Thank you all for your support, emails and comments. I have had received a lot of emails about my project, Trapped: Mental Illness in Prison, with similar questions so I decided to answer them here.
Check it out here.
Category: Photojournalism
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Jenn Ackerman » Trapped: Questions Answered.
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Will Work For Passion
Kevin German
Now I want to preface this graph by saying this is not a slam on newspapers or the photojournalists who work for them. I can name one hundred newspaper photographers who excel at their job and more importantly make incredible contributions to communities all over the world. The fact is that newspapers were a comfort for me.
I could go years without ever coming up with my own projects. The assignments kept pouring in like clockwork. Then one day it hit me. I didn’t care any more. Didn’t care about the people I was photographing. Didn’t care about the issues that were important to them. I didn’t care. I had sold my soul to be comfortable and I couldn’t look myself in the eyes any more.
Check it out here.
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On the Trail with Shana Wittenwyler… and Hillary, Barack, Ron and John
Shana Wittenwyler sort of fell into covering the primary season. That is to say, she started off in Florida shooting Ron Paul at the Republican debates for the Irish rag Mongrel Magazine, and ended up a few months later on assignment for the New York Times in Missouri. In between, she was in Iowa and South Carolina.
A freelancer, Shana didn’t mean to cover politics in particular. Since her graduation from the Photojournalism program at ICP in 2005, she has shot all sorts of features for Fortune, The Chicago Tribune, Rolling Stone, and others. But she found herself hooked on the excitement of the Ron Paul campaign when in Florida, and didn’t want to stop taking pictures. So, as a photojournalist, and a broke one at that, Shana started to contact politics editors. But you can’t call up the Times and tell them you want to shoot a campaign for them; it’s a hell of a process.
Check it out here.
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Strazzante, Ackerman win top honors at Southern
Scott Strazzante of the Chicago Tribune and Jenn Ackerman, a graduate student at Ohio University, won top honors as 2008 Southern Photographer of the Year and 2008 Southern Student Photographer of the Year, respectively, this weekend. Strazzante also won Best of Show with his diptychs entitled “Echoes from the Past” pairing his coverage of a disappearing family farm shot earlier this decade and new homeowners on the same land shot in 2007. The winners were officially announced today by yours truly on the closing day of the Southern Short Course in News Photography in Charlotte, N.C.
Check it out here.
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How I Escaped My Newspaper Job
I have made one of the hardest decisions of my life; I’m leaving the newspaper business — this Thursday, to be exact, when I will work my last day at the Daily Press of Newport News, Va. This is the first time a career decision has kept me up at night, because I am still passionate about photojournalism and love being a newspaper photographer. But the recent changes in the industry, and years of job instability, pushed me to explore other options.
Check it out here.
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Getty's John Moore Named Photojournalist Of The Year (Larger Markets)
John Moore of Getty Images was picked as the NPPA 2008 Best Of Photojournalism competition’s Photojournalist of the Year (Larger Markets) today at the end of the final round of judging in this year’s contest at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
Check it out here.
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still terrible, but better at uncommons
Photo by erik lunsford
These days, what’s driving me batty isn’t so much whether I win a contest or not (presently I’m ho-hum on the matter), it’s the day-to-day photography that I’m nitpicking to death while trying to grow my work and make it closer to perfect than the usual rift-raft. Take for example this feature I photographed earlier.
Check it out here.
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Judges Pick Picture Story Winners In NPPA's 2008 Best Of Photojournalism Contest
Judges at NPPA’s 2008 Best Of Photojournalism competition at The Poynter Institute today picked winners in the categories International News Picture Story, Enterprise Picture Story (Smaller and Larger Markets), Best Published Picture Story (Smaller and Larger Markets), and in the new category Investigative Issue Picture Story.
Check it out here.
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Record fourth 'best photographer' crown for Scottish snapper
The Scotsman’s Ian Rutherford has been named photographer of the year for a record fourth time.
Ian picked up the prestigious gong at the annual First ScotRail Press Photography Awards in Glasgow last night.
His winning portfolio included shots of troops from the Royal Regiment of Scotland returning from Iraq, the Open Golf and the Highland Open surfing competition. His previous successes came in 1994, 1997 and 1998.
Check it out here.
