., feeding its agents information about the activists he photographed. He not only informed; he took requests. At one anti-Vietnam War march, he was asked to photograph all of the 30-odd protesters, taking special care to catch all their faces, and he turned 80 8-by-10 prints over to his F.B.I. contact. On occasion, he sold his work to a local paper, then gave copies to the bureau. His daughter Rosalind, the youngest of his nine children and the one who handles his estate, was blindsided when the news came out via a series of FOIA requests and legal fights undertaken by Marc Perrusquia, a reporter from The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. Perrusquia wrote about Withers and the revelation of his intelligence work in his own book, “A Spy in Canaan,” which was published last year. It’s a smart journalist’s book, crisply marching through Withers’s F.B.I. records and the paper’s battle to pry them out of the government’s grip.
In covering the terrorist attack on a Nairobi hotel that killed at least 21 people by Shahab extremists, The New York Times decided to publish an image of a bullet-riddled body taken by Khalil Senosi. Photo Twitter was outraged, and Poynter wrote about th
In covering the terrorist attack on a Nairobi hotel that killed at least 21 people by Shahab extremists, The New York Times decided to publish an image of a bullet-riddled body taken by Khalil Senosi. Photo Twitter was outraged, and Poynter wrote about the “hard choice” the NYT made regarding the selection.
When it comes to photography, however, especially other people’s photography, the challenges of acting ethically are sometimes obscured by the rush to ethical judgment. Our ethical standards are raised to standards that the great martyrs, saints, and philanthropists of times gone by would struggle to meet. One reason for this is it’s easy to do. There is no personal cost.
One of my images has been subjected to criticism and scrutiny in a way that none of my other work ever has. The photograph in question is of a scene in
I will usually disagree quite strongly with anyone who argues that consent is necessary for street photography in public. The law in the UK and many other countries defends photographers and photojournalists when it comes to candid photography in public spaces. Often “permission” will destroy the integrity of a true photojournalistic-scene.
We recently launched the PhotoShelter Guide to Photo Contests 2019 – our annual look at contests around the world that we think are worth your consideration. Yesterday, I wrote about the homogeneity of contest juries and what that means for photography an
When money and prestige is on the line, some photographers will find a way to cheat, steal and lie to win. Photo contests have unfortunately been plagued with scandals ranging from image manipulations to questions about authenticity and ethics in dealing with a subject.
One of the most viral photos of the past few days has been a side-by-side comparison of two photos that purports to show how photographers covering the
“Migrant Mother” by photographer Dorothea Lange is an iconic image of the Great Depression and one of the most famous photos in US history. But did you
“Migrant Mother” by photographer Dorothea Lange is an iconic image of the Great Depression and one of the most famous photos in US history. But did you know that the photo was “Photoshopped”?
Sometime in the not-too-distant future, anyone will be able to take a picture without a camera. Instead, we will be able to generate photographs, indistinguishable from those made by a camera, using artificial intelligence (AI) software. You will be able to create an image by simply typing out a description of the scene, or describing it to (presumably) Siri. “Siri,” you’ll say. “I’d like an image of a red-haired woman walking through a park in autumn, the breeze blowing red, orange, and yellow leaves around her.” And—though it may require more detail than that—presto! Your phone will provide various options on the screen to choose from.
The last couple of years have seen attacks on the very definition of truth. These attacks have been motivated by political positions as well as interference from other countries, but they are also enabled by technology. Image manipulation has been done for as long as images have been created, going back to the very beginning of photography.
In 2015, the Spanish-Belgian photographer Cristina De Middel posed herself an obvious but underasked question. In most photographic projects about sex work, it is the faces and bodies of women we see: their strength, weakness, courage and suffering. Where are the men? De Middel wanted to interview men who had paid for sex and photograph them in the kinds of hotel rooms to which they would take female sex workers. So she put an ad in Extra and O Dia, two local newspapers in Rio de Janeiro. She was astonished by the volume of response: More than 100 men showed interest.
Amid sexual harassment allegations, a legendary photographer just resigned from a prestigious — and troubled — agency. But the industry’s reckoning is woefully incomplete.
Amid sexual harassment allegations, a legendary photographer just resigned from a prestigious — and troubled — agency. But the industry’s reckoning is woefully incomplete.
Photojournalist Antonin Kratochvil has resigned from VII, weeks after a July 16 article in Columbia Journalism Review reported that he sexually assaulted one female member of the agency and was abusive to others. The agency announced the resignation on its website September 3 without offering any details.
