Read the latest stories about LightBox on Time
via Time: https://time.com/section/lightbox/
Last week, seven Palestinian men sat for Pulitzer Prize-winning Israeli photographer Oded Balilty in a home in the West Bank village of Bilin. Against a black backdrop, one man posed with a taut slingshot, two small pebbles resting in the sling. Another stared defiantly through a gas mask. A third carried a tire.
Oded Balilty thought he knew Israel, the country he grew up in, pretty well. But when he photographed Israel’s Russian-speaking immigrant community, he learned he had a lot to learn.
via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/israels-flourishing-russian-culture/
In a country full of Jewish immigrants, children of immigrants, and grandchildren of immigrants, Israeli Russians have retained a sense of their culture, language and identity. Yet they remain slightly apart.
Read the latest stories about LightBox on Time
via Time: http://lightbox.time.com/2012/04/09/oded-balilty-the-art-of-storytelling/#1
In the same way that he’s trying to find different stories and make different pictures, Balilty says he’s trying to be a different photographer, too. “If I see photographers in one corner, I go away,” he says. “There is no need to take the same picture as five other good photographers. I’m tying to isolate myself and show the story from different angles, not only visually but mentally, to find small, quite moments within a big a crazy story.”
Back to good news in the photojournalism world: The winners of this year’s Pulitzer Prizes were announced this week. The Pulitzers are the top awards in newspaper journalism.
The award for Breaking News Photography was awarded to Associated Press photographer Oded Balilty for the photo above, of illegal settlers being removed in the West Bank.
The Feature Photography Pulitzer was awarded to Sacramento Bee photographer Renee C. Byer for her story, “A Mother’s Journey,” which tells the story of a single mother and her dying son’s battle with cancer.
Balilty’s photograph is wonderful and deserving. It’s everything that a great news photograph should be. But make sure you look through Byer’s powerful photo essay on the Bee’s website. If you don’t choke up as you follow the downward spiral of this family’s fight with cancer, well…
Byer’s essay is everything that I love about great photojournalism. It isn’t a photo-op. It doesn’t involve celebrities. It isn’t the opening of a new government office building. This is a long-term intimate look at real people facing real problems. The frustration and despair, the hopes both wished for and dashed, are all there, captured in great documentary photography. It is truly amazing work.
Congratulations to both photographers. And thank you.
Here is Byer’s work on The Sacramento Bee’s website. If you’re in a hurry, make sure you at least click through the four photo galleries (parts one through four) listed along the right side of the project’s page.
This post first appeared here.