IT WAS THE spring of 2006 and I was embedded as a photojournalist in the meanest part of the meanest city in Iraq — Ramadi. Here the bad guys ruled. Leaving your base camp virtually guaranteed a fight. I got one the first day. When shots rang out, I jumped into the street and started snapping away. I looked back and saw a tall Navy SEAL seemingly pointing his MK48 medium machine gun right at me.
In fact, he was protecting me and his teammates. Strange that I would never have learned his name if six months later he hadn’t sacrificed all to save those other men. Tuesday I looked on as Navy Master-at Arms 2nd Class Michael Monsoor received the nation’s highest award — the Medal of Honor.
So we’re happy to announce our the updated PhotoShelter plug-in for Aperture 2.0 that supports uploads to both the Personal Archive and the PhotoShelter Collection.
Enter Michael von Graffenried. This much-lauded 51-year-old Swiss-born photojournalist has worked in this region for nearly two decades. He has a special relationship with Algeria, where he first shot photos in 1991 and returned to shoot the country’s agonizing and bloody decent into civil war.
Von Graffenried’s Algerian work is the stuff of “Algerie: Photographies d’une Guerre sans Images,” the exhibition currently on show at The Hangar in Haret Hreik. A meta-exhibition, it features both a sample of the photographer’s riveting work alongside “War Without Images: Algeria I Know That You Know,” Mohammed Soudani’s 2002 documentary about Von Graffenried’s work. The Hangar is playing the film in a loop alongside the photos.
Youth can be a minefield: drugs, sex, violence, and peer pressure. One group has an extreme way of dealing with it. They call themselves Straight Edge, and while they are being classified as a violent gang in areas such as Salt Lake City and Reno, they aren’t like any other gang you know: they reject drugs, drinking, smoking, and even casual sex. They’re rebels against a society in which everything goes. National Geographic goes inside this growing youth movement caught between being a refuge for Americas kids and a dangerous gang wanted by authorities.
My anxiously-awaited new HonlPhoto Speed Grids are in production now and will be ready for sale in about 2 weeks. ‘Til then, I’ve done some fun shoots with the final production samples
An Iraqi judicial committee has dismissed terrorism-related allegations against Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein and ordered him released nearly two years after he was detained by the U.S. military.
A decision by a four-judge panel said Hussein’s case falls under a new amnesty law. It ordered Iraqi courts to “cease legal proceedings” and ruled that Hussein should be “immediately” released unless other accusations are pending.
I found the work of Petros Efstathiadis, a photographer born in Greece, now based in England, who was recently selected as a new member of the Piece of Cake (POC)
As I held it in my hands I thought to myself, “This is the future of P&S cameras.” I didn’t realize at the time that it was also going to be a “blast from the past.” Before going any further into what may seem like a good bit of criticism, let me say up front that I really like this camera, and, despite its high cost, would buy it again.
A settlement between Illinois newspapers and the state’s scholastic sports authority gives papers everything they were seeking in getting close access to interscholastic competitions and the right to sell the photos to the public, the executive director of the Illinois Press Association (IPA) said Wednesday.
“I’d say that’s a fair statement — we did get everything we wanted,” David L. Bennett said. “There are probably some out there who would have liked to have seen it handled through the legislature, but that’s just a showier way to do it, a little more demonstrative. The fact of the matter is everything we wanted in the legislature, we got in this settlement.”
Like much of the journalism we do, the St. Pierre project required that members of the community trust in our ability to tell an important human story. As we at the Monitor celebrate this historic moment for the newspaper, we also recognize our debt to the spirit of Carolynne St. Pierre and to Rich and his family. They have our deepest gratitude.
Gannaway’s winning Pulitzer entry included 19 of the photographs we published last year. The photos are candid, beautiful, intimate, heart-wrenching and sensitive. Five are reprinted in today’s paper, and readers can see a multimedia presentation of the project and read Conaboy’s fine stories at concordmonitor.com. The photo entry sent to the Pulitzer Prize board is also available on the site.
We all loved MultimediaShooter and it’ll be dearly missed, but thankfully Richard has found what he calls his new online distraction. Check out the first piece in his new visual journal.
Susan Bein’s painterly night-time photos are romantic and mysterious and fun. We discovered her work when she became one of the finalists in this year’s Critical Mass portfolio review competition.
While in Asia in 2007, TEDster Paul Koontz got the priceless chance to spend a few days in North Korea. He brought his kids and his camera, capturing both quotidian detail (like the military bearing of a lonely traffic warden) and the grand spectacle leading up to the Mass Games. This short slideshow gives a rare perspective on a culture that the rest of us know far too little about. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 06:23.)
You have all of 25 minutes to shoot Admiral William J. “Fox” Fallon for an Esquire Magazine feature story. They need a portrait that conveys intensity, but you will be shooting in a typical office setting.
I drove into the Ninth Ward a year and a half after Katrina left it in ruins. Friends of mine who had already been there told me the devastation was “unbelievable.” I wondered what that meant — unbelievable.
My friends were wrong.
The Newspaper Picture Editor of the Year (Individual) is Brad Loper of The Dallas Morning News. Second place is Mary Cooney of the Los Angeles Times, and third place is Dan Habib of The Concord Monitor. Honorable Mentions were awarded to Janet Reeves of The Rocky Mountain News, and to Mark Edelson of The Palm Beach Post.
So when you get that award(s), you’ll need something to wear out to remind yourself of it. How ’bout a a kick-ass camera pendant? Seriously. It’s a Leica, too
I want all of you to know that I totally empathize with everything you’ll soon be going through. Nobody likes to learn that their lives are about to be snuffed out for no reason save that of random, irrational violence. It’s a terrifying proposition, I know. But everyone’s going to have to sacrifice a little here, and, for what it’s worth, I’m not going to survive this upcoming murder spree any more than you are. So take solace in the fact that, right after I gun you all down next week without warning, I will immediately be shooting myself in the head, as well.
