Category: Photojournalism

  • The long awaited… Magnum Photos Blog

    The long awaited… Magnum Photos Blog

    Journal of a Photographer:

    I was assigned to create the Magnum Blog… The first step back home was to do a layout and design for it. Once the design was ready I started the technical implementation. That proved to be a bigger challenge then I expected. I mean this was not the first blog I set up but I implemented many new features and techniques that I did not use before or that I did not use in the same way.

    The new Magnum Blog is ready, approved and online now which means that my part in creating a blog for Magnum is over. By declining the job Magnum offered me a few months back, I gave away the chance to administrate the blog. To find topics, talk to photographers about ideas for stories, motivate them to write their own articles from the field, invite authors to join, make sure that the blog evolves.

    Here.

  • Contact Press Images:

    Contact Press Images:

    Digital Journalist:

    Contact Press Images celebrated 30 years of remarkable photography in 2006. Founded by Robert Pledge and David Burnett in 1976, the agency has maintained its involvement with humanitarian and human-rights issues. This involves the responsibility to understand an issue and see that it could have consequences beyond the borders of one’s own town, region or country. Doing long-term stories on regime change, civil wars and genocide when they first appear on the horizon often means that a Contact photographer is aware and knowledgeable when the event evolves into a world news event. The vivid images of apartheid in South Africa, the civil war in El Salvador, the fall of the Shah of Iran, and 9/11 are visual markers of the 20th–21st centuries. Contact is one of the agencies that changed the landscape of photojournalism in Europe and America during the 1970s–1980s.

    Here.

  • Seeing Red in Venezuela

    Seeing Red in Venezuela

    Ramin Rahimian, Digital Journalist:

    Being a citizen and a journalist from the U.S. worked in my favor and against me. In a busy deli in downtown Caracas, close to the capitol – a heavily Chavista area – I was approached by a middle-aged man wearing the party’s traditional red T-shirt. He was belligerent and seemed drunk. He got in my face in this crowded deli and pulled at his shirt, telling me that I’m the devil and that this was his country. He was unrelenting. All I could do was agree with him, “Yes, I know, I’m the devil. I know.” Anything so that he would not knock me out.

    Photographing, or should I say street shooting, in that neighborhood was very difficult for me. It is a Chávez stronghold. I had heard countless horror stories from other shooters of theft, knife attacks, and general harassment and distaste for foreign journalists. It was tough not to shoot; I felt like I missed out on showing the downtown environment in my own way.

    Here.

  • Pulp Nonfiction, Ripped From the Tabloids

    Pulp Nonfiction, Ripped From the Tabloids

    NYT:

    Enrique Metinides photographed his first dead body before he was 12. It was as if he had caught a fever, because after that he couldn’t stop. For years while he slept he kept his radio in Mexico City tuned to emergency stations so that he could be awakened by the latest news of disaster. He would often throw on his clothes and rush into the night to see yet another car wreck or fire or murder.

    He found a cornucopia of gore: suicides, jumpers, accidental electrocutions and exploding gas tanks. (In that case petty thieves drove off from the pumps with the hose still inside their car.) We feel somehow we shouldn’t gawk. But how can we not?

    So we do. We stare at the mangled corpses and at the crowds who stare back into Mr. Metinides’s camera, which means they stare at us. The cycle of voyeurism is complete.

    Here.

  • A Dark Room

    A Dark Room

    Yana Poskova on SportsShooter:

    On my last day, I printed each doctor and patient a photograph. Many had never before possessed one. As I watched patients tape the pictures above their beds, I leaned against the peeling wall in solitude with my thoughts. I had slowly realized that while this experience taught me much about photography (using an environment with little activity and light,) and about interacting with my subjects (listening to what they wanted you to tell, and respecting what they didn’t,) my greatest lesson was one in motivation-in my personal and professional life, both of which I would try to take for granted less than before. When the patients and doctors asked me to return in 2007, I wanted to tell them all this, but I again lacked words; so I just promised I would. Instead, as gratitude, I hoped my images would shed light on the worth of each of their lives.

    Here.

  • Todd Heisler To Join New York Times Staff

    Todd Heisler To Join New York Times Staff

    PDN:

    Todd Heisler, a Rocky Mountain News photographer who won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for his “Final Salute” photo essay, will join the photo staff of The New York Times.

    Heisler, who starts in December, fills one of two staff photography openings at the Times. Recently, Ting Li Wang left to work in China and Paul Hosefros retired, according to New York Times assistant managing editor for photography Michele McNally.

    Here.

  • Andrea Modica & Newsweek

    Andrea Modica & Newsweek

    Alec Soth:

    But Modica wasn’t the only one assigned to the story. The much more prominent full-page intro has the following photo illustration:

    This use of photography brings the medium down to the lowest common denominator. What is the point? If anything it pushes me away from reading the story. I understand that weekly news magazines are under huge deadlines and need to fill the pages. But do we need so much photo-filler? The photographs in another weekly, The New Yorker, are exceptionally powerful because of their restraint. What if Modica’s image was the only one used in the story? Wouldn’t it be so much better?

