Sunday, July 29, 2007
National Foundation for India
NFI announces its 13th National Media Fellowships Programme..see the link above...and apply..GOOD LUCK TO ALL INDIAN PHOTOJOURNALISTS....KP
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
CASTING A SPELL..a journey of my friend, roomate and a collegemate
VIJAY GEORGE (The Hindu)
Sunil Babu mesmerises viewers with his ability to create reel sets that make his films a real experience for cine buffs.
A scene from `Ghajini.'
The wizard Digambaran makes his way into the manthrikappura. He is in the process of transmigration. The tall pillars, ponds and a huge ennathoni add to the mysterious ambience. As Santosh Sivan's camera creates magic, Sunil Babu watches the action on a monitor with a satisfied smile.
Rave reviews
Sunil, art director of `Ananthabhadram,' has reason to smile. His work in the film has been receiving rave reviews. Sunil, who began his career as an assistant to art director Sabu Cyril, has blossomed into one of the best art directors in South India, with films such as `Lakshya,' `Iqbal,' `Ghajini,' `Durgi' and `The Police' to his credit. However, it was the settings of `Ananthabhadram' that has made viewers in Kerala notice his creativity, which, perhaps, films with bigger budgets did not fetch for him.
The shadowy manthrikappura and the song sequences wherein some of Raja Ravi Varma's paintings were recreated on celluloid by Kavya Madhavan and Prithviraj mesmerise viewers with their attention to detail and superb lighting effects.
It was his fascination for painting that took Sunil from Changanasherry to the Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts in Mysore where he completed his graduation in fine arts. "I had seen these huge portraits in my mother's house and had fallen in love with colours as a child. Perhaps, a colour box that my uncle gave me was the most treasured gift during my childhood," he recalls.
Soon after his graduation, he met Suresh Balaji who introduced him to Sabu Cyril. He started assisting him for the Miss World pageant in 1996 and then for a number of films, which includes `Major Saab,' `Hey Ram,' `Kannathil Muthamittal,'
`Kilichundan Mambazham,' `Lesa Lesa' and `Main Hoon Na.'
Sunil is grateful to Sabu for "giving me the confidence, as I needed it badly especially during those years when I was a beginner. He is never hesitant to give you more responsibilities and is an amazing person to work with."
Sunil became an independent art director with Rajesh Touch River's `In the name of Buddha.'
And soon he was working with directors in Bollywood. How was it working with Farhan Akhtar in `Lakshya'? "He is very focussed and very strict on the sets. We had recreated Ladakh inside Film City for the film," he says.
Recounting his experience with directors he has worked with he adds, "In `The Police,' directed by V.K. Prakash, with whom I have done numerous ad films, the whole unit was like a big family."
Perhaps, this gifted artist treats each film like a canvas that he fills in with colours, shades and tones. Each film is a challenge as he tries to meet the director's requirements.
DREAM MERCHANT: Sunil Babu:
"For instance, `Ghajini' would have been a challenge for any art director as it had shots that showed the flat where Surya lives, which was created for the movie," he says.
In Nagesh Kukunoor's recent hit `Iqbal,' "everything had to look realistic. I made around six to seven cricket pitches for the film." Sunil believes that an imaginative cinematographer is essential to make the best of an art director's craft.
"I feel lucky to have worked with the best in the business so early in my life," he says.
Budgets not a constraint:
He dispels the notion that only big budget films can afford sumptuous sets that are a visual treat for cine buffs.
Though Malayalam films have much smaller budgets when compared to films in Hindi and Tamil, he emphasises that huge sums of money are not mandatory for making a good film.
"It's the story and the way it is narrated that is more important than the budget. Although the opulence is less in Malayalam films when compared to other languages, we do make quality films here."
Now, he is getting ready for Santosh Sivan's next film, a story set in the 1930s, which is being made in English.
Is he planning to become a director himself?
"It's a dream and I hope it becomes a reality soon."
Sunil Babu mesmerises viewers with his ability to create reel sets that make his films a real experience for cine buffs.
A scene from `Ghajini.'
The wizard Digambaran makes his way into the manthrikappura. He is in the process of transmigration. The tall pillars, ponds and a huge ennathoni add to the mysterious ambience. As Santosh Sivan's camera creates magic, Sunil Babu watches the action on a monitor with a satisfied smile.
Rave reviews
Sunil, art director of `Ananthabhadram,' has reason to smile. His work in the film has been receiving rave reviews. Sunil, who began his career as an assistant to art director Sabu Cyril, has blossomed into one of the best art directors in South India, with films such as `Lakshya,' `Iqbal,' `Ghajini,' `Durgi' and `The Police' to his credit. However, it was the settings of `Ananthabhadram' that has made viewers in Kerala notice his creativity, which, perhaps, films with bigger budgets did not fetch for him.
The shadowy manthrikappura and the song sequences wherein some of Raja Ravi Varma's paintings were recreated on celluloid by Kavya Madhavan and Prithviraj mesmerise viewers with their attention to detail and superb lighting effects.
It was his fascination for painting that took Sunil from Changanasherry to the Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts in Mysore where he completed his graduation in fine arts. "I had seen these huge portraits in my mother's house and had fallen in love with colours as a child. Perhaps, a colour box that my uncle gave me was the most treasured gift during my childhood," he recalls.
Soon after his graduation, he met Suresh Balaji who introduced him to Sabu Cyril. He started assisting him for the Miss World pageant in 1996 and then for a number of films, which includes `Major Saab,' `Hey Ram,' `Kannathil Muthamittal,'
`Kilichundan Mambazham,' `Lesa Lesa' and `Main Hoon Na.'
Sunil is grateful to Sabu for "giving me the confidence, as I needed it badly especially during those years when I was a beginner. He is never hesitant to give you more responsibilities and is an amazing person to work with."
Sunil became an independent art director with Rajesh Touch River's `In the name of Buddha.'
And soon he was working with directors in Bollywood. How was it working with Farhan Akhtar in `Lakshya'? "He is very focussed and very strict on the sets. We had recreated Ladakh inside Film City for the film," he says.
Recounting his experience with directors he has worked with he adds, "In `The Police,' directed by V.K. Prakash, with whom I have done numerous ad films, the whole unit was like a big family."
Perhaps, this gifted artist treats each film like a canvas that he fills in with colours, shades and tones. Each film is a challenge as he tries to meet the director's requirements.
DREAM MERCHANT: Sunil Babu:
"For instance, `Ghajini' would have been a challenge for any art director as it had shots that showed the flat where Surya lives, which was created for the movie," he says.
In Nagesh Kukunoor's recent hit `Iqbal,' "everything had to look realistic. I made around six to seven cricket pitches for the film." Sunil believes that an imaginative cinematographer is essential to make the best of an art director's craft.
"I feel lucky to have worked with the best in the business so early in my life," he says.
Budgets not a constraint:
He dispels the notion that only big budget films can afford sumptuous sets that are a visual treat for cine buffs.
Though Malayalam films have much smaller budgets when compared to films in Hindi and Tamil, he emphasises that huge sums of money are not mandatory for making a good film.
"It's the story and the way it is narrated that is more important than the budget. Although the opulence is less in Malayalam films when compared to other languages, we do make quality films here."
Now, he is getting ready for Santosh Sivan's next film, a story set in the 1930s, which is being made in English.
Is he planning to become a director himself?
"It's a dream and I hope it becomes a reality soon."
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
personalities
Radio jockey Asef in his studio. Dubai. (C) AMG photography: kiran prasad & art design by nikhil asok
Monday, June 18, 2007
the angkor photography festival-november 18-28, 2007, siem reap, cambodia
It is never late to know who is who...cheers..kp
participants
Antoine d'Agata
http://www.magnumphotos.com
Antoine d'Agata is a member of Magnum Agency. He studied photography at the ICP in New York in 1990 under Larry Clark and Nan Goldin. An adventurous spirit in search of himself and always on the lookout for new adventures, Antoine d'Agata invites us on a journey. He does not try to illustrate the world but rather shows how he fits into it. The lyricism of the presentation and the exaggeration of the situations force us to question the reality of what we see. His first book, "Mala Noche", was published in 1998, followed by Hometown in 2001, the year he received the Niepce Prize. "Vortex" and "Insomnia" were published in 2003, and Stigm in 2005.
Achinto Bhadro
achinto@vsnl.com
Achinto Bhadro was born in 1959 prior to taking up photography as a profession, lived, worked and managed the Crafts Centre at Asha Niketan L arche International a community for the mentally challenged. He studied photography at Chitra Bani, Calcutta and at the London College of Printing on receiving the Charles Wallace Award. Over the years as an independent photographer his interest and assignments from National and International Development Agencies led him to cover issues of the Urban poor, children and women, and he contributed in many exhibits and books, in India, U.K., France, South East Asia.
Jan Banning
banning@solcon.nl
Jan Banning was born is 1954 in the Netherlands. He studied history and has been a photographer since 1981, concentrating on self-initiated projects, such as The Office and Aftermath of Wars. He has received many journalistic and cultural awards, among them a 2004 World Press Photo Award. His photo books are Vietnam: Doi Moi (1993), Traces of War and Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways (2005). Banning s photographs have been published in Newsweek, Foreign Policy, Sunday Times Magazine, Le Monde 2 and NRC Handelsblad M. His work was exhibited at the Noorderlicht Festival (Groningen/Leeuwarden), the Kunsthal (Rotterdam), the Dorsky Gallery (New York), the Erasmushuis (Jakarta) and others and shown at Visa pour l Image (Perpignan). His photos have been purchased by the Ministry of Justice (Holland), the Open Society Archives (Hungary) and private collections.
Pablo Bartholomew
http://www.lightstalkers.org/pablobartholomew
Pablo Bartholomew is based in New Delhi, India. He divides time between photography, running long term photography workshops, and managing a software company that specializes in photo databases solutions and server based digital archiving systems. Between 2001 and 2003 ran photography workshop for emerging photographers in India with the support of the World Press Photo Foundation in Amsterdam. Pablo has also photographed societies in transition in different locations. He won the World Press Photo award for his series Morphine Addicts in India (1975) and the World Press Picture of the Year for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1985). He has taken part in several international exhibitions and published in Newsweek, Time, National Geographic and Geo amongst other prestigious magazines.
Françoise Callier
frcallier@wanadoo.fr
Françoise Callier was born in Belgium and moved to Paris in 1983. She worked for fifteen years with 2eBureau, a press and public relations office, agenting photographers like Helmut Newton and Jean-Paul Goude. She worked for seven years for the Photojournalism Festival Visa pour l Image in Perpignan France. French correspondent for Corbis for three years, she also did volunteer work with disabled children and at a children s hospital. Currently helping the Kogi Indians to recoup parts of their ancestral lands in Colombia, Françoise Callier is an avid traveller who has visited Antarctica and wrote stories about a mischievous king penguin girl called Lila. Her books Silly Lila, Lila on Ice, Lila in Africa and ABC in the Wild are for sale on Amazon.com
Thierry Chantegret
http://www.agence37.com
Thierry Chantegret, photojournalist, explores the relationship between cities and their inhabitants. He has worked in various countries such as India and Argentina, but more recently in a small French town, Charleville Mezieres, where the Poet Arthur Rimbaud was born and raised. The Ardennes Museum commissioned him to help commemorate the town's 400th birthday, and allowed him to work in the poet s house. Thierry now plans to settle in Charleville Mezieres, which has been severely affected by unemployment. In addition to developing his personal artistic creations, he also organises educational workshops with schools and welfare centers.
Greg Constantine
http://www.gregconstantine.com
Greg Constantine was born in the United States. Since 2003, he has worked on stories about: North Korean refugees; life in modern-day Tokyo; struggling communities on the US Mexico border, and the lives of paroled women in Watts, Los Angeles. His photographs have been featured in several international publications and have been utilized by Refugees International, Human Rights Watch and Medecins Sans Frontieres. His work has been exhibited in South Korea, Los Angeles, Washington, DC and Pittsburgh. His recent, on going project, Nowhere People, documents the effects statelessness has on minority groups in Asia. Photographs from this project have been nominated for UNICEF Photo of the Year and will also be exhibited in Bangladesh at the international photography festival, Chobi Mela IV.
Thomas De Cian
http://www.lightstalkers.org/thomasdecian
Thomas De Cian was born in Italy in 1978. He studied journalism in Australia and has been a freelance photojournalist since 2001. After graduating, his passion for photography brought him to Southeast Asia and he is been living in the region since 2002 His black and white reportages focus on social and political issues throughout Asia and want to show the sheer humanity that can lie behind even the most unusual an desperate situations. It is in these very situations that the strength and the instinct of survival come out, by contrast men reveal their most human side and can even find the time for a moment of happiness. Thomas is currently based in Bangkok, Thailand.
Christine Cibert
chcibert@aol.com
Christine Cibert is a French art curator and a free-lance journalist. She majored in Japanese language and culture and in Art History studies at Paris University. Afterwards, she moved to Tokyo where she has been living and working for more than ten years, as an art dealer and a curator, organizing cultural events, exhibitions for painters and photographers into art galleries, cultural centers and museums in Japan and in France. She also has been writing on art, cultural and social subjects for French and Japanese newspapers and magazines : France-Japon Eco, Agence France Presse, Jipango, Wasabi, Les Voix, Cambodge Soir, Kateigaho International Edition, L'Art Aujourd'hui, Univers des Arts, Cahiers d'art and France Culture Radio. Since several years, she also has developed her activities to South-East Asia (Cambodia, Vietnam).
Olivier Culmann
http://www.tendancefloue.net
Olivier Culmann, member of Tendance Floue, photographer's collective, photographs people watching TV. And their TV sets. The viewers' eyes are glued to the screen, hypnotized by the images that flicker by. Olivier Culmann captures that instant during which attention subsides and consciousness slumbers, rocked to sleep by the phosphorescence of the cathode ray tubes. At that instant, their bodies often become comfortable, they curl up on the couch and then collapse. Nothing could be more banal. And nothing more unsettling. Because that is how, in quasi immobile passivity, when the brain has gone numb, that we, television viewers receive the world in its entirety. Not the real world, but an image of that world, a ghostly version of reality.
Binh Danh
sunleafprints@yahoo.com
Binh Danh received a MFA degree in Studio Art from Stanford University and a BFA in Photography from San Jose State University. He invented a unique process for printing photographs onto the surface of leaves by exploiting the natural process of photosynthesis. Combining the diverse disciplines of art, history, and science, Danh extensively researches the subject matter he is drawn too. He is a recipient of a 2004 Artist Project Award from the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA and his work is in the collection of de Young Museum, the Corcoran Art Gallery, the San Jose Museum of Art, and the Oakland Museum of California. He is represented by Haines Gallery in San Francisco.
James W. Delano
http://www.jameswhitlowdelano.com
James W. Delano is a romantic. His duotone photographs evince a poet's eye - dreamy, impressionistic, subtle, often melancholic. His photographs portray the ironies and contradictions of 20th-century Asia. The duotone prints themselves contribute to the sense of timelessness. Describing his working method, James says: "I must pass by quickly and quietly in order to capture the 'out of the corner of my eye' immediacy that I seek before I disturb the scene."
Agnes Dherbeys
http://www.evephotographers.com/
Agnes Dherbeys is a French photographer distributed by French Cosmos Agency and a founder member of EVE. She graduated with honours from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques of Lyon and from a Master 2 of Sciences of Information and Communication from Celsa, Sorbonne IV. She learned photography when she moved to Bangkok in 2001, and has since mainly worked in Nepal, East Timor, Cambodia and Thailand, with parentheses in Palestinian Territories. Her work has been published in Newsweek, Le Monde 2, Liberation, the South China Morning Post Magazine, Marie Claire, Days Magazine. She was winner of the Foundation Lagardere grant 2005, for her project in East Timor, titled: “From Independence to Dependence.”
Stephen Dupont
stephendupont@bigpond.com
Stephen Dupont is an international award winning Australian photojournalist and a member of Contact Press Images. His reportages has been featured in The New Yorker, Newsweek, French and German GEO, Liberation, The Sunday Times Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, and Time, and has earned him photography's most prestigious prizes, including a Robert Capa Gold Medal citation from the Overseas Press Club of America in 2006, and first places in the World Press Photo and Pictures of the Year International. Having exhibited his work in London, Paris, New York, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, and at Perpignan's Visa Pour L'Image, in 1999 Dupont was a founding member of the first festival of photojournalism in Australia: REPORTAGE-A. He works on long term projects around war, conflict and social issues.
Hosoe Eikoh
Hosoe Eikoh, Freelance photographer, Professor Emeritus at Tokyo Institute of Polytechnic, Director of Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts. Also currently serves as vice chair of Japan Professional Photographers Society and Japan Society for Arts and History of Photography. Born in 1933, after studying at the Tokyo College of Photography, Hosoe gained recognition with Barakei (Ordeal by Roses), a 1963 collection of portraits of novelist Yukio Mishima, and was awarded the Minister of Education's Arts Encouragement Prize in 1970 for Kamaitachi, a photo essay on Tatsumi Hijikata, founder of the Butoh Dance movement. In addition to his numerous publications and his works kept in many Art Collections, he also participated to many Individual and Selected Group Exhibitions in Japan and all over the world. As a photographer of international renown, he has also contributed to the internationalization of Asian photography. Hosoe was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon of Japan in 1998 and the 150th Special Anniversary Medal of the Royal Photographic Society in 2003.
Brendan Esposito
http://www.smh.com.au/ftimages/2005/10/05/1128191773885.html
Brendan Esposito has been a press photographer for almost 20 years. He works for The Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegraph, and is a stringer for AFP and Reuters. His assignments have included royal, papal and presidential tours. Esposito's extensive photography of the last remaining circuses in Australia was exhibited at the NSW Library. His last assignment, on street children addicted to glue sniffing in Siem Reap, has been exhibited at the inaugural festival. He is a new talent discovered during VII's workshop in February 2005.
Claude Estebe
Claude Estebe is a photo-historian. He published Les Derniers samouraïs and Le Crépuscule des geishas. He is currently working on a book about the dawn of japanese photography from his phd thesis. His photographic works questions the "cultural body" : mannequins (Perfect skin, 1994) , dancers (with Matoma and Susan Buirge)… His last work, Eloge des jambes, begun during a residence at Villa Kujoyama in 2000, completes an exhibition at Gallery U in Tokyo from 2003. This is gaze between sociology and voyeurism about japanese attitudes that seem a "cultural invariant". In a country of fast moving fashion, uchimata gait remains unchanged since centuries…
Thierry Falise
http://www.thierryfalise.com
Thierry Falise is a Belgian photojournalist based in Bangkok since 1991. He is a regular contributor (text and photos) to magazines and dailies such as L'Express, Le Point, Paris-Match, Le Figaro Magazine, Marie France, VSD, Grands Reportages, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and many more. In 2003, with a French colleague, he was arrested during a forbidden trip to the Laos jungle where he had met members of the abandoned Hmong community, once allies of the CIA during the Indochina war. Both reporters were sentenced to 15 years in prison but, thanks to a vast international solidarity campaign, were released after five weeks.
Philip Jones Griffiths
http://www.magnumphotos.com/cf/htm/TreePf_MAG.aspx?Stat=Photographers_Portfolio&E=29YL53IRGC5
Philip Jones Griffiths photographed in Vietnam from 1966 to 1970 and became famous for his book on the war, Vietnam Inc. Out of print in a few weeks, Vietnam Inc. crystallized public opinion and was essential in shaping Western misgivings about the US involvement in Vietnam and ultimately helping to bring the war to an end. Jones Griffiths, one of the very few photographers with his own agenda, was able to concentrate on conditions behind the headlines, and Vietnam Inc. is also a documentary study of Vietnamese folk life. In 1980, Griffiths moved to New York to assume the presidency of Magnum, a post which he held for a record five years.
Katharina Hessesettled
http://www.digitalrailroad.net/kathchina
Katharina Hessesettled down in Beijing in the mid-1990s after finishing a graduate degree in Chinese studies at Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (I.N.A.L.C.O) in Paris. She initially worked as an assistant for German TV (ZDF) and then freelanced for Newsweek from 1996 to 2002, where she did both reporting and photography. In 2003 and 2004 Hesse covered China for Getty's news service. She is self-taught in photography, albeit with a temporary apprenticeship under Peter Turnley. Currently she is an accredited photographer based in Beijing.
Claudio Hils
http://www.claudio-hils.com
Claudio Hils is a photographer, curator and communication designer. He has published numerous books on photography and the history of photography. His own photographic and artistical work is located at the thin line between artistical studies and social and political landscapes So he published the project RED LAND, BLUE LAND about the history of war. Furtheron he realised the project ARCHIVE_BELFAST which explores contemporary approaches to history, informed by ideas of identity and cultural inheritance, which increasely challenge the exclusivity of the archive. The here showed project DREAM CITY explores differences and similarities about the worldwide developments of urban space. He teaches photography at the University of Applied Sciences Vorarlberg in Austria and the University of Design Schwäbisch Gmünd in Germany.
Malcolm Hutcheson
malcolmhutcheson@yahoo.co.uk
Malcolm Hutcheson found himself growing up, feeling a responsibility to understand as much as he could of the big topic i.e. LIFE. It's not surprising that when he was eight he was not managing to understand anything; but unknown to him many others had felt the same way and invented photography to solve this very problem. As years passed he grew sad at all the beautiful things he had known that ceasing to exist and decided that whenever possible he would try to keep some of them with him. He found himself in Pakistan where he stayed to take photographs of what was not going to be there tomorrow. Currently working in Lahore on documenting the lives of residents of the Walled City, creating an Archive of 20th century photography in the Punjab including preserving the practise of “Ru Kitch” or “Minto” Photography, documenting historic monuments and buildings in Pakistan and developing a photographic style that will satisfy the above.
Stuart Isett
http://www.isett.com
Stuart Isett is a Swiss-born, American photographer based in Seattle, USA. After spending over a decade living and working in Asia and Europe, based in Bangkok, Tokyo and Paris, he moved to Seattle in 2006. His interest in Asia started in the early 1990s while working along the Thai-Cambodian border. He worked on a 3-year project on the city's Cambodian street gangs which was shown at the 2005 Angkor Photography Festival. Isett continues to work on documentaries in Asia and his work regularly appears in The New York Times, Time and Newsweek magazines among others. He is currently finishing a book project on Kyoto titled 'Kyotoland' which has been shown at the 2006 Reportage Festival in Australia, and at the Daegu Photo Biennale in Korea.
Sangeeta Isvaran
http://www.narthaki.com/info/intervw/intrvw77.html
Sangeeta Isvaran is a dancer, choreographer and researcher from India. A passionate believer in the power of art as a dynamic and exciting medium to foster empowerment and social change, she has worked with many different underprivileged groups such as street children and refugees. Using a combination of arts - classical, popular, martial, circus, Bollywood - from the different domains of dance, music, visual arts, poetry and literature, her work focuses on helping individuals express how they perceive their lives.
Ed Kashi
http://www.edkashistock.com/T/1159883949226
Ed Kashi has dedicated his photographic career to documenting the social and political issues that define our times. Kashi, with a degree in photojournalism from Syracuse University, has been photographing professionally since 1979. He has since photographed in over 60 countries and his images have appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, Time, Fortune, Geo, Newsweek and many others. In December 2002, Kashi and his wife Julie Winokur founded Talking Eyes Media, a non-profit educational multimedia company that explores social issues through visually compelling materials. The first documentary project for Talking Eyes Media produced a book (1993) and travelling exhibition on uninsured Americans called, Denied: The Crisis of America's Uninsured. The exhibition continues to travel across America.
Gary Knight
http://www.viiphoto.com
Gary Knight, co-founder of the Angkor Photography Festival, is a British photographer now residing in France. Also founder of the agency VII - today's reference in photojournalism - he has covered most of the world's conflicts over the past 15 years, from ex-Yugoslavia to Iraq's war, for the American magazine Newsweek. His work focuses mainly on poverty and defending human rights. Through VII, he organizes photography workshops that share the experiences of the agency's exceptional members.
Antonin Kratochvil
http://www.viiphoto.com
Antonin Kratochvil is Czech but lives in New York when he is not abroad reporting. This ex-political refugee is an unusual photographer. His work ranges from reporting on street children in Mongolia for the Museum of Natural History, to covering war in Iraq for Fortune or shooting portraits of David Bowie for Detour or of Deborah Harry for an advertising campaign for the American Civil Liberties. His latest book, Vanishing is the culmination of 15 years of reflection on natural and cultural phenomena facing extinction.
Kalpesh Lathigra
kalpesh.lathigra@btinternet.com
Kalpesh Lathigra was born in 1971 in London. Kalpesh studied Law at University before dropping out to pursue photography. He went to the London College of Printing to take a Postgraduate Diploma in Photojournalism and was awarded The Independent Newspaper's Photography Scholarship, after spending a year on staff he turned freelance working for national newspapers until 2000 when he was awarded a 1st prize in the World Press Photo (Arts category). He left newspapers in 2000 to concentrate on long term projects. In 2004 Kalpesh was awarded The W. Eugene Smith Fellowship for the “Brides of Krishna” and in 2005 a Winston Churchill Fellowship. Recently Kalpesh has been working on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, USA looking at the life of the Lakota Sioux tribe. Kalpesh's work has appeared in The Sunday Times Magazine (UK), The Guardian Magazine, The Independent Magazine, Geo, Marie Claire, Le Monde, etc...
Atul Loke
atulloke@yahoo.com
Atul Loke is an Indian photojournalis. He's work have been published in major international and national magazines and newspapers. He is the recipient of Japan's Young Portfolio Award (2002), a three months photography fellowship in Europe in Year 2002 to brush up photography and photo-editing skills with renowned photographers from National Geography and Magnum Agency and was part of the prestigious World Press photo to be a part of three years seminar in India and worked on their projects in the year 2000-06. He has been covering major national & social issues across the country and currently working on the personal book project in Mumbai.
Christophe Loviny
http://www.jazz-editions.com
Christophe Loviny, co-founder of the Angkor Photography Festival, is a photojournalist and editor. A specialist of Southeast Asia for over 25 years, he was based in Angkor from 1989 to 1994. His work on Cambodia has been published in The Sunday Times Magazine, Asiaweek, Geo, L'Express, Paris-Match, Stern, Le Figaro-Magazine, etc... He is the author of several illustrated books, one of which is "Les Danseuses Sacrées d'Angkor" (Seuil), a collection of texts and photographs on the identity of Cambodia. His latest book is "Cuba by Korda" (Ocean Press).
John McDermott
http://www.asiaphotos.net
John McDermott is an American photographer based in Asia for the last 12 years. After working as an editorial and commercial photographer in the US and Asia, he developed a fine art photography project focused on cultural heritage across Asia, documenting and portraying ancient sites and cultures that inhabit them at present. His work has been published in Time, Newsweek, Archaeology Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, and The New York Times. He has contributed to books including "A Day in the Life of Thailand", "The Extraordinary Museums of Southeast Asia", and "Southeast Asia - Passage through Time".
Marti Mueller
Marti Mueller is a writer, photographer, filmmaker, environmentalist, and social activist. She has spent a lifetime defending nature, spiritual principles, and the rights of indigenous people. Marti has received a Rolex citation for her work in environmental education. She was selected as an official speaker for the 2005 Universal Expo in Aichi, Japan as one of One Hundred People in the World Who Love the Earth. Marti's photos have been exhibited in London, Paris, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Tokyo, Phnom Penh, and Madras. Her work is part of permanent collections in several museums, including the Louvre in Paris. Her recent book on meditations on nature, This Earth of Ours, has a prologue by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Justin Mott
http://www.justinmott.com
Justin Mott entered the Journalism department at San Francisco State University in 2003, where he grew an affinity for photojournalism. In 2005 he traveled to Siem Reap, Cambodia to participate in the weeklong workshop with Gary Knight from VII. It was during this workshop where he discovered his passion for documentary photography and his fervor for documenting social issues in SE Asia. Domestically Justin has done freelance work for numerous Bay Area newspapers. Globally his work has taken him throughout SE Asia recently working with MSF (Medecins San Frontieres) documenting HIV and Tuberculosis patients and to Venezuela for a multimedia project for Global Exchange. As of October 2006 he joined the photo agency WPN and will based in SE Asia beginning December 2006.
Wawi Navarroza
http://wawinavarroza.multiply.com
Wawi Navarroza is a young Filipino artist who uses photography to depict the imaginary world behind her eyes where visions, observations, emotions, and thoughts crystallize into symbolic portraits and visual poems. Her works have been awarded in a number of occasions, such as: the Art Association of the Philippines (2000, 2003), and in "Con Otros Ojos" Barcelona, Spain (2000). In 2006, she received citation as one of the awardees for the Ateneo Art Awards, the Philippines' premiere gallery and museum of Philippine contemporary art. Her successful photo series entitled "Polysaccharide: The Dollhouse Drama" (2005) commenced its international tour; in Malaysia at the University Sains Malaysia Museum & Gallery and in the Netherlands for the Noorderlicht Photography Festival main exhibition entitled "Another Asia" at the Fries Museum. It continues its journey at the Angkor Photography Festival. Currently, she is at work on her next major solo exhibition for January 2007 at the Silver Lens Gallery (Manila).
Roland Neveu
http://bklink.blogspot.com/
Roland Neveu is one of the few reporters who witnessed the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975. For two decades, he covered hot spots like the first Soviet POW in Afghanistan, the siege of Beirut, war in Lebanon, El Salvador's bloody feud, the NPA struggle in the Philippines and the fall of its dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. He also photographed the first images of AIDS in Uganda, shot TV stories on Aids, the Touareg rebellion in Mali and Kurdish refugees (Turk-Irakian border). In the late 1980s, he began working on film sets as a stills photographer for directors like Oliver Stone, Brian de Palma, Ridley Scott and Matt Dillon, whose film, "City of Ghosts" was shot in Cambodia. Neveu's book, "Years of Turmoil", relates 30 years of covering Cambodia.
Liza Nguyen
http://www.liza-nguyen.com/
Liza Nguyen was born in France and splits her time between Paris and Dusseldorf where she followed Thomas Ruff workshop at the Fine Art Academy of Dusseldorf in Germany. Her work explores representation, memory and aesthetics: how to represent the past, how memory is built in the present and how to create the link between aesthetics and ethics. She has exhibited her work in Europe, Asia, Canada and United States. Her artist book "My father" received several awards in France, including "La Bourse du Talent" and is published by Schaden.com. "Souvenirs of Vietnam" received recently the "Prix Fnac de la Photographie" and won the International Biennial of Art of Lulea award in Sweden.
Patrick de Noirmont
http://www.onasia.com
Patrick de Noirmont is part of the group who created the photo-agencies AFP and Reuters. While based in South Africa and Southeast Asia for over 10 years, he covered the Russian troops' retreat from Afghanistan, the Gulf War in 1991, the transition of South Africa from apartheid to the election of President Nelson Mandela and the arrival of the Taliban in Afghanistan. This year, he worked on the consequences of the tsunami in Thailand for the German magazine Stern. He lives between Paris, where he works for AP, and Bangkok, where he is associated with Onasia.
Sudharak Olwe
sudharakolwe@yahoo.co.in
Sudharak Olwe was born on 1966. At twenty, with an urge to be divergent he realized that photography was his calling. For past 16 years Olwe has published cutting edge photo essays in India's leading publications while working for the Times of India in Bombay. He has exhibited work on social issues from India to Bangladesh, Sweden, Portugal and Holland. In 1999-2000 he was the recipient of the National Foundation Media Fellowship. In 2001, he was the only Indian photographer to be invited at “World Press Photo Exhibition”, for his stories on gender and the environment. In 2004 he published his book, “Spirited Souls: Winning Women of Mumbai”, last year he was honoured with the All Roads Photographers Award from National Geographic which included an exhibition of his work on street workers of Mumbai in Los Angeles, California and Washington DC. He is current at work on a book about Indian NGO. He is heading photography promotion trust, registered public charitable trust, based in Mumbai, India.ppt was form to support, showcase and encourage the use of photography as a powerful tool for social change.ppt conducts free workshop for children in order to give them a voice.
Sherman Ong
http://www.shermanong.com/
Sherman Ong is a photographer and filmmaker. Currently, his photographs are on a travelling group exhibition under the Goethe Institut ArtConneXions and in Another Asia, Noorderlicht Photo Festival, Netherlands. His film works straddle both fiction and documentary, and have been exhibited in Europe, US, Brazil and Asia. His films have won awards in Hong Kong, Greece, Italy, Indonesia and Malaysia. He is an alumni of the 1st Berlinale Talent Campus 2003 and has premiered works at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Int'l Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Institute of Contemporary Arts London, International Electronic Art Festival VideoBrasil and the Yokohama Art Triennial, Japan. In 2004, he served as a jury member at the La Cittadella del Corto International Short Film Festival, Italy. He is an Associate Artist of the Substation (Singapore).
S. Smith Patrick
http://www.cinesmith.net
S. Smith Patrick is a documentary filmmaker whose projects focus on human rights and indigenous cultural issues. Her award-winning film “The Children of Ibdaa: To Create Something Out of Nothing” explores the lives of Palestinian refugee children who perform in a dance troupe to express the history and aspirations of the Palestinians in a non-violent way. Her current project, “Seeing Siem Reap”, chronicles Cambodia street children as they transform during a photography and dance workshop and explores the affects of tourism and colliding cultures that surround Angkor Wat.
Jack Picone
http://www.jackpicone.com
Jack Picone covered eight wars in the 1990s. He achieved some notable news coverage, and was particularly intent on capturing the plight of ordinary people caught up in the extraordinary violence in places like Yugoslavia, Somalia, Rwanda, Palestine, Liberia, Sudan and Soviet Central Asia. For the last decade Jack has been committed to documenting the pandemic of HIV/AIDS for the London-based Terence Higgins Aids Trust as part of the huge "Positive Lives" project. Now based in Bangkok, Jack works on global assignments. His clients include Time, Life, Liberation, Der Spiegel, Stern, Mare, L'Express, Colors, Tempo, Granta, Marie Claire, The Independent (UK), The Observer, as well as organizations such as CARE, ActionAid, MSF and others.
Vandy Rattana
vandyrattana@yahoo.com
Vandy Rattana is a young photographer, student at Panasastra University in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He has been part of the collective Four Cambodian photo exhibition at Popil PhotoGallery in December 2005, organized by Visual Arts Open, a project of Saklapel art association. Pictures shown here are extracted from his new essay — "Looking in the Office" — that he will exhibit at Popil PhotoGallery in November 2006. A selection of this exhibition will be shown at Siem Reap Photo Festival late November. Below you can read an extract of the artist statement for the show coming at Popil.
Jerry Redfern
Jerry Redfern is a freelance photographer based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Sometimes, you can even find him there. He generally works on features, documentary and wildlife stories in Southeast Asia, often working with his wife, author Karen Coates. OnAsia Images, in Bangkok, represents his work to the wider world.
Martin Reeves
http://www.thehiddenrealms.com
Martin Reeves, has been held by Asia in a spell for two decades. Being a passionate photographer he sought a film that could portray Asia as to how he had envisioned it, in an enchanted and mysterious way. His quest began in India in 1986, when he set out with some infrared b/w film. The images that appeared revealed a hidden realm. He became captivated, bewitched and intrigued by the notion of infrared light (which is invisible to the naked eye) manifesting into photographs. Its dreamlike look seemed to uncover a dimension that really does exist beyond the confines of our visual spectrum.
Dominic Rouse
http://www.dominicrouse.com
Dominic Rouse, his work is exhibited internationally. In 2002 he showed at the XII Encuentros Abiertos de Fotografia in Buenos Aires and also at the Benham Gallery in Seattle with Jerry Uelsmann. The same year he had his first London show and also exhibited at the Schneider Gallery in Chicago. In 2003 he had his first US solo show at the Carmel Center for Photographic Art and exhibited at the Honolulu Academy and FotoFest in Houston in 2004. He was awarded the Ultimate Eye Foundation grant in 2002 and in 2006. His advertising work has also won recognition at the International Digital Exhibition Awards (London1999 & 2000). In 2003 he won the 'Special Photographer' category in the first International Photography Awards (Photography's Oscars) in Los Angeles. In 2005 he was awarded first prize in The Photo Review's Annual Competition, a Gold Award by America's Black and White Magazine for 'The cunning of unreason', and was the winner of Artrom Gallery's International Digital competition in Rome and Los Angeles Center for Digital Art's International juried competition.
Eric Sander
http://www.ericsander.com/edition
Eric Sander, his work has been published in the world's most prestigious magazines : Time Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Figaro Magazine, Paris-Match, Grands Reportages, Geo. He grew up in France where he started his career as a photo Editor at Gamma photo Agency in Paris. In 1983, he chose to become a freelance photographer and soon after, settled in Los Angeles to follow his passion: cover in depth stories and portraits. In 2001, he came back to Paris to renew with his roots. While working on assignment for international magazines and corporations, Eric Sander concentrates his personal work on strong themes for the publishing world (6 books published in 2006-one on Cambodia) and international magazines.
Raffaela Scaglietta
Raffaela Scaglietta Italian photo-journalist and video-maker, based in Rome. She's working for various media including the Italian Tv Rai 3 for whom she is preparing a series of short investigative documentaries on home affairs and justice. She is also a contributor of Il Giornale and the Italian Vogue. Previously she was a correspondent from Tokyo for Ansa agency, covering Japan, South Korea and South East Asia. From Japan she was a contributor for Repubblica, Il Corriere della Sera, Panorama, Vogue and Diario. In 1999 she received a Fulbright Scholarship and went to New York to produce a film on anti-globalization and an art documentary Eye-link presented in Japan. From 1996 till 1999 she was based in Brussels where she was correspondent for Il Mondo, Il Corriere della Sera and the Italian tv Tmc covering European integration and corruption.
Uwe Schober
http://www.rupertbeagle.com
Uwe Schober is a self-taught photographer who will commence studying photojournalism and documentary photography at the London College of Communication from January 2006. Over many years he has attended workshops with distinguished photographers such as Gary Knight, Antonin Kratochvil, James Nachtwey, Bruce Gilden, Bill Allard, Walter Schels and David Alan Harvey. He is working on a long-term photographic project on Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. He has just self-published his first photography book on Khmer Boxers.
Vincent Soyez
http://www.vincentsoyez.com/
Vincent Soyez is a French photographer based in New York. After working more than 10 years in Paris he moved to the United States to work in commercial photography. He shoots fashion, portraits, music album covers and contributes to magazines such as The Source, Zink, Complex, Interview, GQ, ESPN, FHM and Fortune. Recently he started to travel to Cambodia to develop a personal body of work that will be presented during the festival.
John Stanmeyer
http://www.viiphoto.com/
John Stanmeyer is a co-founding member of VII and a contract photographer with Time Magazine since 1998. Presently living in Indonesia, this American has spent over seven years focusing on Asian issues. Over the last five years, he has been working on a book about AIDS throughout Asia, while at the same time continuing his photographic documentation for another book on the radical changes in Indonesia since 1997. Stanmeyer has received numerous awards, including the Robert Capa, Magazine Photographer of the Year, World Press and Picture of the Year.
Dieter Telemans
http://www.dietertelemans.com/
Dieter Telemans was born and brought up in Burundi and is now based in Brussels, Belgium. He is a member of the agency Panos Pictures in London. Most of his work takes him back to his roots. He focuses on the positive sides of African countries that often only make our news in a negative way. He worked on the African music scene and published the book "Heart of Dance". Today he is documenting water-related troubles in the world. For this he covered water shortages in Shaanxi (China) and floods in Dhaka (Bangladesh). The exhibition "Troubled Waters" will travel around Europe, starting in the Belgian Parliament on World Waterday, the 22th of March 2007.
Andrew Testa
www.lightstalkers.org/andrewtesta
Andrew Testa was born in London, in 1965. He began his photographic career in the early 1990s working as a freelance for the Guardian and Observer newspapers. Throughout the decade he documented the growing Environmental Protest movement, the only major political movement during an era when politics on both the right and left became increasingly stagnated. In 1999 he shifted his attention to international current affairs covering the war in Kosovo and moved to the Balkans at the end of the year which he used as a base to cover events throughout Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. He now splits his time between New York, London and Kosovo. He is a regular contributor to the New York Times, The Guardian and The Observer and his work has been published in Newsweek, Stern, Geo, Mare ,Paris Match, Time, Der Spiegel, The Sunday Times Magazine, the Independent magazine, Mother Jones.
Hazel Thompson
http://www.hazelthompson.com/
Hazel Thompson is a British photojournalist based in London. Hazel now works freelance for editorial, commercial and charity assignments worldwide. Her reportage work centres around social issues, identity, religion and humanitarian subjects. With her images being published internationally in The New York Times, Time, Observer Magazine, Sunday Times Magazine, Days Japan, Sondag, Photo District News and more. Hazel has gained recognition for her work by winning a number of awards, most recently for her images of children illegally imprisoned in the Philippines called "Kids Behind Bars", winning The Observer Hodge Award and CARE International Award for Humanitarian Reportage at Visa pour l'image.
John Vink
http://www.johnvink.com/
John Vink studied photography at the fine arts school of La Cambre in 1968 and became a free lance photographer in 1971. He joined Agence Vu in 1986 and was awarded the E. Smith Prize that same year for his work Water in Sahel. Between 1987 and 1993 he worked on a project about refugees in the world, which was exhibited at the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris. He was nominated at Magnum in 1993 and became a member in 1997. He is now based in Cambodia, a country he visits since 1989. He has published "Refugies", "Avoir 20 ans a Phnom Penh" and "Peuples d'en Haut", a book about people with a strong cultural identity living in the mountains of Laos, Guatemala and Georgia. His latest book, "Poids Mouche", is about Khmer boxing.
Sophie Zenon
http://www.nazcapictures.com/
Sophie Zenon works simultaneously on personal work, commissioned assignments from the press or institutions, and exhibitions. She is interested in the relations between man and space, man and nature, man and the sacred. Her pictures of Mongolia, which she has visited yearly since 1996, won the Nomad Chronicles prize. This allowed her to photograph the fishermen from the Amour River (Far East Siberia), a project that focuses on the complexities of the relations between man and the river. With the assistance of the AFAA and the French Embassy, Sophie set up a photography cooperation project between France and Mongolia.
Laurent Zylberman
http://www.365degrees.org/
Laurent Zylberman started photography when staying in London for a French punk-rock magazine. Later on founded the Graphix-Images photo-agency in Paris. With an angle on environmental concerns, the human dimension of his work has come to prevail. Based in Taiwan for 5 years, then Mexico for a further 5, Laurent stringed for Sygma from 1981 to 1997. He has contributed to various local and international publications with wide-ranging topics such as the solar eclipse in Mexico, Kolkhozes in Turkmenistan, Vietnamese boat people, Muslim boarding schools in Indonesia, democratization in Mongolia and Alaskan oil-riggers. He is now based in Paris to work on/with segregated people, along at his daily photo diary.
participants
Antoine d'Agata
http://www.magnumphotos.com
Antoine d'Agata is a member of Magnum Agency. He studied photography at the ICP in New York in 1990 under Larry Clark and Nan Goldin. An adventurous spirit in search of himself and always on the lookout for new adventures, Antoine d'Agata invites us on a journey. He does not try to illustrate the world but rather shows how he fits into it. The lyricism of the presentation and the exaggeration of the situations force us to question the reality of what we see. His first book, "Mala Noche", was published in 1998, followed by Hometown in 2001, the year he received the Niepce Prize. "Vortex" and "Insomnia" were published in 2003, and Stigm in 2005.
Achinto Bhadro
achinto@vsnl.com
Achinto Bhadro was born in 1959 prior to taking up photography as a profession, lived, worked and managed the Crafts Centre at Asha Niketan L arche International a community for the mentally challenged. He studied photography at Chitra Bani, Calcutta and at the London College of Printing on receiving the Charles Wallace Award. Over the years as an independent photographer his interest and assignments from National and International Development Agencies led him to cover issues of the Urban poor, children and women, and he contributed in many exhibits and books, in India, U.K., France, South East Asia.
