fantastic world travel: Photojournalism

Showing posts with label Photojournalism. Show all posts

POV: In Praise Of Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

As this blog's followers and readers know, I attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Buenos Aires as a faculty member, and decided I'd jot down my thoughts as to how it progressed and developed.

I attended all four Foundry workshop (Mexico City, Manali, Istanbul and now Buenos Aires), and it was by far the best in terms of organization and infrastructure. Whilst there may be a difference of opinion among faculty members as to the strength of the students projects as presented during the workshops, we all agreed that the organization, the behind-the-scenes work and the two venues (Motivarte and Arte y Arte) were terrific.

The photographers in the faculty were lauded for generously sharing their knowledge and time, but I think the unsung heroes of Buenos Aires' Foundry were its staff, administrators and the local volunteers who made it a wonderful success.

Eric Beecroft, as the visionary force behind the Foundry Workshops, deserves singular praise. He had an idea 4-5 years ago, and made it a reality despite enormous obstacles. As they say, Eric pushed water uphill, and made it to the top. With him, and deserving many kudos for the success of the Buenos Aires workshop are Mansi Midha, Kirsten Luce, Gabriel "Morty" Ortega, Tiffany Clark, Jen Storey, and Hugo Infante. They are excellent photographers in their own right, and you can see their individual biographies here.

Despite their various bouts with tenacious flu, exhaustion and long hours, the staff and local volunteers worked around the clock, and deserve enormous credit for the success of this year's Foundry. Here's to you...and a standing ovation for a well done job!

The students' presentations were shown on the last evening, and having strict time limits for each made it much easier to appreciate. The audience was delighted to have seen such powerful, compelling, creative, imaginative and in a couple of cases, tongue in cheek work.

I will only mention the faculty by saying that, as usual, all instructors exerted tremendous efforts to share their technical knowledge with their classes and beyond. There were incredibly interesting panel discussions, and I, for one, was stunned at some of the instructors' candor in describing the toll their jobs have had on their lives...and yet, they participated in this workshop just because they want to give back.

Finally, a word about Buenos Aires...the combination of the best beef, lamb and chorizos (especially at Glumy and Criollo on Serrano square) in the world, excellent wine, bewitching tango music, and the seductive milongas...as well as some of the most attractive women (and I'm told, handsome men) I've seen, also contributed to it being such an unforgettable experience.

The 2012 Foundry Photojournalism Workshop will be held in Southeast Asia....Viet Nam is on top of the shortlist. Keep your eyes and ears open for the eventual details...and be part of it. You won't regret it.

Gardelito, The Tango Performer Of San Telmo

After the phenomenally successful Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Buenos Aires ended, and the raucous party(ies) waned in the wee hours of the night (or more accurately with the first rays of the sun), some sleep-deprived souls joined the Sunday throngs in San Telmo.

San Telmo is the oldest neighborhood of Buenos Aires. It is a well-preserved area and is characterized by its cafes, tango parlors, antique shops on cobblestone streets, which are often filled with artists and dancers.

Mervyn Leong, Syed Azahedi, Mariana Castro and myself met in the San Telmo main square where we ambled for a few hours, photographing the stalls, the vendors, the customers and the flaneurs. To the side of the square, we stumbled on a solo tango performer who called himself Gardelito, presumably after Carlos Gardel who was a singer, songwriter and actor, and is the most prominent figure in the history of tango. For one of his songs, click here.

Gardelito is an old hand working the crowds, sings and plays the guitar quite well and knows how to market himself. He displayed his washed out photographs on a wall behind him, and claimed he was interviewed by all the world's major newspapers.

As a footnote, there's little doubt in my mind that the Buenos Aires Foundry Photojournalism Workshop was the best one organized so far since it was started by Eric Beecroft in 2008. I will post more on this in a few days.

Buenos Aires: The Tango Dancer Is Waiting

Well, we're midway through the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, where the food and wine are remarkable, the women are gorgeous and the music is superb. A photojournalism workshop with intense classes given by top photographers, and interspersed with forays into the night life of this non-sleeping city! It can't get any better.

A group of us went last night to the Salon Canning on Scalabrini Oritz, where we witnessed some of the finest tango musicians, and impressive dancing from the patrons of the establishment.

Although I photographed the dancers, this image of a woman waiting to be asked to dance is the one that remains with me from last night.

Foundry Photojournalism Workshop Is Live!

I've been on Buenos Aires since Friday morning, and I've already seen tango street performers, as well as spent many hours at a genuine milonga observing the traditional rituals and procedures that govern the tango, the national dance of Argentina.

