Category: Photojournalism

  • Bill Eppridge: A Personal Reflection on the Photographer in a Tumultuous Time

    Like all of Life’s great photographers, Bill Eppridge brought to an assignment much more than the ability to take a properly exposed and well-composed photograph. He has curiosity and anticipates, he is sensitive and respects his subjects, and he is versatile.

    For a while it seemed that he specialized in riots and revolutions: in Panama, where he shot his first cover, in Managua, and in Santo Domingo where, in “rebel territory,” his 500-mm mirror lens almost got him killed. It seems that, after days of provocation by someone they had nicknamed ‘One Shot Charlie’ – someone into whose position Bill and his lens innocently stepped – the U.S. 82nd Airborne determined “to get the bastard whenever he moved.” The shot from a .50-caliber spotting rifle missed Bill by inches.

    Check it out here.

  • $1.28 A Freakin' Hour – The Digital Journalist

    I was in Washington a few weeks ago at the annual awards dinner of the White House News Photographers Association. It’s an annual chance to see old friends and catch up on news. It’s also a time to meet new people and see how they’re doing in the great, wide, wonderful world of photojournalism.

    This year’s word?

    Depression.

    Check it out here.

  • The search for Sean Flynn continues: mensvogue.com

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    The first time my father told me about Sean Flynn’s disappearance, I felt as if a spider had walked down my spine. “Just gone?” I said, looking down at a picture that was taken of Sean hours before he vanished into the Cambodian countryside in April 1970 — a heart-stoppingly handsome young man on a motorcycle with thick sideburns and a battered Nikon around his neck. “Yeah,” my father said in a papery voice that made him suddenly sound much older. “Just gone.”

    Check it out here.

  • kiilsgaard on kentucky at uncommons

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    21 year-old WKU Junior Carl Kiilsgaard is working on a rather intensive project documenting the life of an impoverished family in rural Kentucky.

    Check it out here.

  • Looking at 'The Bottom Line': Lessons from a Photo Essay

    Mona Reeder, a photographer with the Dallas Morning News, has won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for domestic photography for her photo essay “The Bottom Line.” Through pictures, Reeder explored Texas’ poor rankings in a number of categories ranging from the poorest counties in the U.S. to environmental protection.

    Earlier this year, the project won the Community Service Photojournalism Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors. It also was a Pulitzer finalist.

    Kenny Irby interviewed Reeder about the project for “Best Newspaper Writing 2008-2009.” In this excerpt, Reeder discusses the value of in-depth photo essays and how she developed this one.

    Check it out here.

  • Photographer Captures Instant of Tragic Accident

    A city official in Mexico took this amazing picture of a deadly traffic accident Sunday in Matamoros, Mexico. The accident, which left one cyclist dead and at least 10 others hurt, is getting international attention mainly because of this photograph. The photo, credited to José Fidelino Vera Hernández, ran in the Mexican newspaper Hoy Tamaulipas and on the AP wire this week.

    Check it out here.

  • Earthquake in China – a view from Beijing

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    By 7 am, 61 pictures earthquake-hit Sichuan province had been sent and by 2:28 the next day, 24 hours after the shock, 100 Reuters pictures had moved to the World… And then our staff photographers also began filing from different spots.  

    So, that was the first day after the earthquake,  then the second, then the third – it was a sleepless fortnight until the story began to quieten down a bit…

    Check it out here.

  • R.F.K., R.I.P., Revisited

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    In Paul Fusco’s photographs (here and at the gallery) of the people along the tracks, as the Kennedy funeral train passes, it is not only the faces and the clothes that catch the eye, it is the hands.

    Check it out here.

  • NPPA Rejects A New Name

    This week the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) rejected a proposal to change its name to The Society for Visual Journalists (SVJ). The new name was proposed as a way to re-brand the organization to be more inclusive of videographers, multimedia people, etc.

    Check it out here.

  • Far Sighted: Walking into the future….

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    Very cool graduation photo by LEXEY SWALL-BOBAY

    Check it out here.

  • Dispatches – a new magazine

    This new quarterly publication is more than you might pay for your average magazine but looks to be worth every penny. A rumored 80 page photo essay by VII photographer Antonin Kratochvil isn’t a bad way to start.

    Check it out here.

  • Wandering Light: Failure

    We landed in Yangon a week ago. We met up with many members of the press and listened to advice. Jaded advice. They were mostly all pulling up camp and heading back to their respective counties. The Junta had succeeded in keeping the press from telling the true story of the cyclone aftermath.

    We, however, were ready for the challenge. I had time to dedicate to this story. I felt it was important. So we set off. After a few days we contracted a fixer. A young man named Jamie. He seemed very resourceful and was extremely eager to help.

    Check it out here.

  • the life of m: Rough Edges

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    I tried staying on the periphery today — details… the crowd… the lights… secret service agents… all caught my eye.

    Check it out here.

  • Video: Ryan Pyle On Covering the China Earthquake

    PDN spoke yesterday to Ryan Pyle, a freelance documentary photographer based in China. Pyle is working in Chengdu, a city that was heavily damaged by the May 12 earthquake. Below is a video with excerpts from our phone interview, along with photos of Pyle’s earthquake coverage

    Check it out here.

  • Photojournalist Documents Gangs in the Wake of El Salvadoran Civil War

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    The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin hosts “Inside El Salvador,” a photography exhibition of more than 100 black-and-white images concerning the country’s civil war and its aftermath.

    More than 30 images taken by award-winning documentary photographer Donna DeCesare, an associate professor in the School of Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin, focus on the end of the civil war and its consequences on the population.

    Check it out here.

  • Why It May Be Time for Me to Quit the NPPA

    The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) will vote at the end of May on seven amendments to its bylaws, including whether to change its name to The Society of Visual Journalists, Inc. (SVJ). The reason for the proposed change is to acknowledge how the industry and NPPA membership have evolved over the past 50 years. The current name “no longer adequately represents the Association or its membership.”

    Check it out here.

  • World Press Photo Awards Days – Canon Professional Network

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    Audiences packed the Felix Meritis cultural centre in central Amsterdam to see the winners’ presentations. Boldwill Hungwe (2nd prize, Spot News Singles), a news photographer from Zimbabwe, revealed that his image of an opposition rally in the beleaguered country (above, top) was taken on a digital compact camera, because neither he nor the paper he works for could afford a digital SLR camera.

    “I knew that the camera couldn’t shoot a sequence so I had to wait for the right moment,” he told CPN. “Luckily I got the one that told the story the best.” He added that working as a local newspaper photographer in Zimbabwe is difficult due to the restrictions and threat of torture.

    Check it out here.

  • NO CAPTION NEEDED » Private Grief and Public Life

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    I’m not sure why, but the photos from China that have been devastating. Disaster coverage is familiar to everyone–whether it’s twisted wreckage or a bloated corpse, long lines of refugees or supplies stacked on the tarmac, we’ve seen it before. And we’ve seen people crying over lost homes, villages, loved ones. But somehow not like this:

    Check it out here.

  • Why I became a news photographer

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    The images of the earthquake relief effort in China have been horrifying and deeply moving and remind me what has always been so compelling about my job – the ease and speed with which still pictures can impart so much readily understood information to so many people.  

    Check it out here.

  • AP To Offer A Cut Of Licensing Revenue To Stringers

    Freelance photographers who shoot for the Associated Press will now get a 25 percent cut of the fees the AP collects for licensing their images beyond the AP’s regular photo wire.

    But the AP is also asking freelancers to do more work than in the past – to file their entire take with the AP, including caption information, within five days of their assignment.

    Check it out here.