Jan Banning
banning@solcon.nl
Jan Banning was born is 1954 in the Netherlands. He studied history and has been a photographer since 1981, concentrating on self-initiated projects, such as The Office and Aftermath of Wars. He has received many journalistic and cultural awards, among them a 2004 World Press Photo Award. His photo books are Vietnam: Doi Moi (1993), Traces of War and Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways (2005). Banning s photographs have been published in Newsweek, Foreign Policy, Sunday Times Magazine, Le Monde 2 and NRC Handelsblad M. His work was exhibited at the Noorderlicht Festival (Groningen/Leeuwarden), the Kunsthal (Rotterdam), the Dorsky Gallery (New York), the Erasmushuis (Jakarta) and others and shown at Visa pour l Image (Perpignan). His photos have been purchased by the Ministry of Justice (Holland), the Open Society Archives (Hungary) and private collections.
Pablo Bartholomew
http://www.lightstalkers.org/pablobartholomew
Pablo Bartholomew is based in New Delhi, India. He divides time between photography, running long term photography workshops, and managing a software company that specializes in photo databases solutions and server based digital archiving systems. Between 2001 and 2003 ran photography workshop for emerging photographers in India with the support of the World Press Photo Foundation in Amsterdam. Pablo has also photographed societies in transition in different locations. He won the World Press Photo award for his series Morphine Addicts in India (1975) and the World Press Picture of the Year for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1985). He has taken part in several international exhibitions and published in Newsweek, Time, National Geographic and Geo amongst other prestigious magazines.
Françoise Callier
frcallier@wanadoo.fr
Françoise Callier was born in Belgium and moved to Paris in 1983. She worked for fifteen years with 2eBureau, a press and public relations office, agenting photographers like Helmut Newton and Jean-Paul Goude. She worked for seven years for the Photojournalism Festival Visa pour l Image in Perpignan France. French correspondent for Corbis for three years, she also did volunteer work with disabled children and at a children s hospital. Currently helping the Kogi Indians to recoup parts of their ancestral lands in Colombia, Françoise Callier is an avid traveller who has visited Antarctica and wrote stories about a mischievous king penguin girl called Lila. Her books Silly Lila, Lila on Ice, Lila in Africa and ABC in the Wild are for sale on Amazon.com
Thierry Chantegret
http://www.agence37.com
Thierry Chantegret, photojournalist, explores the relationship between cities and their inhabitants. He has worked in various countries such as India and Argentina, but more recently in a small French town, Charleville Mezieres, where the Poet Arthur Rimbaud was born and raised. The Ardennes Museum commissioned him to help commemorate the town's 400th birthday, and allowed him to work in the poet s house. Thierry now plans to settle in Charleville Mezieres, which has been severely affected by unemployment. In addition to developing his personal artistic creations, he also organises educational workshops with schools and welfare centers.
Greg Constantine
http://www.gregconstantine.com
Greg Constantine was born in the United States. Since 2003, he has worked on stories about: North Korean refugees; life in modern-day Tokyo; struggling communities on the US Mexico border, and the lives of paroled women in Watts, Los Angeles. His photographs have been featured in several international publications and have been utilized by Refugees International, Human Rights Watch and Medecins Sans Frontieres. His work has been exhibited in South Korea, Los Angeles, Washington, DC and Pittsburgh. His recent, on going project, Nowhere People, documents the effects statelessness has on minority groups in Asia. Photographs from this project have been nominated for UNICEF Photo of the Year and will also be exhibited in Bangladesh at the international photography festival, Chobi Mela IV.
Thomas De Cian
http://www.lightstalkers.org/thomasdecian
Thomas De Cian was born in Italy in 1978. He studied journalism in Australia and has been a freelance photojournalist since 2001. After graduating, his passion for photography brought him to Southeast Asia and he is been living in the region since 2002 His black and white reportages focus on social and political issues throughout Asia and want to show the sheer humanity that can lie behind even the most unusual an desperate situations. It is in these very situations that the strength and the instinct of survival come out, by contrast men reveal their most human side and can even find the time for a moment of happiness. Thomas is currently based in Bangkok, Thailand.
Christine Cibert
chcibert@aol.com
Christine Cibert is a French art curator and a free-lance journalist. She majored in Japanese language and culture and in Art History studies at Paris University. Afterwards, she moved to Tokyo where she has been living and working for more than ten years, as an art dealer and a curator, organizing cultural events, exhibitions for painters and photographers into art galleries, cultural centers and museums in Japan and in France. She also has been writing on art, cultural and social subjects for French and Japanese newspapers and magazines : France-Japon Eco, Agence France Presse, Jipango, Wasabi, Les Voix, Cambodge Soir, Kateigaho International Edition, L'Art Aujourd'hui, Univers des Arts, Cahiers d'art and France Culture Radio. Since several years, she also has developed her activities to South-East Asia (Cambodia, Vietnam).
Olivier Culmann
http://www.tendancefloue.net
Olivier Culmann, member of Tendance Floue, photographer's collective, photographs people watching TV. And their TV sets. The viewers' eyes are glued to the screen, hypnotized by the images that flicker by. Olivier Culmann captures that instant during which attention subsides and consciousness slumbers, rocked to sleep by the phosphorescence of the cathode ray tubes. At that instant, their bodies often become comfortable, they curl up on the couch and then collapse. Nothing could be more banal. And nothing more unsettling. Because that is how, in quasi immobile passivity, when the brain has gone numb, that we, television viewers receive the world in its entirety. Not the real world, but an image of that world, a ghostly version of reality.
Binh Danh
sunleafprints@yahoo.com
Binh Danh received a MFA degree in Studio Art from Stanford University and a BFA in Photography from San Jose State University. He invented a unique process for printing photographs onto the surface of leaves by exploiting the natural process of photosynthesis. Combining the diverse disciplines of art, history, and science, Danh extensively researches the subject matter he is drawn too. He is a recipient of a 2004 Artist Project Award from the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA and his work is in the collection of de Young Museum, the Corcoran Art Gallery, the San Jose Museum of Art, and the Oakland Museum of California. He is represented by Haines Gallery in San Francisco.
James W. Delano
http://www.jameswhitlowdelano.com
James W. Delano is a romantic. His duotone photographs evince a poet's eye - dreamy, impressionistic, subtle, often melancholic. His photographs portray the ironies and contradictions of 20th-century Asia. The duotone prints themselves contribute to the sense of timelessness. Describing his working method, James says: "I must pass by quickly and quietly in order to capture the 'out of the corner of my eye' immediacy that I seek before I disturb the scene."
Agnes Dherbeys
http://www.evephotographers.com/
Agnes Dherbeys is a French photographer distributed by French Cosmos Agency and a founder member of EVE. She graduated with honours from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques of Lyon and from a Master 2 of Sciences of Information and Communication from Celsa, Sorbonne IV. She learned photography when she moved to Bangkok in 2001, and has since mainly worked in Nepal, East Timor, Cambodia and Thailand, with parentheses in Palestinian Territories. Her work has been published in Newsweek, Le Monde 2, Liberation, the South China Morning Post Magazine, Marie Claire, Days Magazine. She was winner of the Foundation Lagardere grant 2005, for her project in East Timor, titled: “From Independence to Dependence.”
Stephen Dupont
stephendupont@bigpond.com
Stephen Dupont is an international award winning Australian photojournalist and a member of Contact Press Images. His reportages has been featured in The New Yorker, Newsweek, French and German GEO, Liberation, The Sunday Times Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, and Time, and has earned him photography's most prestigious prizes, including a Robert Capa Gold Medal citation from the Overseas Press Club of America in 2006, and first places in the World Press Photo and Pictures of the Year International. Having exhibited his work in London, Paris, New York, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, and at Perpignan's Visa Pour L'Image, in 1999 Dupont was a founding member of the first festival of photojournalism in Australia: REPORTAGE-A. He works on long term projects around war, conflict and social issues.
Hosoe Eikoh
Hosoe Eikoh, Freelance photographer, Professor Emeritus at Tokyo Institute of Polytechnic, Director of Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts. Also currently serves as vice chair of Japan Professional Photographers Society and Japan Society for Arts and History of Photography. Born in 1933, after studying at the Tokyo College of Photography, Hosoe gained recognition with Barakei (Ordeal by Roses), a 1963 collection of portraits of novelist Yukio Mishima, and was awarded the Minister of Education's Arts Encouragement Prize in 1970 for Kamaitachi, a photo essay on Tatsumi Hijikata, founder of the Butoh Dance movement. In addition to his numerous publications and his works kept in many Art Collections, he also participated to many Individual and Selected Group Exhibitions in Japan and all over the world. As a photographer of international renown, he has also contributed to the internationalization of Asian photography. Hosoe was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon of Japan in 1998 and the 150th Special Anniversary Medal of the Royal Photographic Society in 2003.
Brendan Esposito
http://www.smh.com.au/ftimages/2005/10/05/1128191773885.html
Brendan Esposito has been a press photographer for almost 20 years. He works for The Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegraph, and is a stringer for AFP and Reuters. His assignments have included royal, papal and presidential tours. Esposito's extensive photography of the last remaining circuses in Australia was exhibited at the NSW Library. His last assignment, on street children addicted to glue sniffing in Siem Reap, has been exhibited at the inaugural festival. He is a new talent discovered during VII's workshop in February 2005.
Claude Estebe
Claude Estebe is a photo-historian. He published Les Derniers samouraïs and Le Crépuscule des geishas. He is currently working on a book about the dawn of japanese photography from his phd thesis. His photographic works questions the "cultural body" : mannequins (Perfect skin, 1994) , dancers (with Matoma and Susan Buirge)… His last work, Eloge des jambes, begun during a residence at Villa Kujoyama in 2000, completes an exhibition at Gallery U in Tokyo from 2003. This is gaze between sociology and voyeurism about japanese attitudes that seem a "cultural invariant". In a country of fast moving fashion, uchimata gait remains unchanged since centuries…
Thierry Falise
http://www.thierryfalise.com
Thierry Falise is a Belgian photojournalist based in Bangkok since 1991. He is a regular contributor (text and photos) to magazines and dailies such as L'Express, Le Point, Paris-Match, Le Figaro Magazine, Marie France, VSD, Grands Reportages, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and many more. In 2003, with a French colleague, he was arrested during a forbidden trip to the Laos jungle where he had met members of the abandoned Hmong community, once allies of the CIA during the Indochina war. Both reporters were sentenced to 15 years in prison but, thanks to a vast international solidarity campaign, were released after five weeks.
Philip Jones Griffiths
http://www.magnumphotos.com/cf/htm/TreePf_MAG.aspx?Stat=Photographers_Portfolio&E=29YL53IRGC5
Philip Jones Griffiths photographed in Vietnam from 1966 to 1970 and became famous for his book on the war, Vietnam Inc. Out of print in a few weeks, Vietnam Inc. crystallized public opinion and was essential in shaping Western misgivings about the US involvement in Vietnam and ultimately helping to bring the war to an end. Jones Griffiths, one of the very few photographers with his own agenda, was able to concentrate on conditions behind the headlines, and Vietnam Inc. is also a documentary study of Vietnamese folk life. In 1980, Griffiths moved to New York to assume the presidency of Magnum, a post which he held for a record five years.
Katharina Hessesettled
http://www.digitalrailroad.net/kathchina
Katharina Hessesettled down in Beijing in the mid-1990s after finishing a graduate degree in Chinese studies at Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (I.N.A.L.C.O) in Paris. She initially worked as an assistant for German TV (ZDF) and then freelanced for Newsweek from 1996 to 2002, where she did both reporting and photography. In 2003 and 2004 Hesse covered China for Getty's news service. She is self-taught in photography, albeit with a temporary apprenticeship under Peter Turnley. Currently she is an accredited photographer based in Beijing.
Claudio Hils
http://www.claudio-hils.com
Claudio Hils is a photographer, curator and communication designer. He has published numerous books on photography and the history of photography. His own photographic and artistical work is located at the thin line between artistical studies and social and political landscapes So he published the project RED LAND, BLUE LAND about the history of war. Furtheron he realised the project ARCHIVE_BELFAST which explores contemporary approaches to history, informed by ideas of identity and cultural inheritance, which increasely challenge the exclusivity of the archive. The here showed project DREAM CITY explores differences and similarities about the worldwide developments of urban space. He teaches photography at the University of Applied Sciences Vorarlberg in Austria and the University of Design Schwäbisch Gmünd in Germany.
Malcolm Hutcheson
malcolmhutcheson@yahoo.co.uk
Malcolm Hutcheson found himself growing up, feeling a responsibility to understand as much as he could of the big topic i.e. LIFE. It's not surprising that when he was eight he was not managing to understand anything; but unknown to him many others had felt the same way and invented photography to solve this very problem. As years passed he grew sad at all the beautiful things he had known that ceasing to exist and decided that whenever possible he would try to keep some of them with him. He found himself in Pakistan where he stayed to take photographs of what was not going to be there tomorrow. Currently working in Lahore on documenting the lives of residents of the Walled City, creating an Archive of 20th century photography in the Punjab including preserving the practise of “Ru Kitch” or “Minto” Photography, documenting historic monuments and buildings in Pakistan and developing a photographic style that will satisfy the above.
Stuart Isett
http://www.isett.com
Stuart Isett is a Swiss-born, American photographer based in Seattle, USA. After spending over a decade living and working in Asia and Europe, based in Bangkok, Tokyo and Paris, he moved to Seattle in 2006. His interest in Asia started in the early 1990s while working along the Thai-Cambodian border. He worked on a 3-year project on the city's Cambodian street gangs which was shown at the 2005 Angkor Photography Festival. Isett continues to work on documentaries in Asia and his work regularly appears in The New York Times, Time and Newsweek magazines among others. He is currently finishing a book project on Kyoto titled 'Kyotoland' which has been shown at the 2006 Reportage Festival in Australia, and at the Daegu Photo Biennale in Korea.
Sangeeta Isvaran
http://www.narthaki.com/info/intervw/intrvw77.html
Sangeeta Isvaran is a dancer, choreographer and researcher from India. A passionate believer in the power of art as a dynamic and exciting medium to foster empowerment and social change, she has worked with many different underprivileged groups such as street children and refugees. Using a combination of arts - classical, popular, martial, circus, Bollywood - from the different domains of dance, music, visual arts, poetry and literature, her work focuses on helping individuals express how they perceive their lives.
Ed Kashi
http://www.edkashistock.com/T/1159883949226
Ed Kashi has dedicated his photographic career to documenting the social and political issues that define our times. Kashi, with a degree in photojournalism from Syracuse University, has been photographing professionally since 1979. He has since photographed in over 60 countries and his images have appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, Time, Fortune, Geo, Newsweek and many others. In December 2002, Kashi and his wife Julie Winokur founded Talking Eyes Media, a non-profit educational multimedia company that explores social issues through visually compelling materials. The first documentary project for Talking Eyes Media produced a book (1993) and travelling exhibition on uninsured Americans called, Denied: The Crisis of America's Uninsured. The exhibition continues to travel across America.
Gary Knight
http://www.viiphoto.com
Gary Knight, co-founder of the Angkor Photography Festival, is a British photographer now residing in France. Also founder of the agency VII - today's reference in photojournalism - he has covered most of the world's conflicts over the past 15 years, from ex-Yugoslavia to Iraq's war, for the American magazine Newsweek. His work focuses mainly on poverty and defending human rights. Through VII, he organizes photography workshops that share the experiences of the agency's exceptional members.
Antonin Kratochvil
http://www.viiphoto.com
Antonin Kratochvil is Czech but lives in New York when he is not abroad reporting. This ex-political refugee is an unusual photographer. His work ranges from reporting on street children in Mongolia for the Museum of Natural History, to covering war in Iraq for Fortune or shooting portraits of David Bowie for Detour or of Deborah Harry for an advertising campaign for the American Civil Liberties. His latest book, Vanishing is the culmination of 15 years of reflection on natural and cultural phenomena facing extinction.
Kalpesh Lathigra
kalpesh.lathigra@btinternet.com
Kalpesh Lathigra was born in 1971 in London. Kalpesh studied Law at University before dropping out to pursue photography. He went to the London College of Printing to take a Postgraduate Diploma in Photojournalism and was awarded The Independent Newspaper's Photography Scholarship, after spending a year on staff he turned freelance working for national newspapers until 2000 when he was awarded a 1st prize in the World Press Photo (Arts category). He left newspapers in 2000 to concentrate on long term projects. In 2004 Kalpesh was awarded The W. Eugene Smith Fellowship for the “Brides of Krishna” and in 2005 a Winston Churchill Fellowship. Recently Kalpesh has been working on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, USA looking at the life of the Lakota Sioux tribe. Kalpesh's work has appeared in The Sunday Times Magazine (UK), The Guardian Magazine, The Independent Magazine, Geo, Marie Claire, Le Monde, etc...
Atul Loke
atulloke@yahoo.com
Atul Loke is an Indian photojournalis. He's work have been published in major international and national magazines and newspapers. He is the recipient of Japan's Young Portfolio Award (2002), a three months photography fellowship in Europe in Year 2002 to brush up photography and photo-editing skills with renowned photographers from National Geography and Magnum Agency and was part of the prestigious World Press photo to be a part of three years seminar in India and worked on their projects in the year 2000-06. He has been covering major national & social issues across the country and currently working on the personal book project in Mumbai.
Christophe Loviny
http://www.jazz-editions.com
Christophe Loviny, co-founder of the Angkor Photography Festival, is a photojournalist and editor. A specialist of Southeast Asia for over 25 years, he was based in Angkor from 1989 to 1994. His work on Cambodia has been published in The Sunday Times Magazine, Asiaweek, Geo, L'Express, Paris-Match, Stern, Le Figaro-Magazine, etc... He is the author of several illustrated books, one of which is "Les Danseuses Sacrées d'Angkor" (Seuil), a collection of texts and photographs on the identity of Cambodia. His latest book is "Cuba by Korda" (Ocean Press).
John McDermott
http://www.asiaphotos.net
John McDermott is an American photographer based in Asia for the last 12 years. After working as an editorial and commercial photographer in the US and Asia, he developed a fine art photography project focused on cultural heritage across Asia, documenting and portraying ancient sites and cultures that inhabit them at present. His work has been published in Time, Newsweek, Archaeology Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, and The New York Times. He has contributed to books including "A Day in the Life of Thailand", "The Extraordinary Museums of Southeast Asia", and "Southeast Asia - Passage through Time".
Marti Mueller
Marti Mueller is a writer, photographer, filmmaker, environmentalist, and social activist. She has spent a lifetime defending nature, spiritual principles, and the rights of indigenous people. Marti has received a Rolex citation for her work in environmental education. She was selected as an official speaker for the 2005 Universal Expo in Aichi, Japan as one of One Hundred People in the World Who Love the Earth. Marti's photos have been exhibited in London, Paris, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Tokyo, Phnom Penh, and Madras. Her work is part of permanent collections in several museums, including the Louvre in Paris. Her recent book on meditations on nature, This Earth of Ours, has a prologue by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Justin Mott
http://www.justinmott.com
Justin Mott entered the Journalism department at San Francisco State University in 2003, where he grew an affinity for photojournalism. In 2005 he traveled to Siem Reap, Cambodia to participate in the weeklong workshop with Gary Knight from VII. It was during this workshop where he discovered his passion for documentary photography and his fervor for documenting social issues in SE Asia. Domestically Justin has done freelance work for numerous Bay Area newspapers. Globally his work has taken him throughout SE Asia recently working with MSF (Medecins San Frontieres) documenting HIV and Tuberculosis patients and to Venezuela for a multimedia project for Global Exchange. As of October 2006 he joined the photo agency WPN and will based in SE Asia beginning December 2006.
Wawi Navarroza
http://wawinavarroza.multiply.com
Wawi Navarroza is a young Filipino artist who uses photography to depict the imaginary world behind her eyes where visions, observations, emotions, and thoughts crystallize into symbolic portraits and visual poems. Her works have been awarded in a number of occasions, such as: the Art Association of the Philippines (2000, 2003), and in "Con Otros Ojos" Barcelona, Spain (2000). In 2006, she received citation as one of the awardees for the Ateneo Art Awards, the Philippines' premiere gallery and museum of Philippine contemporary art. Her successful photo series entitled "Polysaccharide: The Dollhouse Drama" (2005) commenced its international tour; in Malaysia at the University Sains Malaysia Museum & Gallery and in the Netherlands for the Noorderlicht Photography Festival main exhibition entitled "Another Asia" at the Fries Museum. It continues its journey at the Angkor Photography Festival. Currently, she is at work on her next major solo exhibition for January 2007 at the Silver Lens Gallery (Manila).
Roland Neveu
http://bklink.blogspot.com/
Roland Neveu is one of the few reporters who witnessed the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975. For two decades, he covered hot spots like the first Soviet POW in Afghanistan, the siege of Beirut, war in Lebanon, El Salvador's bloody feud, the NPA struggle in the Philippines and the fall of its dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. He also photographed the first images of AIDS in Uganda, shot TV stories on Aids, the Touareg rebellion in Mali and Kurdish refugees (Turk-Irakian border). In the late 1980s, he began working on film sets as a stills photographer for directors like Oliver Stone, Brian de Palma, Ridley Scott and Matt Dillon, whose film, "City of Ghosts" was shot in Cambodia. Neveu's book, "Years of Turmoil", relates 30 years of covering Cambodia.
Liza Nguyen
http://www.liza-nguyen.com/
Liza Nguyen was born in France and splits her time between Paris and Dusseldorf where she followed Thomas Ruff workshop at the Fine Art Academy of Dusseldorf in Germany. Her work explores representation, memory and aesthetics: how to represent the past, how memory is built in the present and how to create the link between aesthetics and ethics. She has exhibited her work in Europe, Asia, Canada and United States. Her artist book "My father" received several awards in France, including "La Bourse du Talent" and is published by Schaden.com. "Souvenirs of Vietnam" received recently the "Prix Fnac de la Photographie" and won the International Biennial of Art of Lulea award in Sweden.
Patrick de Noirmont
http://www.onasia.com
Patrick de Noirmont is part of the group who created the photo-agencies AFP and Reuters. While based in South Africa and Southeast Asia for over 10 years, he covered the Russian troops' retreat from Afghanistan, the Gulf War in 1991, the transition of South Africa from apartheid to the election of President Nelson Mandela and the arrival of the Taliban in Afghanistan. This year, he worked on the consequences of the tsunami in Thailand for the German magazine Stern. He lives between Paris, where he works for AP, and Bangkok, where he is associated with Onasia.
Sudharak Olwe
sudharakolwe@yahoo.co.in
Sudharak Olwe was born on 1966. At twenty, with an urge to be divergent he realized that photography was his calling. For past 16 years Olwe has published cutting edge photo essays in India's leading publications while working for the Times of India in Bombay. He has exhibited work on social issues from India to Bangladesh, Sweden, Portugal and Holland. In 1999-2000 he was the recipient of the National Foundation Media Fellowship. In 2001, he was the only Indian photographer to be invited at “World Press Photo Exhibition”, for his stories on gender and the environment. In 2004 he published his book, “Spirited Souls: Winning Women of Mumbai”, last year he was honoured with the All Roads Photographers Award from National Geographic which included an exhibition of his work on street workers of Mumbai in Los Angeles, California and Washington DC. He is current at work on a book about Indian NGO. He is heading photography promotion trust, registered public charitable trust, based in Mumbai, India.ppt was form to support, showcase and encourage the use of photography as a powerful tool for social change.ppt conducts free workshop for children in order to give them a voice.
Sherman Ong
http://www.shermanong.com/
Sherman Ong is a photographer and filmmaker. Currently, his photographs are on a travelling group exhibition under the Goethe Institut ArtConneXions and in Another Asia, Noorderlicht Photo Festival, Netherlands. His film works straddle both fiction and documentary, and have been exhibited in Europe, US, Brazil and Asia. His films have won awards in Hong Kong, Greece, Italy, Indonesia and Malaysia. He is an alumni of the 1st Berlinale Talent Campus 2003 and has premiered works at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Int'l Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Institute of Contemporary Arts London, International Electronic Art Festival VideoBrasil and the Yokohama Art Triennial, Japan. In 2004, he served as a jury member at the La Cittadella del Corto International Short Film Festival, Italy. He is an Associate Artist of the Substation (Singapore).
S. Smith Patrick
http://www.cinesmith.net
S. Smith Patrick is a documentary filmmaker whose projects focus on human rights and indigenous cultural issues. Her award-winning film “The Children of Ibdaa: To Create Something Out of Nothing” explores the lives of Palestinian refugee children who perform in a dance troupe to express the history and aspirations of the Palestinians in a non-violent way. Her current project, “Seeing Siem Reap”, chronicles Cambodia street children as they transform during a photography and dance workshop and explores the affects of tourism and colliding cultures that surround Angkor Wat.
Jack Picone
http://www.jackpicone.com
Jack Picone covered eight wars in the 1990s. He achieved some notable news coverage, and was particularly intent on capturing the plight of ordinary people caught up in the extraordinary violence in places like Yugoslavia, Somalia, Rwanda, Palestine, Liberia, Sudan and Soviet Central Asia. For the last decade Jack has been committed to documenting the pandemic of HIV/AIDS for the London-based Terence Higgins Aids Trust as part of the huge "Positive Lives" project. Now based in Bangkok, Jack works on global assignments. His clients include Time, Life, Liberation, Der Spiegel, Stern, Mare, L'Express, Colors, Tempo, Granta, Marie Claire, The Independent (UK), The Observer, as well as organizations such as CARE, ActionAid, MSF and others.
Vandy Rattana
vandyrattana@yahoo.com
Vandy Rattana is a young photographer, student at Panasastra University in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He has been part of the collective Four Cambodian photo exhibition at Popil PhotoGallery in December 2005, organized by Visual Arts Open, a project of Saklapel art association. Pictures shown here are extracted from his new essay — "Looking in the Office" — that he will exhibit at Popil PhotoGallery in November 2006. A selection of this exhibition will be shown at Siem Reap Photo Festival late November. Below you can read an extract of the artist statement for the show coming at Popil.
Jerry Redfern
Jerry Redfern is a freelance photographer based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Sometimes, you can even find him there. He generally works on features, documentary and wildlife stories in Southeast Asia, often working with his wife, author Karen Coates. OnAsia Images, in Bangkok, represents his work to the wider world.
Martin Reeves
http://www.thehiddenrealms.com
Martin Reeves, has been held by Asia in a spell for two decades. Being a passionate photographer he sought a film that could portray Asia as to how he had envisioned it, in an enchanted and mysterious way. His quest began in India in 1986, when he set out with some infrared b/w film. The images that appeared revealed a hidden realm. He became captivated, bewitched and intrigued by the notion of infrared light (which is invisible to the naked eye) manifesting into photographs. Its dreamlike look seemed to uncover a dimension that really does exist beyond the confines of our visual spectrum.
Dominic Rouse
http://www.dominicrouse.com
Dominic Rouse, his work is exhibited internationally. In 2002 he showed at the XII Encuentros Abiertos de Fotografia in Buenos Aires and also at the Benham Gallery in Seattle with Jerry Uelsmann. The same year he had his first London show and also exhibited at the Schneider Gallery in Chicago. In 2003 he had his first US solo show at the Carmel Center for Photographic Art and exhibited at the Honolulu Academy and FotoFest in Houston in 2004. He was awarded the Ultimate Eye Foundation grant in 2002 and in 2006. His advertising work has also won recognition at the International Digital Exhibition Awards (London1999 & 2000). In 2003 he won the 'Special Photographer' category in the first International Photography Awards (Photography's Oscars) in Los Angeles. In 2005 he was awarded first prize in The Photo Review's Annual Competition, a Gold Award by America's Black and White Magazine for 'The cunning of unreason', and was the winner of Artrom Gallery's International Digital competition in Rome and Los Angeles Center for Digital Art's International juried competition.
Eric Sander
http://www.ericsander.com/edition
Eric Sander, his work has been published in the world's most prestigious magazines : Time Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Figaro Magazine, Paris-Match, Grands Reportages, Geo. He grew up in France where he started his career as a photo Editor at Gamma photo Agency in Paris. In 1983, he chose to become a freelance photographer and soon after, settled in Los Angeles to follow his passion: cover in depth stories and portraits. In 2001, he came back to Paris to renew with his roots. While working on assignment for international magazines and corporations, Eric Sander concentrates his personal work on strong themes for the publishing world (6 books published in 2006-one on Cambodia) and international magazines.
Raffaela Scaglietta
Raffaela Scaglietta Italian photo-journalist and video-maker, based in Rome. She's working for various media including the Italian Tv Rai 3 for whom she is preparing a series of short investigative documentaries on home affairs and justice. She is also a contributor of Il Giornale and the Italian Vogue. Previously she was a correspondent from Tokyo for Ansa agency, covering Japan, South Korea and South East Asia. From Japan she was a contributor for Repubblica, Il Corriere della Sera, Panorama, Vogue and Diario. In 1999 she received a Fulbright Scholarship and went to New York to produce a film on anti-globalization and an art documentary Eye-link presented in Japan. From 1996 till 1999 she was based in Brussels where she was correspondent for Il Mondo, Il Corriere della Sera and the Italian tv Tmc covering European integration and corruption.
Uwe Schober
http://www.rupertbeagle.com
Uwe Schober is a self-taught photographer who will commence studying photojournalism and documentary photography at the London College of Communication from January 2006. Over many years he has attended workshops with distinguished photographers such as Gary Knight, Antonin Kratochvil, James Nachtwey, Bruce Gilden, Bill Allard, Walter Schels and David Alan Harvey. He is working on a long-term photographic project on Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. He has just self-published his first photography book on Khmer Boxers.
Vincent Soyez
http://www.vincentsoyez.com/
Vincent Soyez is a French photographer based in New York. After working more than 10 years in Paris he moved to the United States to work in commercial photography. He shoots fashion, portraits, music album covers and contributes to magazines such as The Source, Zink, Complex, Interview, GQ, ESPN, FHM and Fortune. Recently he started to travel to Cambodia to develop a personal body of work that will be presented during the festival.
John Stanmeyer
http://www.viiphoto.com/
John Stanmeyer is a co-founding member of VII and a contract photographer with Time Magazine since 1998. Presently living in Indonesia, this American has spent over seven years focusing on Asian issues. Over the last five years, he has been working on a book about AIDS throughout Asia, while at the same time continuing his photographic documentation for another book on the radical changes in Indonesia since 1997. Stanmeyer has received numerous awards, including the Robert Capa, Magazine Photographer of the Year, World Press and Picture of the Year.
Dieter Telemans
http://www.dietertelemans.com/
Dieter Telemans was born and brought up in Burundi and is now based in Brussels, Belgium. He is a member of the agency Panos Pictures in London. Most of his work takes him back to his roots. He focuses on the positive sides of African countries that often only make our news in a negative way. He worked on the African music scene and published the book "Heart of Dance". Today he is documenting water-related troubles in the world. For this he covered water shortages in Shaanxi (China) and floods in Dhaka (Bangladesh). The exhibition "Troubled Waters" will travel around Europe, starting in the Belgian Parliament on World Waterday, the 22th of March 2007.
Andrew Testa
www.lightstalkers.org/andrewtesta
Andrew Testa was born in London, in 1965. He began his photographic career in the early 1990s working as a freelance for the Guardian and Observer newspapers. Throughout the decade he documented the growing Environmental Protest movement, the only major political movement during an era when politics on both the right and left became increasingly stagnated. In 1999 he shifted his attention to international current affairs covering the war in Kosovo and moved to the Balkans at the end of the year which he used as a base to cover events throughout Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. He now splits his time between New York, London and Kosovo. He is a regular contributor to the New York Times, The Guardian and The Observer and his work has been published in Newsweek, Stern, Geo, Mare ,Paris Match, Time, Der Spiegel, The Sunday Times Magazine, the Independent magazine, Mother Jones.
Hazel Thompson
http://www.hazelthompson.com/
Hazel Thompson is a British photojournalist based in London. Hazel now works freelance for editorial, commercial and charity assignments worldwide. Her reportage work centres around social issues, identity, religion and humanitarian subjects. With her images being published internationally in The New York Times, Time, Observer Magazine, Sunday Times Magazine, Days Japan, Sondag, Photo District News and more. Hazel has gained recognition for her work by winning a number of awards, most recently for her images of children illegally imprisoned in the Philippines called "Kids Behind Bars", winning The Observer Hodge Award and CARE International Award for Humanitarian Reportage at Visa pour l'image.
John Vink
http://www.johnvink.com/
John Vink studied photography at the fine arts school of La Cambre in 1968 and became a free lance photographer in 1971. He joined Agence Vu in 1986 and was awarded the E. Smith Prize that same year for his work Water in Sahel. Between 1987 and 1993 he worked on a project about refugees in the world, which was exhibited at the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris. He was nominated at Magnum in 1993 and became a member in 1997. He is now based in Cambodia, a country he visits since 1989. He has published "Refugies", "Avoir 20 ans a Phnom Penh" and "Peuples d'en Haut", a book about people with a strong cultural identity living in the mountains of Laos, Guatemala and Georgia. His latest book, "Poids Mouche", is about Khmer boxing.
Sophie Zenon
http://www.nazcapictures.com/
Sophie Zenon works simultaneously on personal work, commissioned assignments from the press or institutions, and exhibitions. She is interested in the relations between man and space, man and nature, man and the sacred. Her pictures of Mongolia, which she has visited yearly since 1996, won the Nomad Chronicles prize. This allowed her to photograph the fishermen from the Amour River (Far East Siberia), a project that focuses on the complexities of the relations between man and the river. With the assistance of the AFAA and the French Embassy, Sophie set up a photography cooperation project between France and Mongolia.
Laurent Zylberman
http://www.365degrees.org/
Laurent Zylberman started photography when staying in London for a French punk-rock magazine. Later on founded the Graphix-Images photo-agency in Paris. With an angle on environmental concerns, the human dimension of his work has come to prevail. Based in Taiwan for 5 years, then Mexico for a further 5, Laurent stringed for Sygma from 1981 to 1997. He has contributed to various local and international publications with wide-ranging topics such as the solar eclipse in Mexico, Kolkhozes in Turkmenistan, Vietnamese boat people, Muslim boarding schools in Indonesia, democratization in Mongolia and Alaskan oil-riggers. He is now based in Paris to work on/with segregated people, along at his daily photo diary.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
A conversation with Luc Delahaye By Jörg Colberg
Oops... a friend of mine just pointed out that i forgot to give credit to the person who did this interview, he also pointed out that i should also give the link instead of copying and pasting his hard work in to my blog...guys here is the link to the blog --Jörg Colberg is founder and editor of the fine-art photography blog Conscientious. (http://www.jmcolberg.com/weblog/). He works as a research scientist at Carnegie-Mellon University. (C) PopPhoto.com-June 2007
By Jörg Colberg
As a Magnum and Newsweek photographer, Luc Delahaye covered many of the most recent areas of conflict like, for example, Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan. Apart from other prizes, he won the World Press Photo three times. With time, his work evolved from standard photojournalistic practice, both towards other areas (for example, for his project "L'Autre" he stealthily took photos of Parisian subway passengers) and methods (he started to use a panoramic large-format camera for photojournalistic assignments). "History" might be considered the culmination of this development, a series of panoramic photos often showing vast scales, such as the whole UN assembly hall while President Bush was giving a speech, and printed quite large (4 by 8 feet). Most famously, his photo of a dead Taliban soldier, exhibited and sold by a commercial art gallery, caused a stir a few years ago. A year later, he resigned from Magnum. I talked to Luc about his earlier and current work.
Jörg Colberg: I think the first images that I saw from you were those published in "History", and I was instantly somewhat confused. Even though these photos are/were clearly photojournalism, in my head I also placed them into the context of contemporary photography. For example, "President Bush Addressing the U.N." reminded me of some of Andreas Gursky's work, like his photos of stock traders or of a rave. What was your motivation to move away from your run-of-the-mill photojournalistic practice - where one would have taken a photo of just President Bush and the podium at the UN - and to get vast panoramas instead?
Luc Delahaye: The picture you mention was made at a time – 2002 - when I was more interested in including the broad context of a given situation than I am now. It was probably in reaction to photojournalism, where I was coming from. I think that photojournalism is at its best when conceived as a series - the picture story. But I was never really interested in telling stories, I'm more into the production of individual images with strong narrative structures, and at that time there was a necessity to formalize clearly what I was standing for: simplicity, some clarity, the refusal of a "photographic style" and the mystification of reality that comes with it. Working with the complexity of the real was one thing. The other one, probably more difficult, was to work towards the restoration of the autonomy of the image.
JC: Can you be a little bit more specific by what you mean when you say "the autonomy of the image"? Also, I find it interesting that you're speaking of the complexity of the real. We've come to get used to the idea that reality is just so simple, that simple stories and simple images show us what is real and what isn't. But it seems to me that's just really not true, and you can look anywhere in the world where reality is just so much more complex than the black-and-white pictures people are presented. Is this something that you are interested in?
LD: If an image has a sort of organic unity - the internal coherence of a mesh of elements that work together, respond to each other and therefore produce "intelligence" – then you can say that it has a level of autonomy. It's self-sufficient in the sense that it doesn't rely on the outside to exist; and this is precisely a condition that makes possible an interesting relation with the outside, the viewer. I think that these qualities are sometimes emphasized by the size of the work - when some elements and information begin to exist, and when the image is independent from the context in which it is shown: the picture as a physical object. But I can't say that I am consciously trying to achieve this, it doesn't work that way. It's enough if I just recognize it when it's there or seems to be there.
JC: We've lately seen the development of photography that lives at the intersection of photojournalism and art. For example, recently, photography from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has reached art galleries, and books have been published. In a sense, there never was such a clear distinction between photojournalism and fine art in the first place, with many photographers, like Henri Cartier-Bresson, working right in that gray zone. But, I think, in the eye of the public, photography still is either art or photojournalism, or something that is not necessarily real or outright fabricated and something that is a depiction of reality. There are all kinds of problems I see with this. For example, shouldn't we a bit concerned if the aftermath of a natural (and, to a large extent, made-made) disaster can only be found in museums or art galleries - the places where many people expect to find, well, art - something that doesn't necessarily reflect "reality"? Don't we move things that need to be discussed in quite a bit of seriousness into a space which might suppress this discussion?
LD: A work of art is always a document: a document about the artist, about its time and the context in which it has been made; and sometimes a photograph contains enough information about a given situation that you can say it has some journalistic value. But it's different - in nature - from photojournalism, and I think ignoring the difference between the two generally produces something which is neither good journalism nor it is convincing art. That said, I don't really feel concerned by this issue - the issue of the classification of my pictures by their viewers.
JC: It's quite interesting that your work was discussed in three of my other interviews. In each case, your photo of the dead Taliban soldier from your "History" project was brought up, and I'm quite grateful that I now can talk with you about this particular photo. Can you maybe give us a bit of a background first? Under which conditions did you take the photo?
LD: I was staying since two weeks with a small group of Northern Alliance fighters in a farm on the frontline, waiting for the offensive. It eventually happened and in great confusion, on foot, we crossed the no man's land and reached the Taliban lines. That's where I made this image. The morning after, we reached Kabul.
JC: I think the photo has generated quite a bit of a controversy not because of its content, but because of how and where it was displayed (and sold). These days, people are quite used to seeing dead foreign (but certainly not their own) soldiers on a regular basis in their newspapers, but seeing a huge print of one in an art gallery is quite a bit different. And I sense a certain uneasiness about seeing it sold for a lot of money. I am sure you have encountered this problem before. What do you say to people who confront you about this?
LD: I'm avoiding these discussions.
JC: OK, let's not talk about it then. But then I'd be curious to find out why you're avoiding these discussions now? Do you think that the photo and its presentation have been a bit misunderstood?
LD: There can't be a misunderstanding, because I'm not "saying" anything through my pictures. They are just there. If they are good enough, they will not need me to justify them afterwards. In any case, photography is essentially a phenomenological practice: no matter how complex or obscure a picture can be, it will always show the nature of the photographer's relation to the real with a degree of clarity.
JC: The photo of the dead Taliban reminded me of paintings of old masters - who regularly showed historical or religious settings or events. The advent of photography made painters move their subject matter away from the realistic to something else, but it was never quite that obvious that photography was moving in. Maybe we're now at a point where photography creates our contemporary version of paintings of old masters? Is this something you had in mind?
LD: No, I don't feel the need to do what has already been done. I'm trying to work with what only belongs to photography, and I think there's more to be done.
This conversation was commissioned by American Photo.(c) Conscientious.
By Jörg Colberg
As a Magnum and Newsweek photographer, Luc Delahaye covered many of the most recent areas of conflict like, for example, Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan. Apart from other prizes, he won the World Press Photo three times. With time, his work evolved from standard photojournalistic practice, both towards other areas (for example, for his project "L'Autre" he stealthily took photos of Parisian subway passengers) and methods (he started to use a panoramic large-format camera for photojournalistic assignments). "History" might be considered the culmination of this development, a series of panoramic photos often showing vast scales, such as the whole UN assembly hall while President Bush was giving a speech, and printed quite large (4 by 8 feet). Most famously, his photo of a dead Taliban soldier, exhibited and sold by a commercial art gallery, caused a stir a few years ago. A year later, he resigned from Magnum. I talked to Luc about his earlier and current work.
Jörg Colberg: I think the first images that I saw from you were those published in "History", and I was instantly somewhat confused. Even though these photos are/were clearly photojournalism, in my head I also placed them into the context of contemporary photography. For example, "President Bush Addressing the U.N." reminded me of some of Andreas Gursky's work, like his photos of stock traders or of a rave. What was your motivation to move away from your run-of-the-mill photojournalistic practice - where one would have taken a photo of just President Bush and the podium at the UN - and to get vast panoramas instead?
Luc Delahaye: The picture you mention was made at a time – 2002 - when I was more interested in including the broad context of a given situation than I am now. It was probably in reaction to photojournalism, where I was coming from. I think that photojournalism is at its best when conceived as a series - the picture story. But I was never really interested in telling stories, I'm more into the production of individual images with strong narrative structures, and at that time there was a necessity to formalize clearly what I was standing for: simplicity, some clarity, the refusal of a "photographic style" and the mystification of reality that comes with it. Working with the complexity of the real was one thing. The other one, probably more difficult, was to work towards the restoration of the autonomy of the image.
JC: Can you be a little bit more specific by what you mean when you say "the autonomy of the image"? Also, I find it interesting that you're speaking of the complexity of the real. We've come to get used to the idea that reality is just so simple, that simple stories and simple images show us what is real and what isn't. But it seems to me that's just really not true, and you can look anywhere in the world where reality is just so much more complex than the black-and-white pictures people are presented. Is this something that you are interested in?
LD: If an image has a sort of organic unity - the internal coherence of a mesh of elements that work together, respond to each other and therefore produce "intelligence" – then you can say that it has a level of autonomy. It's self-sufficient in the sense that it doesn't rely on the outside to exist; and this is precisely a condition that makes possible an interesting relation with the outside, the viewer. I think that these qualities are sometimes emphasized by the size of the work - when some elements and information begin to exist, and when the image is independent from the context in which it is shown: the picture as a physical object. But I can't say that I am consciously trying to achieve this, it doesn't work that way. It's enough if I just recognize it when it's there or seems to be there.
JC: We've lately seen the development of photography that lives at the intersection of photojournalism and art. For example, recently, photography from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has reached art galleries, and books have been published. In a sense, there never was such a clear distinction between photojournalism and fine art in the first place, with many photographers, like Henri Cartier-Bresson, working right in that gray zone. But, I think, in the eye of the public, photography still is either art or photojournalism, or something that is not necessarily real or outright fabricated and something that is a depiction of reality. There are all kinds of problems I see with this. For example, shouldn't we a bit concerned if the aftermath of a natural (and, to a large extent, made-made) disaster can only be found in museums or art galleries - the places where many people expect to find, well, art - something that doesn't necessarily reflect "reality"? Don't we move things that need to be discussed in quite a bit of seriousness into a space which might suppress this discussion?
LD: A work of art is always a document: a document about the artist, about its time and the context in which it has been made; and sometimes a photograph contains enough information about a given situation that you can say it has some journalistic value. But it's different - in nature - from photojournalism, and I think ignoring the difference between the two generally produces something which is neither good journalism nor it is convincing art. That said, I don't really feel concerned by this issue - the issue of the classification of my pictures by their viewers.
