The Joop Swart Masterclass has been organized by World Press Photo every year since 1994 and is established as one of the most prestigious events of its kind. The Masterclass is a gathering of some of the most experienced individuals in photojournalism with 12 young, promising photographers. The goal of Masterclass is for the masters to share and pass on their knowledge and experience to the younger photographers.
Link: The Visual Student » The Joop Swart Masterclass: Matt Eich
Walker Evans (1903-75), whose work is currently (2000) on display at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, was an American photographer who produced some remarkable images, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s. He is perhaps best known, rightly or wrongly, for a series of photographs he took of tenant farm families in Hale County, Alabama in 1936. Of those probably the most famous are several 8 x 10 portraits of Allie Mae Burroughs, dark hair pulled back, tightlipped, against unpainted wooden clapboards. There are not many other photos one can think of that “stand” for a moment in history and are so widely assumed to have summed up the situation of a suffering population as these do.
Link: AMERICANSUBURB X: THEORY: “Walker Evans and Photography (2000)”
Toward the end of that fight, when the Marines and Loomis were evacuating the area, he had to make a decision. Was he only a photographer, or was he going to put down his cameras and help a young Marine, Lance Cpl. Aaron Austin, who had been shot several times through the chest during the battle? Loomis remembered the admonition of veteran photojournalist David LaBelle, who always said, “Be a human first,” and helped carry Austin out of danger.
Link: PhotoMedia Magazine Online » Blog Archive » Rick Loomis: Unforgotten Casualties
photojournalism is devolving into yet another medium perceived as intending to shock, titillate, sell, distort. My sense is that if we are truly serious about preserving at least some of its credibility — while making it clear that it is not representative of the “truth” — we need to take strong steps.
W. Eugene Smith’s Pittsburgh Photographs
Carnegie, Nov/Dec 2001 by Ellen S. Wilson
“Don’t expect,” wrote photographer W Eugene Smith, “a point-by-point hand-led tour. This is an experience as an intensely curious visitor (perhaps a new resident) mig
via AMERICAN SUBURB X: http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/11/theory-w-eugene-smiths-pittsburgh.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Americansuburb+%28AMERICANSUBURBX%29
“Don’t expect,” wrote photographer W Eugene Smith, “a point-by-point hand-led tour. This is an experience as an intensely curious visitor (perhaps a new resident) might discover it.”
Smith wrote those notes to himself as he began his Pittsburgh project, what he later called “the finest set of photographs I have ever produced.” With a clear vision and a spectacular result, it is puzzling that Smith also considered the project a failure, and that until now the final results have never been exhibited together.
After more than forty years with the Associated Press, veteran photographer Harry Cabluck, 71, was one of the 80-90 staffers laid off by the organization on Tuesday. He always said he had no plans to retire.
via The Texas Tribune: http://www.texastribune.org/blogs/post/2009/nov/17/photo-finish/
He just ordered new business cards. But by Tuesday afternoon, veteran photographer and Capitol treasure Harry Cabluck found out he wouldn’t need them. Cabluck, 71, is one of two Texas-based Associated Press photographers to be laid off as part of the company-wide cuts.
Other AP veterans let go include photography staff members Donna McWilliams in Dallas; Al Grillo in Anchorage, AK; Mary Ann Chastain in Columbis, SC; and Winslow Townson and Lisa Poole in Boston, MA.
Link: AP Layoffs Include Photographers, Texas Legend Harry Cabluck
I have always had a fascination with Mt. Everest. There is just something about being on top of the world that is ever appealing. So when I finally decided fly to Nepal with two weeks notice, I knew that this birthday would be one to remember. Operation Everest Base Camp would commence with the intention to reach Base Camp on October 29, 2009. I will preface this by admitting that I have not seen the inside of a gym in more than 6 months and the last mountain I climbed was more than 3 years ago. But I was determined to trek and do so without a guide or porters.
When Magnum photographer Chris Steele-Perkins entered the private world of carers and those they care for, he discovered the true meaning of love
via the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/14/magnum-photographs-carers
Take a handful of Britain’s six million carers and their families, add a Magnum photographer and what do you get? A moving, intimate record of the relationships involved
If you have no knowledge about East Africa you might actually believe a statement like the one written above presumably…
I’m wracking my brains to imagine how he (or someone else) could have got it so wrong, and how no-one else has spotted it? Of course it rains on large parts of Kenya. Kenya has a rainy season but there’s not been enough of it and in some places the rain didn’t come at all. That’s something altogether different from the notion that Kenya hasn’t seen any rain at all for several years.
The photos themselves are powerful but leave me cold.
This is a blog about photojournalism, so I want to tell my story about how I photographed this historical event. At 2:21 pm I was in downtown Austin covering a funeral when I got a news alert on my cell phone about the shooting in Killeen. Eleven minutes later I got a call from my editor telling me to hit the road and follow staff photographer Rudy Gonzalez who was already on his way there.
Link: Tragedy at Fort Hood – Collective Vision | Photoblog for the Austin American-Statesman
How do the revolutions in the media economy (detailed in the first and second post of this series) affect photojournalism? Given both the crisis in the distribution of information and the new opportunities for the structure of information, what futures are there for photojournalism?
Link: dispatches / Revolutions in the media economy (3) – photojournalism’s futures
The picture, by Nicole Bengiveno, ran at the top of The Times’s front page on Wednesday. What made Specialist Hill such a compelling focal point was not just his agonized posture. It was the low angle from which Ms. Bengiveno deliberately photographed him and the softer focus in which Ms. Bengiveno deliberately cast his comrades.
Link: On Assignment: Liability, Meet Asset – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com
With summer internships and graduation looming six months away, assembling a portfolio is the essential piece in applying for internships and jobs. But it’s hard. Photographers constantly wrack their brains looking through bodies of work. Which images should they use? In what order? What does this image convey? What does the portfolio, as a cohesive unit, say about the photographer as an artist and a photojournalist?
Photographer Eugene Tanner covered his first natural disaster in American Samoa.
Link: Not A Typical Morning
We parked our car and I positioned myself behind several protesters as Claudia asked two men to allow me to balance my camera on their shoulders, in order to make a long exposure without flash, of the lineup of Stasi and their dogs that were biting protesters. After making many images, I was suddenly swept off my feet by several undercover police officers. I was sure that I would lose this important film as I was taken to a paddy wagon and asked to surrender my film and cameras.
Link to story: 20th Anniversary: The Fall of the Iron Curtain – The Digital Journalist
Link to photo gallery: Digital Journalist Weblog » Peter Turnley – 20th Anniversary: The Fall of the Iron Curtain
In the end, one wonders how it’s possible to even put out a magazine anymore. When I think of what we used to do, the budgets we had – and they never felt extravagant at the time – were essentially an investment in excellence.