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Judges Pick Web Site Winners In NPPA's 2008 Best Of Photojournalism Contest
Judges picking winners in the Web site categories of NPPA’s 2008 Best Of Photojournalism competition have released the following partial results, along with judges’ comments, from the contest’s host site at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
Check it out here.
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Three Days Of Judging: More 2008 Best Of Photojournalism Winners
Photo by Anthony Suau
On the third full day of judging at NPPA’s Best Of Photojournalism competition at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, judges picked winners in the categories Domestic News Picture Story, International News, General News, Enterprise, Natural Disaster, and Environmental Picture Story.
Check it out here.
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The New Breed of Documentary Photographers
Photographer and photo editor Geoffrey Hiller has created Verve to feature photos and interviews by the finest young image makers today. Verve is a reminder of the power of the still image. Verve will also point you to new photo agencies, publications and inspiring multimedia projects.
Check it out here. Via Tim Gruber.
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Judges Pick More Winners During Second Day Of NPPA's 2008 Best Of Photojournalism Contest
On the second full day of judging at NPPA’s Best Of Photojournalism competition at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, judges picked winners in the categories Sports Photojournalist of the Year, Non-Traditional Journalism Publishing, Sports Picture Story, Sports Portfolio, Celebrity Picture Story, Natural Habitat, Domestic News, Serial Portrait, Local Portrait & Personality, and The Road To Office.
Check it out here.
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7 Jobs That Are Better In Video Games Than In Real Life
Photojournalists— #4 on the list:Photogs like Dead Rising’s Frank West and Disaster Report’s Keith Helm embody what every photojournalist wants to be; in the thick of the action, kicking some ass (objectivity be damned), and taking the controversial shot that blows a worldwide conspiracy wide open. Sure, some war photojournalists get to take some pretty gripping shots, but most are stuck taking pictures of blue-haired elderly ladies complaining at town hall meetings or sleeping in their car waiting for Britney Spears to leave her house and (hopefully) leave her baby on the roof of the car as she drives off to Starbucks.
Check it out here.
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Another Episode of Humvee TV
I started shooting this series my first trip to Iraq and always enjoy the diversion of shooting while stuffed into the back of a Humvee. It helps keep the mind off things that tend to happen while riding in the back of a Humvee. And usually, as a journalist, you end up sitting in the seat that is on top of the gas tank. Not the best place to be if something bad is to happen.
Check it out here.
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Behind the Lens with John Moore – – PopPhotoMarch 2008
This month we focus on John Moore, a senior staff photographer with Getty Images based in Islamabad, Pakistan. Before joining Getty, Moore was a staff photographer with the Associated Press, and was on a team that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Photography for their coverage of the war in Iraq. Having lived in Nicaragua, India, South Africa, Mexico, Egypt and Pakistan, as well as the United States, Moore estimates that he’s worked in over 80 countries throughout his career. Most recently named Magazine Photographer of the Year in POYi, Moore was awarded two first place prizes at the 2008 World Press Photo Contest for his coverage of Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Taking some time while on a layover in Johannesburg in route to Zimbabwe, Moore provides some insight into what it’s like to work as an international conflicts photographer.
Check it out here.
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Judges Picking Winners In 2008 Best Of Photojournalism Still Photography & Web Categories
Judging in the Still Photography and Web categories of NPPA’s Best Of Photojournalism competition started today at the contest’s host site, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, FL, and it’s NPPA’s biggest Best Of Photojournalism contest to date.
Check it out here.
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A picture not taken, a memory forged – Los Angeles Times
By Rick Loomis, LA Times
How can you never forget someone you never knew?
I did take Marine Lance Cpl. Aaron Austin’s photo, but I take photographs of people every day and I can’t say I knew him.
It’s the picture I didn’t take that has left Austin burned forever in my memory.
Check it out here.
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Trapped: Mental Illness in America’s Prisons
by Jenn Ackerman
What started out as an assignment for school has produced a piece that has changed my life and hopefully will do the same for the people that view it. That was my hope when producing it at least. Ten weeks ago, we (my grad class at OU) were given the assignment to create a magazine including the brand, the mission statement and of course the content.
For this project, I decided to focus on the mental health crisis, specifically in prisons. This brought me to the CPTU inside the Kentucky State Reformatory.
Check it out here.