JC: It's quite interesting that your work was discussed in three of my other interviews. In each case, your photo of the dead Taliban soldier from your "History" project was brought up, and I'm quite grateful that I now can talk with you about this particular photo. Can you maybe give us a bit of a background first? Under which conditions did you take the photo?
LD: I was staying since two weeks with a small group of Northern Alliance fighters in a farm on the frontline, waiting for the offensive. It eventually happened and in great confusion, on foot, we crossed the no man's land and reached the Taliban lines. That's where I made this image. The morning after, we reached Kabul.
JC: I think the photo has generated quite a bit of a controversy not because of its content, but because of how and where it was displayed (and sold). These days, people are quite used to seeing dead foreign (but certainly not their own) soldiers on a regular basis in their newspapers, but seeing a huge print of one in an art gallery is quite a bit different. And I sense a certain uneasiness about seeing it sold for a lot of money. I am sure you have encountered this problem before. What do you say to people who confront you about this?
LD: I'm avoiding these discussions.
JC: OK, let's not talk about it then. But then I'd be curious to find out why you're avoiding these discussions now? Do you think that the photo and its presentation have been a bit misunderstood?
LD: There can't be a misunderstanding, because I'm not "saying" anything through my pictures. They are just there. If they are good enough, they will not need me to justify them afterwards. In any case, photography is essentially a phenomenological practice: no matter how complex or obscure a picture can be, it will always show the nature of the photographer's relation to the real with a degree of clarity.
JC: The photo of the dead Taliban reminded me of paintings of old masters - who regularly showed historical or religious settings or events. The advent of photography made painters move their subject matter away from the realistic to something else, but it was never quite that obvious that photography was moving in. Maybe we're now at a point where photography creates our contemporary version of paintings of old masters? Is this something you had in mind?
LD: No, I don't feel the need to do what has already been done. I'm trying to work with what only belongs to photography, and I think there's more to be done.
This conversation was commissioned by American Photo.(c) Conscientious.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
50 MASTERS OF PHOTOGRAPHY
The Photographers
Compiled by Mason Resnick
1 Ansel Adams
One of the most widely-known photographers, Adams was a conservationist and an artist with a camera. His photos of Yosemite, the Southwestern US and portraits are equalled only by the techniques that he pioneered.
2 Diane Arbus
Her controversial portraiture looked beyond the superficial and into her subjects often troubled souls. But her magazine work show she could have a split personality.
3 Richard Avedon
His up close, show-every-hair-follicle approach to portraiture can be jarring, but his ability to render both his and his sitters' personalities in each image he creates is uncanny.
4 Erwin Blumenfeld
An innovative, influential fashion photographer.
5 Phil Borges
Photographer of all things Tibetan, including the Dalai Lama.
6 Margaret Bourke-White
One of the original Life magazine staff photographers, Bourke-White was a pioneer in both photojournalism and womens' work roles. Her images of World War II--especially the liberation of concentration camps--were deceptively simple. Her images would often be the perfect combination of fact and beauty.
7 Brassai
His portraits and Paris street photos are touching and perceptive.
8 Henri Cartier-Bresson
The father of Photo Reportage and co-founder of the legendary Magnum photo agency, "HC-B" has influenced generations of photojournalists, documentary photographers and street photographers. Influenced and inspired by classical and impressionist art and freed by the portability of the Leica, HC-B changed the way we look at the world around us.
9 David Byrne
The founder of the Talking Heads points his camera at the kind of bizarre incongruities you could write a song about.
10 Imogen Cunningham
Cunningham's carreer spanned the first three quarters of the 20th century photographed many of her subjects draped in exotic clothes in images with moral themes and tableaux representing works of poets. Later nudes were shocking for their time, but rather tame now.
11 Edward Curtis
Curtis built an illustrius carreer documenting Native Americans in the 1900s. The images resonate 100 years later.
12 Robert Doisneau
A street photographer whose decisive moments are imbued with warmth, feeling and wit, Diosneau's work reveals the fragile moments of urban existance.
13 Harold Edgerton
A bullet through an apple. A droplet of milk that looks like a crown. A punctured balloon in mid-explosion. These are just a few of the famous images by "Doc" Edgerton, the pioneer of high-speed photography.
14 Elliott Erwitt
A perceptive street photographer with a sharp sense of humor, a sensitivity to the human condition, and an affinity for dogs. It is almost impossible to be depressed after looking at his work!
15 Robert Frank
Frank's The Americans is a seminal development in the history of photography. He cris-crossed the US in the mid-50's and produced a collection of subjective images that showed the dark side of the nation that was supposedly in the midst of a socio-economic boom. To quote Jack Kerouack speaking directly to Robert Frank in the intro: "You Got Eyes."
16 Walker Evans Quintisential American photography from the first half of the 20th century. Evans influenced a generation with his forceful images of a lonely country.
17 Anne Geddes
The ultimate children's photographer. Her colorful, whimsical images leave you wondering how she got those infants to pose like that.
18 Ralph Gibson
Gibson's high-contrast, minimalist black and white compositions have influenced a generation of photographers. By isolating the essential elements of a scene, his pictures show a style that is unique and immediately recognizable.
19 Lewis Hine
By championing the cause of poor immigrants, child laborers and other downtrodden folks through his powerfully straightforward photos, Lewis Hine showed us how the "Other Half" lived. His passionate photographs enlightened the world and brought about legislation that has protected millions since his work appeared in the early 20th century.
20 Allen Ginsberg
Some photographers have been described as poets with a camera. Ginsberg was the real thing.
21 George Hurrell
During Hollywood's Golden Era, publicity photos had the power to make or break stars. George Hurrell, who perfected the "glamour" portrait, was the most sought after glamour photographer by the big names and the wanna-be's.
22 Andre Kertesz
Kertesz used the camera to transform the chaos of the street into lyrical scenes. A brilliant, influential teacher and artist.
23 William Klein
His brief involvement with photography yielded an influential body of work that has been called confrontational and immediate. They seem to be a furious protest against the establishment. Uncompromising and bold, the images are mostly street photos that stare when others would avert their gaze. He almost dares you to look at them.
24 Josef Koudelka
A protege of Carter-Bresson, the first printing of Koudelka's book about Gypsies is a collector's item. Koudelka's documentary photos highlight the dignity of Eastern Europe's Gypsies, despite their often squalid living conditions.
25 David Lachapelle
A rising star on the celebrity portrait scene, Lachapelle's photos of Drew Barrymore, Jim Carrey, k.d. lang and the Beastie Boys has earned him accolades from American Photo magazine and others. His first book is a showcase of his impressive talents.
26 Dorothea Lange
Best known for her famous photos of the Depression, including Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, Lange was active from the 1920s to the early 1960s and was one of the most influential photographers in American history.
27 Annie Leibovitz
One of today's most influential and admired artists, renowned for her vivid and distinctive style, Annie Leibovitz is an American original and a master of self-promotion. Her portraits of Bruce Springsteen, Jody Foster, Michael Jackson, Miles Davis, Greg Louganis, Mikhail Baryshnikov, John Lennon and more combine a keen eye with a quick wit.
28 Robert Mapplethorpe
His sometimes graphic homo-erotic photos challenged the established morality of the times, but his flower photos were considerably less controversial works that showed a subtle genious unencumbered by the baggage of his more infamous work. His Flowers collection, photos taken as he was dying of AIDS, is a symbolic look at life, death and sensuality.
29 Joel Meyerowitz
Joel Meyerowitz is a master of the color image. His exquisitely printed collections include his lyrical landscapes and detailed portraiture that share an autobiographical feel, and a strong sense of place.
30 Richard Misrach
Misrach's technically perfect images portray American landscapes that have seen the heavy hand of developers, the military and polluters. The serene, understated approach Misrach often employs lies in stark contrast to the ecological damage his work depicts.
31 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
A member of the avante-garde Bauhaus movement, this artist/photographer/ theoretician's images anticipate the deconstructivist and post-modernist art movements of toady.
32 Nicholas Nixon
His early work showed a remarkable mastery of large format photography in situations where one would expect to see 35mm cameras; his portrait work includes a series on four sisters taken over a 15-year period and images of people with AIDS.
33 Alexander Rodchenko
A Russian photographer whose strong graphic work was rarely seen outside the Soviet Union until after the Iron Curtain was torn down.
34 Pedro Meyer David Muench
This landscape photographer's images of American national parks and the southwest celebrate the country's primal beauty through magical patterns of light and form.
35 Helmut Newton
From big nudes to portraits of Elizabeth Taylor and Salvador Dali, Newton has been on the cutting edge of fashion and glamour.
36 Herb Ritts
From Madonna to Jack Nicholson to William Burroughs, Herb Ritts has photographed the most famours--and notorious--faces of our time. His Notorious collection showcases his best celebrity shots, while Africa offers a bold departure: photos of the people and landscape of the African continent that will be a revalation to his fans.
37 Galen Rowell
Master nature photographer and teacher Galen Rowell's work presents the splendor of the world's natural beauty. As a columnist for Outdoor Photographer, Rowell has produced a prolific output of writing and images that will help a new generation of photographers to create the kind of interperative, adventure-filled images that Rowell is famous for.
38 Sebastiao Salgado
A photojournalist in the best sense of the word, Sebasiao Salgado is fascinated with people who work hard in all parts of the world. From landless workers trying to claim property for themselves in Brazil to Oil workers putting out fires in Kuwait, Salgado's lens captures the beauty in his subjects' gritty reality.
39 John Sexton
A consumate craftsman and teacher, John Sexton offers tactile fine black and white nature imagery that utilizes the Zone System and large format for crisp, beautiful work. Sexton focuses the Desert Southwest US, using creative printing techniques to create uniquely expressive results. Sexton runs numerous workshops to share his knowledge with up-and-coming photographers.
40 Cindy Sherman
Sherman uses photography as a tool to manipulate images of women that have been spawned by popular culture, with herself as the leading character in most of the images she creates.
41 W. Eugene Smith
A premier master of photojournalism, Smith passionately believed in the integrity of his subjects and the photographs that portrayed them. From his staged "Walk to Paradise Garden" to his graphic images of World War II and damning photos of the human tragedy brought on by industrial pollution at Minamata, Smith produced some of the most memorable images of his day.
42 Edward Steichen
As the curator of the photo collection for the New York Museum of Modern Art, Steichen was the man behind The Family Of Man, a late 1950's photo exhibition and recently-republished book that was a watershed in the history of photography because it gave photography mass appeal as an expressive, fine art. His curatorship brought about a grand era for "Concerned" photography.
43 Alfred Stieglitz
One of the great art-world arbiters of the 20th century, Stieglitz gained recognition for photography as a fine art and introduced the European avant-garde to America. A leader in the controversial Pictorialist movement, he offered a mix of literal and interperative images. He moved in a brilliant circle of artists and intellectuals and was the husband of Georgia O'Keeffe.
44 Paul Strand
A white picket fence. A poor Adirondac family. Paul Strand's pure vision and uncompromising technique gained him international accolades as a master of American photography, especially in the 1950s. His black and white photos are exquisite and memorable.
45 Jerry Uelsmann
Before there was Photoshop, there was Uelsmann. His enigmatic, surrealist collection darkroom combinations defy categorization. It is their mystery that has stumped critics and kept his fans coming back for more.
46 Weegee
A crime news photographer in the 30s and 40s in New York, Weegee is possibly the most well known street photographer. Crude and direct, his photos have an immediacy and impact that affect the viewer to this day. His later work, distorted portraits that he called "photo charicatures", have a similar in-your-face quality.
47 William Wegman
A man and his dogs: Wegman, who started out as a painter, is best known for photographs of his dogs. Man Ray, then Fay Ray and her pups have posed for Wegman in a variety of often humorous and very human-like settings. His photographs are a tribute to the ultimate partnership between a man and his dogs.
48 Edward Weston
Weston's immaculately constructed images imbue forms of common objects with a sensuality that transcends the subject. Sharp, detailed and rich in tonality, his closeups, nudes and nature photographs brought the power of photography as an objective tool of observation to new heights. You'll never look at a pepper quite the same way again.
49 Minor White
A teacher as well as a photographer, Minor White crafted works of beauty that were also explorations of his inner self. His best known work was made of the natural wonders in the American West. He experimented with alternative processes, non-narrative sequences and techniques that would stretch the bounds of photography.
50 Joel-Peter Witkin
Few living photographers are as consistently controversial and provocative as Joel-Peter Witkin, whose work elicits hostility and admiration in equal measure. Shocking and compelling, the photographs in this retrospective collection reach to the outer limits of human nature. Voted least likely to be invited to photograph childrens' birthday parties by Modern Photography in 1989.
Compiled by Mason Resnick
1 Ansel Adams
One of the most widely-known photographers, Adams was a conservationist and an artist with a camera. His photos of Yosemite, the Southwestern US and portraits are equalled only by the techniques that he pioneered.
2 Diane Arbus
Her controversial portraiture looked beyond the superficial and into her subjects often troubled souls. But her magazine work show she could have a split personality.
3 Richard Avedon
His up close, show-every-hair-follicle approach to portraiture can be jarring, but his ability to render both his and his sitters' personalities in each image he creates is uncanny.
4 Erwin Blumenfeld
An innovative, influential fashion photographer.
5 Phil Borges
Photographer of all things Tibetan, including the Dalai Lama.
6 Margaret Bourke-White
One of the original Life magazine staff photographers, Bourke-White was a pioneer in both photojournalism and womens' work roles. Her images of World War II--especially the liberation of concentration camps--were deceptively simple. Her images would often be the perfect combination of fact and beauty.
7 Brassai
His portraits and Paris street photos are touching and perceptive.
8 Henri Cartier-Bresson
The father of Photo Reportage and co-founder of the legendary Magnum photo agency, "HC-B" has influenced generations of photojournalists, documentary photographers and street photographers. Influenced and inspired by classical and impressionist art and freed by the portability of the Leica, HC-B changed the way we look at the world around us.
9 David Byrne
The founder of the Talking Heads points his camera at the kind of bizarre incongruities you could write a song about.
10 Imogen Cunningham
Cunningham's carreer spanned the first three quarters of the 20th century photographed many of her subjects draped in exotic clothes in images with moral themes and tableaux representing works of poets. Later nudes were shocking for their time, but rather tame now.
11 Edward Curtis
Curtis built an illustrius carreer documenting Native Americans in the 1900s. The images resonate 100 years later.
12 Robert Doisneau
A street photographer whose decisive moments are imbued with warmth, feeling and wit, Diosneau's work reveals the fragile moments of urban existance.
13 Harold Edgerton
A bullet through an apple. A droplet of milk that looks like a crown. A punctured balloon in mid-explosion. These are just a few of the famous images by "Doc" Edgerton, the pioneer of high-speed photography.
14 Elliott Erwitt
A perceptive street photographer with a sharp sense of humor, a sensitivity to the human condition, and an affinity for dogs. It is almost impossible to be depressed after looking at his work!
15 Robert Frank
Frank's The Americans is a seminal development in the history of photography. He cris-crossed the US in the mid-50's and produced a collection of subjective images that showed the dark side of the nation that was supposedly in the midst of a socio-economic boom. To quote Jack Kerouack speaking directly to Robert Frank in the intro: "You Got Eyes."
16 Walker Evans Quintisential American photography from the first half of the 20th century. Evans influenced a generation with his forceful images of a lonely country.
17 Anne Geddes
The ultimate children's photographer. Her colorful, whimsical images leave you wondering how she got those infants to pose like that.
18 Ralph Gibson
Gibson's high-contrast, minimalist black and white compositions have influenced a generation of photographers. By isolating the essential elements of a scene, his pictures show a style that is unique and immediately recognizable.
19 Lewis Hine
By championing the cause of poor immigrants, child laborers and other downtrodden folks through his powerfully straightforward photos, Lewis Hine showed us how the "Other Half" lived. His passionate photographs enlightened the world and brought about legislation that has protected millions since his work appeared in the early 20th century.
20 Allen Ginsberg
Some photographers have been described as poets with a camera. Ginsberg was the real thing.
21 George Hurrell
During Hollywood's Golden Era, publicity photos had the power to make or break stars. George Hurrell, who perfected the "glamour" portrait, was the most sought after glamour photographer by the big names and the wanna-be's.
22 Andre Kertesz
Kertesz used the camera to transform the chaos of the street into lyrical scenes. A brilliant, influential teacher and artist.
23 William Klein
His brief involvement with photography yielded an influential body of work that has been called confrontational and immediate. They seem to be a furious protest against the establishment. Uncompromising and bold, the images are mostly street photos that stare when others would avert their gaze. He almost dares you to look at them.
24 Josef Koudelka
A protege of Carter-Bresson, the first printing of Koudelka's book about Gypsies is a collector's item. Koudelka's documentary photos highlight the dignity of Eastern Europe's Gypsies, despite their often squalid living conditions.
25 David Lachapelle
A rising star on the celebrity portrait scene, Lachapelle's photos of Drew Barrymore, Jim Carrey, k.d. lang and the Beastie Boys has earned him accolades from American Photo magazine and others. His first book is a showcase of his impressive talents.
26 Dorothea Lange
Best known for her famous photos of the Depression, including Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, Lange was active from the 1920s to the early 1960s and was one of the most influential photographers in American history.
27 Annie Leibovitz
One of today's most influential and admired artists, renowned for her vivid and distinctive style, Annie Leibovitz is an American original and a master of self-promotion. Her portraits of Bruce Springsteen, Jody Foster, Michael Jackson, Miles Davis, Greg Louganis, Mikhail Baryshnikov, John Lennon and more combine a keen eye with a quick wit.
28 Robert Mapplethorpe
His sometimes graphic homo-erotic photos challenged the established morality of the times, but his flower photos were considerably less controversial works that showed a subtle genious unencumbered by the baggage of his more infamous work. His Flowers collection, photos taken as he was dying of AIDS, is a symbolic look at life, death and sensuality.
29 Joel Meyerowitz
Joel Meyerowitz is a master of the color image. His exquisitely printed collections include his lyrical landscapes and detailed portraiture that share an autobiographical feel, and a strong sense of place.
30 Richard Misrach
Misrach's technically perfect images portray American landscapes that have seen the heavy hand of developers, the military and polluters. The serene, understated approach Misrach often employs lies in stark contrast to the ecological damage his work depicts.
31 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
A member of the avante-garde Bauhaus movement, this artist/photographer/ theoretician's images anticipate the deconstructivist and post-modernist art movements of toady.
32 Nicholas Nixon
His early work showed a remarkable mastery of large format photography in situations where one would expect to see 35mm cameras; his portrait work includes a series on four sisters taken over a 15-year period and images of people with AIDS.
33 Alexander Rodchenko
A Russian photographer whose strong graphic work was rarely seen outside the Soviet Union until after the Iron Curtain was torn down.
34 Pedro Meyer David Muench
This landscape photographer's images of American national parks and the southwest celebrate the country's primal beauty through magical patterns of light and form.
35 Helmut Newton
From big nudes to portraits of Elizabeth Taylor and Salvador Dali, Newton has been on the cutting edge of fashion and glamour.
36 Herb Ritts
From Madonna to Jack Nicholson to William Burroughs, Herb Ritts has photographed the most famours--and notorious--faces of our time. His Notorious collection showcases his best celebrity shots, while Africa offers a bold departure: photos of the people and landscape of the African continent that will be a revalation to his fans.
37 Galen Rowell
Master nature photographer and teacher Galen Rowell's work presents the splendor of the world's natural beauty. As a columnist for Outdoor Photographer, Rowell has produced a prolific output of writing and images that will help a new generation of photographers to create the kind of interperative, adventure-filled images that Rowell is famous for.
38 Sebastiao Salgado
A photojournalist in the best sense of the word, Sebasiao Salgado is fascinated with people who work hard in all parts of the world. From landless workers trying to claim property for themselves in Brazil to Oil workers putting out fires in Kuwait, Salgado's lens captures the beauty in his subjects' gritty reality.
39 John Sexton
A consumate craftsman and teacher, John Sexton offers tactile fine black and white nature imagery that utilizes the Zone System and large format for crisp, beautiful work. Sexton focuses the Desert Southwest US, using creative printing techniques to create uniquely expressive results. Sexton runs numerous workshops to share his knowledge with up-and-coming photographers.
40 Cindy Sherman
Sherman uses photography as a tool to manipulate images of women that have been spawned by popular culture, with herself as the leading character in most of the images she creates.
41 W. Eugene Smith
A premier master of photojournalism, Smith passionately believed in the integrity of his subjects and the photographs that portrayed them. From his staged "Walk to Paradise Garden" to his graphic images of World War II and damning photos of the human tragedy brought on by industrial pollution at Minamata, Smith produced some of the most memorable images of his day.
42 Edward Steichen
As the curator of the photo collection for the New York Museum of Modern Art, Steichen was the man behind The Family Of Man, a late 1950's photo exhibition and recently-republished book that was a watershed in the history of photography because it gave photography mass appeal as an expressive, fine art. His curatorship brought about a grand era for "Concerned" photography.
43 Alfred Stieglitz
One of the great art-world arbiters of the 20th century, Stieglitz gained recognition for photography as a fine art and introduced the European avant-garde to America. A leader in the controversial Pictorialist movement, he offered a mix of literal and interperative images. He moved in a brilliant circle of artists and intellectuals and was the husband of Georgia O'Keeffe.
44 Paul Strand
A white picket fence. A poor Adirondac family. Paul Strand's pure vision and uncompromising technique gained him international accolades as a master of American photography, especially in the 1950s. His black and white photos are exquisite and memorable.
45 Jerry Uelsmann
Before there was Photoshop, there was Uelsmann. His enigmatic, surrealist collection darkroom combinations defy categorization. It is their mystery that has stumped critics and kept his fans coming back for more.
46 Weegee
A crime news photographer in the 30s and 40s in New York, Weegee is possibly the most well known street photographer. Crude and direct, his photos have an immediacy and impact that affect the viewer to this day. His later work, distorted portraits that he called "photo charicatures", have a similar in-your-face quality.
47 William Wegman
A man and his dogs: Wegman, who started out as a painter, is best known for photographs of his dogs. Man Ray, then Fay Ray and her pups have posed for Wegman in a variety of often humorous and very human-like settings. His photographs are a tribute to the ultimate partnership between a man and his dogs.
48 Edward Weston
Weston's immaculately constructed images imbue forms of common objects with a sensuality that transcends the subject. Sharp, detailed and rich in tonality, his closeups, nudes and nature photographs brought the power of photography as an objective tool of observation to new heights. You'll never look at a pepper quite the same way again.
49 Minor White
A teacher as well as a photographer, Minor White crafted works of beauty that were also explorations of his inner self. His best known work was made of the natural wonders in the American West. He experimented with alternative processes, non-narrative sequences and techniques that would stretch the bounds of photography.
50 Joel-Peter Witkin
Few living photographers are as consistently controversial and provocative as Joel-Peter Witkin, whose work elicits hostility and admiration in equal measure. Shocking and compelling, the photographs in this retrospective collection reach to the outer limits of human nature. Voted least likely to be invited to photograph childrens' birthday parties by Modern Photography in 1989.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Thursday, May 31, 2007
personalities
legendary Shehnai maestro late Ustad Bismillah Khan.
(The shehnai is an aerophonic instrument which is thought to bring good luck, and as a result, is widely used in North India for marriages and processions.This tube-like instrument gradually widens towards the lower end. It usually has between six and nine holes. It employs two sets of double reeds, making it a quadruple reed woodwind. By controlling the breath, various tunes can be played on it)
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Stock Tips: News From Photo Agencies
By Daryl Lang (PDN)
The latest on the stock photo business:
Getty's Future: Consumers, Music, And (Surprise) Acquisitions
In the next four months Getty Images plans to launch new a new consumer business and a music licensing service.
Some rare hints about upcoming products came during a presentation last Wednesday by Getty CEO Jonathan Klein at an Internet conference organized by Goldman Sachs.
"We plan to launch a consumer business in the next 90 to 120 days," Klein said, without revealing what the business is. He mentioned this in connection with Getty's new strategy of operating multiple Web sites for different customers – including gettyimages.com, iStockphoto.com and new acquisition PunchStock.
Klein also expressed hope that the text-only search ads sold through Google will eventually incorporate multimedia content, like photos and video, both of which Getty provides. On that note, he added, "We will be providing music to our customers within 90 days."
Klein declined to predict how big the music business could become. Getty competitor Jupitermedia runs a stock music service at RoyaltyFreeMusic.com, which is a relatively small part of Jupiterimages.
Klein was asked about the failed talks to acquire Jupitermedia and declined to say anything new. Later, Klein took a shot at archrival Corbis, saying, "I respect Corbis," but "It is worth pointing out that iStockPhoto made more profit yesterday than Corbis did in its entire history, and I think that matters in business."
Asked about Getty's financial priorities, Klein said, "The past is a really great guide for the future for us, and that's acquisitions, acquisitions, acquisitions. We're very good at doing acquisitions. I think we've done about 90. One of them was a complete disaster, and that was in 1999, the rest have worked out extremely well."
The 1999 failure he was referring to was Art.com – a consumer service that Getty gave up on in 2001.
Klein's presentation is available here.
More Getty News
- Getty Images has re-upped its deal with the National Hockey League and will remain the league's exclusive commercial imagery licensor for the next four years. Getty and the NHL have been in partnership since 2002.
- Newscom is now distributing 500,000 royalty-free photos from Getty Images. Collections represented include Digital Vision, Photodisc, Photographer's Choice, Retrofile, Stockbyte and National Geographic (a Getty partner).
- Pixsy, a company that provides search services for image collections, has teamed up with Getty-owned iStockphoto. All of iStock's images will be searchable through the Pixsy.com portal. Separately, Pixsy will power three new portals for specific kinds of stock photography for SuperStock, which is owned by a21.
Launches and deals
- Drive Images is a new right-managed stock library of 25,000 automotive images. The wholly owned collection was developed by eVox Productions, which also licenses images through third-party sites via its Automotive Image Library.
- London-based Photolibrary Group has launched a new collection called Fresh Food Images (FFI). FFI incorporates 200,000 images from 100 photographers, including the Anthony Blake Food Library.
- AP Images, the photo licensing arm of the Associated Press, is distributing content from the archives of EBONY and JET magazines, which are part of the Johnson Publishing Company.
- Software developer CogniSign recently launched a beta version of xcavator.net, a visual search engine. For now, the site is searching 300,000 images from Photovault.com, but the company expects to add more collections in the coming months.
- Alamy is distributing GoGo Images, a multicultural, royalty-free lifestyle collection.
- Imaginechina is now distributing the features and archive of Agence VU in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Imageinechina already represents photo agencies Magnum and Anzenberger for Chinese markets.
- Digital Railroad has expanded its service for photographers by adding business tools powered by ADBASE Inc. and HindSight Ltd.
Send suggestions for stock photo news to news editor Daryl Lang (dlang@pdnonline.com).
The latest on the stock photo business:
Getty's Future: Consumers, Music, And (Surprise) Acquisitions
In the next four months Getty Images plans to launch new a new consumer business and a music licensing service.
Some rare hints about upcoming products came during a presentation last Wednesday by Getty CEO Jonathan Klein at an Internet conference organized by Goldman Sachs.
"We plan to launch a consumer business in the next 90 to 120 days," Klein said, without revealing what the business is. He mentioned this in connection with Getty's new strategy of operating multiple Web sites for different customers – including gettyimages.com, iStockphoto.com and new acquisition PunchStock.
Klein also expressed hope that the text-only search ads sold through Google will eventually incorporate multimedia content, like photos and video, both of which Getty provides. On that note, he added, "We will be providing music to our customers within 90 days."
Klein declined to predict how big the music business could become. Getty competitor Jupitermedia runs a stock music service at RoyaltyFreeMusic.com, which is a relatively small part of Jupiterimages.
Klein was asked about the failed talks to acquire Jupitermedia and declined to say anything new. Later, Klein took a shot at archrival Corbis, saying, "I respect Corbis," but "It is worth pointing out that iStockPhoto made more profit yesterday than Corbis did in its entire history, and I think that matters in business."
Asked about Getty's financial priorities, Klein said, "The past is a really great guide for the future for us, and that's acquisitions, acquisitions, acquisitions. We're very good at doing acquisitions. I think we've done about 90. One of them was a complete disaster, and that was in 1999, the rest have worked out extremely well."
The 1999 failure he was referring to was Art.com – a consumer service that Getty gave up on in 2001.
Klein's presentation is available here.
More Getty News
- Getty Images has re-upped its deal with the National Hockey League and will remain the league's exclusive commercial imagery licensor for the next four years. Getty and the NHL have been in partnership since 2002.
- Newscom is now distributing 500,000 royalty-free photos from Getty Images. Collections represented include Digital Vision, Photodisc, Photographer's Choice, Retrofile, Stockbyte and National Geographic (a Getty partner).
- Pixsy, a company that provides search services for image collections, has teamed up with Getty-owned iStockphoto. All of iStock's images will be searchable through the Pixsy.com portal. Separately, Pixsy will power three new portals for specific kinds of stock photography for SuperStock, which is owned by a21.
Launches and deals
- Drive Images is a new right-managed stock library of 25,000 automotive images. The wholly owned collection was developed by eVox Productions, which also licenses images through third-party sites via its Automotive Image Library.
- London-based Photolibrary Group has launched a new collection called Fresh Food Images (FFI). FFI incorporates 200,000 images from 100 photographers, including the Anthony Blake Food Library.
- AP Images, the photo licensing arm of the Associated Press, is distributing content from the archives of EBONY and JET magazines, which are part of the Johnson Publishing Company.
- Software developer CogniSign recently launched a beta version of xcavator.net, a visual search engine. For now, the site is searching 300,000 images from Photovault.com, but the company expects to add more collections in the coming months.
- Alamy is distributing GoGo Images, a multicultural, royalty-free lifestyle collection.
- Imaginechina is now distributing the features and archive of Agence VU in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Imageinechina already represents photo agencies Magnum and Anzenberger for Chinese markets.
- Digital Railroad has expanded its service for photographers by adding business tools powered by ADBASE Inc. and HindSight Ltd.
Send suggestions for stock photo news to news editor Daryl Lang (dlang@pdnonline.com).
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Oded Balilty Credits Teamwork For Pulitzer-Winning Photo
May 23, 2007 © AP Photo/Oded Balilty
By Daryl Lang (PDN)
A day after accepting the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News photography, Oded Balilty credited two fellow Associated Press photographers with helping him get his winning photograph.
Balilty was working as a team of three – along with staffer Emilio Morenatti and stringer Baz Ratner – to cover a confrontation between settlers and Israeli soldiers on a hillside in the West Bank in February 2006. With Morenatti covering one side of the scene, Balilty said he was free to move to the other side for a different angle. Then, once they had the pictures, Ratner rushed to Jerusalem on his motorcycle to transmit them.
"It's a great example of teamwork," Balilty said. "Sometimes to take the picture is the least thing you can do."
Balilty spoke as part of a panel discussion on conflict photojournalism at the AP office in New York. He was joined by photojournalists Horst Faas, Hal Buell, Anja Niedringhaus and Santiago Lyon.
Lyon, the director of photography for the AP, said photo editors considered cleaning up the dark specks in the upper right corner of Balilty's photo, believing they were caused by a dirty lens or camera sensor. But then they realized the specks were rocks flying through the air.
Lyon asked the panel about the importance of local staff in conflict areas. He mentioned Balilty, who is based in his home city of Jerusalem, and Bilal Hussein, the AP photographer who has been imprisoned in Iraq for more than a year.
"In Baghdad, we tried from very early on to get local photographers," said Niedringhaus, who was part of the team that won a 2005 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of Iraq. After seeing the staffers work for a while, "You know who's really good, and Bilal was one of them."
Niedringhaus and Faas, who was the AP's chief photographer covering the Vietnam War, discussed the differences between photo coverage then and now.
Niedringhaus said as part of the ground rules for embedding, photojournalists are supposed to secure advance permission from the troops to take their photos if they are injured. It makes it difficult to make a friendly connection, she said.
"How do you want to make friends when you're asking, 'In case something happens in the next 10 minutes, can I take your picture?'" she said. New rules that let police keep journalists away from bombing scenes have also made photography more difficult in Iraq, she said.
By contrast, Faas said journalists were welcomed by the troops in Vietnam. One reason for this was that soldiers had less access to news – no Internet or TV, and little radio.
"They were so grateful if a reporter hung around and talked to them and explained the situation," Faas said. "We were welcomed for what we were, messengers. The Army didn't provide any of that."
The photographers also talked about how they cope with seeing terrible things in war.
Faas said he and other journalists enjoyed collecting pottery in Vietnam. "That was a wonderful relief from the ugly work you're doing," he said. He also said it helps when you're convinced your work serves a purpose.
Balilty says he paints and works on features to take a break from conflict photography.
"I think I'm too young to realize what I'm seeing, what I'm in to," said Balilty, who is in his 20s. "After seeing a bus blow up, when you see people on fire, how can you forget it? And you have nightmares sometimes."
But having been off for three weeks, he said he was feeling "itchy" to get back to work. "I don't know how to deal with that, I just do what I'm doing."
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
Copyright
(C) Copyright for these photos belongs solely to S. KIRAN PRASAD/Organisation. Images may not be copied, downloaded, or used in any way without the expressed, written permission of the photographer.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
One man and his Leica: An audience with enigmatic Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt.
One man and his Leica: An audience with enigmatic Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt.
Elliott Erwitt is on PR duty at the Frankfurt Book Fair. He stands, somewhat awkwardly, as a phalanx of German photographers with large lenses take his picture. They probably think they're taking a decent portrait. But they don't see that under the sober tweed jacket, there is a pair of Stars and Stripes braces. Nor will they guess that Elliott Erwitt, veteran of worldfamous Magnum photo agency, almost certainly finds their whirring and flashing ridiculous. He looks over to where I am skulking by the book-piles, and grins.
Erwitt has a reputation for quietness. A journalist once wanted to write 12,000 words on the man, and a fellow photographer said, "In all the years I've spoken to him, Elliott hasn't spoken 12,000 words." Actually, he speaks easily. He smiles and twinkles. He is one of the few people who can treat an interview as a conversation. Which is how I know about the braces – "my small patriotic gesture". And how I know, though his gentlemanly courtesy prevents him from speaking ill of most things, that he has an antipathy to paraphernalia. "Photography is very simple," he says. "People make it so technical, so complicated, to disguise the fact. They overcompensate."
This would surprise the Nikon-carriers: Erwitt's forty-year career has included plenty of commercial work – for the French tourist board, for Italian fashion houses, for airlines and big business – where he has happily used the assistant, the filters, the whole ostentatious, complicated baggage of the modern photographer.
But it is another Elliot whose work he is promoting here in the 500-picture collection Snaps. The anti-Elliott – his work was once called "anti-photos" – shoots only in black and white, usually takes one shot only, is never without a Leica in his pocket, and will wait hours for one snap. This Erwitt says, "I observe, I try to entertain, but above all, I want pictures that are emotional." This Erwitt finds people who ask what film he uses hilarious – he uses what's in his bag ?– and people who ask how hard it is to use colour ("you just put a colour film in the camera") funnier still. And for apparently simple snaps that can contain fathoms of emotional input, the anti-Elliott is peerless.
Yet his name is probably unknown to most. If anything, he's a taker of funny pictures with easy charm, or a photographic dog-lover: His Dog Dogs book has sold 250,000 copies. A professional photographer will know him as a master of inimitably perfect composition and deceptive casualness. To the true fan, he has an eye for a shot like no other, and his work has the pathos and insight of Cartier-Bresson and the charm of Doisneau, though he has the name-droppability of neither. Hence Snaps. "Books aren't very rumunerative," he muses over bad German food. "But you get jobs out of it and that leads to work." His face – soulful and doleful, like Matthau without the jowls – creases into irony. "Besides, I have to do it – I've been around so long, most editors think I'm dead."
He was born in Paris in 1928, to a Russian Jew called Boris, and a Russian Greek Orthodox mother called Evgenia. It was textbook romantic: Evgenia had been one of the richest girls in Moscow, but lost everything in the Revolution. Boris was a dilettante from Odessa. Almost immediately, they moved to Italy, and Elio Romano Erwitz – his middle name a homage to the Holy City – grew up speaking Italian in public, Russian at home. But Mussolini forced the family out, and in 1939 they took the last peacetime ship from France, landing in New York to a world five days into war. Later, Boris took his child to the West Coast, and the marriage broke down. By then Elio Erwitz had become Elliott Erwitt, easier for American mouths to pronounce, and he had begun to live in a fourth language.
The instability chased him into adulthood: Four wives – "none beheaded" – six children, five grandchildren. He met his current wife, German zweedheart Pia, when she came to interview him. He doesn't say much about the others, except that they were beautiful and smart, and that his love of America's southern states dimmed after his marriage – number three – to a Southerner. When I say his private life could be called chaotic, he replies, "Well, what do you mean? Changing countries I suppose was chaotic. Changing cities. Living on your own at an early age. I've married a few times." He pauses. "Is that chaos? Perhaps it's just activity."
He began being properly active aged 16, after his father left for New Orleans, fleeing alimony payments. Elliott, left alone in Southern California, took up photography as "a way to buy biscuits". He worked first as a darkroom assistant, printing movie stars' pictures other people had taken. Soon, he bought a Rolleiflex and started taking his own, beginning with pictures of his dentist. Then, "Henri Cartier Bresson's picture of a train depot jumped out at me. I had never reacted to a photo like that before – the mood, the tight rectangular composition, the casualness of it. It was a scene available to anyone. You didn't need anything special except your own personal equipment for noticing things. It was a revelation." As was the black and white. He still refuses to use colour in his non-commercial work. "Colour film is more about narrative and storytelling. Photographs are a synthesis. My photographs are more of a drawing than a painting." (Sometimes he uses the byline Snaps Pikazo.)
"In a good photograph, the essentials are there and you don't need all the other stuff." Certainly none of those computer things: Photography should be observation, not manipulation, he says – he loathes Photoshop, and prefers not to crop, because a good photograph is perfectly framed in the first place. Even so, writes Charles Flowers, a writer and ghostwriter who provides the text in Snaps, "for all of his devotion to chance, he meets each snap at least halfway." Elliott thinks waiting for pictures is a kind of manipulation, but he's also not above tweaking: For a museum picture of men looking at a female nude, next to a woman looking at a female clothed, he "moved them around a bit." And those famous jumping dogs? He barks, they jump. Snap.
He moved to New York in 1946, and introduced himself to three photographic greats: Edward Steichen at the Museum of Modern Art, Rod Stryker and Robert Capa, "who was running this little agency I'd never heard of." All thought the work of the man who "just takes pictures" exceptional. He signed up for the Army in 1951 and for Magnum - Capa's agency - two years later. Since then, the commercial and the "hobby" – as he refers to the award-winning body of work – have co-existed harmoniously, taking it in turns to fund each other, and doing it well: the Erwitts live between New York and the Hamptons, each home bearing two life-size plaster Japanese policemen at the entrance.
Erwitt sees comedy in most things, and then some more, because he's watching and waiting for it: A gull and aeroplane with parallel lines, each one's form mirroring the other, a woman's jutting bosom aping her dog's pedigree snout. As a wedding present, he often gives a scene from a Siberian registry office, where two newlyweds gaze at a smirking James Dean figure lounging in the chair next to them. Elliott thinks it's funny, but also that it says much about the uncertainties of marriage. "Some people think my pictures are sad, some think they're funny," he wrote in the 1998 collection Personal Exposures. "Funny and sad, aren't they really the same thing? They add up to normality." If there is comedy in his work, it's also the human, divine kind.
Not that he won't supply the funny anecdotes of a 50-year veteran: The Shah of Iran wore platform heels ("You could tell from the pant creases"). Che Guevara was good-looking but not charming, Marilyn Monroe the opposite. One notorious image – the "kitchen debate" of Richard Nixon and Nikita Kruschev arguing at a Westinghouse exhibit – almost didn't happen because he was laughing too hard: Kruschev told Nixon to "Go screw my grandmother" in Russian, which the child of Boris and Evgenia understood perfectly.
There are no captions in Snaps, beyond place and date, because a good photograph shouldn't need one. There are chapter headings, supposed to reflect life's natural compartments – Look, Tell, Stand, Move, Rest – but they were the designer's idea. The reason he is most proud of the opening photograph – a black man drinking at a fountain marked "colored" – is because "it tells you the whole business. It's very economical, very obvious, very sharp." But because Elliott doesn't bother trying to explain his pictures (he thinks curators write in "museumese"), he can be surprised by what they tell people. He describes the water fountain shot as "a very violent image," but Flowers found it funny. "Elliott was horrified. But I had been there, a boy in the South who was surprised and disappointed when the Colored fountain in the downtown dry-goods store shot up water that was perfectly clear rather than hued like a rainbow."
"I guess if you take a picture and you want to have a certain meaning," Erwitt now reflects, "and people get that meaning, that's nice. Otherwise people can like my photos on any level and I'm happy."
Some don't, of course. He has been accused of whimsy, old-fashioned sweetness, irrelevance. In 1998, a reviewer wrote, "there is a price to be paid for this popular charm, so light on the eye, so hard to achieve. All those years with Magnum, and Elliott Erwitt is better known for a single shot of a bug-eyed Chihuahua than for any reportage from the great plains of human history." No longer. "Treasure this collection," writes Elliot's friend Murray Sayle in the introduction to Snaps. "It's destined to become a classic, because the times and technologies that made it possible will never come again." The sharp-eyed man has finally delivered a panoramic of those great plains of history. And the dot on the horizon, Leica in hand? That'll be Elliott.
Published in the Independent on Sunday Review
21/10/2001
Elliott Erwitt is on PR duty at the Frankfurt Book Fair. He stands, somewhat awkwardly, as a phalanx of German photographers with large lenses take his picture. They probably think they're taking a decent portrait. But they don't see that under the sober tweed jacket, there is a pair of Stars and Stripes braces. Nor will they guess that Elliott Erwitt, veteran of worldfamous Magnum photo agency, almost certainly finds their whirring and flashing ridiculous. He looks over to where I am skulking by the book-piles, and grins.
Erwitt has a reputation for quietness. A journalist once wanted to write 12,000 words on the man, and a fellow photographer said, "In all the years I've spoken to him, Elliott hasn't spoken 12,000 words." Actually, he speaks easily. He smiles and twinkles. He is one of the few people who can treat an interview as a conversation. Which is how I know about the braces – "my small patriotic gesture". And how I know, though his gentlemanly courtesy prevents him from speaking ill of most things, that he has an antipathy to paraphernalia. "Photography is very simple," he says. "People make it so technical, so complicated, to disguise the fact. They overcompensate."
This would surprise the Nikon-carriers: Erwitt's forty-year career has included plenty of commercial work – for the French tourist board, for Italian fashion houses, for airlines and big business – where he has happily used the assistant, the filters, the whole ostentatious, complicated baggage of the modern photographer.
But it is another Elliot whose work he is promoting here in the 500-picture collection Snaps. The anti-Elliott – his work was once called "anti-photos" – shoots only in black and white, usually takes one shot only, is never without a Leica in his pocket, and will wait hours for one snap. This Erwitt says, "I observe, I try to entertain, but above all, I want pictures that are emotional." This Erwitt finds people who ask what film he uses hilarious – he uses what's in his bag ?– and people who ask how hard it is to use colour ("you just put a colour film in the camera") funnier still. And for apparently simple snaps that can contain fathoms of emotional input, the anti-Elliott is peerless.
Yet his name is probably unknown to most. If anything, he's a taker of funny pictures with easy charm, or a photographic dog-lover: His Dog Dogs book has sold 250,000 copies. A professional photographer will know him as a master of inimitably perfect composition and deceptive casualness. To the true fan, he has an eye for a shot like no other, and his work has the pathos and insight of Cartier-Bresson and the charm of Doisneau, though he has the name-droppability of neither. Hence Snaps. "Books aren't very rumunerative," he muses over bad German food. "But you get jobs out of it and that leads to work." His face – soulful and doleful, like Matthau without the jowls – creases into irony. "Besides, I have to do it – I've been around so long, most editors think I'm dead."
