Category: Photojournalism

Sports Shooter Venue Guide – Lazy Elk High School

Link: Sports Shooter Venue Guide – Lazy Elk High School

To avoid any unpleasantries make sure you check in with one of the assistant vice principals before you start shooting. In exchange for your drivers license they will give you a sideline pass. This pass must be worn around your neck and must remain visible at all times.

Next, the school police deputy will point out any players on the team that can’t be photographed, either because their parents haven’t signed a media release or because they’re facing felony charges.

April 20, 2012
LA Times delayed publication of Afghan corpse photos at Pentagon’s request

Link: Poynter

When we made the decision to publish, the Pentagon asked us to wait 24 additional hours to protect troops depicted in the photographs. We agreed to push back our publication date until the Pentagon told us they had taken the necessary precautions. In fact, we waited more than 72 hours after their request.

April 18, 2012
MaryAnne Golon named Washington Post’s new director of photography

Link: Poynter

April 18, 2012
Colin Pantall on what photographs tell us

Link: Conscientious

We all like to think that the photographer’s intention inform the image and that when we look at a photograph we can see those intention. But if we ignore the simple fact that we have no way of knowing what the photographer’s intentions were (How would we know? All we have is a photograph), especially in a news context, we don’t just look at photographs, we look at them with our own sets of expectations (as Colin notes) and biases.

April 18, 2012
You don’t look like a victim

You don’t look like a victim

Colin Pantall’s blog about photography, writing, art and politics

Link: http://colinpantall.blogspot.com/2012/04/you-dont-look-like-victim.html

The idea is that one should look a certain way in the face of tragedy, part of the simplistic narrative that is expected of people when they are part of a photograph – a simplistic narrative that does not have an equivalence in writing. Here it is easy to explain the contrast between the glorious sky and the casual dress, the trappings of the picnic and the relaxed poses. These are all allowed to happen, but when it comes to a photograph, God forbid if anybody is caught doing anything that lies outside a very narrow band of expected responses

April 18, 2012
A Cover Story

Link: The Photo Society

TIME of course paid more. They always had more budget than Newsweek. As my friend Jimmy Colton, then an editor at NW and now at SI, was fond of saying, “TIME is a hospital. Newsweek’s a MASH unit.” Below is the first cover I shot for TIME, and if I recall, they paid about 3 grand. Other shooters, the real premier cover guys, got more dough, for sure. I was definitely not in that group. If I got a cover, it was either an accident or a last ditch phone call by a desperate editor.

April 17, 2012
David Guttenfelder, Ambassador

David Guttenfelder, Ambassador – Reading The Pictures

I imagine the North Koreans look at these factory shots and feel that Guttenfelder is paying them respect, capturing an ethic of hard work and industry, perhaps believing also that the photos must counter perceptions the country is barely scraping by.

via Reading The Pictures: http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2012/04/david-guttenfelder-ambassador/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Bagnewsnotes+%28BAGnewsNotes%29

I imagine it’s reasonable, at this point, to consider AP photographer David Guttenfelder an ambassador. After so many visits to North Korea (and so many thoughtful images), he has gained their trust and, with it, an unusual degree of access. What’s special and fascinating, though, is the way his wonderful photos apparently represent so differently to the (very sensitive) powers-that-be in that culture as compared to how they read to us in the West.

April 13, 2012
Tim Hetherington’s legacy: A mother’s perspective on her son’s war photography

Tim Hetherington’s legacy: A mother’s perspective on her son’s war photography

Judith Hetherington talks about her son’s legacy on the eve of his first major posthumous solo exhibition.Judith Hetherington talks about her son’s legacy on the eve of his first major posthumous solo exhibition.Judith Hetherington talks about her son’s l

via Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/arts-post/post/tim-hetheringtons-legacy-a-mothers-perspective-of-her-war-photographer-son/2012/04/11/gIQAtqqxAT_blog.html?wprss=rss_world

“I didn’t really worry,” Judith Hetherington, mother of “Restrepo” co-director Tim Hetherington said. “I didn’t because I don’t think we can do anything about it. Tim had chosen his path.” In nine days, it will be the one-year anniversary of his death in Libya. Thursday will be the opening of his first posthumous solo exhibition.

April 12, 2012
At Bosnia Reunion, Journalists See Unfinished Work

At Bosnia Reunion, Journalists See Unfinished Work | PDNPulse

Over 400 Bosnian and foreign journalists who covered the Bosnian war gathered in Sarajevo last week for the 20th anniversary of the outbreak of the conflict. But the reunion, organized by former Le Monde correspondent and editor Remy Ourdan and TV reporte

via PDNPulse: http://pdnpulse.com/2012/04/at-bosnia-reunion-journalists-see-unfinished-work.html

“It wasn’t very celebratory,” says Gary Knight, VII. “For so many of us, there was an affirmation that we need to get back to work in that country.”

April 12, 2012
Rich Clarkson – What should photographers know?

Link: The Photo Society

let me tell you personally how I have always hired people — whether for a staff position or a single assignment. Bob Gilka used to say that I was the best “discoverer” of new talent in the country. To me, it was always simple for the best people were easy to pick — and Bob had picked some pretty good ones in his time, too. Good people, with intelligence, commitment and “fire in the belly” just stand out. I have always been more interested in the personality than the portfolio.