The Foundry Photojournalism Workshop 2011 has just been inaugurated by a lunch for the faculty, and approximately 130 students are converging towards Motivarte, where the official introduction of students-instructors is scheduled in an hour or so.

Eric Beecroft, in the manner of the Roman emperors, declared the workshop open by saying 'let the games begin'. He didn't really say that...but his speech was infinitely more eloquent.

I ought to get ready to meet my students.

Once Magazine: Photojournalism For The Mobile Age?

As I'll be on my way to Buenos Aires this evening for the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, I thought of posting this potential photojournalism opportunity about Once Magazine.

Once Magazine claims that it will publish three stories of about twenty-five full-screen photographs with captions, an introductory text essay, and interactive features. The magazine will allow photographers to tell their stories by using the iPad as one of the mobile platforms.

The magazine will split all subscription revenue directly with photographers, and its stories will be chosen for their "narrative appeal, journalistic insight, and photographic quality."

For further information and to submit stories and projects, take a look at the magazine's About page.

I wish Once Magazine's team success. I can't foretell its future but I'm sure many photographers/photojournalists ought to be rooting for it to succeed.

Foundry Photojournalism Workshop: Multimedia Class

I'm caffeinated at flying to Buenos Aires tomorrow evening to teach at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (which this year is in Buenos Aires) in just a few days. I will be teaching, along with Rodrigo Cruz (and with Jessica Pons' assistance), a multimedia class that allows its participants to concentrate on the story, rather than on the application. It's structured to show photojournalists how to make quick work of slide show production, using their own images and audio generated in the field, to produce a cogent photo story under the simulation of publishing deadlines.

The Foundry Photojournalism Workshop is designed photography and emerging photojournalists hone their skills, have a chance to work with some of the world’s best shooters in the field, on real reportage projects, to create multimedia, to see some of the best work being done today, to collaborate, to make contact, plan future projects, develop your own vision and leave the workshop energized, exhausted, and more committed then ever to concerned photography, storytelling and to documenting the world through the lens.

If you're in Buenos Aires, interested in photojournalism and haven't enrolled yet...you'll be missing a unique opportunity! So get going!

Erica McDonald: DEVELOPphoto

Erica McDonald is an institution. Yes, you read that correctly. She's an institution for a number of reasons; primarily because she's a damn good photographer/photojournalist, and also because she recently and single handedly initiated DEVELOP Tube, an educational resource on photojournalism.

If you need proof of her photographic talents, just drop by her website, and take a good look at her New York City Portraits, amongst her many galleries. You'll immediately agree with me.

And when you finish doing that...drop by DEVELOP Tube on YouTube and on VIMEO.

DEVELOP Tube features interviews, profiles, lectures, films about photojournalism, fine art, documentary photography, photographers, including multimedia productions which effectively incorporate the still photograph, and slideshows created to showcase powerful photographs, especially those concerning humanitarian issues: human rights, environmental sustainability and global health.

It's a veritable compendium of photography, and Erica must be commended for making all this trove easily available to the public. Bookmark it or follow it on Twitter @DEVELOPphoto

Erica has chosen two of my audio slideshows to add to DEVELOPphoto. White Shadows and Cham.

SacBee Does The Indian Monsoon

The Frame of The Sacramento Bee featured over two dozen photographs by mostly Indian photographers of the monsoon rains in India. Travel photographers usually plan their trips to avoid the monsoon season which generally pans from June to September, and yet it's then that the light is at its most gorgeous.

I reacall being (unfortunately without a camera) in a rickshaw in Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi during the month of June, when the heavens burst into heavy downpour that lasted no more than 5 minutes. We were immobilized for that time but when the rain stopped, the light was just ethereal.

One of the participants in my forthcoming (at the end of September) Kolkata's Cult of Durga Photo Expedition™ wondered whether we would experience any laggard rains. I certainly hope so....!!!

Incidentally, one of the most entertaining books on the Indian monsoon is Alexander Frater's Chasing the Monsoon, in which he describes how he followed the monsoon, sometimes ahead of it....and at other times, staying behind it, and observing the impact this annual phenomenon has of the sub-continent and beyond.

POV: Two "Must Read" Blog Posts

I do not expect presents from Santa Claus at the height of summer, but these two posts are the equivalent of unexpected and incredibly useful presents. I simply cannot encourage my readers (whatever their interest in photography is) in enough strong terms to read and enjoy these posts. Both are informative, well written, engaging...and useful to photographers, photojournalists and anyone remotely interested in this industry. My hat's off to both authors of these posts...very well done.