He was born in Paris in 1928, to a Russian Jew called Boris, and a Russian Greek Orthodox mother called Evgenia. It was textbook romantic: Evgenia had been one of the richest girls in Moscow, but lost everything in the Revolution. Boris was a dilettante from Odessa. Almost immediately, they moved to Italy, and Elio Romano Erwitz – his middle name a homage to the Holy City – grew up speaking Italian in public, Russian at home. But Mussolini forced the family out, and in 1939 they took the last peacetime ship from France, landing in New York to a world five days into war. Later, Boris took his child to the West Coast, and the marriage broke down. By then Elio Erwitz had become Elliott Erwitt, easier for American mouths to pronounce, and he had begun to live in a fourth language.
The instability chased him into adulthood: Four wives – "none beheaded" – six children, five grandchildren. He met his current wife, German zweedheart Pia, when she came to interview him. He doesn't say much about the others, except that they were beautiful and smart, and that his love of America's southern states dimmed after his marriage – number three – to a Southerner. When I say his private life could be called chaotic, he replies, "Well, what do you mean? Changing countries I suppose was chaotic. Changing cities. Living on your own at an early age. I've married a few times." He pauses. "Is that chaos? Perhaps it's just activity."
He began being properly active aged 16, after his father left for New Orleans, fleeing alimony payments. Elliott, left alone in Southern California, took up photography as "a way to buy biscuits". He worked first as a darkroom assistant, printing movie stars' pictures other people had taken. Soon, he bought a Rolleiflex and started taking his own, beginning with pictures of his dentist. Then, "Henri Cartier Bresson's picture of a train depot jumped out at me. I had never reacted to a photo like that before – the mood, the tight rectangular composition, the casualness of it. It was a scene available to anyone. You didn't need anything special except your own personal equipment for noticing things. It was a revelation." As was the black and white. He still refuses to use colour in his non-commercial work. "Colour film is more about narrative and storytelling. Photographs are a synthesis. My photographs are more of a drawing than a painting." (Sometimes he uses the byline Snaps Pikazo.)
"In a good photograph, the essentials are there and you don't need all the other stuff." Certainly none of those computer things: Photography should be observation, not manipulation, he says – he loathes Photoshop, and prefers not to crop, because a good photograph is perfectly framed in the first place. Even so, writes Charles Flowers, a writer and ghostwriter who provides the text in Snaps, "for all of his devotion to chance, he meets each snap at least halfway." Elliott thinks waiting for pictures is a kind of manipulation, but he's also not above tweaking: For a museum picture of men looking at a female nude, next to a woman looking at a female clothed, he "moved them around a bit." And those famous jumping dogs? He barks, they jump. Snap.
He moved to New York in 1946, and introduced himself to three photographic greats: Edward Steichen at the Museum of Modern Art, Rod Stryker and Robert Capa, "who was running this little agency I'd never heard of." All thought the work of the man who "just takes pictures" exceptional. He signed up for the Army in 1951 and for Magnum - Capa's agency - two years later. Since then, the commercial and the "hobby" – as he refers to the award-winning body of work – have co-existed harmoniously, taking it in turns to fund each other, and doing it well: the Erwitts live between New York and the Hamptons, each home bearing two life-size plaster Japanese policemen at the entrance.
Erwitt sees comedy in most things, and then some more, because he's watching and waiting for it: A gull and aeroplane with parallel lines, each one's form mirroring the other, a woman's jutting bosom aping her dog's pedigree snout. As a wedding present, he often gives a scene from a Siberian registry office, where two newlyweds gaze at a smirking James Dean figure lounging in the chair next to them. Elliott thinks it's funny, but also that it says much about the uncertainties of marriage. "Some people think my pictures are sad, some think they're funny," he wrote in the 1998 collection Personal Exposures. "Funny and sad, aren't they really the same thing? They add up to normality." If there is comedy in his work, it's also the human, divine kind.
Not that he won't supply the funny anecdotes of a 50-year veteran: The Shah of Iran wore platform heels ("You could tell from the pant creases"). Che Guevara was good-looking but not charming, Marilyn Monroe the opposite. One notorious image – the "kitchen debate" of Richard Nixon and Nikita Kruschev arguing at a Westinghouse exhibit – almost didn't happen because he was laughing too hard: Kruschev told Nixon to "Go screw my grandmother" in Russian, which the child of Boris and Evgenia understood perfectly.
There are no captions in Snaps, beyond place and date, because a good photograph shouldn't need one. There are chapter headings, supposed to reflect life's natural compartments – Look, Tell, Stand, Move, Rest – but they were the designer's idea. The reason he is most proud of the opening photograph – a black man drinking at a fountain marked "colored" – is because "it tells you the whole business. It's very economical, very obvious, very sharp." But because Elliott doesn't bother trying to explain his pictures (he thinks curators write in "museumese"), he can be surprised by what they tell people. He describes the water fountain shot as "a very violent image," but Flowers found it funny. "Elliott was horrified. But I had been there, a boy in the South who was surprised and disappointed when the Colored fountain in the downtown dry-goods store shot up water that was perfectly clear rather than hued like a rainbow."
"I guess if you take a picture and you want to have a certain meaning," Erwitt now reflects, "and people get that meaning, that's nice. Otherwise people can like my photos on any level and I'm happy."
Some don't, of course. He has been accused of whimsy, old-fashioned sweetness, irrelevance. In 1998, a reviewer wrote, "there is a price to be paid for this popular charm, so light on the eye, so hard to achieve. All those years with Magnum, and Elliott Erwitt is better known for a single shot of a bug-eyed Chihuahua than for any reportage from the great plains of human history." No longer. "Treasure this collection," writes Elliot's friend Murray Sayle in the introduction to Snaps. "It's destined to become a classic, because the times and technologies that made it possible will never come again." The sharp-eyed man has finally delivered a panoramic of those great plains of history. And the dot on the horizon, Leica in hand? That'll be Elliott.
Published in the Independent on Sunday Review
21/10/2001
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Iraq: No More Photos Of Bombings
May 16, 2007
By Daryl Lang (PDN)
In another impediment to the news coverage of the Iraq war, an Iraqi government official says photographers and videographers will be banned from the scenes of bombings.
Iraqi police enforced the new rule Tuesday, firing shots into the air to disperse journalists who gathered after a bomb went off in Baghdad's Tayaran Square, according to the Associated Press.
If enforced, the rule will have the greatest impact on Iraqi journalists. In the most dangerous parts of the country, international journalists are usually embedded with U.S. military units for security reasons. Wire services and other major news agencies employ local staff to gather news in the field.
The ban was announced Sunday, according to wire service reports that quoted Brig. Gen. Abdel Karim Khalaf, operations director of Iraq's Interior Ministry.
"We do not want evidence to be disturbed before the arrival of detectives, the ministry must respect human rights and does not want to expose victims and does not want to give terrorists information that they achieved their goals," Khalaf told Agence France Presse. "This decision does not imply a curtailment of press freedom, it is a measure followed all over the world."
Press advocacy group Reporters Without Borders criticized the new rule. "It is vital that journalists can report on the security situation throughout the country without it being seen as incitement to violence. When the streets become impassable and the authorities provide no information about the attacks in real time, the role of the reporter becomes essential. Coverage of these attacks allows people to evaluate the security risk and to avoid dangerous areas," says a statement from the organization.
While the photo ban is a new development, authorities in Iraq have been suspicious about photojournalists at bomb scenes, claiming that the journalists may have advance knowledge of insurgent attacks.
After Reuters photojournalist Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani was arrested by the U.S. military in 2005, a military spokesperson said journalists who frequently appear at bombing scenes are sometimes detained for questioning. Mashhadani was held for five months and released.
Similarly, the military cited bombing photographs by AP photojournalist Bilal Hussein as one of the reasons he is being detained as a security threat. He has now been held for 13 months.
By Daryl Lang (PDN)
In another impediment to the news coverage of the Iraq war, an Iraqi government official says photographers and videographers will be banned from the scenes of bombings.
Iraqi police enforced the new rule Tuesday, firing shots into the air to disperse journalists who gathered after a bomb went off in Baghdad's Tayaran Square, according to the Associated Press.
If enforced, the rule will have the greatest impact on Iraqi journalists. In the most dangerous parts of the country, international journalists are usually embedded with U.S. military units for security reasons. Wire services and other major news agencies employ local staff to gather news in the field.
The ban was announced Sunday, according to wire service reports that quoted Brig. Gen. Abdel Karim Khalaf, operations director of Iraq's Interior Ministry.
"We do not want evidence to be disturbed before the arrival of detectives, the ministry must respect human rights and does not want to expose victims and does not want to give terrorists information that they achieved their goals," Khalaf told Agence France Presse. "This decision does not imply a curtailment of press freedom, it is a measure followed all over the world."
Press advocacy group Reporters Without Borders criticized the new rule. "It is vital that journalists can report on the security situation throughout the country without it being seen as incitement to violence. When the streets become impassable and the authorities provide no information about the attacks in real time, the role of the reporter becomes essential. Coverage of these attacks allows people to evaluate the security risk and to avoid dangerous areas," says a statement from the organization.
While the photo ban is a new development, authorities in Iraq have been suspicious about photojournalists at bomb scenes, claiming that the journalists may have advance knowledge of insurgent attacks.
After Reuters photojournalist Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani was arrested by the U.S. military in 2005, a military spokesperson said journalists who frequently appear at bombing scenes are sometimes detained for questioning. Mashhadani was held for five months and released.
Similarly, the military cited bombing photographs by AP photojournalist Bilal Hussein as one of the reasons he is being detained as a security threat. He has now been held for 13 months.
Monday, May 14, 2007
A complete listing of AP's Pulitzer Prize Winners
The Associated Press has won 49 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news organization in categories for which it can compete. The AP has won 19 Pulitzer Prizes for writing and 30 Pulitzer Prizes for pictures.
The Pulitzer Prizes, American journalism's most prestigious honor, were established by Joseph Pulitzer and are presented annually for outstanding achievement.
Here is a list of The Associated Press winners:
2007 - Oded Balilty for his photo of a Jewish settler struggling with an Israeli security officer during a clash that erupted as authorites evacuted the West Bank settlement outpost of Amona.
2005 -Bilal Hussein, Karim Kadim, BrennanLinsley, Jim MacMillan, Samir Mizban, Khalid Mohammed, John B. Moore , Muhammad Muheisen, Anja Niedringhaus, Murad Sezer and Mohammed Uraibi for breaking news photography for a stunning series of pictures of bloody yearlong combat inside Iraqi cities.
2001 -Alan Diaz for his photo of a federal agent in riot gear during a pre-dawn raid in Miami, confronting a man holding Elian Gonzalez in a closet.
2000 -Sang-Hun Choe, Charles J. Hanley, Martha Mendoza and Randy Herschaft for Investigative Reporting, for "The Bridge at No Gun Ri," a package of stories reporting the mass killings of South Korean civilians by American troops at the start of the Korean War..
1999 -J. Scott Applewhite, Roberto Borea, Khue Bui, Robert F. Bukaty, Ruth Fremson, Greg Gibson, Ron Heflin, Charles Krupa, Wilfredo Lee, Dan Loh, Joe Marquette, Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Doug Mills, Stephan Savoia and Susan Walsh, Feature Photography, for a series of pictures of the events surrounding President Clinton's impeachment.
1999 -Sayyid Azim, Jean-Marc Bouju, Dave Caulkin, Brennan Linsley, John McConnico and Khalil Senosi, Spot News Photography, for a series of pictures after the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
1997 -Alexander Zemlianichenko, for his photo of Russian President Boris Yeltsin dancing at a rock concert in Rostov before elections.
1996 -Charles Porter IV, for his photo of a fireman cradling an infant victim of the Oklahoma City bombing.
1995 -Mark Fritz, for reports on the ethnic violence in Rwanda.
1995 -Jackie Arzt, Javier Bauluz, Jean-Marc Bouju, Karsten Thielker for photos of the ethnic violence in Rwanda.
1993 -J. Scott Applewhite, Richard Drew, Greg Gibson, David Longstreath, Doug Mills, Marcia Nighswander, Amy Sancetta, Stephan Savoia, Reed Saxon and Lynne Sladky for a series of pictures from the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign.
1992 -Olga Shalygin, Liu Heung Shing, Czarek Sokolowski, Boris Yurchenko and Alexander Zemlianichenko, for a series of pictures on the attempted coup in the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Communist regime.
1991 -Greg Marinovich, for a series of pictures showing the brutal killing of a man believed to be a Zulu Inkatha supporter in South Africa.
1983 -Bill Foley, for a series of pictures of victims and survivors of the massacre of Palestinians in a refugee camp in Beirut.
1982 -Saul Pett, for a series of stories on the bureaucracy of the federal government.
1982 -Ron Edmonds, for a series of pictures showing the attempted assassination of President Reagan.
1978 -J. Ross Baughman, for a series of pictures showing white Rhodesian soldiers beating and torturing black nationalist guerrillas.
1977 -Neal Ulevich, for a series of pictures showing bloody fighting between police and left-wing students in Bangkok, Thailand.
1977 -Walter R. Mears, for reports on the 1976 presidential campaign and election.
1974 -Anthony K. Roberts, for his picture sequence made during an alleged kidnapping attempt in Hollywood.
1974 -Slava (Sal) Veder, for a picture of a U.S. Air Force officer being greeted by his family after being held a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
1973 -Huynh Cong (Nick) Ut, for a picture of a Vietnamese girl fleeing in terror after a napalm attack.
1972 -Horst Faas and Michel Laurent, for a series of pictures of tortures and executions in Bangladesh.
1970 -Steve Starr, for a picture of armed black students emerging after their 36-hour occupation of a Cornell University building.
1969 -Edward (Eddie) Adams, for a picture of Vietnamese Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner on a Saigon street.
1967 -Jack Thornell, for a picture of James Meredith falling after being hit by a shotgun blast near Hernando, Miss.
1966 -Peter Arnett, for war reports from Vietnam.
1965 -Horst Faas, for photos from Vietnam.
1964 -Malcolm Browne, for war reports from Vietnam, including the overthrow of the Diem regime.
1962 -Paul Vathis, for a picture of President Kennedy and former President Eisenhower walking at Camp David following an unsuccessful 1961 Cuban invasion.
1961 -Lynn Heinzerling, for reports on the early stages of the Congo crisis and analysis of other African events.
1958 -Relman Morin, for reports on school desegregation rioting at Little Rock.
1954 -Mrs. Walter M. Schau, for a photo of a thrilling rescue in Redding, Calif.
1953 -Don Whitehead, for a story on President-elect Eisenhower's secret trips to Korea.
1952 -John Hightower, for reporting of international affairs.
1951 -Max Desfor, for a picture of Korean War refugees in flight over ruins of a Taedong River bridge.
1951 -Relman Morin and Don Whitehead, for war reports from Korea.
1947 -Arnold Hardy, for his photo of a girl leaping to death in a hotel fire.
1947 -Eddy Gilmore, for news reports from Russia, especially an interview with Joseph Stalin.
1945 -Hal Boyle, for columns and stories from the North African and European war theaters.
1945 -Joe Rosenthal, for a picture of Marines raising the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima.
1944 -Daniel DeLuce, for a series of stories from Yugoslavia disclosing the strength of the Tito movement.
1944 -Frank Filan, for a picture of a blasted Japanese pillbox on Tarawa.
1943 -Frank Noel, for a picture of a survivor of a torpedo attack begging for water in a lifeboat.
1942 -Laurence E. Allen, for war reporting, especially stories on the bombing of the British aircraft carrier Illustrious.
1939 -Louis P. Lochner, for news reports from Nazi Germany.
1937 -Howard W. Blakeslee, for reporting on the Harvard Tercentenary celebration.
1933 -Francis A. Jamieson, for a news beat on finding the body of the kidnapped Lindbergh baby.
1922 -Kirke L. Simpson, for a series of stories on the burial of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
The Pulitzer Prizes, American journalism's most prestigious honor, were established by Joseph Pulitzer and are presented annually for outstanding achievement.
Here is a list of The Associated Press winners:
2007 - Oded Balilty for his photo of a Jewish settler struggling with an Israeli security officer during a clash that erupted as authorites evacuted the West Bank settlement outpost of Amona.
2005 -Bilal Hussein, Karim Kadim, BrennanLinsley, Jim MacMillan, Samir Mizban, Khalid Mohammed, John B. Moore , Muhammad Muheisen, Anja Niedringhaus, Murad Sezer and Mohammed Uraibi for breaking news photography for a stunning series of pictures of bloody yearlong combat inside Iraqi cities.
2001 -Alan Diaz for his photo of a federal agent in riot gear during a pre-dawn raid in Miami, confronting a man holding Elian Gonzalez in a closet.
2000 -Sang-Hun Choe, Charles J. Hanley, Martha Mendoza and Randy Herschaft for Investigative Reporting, for "The Bridge at No Gun Ri," a package of stories reporting the mass killings of South Korean civilians by American troops at the start of the Korean War..
1999 -J. Scott Applewhite, Roberto Borea, Khue Bui, Robert F. Bukaty, Ruth Fremson, Greg Gibson, Ron Heflin, Charles Krupa, Wilfredo Lee, Dan Loh, Joe Marquette, Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Doug Mills, Stephan Savoia and Susan Walsh, Feature Photography, for a series of pictures of the events surrounding President Clinton's impeachment.
1999 -Sayyid Azim, Jean-Marc Bouju, Dave Caulkin, Brennan Linsley, John McConnico and Khalil Senosi, Spot News Photography, for a series of pictures after the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
1997 -Alexander Zemlianichenko, for his photo of Russian President Boris Yeltsin dancing at a rock concert in Rostov before elections.
1996 -Charles Porter IV, for his photo of a fireman cradling an infant victim of the Oklahoma City bombing.
1995 -Mark Fritz, for reports on the ethnic violence in Rwanda.
1995 -Jackie Arzt, Javier Bauluz, Jean-Marc Bouju, Karsten Thielker for photos of the ethnic violence in Rwanda.
1993 -J. Scott Applewhite, Richard Drew, Greg Gibson, David Longstreath, Doug Mills, Marcia Nighswander, Amy Sancetta, Stephan Savoia, Reed Saxon and Lynne Sladky for a series of pictures from the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign.
1992 -Olga Shalygin, Liu Heung Shing, Czarek Sokolowski, Boris Yurchenko and Alexander Zemlianichenko, for a series of pictures on the attempted coup in the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Communist regime.
1991 -Greg Marinovich, for a series of pictures showing the brutal killing of a man believed to be a Zulu Inkatha supporter in South Africa.
1983 -Bill Foley, for a series of pictures of victims and survivors of the massacre of Palestinians in a refugee camp in Beirut.
1982 -Saul Pett, for a series of stories on the bureaucracy of the federal government.
1982 -Ron Edmonds, for a series of pictures showing the attempted assassination of President Reagan.
1978 -J. Ross Baughman, for a series of pictures showing white Rhodesian soldiers beating and torturing black nationalist guerrillas.
1977 -Neal Ulevich, for a series of pictures showing bloody fighting between police and left-wing students in Bangkok, Thailand.
1977 -Walter R. Mears, for reports on the 1976 presidential campaign and election.
1974 -Anthony K. Roberts, for his picture sequence made during an alleged kidnapping attempt in Hollywood.
1974 -Slava (Sal) Veder, for a picture of a U.S. Air Force officer being greeted by his family after being held a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
1973 -Huynh Cong (Nick) Ut, for a picture of a Vietnamese girl fleeing in terror after a napalm attack.
1972 -Horst Faas and Michel Laurent, for a series of pictures of tortures and executions in Bangladesh.
1970 -Steve Starr, for a picture of armed black students emerging after their 36-hour occupation of a Cornell University building.
1969 -Edward (Eddie) Adams, for a picture of Vietnamese Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner on a Saigon street.
1967 -Jack Thornell, for a picture of James Meredith falling after being hit by a shotgun blast near Hernando, Miss.
1966 -Peter Arnett, for war reports from Vietnam.
1965 -Horst Faas, for photos from Vietnam.
1964 -Malcolm Browne, for war reports from Vietnam, including the overthrow of the Diem regime.
1962 -Paul Vathis, for a picture of President Kennedy and former President Eisenhower walking at Camp David following an unsuccessful 1961 Cuban invasion.
1961 -Lynn Heinzerling, for reports on the early stages of the Congo crisis and analysis of other African events.
1958 -Relman Morin, for reports on school desegregation rioting at Little Rock.
1954 -Mrs. Walter M. Schau, for a photo of a thrilling rescue in Redding, Calif.
1953 -Don Whitehead, for a story on President-elect Eisenhower's secret trips to Korea.
1952 -John Hightower, for reporting of international affairs.
1951 -Max Desfor, for a picture of Korean War refugees in flight over ruins of a Taedong River bridge.
1951 -Relman Morin and Don Whitehead, for war reports from Korea.
1947 -Arnold Hardy, for his photo of a girl leaping to death in a hotel fire.
1947 -Eddy Gilmore, for news reports from Russia, especially an interview with Joseph Stalin.
1945 -Hal Boyle, for columns and stories from the North African and European war theaters.
1945 -Joe Rosenthal, for a picture of Marines raising the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima.
1944 -Daniel DeLuce, for a series of stories from Yugoslavia disclosing the strength of the Tito movement.
1944 -Frank Filan, for a picture of a blasted Japanese pillbox on Tarawa.
1943 -Frank Noel, for a picture of a survivor of a torpedo attack begging for water in a lifeboat.
1942 -Laurence E. Allen, for war reporting, especially stories on the bombing of the British aircraft carrier Illustrious.
1939 -Louis P. Lochner, for news reports from Nazi Germany.
1937 -Howard W. Blakeslee, for reporting on the Harvard Tercentenary celebration.
1933 -Francis A. Jamieson, for a news beat on finding the body of the kidnapped Lindbergh baby.
1922 -Kirke L. Simpson, for a series of stories on the burial of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
Court Rejects Right of Publicity Claim of Marilyn Monroe Heirs
May 09, 2007
By David Walker (PDN)
A federal court in New York has rejected the claim of Marilyn Monroe’s estate that it owns rights of publicity in the actress’s likenesses, including photographs. In addition to undercutting a lawsuit against a photo archive for unauthorized commercial use of a Monroe photograph, the decision opens the door for anyone to use Monroe images commercially without permission from the estate.
The estate, MMLLC, and its licensing agency, CMG Worldwide, sued the Shaw Family Archives and its agent, Bradford Licensing Associates in 2005. The suit alleged commercial use of Marilyn Monroe’s likeness without permission, in violation of Indiana’s right of publicity law. Among the alleged violations was a t-shirt, purchased at an Indiana Target store, bearing an image of Monroe credited to the Shaw Family Archives.
For years, MMLLC has collected fees for commercial use of Monroe’s likeness, on the grounds that it owns Monroe’s rights of publicity. Those commercial licensing fees are separate from (and in addition to) usage fees that licensees pay to the copyright holders of the images.
The Shaw Family Archives, owned and operated by the three children of the late Monroe photographer Sam Shaw, responded to MMLLC’s lawsuit by challenging the validity of the estate’s right-of-publicity claims.
MMLLC argued that it had controlling interest in Monroe’s rights of publicity because of a transfer clause in the actress’s will. But SAF argued that Monroe couldn’t pass those rights along in her will, because they were non-existent at the time of her death.
The federal court in New York agreed.
So-called postmortem (or after death) rights of publicity exist by law in some states but not others. The Indiana law didn’t apply, the court ruled, because Monroe never lived there, and because the Indiana law was enacted in 1994—long after Monroe’s death in 1962.
It is a matter of debate whether Monroe was a resident of New York or California at the time of her death in 1962. But California didn’t enact a postmortem right of publicity law until 1984, and New York still doesn’t have one. Since neither of those states had rights of publicity laws on the books at the time of Monroe’s death, the court ruled, she never had any publicity rights to pass on to heirs or beneficiaries.
“Any publicity laws she enjoyed during her lifetime were extinguished at her death by operation of law,” the judge wrote in her decision. MMLLC argued that the Indiana law conferred publicity rights after Monroe’s death, but the judge dismissed that argument as “untenable.”
“We’re beside ourselves…this is a big boost, because a lot of people wouldn’t do [business] with us before,” says Meta Shaw Stevens, who owns Shaw Family Archives with her sister Edith Shaw Marcus and her brother Larry Shaw. She explains that “in the past, [our clients] had to pay a tremendous amount of money to CMG, which left very little money for photos. Now companies can come to us, and they don’t have to pay CMG.”
Through spokesperson Michael Nagel, CMG declined to comment about the ruling. It is unknown whether the company will appeal
According to Christopher Serbagi, who represented SFA along with Sam Shaw’s grandson David Marcus, CMG lobbied for the enactment of Indiana’s right of publicity law, hoping to bestow rights of publicity on celebrities and their heirs no matter where they lived (CMG represents various celebrities and celebrity estates).
“[MMLLC and CMG] took a big risk and lost” in deciding to test the Indiana law and their right of publicity claims, says Serbagi.
Users of Monroe images usually capitulate to CMG’s demands, rather than take on the cost and risk of a legal battle, Serbagi says.
But the Shaw family decided to fight, Meta Stevens says, because “we didn’t have very much to lose. If we had lost, we would have been where we were.” Most of the legal work, she says, was done by her nephew, David Marcus.
“It’s the David and Goliath story. My nephew worked feverishly on behalf of his grandfather and other photographers in a similar situation. He’s a one man operation up against a mega law firm, and something good happened.”
Serbagi says SFA is now pursuing its counter-claims against CMG. “We intend to vigorously pursue them for interfering with our business relationships, and for causing us financial damage,” he says.
By David Walker (PDN)
A federal court in New York has rejected the claim of Marilyn Monroe’s estate that it owns rights of publicity in the actress’s likenesses, including photographs. In addition to undercutting a lawsuit against a photo archive for unauthorized commercial use of a Monroe photograph, the decision opens the door for anyone to use Monroe images commercially without permission from the estate.
The estate, MMLLC, and its licensing agency, CMG Worldwide, sued the Shaw Family Archives and its agent, Bradford Licensing Associates in 2005. The suit alleged commercial use of Marilyn Monroe’s likeness without permission, in violation of Indiana’s right of publicity law. Among the alleged violations was a t-shirt, purchased at an Indiana Target store, bearing an image of Monroe credited to the Shaw Family Archives.
For years, MMLLC has collected fees for commercial use of Monroe’s likeness, on the grounds that it owns Monroe’s rights of publicity. Those commercial licensing fees are separate from (and in addition to) usage fees that licensees pay to the copyright holders of the images.
The Shaw Family Archives, owned and operated by the three children of the late Monroe photographer Sam Shaw, responded to MMLLC’s lawsuit by challenging the validity of the estate’s right-of-publicity claims.
MMLLC argued that it had controlling interest in Monroe’s rights of publicity because of a transfer clause in the actress’s will. But SAF argued that Monroe couldn’t pass those rights along in her will, because they were non-existent at the time of her death.
The federal court in New York agreed.
So-called postmortem (or after death) rights of publicity exist by law in some states but not others. The Indiana law didn’t apply, the court ruled, because Monroe never lived there, and because the Indiana law was enacted in 1994—long after Monroe’s death in 1962.
It is a matter of debate whether Monroe was a resident of New York or California at the time of her death in 1962. But California didn’t enact a postmortem right of publicity law until 1984, and New York still doesn’t have one. Since neither of those states had rights of publicity laws on the books at the time of Monroe’s death, the court ruled, she never had any publicity rights to pass on to heirs or beneficiaries.
“Any publicity laws she enjoyed during her lifetime were extinguished at her death by operation of law,” the judge wrote in her decision. MMLLC argued that the Indiana law conferred publicity rights after Monroe’s death, but the judge dismissed that argument as “untenable.”
“We’re beside ourselves…this is a big boost, because a lot of people wouldn’t do [business] with us before,” says Meta Shaw Stevens, who owns Shaw Family Archives with her sister Edith Shaw Marcus and her brother Larry Shaw. She explains that “in the past, [our clients] had to pay a tremendous amount of money to CMG, which left very little money for photos. Now companies can come to us, and they don’t have to pay CMG.”
Through spokesperson Michael Nagel, CMG declined to comment about the ruling. It is unknown whether the company will appeal
According to Christopher Serbagi, who represented SFA along with Sam Shaw’s grandson David Marcus, CMG lobbied for the enactment of Indiana’s right of publicity law, hoping to bestow rights of publicity on celebrities and their heirs no matter where they lived (CMG represents various celebrities and celebrity estates).
“[MMLLC and CMG] took a big risk and lost” in deciding to test the Indiana law and their right of publicity claims, says Serbagi.
Users of Monroe images usually capitulate to CMG’s demands, rather than take on the cost and risk of a legal battle, Serbagi says.
But the Shaw family decided to fight, Meta Stevens says, because “we didn’t have very much to lose. If we had lost, we would have been where we were.” Most of the legal work, she says, was done by her nephew, David Marcus.
“It’s the David and Goliath story. My nephew worked feverishly on behalf of his grandfather and other photographers in a similar situation. He’s a one man operation up against a mega law firm, and something good happened.”
Serbagi says SFA is now pursuing its counter-claims against CMG. “We intend to vigorously pursue them for interfering with our business relationships, and for causing us financial damage,” he says.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Russian Photojournalist Dmitry Chebotayev Killed In Iraq
May 07, 2007
By Daryl Lang (PDN)
Photojournalist Dmitry Chebotayev was killed in a bombing Sunday while on assignment in Iraq, according to news reports and his agency, World Picture News.
Chebotayev was traveling with U.S. forces in Diyala province when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. Six American soldiers were killed and two were wounded, according to the U.S. military. Russian news organizations identified Chebotayev as one of the casualties on Monday.
Chebotayev was covering the war for Russian Newsweek and had been in Iraq since March. He was in his late 20s; different reports listed his age as 27 or 29.
"Everyone here loved him, and loved working with him. He was a cheerful person who loved life," Russian Newsweek editor Leonid Parfyonov told the Associated Press.
"While Dmitry was an experienced conflict photographer, he was killed at a time and place where experience means so little for members of the press," said WpN editorial director Carlo Montali in an e-mail. "As a photo contributor to WpN, people in contact with him at the agency remember Dmitry as a positive and thoughtful person."
This was Chebotayev's first trip to Iraq and he was scheduled to return home to Moscow soon, Montali said. Chebotayev has also covered conflicts in Chechnya and the Middle East.
The Committee to Protect Journalists' Web site has counted 100 working journalists killed in Iraq since March 2003, a figure not yet updated to include Chebotayev. Most of the deaths have been local journalists, many of whom were singled out and executed by gunmen.
IEDs are a constant danger in Iraq and have hurt journalists before, including the much-publicized attack in January 2006 that injured ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff. In the past week alone, separate roadside bombings have killed at least 14 U.S. troops and wounded 23, according to news releases from the military.
By Daryl Lang (PDN)
Photojournalist Dmitry Chebotayev was killed in a bombing Sunday while on assignment in Iraq, according to news reports and his agency, World Picture News.
Chebotayev was traveling with U.S. forces in Diyala province when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. Six American soldiers were killed and two were wounded, according to the U.S. military. Russian news organizations identified Chebotayev as one of the casualties on Monday.
Chebotayev was covering the war for Russian Newsweek and had been in Iraq since March. He was in his late 20s; different reports listed his age as 27 or 29.
"Everyone here loved him, and loved working with him. He was a cheerful person who loved life," Russian Newsweek editor Leonid Parfyonov told the Associated Press.
"While Dmitry was an experienced conflict photographer, he was killed at a time and place where experience means so little for members of the press," said WpN editorial director Carlo Montali in an e-mail. "As a photo contributor to WpN, people in contact with him at the agency remember Dmitry as a positive and thoughtful person."
This was Chebotayev's first trip to Iraq and he was scheduled to return home to Moscow soon, Montali said. Chebotayev has also covered conflicts in Chechnya and the Middle East.
The Committee to Protect Journalists' Web site has counted 100 working journalists killed in Iraq since March 2003, a figure not yet updated to include Chebotayev. Most of the deaths have been local journalists, many of whom were singled out and executed by gunmen.
IEDs are a constant danger in Iraq and have hurt journalists before, including the much-publicized attack in January 2006 that injured ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff. In the past week alone, separate roadside bombings have killed at least 14 U.S. troops and wounded 23, according to news releases from the military.
Call for Proposals: Documentary Photography Distribution Grant
A Grant to Encourage New Ways of Presenting Documentary Photography to the Public
OSI's Documentary Photography Project seeks applicants for a grant that encourages documentary photographers to propose new ways of using photography as an advocacy tool. The grant enables photographers who have already completed a significant body of work on issues of social justice to collaborate with a partner organization and present the work to targeted audiences to stimulate positive social change.
All photographers must have another entity (such as a nonprofit or community-based organization) that agrees to collaborate with the photographer to present the work in innovative ways and to reach out to specific communities to advocate for social change. The partner must engage with the photographer to accomplish these goals—and not just fund or publish the project.
Grants of $5,000 to $30,000 will be awarded.
Traditional media offer limited opportunities for presenting documentary photographs in a way that fosters social change. The Open Society Institute's Documentary Photography Project supports photographers, working in collaboration with a partner organization, to present their work to specific audiences to stimulate positive social change.
All photographers must have another entity (such as a nonprofit or community-based organization) that agrees to collaborate with the photographer to present the work in innovative ways and to reach out to specific communities to advocate for social change. The partner must engage with the photographer to accomplish these goals—and not just fund or publish the project.
Grants of $5,000 to $30,000 will be awarded.
Eligibility
Proposals must present strong images that are contextualized, when necessary, with words, sound, or other media.
Proposals must address a current social justice issue. Preference will be given to work that coincides with the issues and geographical areas that concern OSI.
Proposals must use creative and appropriate strategies to present the work to the public.
Proposals must engage a specific audience or community.
Applicants must partner with an organization that will provide programmatic and financial support.
The following projects are not eligible for funding:
Projects that involve the making of new photographs;
Projects whose only goal is to raise awareness in a general way;
Books absent an advocacy use for the publication;
Gallery exhibitions that serve only the interests of the photographer or the gallery;
Documentary film.
OSI cannot support lobbying activities. Projects that include lobbying activities will not be funded. OSI does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.
Application, Review, and Selection Process
To apply, log in to the OSI Online Application System at https://oas.soros.org/oas and submit completed application by Friday, July 6, 2007, at 5:00 p.m. EST. Semi-finalists will be selected in mid-September and may be contacted at that time with requests for additional information. Applicants will be notified by mail and grant recipients will be announced in late November.
Application Checklist
A complete application consists of responses to all required fields in the following 7 sections of the online application:
Applicant Information (enter contact information and upload resume)
Project Summary (enter answers to all 4 questions describing your project)
Applicant Questions (answer and upload all 7 questions as a Word document)
Partner Organization Questions (enter contact information, upload letter of support, and answer and upload all 4 questions as a Word document)
Budget (enter answers to all 3 questions and upload itemized budget)
Examples of Work (upload 15 low-res jpegs, captions, and accompanying text)
Letters of recommendation (enter contact information and upload letters of recommendation from 2 references)
Deadline
Complete online applications must be submitted no later than Friday, July 6, 2007, at 5:00 p.m. EST.
Contact
If you have any questions, please contact Whitney Johnson at whjohnson@sorosny.org.
OSI's Documentary Photography Project seeks applicants for a grant that encourages documentary photographers to propose new ways of using photography as an advocacy tool. The grant enables photographers who have already completed a significant body of work on issues of social justice to collaborate with a partner organization and present the work to targeted audiences to stimulate positive social change.
All photographers must have another entity (such as a nonprofit or community-based organization) that agrees to collaborate with the photographer to present the work in innovative ways and to reach out to specific communities to advocate for social change. The partner must engage with the photographer to accomplish these goals—and not just fund or publish the project.
Grants of $5,000 to $30,000 will be awarded.
Traditional media offer limited opportunities for presenting documentary photographs in a way that fosters social change. The Open Society Institute's Documentary Photography Project supports photographers, working in collaboration with a partner organization, to present their work to specific audiences to stimulate positive social change.
All photographers must have another entity (such as a nonprofit or community-based organization) that agrees to collaborate with the photographer to present the work in innovative ways and to reach out to specific communities to advocate for social change. The partner must engage with the photographer to accomplish these goals—and not just fund or publish the project.
Grants of $5,000 to $30,000 will be awarded.
Eligibility
Proposals must present strong images that are contextualized, when necessary, with words, sound, or other media.
Proposals must address a current social justice issue. Preference will be given to work that coincides with the issues and geographical areas that concern OSI.
Proposals must use creative and appropriate strategies to present the work to the public.
Proposals must engage a specific audience or community.
Applicants must partner with an organization that will provide programmatic and financial support.
The following projects are not eligible for funding:
Projects that involve the making of new photographs;
Projects whose only goal is to raise awareness in a general way;
Books absent an advocacy use for the publication;
Gallery exhibitions that serve only the interests of the photographer or the gallery;
Documentary film.
OSI cannot support lobbying activities. Projects that include lobbying activities will not be funded. OSI does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.
Application, Review, and Selection Process
To apply, log in to the OSI Online Application System at https://oas.soros.org/oas and submit completed application by Friday, July 6, 2007, at 5:00 p.m. EST. Semi-finalists will be selected in mid-September and may be contacted at that time with requests for additional information. Applicants will be notified by mail and grant recipients will be announced in late November.
Application Checklist
A complete application consists of responses to all required fields in the following 7 sections of the online application:
Applicant Information (enter contact information and upload resume)
Project Summary (enter answers to all 4 questions describing your project)
Applicant Questions (answer and upload all 7 questions as a Word document)
Partner Organization Questions (enter contact information, upload letter of support, and answer and upload all 4 questions as a Word document)
Budget (enter answers to all 3 questions and upload itemized budget)
Examples of Work (upload 15 low-res jpegs, captions, and accompanying text)
Letters of recommendation (enter contact information and upload letters of recommendation from 2 references)
Deadline
Complete online applications must be submitted no later than Friday, July 6, 2007, at 5:00 p.m. EST.
Contact
If you have any questions, please contact Whitney Johnson at whjohnson@sorosny.org.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Your Friend Flickr?
Blog editors note: Flickr is blocked in United Arab Emirates by the Govt.
May 02, 2007
By Daryl Lang
From the May issue of PDN.
Ryan Brenizer landed a job covering events for Wired.com. Paul Wilcock licensed his concert photos to a few newspapers. Hamad Darwish got an assignment to shoot desktop backgrounds for Microsoft Windows.
What did these photographers do to drum up work? Almost nothing. They uploaded their photos to Flickr and the work found them.
Flickr went online in 2004 as a powerful yet easy-to-use program for storing and sharing personal images. It was acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. Today it leads a double life as a hugely popular site for amateurs to share personal snapshots, and as a growing marketplace for licensing photo rights.
With millions of keyworded pictures, the site resembles a big stock library. Photo buyers praise the quality of the photographs and the ease of the Flickr search engine. Professional shooters say the site's forums are a good source of tips and inspiration. Joining the site is free, and with so much traffic it seems like a logical place to set up shop.
But Flickr has done little if anything to welcome professionals. It offers no e-commerce features. It expressly forbids commercial uses of its site. "If we find you selling products, services, or yourself through your photostream, we will terminate your account," its guidelines read. Many of its users happily give their photos away for free.
Transactions that take place off the site are not forbidden, however. Flickr neither encourages nor discourages art buyers from e-mailing photographers to ask for photos, a spokesperson says.
Members say such e-mails are on the rise. Flickr's forums bustle with discussions about requests users get for their images, and how much to charge.
Sherri Jackson, a Flickr member who says she shoots for fun and personal expression, noticed more people contacting her in the last few months asking to use her images.
"I get more requests every week and it's exciting to learn how people wish to use my images," she says. "I like the fact that my work can be out there and available and I really don't have to do anything to market myself."
Another Flickr member to notice this trend is Matthew Blake Powers, a graduate of architecture school who takes photographs as a hobby. "Many times, the e-mails I receive are very casual and get to the point. They simply state who they are, what image they are interested in, and how/why they would like to use it," Powers says.
In one case, someone designing the annual report for the Milwaukee Art Museum e-mailed Powers seeking to use one of his photos on the cover. After researching how much to charge, and weighing the fact that he never had anything published before, Powers decided to ask $250. To Powers' disappointment, the museum selected another cover.
Paul Buckley, vice president and executive art director for Penguin, uses Flickr to find photographs, something he mentioned in a story about book publishing in PDN's March issue.
"I use Flickr as any other stock photo source with a search engine," Buckley says. "That may not be its intended purpose, but it works beautifully, and the site has a smart, powerful search engine." Penguin recently used a Flickr photograph on a book cover.
There is no way to know how much business is conducted through Flickr. One member claims a major ad agency paid him $2,500 to use a Flickr photo as a background in an unaired TV commercial. Darwish's job for Microsoft, shooting landscapes to be included with Windows Vista as desktop wallpaper, was almost certainly a multi-thousand-dollar job.
At the other extreme, some blogs and small companies ask to use Flickr photos for free. Some don't even ask.
"I think a lot of companies are using it as kind of a fishing site for cheap stuff from people without a lot of experience," says Jim Hunter, a stock and assignment photographer and editor of StockPhotographer.info. But even Hunter posts work on Flickr, which he says drives a fair amount of traffic to his professional site. His wife also uses Flickr to share family photos.
Brenizer, who has been shooting events like the New York Comic Con for Wired.com thanks to a Flickr connection, joined the site as a casual member a few years ago. Brenizer credits the site's message boards with teaching him to be a better photographer and jumpstarting his photo career.
"The passion just totally captured me," he says. "There's that positive reinforcement of all the people on there. . . . Then the people who contacted me started to be clients."
A former newspaper editor, Brenizer now works in the publications office of the Columbia University Teachers College, where a large part of his job is shooting photographs. On his own time, he shoots weddings and events, and he spent a week as the photographer-in-residence at a biological research center—all jobs he got through Flickr. "I've never solicited, I've never done any advertising," he says.
Flickr has made some photographers into cult celebrities. David Hobby, a Baltimore Sun staff photographer, publishes a blog about lighting called Strobist. To complement the blog, he started a Flickr group so his readers could share advice and photos.
The Strobist group spun out of control and now has more than 7,100 members, who post dozens of messages a day. Hobby doesn't have time to answer all the questions people send him. A lighting seminar he organized sold out weeks in advance.
Hobby says he is impressed by how good Flickr photographers are, pointing to the Strobist photo pool. "Almost every one of those pictures has earning potential," he says.
Like a lot of Flickr fans, Hobby thinks it's only a matter of time before the service finds a way to monetize this collection of talent. "You don't sit on a big oil well and not drill down eventually," he says.
A Flickr spokesperson would not comment on future plans. For now, Flickr makes money off advertising and by selling upgraded memberships for a small annual fee. It has some direct competitors (including Zoomr, SmugMug and Photobucket) but none with the kind of popularity and goodwill Flickr has achieved.
Flickr allows members to set free usage terms by attaching Creative Commons tags to images, so a logical next step might be to let users set prices for certain kinds of usage. Another strategy could be to partner with an existing stock photography site, perhaps one of the royalty-free micropayment sites that also appeal to semi-professional shooters.
Or it could do nothing.
To better understand Flickr's future, it may be helpful to step back and look at how Yahoo! and its investors view the site.
In earnings calls and media interviews, no one asks Yahoo! executives how they're going to make money off photographs. Instead, the buzz is all about "Web 2.0," the user-generated, community-focused sites that have attracted huge audiences. Sites like Flickr, MySpace and YouTube are hot because they engage people in a way that traditional media increasingly cannot.
Yahoo! recently began requiring Flickr members to use the same ID to log in to Flickr as they use for other services like Yahoo! Mail. As a result, the company can collect more information about users and their online behavior.
