At a time of cost cutting for media budgets, lots of news organizations imagine that user-generated content can fill the void. But the recent failure of crowd-sourced news photos of Hurricane Sandy, and the shortage of coverage of other climate change-fue
the recent failure of crowd-sourced news photos of Hurricane Sandy, and the shortage of coverage of other climate change-fueled disasters around the world, demonstrate how far we are from truly democratizing the medium of photography
Mentoring and workshops have helped give local photographers, in Egypt and around the world, the time and resources to document their society’s issues with the delicacy and insight that might go unnoticed by foreigners.
“Most photojournalists only do news photography and are accepted in that. However, working long term on a project is not understood, and there are many challenges in getting access. And independent journalists are unfortunately treated with a lot of reservations and skepticism.”
On face value, Stephen Crowley is merely offering glimpses into stagecraft and campaign ephemera. Look further though, and the photos are silent editorials, even essays about the candidate, his personality and political culture.
Photo: Timothy Briner, from It’s A Helluva Town, in Businessweek. THE BEST SHOT Timothy Briner is doing the most different stuff. Whether being different will distinguish it from the crowd, w…
Virginia photographer, Michael Mergen, has one of the best series I’ve seen about where and how we vote. His project, VOTE, shines a stunning light on how “mom and pop” our voting system is and reflects the head-scratching realization that it is truly a miracle that we get anyone elected
Instagramers, I was talking about photojournalists here, not you. If your work brings you joy, carry on. There’s nothing to see here and I fully realize you can’t learn anything from an old man like me (but thank you for continuing to point this out).
Ask yourself, what would Jim do? If an editor asked him to shoot an important assignment with his iPhone do you think he’d do it? Do you think he’d risk his credibility like that?
You can put it in historical, pre-digital terms if you like. If Life Magazine asked Henri Cartier-Bresson to shoot a hurricane with a Brownie, what do you think he’d tell them? Yeah you’re right, and it doesn’t sound any better in French either.
Photographers, if you don’t give people something great, you’ll die too.
Instead of having a body of work to look back on, you’ll have a sad little collection of noisy digital files that were disposable when you made them, instantly forgotten by your followers (after they gave you a thumbs up), and now totally worthless.
An organization founded by friends of Tim Hetherington simulates real war-injury scenarios at the Bronx Documentary Center, complete with pools of blood, contorted limbs and frenetic movement amid smoke-clad air, in order to train photographers and journa
“Tim was my closest friend,” says Michael Kamber, founder and director of the Bronx Documentary Center. “He bled to death because he was surrounded by photographers who didn’t know how to stop the bleeding.”
We might as well admit now that photographs don’t tell stories the way words do it. Words tell stories very, very slowly. You need to read them one at a time, and the story then slowly builds. A photograph, in contrast, is not the equivalent of one word. If we stay with Soth’s phrase, a photograph is “a minute fragment of an experience, but quite a precise, detailed, and telling fragment.” Thus looking at one photograph after another would be to read a novel by somehow taking in larger chunks of pages at a time
I was an 18 year-old kid from the sticks who had discovered photography a couple of years before. It seemed like a chance at a little adventure. But those few days in upstate New York were when I started to realize that photography could be something else, something more. Eddie Adams, and the people he brought to the workshop, valued substance and convictions. They spoke of commitment. They believed photographs had great power. I brought that good advice with me right back to the sticks.
Magnum Photos’ activities used to be divided into two categories – new work and licensing – respectively dubbed M1 and M2. Now the agency’s CEO, Giorgio Psacharopulo, is pushing Magnum’s online activities as part of a new strategy. He speaks to Olivier Laurent about M3 and the future of the 65-year-old collective
Q: So what did your boss Horst say when he first saw the photo of Kim?
A: When he first saw the picture he had just come back from London. He asked who took the picture. They said it was mine. He asked me what happened in that picture. I told him napalm dropped. He went and sat at the light table by himself to look at my negative. He went to the darkroom and made 12 more prints to send to New York. He said that picture would cause trouble, and that he’d never seen a picture like this taken in Vietnam. But when he sent the picture to New York they didn’t want to use it because it was too naked. He said no I want that picture sent right away. He was yelling.
My question is: is the picture of Syrian rebels at the moment of death a stellar piece of journalism and an essential contribution to our knowledge of the Syrian civil war in particular and war overall, or is this photo more a profound illustration of voy
First off, is the picture of Syrian rebels at the moment of death a stellar piece of journalism and an essential contribution to our understanind of the Syrian civil war, in particular, and war overall, or is this photo more a profound illustration of voyeurism and war porn?
With the party congratulating itself for programming Gabby Giffords’ final convention night recitation of the pledge of allegiance, and so many news outlets having extolled Gabby’s proud but not exactly fluid or easy rendition as a brilliant Hallmark mome
Giffords appearance on Thursday night could easily have been a “profile in courage” moment as well as a near unassailable public statement about gun violence. If you look at the DNC video of the Giffords appearance, as well as the cross section of photos that primarily crossed the newswire, however, you’ll notice that Giffords’ physical condition was minimized, Gabby captured instead looking as much like her old self as you could imagine. As a striking emotional moment in the convention hall, what the media chose to communicate was the groundswell of sympathy for Giffords as a hearty survivor
The Magnum Foundation has distributed more than $375,000 over the past three years to help photographers produce new projects, stepping in where traditional media organisations once operated. Olivier Laurent speaks with the Foundation’s president, Susan Meiselas
In just eight months, 34 journalists have been killed around the globe, 16 of them just in Syria. As the death toll mounts, representatives of the photojournalism community gathered at Visa pour l’Image to discuss the cost of covering conflict. Olivier Laurent reports from the event
Once Magazine, which launched a year ago at Visa pour l’Image, promised to offer a new revenue stream for photographers by publishing their work on the iPad. Last month, however, Once closed its doors. The magazine’s editor, John Knight, tells BJP what went wrong