    Here.

  • Photojournalism in the Age of Scrutiny

    Ken Irby, Poynter:

    The Times has very clear guidelines in place that prohibit image manipulation without clear cause and disclosure:
    Photography and Images.
    Images in our pages that purport to depict reality must be genuine in every way. No people or objects may be added, rearranged, reversed, distorted or removed from a scene (except for the recognized practice of cropping to omit extraneous outer portions). Adjustments of color or gray scale should be limited to those minimally necessary for clear and accurate reproduction, analogous to the “burning” and “dodging” that formerly took place in darkroom processing of images. Pictures of news situations must not be posed. In the cases of collages, montages, portraits, fashion or home design illustrations, fanciful contrived situations and demonstrations of how a device is used, our intervention should be unmistakable to the reader, and unmistakably free of intent to deceive. Captions and credits should further acknowledge our intervention if the slightest doubt is possible. The design director, a masthead editor or the news desk should be consulted on doubtful cases or proposals for exceptions.
    Here.

  • Magnum Photographer Paolo Pellegrin Injured In Lebanon

    PDN:

    Photojournalist Paolo Pellegrin of Magnum Photos was one of several people injured in an Aug. 6 missile attack in southern Lebanon.

    Pellegrin and reporter Scott Anderson were traveling together in Tyre on assignment for The New York Times Magazine. They were treated for their injuries and now are back at work in Lebanon.

    “They’re in Beirut. They’re fine,” says Kathy Ryan, director of photography for Times magazine.

    Here.

  • Eddie Adams Workshop

    From the Eddie Adams Workshop:

    Congratulations to the following 100 students and professionals who will attend Barnstorm XIX this year. Click a name to see images from their portfolios.

    Here.

  • Tall J

    Tall J

    From the Tall J blog:

    This is an older photo but I wanted to put this up here. I love this one. I shot it on tri-x with an old FM2 that I bought from Ravell Call at the Deseret Morning News. That camera was beat up pretty bad. The rewind knob was broken off of it so it took a lot longer than normal to change rolls of film.

    I broke the camera a few minutes after I shot this frame. The shutter completely blew out on it.

    Here.

  • 'Unknown Weegee,' on Photographer Who Made the Night Noir

    'Unknown Weegee,' on Photographer Who Made the Night Noir

    From the New York Times:

    “Whadda you kidding? It’s a zoo out there. Two deli stickups at 12 on the dot; one of the perps getting plugged. I got the picture. Roulette joint bust on East 68th. Society types. You shoulda seen the penguins run. Three a.m.: Brooklyn. Car crash. Kids. Bad.”

    “Four a.m., bars close. Guys asleep in Bowery doorways. But just before dawn is the worst: despair city. The jumpers start, out the windows, off the roof. I can’t even look. So that’s the night, New York. Ain’t it grand? What a life.”

    Here.

  • On the Ground in Darfur

    On the Ground in Darfur

    Mario Ruiz, from the Digital Journalist:

    I was told I would have five days in Iridimi. We would arrive by plane via a United Nations cargo jet on Monday and leave Friday morning, giving me only four days to shoot at the camps. I had no idea whether that would be enough time to get what I needed. With the amount of pressure I placed myself under it would prove to be enough time.

    Here.

  • Invisible in Baghdad

    Invisible in Baghdad

    Christoph Bangert, from the Digital Journalist:

    There are maybe eight or nine foreign photographers still trying to cover this conflict from the civilian side. I am by far not the bravest, most committed, talented nor longest-serving of these photographers; I am just one of them. The majority of the pictures that are coming out of this country are taken by Iraqi photographers working for wire services or foreigners who are exclusively embedded with the military. Of course, I am one of them and am sometimes embedded with either the American, British or Iraqi military and so are most of my colleagues.

    I used to be the only blond guy in Baghdad. Well, at least that’s what I felt like. Now I am the only blond guy in Baghdad that dyed his hair black. I look like a fool and maybe I am one. Maybe it’s foolish to be here and tell oneself that it is important to do so. Maybe it actually makes sense.

    Here.

  • New Group Unites Six Women Photojournalists

    New Group Unites Six Women Photojournalists

    From PDN:

    With the guidance of photographer Gary Knight of the VII agency, the six women have formed a new group called EVE Photographers to create and promote social documentary photojournalism. They will collaborate on projects and post their best work on a group web site.

    The photographers are Marizilda Cruppe (in Brazil), Agnès Dherbeys (Thailand), Bénédicte Kurzen (South Africa), Justyna Mielnikiewicz (Georgia), Lourdes Segade (Spain) and Newsha Tavakolian (Iran).

    Here.

  • On the Lifeline

    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

    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

    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.