To Yahoo!, Flickr's value is not its photography, but rather the desirable audience it attracts for advertisers and marketers. This may explain Flickr's failure to embrace, denounce, or even officially care about the pro community.
Somehow, Flickr has created a marketplace for professional photography and made it look like an accident.
May 02, 2007
By Daryl Lang
From the May issue of PDN.
Ryan Brenizer landed a job covering events for Wired.com. Paul Wilcock licensed his concert photos to a few newspapers. Hamad Darwish got an assignment to shoot desktop backgrounds for Microsoft Windows.
What did these photographers do to drum up work? Almost nothing. They uploaded their photos to Flickr and the work found them.
Flickr went online in 2004 as a powerful yet easy-to-use program for storing and sharing personal images. It was acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. Today it leads a double life as a hugely popular site for amateurs to share personal snapshots, and as a growing marketplace for licensing photo rights.
With millions of keyworded pictures, the site resembles a big stock library. Photo buyers praise the quality of the photographs and the ease of the Flickr search engine. Professional shooters say the site's forums are a good source of tips and inspiration. Joining the site is free, and with so much traffic it seems like a logical place to set up shop.
But Flickr has done little if anything to welcome professionals. It offers no e-commerce features. It expressly forbids commercial uses of its site. "If we find you selling products, services, or yourself through your photostream, we will terminate your account," its guidelines read. Many of its users happily give their photos away for free.
Transactions that take place off the site are not forbidden, however. Flickr neither encourages nor discourages art buyers from e-mailing photographers to ask for photos, a spokesperson says.
Members say such e-mails are on the rise. Flickr's forums bustle with discussions about requests users get for their images, and how much to charge.
Sherri Jackson, a Flickr member who says she shoots for fun and personal expression, noticed more people contacting her in the last few months asking to use her images.
"I get more requests every week and it's exciting to learn how people wish to use my images," she says. "I like the fact that my work can be out there and available and I really don't have to do anything to market myself."
Another Flickr member to notice this trend is Matthew Blake Powers, a graduate of architecture school who takes photographs as a hobby. "Many times, the e-mails I receive are very casual and get to the point. They simply state who they are, what image they are interested in, and how/why they would like to use it," Powers says.
In one case, someone designing the annual report for the Milwaukee Art Museum e-mailed Powers seeking to use one of his photos on the cover. After researching how much to charge, and weighing the fact that he never had anything published before, Powers decided to ask $250. To Powers' disappointment, the museum selected another cover.
Paul Buckley, vice president and executive art director for Penguin, uses Flickr to find photographs, something he mentioned in a story about book publishing in PDN's March issue.
"I use Flickr as any other stock photo source with a search engine," Buckley says. "That may not be its intended purpose, but it works beautifully, and the site has a smart, powerful search engine." Penguin recently used a Flickr photograph on a book cover.
There is no way to know how much business is conducted through Flickr. One member claims a major ad agency paid him $2,500 to use a Flickr photo as a background in an unaired TV commercial. Darwish's job for Microsoft, shooting landscapes to be included with Windows Vista as desktop wallpaper, was almost certainly a multi-thousand-dollar job.
At the other extreme, some blogs and small companies ask to use Flickr photos for free. Some don't even ask.
"I think a lot of companies are using it as kind of a fishing site for cheap stuff from people without a lot of experience," says Jim Hunter, a stock and assignment photographer and editor of StockPhotographer.info. But even Hunter posts work on Flickr, which he says drives a fair amount of traffic to his professional site. His wife also uses Flickr to share family photos.
Brenizer, who has been shooting events like the New York Comic Con for Wired.com thanks to a Flickr connection, joined the site as a casual member a few years ago. Brenizer credits the site's message boards with teaching him to be a better photographer and jumpstarting his photo career.
"The passion just totally captured me," he says. "There's that positive reinforcement of all the people on there. . . . Then the people who contacted me started to be clients."
A former newspaper editor, Brenizer now works in the publications office of the Columbia University Teachers College, where a large part of his job is shooting photographs. On his own time, he shoots weddings and events, and he spent a week as the photographer-in-residence at a biological research center—all jobs he got through Flickr. "I've never solicited, I've never done any advertising," he says.
Flickr has made some photographers into cult celebrities. David Hobby, a Baltimore Sun staff photographer, publishes a blog about lighting called Strobist. To complement the blog, he started a Flickr group so his readers could share advice and photos.
The Strobist group spun out of control and now has more than 7,100 members, who post dozens of messages a day. Hobby doesn't have time to answer all the questions people send him. A lighting seminar he organized sold out weeks in advance.
Hobby says he is impressed by how good Flickr photographers are, pointing to the Strobist photo pool. "Almost every one of those pictures has earning potential," he says.
Like a lot of Flickr fans, Hobby thinks it's only a matter of time before the service finds a way to monetize this collection of talent. "You don't sit on a big oil well and not drill down eventually," he says.
A Flickr spokesperson would not comment on future plans. For now, Flickr makes money off advertising and by selling upgraded memberships for a small annual fee. It has some direct competitors (including Zoomr, SmugMug and Photobucket) but none with the kind of popularity and goodwill Flickr has achieved.
Flickr allows members to set free usage terms by attaching Creative Commons tags to images, so a logical next step might be to let users set prices for certain kinds of usage. Another strategy could be to partner with an existing stock photography site, perhaps one of the royalty-free micropayment sites that also appeal to semi-professional shooters.
Or it could do nothing.
To better understand Flickr's future, it may be helpful to step back and look at how Yahoo! and its investors view the site.
In earnings calls and media interviews, no one asks Yahoo! executives how they're going to make money off photographs. Instead, the buzz is all about "Web 2.0," the user-generated, community-focused sites that have attracted huge audiences. Sites like Flickr, MySpace and YouTube are hot because they engage people in a way that traditional media increasingly cannot.
Yahoo! recently began requiring Flickr members to use the same ID to log in to Flickr as they use for other services like Yahoo! Mail. As a result, the company can collect more information about users and their online behavior.
To Yahoo!, Flickr's value is not its photography, but rather the desirable audience it attracts for advertisers and marketers. This may explain Flickr's failure to embrace, denounce, or even officially care about the pro community.
Somehow, Flickr has created a marketplace for professional photography and made it look like an accident.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Publications Fumble With "Disgusting" Virginia Tech Photo
© Alan Kim/The Roanoke TimesMany newspapers ran Kim's photo unedited, but some publications altered the image.
April 26, 2007
By Daryl Lang (PDN)
Another week, another lesson about image manipulation in the press.
At least two major publications – The New York Post and People – digitally obscured a portion of a photo from the Virginia Tech shootings.
In the photo, emergency personnel are seen carrying injured student Kevin Sterne out of the Norris Hall classroom building, his clothes soaked with blood. Standards being what they are, the concern about the photograph was not the shocking amount of blood, but whether the student's penis was visible.
The photo is one of several taken at the scene of the April 16 shooting by Roanoke Times photographer Alan Kim and transmitted hours later worldwide by the Associated Press. It appeared the next day in dozens of newspapers, in many cases on the front page.
Almost immediately, newspaper readers began to debate the image. A message board devoted to the Detroit Free Press sparked a debate the next morning over whether the picture actually showed genitalia. The Hartford Courant was bombarded with complaints, many of which reader representative Karen Hunter posted online.
"You are showing his penis right on the front page," one Courant reader complained to Hunter. "I think that's disgusting.... I think you should have blocked it out or something."
Over at the New York Post, editors anticipated that exact response. The Post ran the picture big and in color, but cloned out the flesh-colored shape protruding from the student's lap. Across town, the archrival Daily News ran the picture unedited.
People edited the photo, while its sister magazine Time ran the picture unedited.
By April 18, sharp-eyed bloggers had flagged some of the news outlets that altered the photo. Both Poynter and the National Press Photographers Association – whose code of ethics prohibits digital alterations to news photographs in most cases – posted stories about the photo on their Web sites.
In response, Post executive editor Col Allen told Poynter, "We decided to make a very minor alteration to the photograph of Kevin Sterne being carried out of Norris Hall to protect the wounded student's dignity but in no way change the news impact of the picture."
People director of photography Chris Dougherty told PDN, "[O]ur sentiments closely resemble those stated in the article by the Post's editor, Col Allan."
The Sun newspaper in London also edited the picture in a similar away, according to the NPPA.
Did the picture actually show a penis? Roanoke Times photo editor Dan Beatty told the Courant, "We checked it out, checked it out, and checked it out again because we got that same question. What you see sticking up on his lap is a tourniquet. Unfortunately, the picture is fuzzy enough that it raised the question.... We appreciate that people want to know and care that we showed respect and decency for the young man. They should also know that he is doing fine and has the picture hanging up on his wall."
This case of manipulation differs from other recent examples in that it was done by editors for reasons of taste, rather than by photographers for reasons of aesthetics. Alterations to an image in The New York Times and to multiple images in The Toledo Blade were disclosed by the newspapers earlier this month.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
ROBERT CAPA (1913-1954) (Encyclopedia)
ROBERT CAPA (1913-1954)
On May 25, 1954, the career of Robert Capa, whose exploits as a war photographer had made him a legend in modern photography, came to an abrupt end when he stepped on a land mine on an obscure battlefield in Indochina.
Robert Capa was somewhat careless as a photographer but was carefully dedicated as a man. He participated with courage in almost every great tragedy of his time, and never lost heart nor faith. He was incredibly quick to guess the truth. Knowing the truth, he took risks, risks which were never calculated to hurt anyone but himself. Like most he had faults, but his faults were invariably charming and his virtues never boring. He dressed well, ate well, and picked up the check. He drank frequently, but never to get drunk. And then he went home, to a hotel room. He was at home in any major city of the world, and slightly uncomfortable in the country.
He knew war well, so well he despised it. He sought for peace without expecting it. He was a menace in only one respect. He was perhaps the world’s worst driver. He took no greater risk in war than in crossing the Champs Elysees He teased the old and made them laugh. He taught the young without their knowing it. Children loved him, as did many women. But he never discussed his deepest affections. He suffered behind the scenes from loneliness, insecurity, heartbreak. He died with a camera in his left hand, his story unexpectedly finished. He left behind a thermos of cognac, a few good suits, a bereaved world, and his pictures, among them some of the greatest recorded moments of modern history. He also leaves a legend, for which there is no other description than...Capa.
Robert Capa was born Andrei Friedmann in Budapest in 1913. Deciding that there was little future under the regime in Hungary, he left home at 18 and found a job as a darkroom apprentice with a Berlin picture agency. He shot pictures on the side, and scored his first scoop with some exclusive pictures of Leon Trotsky.
When Hitler took over, Andrei Friedmann took off for Paris. There with his Polish fiancée, Gerda Taro, he struggled to get established in the rugged business of free lance journalism. The story of this struggle is recounted in John Hersey’s classic magazine article, "The Man Who Invented Himself."
Andrei and Gerda decided to form an association of three people. Gerda was to serve as secretary and sales representative; Andrei was to be a darkroom hired hand; and these two were to be employed by a rich, famous, and talented (and imaginary) American photographer named Robert Capa, then allegedly visiting France. The ‘three’ went to work. Friedmann took the pictures, Gerda sold them, and credit was given the non-existent Capa. Since this Capa was supposed to be so rich, Gerda refused to let his pictures go to any French newspaper for less than 150 francs apiece, three times the prevailing rate.
The secret was soon found out by editor Lucien Vogel of Vue. But it did not matter. He sent Capa and Gerda to Spain, where Capa became famous overnight for his remarkable picture of a dying Spanish soldier. Gerda stayed on, meeting her death on the battlefield. Grief-stricken, Capa went off to China where he took a series of memorable pictures at the battle of Taierchwang, the only significant Chinese victory of the entire war.
Returning to Europe, he covered the Spanish war until its end in early 1939. When World War II broke out, he found himself in America, technically an enemy alien. But he got an assignment from Collier’s, and in 1942 joined the invasion convoy to North Africa, where he switched to the Life staff.
Leaving Africa, Capa jumped into Sicily with the paratroops and went on to the attack on "the soft under belly of the Axis" in the cold grim winter campaign of 1943-44. Soon after Anzio he left Italy for London, and a wild intermission of poker playing and partying with such old friends as Ernest Hemingway, Irwin Shaw, William Saroyan, and John Steinbeck.
On June 6, 1944, an assault barge landed Robert Capa on Omaha Beach. Stumbling ashore under heavy fire, he exposed four rolls of the most famous films in history. As luck would have it, all but eleven frames were ruined in Life’s London darkroom when the emulsion ran in an over-heated drying cabinet. However, Life, and the world press, published the surviving images, calling them "slightly out of focus" from the blurred emulsion. And Capa maintained his dangerous franchise as the most colorful war photographer.
He was to see the war through to its bitter end, actually photographing the death of one of the last Americans killed. But he missed the Armistice, when, in a rare case of misjudgment, he pooh-poohed the tip that would have given him an exclusive.
Capa wanted no more war, but he could not resist covering the birth of Israel in 1949 with Irwin Shaw. By this time he had also participated, with his old friends Henri Cartier-Bresson, David ("Chim") Seymour, George Rodger, and William Vandivert in the birth of Magnum Photos, the first and still the only international cooperative agency of free lance photographers.
This marked a new development in Capa’s career. He became an international businessman, selling and stimulating the work of Magnum photographers as the group grew to include Werner Bischof, Ernst Haas, and many others. With John Steinbeck he went to Russia in 1947, returning with a memorable story for the Ladies’ Home Journal. Also for the Journal, the Magnum group did a series on international family life called "People Are People the World Over," a photographic forerunner of the "Family of Man."
Capa began to think of his future in terms of writing combined with photography and wrote several charming pieces for Holiday. He already had four books to his credit: "Death in the Making" on the Spanish Civil War, "Waterloo Bridge" on the London Blitz, "A Russian Journal," with Steinbeck narrative, and "Slightly Out of Focus" on World War II (sold to Hollywood but never filmed). His literary style was his own: "To me war is like an aging actress—more and more dangerous and less and less photogenic."
In 1954 Capa went to Japan with a Magnum exhibition. While he was there, Life suddenly needed a photographer on the Indochina front. Capa volunteered. But it was one war too many. His luck ran out on May 25. They found him still clutching his camera.
His funeral was held in the old Quaker meeting house at Purchase, New York. In his memory the Overseas Press Club established the Robert Capa Award "for superlative photography requiring exceptional courage and enterprise abroad."
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
A Friend And Colleague Remembers Ajmal Naqshbandi
A Friend And Colleague Remembers Ajmal Naqshbandi
April 16, 2007
By Teru Kuwayama (PDN)
Editor's note: The kidnapping and murder of Afghan journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi, who had worked as a translator and fixer for many photojournalists in Afghanistan, mobilized journalists around the world. Naqshbandi had been abducted March 6 along with Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo; their driver, Sayed Agha, was murdered a few days after their abduction. Mastrogiacomo was released March 19 in what appeared to have been an exchange for five Taliban prisoners being held by the Afghan government, but Naqshbandi continued to be held. The Committee to Protect Journalists circulated a petition, signed by over 300 journalists, demanding action on Naqshbandi's behalf. But on April 9, a spokesperson for Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah announced that Naqshbandi had been beheaded because the government of Afghan president Hamid Karzai had not met their demands.
New York-based photojournalist Teru Kuwayama, who had worked closely with Naqshbandi, shares this remembrance of his friend and colleague, and pays tribute to the often unnamed fixers like Naqshbandi and Agha who risk their lives to help journalists tell their stories.
Ajmal Naqshbandi was one of my first friends in Afghanistan. We met in Kabul in 2002, in the months following the fall of the Taliban regime. Kabul was a city in ruins, emerging from eight years of totalitarian madness, and decades of warfare.
I met Ajmal at a nameless guest house, where he was working as the manager. He must have been twenty years old at the time. As foreign armies, aid groups, and journalists flooded into the country, young Afghans like Ajmal who spoke some English were in demand as translators and fixers. The luckiest might make hundreds of US dollars a day working for the television networks. Ajmal was making a couple of dollars a day running the guest house for its most recent owner, a Northern Alliance commander who had seized the property and was renting it to a handful of French aid workers. It was my first time in Afghanistan, and Ajmal and I were both new at what we were doing. We became friends, translating our worlds to one another. He would ask me about life in America, and the strange world he was watching on the new satellite TV, and would tell me about life growing up under the Taliban, and about a girl in Ghazni he was in love with. When I left Kabul, I gave him what was left of my money, about $30, so he could take a computer class¬—he had already started working on the side as an assistant to a Japanese newspaper reporter who had moved into the house, and he was hoping that if he learned word processing, he could get a better job at an NGO.
Two years later, when I returned to Kabul, Ajmal was waiting for me outside the airport in a four-wheel-drive SUV. He hugged me, handed me one of his extra mobile phones, and drove me to a new guest house he had opened a few streets away from our old place. He had a position as a correspondent for the Japanese newspaper, and aside from filing news reports for them, he was sought after as a fixer and translator by journalists from all over the world.
In a chaotic, dangerous environment, Ajmal inspired trust. He was brave without being aggressive, unfailingly considerate and polite, and he was well liked by the reporters he worked with. Like us, he lived and worked in a balancing act of ambition and caution, and made it somehow seem almost safe. It wasn't just something he did for the money - without any formal training at all, he practiced journalism with a level of commitment and integrity that most of his clients could aspire to. We didn't hesitate to put our lives in his hands.
The last time I saw Ajmal was in December, a few months before he was killed. He had become the go-to guy for arranging meetings with the Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan, and he told me that he had been warned by the Afghan government not to help foreign reporters to interview "the enemy." The country had taken a definitive slide for the worse, and the sense of optimism that I remembered from my first visit to Afghanistan was gone. New buildings of glass and steel and luxury hotels had risen all over Kabul, but no one had any illusions about who ruled the land outside the city limits.
Even Ajmal was bleak in his outlook for Afghanistan's future. Like many Afghans, he was frustrated by the pervasive corruption in the new government, worried about the increasing insecurity throughout the country, and angry at the apparent disregard for civilian casualties inflicted by foreign armies. He asked me, not for the first time, about getting out, and if I thought an Afghan could get a visa to come to America. I had no good answers for him, but I begged him to be careful in Afghanistan, because he was operating in a truly dangerous space. Unlike the foreign reporters he worked with, Ajmal, and his fellow fixers, translators, and local journalists, had no safety net. As the go-between between two sides, he was exposed on both ends, and in many ways, we feared less that the Taliban would harm him, than that he might end up arrested by his own government, or detained by coalition forces and disappeared forever to some non-existent interrogation center.
In the end, Ajmal died as a poker chip on the bargaining table between Dadullah's Taliban faction and Karzai's national government. Both sides claim to represent the people of Afghanistan, but neither seemed to care much about the life of one of Afghanistan's best citizens, and brightest hopes. For those of us who knew Ajmal, it's hard to imagine a future without him. It was people like Ajmal who made the story of Afghanistan inspirational, not just tragic.
It's hard for me to fathom what goes through the minds of people like Karzai and Dadullah. Perhaps they thought Ajmal's life was insignificant, and would be forgotten. It might have been a good bet, because sadly, that's how things often go. Ajmal wasn't the first to die in this line of work, and I don't expect him to be the last. Seven journalists are confirmed as killed in the line of duty this year alone, another seven cases remain unconfirmed. All of them were local journalists, with names like Ajmal, Abdulrazak, Jamal, and an unknown number of "media workers" or "journalist assistants" like Sayed Agha, a 25-year-old father of four who died with Ajmal, two weeks into his career as a driver for foreign journalists. These are the people who do the heavy lifting, who face the greatest dangers, and who most often pay the greatest price for our work.
As it happened, Ajmal wasn't forgotten. People from all over the world, who, in most cases had never met him, stepped up, and refused to let it go. From Kabul to Rome to New York, thousands of people mobilized and worked for his release. Ultimately, we couldn't bring him home, and for those of us who knew him, it's a sickening, heartbreaking reality that's just starting to sink in.
I can remember my last moments with him, sitting in the apartment in Kabul he'd bought for himself and his new wife, the girl from Ghazni. We talked about how much our lives had changed in the past five years, and how unimaginable our current lives would have been to us back then. We talked about our plans for the future, and for the coming year in Afghanistan. At the time, I couldn't have imagined an Afghanistan without him. I still can't.
Donations to the families of Naqshbandi and Agha can be made at (youarenotforgotten.net).The donations are managed by November 11, a 503c tax-exempt organization.
Blade Will Review Detrich's Award-Winners
Blade Will Review Detrich's Award-Winners
April 16, 2007
By Daryl Lang (PDN)
Following the revelation that photographer Allan Detrich submitted dozens of manipulated photos for publication in 2007, the Toledo Blade is reviewing Detrich's award-winning work from last year.
If the paper finds any evidence of digital alteration in the winning work, it will return the awards, assistant managing editor for administration Luann Sharp said Monday.
In 2006 Detrich's photographs won three first-place awards from the Cleveland Press Club and two honorable mentions from the Ohio News Photographers Association.
Sharp said the review was not expected to take as long as the investigation into of all of Detrich's 2007 work, which took just over a week.
On Sunday, the Blade reported that 79 of the 947 images Detrich had submitted to the paper this year had been digitally altered. The Blade published 27 of the manipulated images in the newspaper and online, and an additional 31 online only.
Detrich resigned from the paper April 7 after one of his front-page photos showing the Bluffton University baseball team was found to be manipulated. Detrich initially claimed he had submitted the wrong photo to the newspaper by mistake. On Sunday he said he had no comment on the Blade's review of his work.
Sharp says the Blade has "no indication that anyone else is involved," in manipulating photos at the paper. Blade director of photography Nate Parsons directed all questions to Sharp on Monday.
The Blade published two examples of Detrich's manipulated photos on Sunday, in addition to the Bluffton photo. Sharp said the Blade editors are discussing whether to publish more examples of his work online. Editors have blocked access to Detrich's photos in the newspaper's archive to make sure none run in the future.
"We basically consider it done," Sharp said, referring to the investigation of Detrich's work. "We know all we need to know."
April 16, 2007
By Daryl Lang (PDN)
Following the revelation that photographer Allan Detrich submitted dozens of manipulated photos for publication in 2007, the Toledo Blade is reviewing Detrich's award-winning work from last year.
If the paper finds any evidence of digital alteration in the winning work, it will return the awards, assistant managing editor for administration Luann Sharp said Monday.
In 2006 Detrich's photographs won three first-place awards from the Cleveland Press Club and two honorable mentions from the Ohio News Photographers Association.
Sharp said the review was not expected to take as long as the investigation into of all of Detrich's 2007 work, which took just over a week.
On Sunday, the Blade reported that 79 of the 947 images Detrich had submitted to the paper this year had been digitally altered. The Blade published 27 of the manipulated images in the newspaper and online, and an additional 31 online only.
Detrich resigned from the paper April 7 after one of his front-page photos showing the Bluffton University baseball team was found to be manipulated. Detrich initially claimed he had submitted the wrong photo to the newspaper by mistake. On Sunday he said he had no comment on the Blade's review of his work.
Sharp says the Blade has "no indication that anyone else is involved," in manipulating photos at the paper. Blade director of photography Nate Parsons directed all questions to Sharp on Monday.
The Blade published two examples of Detrich's manipulated photos on Sunday, in addition to the Bluffton photo. Sharp said the Blade editors are discussing whether to publish more examples of his work online. Editors have blocked access to Detrich's photos in the newspaper's archive to make sure none run in the future.
"We basically consider it done," Sharp said, referring to the investigation of Detrich's work. "We know all we need to know."
Monday, April 16, 2007
Indian Press Photo awards announced
© Indian Express, The | Link to original story
Permanent link: http://www.newswatch.in/?p=6330
Sections: People, Photojournalism
MUMBAI : Sometimes a photograph says what an entire news report cannot. Whether it’s a riot-stricken city or people displaced by natural calamities, it is often the photojournalist who braves his surroundings for that perfect frame.
The India Press Photo Awards instituted by The Ramnath Goenka Foundation are an initiative to identify, promote and reward excellence in photojournalism and documentary photography. This year, the ceremony will be held on December 15 at Express Towers, Nariman Point.
This year, the top honour, The Ramnath Goenka Picture of the Year Award, has been bagged by Vipin Pawar of DNA for his evocative picture of the Gateway of India stabbing incident. He will receive a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh.
The winner in Spot News category is Amit Dave from Reuters, while Aziz Bhutta of Rajasthan Patrika stood first in the General News category.
Manish Swaroop of Associated Press wins in the Daily Life category, even as Altaf Qadri of the European Press Agency wins in the Sports Action and Feature category. All 12 winners will receive a cash prize of Rs 50,000 and a trophy each.
This apart, there are 11 who have been named for an Honourable Mention. All winning photos will be displayed at the Express Gallery.
The first IPP awards function was held in December 2004 and since then it has become an annual platform for photographers to display their best work in constantly evolving categories of photo journalism.
While photojournalists in India once saw their job as a source of livelihood, today they understand their social, political and moral responsibilities as professional lensmen.
However, the Indian photojournalism scenario has been plagued by lack of opportunity to showcase and recognize talent, lack of motivation and international exposure.
Hence the IPP Awards. This year, there were over 4,700 entries. These were in several categories—spot news, general news, daily life, people in the news, arts and entertainment, sports, nature and environment, contemporary issues, advertising photography and international photographer covering India.
This year’s panel of judges included Devika Daulat Singh, director of photography at PhotoInk, New Delhi, Pablo Bartholomew, a photojournalist and documentary photographer with Gamma-Liaison Photo News Agency, New York and Prashant Panjiar, who works with Time magazine and runs his own photo agency.
“The number of entries has gone up dramatically this year, as is bound to happen with the contest getting more popular. But I think the bar hasn’t significantly risen,” said Panjiar.
The judges went through every image—subjects ranged from the strife in Kashmir to people hit by the tsunami to newsmakers like Amitabh Bachchan and Bal Thackeray—narrowing down selections through various rounds. The photographers remained anonymous all through the selection process.
Swapan Parekh who was on the IPP jury last year and on the World Press Photo jury in 2004 and 2005 says, “What makes sense is to see how things are moving forward. The long-term goal of these awards is that it reaches a level when we’re not just seeing things in our own backyard. It’s a slow process, but can happen if standards stay high. Like journalism, the awards are just a validation of good work after you’ve done it.”
With the credibility of the media challenged time and again, we are still able to identify brave men and women who continue to report events as they are. The IPP Awards are dedicated to them.
(India Press Photo Awards is brought to you by The Indian Express with the support of Canon as associate sponsor and exchange4media as the online media partner)
2006 WINNERS
Vipin Pawar (DNA): RNG Picture of The Year Award
Amit Dave (Reuters): Spot News
Aziz Bhutta (Rajasthan Patrika): General News
Rafiq Maqbool (AP): General News Story
Altaf Qadri (EPA): Sports Action and Feature
Prashant Nadkar (The Indian Express): People in News
Yasin Dar (Freelance): People in News Story
Ashima Narain (Freelance): Nature & Environment
Manish Swaroop (AP): Daily Life
Sohrab Hura (Freelance): Daily Life Story
Mahendra Parikh (The Indian Express): Art & Entertainment
Arvind Jain (The Week): Contemporary Issues
Samkit Shah (Freelance): Contemporary Issues Story
Permanent link: http://www.newswatch.in/?p=6330
Sections: People, Photojournalism
MUMBAI : Sometimes a photograph says what an entire news report cannot. Whether it’s a riot-stricken city or people displaced by natural calamities, it is often the photojournalist who braves his surroundings for that perfect frame.
The India Press Photo Awards instituted by The Ramnath Goenka Foundation are an initiative to identify, promote and reward excellence in photojournalism and documentary photography. This year, the ceremony will be held on December 15 at Express Towers, Nariman Point.
This year, the top honour, The Ramnath Goenka Picture of the Year Award, has been bagged by Vipin Pawar of DNA for his evocative picture of the Gateway of India stabbing incident. He will receive a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh.
The winner in Spot News category is Amit Dave from Reuters, while Aziz Bhutta of Rajasthan Patrika stood first in the General News category.
Manish Swaroop of Associated Press wins in the Daily Life category, even as Altaf Qadri of the European Press Agency wins in the Sports Action and Feature category. All 12 winners will receive a cash prize of Rs 50,000 and a trophy each.
This apart, there are 11 who have been named for an Honourable Mention. All winning photos will be displayed at the Express Gallery.
The first IPP awards function was held in December 2004 and since then it has become an annual platform for photographers to display their best work in constantly evolving categories of photo journalism.
While photojournalists in India once saw their job as a source of livelihood, today they understand their social, political and moral responsibilities as professional lensmen.
However, the Indian photojournalism scenario has been plagued by lack of opportunity to showcase and recognize talent, lack of motivation and international exposure.
Hence the IPP Awards. This year, there were over 4,700 entries. These were in several categories—spot news, general news, daily life, people in the news, arts and entertainment, sports, nature and environment, contemporary issues, advertising photography and international photographer covering India.
This year’s panel of judges included Devika Daulat Singh, director of photography at PhotoInk, New Delhi, Pablo Bartholomew, a photojournalist and documentary photographer with Gamma-Liaison Photo News Agency, New York and Prashant Panjiar, who works with Time magazine and runs his own photo agency.
“The number of entries has gone up dramatically this year, as is bound to happen with the contest getting more popular. But I think the bar hasn’t significantly risen,” said Panjiar.
The judges went through every image—subjects ranged from the strife in Kashmir to people hit by the tsunami to newsmakers like Amitabh Bachchan and Bal Thackeray—narrowing down selections through various rounds. The photographers remained anonymous all through the selection process.
Swapan Parekh who was on the IPP jury last year and on the World Press Photo jury in 2004 and 2005 says, “What makes sense is to see how things are moving forward. The long-term goal of these awards is that it reaches a level when we’re not just seeing things in our own backyard. It’s a slow process, but can happen if standards stay high. Like journalism, the awards are just a validation of good work after you’ve done it.”
With the credibility of the media challenged time and again, we are still able to identify brave men and women who continue to report events as they are. The IPP Awards are dedicated to them.
(India Press Photo Awards is brought to you by The Indian Express with the support of Canon as associate sponsor and exchange4media as the online media partner)
2006 WINNERS
Vipin Pawar (DNA): RNG Picture of The Year Award
Amit Dave (Reuters): Spot News
Aziz Bhutta (Rajasthan Patrika): General News
Rafiq Maqbool (AP): General News Story
Altaf Qadri (EPA): Sports Action and Feature
Prashant Nadkar (The Indian Express): People in News
Yasin Dar (Freelance): People in News Story
Ashima Narain (Freelance): Nature & Environment
Manish Swaroop (AP): Daily Life
Sohrab Hura (Freelance): Daily Life Story
Mahendra Parikh (The Indian Express): Art & Entertainment
Arvind Jain (The Week): Contemporary Issues
Samkit Shah (Freelance): Contemporary Issues Story
A basic rule: Newspaper photos must tell the truth..
A basic rule: Newspaper photos must tell the truth
Ron Royhab, Vice President, Executive Editor, toledoblade.com (PDN)
Allan Detrich, an award winning Blade photographer, resigned from the staff April 7 after admitting he digitally altered the content of a photograph that was published on The Blade's front page.
The incident was reported in this newspaper and in the national media and in online journalism publications. We conducted an internal investigation and found that since January dozens of digitally altered photographs of his were published either in the newspaper or on our Web site.
Readers have asked us why this was such a big deal. What's wrong with changing the content of a photograph that is published in a newspaper?
The answer is simple: It is dishonest.
Journalism, whether by using words or pictures, must be an accurate representation of the truth.
Details of the incident unfolded gradually in the days after Mr. Detrich's digitally altered picture was published on March 31. The dramatic photograph showed members of the Bluffton University baseball team kneeling in prayer before playing their first game since five of their players died in a March 2 bus crash in Atlanta.
We did not know at the time of publication that the photographer, using a computerized photo-editing tool called Photoshop, had removed the legs of a person wearing blue jeans and standing in the background behind a banner.
The matter was brought to my attention on April 4 by Donald R. Winslow, editor of News Photographer, a publication of the National Press Photographers Association. Mr. Winslow said that on April 2, photographers from the Dayton Daily News were comparing how various Ohio newspapers covered the Bluffton baseball game. Each paper had its own similar Bluffton picture. But The Blade's picture was the only one with the mysterious blue-jean clad legs missing.
After establishing that the photograph was altered, The Blade immediately started its investigation. We published a correction and an apology to our readers on April 6.
When questioned by Blade editors, Mr. Detrich admitted manipulating the photograph, offering the explanation that it was for his personal use and that he mistakenly transmitted it to the newspaper for publication. He was suspended while the investigation continued. The next day he resigned.
An intensive investigation of Mr. Detrich's work, conducted by Nate Parsons, The Blade's director of photography, found that since January of this year, Mr. Detrich submitted 947 photographs for publication, of which 79 had been digitally altered.
Twenty-seven of the altered photographs were published both in the newspaper and on toledoblade.com, and an additional 31 were published only on toledoblade.com. Another 21 altered photographs submitted by Mr. Detrich were not published.
The changes Mr. Detrich made included erasing people, tree limbs, utility poles, electrical wires, electrical outlets, and other background elements from photographs. In other cases, he added elements such as tree branches and shrubbery.
Mr. Detrich also submitted two sports photographs in which items were inserted. In one he added a hockey puck and in the other he added a basketball, each hanging in mid-air. Neither was published.
The Blade is removing all of Mr. Detrich's photographs from toledoblade.com and blocked access to any of his photographs in the newspaper's archive. Like many other newspapers, The Blade shares its work with the Associated Press, an international news cooperative. On April 6, the AP removed all 50 of Mr. Detrich's photographs from its archives.
Honesty is the fundamental value in journalism.
When a Blade reporter or photographer covers a news event, the newspaper and its readers expect an accurate record of the event.
Reporters and editors are not allowed to change quotes or alter events to make them more dramatic. Photographers and photo editors cannot digitally alter the content in the frame of a photograph to make the image more powerful or artistic.
This principle is widely recognized. In 1991, at the dawn of the digital age, the National Press Photographers Association adopted a "Digital Manipulation Code of Ethics," which all members are required to sign.
That lengthy code makes it very clear that altering the editorial content of a picture is a breach of ethical standards. All Blade photographers are members of the association. All of them have signed the code of ethics, and The Blade follows this code.
This newspaper has a terrific staff of professional journalists. They work hard to bring you the truth in stories and photographs of what is happening in our community, every day of the year. It is especially dismaying to have something like this happen that may cast doubt on our work.
It's impossible to make sense of why this happened, and we are embarrassed by it. But it is important that we are up front and honest with our readers.
Mr. Detrich joined The Blade in 1989 and has won hundreds of newspaper photography awards over the years. He was a Pulitzer finalist in 1998. The work he turned in always appeared to be quality photojournalism, which is why editors had no reason to suspect he was digitally altering photographs.
In this respect, we let our readers down, and we apologize for that and pledge to you that we will do better.
Contact Ron Royhab at: royhab@theblade.com
Ron Royhab, Vice President, Executive Editor, toledoblade.com (PDN)
Allan Detrich, an award winning Blade photographer, resigned from the staff April 7 after admitting he digitally altered the content of a photograph that was published on The Blade's front page.
The incident was reported in this newspaper and in the national media and in online journalism publications. We conducted an internal investigation and found that since January dozens of digitally altered photographs of his were published either in the newspaper or on our Web site.
Readers have asked us why this was such a big deal. What's wrong with changing the content of a photograph that is published in a newspaper?
The answer is simple: It is dishonest.
Journalism, whether by using words or pictures, must be an accurate representation of the truth.
Details of the incident unfolded gradually in the days after Mr. Detrich's digitally altered picture was published on March 31. The dramatic photograph showed members of the Bluffton University baseball team kneeling in prayer before playing their first game since five of their players died in a March 2 bus crash in Atlanta.
We did not know at the time of publication that the photographer, using a computerized photo-editing tool called Photoshop, had removed the legs of a person wearing blue jeans and standing in the background behind a banner.
The matter was brought to my attention on April 4 by Donald R. Winslow, editor of News Photographer, a publication of the National Press Photographers Association. Mr. Winslow said that on April 2, photographers from the Dayton Daily News were comparing how various Ohio newspapers covered the Bluffton baseball game. Each paper had its own similar Bluffton picture. But The Blade's picture was the only one with the mysterious blue-jean clad legs missing.
After establishing that the photograph was altered, The Blade immediately started its investigation. We published a correction and an apology to our readers on April 6.
When questioned by Blade editors, Mr. Detrich admitted manipulating the photograph, offering the explanation that it was for his personal use and that he mistakenly transmitted it to the newspaper for publication. He was suspended while the investigation continued. The next day he resigned.
An intensive investigation of Mr. Detrich's work, conducted by Nate Parsons, The Blade's director of photography, found that since January of this year, Mr. Detrich submitted 947 photographs for publication, of which 79 had been digitally altered.
Twenty-seven of the altered photographs were published both in the newspaper and on toledoblade.com, and an additional 31 were published only on toledoblade.com. Another 21 altered photographs submitted by Mr. Detrich were not published.
The changes Mr. Detrich made included erasing people, tree limbs, utility poles, electrical wires, electrical outlets, and other background elements from photographs. In other cases, he added elements such as tree branches and shrubbery.
Mr. Detrich also submitted two sports photographs in which items were inserted. In one he added a hockey puck and in the other he added a basketball, each hanging in mid-air. Neither was published.
The Blade is removing all of Mr. Detrich's photographs from toledoblade.com and blocked access to any of his photographs in the newspaper's archive. Like many other newspapers, The Blade shares its work with the Associated Press, an international news cooperative. On April 6, the AP removed all 50 of Mr. Detrich's photographs from its archives.
Honesty is the fundamental value in journalism.
When a Blade reporter or photographer covers a news event, the newspaper and its readers expect an accurate record of the event.
Reporters and editors are not allowed to change quotes or alter events to make them more dramatic. Photographers and photo editors cannot digitally alter the content in the frame of a photograph to make the image more powerful or artistic.
This principle is widely recognized. In 1991, at the dawn of the digital age, the National Press Photographers Association adopted a "Digital Manipulation Code of Ethics," which all members are required to sign.
That lengthy code makes it very clear that altering the editorial content of a picture is a breach of ethical standards. All Blade photographers are members of the association. All of them have signed the code of ethics, and The Blade follows this code.
This newspaper has a terrific staff of professional journalists. They work hard to bring you the truth in stories and photographs of what is happening in our community, every day of the year. It is especially dismaying to have something like this happen that may cast doubt on our work.
It's impossible to make sense of why this happened, and we are embarrassed by it. But it is important that we are up front and honest with our readers.
Mr. Detrich joined The Blade in 1989 and has won hundreds of newspaper photography awards over the years. He was a Pulitzer finalist in 1998. The work he turned in always appeared to be quality photojournalism, which is why editors had no reason to suspect he was digitally altering photographs.
In this respect, we let our readers down, and we apologize for that and pledge to you that we will do better.
Contact Ron Royhab at: royhab@theblade.com
Blade Editor: Detrich Submitted 79 Altered Photos This Year
Blade Editor: Detrich Submitted 79 Altered Photos This Year
April 15, 2007
By Daryl Lang (PDN)
The Toledo Blade now says it unknowingly published dozens of digitally manipulated images submitted by staff photographer Allan Detrich.
An internal investigation found that Detrich, who resigned April 7, submitted 79 images this year that had been altered, Blade vice president and executive editor Ron Royhab writes in the paper's Sunday edition.
The details in Royhab's column cast Detrich as a serial Photoshopper, crossing well-established ethical lines on a routine basis.
"The changes Mr. Detrich made included erasing people, tree limbs, utility poles, electrical wires, electrical outlets, and other background elements from photographs. In other cases, he added elements such as tree branches and shrubbery," Royhab writes. In two cases, Detrich added a basketball and a hockey puck to sports photos.
The development represents an extraordinary fall for Detrich, a 17-year veteran of the Blade who has won numerous awards and claimed in an April 5 interview, "I'm not a cloner, that's not something I would do."
Several photojournalists have lost their jobs in recent years over digital manipulation, but none has been accused of as many infractions as Detrich.
Blade director of photography Nate Parsons led a review of 947 photos Detrich had submitted for publication since January. Of those photos, 79 were altered. The Blade published 27 of those images in the newspaper and online, and an additional 31 online only. Twenty-one of the digitally altered photos were not published.
The Blade did not print a detailed breakdown of which photos were altered. In Sunday's paper, it published just two examples: an image of a hair salon in which a cord in the background had been erased, and a women's college basketball photo in which a basketball had been added to the shot. The salon photo originally ran online; the basketball photo was never published, the paper says.
Detrich's work came under scrutiny early this month, when photographers at other Ohio newspapers noticed a suspicious inconsistency in one of his front-page photos. In a photo of the Bluffton University baseball team, Detrich erased a pair of legs that were protruding from behind a banner in the background. Other photographers shot nearly identical images that showed the legs. The Blade says it first became aware of the suspicious image when a reporter from the National Press Photographers Association publication News Photographer contacted them.
Detrich admitted altering the Bluffton photograph but said he did so for personal use and submitted the altered image to his editors by mistake. The paper suspended Detrich and began investigating his work, and Detrich resigned soon after.
The Blade and The Associated Press have already blocked access to Detrich's work in their archives, and the Blade says it also will remove all of Detrich's work from toledoblade.com.
The Blade only examined Detrich's work since January. The review apparently did not survey his earlier work, including photos last year that won Detrich three first-place awards from the Cleveland Press Club and two honorable mentions from the Ohio News Photographers Association.
Detrich has been working for the Blade since 1989 and was a finalist for a 1998 Pulitzer Prize in feature photography. In 1994 the Ohio News Photographers Association named him Photographer of the Year.
Detrich declined to comment Sunday. In a brief phone interview April 9, Detrich said little about the upcoming Blade investigation. "I don't know what they're going to find. I've put that behind me," he said. Detrich is planning to start a weather disaster training service with two friends, a company called www.DisasterWeatherTraining.com, according to his blog.
Royhab's Sunday column, which ran on page B1, apologizes to readers and says all Blade photojournalists must adhere to the National Press Photographers Association's Digital Manipulation Code of Ethics.
"It's impossible to make sense of why this happened, and we are embarrassed by it. But it is important that we are up front and honest with our readers," Royhab writes. "Mr. Detrich joined The Blade in 1989 and has won hundreds of newspaper photography awards over the years. He was a Pulitzer finalist in 1998. The work he turned in always appeared to be quality photojournalism, which is why editors had no reason to suspect he was digitally altering photographs. In this respect, we let our readers down, and we apologize for that and pledge to you that we will do better."
Sunday, April 15, 2007
A Brief History of Photojournalism
A Brief History of Photojournalism
Dillon Westbrook
The photograph has affected the way many cultures throughout the world understand and learn about their world. One of the main fields responsible for this paradigm is photojournalism. Photojournalism is the use of photographs in conjunction with the reporting of news in media such as print newspapers, magazines, television news and internet reporting. The incorporation of photographs into news reports is so ubiquitous that a story without photographs to a contemporary audience feels incomplete, as though they were only getting half the story. Consumers depend upon photojournalists to bring them the images that allow them to feel connected to far-away realities, and to be educated about those realities.
Photojournalism distinguishes itself from other forms of professional photography by its adherence to the principles of journalism: timeliness, accuracy, fair representation of the context of events and facts reported, and accountability to the public. While a wedding photographer may be documenting an actual event, his or her responsibility is to the client and the presentation that client would like to see. A journalist, on the other hand, cannot be held to the demands of the photographic subject, but rather he or she must be concerned with producing accurate news for the public.
In addition to accuracy, the photojournalist must be careful not to exclude important parts of the context of the event being photographed. A shot of an individual rioter breaking a store window can look like an isolated act of criminality if the photojournalist does not show it in the context of a larger social event whose significance goes beyond the individual act.
The emergence of photojournalism, along with its current trajectory, depends a great deal upon technological developments in the camera. As early as the Crimean War in the mid-19 th century, photographers were using the novel technology of the box camera to record images of British soldiers in the field. However, the widespread use of cameras as a way of reporting news didn’t come until the advent of smaller, more portable cameras which used the enlargeable film negative to record images. The introduction of the 35 mm Leica camera in the 1930’s made it possible for photographers to move with the action, taking shots of events as they are unfolding.