April 7, 2012
Small Paper Prioritizes Photography, Wins Awards

Small Paper Prioritizes Photography, Wins Awards

“Where the hell is Dubois County and what the hell is The Herald?” you might ask, flipping through the 2012 newspaper picture editing winners from the prestigious Picture of the Year International awards. Located in the town of Jasper in rural southern In

via WIRED: http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/04/small-paper-prioritizes-photography-wins-awards/all/1

“Where the hell is Dubois County and what the hell is The Herald?” you might ask, flipping through the 2012 newspaper picture editing winners from the prestigious Picture of the Year International awards.

April 2, 2012
Peter Turnley: Moments of the Human Condition, Part One

Link: The Leica Camera

“I have embraced photojournalism as a means to communicate, provoke, and inspire, as well as to document history. I have employed the camera as a voice, to shout out about injustice while affirming what is beautiful and good.”

March 21, 2012
Not Ruining the Photo

Not Ruining the Photo — duckrabbit

Recently I spoke at a conference about the American conflict in Vietnam. This was the first time I had presented…

via duckrabbit: http://duckrabbit.info/blog/2012/03/not-ruining-the-photo/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+duckrabbit%2FNrks+%28duckrabbit%29

Recently I spoke at a conference about the American conflict in Vietnam. This was the first time I had presented a paper at a conference and it was interesting to receive responses after the talk. Some people were really excited by what I had said, some people wanted to argue with me, some people wanted to quiz me, and one guy said this:

“Do you think you are kind of ruining the photo by analysing it so much? I mean, these are iconic images, and you’ve got the photographers talking about them, talking about the moment they took them; don’t you think that you’re reading more into it than is really there?”

March 17, 2012
My journey into Syria’s nightmare

My journey into Syria’s nightmare

The contact from Syria called: “Be ready in 30 minutes,” he said. “If you want to go, we have to go now.”

via Reuters: http://blogs.reuters.com/photographers-blog/2012/03/14/my-journey-into-syrias-nightmare/

In Syria, enemies are yards apart. The war is being fought from house to house. Not knowing the local terrain, we were completely dependent on our rebel guides to keep us alive.

March 16, 2012
Photographs and story from Syria by Tyler Hicks

Recounting a Journey Into Syria

Tyler Hicks was on assignment in Syria with the correspondent Anthony Shadid when Mr. Shadid died after interviewing Syrian resistance fighters. Mr. Hicks recounts the journey for Sunday’s paper.

via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/recounting-a-journey-into-syria/?pagewanted=all

An article in Sunday’s New York Times, written by Tyler Hicks, a staff photographer, recounts the journey he and Anthony Shadid, a Times reporter, made to Syria last month

March 4, 2012
Remembering 13 Unsung Heroes of Photojournalism

Remembering 13 Unsung Heroes of Photojournalism | PDNPulse

News stories of the deaths in Syria of American reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik totaled in the thousands last week. That was followed by hundreds of stories yesterday about the rescue of British photographer Paul Conroy, who was

via PDNPulse: http://pdnpulse.com/2012/02/remembering-13-unsung-heroes-of-photojournalism.html

Lost in much of the coverage about Conroy’s rescue was the fact that 35 activists helped Conroy reach safety in Lebanon, and 13 of them died during the rescue mission. AP reported those deaths, which occurred when government troops attacked the activists.

March 1, 2012
David Campbell addresses the myth of compassion fatigue

Link: dvafoto

David Campbell, a thoughtful writer on photojournalism, has just published a draft of one of his most recent papers, “The Myth of Compassion Fatigue” (pdf). There’s a summary of the paper’s main points on his blog. The paper addresses the origins of the idea of compassion fatigue, Sontag’s own reversal of her original thesis, current thinking about compassion fatigue, and, most importantly, a look at what sort of evidence might indicate that compassion fatigue is a problem.

February 29, 2012
Opinion: Why Instagram photos cheat the viewer

Link: CNN.com

But every time I see one of these “news images” — subtly altered to resemble images taken on vintage film stock or using expensive lenses and filters — I feel cheated. And so should you.

February 28, 2012
SUSIE LINFIELD: “An Excerpt from ‘The Cruel Radiance, Photography and Political Violence’” (2010)

SUSIE LINFIELD: An Excerpt from ‘The Cruel Radiance, Photography and Political Violence’ (2010)

Eddie Adams, Saigon Execution, Vietnam, 1968
A Little History of Photography Criticism; or, Why Do Photography Critics Hate Photography?

(An excerpt from The Cruel Radiance, Photography and Political Violence)

By Susie Linfield

In 1846, Charles

via AMERICAN SUBURB X: http://www.americansuburbx.com/2012/02/susie-linfield-excerpt-from-cruel.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Americansuburb+%28ASX+%7C+AMERICAN+SUBURB+X+%7C+Photography+%26+Culture%29

These moments are in reality utterly discontinuous with normal time.… But the reader who has been arrested by the photograph may tend to feel this discontinuity as his own personal moral inadequacy. And as soon as this happens even his sense of shock is dispersed: his own moral inadequacy may now shock him as much as the crimes being committed in the war.… The issue of the war which has caused that moment is effectively depoliticised.

February 20, 2012
The Problem with Western Press Photo

Link: Conscientious

If you look through the series of winning photographs of World Press Photo (I’m talking about the main winning image here, not the many others in the various categories), pretty much every photograph expresses something very specifically seen through our, Western, eyes. Photographers, of course, do their best to take good photographs. But what we see in the news, in newspapers, magazines, and on websites, is a carefully selected number of photographs conforming to usually very specific messages.

February 12, 2012