Newspapers quickly took advantage of this portability, and publications like Life, Sports Illustrated, and The Daily Mirror staked their reputation on fresh, timely images of matters of interest to their readers. In the first golden age of photojournalism, which lasted from the 1930’s to the 50’s, photographers such as Robert Capa and Alfred Eistenstaedt became household names for the news-consuming public. Capa would later go on to found, along with three other photojournalists, the Magnum agency, which supported photojournalists and negotiated to get them copyright of their images, as opposed to letting copyright revert to the publication.
In the late 1970’s, the cultural importance of photojournalism began to be recognized by the art world, and photojournalists were given exhibitions and retrospectives at museums and galleries. Photojournalists like Don McCullin received wide attention in retrospectives across the country. Today, most major museums will devote a showing or more a year to photojournalists and documentary photographers.
With the introduction of digital cameras, photojournalism has greatly augmented its capacity for reporting up-to-the-minute news from around the world. Not limited by exposures on a roll of film, digital chips can store up to a thousand images, and are less sensitive to airport x-rays and exposure to light. With a wireless internet connection, a photojournalist can send images from the field to his or her editor within seconds of their initial capture. As a medium, the digital photograph has opened up new venues for gathering news, from small, self-published newsletters, to the online blog. These new venues mean an increased market and an accelerated pace for the transmission of news through photographic images.
Dillon Westbrook
The photograph has affected the way many cultures throughout the world understand and learn about their world. One of the main fields responsible for this paradigm is photojournalism. Photojournalism is the use of photographs in conjunction with the reporting of news in media such as print newspapers, magazines, television news and internet reporting. The incorporation of photographs into news reports is so ubiquitous that a story without photographs to a contemporary audience feels incomplete, as though they were only getting half the story. Consumers depend upon photojournalists to bring them the images that allow them to feel connected to far-away realities, and to be educated about those realities.
Photojournalism distinguishes itself from other forms of professional photography by its adherence to the principles of journalism: timeliness, accuracy, fair representation of the context of events and facts reported, and accountability to the public. While a wedding photographer may be documenting an actual event, his or her responsibility is to the client and the presentation that client would like to see. A journalist, on the other hand, cannot be held to the demands of the photographic subject, but rather he or she must be concerned with producing accurate news for the public.
In addition to accuracy, the photojournalist must be careful not to exclude important parts of the context of the event being photographed. A shot of an individual rioter breaking a store window can look like an isolated act of criminality if the photojournalist does not show it in the context of a larger social event whose significance goes beyond the individual act.
The emergence of photojournalism, along with its current trajectory, depends a great deal upon technological developments in the camera. As early as the Crimean War in the mid-19 th century, photographers were using the novel technology of the box camera to record images of British soldiers in the field. However, the widespread use of cameras as a way of reporting news didn’t come until the advent of smaller, more portable cameras which used the enlargeable film negative to record images. The introduction of the 35 mm Leica camera in the 1930’s made it possible for photographers to move with the action, taking shots of events as they are unfolding.
Newspapers quickly took advantage of this portability, and publications like Life, Sports Illustrated, and The Daily Mirror staked their reputation on fresh, timely images of matters of interest to their readers. In the first golden age of photojournalism, which lasted from the 1930’s to the 50’s, photographers such as Robert Capa and Alfred Eistenstaedt became household names for the news-consuming public. Capa would later go on to found, along with three other photojournalists, the Magnum agency, which supported photojournalists and negotiated to get them copyright of their images, as opposed to letting copyright revert to the publication.
In the late 1970’s, the cultural importance of photojournalism began to be recognized by the art world, and photojournalists were given exhibitions and retrospectives at museums and galleries. Photojournalists like Don McCullin received wide attention in retrospectives across the country. Today, most major museums will devote a showing or more a year to photojournalists and documentary photographers.
With the introduction of digital cameras, photojournalism has greatly augmented its capacity for reporting up-to-the-minute news from around the world. Not limited by exposures on a roll of film, digital chips can store up to a thousand images, and are less sensitive to airport x-rays and exposure to light. With a wireless internet connection, a photojournalist can send images from the field to his or her editor within seconds of their initial capture. As a medium, the digital photograph has opened up new venues for gathering news, from small, self-published newsletters, to the online blog. These new venues mean an increased market and an accelerated pace for the transmission of news through photographic images.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
HOMAI VYARAWALLA: Living life on her own terms
India through her eyes
NEETA LAL (The Hindu)
At 92, Homai Vyarawalla, India's first and most famous woman photojournalist, remains as active as ever.
HOMAI VYARAWALLA, 92, seems fuelled by some benign supernatural energy. She rustles up gourmet chicken and mutton dishes "at short notice", cleans and mops her house, dusts its interiors, does the odd plumbing job, drives her own car (a 1950's Fiat model) and even crafts her own furniture!
Perhaps it was this incredible drive that helped Vyarawalla click astoundingly well as India's first and most famous woman photojournalist. As a scribe — whose spectacular body of work spans a century — Vyarawalla has not only chronicled the last days of the British Empire, the euphoria of Independence, the birth pangs and growth of a new nation but a repertoire of interesting VIPs, politicians and celebrities on her legendary Rolleiflex and Mamiyaflex twin lens cameras.
Sheer elegance
In fact the nonagenarian's iconic photographs have now become a part of collective Indian memory for their sheer elegance. The swearing-in of Lord Mountbatten as Governor General of India, the Dalai Lama's first visit to India in 1956, Lal Bahadur Shastri's death, fashion shows at the British High Commission, a flurry of presidential and prime ministerial visits to India, a young Jawahar and Indira Gandhi, Rajiv and Sanjay... are all a part of the erstwhile photographer's substantive portfolio of over 10,000 photos.
Fortunately, these photos are now also a part of a book titled Camera Chronicles of Homai Vyarawalla released recently by Parzor Foundation and Mapin Publishing. And undoubtedly, this project constitutes the exploration of an extraordinary woman's engagement with the historic events occurring around her. To coincide with the book launch, an exclusive retrospective exhibition of over a 100 rare photos — connected with Vyarawalla's life, times and work — have also been mounted at the Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi this month.
Though a tad effusive, this belated attention is worth every bit considering Vyarawalla was the only professional woman photojournalist in India during her time. Her survival — nay, success — in an overwhelmingly male domain is all the more remarkable because the profession continues to exclude most women even today. Ironically, even western photojournalists who visited Indian shores regularly — such as Margaret Bourke-White and Henri Cartier Bresson — have received more attention than Vyarawalla. In this already invisible history, Vyarawalla's presence as a woman was even more marginalised. Hopefully, Camera Chronicles — which acknowledges her role as a pioneer among women and her tremendous contribution to early photojournalism in India — will get the perspective in order.
Early life
Born into a middle-class Parsi family in 1913 in Navsari (Gujarat), Vyarawalla's father was an actor in a travelling Urdu-Parsi theatre company. She grew up in a Bombay where she was the only girl in her class to complete her matriculation exam. She learnt photography from her boyfriend Maneckshaw (whom she later married), some of her earliest works being published under his byline. Beginning her career in Bombay during the World War II, Vyarawalla shifted base to Delhi around Independence recording key political and social events till she laid down her camera in 1970.
Interestingly, though Vyarawalla gave up photography over 35 years ago, she still takes meticulous care of her six antique cameras that are preserved in her Baroda house in an excellent condition.
So what, according to the lady, are the attributes of a good photographer? "Maintaining the dignity of the subject is of utmost importance," she says after you repeat the question several times due to her now-impaired hearing. "The composition should never show the clicked person in a derogatory way." And she goes on to narrate the incident of Pakistani President Ayub Khan's arrival in India in 1959, whom Jawaharlal Nehru had gone to receive at the airport.
"But since Khan was very tall, he seemed to tower over Nehru in all my frames which didn't show him in a good light," says the now retired photographer.
To get around this problem, Vyarawalla chose an angle that required her to almost lie flat on the ground for a period of time. This quixotic posture got the perfectionist scribe the desired results, albeit with a mishap — her sari got undone in the photographers' stampede to cover the event!
"But despite that, I didn't compromise upon my angle," guffaws the nonagenarian, "and managed to get pictures which depicted Nehru at par with Ayub!"
Plum assignments
It was this remarkable doggedness — and perfectionism — that became Vyarawalla's imprimatur. As her reputation spread, the photojournalist was flooded with plum professional assignments from prestigious media outfits.
After a stint at The Bombay Chronicle (where she was paid two annas per picture!), she went on to put in a few years at The Illustrated Weekly of India (owned by the British then) followed by a slew of Parsi publications including the Jaan-e-Jamshed. In the 1950s, the British Information Services snapped up Vyarawalla for their cachet of in-house publications. In fact so impressed were the English with her work that they even allowed her to freelance in her spare time despite paying her a substantive salary.
Not that life has been cruel to her. In fact even today — as Vyarawalla turns 93 on December 9 this year — this spunky Sagittarian continues to live life on her own terms in her beautiful ancestral Baroda home, tinkering with her antique cameras, cooking mutton-chicken and continuing to bask in the fond attention that her fans and the media shower upon her petite frame.
Military Still Holding AP Photographer 365 Days Later
Military Still Holding AP Photographer 365 Days Later
April 12, 2007
By Daryl Lang (PDN)
On April 12, 2006 Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was arrested in Ramadi, Iraq, by the U.S. military. He has now been their prisoner for one year.
While the AP continues to work for his release, Hussein is caught in a system that labels him a security risk and gives him no access to a fair trial. He is far from alone: There are about 18,000 security detainees being held at two facilities in Iraq, according to the military.
Dozens of Iraqi journalists have been held for short times and released, but Hussein's case is extraordinary because of his high profile work for the AP and the long amount of time he has been detained.
The AP has steadfastly defended Hussein, a Sunni Iraqi whose photography was part of a package that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography. The AP says its own review turned up no evidence that Hussein is associated with the insurgency.
"Bilal has done nothing to justify a year in detention without charges," says Paul Gardephe, a lawyer working on Bilal's behalf for the Associated Press, quoted in an AP story this week. "The military has not provided any credible evidence to support the various accusations of criminal conduct that it has made."
Gardephe met with Hussein recently at the Camp Cropper prison, near the Baghdad airport, the AP reports. While Hussein is permitted to meet with a lawyer and AP staff, neither they nor Hussein himself are allowed to attend his review hearings.
A military spokesperson said Wednesday that Hussein's case has been reviewed four times, most recently in November. Each review determined that he was a security risk. His case was reviewed by the Detention Review Authority on April 22, 2006, a "Magistrate Cell" of judge advocates on April 25, 2006, and the Iraqi-U.S. Combined Review and Release Board on July 2, 2006 and November 6, 2006. The Combined Review and Release Board is scheduled to examine his case again in the next 30 days.
"Iraq continues to hold Mr. Hussein as an imperative threat to the security of the Iraqi people and Multi-National Forces in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1546, 1637 and 1723," the unnamed military spokesperson said in an e-mail.
According to Gardephe, the AP lawyer, U.S. officials have leveled nine informal allegations against Hussein, but indicate that they lack solid evidence on seven of the allegations. The two other charges include offering to make a fake ID for an insurgent sniper and taking photographs synchronized with explosions.
But Gardephe says the charges lack merit, given that fake IDs are readily available in Iraq and none of the 900 photographs Hussein submitted to the AP were synchronized with an explosion.
AP executives and press organizations have publicly called for Hussein's release or for formal charges to be levied against him.
"The United States must release our colleague Bilal Hussein," said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, in a statement this week. "The authorities have had a full year to produce evidence and bring charges but have failed to do so."
Hussein was a shopkeeper from Fallujah who joined the AP to help with newsgathering and later was trained as a photographer. He covered fighting in Fallujah and Ramadi, where some of his photographs showed insurgents firing weapons at U.S. forces.
The AP worked for several months behind the scenes to argue for Hussein's release before going public with his story last September.
Hussein's family is allowed to visit him one hour a month, the AP reports.
April 12, 2007
By Daryl Lang (PDN)
On April 12, 2006 Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was arrested in Ramadi, Iraq, by the U.S. military. He has now been their prisoner for one year.
While the AP continues to work for his release, Hussein is caught in a system that labels him a security risk and gives him no access to a fair trial. He is far from alone: There are about 18,000 security detainees being held at two facilities in Iraq, according to the military.
Dozens of Iraqi journalists have been held for short times and released, but Hussein's case is extraordinary because of his high profile work for the AP and the long amount of time he has been detained.
The AP has steadfastly defended Hussein, a Sunni Iraqi whose photography was part of a package that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography. The AP says its own review turned up no evidence that Hussein is associated with the insurgency.
"Bilal has done nothing to justify a year in detention without charges," says Paul Gardephe, a lawyer working on Bilal's behalf for the Associated Press, quoted in an AP story this week. "The military has not provided any credible evidence to support the various accusations of criminal conduct that it has made."
Gardephe met with Hussein recently at the Camp Cropper prison, near the Baghdad airport, the AP reports. While Hussein is permitted to meet with a lawyer and AP staff, neither they nor Hussein himself are allowed to attend his review hearings.
A military spokesperson said Wednesday that Hussein's case has been reviewed four times, most recently in November. Each review determined that he was a security risk. His case was reviewed by the Detention Review Authority on April 22, 2006, a "Magistrate Cell" of judge advocates on April 25, 2006, and the Iraqi-U.S. Combined Review and Release Board on July 2, 2006 and November 6, 2006. The Combined Review and Release Board is scheduled to examine his case again in the next 30 days.
"Iraq continues to hold Mr. Hussein as an imperative threat to the security of the Iraqi people and Multi-National Forces in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1546, 1637 and 1723," the unnamed military spokesperson said in an e-mail.
According to Gardephe, the AP lawyer, U.S. officials have leveled nine informal allegations against Hussein, but indicate that they lack solid evidence on seven of the allegations. The two other charges include offering to make a fake ID for an insurgent sniper and taking photographs synchronized with explosions.
But Gardephe says the charges lack merit, given that fake IDs are readily available in Iraq and none of the 900 photographs Hussein submitted to the AP were synchronized with an explosion.
AP executives and press organizations have publicly called for Hussein's release or for formal charges to be levied against him.
"The United States must release our colleague Bilal Hussein," said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, in a statement this week. "The authorities have had a full year to produce evidence and bring charges but have failed to do so."
Hussein was a shopkeeper from Fallujah who joined the AP to help with newsgathering and later was trained as a photographer. He covered fighting in Fallujah and Ramadi, where some of his photographs showed insurgents firing weapons at U.S. forces.
The AP worked for several months behind the scenes to argue for Hussein's release before going public with his story last September.
Hussein's family is allowed to visit him one hour a month, the AP reports.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
DUBAI WORLD CUP 2007
Dubai World Cup
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Dubai World Cup is a horse race held annually since 1996 at the Nad Al Sheba Racecourse in the city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The race is operated through the Emirates Horse Racing Authority (EHRA) whose Chairman is Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Presidential Affairs of Dubai.
The race was the creation of the Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum who owns Darley Stud & Godolphin Racing, one of the world's leading thoroughbred breeding and racing operations.
It is the world's richest horse race, with a purse of USD 6 million since 2004. It is a Group 1 flat race on dirt for four-year-old and above thoroughbreds run over a distance of 2,000 metres (1 mile 2 furlongs) in late March.
The race's first winner was the future United States Hall of Fame thoroughbred, Cigar, owned by Allen E. Paulson.
Due to its importance in racing, in 2006 the Dubai World Cup was broadcast live on TVG Network and HRTV and taped later for showing on ABC. It was the first time that the race was shown on national TV in the United States.
NOTE:- (C) Copyright for these photos belongs solely to S. KIRAN PRASAD Images may not be copied, downloaded, or used in any way without the expressed, written permission of the photographer.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Dubai World Cup is a horse race held annually since 1996 at the Nad Al Sheba Racecourse in the city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The race is operated through the Emirates Horse Racing Authority (EHRA) whose Chairman is Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Presidential Affairs of Dubai.
The race was the creation of the Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum who owns Darley Stud & Godolphin Racing, one of the world's leading thoroughbred breeding and racing operations.
It is the world's richest horse race, with a purse of USD 6 million since 2004. It is a Group 1 flat race on dirt for four-year-old and above thoroughbreds run over a distance of 2,000 metres (1 mile 2 furlongs) in late March.
The race's first winner was the future United States Hall of Fame thoroughbred, Cigar, owned by Allen E. Paulson.
Due to its importance in racing, in 2006 the Dubai World Cup was broadcast live on TVG Network and HRTV and taped later for showing on ABC. It was the first time that the race was shown on national TV in the United States.
NOTE:- (C) Copyright for these photos belongs solely to S. KIRAN PRASAD Images may not be copied, downloaded, or used in any way without the expressed, written permission of the photographer.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
NPPA Code of Ethics..
NPPA Code of Ethics (National Press Photographers Association)
For further details about NPPA's rules and guidelines for professional behavior, see the NPPA Bylaws.
Preamble
The National Press Photographers Association, a professional society that promotes the highest standards in photojournalism, acknowledges concern for every person's need both to be fully informed about public events and to be recognized as part of the world in which we live.
Photojournalists operate as trustees of the public. Our primary role is to report visually on the significant events and on the varied viewpoints in our common world. Our primary goal is the faithful and comprehensive depiction of the subject at hand. As photojournalists, we have the responsibility to document society and to preserve its history through images.
Photographic and video images can reveal great truths, expose wrongdoing and neglect, inspire hope and understanding and connect people around the globe through the language of visual understanding. Photographs can also cause great harm if they are callously intrusive or are manipulated.
This code is intended to promote the highest quality in all forms of photojournalism and to strengthen public confidence in the profession. It is also meant to serve as an educational tool both for those who practice and for those who appreciate photojournalism. To that end, The National Press Photographers Association sets forth the following Code of Ethics:
Code of Ethics
Photojournalists and those who manage visual news productions are accountable for upholding the following standards in their daily work:
Be accurate and comprehensive in the representation of subjects.
Resist being manipulated by staged photo opportunities.
Be complete and provide context when photographing or recording subjects. Avoid stereotyping individuals and groups. Recognize and work to avoid presenting one's own biases in the work.
Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy. Intrude on private moments of grief only when the public has an overriding and justifiable need to see.
While photographing subjects do not intentionally contribute to, alter, or seek to alter or influence events.
Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images' content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects.
Do not pay sources or subjects or reward them materially for information or participation.
Do not accept gifts, favors, or compensation from those who might seek to influence coverage.
Do not intentionally sabotage the efforts of other journalists.
Ideally, photojournalists should:
Strive to ensure that the public's business is conducted in public. Defend the rights of access for all journalists.
Think proactively, as a student of psychology, sociology, politics and art to develop a unique vision and presentation. Work with a voracious appetite for current events and contemporary visual media.
Strive for total and unrestricted access to subjects, recommend alternatives to shallow or rushed opportunities, seek a diversity of viewpoints, and work to show unpopular or unnoticed points of view.
Avoid political, civic and business involvements or other employment that compromise or give the appearance of compromising one's own journalistic independence.
Strive to be unobtrusive and humble in dealing with subjects.
Respect the integrity of the photographic moment.
Strive by example and influence to maintain the spirit and high standards expressed in this code. When confronted with situations in which the proper action is not clear, seek the counsel of those who exhibit the highest standards of the profession. Photojournalists should continuously study their craft and the ethics that guide it.
For further details about NPPA's rules and guidelines for professional behavior, see the NPPA Bylaws.
Preamble
The National Press Photographers Association, a professional society that promotes the highest standards in photojournalism, acknowledges concern for every person's need both to be fully informed about public events and to be recognized as part of the world in which we live.
Photojournalists operate as trustees of the public. Our primary role is to report visually on the significant events and on the varied viewpoints in our common world. Our primary goal is the faithful and comprehensive depiction of the subject at hand. As photojournalists, we have the responsibility to document society and to preserve its history through images.
Photographic and video images can reveal great truths, expose wrongdoing and neglect, inspire hope and understanding and connect people around the globe through the language of visual understanding. Photographs can also cause great harm if they are callously intrusive or are manipulated.
This code is intended to promote the highest quality in all forms of photojournalism and to strengthen public confidence in the profession. It is also meant to serve as an educational tool both for those who practice and for those who appreciate photojournalism. To that end, The National Press Photographers Association sets forth the following Code of Ethics:
Code of Ethics
Photojournalists and those who manage visual news productions are accountable for upholding the following standards in their daily work:
Be accurate and comprehensive in the representation of subjects.
Resist being manipulated by staged photo opportunities.
Be complete and provide context when photographing or recording subjects. Avoid stereotyping individuals and groups. Recognize and work to avoid presenting one's own biases in the work.
Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy. Intrude on private moments of grief only when the public has an overriding and justifiable need to see.
While photographing subjects do not intentionally contribute to, alter, or seek to alter or influence events.
Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images' content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects.
Do not pay sources or subjects or reward them materially for information or participation.
Do not accept gifts, favors, or compensation from those who might seek to influence coverage.
Do not intentionally sabotage the efforts of other journalists.
Ideally, photojournalists should:
Strive to ensure that the public's business is conducted in public. Defend the rights of access for all journalists.
Think proactively, as a student of psychology, sociology, politics and art to develop a unique vision and presentation. Work with a voracious appetite for current events and contemporary visual media.
Strive for total and unrestricted access to subjects, recommend alternatives to shallow or rushed opportunities, seek a diversity of viewpoints, and work to show unpopular or unnoticed points of view.
Avoid political, civic and business involvements or other employment that compromise or give the appearance of compromising one's own journalistic independence.
Strive to be unobtrusive and humble in dealing with subjects.
Respect the integrity of the photographic moment.
Strive by example and influence to maintain the spirit and high standards expressed in this code. When confronted with situations in which the proper action is not clear, seek the counsel of those who exhibit the highest standards of the profession. Photojournalists should continuously study their craft and the ethics that guide it.
Toledo Blade Ran Doctored Photo On Front Page..
The altered photo on the front page of the March 31 Toledo Blade was shot from the same angle as photos that ran in other newspapers.
Toledo Blade Ran Doctored Photo On Front Page
April 05, 2007
By Daryl Lang
The Toledo Blade published a photo on its March 31 front page that was digitally altered to remove a distracting pair of legs.
The photographer admits he altered the photo on his laptop at the scene, but says he meant to keep that file for personal use and transmitted it to his editors by accident.
"It was mistake, plain and simple," says staff photographer Allan Detrich. "But it was a big mistake."
The photo shows members of the Bluffton University baseball team praying before their season opener, their first game after five of their teammates were killed in a bus accident.
The NPPA's News Photographer magazine first reported the case of manipulation on its Web site Thursday. The Blade acknowledged Thursday that the photo had been manipulated and said it was investigating.
"This allegation was brought to our attention by the NPPA late Wednesday night," the Blade said in a statement e-mailed by Assistant Managing Editor Luann Sharp. "The Blade's preliminary investigation confirms that the photo of the Bluffton baseball team published on page A-1 March 31, was digitally altered before it was submitted to the newspaper for publication. It was one of 16 photos turned in and it was the only one that was altered prior to being sent to the photo desk. The photographer's explanation is that he altered the photo for his personal files and inadvertently transmitted the wrong picture for publication. The Blade takes such matters very seriously and we are continuing our internal investigation. We will also notify our readers that an altered photograph was published."
The NPPA and others noticed the alteration because other photographers were shooting the same scene from a similar angle. Nearly identical photographs ran on the front pages of at least three other Ohio newspapers - cropped extremely horizontal to show the kneeling players and five banners memorializing their teammates killed in the accident. In every photograph except Detrich's, a pair of legs is seen protruding from behind a banner hanging on a fence.
In an interview Thursday with PDN, Detrich admitted he made a mistake, but said it was not malicious.
"I did one copy where I cloned out the legs and stuff for my personal use," Detrich says. "Sometimes I like to just make pictures beautiful. And I'll make a print for my office or something. I put that in a personal folder on my computer called 'keepers.' At the same time, I also had the original photo with the legs in my transmit folder. And the altered one was also in my transmit folder but hadn't gotten deleted. We were on deadline, I clicked the picture, transmitted it and obviously it was the wrong one to send. And that's what happened."
"I've been in this business 25 years. I'm not a cloner, that's not something I would do," he says.
Detrich says he has worked for the Blade since 1989 and has never had another incident like this one.
As for why he didn't inform his editors earlier that the wrong photo had run, Detrich says he simply didn't see the newspaper.
"I'm on the road five days a week and I don't get the paper at my house. If I would have seen it I would have noticed it was the wrong picture and notified my editors," he says. "If I get into the Blade [office] I have time to look at papers, but I don't see papers every day."
News Photographer reports that the person standing behind the sign in the photo was another photographer: Madalyn Ruggiero, a freelancer working for the Chicago Tribune. Ruggiero told the Web site she was trying to get a different angle of the players.
Changing the content of a photograph without labeling it as an illustration violates the ethics codes of most news organizations. Several photojournalists have lost their jobs in recent years over digitally manipulated photos.
PDN story....
Monday, April 9, 2007
"The newspaper lies, the radio lies, the TV lies, the streets, they howl with the truth."
A senior in college and a friend of mine who is the editor of Better Photography in India has this to say about the dying photojournalism in India in newspapers and magazines in particular. How true it is, go through the daily newspapers and magazines in India and they have nothing to offer to a photojournalist on assignment except for some semi nude pictures taken at a high soceity party for front page..read the stuff below...
'Where the Streets Have No Name',
"The newspaper lies, the radio lies, the TV lies, the streets, they howl with the truth."
Someone forwarded this to me a while ago and it has stayed with me since then. I have no clue who wrote it the first time around, but its truth is quite unnerving.
Where has street photography disappeared? The thirst for looking for images that sometimes stare at you and sometimes don’t, and all for their own sake, with no agenda, seems to be a dying art. It is definitely not 'fashionable' anymore —hunting without knowing where your next image is going to come from. The journey, without the destination. Fact is, a great deal of photojournalism found its roots here, on the streets. It is where most of the unedited truth of our society lies. If nothing else, a walk on the streets will sharpen reflexes and awareness to life around us, which can be highly engaging photographically.
But some of you who are possibly interested in a photography that is far from the streets — like glamour or advertising, must be wondering where does walking the streets leave you. Walk on, and you will be surprised to know that every once in a while even the hot shots of glamour or industrial photography take to the streets. It is like a touchstone for most.
So, where does photojournalism in India stand today?
What I see does not make for a pretty picture at all. A great deal of photojournalism one has been seeing in the recent past gives the impression that somewhere along the line, the sacred creed of photojournalists has disappeared. Every once in a while, one does see a spurt of good work and then it dies down (remember, I am referring to work that has appeared in India). If you were to ask me today, that when was the last time I saw a newspaper/magazine image (in India) that made me sit up — I will have to delve far back into my memory. But I do remember days not so long ago, when there would always be an image,that appeared in either a Telegraph or an Indian Express or wherever — a single image which made not just me, but a lot of others sit up. The image elicited discussions and comments. And photojournalism was alive.
But why, why only ‘was’ alive?
Photojournalists could not have suddenly forgotten the language of photography. In fact, there are more visuals being used in Indian publications today than ever before. Photo editors play an essential role in the planning of the magazine or newspaper, which a few years ago was the sole purview of the news editor. All of that has changed, thankfully.
Unfortunately, the price of progress seems too heavy today. One does see a good image every now and then. But it’s getting rare. A great deal of photojournalism that is happening in India is on assignments. Or incident based. It is like waiting for the good Lord to do something earth shattering, so that one can rush out with the camera and do the command performance. I remember when I was a rookie —a senior colleague of mine caught me sitting at my desk waiting for work to happen. He knew that the next planned assignment for me was a few hours away, and he had this to say, “What are you waiting for? A bomb blast in the city, so that you get a ‘page one’ tomorrow?”
I have still not forgotten that rap on my knuckles, though it has been more than 15 years. The words still sting as they did on that day. I try and shoot on the streets whenever possible, but more than that I look out for the work of people who do street photography. The names are few and far between. You see Manish Swarup’s images in the ‘http://www.manishswarup.com'. He has been one of the finest photojournalists in the country for close to two decades, but he still takes out time to shoot images, which are far removed from his daily work. And somewhere, those images, I feel, mend his soul.
-editor@betterphotography.in
'Where the Streets Have No Name',
"The newspaper lies, the radio lies, the TV lies, the streets, they howl with the truth."
Someone forwarded this to me a while ago and it has stayed with me since then. I have no clue who wrote it the first time around, but its truth is quite unnerving.
Where has street photography disappeared? The thirst for looking for images that sometimes stare at you and sometimes don’t, and all for their own sake, with no agenda, seems to be a dying art. It is definitely not 'fashionable' anymore —hunting without knowing where your next image is going to come from. The journey, without the destination. Fact is, a great deal of photojournalism found its roots here, on the streets. It is where most of the unedited truth of our society lies. If nothing else, a walk on the streets will sharpen reflexes and awareness to life around us, which can be highly engaging photographically.
But some of you who are possibly interested in a photography that is far from the streets — like glamour or advertising, must be wondering where does walking the streets leave you. Walk on, and you will be surprised to know that every once in a while even the hot shots of glamour or industrial photography take to the streets. It is like a touchstone for most.
So, where does photojournalism in India stand today?
What I see does not make for a pretty picture at all. A great deal of photojournalism one has been seeing in the recent past gives the impression that somewhere along the line, the sacred creed of photojournalists has disappeared. Every once in a while, one does see a spurt of good work and then it dies down (remember, I am referring to work that has appeared in India). If you were to ask me today, that when was the last time I saw a newspaper/magazine image (in India) that made me sit up — I will have to delve far back into my memory. But I do remember days not so long ago, when there would always be an image,that appeared in either a Telegraph or an Indian Express or wherever — a single image which made not just me, but a lot of others sit up. The image elicited discussions and comments. And photojournalism was alive.
But why, why only ‘was’ alive?
Photojournalists could not have suddenly forgotten the language of photography. In fact, there are more visuals being used in Indian publications today than ever before. Photo editors play an essential role in the planning of the magazine or newspaper, which a few years ago was the sole purview of the news editor. All of that has changed, thankfully.
Unfortunately, the price of progress seems too heavy today. One does see a good image every now and then. But it’s getting rare. A great deal of photojournalism that is happening in India is on assignments. Or incident based. It is like waiting for the good Lord to do something earth shattering, so that one can rush out with the camera and do the command performance. I remember when I was a rookie —a senior colleague of mine caught me sitting at my desk waiting for work to happen. He knew that the next planned assignment for me was a few hours away, and he had this to say, “What are you waiting for? A bomb blast in the city, so that you get a ‘page one’ tomorrow?”
I have still not forgotten that rap on my knuckles, though it has been more than 15 years. The words still sting as they did on that day. I try and shoot on the streets whenever possible, but more than that I look out for the work of people who do street photography. The names are few and far between. You see Manish Swarup’s images in the ‘http://www.manishswarup.com'. He has been one of the finest photojournalists in the country for close to two decades, but he still takes out time to shoot images, which are far removed from his daily work. And somewhere, those images, I feel, mend his soul.
-editor@betterphotography.in
Thursday, April 5, 2007
A Chilling Photographers Hidden Story
A Chilling Photographers Hidden Story
A Chilling Photograph’s Hidden History Twenty-six years ago, a picture of an execution in Iran won the Pulitzer Prize. But the man who took it remained anonymous. Until now. The Ayatollah’s agents come calling By JOSHUA PRAGER December 2, 2006; Page A1
TEHRAN—On Aug. 27, 1979, two parallel lines of 11 men formed on a field of dry dirt in Sanandaj, Iran. One group wore blindfolds. The other held rifles. The command came in Farsi to fire: “Atesh!” Behind the soldier farthest to the right, a 12th man also shot, his Nikon camera and Kodak film preserving in black and white a mass execution.
Within hours, the photo ran across six columns in Ettela’at, the oldest newspaper in Iran. Within days, it appeared on front pages around the world. Within weeks, the new Iranian government annexed the offending paper. Within months, the photo won the Pulitzer Prize.
Jahangir Razmi The photograph that won the Pulitzer. Taken seven months after Islamic radicals overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah, the photo remains one of the most famous images of Iran. It is an icon of government terror, invoked in critiques of the regime from the 1979 poem “Screaming,” to the 1986 music video “Speak To Me From My Land, Iran” to the 1997 book “Kurdistan.” Davood and Davar Ghassemlouie, brothers who operate a photo shop in Los Angeles, say they have made tens of thousands of reprints for demonstrators, including 200 in late September when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the U.S.
Says Shahrokh Hatami, a pioneer of Iranian photojournalism: “It is the most revealing photograph of the beginning of the Iranian revolution.”
Ettela’at, however, didn’t print the photographer’s name, fearing his safety. The Pulitzer was officially awarded to “an unnamed photographer of United Press International,” the news service that distributed the photo in the U.S. It remains the only time the award has ever been given to an anonymous recipient.
In the years since, several people have falsely claimed to be “Anonymous.” When Iran’s most famous photographer died in 2003, his obituaries were filled with mentions of a Pulitzer some say he had insinuated winning. Last September, another prominent Iranian photographer living in France was quoted in Paris Match magazine claiming credit for the work.
In fact, nearly three decades after the epochal photograph first appeared, almost no one knows who took it.
* * Jahangir Razmi grew up in the industrial city of Arak, in central Iran, the first child of a housewife and military clerk. Governed by the Shah, the nation was at peace. The boy was shy and happiest in a local photo shop helping a cousin develop film and shoot portraits of brides and soldiers. In 1960, at the age of 12, he bought a Russian Lubitel-2 camera.
THE PHOTOGRAPHS
The full set of 27 photographs Mr. Razmi preserved on a contact sheet and stowed away in his home, made public for the first time. DEVELOPMENT OF A PHOTO
Learn more about nine people who played roles either in an execution or in the publication and misattribution of Mr. Razmi’s photograph. WALL STREET JOURNAL VIDEO
Joshua Prager details his quest to track down the anonymous Pulitzer prize-winning photographer.He quickly put it to use. When one day a boy shot a girl dead outside his studio, a reporter urged Jahangir to photograph the scene. He did, the skirt and shirt of a bloodied school uniform preserved in the newsprint of Ettela’at.
When his father died, Mr. Razmi says he found work in a Tehran photo shop. When he served in the army, he found reprieve from military drills in a darkroom on base. When he photographed a 20th birthday party, he found a wife. And when Ettela’at—Farsi for “Information” —hired him in 1973 to shoot breaking news, he found a career.
“Although we were colleagues and there was a competition, his pictures were better,” says Jafar Danyeli, then one of seven staff photographers. Razmi, as everyone called him, paid attention to composition and chiaroscuro, the interplay of light and shadow. He sat at the desk closest to the stairwell. “I was always the volunteer to go,” says Mr. Razmi, then 25. “I was quick. I was young. I was braver than anyone else.”
On Jan. 16, 1979, the Shah fled Iran following mass demonstrations protesting his rule. Sixteen days later, Ayatollah Khomeini, a radical Islamic cleric, returned from France and seized control. Mr. Razmi photographed Mr. Khomeini in his Qom headquarters so regularly that he came to greet the imam with a handshake. Using his favorite Nikon lens, a 28mm wide-angle lens with automatic focus, Mr. Razmi chronicled the conversion of Iran to theocracy from autocracy.
By August, about 500 alleged counter-revolutionaries and officials of the former regime had been executed. The judiciary decreed it illegal to criticize Islam and Iran’s spiritual leaders. A holding company formed by the regime appropriated Kayhan, the only newspaper in Iran larger than Ettela’at. Journalists who pushed back at censorship under the Shah were petrified.
“Under Khomeini they would kill you,” says Amir Taheri, then editor of Kayhan and now a political analyst living in England. “It was a different ballgame.”
On Aug. 16, Mr. Khomeini called on Iranian troops to suppress restive Kurds hoping for autonomy. Thousands of soldiers headed 300 miles northwest to the Iranian province of Kurdistan. Mr. Razmi and Khalil Bahrami, an Ettela’at reporter, followed.
Jahangir Razmi with the Nikon camera he used to photograph an execution on Aug. 27, 1979. Ten days later, Mr. Bahrami received a tip that a judge he had befriended was set to try Kurds in an antechamber of the municipal airport at Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan. The reporter, then 37, had worked at Ettela’at for 22 years and was thankful he was paired with the young Mr. Razmi, whose father had lived in Sanandaj and had raised his son to admire the Kurds and their traditions. “He knew his responsibility,” says Mr. Bahrami, who lives in Iran and is retired. “And he was quicker than the others.”
At the airport, Mr. Razmi stood ready outside the makeshift courtroom as 10 handcuffed men filled a wooden bench before the judge, a black-bearded Shiite cleric named Sadegh Khalkhali. An injured 11th prisoner lay on a stretcher beside the door.
The judge removed his turban, Mr. Bahrami recalls. He removed his shoes. He put his feet on a chair. Scanning the prisoners through thick eyeglasses, he asked their names. Officers of the court told of the defendants’ alleged crimes—of trafficking arms, inciting riots and murder. The prisoners, some with leftward or nationalist leanings, denied the accusations.
No evidence was presented, Mr. Bahrami says. “It was pure speculation.” After roughly 30 minutes, Mr. Khalkhali declared the 11 men “corrupt on earth” - mofsedin fel arz - the Koranic phrase he cited before issuing a sentence of death. A few of the men cried.
Mr. Bahrami summoned his colleague Mr. Razmi. “It was Razmi’s luck that day that he was with me,” the reporter says.
Mr. Razmi withdrew from his green canvas shoulder bag a 35-80mm lens and attached the zoom to his Nikon FE. The handcuffed men were blindfolded. Each put his hand on the shoulder of the man before him and together they walked single-file through the airport’s concrete lobby, through a metal doorframe and toward an open airfield. Mr. Razmi darted ahead and shot, untroubled by security forces: “I was totally free,” he says. Unbeknownst to Mr. Razmi, a soldier present also was taking pictures, which were never published.
The caravan passed roughly 30 airport workers, both men say. Up front walked Mr. Razmi. In the rear, both men say, was Ali Karimi, one of the judge’s bodyguards, wearing white shoes, white pants, white shirt, sunglasses and twin hip holsters. After about 100 yards, an officer halted the condemned on a plain of dry dirt. All but one of the executioners tied about their own heads Iranian shawls called chafiyehs. Both the faces of the Shiites and the eyes of the Kurds were now concealed.
Mr. Karimi asked the prisoners if they had last words, the two journalists recall. The men didn’t, all silent save a man Mr. Bahrami later reported to be Essa Pirvali, who wept aloud. A sandwich maker, he belonged to no political party but possessed a handgun and had been accused of murder. “He was scared,” Mr. Razmi says. “He wouldn’t stand.” The soldiers instructed a fellow prisoner to hold him.
An afternoon sun shone behind the prisoners and Mr. Razmi reached for his 28mm lens. He sidled in behind members of the firing squad, who stood in brown leather boots laced to the calf. He thought, he says, only about “speed and angle.” The prisoners stood in plainclothes. The firing squad crouched in camouflage.
“Afrad mosallah!,” yelled the commanding officer, calling his troops to attention. His charges aimed their G3 rifles at the midsections of the men standing little more than a body’s length away.
Standing farthest to the right, Naser Salimi, an employee of the Sanandaj health department, raised his right hand to his chest. It was bandaged, injured in a street fight that had led to his sentencing, according to contemporary newspaper reports. Opposite him, the only soldier who wore no chafiyeh raised his rifle.
Mr. Razmi stood a few feet behind this unmasked gunman. He raised his camera. At 4:30 p.m., the command came to fire: “Atesh!” Eleven guns discharged. Eleven bodies dropped. “When they fell, it was dusty,” Mr. Razmi says. The photographer lowered his camera.
The soldiers eyed Mr. Karimi, the judge’s bodyguard, lifting a pistol off his right hip. Not all of the men were dead, the photographer recalls. The bodyguard leaned over Ahsan Nahid, the injured prisoner on the stretcher, and fired one bullet into his head. Mr. Razmi snapped his Nikon. Mr. Karimi stepped to the next man and shot him, too. He proceeded along—one bullet per body, both journalists say. (Recent efforts to locate Mr. Karimi were unsuccessful.)
WITHIN MINUTES, ambulances ferried away the 11 bodies, airport workers returned to work, the huddle of soldiers thinned and Mr. Razmi stowed his two rolls of Kodak 400 film in a pocket of his canvas bag. After a helicopter flight landed the pair too late to cover a second execution, Mr. Razmi left his colleague, flagged a passing minibus and returned to the airport in Sanandaj, where at 8 a.m. the only daily flight to Tehran departed.
The photographer fell asleep. He was awakened at a checkpoint by shouts from airport officers, the same men who had shared their lunch with him the previous afternoon as they awaited the Kurdish prisoners. “It’s me!” yelled Mr. Razmi. “Jahangir!” The men held their fire. Mr. Razmi told them he had film and an article that had to get back to Tehran. “I put it in an envelope and gave it to the flight attendant,” he says, needing to continue his work in the region.
Mr. Razmi called Ettela’at, which dispatched a courier to the airport. The man picked up the white envelope from Tehran airport and delivered it to the newspaper. Ali Akbar Moradi, head of the paper’s darkroom, says he knew the 70 exposures were taken by Mr. Razmi and that he turned them into two contact sheets with the help of a technician. An office runner gave them to the photo editor, the late Fereydoun Ebrahimzadeh, who marked the frames he wished turned into prints and delivered them to Mohammed Heydari, the chief Ettela’at editor, Mr. Heydari says.
Mr. Heydari was examining the layout of that day’s front page and flipped through the stills. At about noon, he says, he stopped, overwhelmed by a single image of the moment when some of the squadron had fired and some hadn’t. Bodies fell. Dust rose.
Mr. Heydari, then 35, had little time to think—the afternoon paper was about to go to print. He says he told himself that the country was conflicted over the killing of the Kurds and angry over censorship. He decided to publish the photograph, although not in the edition distributed in the Kurdistan province, where it would be tantamount to a call to arms. “Considering the political climate, I knew I could get away with it,” Mr. Heydari says.
The Ettela’at editor made another snap decision. The photograph would run with no credit. “I was aware that if I published his name, he would be in danger,” Mr. Heydari says. “I wanted to protect Razmi.”
By 2 p.m., newsstands across Tehran trumpeted word of the Kurdish executions. The banner headline read: “Forty People Executed in Sanandaj, Marivan and Saqqez.” The accompanying photograph was a sensation, the seven months of Iranian firing squads distilled to one image.
Copies of Ettela’at sold out and representatives of international news agencies hustled to Khayam Street to buy prints. The photo editor, Mr. Ebrahimzadeh, “sold it to everyone like he was selling French fries,” says Alfred Yaghobzadeh, 47, then a photographer for the Associated Press, now a photojournalist based in France.
The first to arrive at Ettela’at was Sajid Rizvi of United Press International. Mr. Rizvi, then 30, had seen the newspaper at his home, ordered a copy by phone and sped off in the company’s pistachio-colored sedan. He picked up the photo roughly 15 minutes later inside the Ettela’at newsroom.
“It was almost wet when I took it,” says Mr. Rizvi, now editor of an arts publishing house in London. “I don’t think I have ever seen a picture as moving as that,” he says. “It is a picture between life and death.”
Mr. Rizvi asked who had snapped it. “They said, ‘better not to give out the name of the photographer.’ ” Once home, he walked into the bathroom he had converted into a darkroom, dried the photo with a hairdryer, composed a caption on his yellow Olympus typewriter, phoned the UPI desk in Brussels and transmitted the print.
Genghis Seren, a photo editor in Brussels, sat transfixed beside the company UniFax. “The drama of that machine was that the picture took 15 minutes to complete,” recalls Mr. Seren, then 25 years old and in his first year at UPI. “It came a 10th of an inch after a 10th of an inch…. It was something!” Mr. Seren forwarded the photo to UPI bureaus in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and to company headquarters in Manhattan.
“It was transmitted to us with no name,” says Larry DeSantis, the UPI managing editor who received the photo 11 stories above 42nd Street. “Not knowing who made it interested me.”
At about 3 p.m., several armed agents from the Islamic Revolutionary Council arrived at Ettela’at, ascended four flights and entered the office of the editor, Mr. Heydari. They asked for the negative of the photo and asked to speak with the photo editor, Mr. Heydari recalls.
Mr. Heydari refused. “I said, ‘No. I am the editor. I take full responsibility.’ ” Mr. Heydari says he told the men: “If I am arrested, the negative consequences will outweigh the effect of this photo.”
The chief agent backed off. Both men telephoned government and religious officials, and the judge who ordered the executions radioed the agent seated beside Mr. Heydari, the editor says.
Mr. Khalkhali, the judge, declared the photo a fabrication and told the agent to arrest the editor, Mr. Heydari says. He says he responded by offering to show the negatives to the agent “as long as you agree not to use force to confiscate them.”
The agent agreed and viewed the negatives with two fellow officials. “They were astonished,” recalls Mr. Heydari. The agent made another call and told Iran’s attorney general that “the newspaper has been considerate to only publish this one,” Mr. Heydari remembers. The agents left with one proviso: Upon their return from Kurdistan, Messrs. Bahrami and Razmi should come in for questioning.
THAT SAME DAY, Mr. DeSantis, the UPI editor, had prints of the photo distributed by motorcycle to the New York papers and by telephoto machine to thousands of papers across the country. On Aug. 29, the New York Times, Washington Post, Der Tagesspiegel in Berlin and the Daily Telegraph in London were among the many newspapers to run it. Nearly all credited UPI.
“Our play was fabulous,” exults Mr. DeSantis, now retired. “It was a once in a lifetime…. Like it was a movie set. One guy kneeling, aiming. One guy falling. A mass execution.”
Mr. Razmi remained in Kurdistan, where at a Sanandaj newsstand he came across a copy of Ettela’at featuring one of his other photos showing the blindfolded men standing in wait. He understood why his more incendiary photographs were unprinted but nonetheless was disappointed. “I expected my name to be published,” he says.
Two days later, reporter and photographer returned to the Ettela’at office in Sanandaj. The office manager lifted from his desk the Tehran edition of the paper that had reported the execution, they recall. He said copies brought to Kurdistan were selling for more than double the cover price. The manager was a Kurd and Mr. Razmi recalls him saying: ” ‘We have to build a statue of gold of you.’ And because of what he told me, I understood that this photo was dangerous.”
Close readers of Ettela’at could have surmised Mr. Razmi was the photographer. On Aug. 26, the day before the execution, the newspaper named him as one of three employees it had sent “to the Western portion of the country.” An Aug. 29, the day after the photo ran, the paper reported on its front page that he and Mr. Bahrami had been “sent to Kurdistan.”
Home in Tehran, after a long shower, Mr. Razmi spoke about the execution to his wife and again the next morning to curious colleagues in the newsroom. He says he asked Mr. Heydari why his photo had carried no credit and didn’t object when the editor explained his worry. “I told him jokingly that you would have also been executed in Kurdistan on the spot,” Mr. Heydari says.
Mr. Razmi walked to the newspaper darkroom and saw for the first time what had been the 18th exposure of his first roll of film. “There I realized what I had taken,” he says. Turning on the red safelights in the studio, the photographer made prints of eight stills and preserved on a contact sheet 27 of his 70 photographs.
Mr. Razmi asked the darkroom supervisor for his negatives and locked them in the middle of his three metal drawers together with his other prints. A few days later, he slipped the contact sheet and stills into the fold of a newspaper and hid them in his home, “somewhere no one would have noticed,” he says. The next morning, he returned to Kurdistan.
On Sept. 9, the Islamic Revolutionary Council published a notice in the Islamic Revolution newspaper: “we hereby draw your attention to the picture which was published on the front page of [Ettela’at] on 6/6/1358 and was objected to harshly by the public.” It continued: “If this occurs again, serious decisions will be made.”
A serious decision already had been made. The day before, the Foundation for the Disinherited—the holding company that in August had swallowed Kayhan, Iran’s largest paper—also seized Ettela’at. Overnight, the paper, privately held since 1920, became state-owned.
The image continued to spread. Reza Deghati, then 27, a free-lance Iranian photographer, had seen the photo. It is “the most stirring execution picture in the history of photojournalism, of the human being,” he says. Mr. Deghati says he procured five additional photos of the execution from an Ettela’at employee and mailed them to SIPA, the Paris agency that had been publishing his own photos since the revolution.
Goksin Sipahioglu says he received the prints from Mr. Deghati at his agency on Paris’s Rue Roquepine. Even though UPI had already published one, Michele Sola, photo editor of Paris Match magazine, paid 14,000 French francs (about $10,000 today) for the additional prints. Mr. Sipahioglu forwarded half that sum to Mr. Deghati in Tehran.
The magazine went on sale in Paris days before its Sept. 21, 1979, cover date. About 2,600 miles east, readers in Iran turned to page 66. Titled “Les Kurdes, sous les balles d’Allah” (“The Kurds, under Allah’s bullets”), the photos spread rapidly. People paid 20 times the cover price for the magazine, and dozens of Iranians tacked the photos about town.
No one, however, neither Mr. Razmi nor the Iranian brain trust, seemed to notice the magazine’s erroneous credit - “Reza (Sipa)” - printed in the lower left corner of the index page. “When someone sends a picture to us,” explains Mr. Sipahioglu, “we always credit him.”
Mr. Deghati says he sent SIPA a letter saying he didn’t take the photos and that SIPA sent out a news release via the AP retracting his name. Representatives at SIPA, Paris Match and the AP don’t recall Mr. Deghati clarifying the matter and didn’t find such a release in their archives.
Mr. Razmi returned from Kurdistan in late September and Mr. Ebrahimzadeh approached him at his desk. The photo editor asked for the negatives of the 70 photos and extended his hand. “I couldn’t protest,” Mr. Razmi says. “It belonged to him.” He unlocked his metal drawer. Mr. Ebrahimzadeh told the photographer the police wished to speak to him in Tehran’s Evin prison, Mr. Razmi recalls.
Mr. Razmi says he arrived at the prison with Mr. Bahrami and two Ettela’at editors, and quickly found himself alone with the late Asadollah Lajevardi, a future warden of the prison already notorious for torturing inmates. As part of his newspaper duties, Mr. Razmi had often photographed men housed in Evin whom the state would soon execute. “I had a right to be nervous,” he says.
Mr. Lajevardi asked him who had photographed the Sanandaj execution, Mr. Razmi says. When Mr. Razmi said he had, the guard asked why he had hidden his negatives in the drawer. “So that no one would take them,” Mr. Razmi recalls answering.
He told Mr. Lajevardi that he had permission from the judge to shoot the scene and that he hadn’t sent the pictures overseas. The interrogation was soft, and it became apparent to Mr. Razmi that he wouldn’t be harmed. Mr. Razmi returned to the paper, and a few weeks later was consumed with work when, on Nov. 4, Iranian students took hostages inside the U.S. Embassy.
The next month, UPI managing editor Mr. DeSantis sat down to submit his newswire’s best work of the year for awards. At the top of his list was the execution photo. “I was a very good picture editor,” Mr. DeSantis says, “but on this one you could be a dumb dog and pick this out.”
That neither he nor anyone at UPI knew who took the photo was of little concern. The agency had been the first to provide it to the press and presented it as the work of an unnamed UPI photographer, which, says Mr. DeSantis, he assumed it was. “It came on the UPI wire,” he explains.
“Because of the present unrest in Iran,” wrote the editor to the Pulitzer committee, “the name of the photographer cannot be revealed at this time.”
Mr. Razmi didn’t know his photograph had been nominated for the Pulitzer. He didn’t know the jury nominating finalists for Spot News Photography was overwhelmed by the entry UPI titled, “Firing Squad in Iran.” Robert Duffy, then an editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and chairman of the jury, says he informally lobbied a member of the Pulitzer Board that spring to pick the photo. “We were hell-bent on giving the prize to ‘Anonymous,’ ” he says.
On April 14, 1980, seven days after the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Iran, ‘Anonymous’ won the Pulitzer Prize. Mr. Heydari told Mr. Razmi the news. But the same people who, in effect, had ordered the execution now owned his employer. Mr. Heydari says he was fired two months later. Representatives of the paper cancelled an August 2005 appointment at their Tehran head office and declined to be interviewed for this article.
Ettela’at didn’t report news of its prize-winning employee. Mr. Razmi says he “didn’t have the guts to celebrate.”
UPI did. The newswire flew its Tehran bureau chief Mr. Rizvi to the U.S. and had him speak to subscribers. “They were trying to show me off,” he says. Asked about the anonymous photographer, Mr. Rizvi recalls answering: “Eventually it will be revealed.”
IN THE SPRING, Ettela’at promoted Mr. Razmi, then 32, to photo editor. Iraq attacked Iran in September and Mr. Razmi covered the war. A mortar deafened his right ear in 1987. When months later Ettela’at asked him to work in Iraq, he decided he was tired of war. He quit his employer of 15 years, sold the home he had built by himself in a leafy neighborhood of northern Tehran, bought an apartment and opened a photography studio.
Forty years old, the photographer had come full circle, developing film and shooting portraits as he had as a boy. Says Mr. Razmi: “I was looking for a peaceful life.”
Mr. Razmi called the studio “Abgineh,” the Farsi word for glassware, which he says connoted for him the clarity of water. He didn’t advertise the studio. Still, six days a week, brides in gowns flocked to the shop, looked at Mr. Razmi and smiled.
Mr. Razmi thought often of Sanandaj. In his shop, he hung a large portrait of a boy wearing a Kurdish shawl and sash. Every summer, during the month of Shahrivar, he locked himself in his bedroom and looked at the execution photographs he had hidden.
On Aug. 3, 1997, three weeks before Shahrivar, Mohammad Khatami took office as president of Iran and hired Hashem Taleb to head his public relations. Mr. Razmi had met Mr. Taleb years before and saw a business opportunity. He drove to the office of the president, pronounced the headshots of Iranian officials unbefitting their rank and “suggested I take photographs of the president and the cabinet,” he recalls. Mr. Taleb hired him.
Days later, Mr. Razmi, the first “Official Photographer of the President and his Cabinet,” set up his flash umbrellas inside the Iranian presidential residence at the intersection of Palestine and Pastor streets. He shot pictures of the new government. He developed the color portraits. Before mailing the prints to the president’s office, he stamped his name on the back of each.
The name Jahangir Razmi, however, remained unconnected to his most famous photograph. Monir Nahid, mother of two of the executed men, who has since settled in Los Angeles, says over time, “10, 20 people came to me and said, ‘I took the picture.’ “
Among them, say Mrs. Nahid and her daughter, was Mr. Deghati, the stringer who in 1979 sent the photo to Paris Match. Mr. Deghati, who left Iran in 1981 and today lives in France working for Magnum Photos, says he has never met the Nahids. Last September, Paris Match magazine quoted him saying he took the photo, adding in French that Mr. Khomeini “was furious.” Mr. Deghati says he knows Mr. Razmi took the photo, and that the magazine misquoted him.
Mr. Razmi says he first learned about a decade ago that others were claiming his work. Kaveh Golestan, Iran’s best-known photographer, reported to him that Mr. Deghati had said as much at a European photo exhibit. Mr. Razmi didn’t know that Mr. Golestan also had taken credit for the photo in classes he taught, according to several of his photojournalism students at Tehran University.
When Mr. Golestan died in 2003, after stepping on a landmine in Iraq, newspapers around the world reported that he had won a Pulitzer Prize. His widow, Hengameh Golestan, says her late husband never took credit for the photo and that the obituaries were mistaken. Mrs. Golestan says she knows Mr. Razmi took the photo.
On the fourth floor of a cement apartment building in northern Tehran, Mr. Razmi sat on a dimpled leather couch. His living room walls were barren of his work. Beside him on his couch, his son Ali sat rapt, tamping down a pinch of Cavendish tobacco in his father’s pipe. Mr. Razmi struck a match and puffed.
“My sons have told me a lot of times that I should go and prove that I am the photographer,” Mr. Razmi said, his voice soft and his eyes cast down. “I said, ‘No. Better not.’ “
It is understandable why he feared claiming credit for such a public indictment of the Islamic Revolution. The hardline Mr. Ahmadinejad, elected in June 2005, shuttered Shargh, the country’s last large reformist newspaper, three months ago. Mr. Razmi also was still the official government photographer and returned the next morning to the presidential residence to shoot Mr. Ahmadinejad’s cabinet, including the defense minister who in 1979 helped quell the Kurds.
But Mr. Razmi, who is now 58, said part of him always wanted to step forward. He was disappointed when he first saw that his photo didn’t carry his name. He was irked when others took credit, people who “never feel the danger,” he said. And all the time, he was weighted by his secret, that of an ordinary man witness to extraordinary events. “Without this picture,” he said, “I wouldn’t be anything.”
Emboldened by time and dismayed by the opportunism of his fellow photographers, Mr. Razmi decided the moment was right to tell his tale after this newspaper approached him. “My name should be there,” he said.
Minced lamb and baghali polo - a dish of green rice and beans - awaited Mr. Razmi at home, and he sat down to eat with his wife and sons, his sister, two nephews and his father-in-law. They talked about Mr. Razmi identifying himself, for the first time, as the anonymous photographer.
Mr. Razmi had done nothing wrong, they reasoned. He photographed the execution with the permission of the judge. He turned over his negatives to the photo editor. He described his work to the prison guard. He wasn’t the one who sent the six images abroad. He didn’t earn a single rial or credit from his photo, the rights to which had passed from UPI to the Bettmann Archive to Corbis Corp.
The family approved of his decision to come forward. Voicing hope that it wouldn’t harm Mr. Razmi, eight people around the table spoke as one: “Inshallah,” if Allah wills it.
Past midnight, Mr. Razmi retreated to a bedroom closet and lifted his canvas camera bag by the faded strap that had hung over his shoulder during the 1979 revolution. Here in pale black ink on the inside flap of a pocket was written in Farsi, “Jahangir Razmi, Ettela’at, 328 331” —the newsroom number to phone in the event of his death.
Mr. Razmi returned to his living room. He had unearthed his contact sheet and stills for his annual look back at the execution. “I have pictures that have never been published,” he said.
The photographer held in his right hand a sheaf of black-and-white photographs, 27 images that were 26 years, five days old. He withdrew from a plastic sleeve a furling photo of the sandwich maker who cried as he waited to be shot.
Mr. Razmi thrust it forward. “Who has this picture?” he asked, his voice rising. “Nobody.” He thrust forward a photo of the dust that rose over 11 fallen men. “Who has this picture?” he asked. “Nobody.” He thrust forward a photo of the bodyguard surveying the men he had shot. “Who has this picture?” he asked. “Nobody.”
Mr. Razmi returned the photos to the sleeve that had held them since 1979. And for the first time since he had secreted them home in a folded newspaper, he put them in a Samsonite briefcase he had long used to store chosen photos from his career.
Says Mr. Razmi: “There’s no more reason to hide.”
Write to Joshua Prager at joshua.prager@wsj.com
by Newsha Tavakolian at Tue Dec 05 17:09:30 UTC 2006 (ed. Mar 14 2007)
A Chilling Photograph’s Hidden History Twenty-six years ago, a picture of an execution in Iran won the Pulitzer Prize. But the man who took it remained anonymous. Until now. The Ayatollah’s agents come calling By JOSHUA PRAGER December 2, 2006; Page A1
TEHRAN—On Aug. 27, 1979, two parallel lines of 11 men formed on a field of dry dirt in Sanandaj, Iran. One group wore blindfolds. The other held rifles. The command came in Farsi to fire: “Atesh!” Behind the soldier farthest to the right, a 12th man also shot, his Nikon camera and Kodak film preserving in black and white a mass execution.
Within hours, the photo ran across six columns in Ettela’at, the oldest newspaper in Iran. Within days, it appeared on front pages around the world. Within weeks, the new Iranian government annexed the offending paper. Within months, the photo won the Pulitzer Prize.
Jahangir Razmi The photograph that won the Pulitzer. Taken seven months after Islamic radicals overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah, the photo remains one of the most famous images of Iran. It is an icon of government terror, invoked in critiques of the regime from the 1979 poem “Screaming,” to the 1986 music video “Speak To Me From My Land, Iran” to the 1997 book “Kurdistan.” Davood and Davar Ghassemlouie, brothers who operate a photo shop in Los Angeles, say they have made tens of thousands of reprints for demonstrators, including 200 in late September when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the U.S.
Says Shahrokh Hatami, a pioneer of Iranian photojournalism: “It is the most revealing photograph of the beginning of the Iranian revolution.”
Ettela’at, however, didn’t print the photographer’s name, fearing his safety. The Pulitzer was officially awarded to “an unnamed photographer of United Press International,” the news service that distributed the photo in the U.S. It remains the only time the award has ever been given to an anonymous recipient.
In the years since, several people have falsely claimed to be “Anonymous.” When Iran’s most famous photographer died in 2003, his obituaries were filled with mentions of a Pulitzer some say he had insinuated winning. Last September, another prominent Iranian photographer living in France was quoted in Paris Match magazine claiming credit for the work.
In fact, nearly three decades after the epochal photograph first appeared, almost no one knows who took it.
* * Jahangir Razmi grew up in the industrial city of Arak, in central Iran, the first child of a housewife and military clerk. Governed by the Shah, the nation was at peace. The boy was shy and happiest in a local photo shop helping a cousin develop film and shoot portraits of brides and soldiers. In 1960, at the age of 12, he bought a Russian Lubitel-2 camera.
THE PHOTOGRAPHS
The full set of 27 photographs Mr. Razmi preserved on a contact sheet and stowed away in his home, made public for the first time. DEVELOPMENT OF A PHOTO
Learn more about nine people who played roles either in an execution or in the publication and misattribution of Mr. Razmi’s photograph. WALL STREET JOURNAL VIDEO
Joshua Prager details his quest to track down the anonymous Pulitzer prize-winning photographer.He quickly put it to use. When one day a boy shot a girl dead outside his studio, a reporter urged Jahangir to photograph the scene. He did, the skirt and shirt of a bloodied school uniform preserved in the newsprint of Ettela’at.
When his father died, Mr. Razmi says he found work in a Tehran photo shop. When he served in the army, he found reprieve from military drills in a darkroom on base. When he photographed a 20th birthday party, he found a wife. And when Ettela’at—Farsi for “Information” —hired him in 1973 to shoot breaking news, he found a career.
“Although we were colleagues and there was a competition, his pictures were better,” says Jafar Danyeli, then one of seven staff photographers. Razmi, as everyone called him, paid attention to composition and chiaroscuro, the interplay of light and shadow. He sat at the desk closest to the stairwell. “I was always the volunteer to go,” says Mr. Razmi, then 25. “I was quick. I was young. I was braver than anyone else.”
On Jan. 16, 1979, the Shah fled Iran following mass demonstrations protesting his rule. Sixteen days later, Ayatollah Khomeini, a radical Islamic cleric, returned from France and seized control. Mr. Razmi photographed Mr. Khomeini in his Qom headquarters so regularly that he came to greet the imam with a handshake. Using his favorite Nikon lens, a 28mm wide-angle lens with automatic focus, Mr. Razmi chronicled the conversion of Iran to theocracy from autocracy.
By August, about 500 alleged counter-revolutionaries and officials of the former regime had been executed. The judiciary decreed it illegal to criticize Islam and Iran’s spiritual leaders. A holding company formed by the regime appropriated Kayhan, the only newspaper in Iran larger than Ettela’at. Journalists who pushed back at censorship under the Shah were petrified.
“Under Khomeini they would kill you,” says Amir Taheri, then editor of Kayhan and now a political analyst living in England. “It was a different ballgame.”
On Aug. 16, Mr. Khomeini called on Iranian troops to suppress restive Kurds hoping for autonomy. Thousands of soldiers headed 300 miles northwest to the Iranian province of Kurdistan. Mr. Razmi and Khalil Bahrami, an Ettela’at reporter, followed.
Jahangir Razmi with the Nikon camera he used to photograph an execution on Aug. 27, 1979. Ten days later, Mr. Bahrami received a tip that a judge he had befriended was set to try Kurds in an antechamber of the municipal airport at Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan. The reporter, then 37, had worked at Ettela’at for 22 years and was thankful he was paired with the young Mr. Razmi, whose father had lived in Sanandaj and had raised his son to admire the Kurds and their traditions. “He knew his responsibility,” says Mr. Bahrami, who lives in Iran and is retired. “And he was quicker than the others.”
At the airport, Mr. Razmi stood ready outside the makeshift courtroom as 10 handcuffed men filled a wooden bench before the judge, a black-bearded Shiite cleric named Sadegh Khalkhali. An injured 11th prisoner lay on a stretcher beside the door.
The judge removed his turban, Mr. Bahrami recalls. He removed his shoes. He put his feet on a chair. Scanning the prisoners through thick eyeglasses, he asked their names. Officers of the court told of the defendants’ alleged crimes—of trafficking arms, inciting riots and murder. The prisoners, some with leftward or nationalist leanings, denied the accusations.
No evidence was presented, Mr. Bahrami says. “It was pure speculation.” After roughly 30 minutes, Mr. Khalkhali declared the 11 men “corrupt on earth” - mofsedin fel arz - the Koranic phrase he cited before issuing a sentence of death. A few of the men cried.
Mr. Bahrami summoned his colleague Mr. Razmi. “It was Razmi’s luck that day that he was with me,” the reporter says.
Mr. Razmi withdrew from his green canvas shoulder bag a 35-80mm lens and attached the zoom to his Nikon FE. The handcuffed men were blindfolded. Each put his hand on the shoulder of the man before him and together they walked single-file through the airport’s concrete lobby, through a metal doorframe and toward an open airfield. Mr. Razmi darted ahead and shot, untroubled by security forces: “I was totally free,” he says. Unbeknownst to Mr. Razmi, a soldier present also was taking pictures, which were never published.
The caravan passed roughly 30 airport workers, both men say. Up front walked Mr. Razmi. In the rear, both men say, was Ali Karimi, one of the judge’s bodyguards, wearing white shoes, white pants, white shirt, sunglasses and twin hip holsters. After about 100 yards, an officer halted the condemned on a plain of dry dirt. All but one of the executioners tied about their own heads Iranian shawls called chafiyehs. Both the faces of the Shiites and the eyes of the Kurds were now concealed.
Mr. Karimi asked the prisoners if they had last words, the two journalists recall. The men didn’t, all silent save a man Mr. Bahrami later reported to be Essa Pirvali, who wept aloud. A sandwich maker, he belonged to no political party but possessed a handgun and had been accused of murder. “He was scared,” Mr. Razmi says. “He wouldn’t stand.” The soldiers instructed a fellow prisoner to hold him.
An afternoon sun shone behind the prisoners and Mr. Razmi reached for his 28mm lens. He sidled in behind members of the firing squad, who stood in brown leather boots laced to the calf. He thought, he says, only about “speed and angle.” The prisoners stood in plainclothes. The firing squad crouched in camouflage.
“Afrad mosallah!,” yelled the commanding officer, calling his troops to attention. His charges aimed their G3 rifles at the midsections of the men standing little more than a body’s length away.
Standing farthest to the right, Naser Salimi, an employee of the Sanandaj health department, raised his right hand to his chest. It was bandaged, injured in a street fight that had led to his sentencing, according to contemporary newspaper reports. Opposite him, the only soldier who wore no chafiyeh raised his rifle.
Mr. Razmi stood a few feet behind this unmasked gunman. He raised his camera. At 4:30 p.m., the command came to fire: “Atesh!” Eleven guns discharged. Eleven bodies dropped. “When they fell, it was dusty,” Mr. Razmi says. The photographer lowered his camera.
The soldiers eyed Mr. Karimi, the judge’s bodyguard, lifting a pistol off his right hip. Not all of the men were dead, the photographer recalls. The bodyguard leaned over Ahsan Nahid, the injured prisoner on the stretcher, and fired one bullet into his head. Mr. Razmi snapped his Nikon. Mr. Karimi stepped to the next man and shot him, too. He proceeded along—one bullet per body, both journalists say. (Recent efforts to locate Mr. Karimi were unsuccessful.)
WITHIN MINUTES, ambulances ferried away the 11 bodies, airport workers returned to work, the huddle of soldiers thinned and Mr. Razmi stowed his two rolls of Kodak 400 film in a pocket of his canvas bag. After a helicopter flight landed the pair too late to cover a second execution, Mr. Razmi left his colleague, flagged a passing minibus and returned to the airport in Sanandaj, where at 8 a.m. the only daily flight to Tehran departed.
The photographer fell asleep. He was awakened at a checkpoint by shouts from airport officers, the same men who had shared their lunch with him the previous afternoon as they awaited the Kurdish prisoners. “It’s me!” yelled Mr. Razmi. “Jahangir!” The men held their fire. Mr. Razmi told them he had film and an article that had to get back to Tehran. “I put it in an envelope and gave it to the flight attendant,” he says, needing to continue his work in the region.
Mr. Razmi called Ettela’at, which dispatched a courier to the airport. The man picked up the white envelope from Tehran airport and delivered it to the newspaper. Ali Akbar Moradi, head of the paper’s darkroom, says he knew the 70 exposures were taken by Mr. Razmi and that he turned them into two contact sheets with the help of a technician. An office runner gave them to the photo editor, the late Fereydoun Ebrahimzadeh, who marked the frames he wished turned into prints and delivered them to Mohammed Heydari, the chief Ettela’at editor, Mr. Heydari says.
Mr. Heydari was examining the layout of that day’s front page and flipped through the stills. At about noon, he says, he stopped, overwhelmed by a single image of the moment when some of the squadron had fired and some hadn’t. Bodies fell. Dust rose.
Mr. Heydari, then 35, had little time to think—the afternoon paper was about to go to print. He says he told himself that the country was conflicted over the killing of the Kurds and angry over censorship. He decided to publish the photograph, although not in the edition distributed in the Kurdistan province, where it would be tantamount to a call to arms. “Considering the political climate, I knew I could get away with it,” Mr. Heydari says.
The Ettela’at editor made another snap decision. The photograph would run with no credit. “I was aware that if I published his name, he would be in danger,” Mr. Heydari says. “I wanted to protect Razmi.”
By 2 p.m., newsstands across Tehran trumpeted word of the Kurdish executions. The banner headline read: “Forty People Executed in Sanandaj, Marivan and Saqqez.” The accompanying photograph was a sensation, the seven months of Iranian firing squads distilled to one image.
Copies of Ettela’at sold out and representatives of international news agencies hustled to Khayam Street to buy prints. The photo editor, Mr. Ebrahimzadeh, “sold it to everyone like he was selling French fries,” says Alfred Yaghobzadeh, 47, then a photographer for the Associated Press, now a photojournalist based in France.
The first to arrive at Ettela’at was Sajid Rizvi of United Press International. Mr. Rizvi, then 30, had seen the newspaper at his home, ordered a copy by phone and sped off in the company’s pistachio-colored sedan. He picked up the photo roughly 15 minutes later inside the Ettela’at newsroom.
“It was almost wet when I took it,” says Mr. Rizvi, now editor of an arts publishing house in London. “I don’t think I have ever seen a picture as moving as that,” he says. “It is a picture between life and death.”
Mr. Rizvi asked who had snapped it. “They said, ‘better not to give out the name of the photographer.’ ” Once home, he walked into the bathroom he had converted into a darkroom, dried the photo with a hairdryer, composed a caption on his yellow Olympus typewriter, phoned the UPI desk in Brussels and transmitted the print.
Genghis Seren, a photo editor in Brussels, sat transfixed beside the company UniFax. “The drama of that machine was that the picture took 15 minutes to complete,” recalls Mr. Seren, then 25 years old and in his first year at UPI. “It came a 10th of an inch after a 10th of an inch…. It was something!” Mr. Seren forwarded the photo to UPI bureaus in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and to company headquarters in Manhattan.
“It was transmitted to us with no name,” says Larry DeSantis, the UPI managing editor who received the photo 11 stories above 42nd Street. “Not knowing who made it interested me.”
At about 3 p.m., several armed agents from the Islamic Revolutionary Council arrived at Ettela’at, ascended four flights and entered the office of the editor, Mr. Heydari. They asked for the negative of the photo and asked to speak with the photo editor, Mr. Heydari recalls.
Mr. Heydari refused. “I said, ‘No. I am the editor. I take full responsibility.’ ” Mr. Heydari says he told the men: “If I am arrested, the negative consequences will outweigh the effect of this photo.”
The chief agent backed off. Both men telephoned government and religious officials, and the judge who ordered the executions radioed the agent seated beside Mr. Heydari, the editor says.
Mr. Khalkhali, the judge, declared the photo a fabrication and told the agent to arrest the editor, Mr. Heydari says. He says he responded by offering to show the negatives to the agent “as long as you agree not to use force to confiscate them.”
The agent agreed and viewed the negatives with two fellow officials. “They were astonished,” recalls Mr. Heydari. The agent made another call and told Iran’s attorney general that “the newspaper has been considerate to only publish this one,” Mr. Heydari remembers. The agents left with one proviso: Upon their return from Kurdistan, Messrs. Bahrami and Razmi should come in for questioning.
THAT SAME DAY, Mr. DeSantis, the UPI editor, had prints of the photo distributed by motorcycle to the New York papers and by telephoto machine to thousands of papers across the country. On Aug. 29, the New York Times, Washington Post, Der Tagesspiegel in Berlin and the Daily Telegraph in London were among the many newspapers to run it. Nearly all credited UPI.
“Our play was fabulous,” exults Mr. DeSantis, now retired. “It was a once in a lifetime…. Like it was a movie set. One guy kneeling, aiming. One guy falling. A mass execution.”
Mr. Razmi remained in Kurdistan, where at a Sanandaj newsstand he came across a copy of Ettela’at featuring one of his other photos showing the blindfolded men standing in wait. He understood why his more incendiary photographs were unprinted but nonetheless was disappointed. “I expected my name to be published,” he says.
Two days later, reporter and photographer returned to the Ettela’at office in Sanandaj. The office manager lifted from his desk the Tehran edition of the paper that had reported the execution, they recall. He said copies brought to Kurdistan were selling for more than double the cover price. The manager was a Kurd and Mr. Razmi recalls him saying: ” ‘We have to build a statue of gold of you.’ And because of what he told me, I understood that this photo was dangerous.”
Close readers of Ettela’at could have surmised Mr. Razmi was the photographer. On Aug. 26, the day before the execution, the newspaper named him as one of three employees it had sent “to the Western portion of the country.” An Aug. 29, the day after the photo ran, the paper reported on its front page that he and Mr. Bahrami had been “sent to Kurdistan.”
Home in Tehran, after a long shower, Mr. Razmi spoke about the execution to his wife and again the next morning to curious colleagues in the newsroom. He says he asked Mr. Heydari why his photo had carried no credit and didn’t object when the editor explained his worry. “I told him jokingly that you would have also been executed in Kurdistan on the spot,” Mr. Heydari says.
Mr. Razmi walked to the newspaper darkroom and saw for the first time what had been the 18th exposure of his first roll of film. “There I realized what I had taken,” he says. Turning on the red safelights in the studio, the photographer made prints of eight stills and preserved on a contact sheet 27 of his 70 photographs.
Mr. Razmi asked the darkroom supervisor for his negatives and locked them in the middle of his three metal drawers together with his other prints. A few days later, he slipped the contact sheet and stills into the fold of a newspaper and hid them in his home, “somewhere no one would have noticed,” he says. The next morning, he returned to Kurdistan.
On Sept. 9, the Islamic Revolutionary Council published a notice in the Islamic Revolution newspaper: “we hereby draw your attention to the picture which was published on the front page of [Ettela’at] on 6/6/1358 and was objected to harshly by the public.” It continued: “If this occurs again, serious decisions will be made.”
A serious decision already had been made. The day before, the Foundation for the Disinherited—the holding company that in August had swallowed Kayhan, Iran’s largest paper—also seized Ettela’at. Overnight, the paper, privately held since 1920, became state-owned.
The image continued to spread. Reza Deghati, then 27, a free-lance Iranian photographer, had seen the photo. It is “the most stirring execution picture in the history of photojournalism, of the human being,” he says. Mr. Deghati says he procured five additional photos of the execution from an Ettela’at employee and mailed them to SIPA, the Paris agency that had been publishing his own photos since the revolution.
Goksin Sipahioglu says he received the prints from Mr. Deghati at his agency on Paris’s Rue Roquepine. Even though UPI had already published one, Michele Sola, photo editor of Paris Match magazine, paid 14,000 French francs (about $10,000 today) for the additional prints. Mr. Sipahioglu forwarded half that sum to Mr. Deghati in Tehran.
The magazine went on sale in Paris days before its Sept. 21, 1979, cover date. About 2,600 miles east, readers in Iran turned to page 66. Titled “Les Kurdes, sous les balles d’Allah” (“The Kurds, under Allah’s bullets”), the photos spread rapidly. People paid 20 times the cover price for the magazine, and dozens of Iranians tacked the photos about town.
No one, however, neither Mr. Razmi nor the Iranian brain trust, seemed to notice the magazine’s erroneous credit - “Reza (Sipa)” - printed in the lower left corner of the index page. “When someone sends a picture to us,” explains Mr. Sipahioglu, “we always credit him.”
Mr. Deghati says he sent SIPA a letter saying he didn’t take the photos and that SIPA sent out a news release via the AP retracting his name. Representatives at SIPA, Paris Match and the AP don’t recall Mr. Deghati clarifying the matter and didn’t find such a release in their archives.
Mr. Razmi returned from Kurdistan in late September and Mr. Ebrahimzadeh approached him at his desk. The photo editor asked for the negatives of the 70 photos and extended his hand. “I couldn’t protest,” Mr. Razmi says. “It belonged to him.” He unlocked his metal drawer. Mr. Ebrahimzadeh told the photographer the police wished to speak to him in Tehran’s Evin prison, Mr. Razmi recalls.
Mr. Razmi says he arrived at the prison with Mr. Bahrami and two Ettela’at editors, and quickly found himself alone with the late Asadollah Lajevardi, a future warden of the prison already notorious for torturing inmates. As part of his newspaper duties, Mr. Razmi had often photographed men housed in Evin whom the state would soon execute. “I had a right to be nervous,” he says.
Mr. Lajevardi asked him who had photographed the Sanandaj execution, Mr. Razmi says. When Mr. Razmi said he had, the guard asked why he had hidden his negatives in the drawer. “So that no one would take them,” Mr. Razmi recalls answering.
He told Mr. Lajevardi that he had permission from the judge to shoot the scene and that he hadn’t sent the pictures overseas. The interrogation was soft, and it became apparent to Mr. Razmi that he wouldn’t be harmed. Mr. Razmi returned to the paper, and a few weeks later was consumed with work when, on Nov. 4, Iranian students took hostages inside the U.S. Embassy.
The next month, UPI managing editor Mr. DeSantis sat down to submit his newswire’s best work of the year for awards. At the top of his list was the execution photo. “I was a very good picture editor,” Mr. DeSantis says, “but on this one you could be a dumb dog and pick this out.”
That neither he nor anyone at UPI knew who took the photo was of little concern. The agency had been the first to provide it to the press and presented it as the work of an unnamed UPI photographer, which, says Mr. DeSantis, he assumed it was. “It came on the UPI wire,” he explains.
“Because of the present unrest in Iran,” wrote the editor to the Pulitzer committee, “the name of the photographer cannot be revealed at this time.”
Mr. Razmi didn’t know his photograph had been nominated for the Pulitzer. He didn’t know the jury nominating finalists for Spot News Photography was overwhelmed by the entry UPI titled, “Firing Squad in Iran.” Robert Duffy, then an editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and chairman of the jury, says he informally lobbied a member of the Pulitzer Board that spring to pick the photo. “We were hell-bent on giving the prize to ‘Anonymous,’ ” he says.
On April 14, 1980, seven days after the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Iran, ‘Anonymous’ won the Pulitzer Prize. Mr. Heydari told Mr. Razmi the news. But the same people who, in effect, had ordered the execution now owned his employer. Mr. Heydari says he was fired two months later. Representatives of the paper cancelled an August 2005 appointment at their Tehran head office and declined to be interviewed for this article.
Ettela’at didn’t report news of its prize-winning employee. Mr. Razmi says he “didn’t have the guts to celebrate.”
UPI did. The newswire flew its Tehran bureau chief Mr. Rizvi to the U.S. and had him speak to subscribers. “They were trying to show me off,” he says. Asked about the anonymous photographer, Mr. Rizvi recalls answering: “Eventually it will be revealed.”
IN THE SPRING, Ettela’at promoted Mr. Razmi, then 32, to photo editor. Iraq attacked Iran in September and Mr. Razmi covered the war. A mortar deafened his right ear in 1987. When months later Ettela’at asked him to work in Iraq, he decided he was tired of war. He quit his employer of 15 years, sold the home he had built by himself in a leafy neighborhood of northern Tehran, bought an apartment and opened a photography studio.
Forty years old, the photographer had come full circle, developing film and shooting portraits as he had as a boy. Says Mr. Razmi: “I was looking for a peaceful life.”
Mr. Razmi called the studio “Abgineh,” the Farsi word for glassware, which he says connoted for him the clarity of water. He didn’t advertise the studio. Still, six days a week, brides in gowns flocked to the shop, looked at Mr. Razmi and smiled.
Mr. Razmi thought often of Sanandaj. In his shop, he hung a large portrait of a boy wearing a Kurdish shawl and sash. Every summer, during the month of Shahrivar, he locked himself in his bedroom and looked at the execution photographs he had hidden.
On Aug. 3, 1997, three weeks before Shahrivar, Mohammad Khatami took office as president of Iran and hired Hashem Taleb to head his public relations. Mr. Razmi had met Mr. Taleb years before and saw a business opportunity. He drove to the office of the president, pronounced the headshots of Iranian officials unbefitting their rank and “suggested I take photographs of the president and the cabinet,” he recalls. Mr. Taleb hired him.
Days later, Mr. Razmi, the first “Official Photographer of the President and his Cabinet,” set up his flash umbrellas inside the Iranian presidential residence at the intersection of Palestine and Pastor streets. He shot pictures of the new government. He developed the color portraits. Before mailing the prints to the president’s office, he stamped his name on the back of each.
The name Jahangir Razmi, however, remained unconnected to his most famous photograph. Monir Nahid, mother of two of the executed men, who has since settled in Los Angeles, says over time, “10, 20 people came to me and said, ‘I took the picture.’ “
Among them, say Mrs. Nahid and her daughter, was Mr. Deghati, the stringer who in 1979 sent the photo to Paris Match. Mr. Deghati, who left Iran in 1981 and today lives in France working for Magnum Photos, says he has never met the Nahids. Last September, Paris Match magazine quoted him saying he took the photo, adding in French that Mr. Khomeini “was furious.” Mr. Deghati says he knows Mr. Razmi took the photo, and that the magazine misquoted him.
Mr. Razmi says he first learned about a decade ago that others were claiming his work. Kaveh Golestan, Iran’s best-known photographer, reported to him that Mr. Deghati had said as much at a European photo exhibit. Mr. Razmi didn’t know that Mr. Golestan also had taken credit for the photo in classes he taught, according to several of his photojournalism students at Tehran University.
When Mr. Golestan died in 2003, after stepping on a landmine in Iraq, newspapers around the world reported that he had won a Pulitzer Prize. His widow, Hengameh Golestan, says her late husband never took credit for the photo and that the obituaries were mistaken. Mrs. Golestan says she knows Mr. Razmi took the photo.
On the fourth floor of a cement apartment building in northern Tehran, Mr. Razmi sat on a dimpled leather couch. His living room walls were barren of his work. Beside him on his couch, his son Ali sat rapt, tamping down a pinch of Cavendish tobacco in his father’s pipe. Mr. Razmi struck a match and puffed.
“My sons have told me a lot of times that I should go and prove that I am the photographer,” Mr. Razmi said, his voice soft and his eyes cast down. “I said, ‘No. Better not.’ “
It is understandable why he feared claiming credit for such a public indictment of the Islamic Revolution. The hardline Mr. Ahmadinejad, elected in June 2005, shuttered Shargh, the country’s last large reformist newspaper, three months ago. Mr. Razmi also was still the official government photographer and returned the next morning to the presidential residence to shoot Mr. Ahmadinejad’s cabinet, including the defense minister who in 1979 helped quell the Kurds.
But Mr. Razmi, who is now 58, said part of him always wanted to step forward. He was disappointed when he first saw that his photo didn’t carry his name. He was irked when others took credit, people who “never feel the danger,” he said. And all the time, he was weighted by his secret, that of an ordinary man witness to extraordinary events. “Without this picture,” he said, “I wouldn’t be anything.”
Emboldened by time and dismayed by the opportunism of his fellow photographers, Mr. Razmi decided the moment was right to tell his tale after this newspaper approached him. “My name should be there,” he said.
Minced lamb and baghali polo - a dish of green rice and beans - awaited Mr. Razmi at home, and he sat down to eat with his wife and sons, his sister, two nephews and his father-in-law. They talked about Mr. Razmi identifying himself, for the first time, as the anonymous photographer.
Mr. Razmi had done nothing wrong, they reasoned. He photographed the execution with the permission of the judge. He turned over his negatives to the photo editor. He described his work to the prison guard. He wasn’t the one who sent the six images abroad. He didn’t earn a single rial or credit from his photo, the rights to which had passed from UPI to the Bettmann Archive to Corbis Corp.
The family approved of his decision to come forward. Voicing hope that it wouldn’t harm Mr. Razmi, eight people around the table spoke as one: “Inshallah,” if Allah wills it.
Past midnight, Mr. Razmi retreated to a bedroom closet and lifted his canvas camera bag by the faded strap that had hung over his shoulder during the 1979 revolution. Here in pale black ink on the inside flap of a pocket was written in Farsi, “Jahangir Razmi, Ettela’at, 328 331” —the newsroom number to phone in the event of his death.
Mr. Razmi returned to his living room. He had unearthed his contact sheet and stills for his annual look back at the execution. “I have pictures that have never been published,” he said.
The photographer held in his right hand a sheaf of black-and-white photographs, 27 images that were 26 years, five days old. He withdrew from a plastic sleeve a furling photo of the sandwich maker who cried as he waited to be shot.
Mr. Razmi thrust it forward. “Who has this picture?” he asked, his voice rising. “Nobody.” He thrust forward a photo of the dust that rose over 11 fallen men. “Who has this picture?” he asked. “Nobody.” He thrust forward a photo of the bodyguard surveying the men he had shot. “Who has this picture?” he asked. “Nobody.”
Mr. Razmi returned the photos to the sleeve that had held them since 1979. And for the first time since he had secreted them home in a folded newspaper, he put them in a Samsonite briefcase he had long used to store chosen photos from his career.
Says Mr. Razmi: “There’s no more reason to hide.”
Write to Joshua Prager at joshua.prager@wsj.com
by Newsha Tavakolian at Tue Dec 05 17:09:30 UTC 2006 (ed. Mar 14 2007)
Magnum and women
Magnum and women
Hello all. I am new to Lightstalkers website and have yet to get all my info up, but that said I did want to comment on this thread about Magnum and women, age, Inge Morath award etc. As a woman photographer over 40 I think things have changed in the world of photography for women for the better, but it�s still not perfect. When I graduated from school with a BA and set out to get a job as a photography assistant I spent half of my time convincing men that I could carry 50-100 lb cases which I did for too many years, but that was how I learned and made money. I think the Inge Morath is an important award and will encourage young women, alias I am too old to apply. I did however apply to Magnum twice in my life. I was not accepted. I never thought of this a gender based decision, just that my work sucked. �. I met Elliott Erwitt a year or so ago, he signed a book for me when he asked what I wanted him to write I said, I am sorry you didn�t get into Magnum. Which he did and then added�.
�Oh well what the hell, that�s life.� You gotta smile even when it hurts.
Sarah Hoskins
Hello all. I am new to Lightstalkers website and have yet to get all my info up, but that said I did want to comment on this thread about Magnum and women, age, Inge Morath award etc. As a woman photographer over 40 I think things have changed in the world of photography for women for the better, but it�s still not perfect. When I graduated from school with a BA and set out to get a job as a photography assistant I spent half of my time convincing men that I could carry 50-100 lb cases which I did for too many years, but that was how I learned and made money. I think the Inge Morath is an important award and will encourage young women, alias I am too old to apply. I did however apply to Magnum twice in my life. I was not accepted. I never thought of this a gender based decision, just that my work sucked. �. I met Elliott Erwitt a year or so ago, he signed a book for me when he asked what I wanted him to write I said, I am sorry you didn�t get into Magnum. Which he did and then added�.
�Oh well what the hell, that�s life.� You gotta smile even when it hurts.
Sarah Hoskins
Q&A..
This is a very interesting Q&A...for those who do not know who David is..check out his work in (www.magnumphotos.com)..cheers...
David,
Question:- I really like your website and enjoyed the shot of Josef Koudelka at the bottom of the collage on your “family/friends” page. You say elsewhere that advertising shoots help pay the bills. How then does Koudelka continue to do it after all these years and still not work for commercial clients?! Best, Davin.
by Davin Ellicson Mon Mar 26 21:33:43 UTC 2007 (ed. Mar 28 2007) | Vienna,Austria |
davin..
Answer:- This is a good and fair question…....photographers are just like everyone else…their life circumstances vary…....elliott erwitt, for example, lives with a spectacular view of central park from an apartment that looks like a movie set ….his choice….larry towell has a spectacular view of corn fields and lives in a house which he mostly built and chops his own firewood…his choice…both men do great work…..both have exhibitions in fine museums and powerful books…..
elliott has higher “overhead” than larry….elliott does commercial work so that he may live the life he chooses…larry , like josef, does not like commercial work and therefore chooses a lifestyle that requires less funding…..again, the bottom line is the work…..so one person does it one way and one does it another….to me it does not matter as long as one is doing serious work that he/she can be proud of….and, most importantly, be a “free man” in your mind and in your heart…
remember that many great classic photographers like avedon, penn, evans, frank, arbus, winnogrand, etc etc etc all did commercial work…..many great comtemporary photographers do the same….
joseph koudelka prefers to sleep on a floor somewhere (a real gypsy at heart)...he sells his prints to finance a minimalist lifestyle….elliott who raised six children and sent them to college prefers a bed i suppose (and likes the cultured life of new york)...he does ad shoots…both men are well collected by museums and have the best art dealers…
the only danger with commercial work would be if it took over your life and a photographer “lost his way” because of it…started shooting too much of what someone else wanted..but, so much of elliott’s personal work came while he was actually on a commercial shoot…elliott is psychologically built to work that way…..i doubt joseph or larry could or would be comfortable working that way….to each his own…
i do not chop my own wood to heat my house, nor do i have a view of central park…i keep my expenses very very low so that i can be as free as possible to do all the projects i do which are not income producing…i.e. book production, printing for shows, workshops, etc.. my only income is from limited magazine production, archive sales and the rare advertising shoot…..i receive so few ad shoots (like maybe two per year) that there is no way they could “mess with my head”...besides, generally they are a lot of fun and they are usually things like “go to india and shoot color, or go to italy and shoot a street festival”..most of my commercial work relates to camera companies, film companies or printing companies so they are looking for a dah picture, not an interpretation of an art directors sketch…....i do not go into a studio and photograph a pair of shoes!!! so the funding from an ad shoot gives me the freedom to do what i want the rest of the time…..
for those of you who are struggling with this, you must just create a balance…your balance, not someone else’s balance….your life, not someone else’s…..
now i just have to figure out how to pay next months rent!!!!
cheers, david
by david alan harvey Wed Mar 28 05:53:23 UTC 2007 | new york,United States |
David,
Question:- I really like your website and enjoyed the shot of Josef Koudelka at the bottom of the collage on your “family/friends” page. You say elsewhere that advertising shoots help pay the bills. How then does Koudelka continue to do it after all these years and still not work for commercial clients?! Best, Davin.
by Davin Ellicson Mon Mar 26 21:33:43 UTC 2007 (ed. Mar 28 2007) | Vienna,Austria |
davin..
Answer:- This is a good and fair question…....photographers are just like everyone else…their life circumstances vary…....elliott erwitt, for example, lives with a spectacular view of central park from an apartment that looks like a movie set ….his choice….larry towell has a spectacular view of corn fields and lives in a house which he mostly built and chops his own firewood…his choice…both men do great work…..both have exhibitions in fine museums and powerful books…..
elliott has higher “overhead” than larry….elliott does commercial work so that he may live the life he chooses…larry , like josef, does not like commercial work and therefore chooses a lifestyle that requires less funding…..again, the bottom line is the work…..so one person does it one way and one does it another….to me it does not matter as long as one is doing serious work that he/she can be proud of….and, most importantly, be a “free man” in your mind and in your heart…
remember that many great classic photographers like avedon, penn, evans, frank, arbus, winnogrand, etc etc etc all did commercial work…..many great comtemporary photographers do the same….
joseph koudelka prefers to sleep on a floor somewhere (a real gypsy at heart)...he sells his prints to finance a minimalist lifestyle….elliott who raised six children and sent them to college prefers a bed i suppose (and likes the cultured life of new york)...he does ad shoots…both men are well collected by museums and have the best art dealers…
the only danger with commercial work would be if it took over your life and a photographer “lost his way” because of it…started shooting too much of what someone else wanted..but, so much of elliott’s personal work came while he was actually on a commercial shoot…elliott is psychologically built to work that way…..i doubt joseph or larry could or would be comfortable working that way….to each his own…
i do not chop my own wood to heat my house, nor do i have a view of central park…i keep my expenses very very low so that i can be as free as possible to do all the projects i do which are not income producing…i.e. book production, printing for shows, workshops, etc.. my only income is from limited magazine production, archive sales and the rare advertising shoot…..i receive so few ad shoots (like maybe two per year) that there is no way they could “mess with my head”...besides, generally they are a lot of fun and they are usually things like “go to india and shoot color, or go to italy and shoot a street festival”..most of my commercial work relates to camera companies, film companies or printing companies so they are looking for a dah picture, not an interpretation of an art directors sketch…....i do not go into a studio and photograph a pair of shoes!!! so the funding from an ad shoot gives me the freedom to do what i want the rest of the time…..
for those of you who are struggling with this, you must just create a balance…your balance, not someone else’s balance….your life, not someone else’s…..
now i just have to figure out how to pay next months rent!!!!
cheers, david
by david alan harvey Wed Mar 28 05:53:23 UTC 2007 | new york,United States |
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Zimbabwe journalist murdered 'over leaked Tsvangirai pictures'
Zimbabwe journalist murdered 'over leaked Tsvangirai pictures'
By Daniel Howden, Deputy Foreign Editor
Published: 04 April 2007
A local journalist suspected of having links to Zimbabwe's opposition has been found murdered following an escalation of the government's campaign of violence and intimidation.
Edward Chikombo, a part-time cameraman for the state broadcaster ZBC, was abducted from his home in the Glenview township outside Harare last week. His body was discovered at the weekend near the village of Darwendale, 50 miles west of the capital, The Independent has learnt.
There are concerns in Harare that the killing may be linked to the smuggling out of the country of television pictures of the badly injured opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai after he was beaten up by police on 11 March.
A former colleague of Mr Chikombo said: "It's not clear whether the murder was a message to the media or a political killing." The footage of Mr Tsvangirai leaving a Harare courthouse with a suspected fractured skull, and then lying in a hospital bed, provoked a storm of international criticism of Robert Mugabe's regime. Journalists for the state broadcaster routinely film news as it happens in the country but cannot use the footage in heavily censored bulletins. Some pictures do find a way out of the country and in the past staff at ZBC have been sacked or harassed under suspicion of selling it to foreign broadcasters.
The government has banned both the BBC and CNN from reporting from Zimbabwe and any unacc-redited journalist faces a two-year prison sentence.
Since taking power in 1980, Mr Mugabe has nationalised media outlets and the last independent voice disappeared with the recent closure of the Daily News. Local journalists are forced to work undercover for international outlets while accreditation papers are routinely refused to organisations seen as hostile.
Eyewitnesses saw a group of armed men abduct Mr Chikombo last Thursday. His captors drove a silver pick-up truck of the same make used in numerous similar abductions during a sustained three-week terror campaign targeting government opponents.
The pattern of abductions and punishment beatings has become a terrifying nightly ritual in Zimbabwe, where scores of opposition activists and their relatives have been attacked by gangs using unmarked cars and police-issue weapons. The government has refused to confirm or deny its involvement in these "hit squads" but Mr Mugabe has spoken of the police's right to "bash" the opposition and of "terrorist acts" by opponents.
Another local journalist, Gift Phiri, a senior reporter for the exiled The Zimbabwean newspaper, was detained and beaten by police on Sunday. Mr Phiri was picked up near his home in Sunningdale, in Harare. His lawyer, Rangu Nyamurundira, said his client had been badly beaten while in custody. "When I saw him, Gift could not sit down as he had been very badly beaten on his back and his buttocks. He told me four policemen, including the chief superintendent, had tortured him for hours.
"One of them pinned him to the floor with his boot, while the others beat him with an assortment of a baseball bat, metal handle and a police baton."
Shortly after his arrest Mr Phiri was accused of throwing petrol bombs at police stations but that charge was changed to, "practising as a journalist without accreditation".
Mr Phiri's newspaper confirmed that he had applied for accreditation but had received no response.
Meanwhile, a British journalist, Alex Perry, has left Zimbabwe after his arrest and release, Time magazine confirmed yesterday. He was detained for apparently entering the country without official media accreditation. Mr Perry, the South Africa correspondent for the news magazine, was arrested in Zimbabwe on Saturday, apparently for entering the country without official media accreditation. He was freed on Monday night by Zimbabwean police after paying a small fine.
Time said in a statement: "Time correspondent Alex Perry was briefly detained while on assignment in Gwanda, Zimbabwe. He has since been released and is no longer in the country."
By Daniel Howden, Deputy Foreign Editor
Published: 04 April 2007
A local journalist suspected of having links to Zimbabwe's opposition has been found murdered following an escalation of the government's campaign of violence and intimidation.
Edward Chikombo, a part-time cameraman for the state broadcaster ZBC, was abducted from his home in the Glenview township outside Harare last week. His body was discovered at the weekend near the village of Darwendale, 50 miles west of the capital, The Independent has learnt.
There are concerns in Harare that the killing may be linked to the smuggling out of the country of television pictures of the badly injured opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai after he was beaten up by police on 11 March.
A former colleague of Mr Chikombo said: "It's not clear whether the murder was a message to the media or a political killing." The footage of Mr Tsvangirai leaving a Harare courthouse with a suspected fractured skull, and then lying in a hospital bed, provoked a storm of international criticism of Robert Mugabe's regime. Journalists for the state broadcaster routinely film news as it happens in the country but cannot use the footage in heavily censored bulletins. Some pictures do find a way out of the country and in the past staff at ZBC have been sacked or harassed under suspicion of selling it to foreign broadcasters.
The government has banned both the BBC and CNN from reporting from Zimbabwe and any unacc-redited journalist faces a two-year prison sentence.
Since taking power in 1980, Mr Mugabe has nationalised media outlets and the last independent voice disappeared with the recent closure of the Daily News. Local journalists are forced to work undercover for international outlets while accreditation papers are routinely refused to organisations seen as hostile.
Eyewitnesses saw a group of armed men abduct Mr Chikombo last Thursday. His captors drove a silver pick-up truck of the same make used in numerous similar abductions during a sustained three-week terror campaign targeting government opponents.
The pattern of abductions and punishment beatings has become a terrifying nightly ritual in Zimbabwe, where scores of opposition activists and their relatives have been attacked by gangs using unmarked cars and police-issue weapons. The government has refused to confirm or deny its involvement in these "hit squads" but Mr Mugabe has spoken of the police's right to "bash" the opposition and of "terrorist acts" by opponents.
Another local journalist, Gift Phiri, a senior reporter for the exiled The Zimbabwean newspaper, was detained and beaten by police on Sunday. Mr Phiri was picked up near his home in Sunningdale, in Harare. His lawyer, Rangu Nyamurundira, said his client had been badly beaten while in custody. "When I saw him, Gift could not sit down as he had been very badly beaten on his back and his buttocks. He told me four policemen, including the chief superintendent, had tortured him for hours.
"One of them pinned him to the floor with his boot, while the others beat him with an assortment of a baseball bat, metal handle and a police baton."
Shortly after his arrest Mr Phiri was accused of throwing petrol bombs at police stations but that charge was changed to, "practising as a journalist without accreditation".
Mr Phiri's newspaper confirmed that he had applied for accreditation but had received no response.
Meanwhile, a British journalist, Alex Perry, has left Zimbabwe after his arrest and release, Time magazine confirmed yesterday. He was detained for apparently entering the country without official media accreditation. Mr Perry, the South Africa correspondent for the news magazine, was arrested in Zimbabwe on Saturday, apparently for entering the country without official media accreditation. He was freed on Monday night by Zimbabwean police after paying a small fine.
Time said in a statement: "Time correspondent Alex Perry was briefly detained while on assignment in Gwanda, Zimbabwe. He has since been released and is no longer in the country."
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
The obscenity of war debate...
From the Author:- In my blog I ran a story how the reputed photo agency 'Reuters', sacked one of their Middle East photographer for a doctored image during the recent Lebanon conflict. Though it will never be clear if the image above is also doctored to gain propaganda during the war the debate will go on for ever.
The obscenity of war-
This heart-rending front page photograph which a newspaper in Dubai ran on Monday has caused much debate, with opinions very much divided.
There was a particular letter complaining about it in the paper, and below is the reply from the Photo Director:
How can the image of a dead child help?
Your newspaper was not allowed into my house on Monday morning. I had it thrown straight into the bin. It is distressing enough to read of the deaths of innocent children in times of war and conflict but completely unnecessary to show that image on the front page.
What happened to the classic photojournalism of war-torn countries which has won awards over the years for its clear message without having to resort to graphic and brutal pictures of burning bodies and crushed limbs?
We live in times when violence is so commonplace on TV to the point where no one takes any notice of real conflict and pain. How can the image of that dead child change what is happening in Lebanon? It appears to me the real reason this photograph has been published is to increase the sales of the paper.
When we live in a country where many things are taboo, surely sickening visuals of this nature should be sensitively handled and kept out of the press altogether.
How do you explain this photo to a child who sees it in the home? How does he understand that this is different from the game he then goes off to play on his Playstation or the internet?
From Ms S. Backhouse, Dubai
Photo Director replies:
Photojournalists covering the war in Lebanon have provided arguably the most harrowing images of death and destruction in recent times. They risk their lives to document the war crimes being perpetrated against defenceless women and children. We as a newspaper recording history are obliged to show the truth of what is happening and at times the truth is painful.
You contend that classic photojournalism images that have won awards do not depict the brutal imagery which has appeared in English and most Arab newspapers of late. I beg to differ on this issue as the greatest award-winning images have more often than not been violent. The napalmed children running through the streets in Vietnam, charred soldiers in a tank in Iraq, the pilot's body being dragged through Mogadishu streets, the Vietcong being shot in the head at close range, the man being beaten while being burnt alive during apartheid in South Africa, the starving child being watched by a vulture in Sudan, the killing fields of Cambodia, starving children in Ethiopia, the hacked bodies during the genocide in Rwanda, Bhopal gas explosion horror one can go on and on.
Great news pictures conjure up great horrors, great sorrow and inevitably are immensely brutal.
The child being hoisted from the rubble in Lebanon will go down as a great image of this war for its sure message: the war has killed and is killing the innocents. These images which are being widely used in the Arab media are being generally ignored by the western media. The result is outrage in this region and amazing apathy in the western world. Censorship of these images, the truth, only serves the perpetrators of violence and allows their crimes against humanity to carry on unchecked.
It is our duty as a serious newspaper to expose this.
We live in the Playstation age where children and adults alike are desensitised by the carnage on their television sets because apparent "death" is so common and "resurrection" is a mere press of the button away. In real war there is no second chance or "restart" button and perhaps parents should be duty bound to explain the difference between "real" death and "cyber" death.
By throwing the newspaper in the bin you may have lost a great opportunity to teach your children about the reality of life and how different it is from Playstation's artificial life.
You ask: How can the image of that dead child change what is happening in Lebanon? Time will tell what impact it has but for sure there will be and already has been an impact on the minds of those who saw it.
Reading US, UK, Australian newspapers I see sanitised photos of the destruction. Buildings collapsed, people in hospital with a bandaged arm, crying women, but rarely a graphic photograph showing the true horror, the reality of what's happening.
Hiding the truth, sanitising the effects of barbarity will only help it to continue. People need to face up to the reality of what happens in war. To people on all sides of all wars. That's the only hope we have of ever stopping it.
By the way, the little boy in the photograph shouldn't stay nameless. Abbas Mahmoud Hashem. Just one more innocent victim.
posted by Seabee in Life in Dubai blog...
Friday, March 30, 2007
From Magnum Site...
Anyone who wants to know indept about magnum photo agency shall enjoy the stuff below...kp
General Information
Assignments
Most Magnum photographers are available to the editorial, commercial and cultural worlds for assignment. Please contact the appropriate Magnum office for more information. To view portfolios of individual and group work, go to the Photographers’ pages and view the portfolios as either a slideshow or as thumbnails.
Online Search
The online search selects from over 200,000 photographs that have been digitally scanned into the database. The four Magnum offices maintain a physical archive of over a million images dating from the 1930s until today, which can be accessed in person by researchers by official appointment. Please call the appropriate Magnum office for more information.
All searches on the archive are in English language only.
To search the archive, all users must register their company details and be approved by Magnum or the agents. The search facility is for use only by the photo licensing and buying. Magnum Photos may require extra information regarding the activities of you or your company before an account can be confirmed. If your interest in Magnum Photos is of an educational or vocational nature, then you are still free to browse the information pages, books, features, photographer biographies and portfolios.
The 'Image Search' searches through all the images within the digital database (around 350,000 images). There are two search types within this search and a number of extra filter options within the 'Image Search' screen. To see all the available options, click on 'Show' for the Advanced Criteria, the 'Sort Order', the 'Assisted Keywords' and 'Exclude'. For more information on the language, click on 'Help' on the search pages.
The 'Search Features' search engine looks through the Magnum database at all the Magnum features or stories, books and exhibitions since 1997 with a selection of features from pre-1997, and offers a selection of narrative feature packages rather than single images. For more information on the language, click on 'Help' on the search pages.
If you cannot find the image you require, call you nearest Magnum office or agent (see 'Contact Us') and a Magnum representative will search for you. There may be a service fee charge for an assisted search, which will be notified to you before the search commences.
Picture Licensing
All usage agreements are subject to a 'license to reproduce' a given image, which will be subject to an appropriate fee. Before Magnum or an agent can authorize an image to be downloaded, the license fee must be agreed beforehand. Please see the terms and conditions for more information.
Magnum reserves the right not to consent to allow any given image to be reproduced in a particular context. Contact the appropriate Magnum office or agent with your enquiry about reproducing a photograph. Please note that most images are not model-released unless stated at the image screen level.
Software Compatibility
On a PC, this web site is viewed best using Netscape Communicator or Netscape Navigator version 4.5 and above or Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 and above.
On a Macintosh, use Netscape Communicator or Netscape Navigator version 6 or Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 and above. The web site can be viewed in Netscape 4.5 to 4.7, but some features may be unclear on screen.
America Online browsers are not fully compatible with the site.
Cookies are used to remember your user ID and password details, but problems may be encountered if your computer does not accept these, or your system may be behind a server firewall which can make accessing secure servers difficult. Please contact the Magnum offices if you encounter any problems.
Downloads
All downloaded images from this web site are scanned as RGB or Grayscale digital files, compressed to 80% (Photoshop compression at 7 or above). The average file size for an A3 or Double Spread file is between 2 and 4MB. All digital files are minimally sharpened in order to retain the quality of the file. If you prefer to receive a digital file scanned or saved in a different format (for example an 80MB Tiff file saved onto a CD), please call the appropriate Magnum office or agent. There may be a charge for this extra service, which you will be notified of before the order is processed. You will need to note the image number (found on the enlarged image screen – e.g. PAR1234) before ordering.
Only registered users who have entered a mailing and billing profile and have been approved by either Magnum or an agent have access to non-watermarked comps.
Caption, copyright and licensing information can be found in the IPTC fields in every scan. If you would prefer to receive either a print, transparency instead of a digital file, please call the appropriate Magnum office or agent. There may be a charge for this extra service, which you will be notified of before the order is processed. You will need to note the image number (found on the enlarged image screen – e.g. PAR1234) before ordering.
Magnum Membership
Magnum Photos is a co-operative owned and run by its member photographers. The photographers meet once a year, during the last weekend in June, in New York, Paris or London, to discuss Magnum's affairs. One day at this meeting is set aside for considering and voting on potential new members' portfolios. Successful applicants will be invited to become a 'Nominee Member' of Magnum, a category of membership which presents an opportunity for Magnum and the individual to get to know each other, but where there are no binding commitments on either side. In each of the last 5 years, between zero and four new nominees have been selected from among the many portfolios presented.
After two years of Nominee membership, photographers then present another portfolio if they wish to apply for 'Associate Membership'. If successful, the photographer then becomes bound by all the rules of the agency, and enjoys all the facilities of its offices and worldwide representation. The only difference between an Associate Member and a full Member is that an Associate Member is not a Director of the Company and does not have voting rights in its corporate decision making. Finally, after another two years, an Associate member wishing to apply for full membership presents a further portfolio of work for consideration by the members. Once elected as a full member, this effectively confers membership of Magnum for life or for as long as the photographer chooses. No member photographer of Magnum has ever been asked to leave.
General Information
Assignments
Most Magnum photographers are available to the editorial, commercial and cultural worlds for assignment. Please contact the appropriate Magnum office for more information. To view portfolios of individual and group work, go to the Photographers’ pages and view the portfolios as either a slideshow or as thumbnails.
Online Search
The online search selects from over 200,000 photographs that have been digitally scanned into the database. The four Magnum offices maintain a physical archive of over a million images dating from the 1930s until today, which can be accessed in person by researchers by official appointment. Please call the appropriate Magnum office for more information.
All searches on the archive are in English language only.
To search the archive, all users must register their company details and be approved by Magnum or the agents. The search facility is for use only by the photo licensing and buying. Magnum Photos may require extra information regarding the activities of you or your company before an account can be confirmed. If your interest in Magnum Photos is of an educational or vocational nature, then you are still free to browse the information pages, books, features, photographer biographies and portfolios.
The 'Image Search' searches through all the images within the digital database (around 350,000 images). There are two search types within this search and a number of extra filter options within the 'Image Search' screen. To see all the available options, click on 'Show' for the Advanced Criteria, the 'Sort Order', the 'Assisted Keywords' and 'Exclude'. For more information on the language, click on 'Help' on the search pages.
The 'Search Features' search engine looks through the Magnum database at all the Magnum features or stories, books and exhibitions since 1997 with a selection of features from pre-1997, and offers a selection of narrative feature packages rather than single images. For more information on the language, click on 'Help' on the search pages.
If you cannot find the image you require, call you nearest Magnum office or agent (see 'Contact Us') and a Magnum representative will search for you. There may be a service fee charge for an assisted search, which will be notified to you before the search commences.
Picture Licensing
All usage agreements are subject to a 'license to reproduce' a given image, which will be subject to an appropriate fee. Before Magnum or an agent can authorize an image to be downloaded, the license fee must be agreed beforehand. Please see the terms and conditions for more information.
Magnum reserves the right not to consent to allow any given image to be reproduced in a particular context. Contact the appropriate Magnum office or agent with your enquiry about reproducing a photograph. Please note that most images are not model-released unless stated at the image screen level.
Software Compatibility
On a PC, this web site is viewed best using Netscape Communicator or Netscape Navigator version 4.5 and above or Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 and above.
On a Macintosh, use Netscape Communicator or Netscape Navigator version 6 or Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 and above. The web site can be viewed in Netscape 4.5 to 4.7, but some features may be unclear on screen.
America Online browsers are not fully compatible with the site.
Cookies are used to remember your user ID and password details, but problems may be encountered if your computer does not accept these, or your system may be behind a server firewall which can make accessing secure servers difficult. Please contact the Magnum offices if you encounter any problems.
Downloads
All downloaded images from this web site are scanned as RGB or Grayscale digital files, compressed to 80% (Photoshop compression at 7 or above). The average file size for an A3 or Double Spread file is between 2 and 4MB. All digital files are minimally sharpened in order to retain the quality of the file. If you prefer to receive a digital file scanned or saved in a different format (for example an 80MB Tiff file saved onto a CD), please call the appropriate Magnum office or agent. There may be a charge for this extra service, which you will be notified of before the order is processed. You will need to note the image number (found on the enlarged image screen – e.g. PAR1234) before ordering.
Only registered users who have entered a mailing and billing profile and have been approved by either Magnum or an agent have access to non-watermarked comps.
Caption, copyright and licensing information can be found in the IPTC fields in every scan. If you would prefer to receive either a print, transparency instead of a digital file, please call the appropriate Magnum office or agent. There may be a charge for this extra service, which you will be notified of before the order is processed. You will need to note the image number (found on the enlarged image screen – e.g. PAR1234) before ordering.
Magnum Membership
Magnum Photos is a co-operative owned and run by its member photographers. The photographers meet once a year, during the last weekend in June, in New York, Paris or London, to discuss Magnum's affairs. One day at this meeting is set aside for considering and voting on potential new members' portfolios. Successful applicants will be invited to become a 'Nominee Member' of Magnum, a category of membership which presents an opportunity for Magnum and the individual to get to know each other, but where there are no binding commitments on either side. In each of the last 5 years, between zero and four new nominees have been selected from among the many portfolios presented.
After two years of Nominee membership, photographers then present another portfolio if they wish to apply for 'Associate Membership'. If successful, the photographer then becomes bound by all the rules of the agency, and enjoys all the facilities of its offices and worldwide representation. The only difference between an Associate Member and a full Member is that an Associate Member is not a Director of the Company and does not have voting rights in its corporate decision making. Finally, after another two years, an Associate member wishing to apply for full membership presents a further portfolio of work for consideration by the members. Once elected as a full member, this effectively confers membership of Magnum for life or for as long as the photographer chooses. No member photographer of Magnum has ever been asked to leave.
Magnum 2007 Portfolio Submissions
Well this is a great opportunity to apply and get into this great photo agency...Good Luck...
007 Portfolio Submissions
Magnum Photos is a co-operative owned and run by its members/photographers. They meet once a year during the last weekend in June to discuss the organization’s affairs. One day of the meeting is set aside for looking at and voting on potential new members' portfolios.
Successful applicants will be invited to become a "Nominee", a category of membership which presents an opportunity for Magnum and the individual to get to know each other. At this stage there are no binding commitments on either side.
The next meeting will be held in New York in June 2007.
Photographers based in the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, Africa, South East Asia and the Middle East who wish to be considered should get their portfolios to Magnum Photos’ London office. Please email magnum@magnumphotos.co.uk if you have any further queries. Do note that Magnum London is only considering digital submissions in the first instance. Prints and other supporting material may be required at a later stage.
Those residing in the Americas should submit their portfolios to our New York office, which can be contacted on photography@magnumphotos.com. Do note that Magnum New York is only considering digital submissions in the first instance. Prints and other supporting material may be required at a later stage.
Photographers within Europe (excluding the United Kingdom) must submit portfolios to our Paris office: magnum@magnumphotos.fr.
Applicants must make their own arrangements to deliver and collect their portfolios if required. Magnum Photos cannot take responsibility for any portfolios sent by the post. Please make sure that all material is clearly labeled with contact details, content and the specific format. All portfolios will be ready for collection in July.
Please note that these are provisional details and are liable to change. Please phone or e-mail Magnum nearer the time to check dates.
We regret that due to confidentiality reasons, Magnum cannot give out personal information regarding our photographers, nor can we enter into correspondence regarding any decision made about Nomineeship.
Form of Submission:
The preferred format for submission is digital, however if the photographer has no access to this format, other forms of submission would be accepted.
Digital:
- Up to 80 images can be submitted digitally.
- Images should be submitted on a CD-ROM as JPEG files with compression 8-10.
- The resolution should be 72 dpi and the maximum size of each image should not exceed 700 x 950 pixels.
- Your images should be numbered in the order that you wish them to be presented, with the number coming first in the file name (to ensure the correct sequence use two digits, example: 01, 02, 03) and then your last name. F.ex. 01Smith, 02Smith, 03Smith etc. - Please do not use any spacing in the name.
- Please test the CD before you send it to us and be sure to label it with your name and contact details.
- If your portfolio does not meet these requirements, it will not be considered.
There are no such restrictions for submitting books, photographs or portfolios. However, your editing skills will be deemed as important as your ability to photograph so please bear this in mind when refining your submission.
Please also include a printed copy of your biography, artist statement or project description as well as list of captions to accompany your images.
Deadline: May 20, 2007 (at Magnum, not the postmark date)
Submissions should be sent to your nearest Magnum office:
Magnum Photos Inc./ Portfolio Review
151 West 25th Street 5th Floor
New York, NY 10001
USA
Magnum Photos/ Portfolio Review
19 Rue Hégésippe Moreau
75018 Paris
France
Magnum Photos Ltd./ Portfolio Review
63 Gee Street
London EC1V 3RS
United Kingdom
007 Portfolio Submissions
Magnum Photos is a co-operative owned and run by its members/photographers. They meet once a year during the last weekend in June to discuss the organization’s affairs. One day of the meeting is set aside for looking at and voting on potential new members' portfolios.
Successful applicants will be invited to become a "Nominee", a category of membership which presents an opportunity for Magnum and the individual to get to know each other. At this stage there are no binding commitments on either side.
The next meeting will be held in New York in June 2007.
Photographers based in the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, Africa, South East Asia and the Middle East who wish to be considered should get their portfolios to Magnum Photos’ London office. Please email magnum@magnumphotos.co.uk if you have any further queries. Do note that Magnum London is only considering digital submissions in the first instance. Prints and other supporting material may be required at a later stage.
Those residing in the Americas should submit their portfolios to our New York office, which can be contacted on photography@magnumphotos.com. Do note that Magnum New York is only considering digital submissions in the first instance. Prints and other supporting material may be required at a later stage.
Photographers within Europe (excluding the United Kingdom) must submit portfolios to our Paris office: magnum@magnumphotos.fr.
Applicants must make their own arrangements to deliver and collect their portfolios if required. Magnum Photos cannot take responsibility for any portfolios sent by the post. Please make sure that all material is clearly labeled with contact details, content and the specific format. All portfolios will be ready for collection in July.
Please note that these are provisional details and are liable to change. Please phone or e-mail Magnum nearer the time to check dates.
We regret that due to confidentiality reasons, Magnum cannot give out personal information regarding our photographers, nor can we enter into correspondence regarding any decision made about Nomineeship.
Form of Submission:
The preferred format for submission is digital, however if the photographer has no access to this format, other forms of submission would be accepted.
Digital:
- Up to 80 images can be submitted digitally.
- Images should be submitted on a CD-ROM as JPEG files with compression 8-10.
- The resolution should be 72 dpi and the maximum size of each image should not exceed 700 x 950 pixels.
- Your images should be numbered in the order that you wish them to be presented, with the number coming first in the file name (to ensure the correct sequence use two digits, example: 01, 02, 03) and then your last name. F.ex. 01Smith, 02Smith, 03Smith etc. - Please do not use any spacing in the name.
- Please test the CD before you send it to us and be sure to label it with your name and contact details.
- If your portfolio does not meet these requirements, it will not be considered.
There are no such restrictions for submitting books, photographs or portfolios. However, your editing skills will be deemed as important as your ability to photograph so please bear this in mind when refining your submission.
Please also include a printed copy of your biography, artist statement or project description as well as list of captions to accompany your images.
Deadline: May 20, 2007 (at Magnum, not the postmark date)
Submissions should be sent to your nearest Magnum office:
Magnum Photos Inc./ Portfolio Review
151 West 25th Street 5th Floor
New York, NY 10001
USA
Magnum Photos/ Portfolio Review
19 Rue Hégésippe Moreau
75018 Paris
France
Magnum Photos Ltd./ Portfolio Review
63 Gee Street
London EC1V 3RS
United Kingdom
places
i liked the play of the shadow in this picture and waited for a human to walk past to balance the image. I blured the woman here to get a dreamy feel to the image. Hatta,Dubai2007
places
After days work i was looking out for some water when i came across this picture in Hatta, a small township in the outskirts of Dubai.UAE.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
National Press Photographers Association
National Press Photographers Association
Reuters Concludes Lebanon Photos Investigation, Appoints Editor To Oversee Middle East
(January 18, 2007) – Today in London the editor in chief for Reuters reported in his blog a series of actions the news agency has taken in the aftermath of publishing two digitally altered photographs last August during the clash between Israel and Lebanon, including issuing a new code of conduct for the photographers and appointing a new senior editor to supervise photography operations in the Middle East.
Editor David Schlesinger announced that Stephen Crisp has been appointed to manage Middle Eastern photography operations, replacing an editor who was fired “in the course of the investigation for his handling of the case.” Crisp is a Reuters veteran who’s worked in the London bureau and run photography desks for Reuters in Asia, Europe, and globally since 1985.
Reuters refuses to name the editor who was fired, but more than one industry source has told News Photographer magazine that the editor was hired by a major news picture agency within days of his dismissal.
Schlesinger wrote that Reuters systematically terminated their relationship with the freelancer who altered the two images in question, Lebanese freelancer Adnan Haj, and assigned veteran picture editors and senior editorial staff to the task of going through thousands of images from the Lebanon conflict. He says they determined there were no other altered photographs outside of the two images in question. But their conclusion was that they were not satisfied with “the degree of oversight that we had that allowed these two images to slip through.”
In August two pictures were transmitted to Reuters News Pictures clients that were discovered to have been altered. One showed thick smoke rising from downtown Beirut after an Israeli bombing raid, and the smoke appears to have been awkwardly doctored using Photoshop’s cloning tool. It was discovered by several Web bloggers, and the controversy ignighted. In the course of investigating the picture, Reuters editors discovered a second Haj image that showed an Israeli F-16 during one of the raids which had been altered to increase from one to three the number of flares it was dropping, and in the caption the flares were identified as “missiles.”
Now in addition to appointing Crisp, Schlesinger said senior photographers were assembled and assigned to strengthen Reuters’ existing ethical guidelines. They were also asked to write a new code of conduct for the photography staff to follow.
“We have restructured our pictures editing operation to ensure that senior editors deal with all potential controversial photographs, and we have ensured that shift leaders are focusing solely on quality issues instead of doing editing themselves,” he said. Schlesinger also said that Reuters has brought in outside experts to consult them on the issues surrounding digital workflow, training, and supervision.
Schlesinger said that as a result of their investigation he’s convinced that there was no intention on the part of Reuters to mislead the public, and that “it was unfortunate human error that led to the inadvertent publication of two rogue photographs.”
The editors blog contains links to the new rules and guidelines regarding their photographers’ use of Photoshop, and a link to their code of values and standards.
Schlesinger has been Reuters editor in chief since December 2006, and he overseas 2,300 editorial staff in print, pictures, and television operations.
Reuters Concludes Lebanon Photos Investigation, Appoints Editor To Oversee Middle East
(January 18, 2007) – Today in London the editor in chief for Reuters reported in his blog a series of actions the news agency has taken in the aftermath of publishing two digitally altered photographs last August during the clash between Israel and Lebanon, including issuing a new code of conduct for the photographers and appointing a new senior editor to supervise photography operations in the Middle East.
Editor David Schlesinger announced that Stephen Crisp has been appointed to manage Middle Eastern photography operations, replacing an editor who was fired “in the course of the investigation for his handling of the case.” Crisp is a Reuters veteran who’s worked in the London bureau and run photography desks for Reuters in Asia, Europe, and globally since 1985.
Reuters refuses to name the editor who was fired, but more than one industry source has told News Photographer magazine that the editor was hired by a major news picture agency within days of his dismissal.
Schlesinger wrote that Reuters systematically terminated their relationship with the freelancer who altered the two images in question, Lebanese freelancer Adnan Haj, and assigned veteran picture editors and senior editorial staff to the task of going through thousands of images from the Lebanon conflict. He says they determined there were no other altered photographs outside of the two images in question. But their conclusion was that they were not satisfied with “the degree of oversight that we had that allowed these two images to slip through.”
In August two pictures were transmitted to Reuters News Pictures clients that were discovered to have been altered. One showed thick smoke rising from downtown Beirut after an Israeli bombing raid, and the smoke appears to have been awkwardly doctored using Photoshop’s cloning tool. It was discovered by several Web bloggers, and the controversy ignighted. In the course of investigating the picture, Reuters editors discovered a second Haj image that showed an Israeli F-16 during one of the raids which had been altered to increase from one to three the number of flares it was dropping, and in the caption the flares were identified as “missiles.”
Now in addition to appointing Crisp, Schlesinger said senior photographers were assembled and assigned to strengthen Reuters’ existing ethical guidelines. They were also asked to write a new code of conduct for the photography staff to follow.
“We have restructured our pictures editing operation to ensure that senior editors deal with all potential controversial photographs, and we have ensured that shift leaders are focusing solely on quality issues instead of doing editing themselves,” he said. Schlesinger also said that Reuters has brought in outside experts to consult them on the issues surrounding digital workflow, training, and supervision.
Schlesinger said that as a result of their investigation he’s convinced that there was no intention on the part of Reuters to mislead the public, and that “it was unfortunate human error that led to the inadvertent publication of two rogue photographs.”
The editors blog contains links to the new rules and guidelines regarding their photographers’ use of Photoshop, and a link to their code of values and standards.
Schlesinger has been Reuters editor in chief since December 2006, and he overseas 2,300 editorial staff in print, pictures, and television operations.
Magnum Photos Inge Morath Award..
FROM MAGNUM SITE...
Magnum Photos Inge Morath Award
Magnum Photos announces the fifth Inge Morath Prize to be awarded to a woman photographer under thirty years of age. The $5000 prize is given to assist in the completion of a long term documentary project.
Inge Morath was an Austrian-born photographer who was associated with Magnum for almost fifty years. She died in January, 2002. As Inge devoted much of her enthusiasm to encouraging women photographers, this award is given as a tribute by her colleagues.
Form of Submission
Images should be sent as a Powerpoint slide show. No Quicktime presentations, PDF or HTML files will be accepted. A folder with the individual image files should accompany the Powerpoint file.
Image file the specifications are:
- 40-60 images
- file size: 1200 pixels on the longest side @ 150 DPI saved as a Jpeg compression at 8
- images should be numbered in the order that you wish them to be presented, with the number coming first in the file name (to ensure the correct sequence use two digits, example: 01_, 02, 03) and then your last name. F.ex. 01_Smith, 02_Smith, 03_Smith etc. Please do not use any spacing in the name.
Please test the CD before you send it and be sure to label it with your name and contact details. If your portfolio does not meet these requirements, it will not be considered.
Support material:
- Send a project description (optional; maximum one page)
- Curriculum Vitae (required; maximum three pages) including photographer's name, telephone number, plus shipping and mailing address.
Submissions should be sent to:
Inge Morath Award
c/o Magnum Photos
151 West 25th Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10001
USA
Deadline: May 15, 2007
Award Announcement: July 15, 2007
-Return of material is the responsibility of the applicant. Submissions that are not accompanied by SASE will not be returned.
Magnum Photos Inge Morath Award
Magnum Photos announces the fifth Inge Morath Prize to be awarded to a woman photographer under thirty years of age. The $5000 prize is given to assist in the completion of a long term documentary project.
Inge Morath was an Austrian-born photographer who was associated with Magnum for almost fifty years. She died in January, 2002. As Inge devoted much of her enthusiasm to encouraging women photographers, this award is given as a tribute by her colleagues.
Form of Submission
Images should be sent as a Powerpoint slide show. No Quicktime presentations, PDF or HTML files will be accepted. A folder with the individual image files should accompany the Powerpoint file.
Image file the specifications are:
- 40-60 images
- file size: 1200 pixels on the longest side @ 150 DPI saved as a Jpeg compression at 8
- images should be numbered in the order that you wish them to be presented, with the number coming first in the file name (to ensure the correct sequence use two digits, example: 01_, 02, 03) and then your last name. F.ex. 01_Smith, 02_Smith, 03_Smith etc. Please do not use any spacing in the name.
Please test the CD before you send it and be sure to label it with your name and contact details. If your portfolio does not meet these requirements, it will not be considered.
Support material:
- Send a project description (optional; maximum one page)
- Curriculum Vitae (required; maximum three pages) including photographer's name, telephone number, plus shipping and mailing address.
Submissions should be sent to:
Inge Morath Award
c/o Magnum Photos
151 West 25th Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10001
USA
Deadline: May 15, 2007
Award Announcement: July 15, 2007
-Return of material is the responsibility of the applicant. Submissions that are not accompanied by SASE will not be returned.
Street Photography site...
Hi guys, did anyone check this site (www.in-public.com). It is a great site for STREET PHOTOGRAPHY...there are some stunning images shot beautifully and a great site to learn from..check out the work of Nick Turpin, Narelle Autio, David Gibson and others...
Friday, March 23, 2007
Photography in India coming of age.
Photography in India coming of age.
2006 has been a windfall for Indian photographers in terms of awards. Six photographers won awards, from first prizes to honorable mentions, at World Press Photo, Headliner Awards, Days Japan, and Best of Photojournalism. I don’t remember so many Indian photographers having won so many awards in a single year. Personally, what makes me happy is that three of these photographers, Rajesh Kumar Singh, Manish Swarup and Rafiq Maqbool work with the Associated Press.
Of course, in 2005, Arko Datta of Reuters won the World Press Photo and Prakash Singh of Afp won the first prize at Days Japan What started as a small peak last year has grown in height this year. Indian photographers have won awards at the international level before, but the frequency had been spread out too far.
There is no dearth of talent in this one billion-plus populated country. What it lacks is role models, and concerted efforts to mould and groom the talent. Indian photography is sometimes reminiscent of its ancient heritage. There are small zealous kingdoms who strive hard to protect their boundaries. There are no empires. What Indian photography needs now is the disintegration of these kingdoms and merging together to form a big empire.
by Sebastian John at Fri Mar 24 23:45:32 UTC 2006 (ed. Jun 9 2006)
2006 has been a windfall for Indian photographers in terms of awards. Six photographers won awards, from first prizes to honorable mentions, at World Press Photo, Headliner Awards, Days Japan, and Best of Photojournalism. I don’t remember so many Indian photographers having won so many awards in a single year. Personally, what makes me happy is that three of these photographers, Rajesh Kumar Singh, Manish Swarup and Rafiq Maqbool work with the Associated Press.
Of course, in 2005, Arko Datta of Reuters won the World Press Photo and Prakash Singh of Afp won the first prize at Days Japan What started as a small peak last year has grown in height this year. Indian photographers have won awards at the international level before, but the frequency had been spread out too far.
There is no dearth of talent in this one billion-plus populated country. What it lacks is role models, and concerted efforts to mould and groom the talent. Indian photography is sometimes reminiscent of its ancient heritage. There are small zealous kingdoms who strive hard to protect their boundaries. There are no empires. What Indian photography needs now is the disintegration of these kingdoms and merging together to form a big empire.
by Sebastian John at Fri Mar 24 23:45:32 UTC 2006 (ed. Jun 9 2006)
Thursday, March 1, 2007
sports
marcos baghdatis of cyprus during the first round of the dubai duty free men's open at the dubai tennis stadium.
sports
defending champion rafael nadal during the first round of the dubai duty free men's open at the dubai tennis stadium.
sports
defending champion rafael nadal during the first round of the dubai duty free men's open at the dubai tennis stadium.
sports
defending champion rafael nadal during the first round of the dubai duty free men's open at the dubai tennis stadium.