1. The War Photographers' Biggest Story: Themselves:

Benjamin Chesterton (of the Duckrabbit blog) has penned what I consider one of his best posts. He questions if the ‘best’ story a war photographer can provide these days is the one that will get the most space...ie themselves?

I won't attempt to summarize what he wrote, since it would do his writing and message a disservice, however those who follow the recent news on photojournalism, the loss of at least 3 photojournalists in Libya and the incarceration of others...will immediately appreciate (and if like me, agree with) the thrust of the argument. I touched on this with my own post Yes, I Have A Name. It's Mohamed Shaglouf!.

2. The Amazing Yellow-Bordered Magazine:

John Stanmeyer, the well known National Geographic (among other publications) photographer has started to write one of a number of monthly posts in which he will "demystify the experience, sharing insight and nuances on how such long-term projects originate until the National Geographic magazine arrives in your mail slot, starting now with a latest story I’m about to begin for them".

How incredibly wonderful is that???

Two posts...two gifts...two Pandora's boxes for aspiring photojournalists and travel photographers.

POV: Photo Assignment RAW FILE

Through Twitter, I've noticed a post by RAW FILE, Wired magazine's blog, which is starting a new series of posts called Assignment Wired, where the magazine will hand out photo assignments to its readers, and then eventually choose some submissions to publish and critique.

WIRED's expertise and interest is in reportage and photojournalism, and it expects its participating readers to get quotes, do some writing, do some research and take emotive photos.

"We want gritty, real and human stories. We want to throw you into new situations and give you a chance to sink or swim."

It actually just launched its first assignment, and it's to feature the corner store where the participating photographer buys his/her daily Coke, milk, doughnuts...whatever. It wants the story of this local corner store through photos and reporting. The assignment "sheet" lists the skills required for such a project, and there's a deadline of July 7th.

I think the experiment (as they call it) is a damn good idea! It will provide an impetus to budding photojournalists (and others) to go out there and actually work on a local project. As it says, it's hardly sexy or glamorous, but it's an interesting project that will teach basic photojournalism skills to those interested. I only wish they included audio recordings, and even expand it to short audio-slideshows...but perhaps that will come in time.

As always, comments from naysayers, cynics and skeptics have come in fast and furious....some accusing WIRED magazine of using this experiment to get work for free. To those, I say you don't have to participate...or participate and don't send in your material. Just take the time to learn something new...or refresh your skills, and if you do a good job, you might get a critique from the magazine. It will surely be worth it.

Delhi Photo Festival: Nazar Foundation

The Nazar Foundation, in partnership with the India Habitat Centre, is organizing the Delhi Photo Festival on 15 to 28 October 2011.

The Delhi Photo Festival is a non-commercial venture, and entry will be free to ensure popular and wide-reaching participation. Through Nazar Foundation, the festival is the brainchild of Prashant Panjiar and Dinesh Khanna, both well known photographers, and for mentoring young photographers and propagating photography. Nazar Foundation was launched with the aim of institutionalizing what these two photographers are already been doing so on an informal basis.

The core attraction of the festival will be exhibitions of photography from India, Asia and other international work.

This promises to be quite an event, and will include workshops and seminars. I am excited to have been asked to teach an Introduction to Multimedia class on the afternoon-evening of October 15.

More details will be available in due course, and a schedule for submissions and the process will be announced soon.

Adriana Zehbrauskas: Beyond Assignment

Beyond Assignment is a documentary produced by The Knight Center for International Media at the University of Miami, which explores the approach of three female photojournalists (Adriana Zehbrauskas, Gali Tibbon and Mariella Furrer. covering Mexico, Israel and South Africa.

From the documentary's website:

"Their three journeys dramatize the fervent curiosity and determination needed to perform difficult and often dangerous jobs as visual storytellers. BEYOND ASSIGNMENT examines the artistic and ethical responsibilities inherent in capturing vital subject matter and the subsequent emotional cost to journalists and their subjects."

The documentary's trailer starts with Adriana Zehbrauskas photographing adherents of La Santa Muerte in Mexico City. Adriana is planning to show the documentary at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Buenos Aires. I am look forward to see it, and I'm sure it'll be very well received.

Angkor Photo Workshops 2011

Now in its 7th year, the free 2011 Angkor Photo Workshops is now officially accepting applications from all young Asian photographers.

To get started, photographers can download and read through the application guidelines and the application form below:

The guidelines and form contains all the information needed on how to apply for this year’s workshops. However for clarifications and or questions, the Angkor Photo Workshops can be contacted email at angkorworkshop [at] gmail.com .

The workshop will be held from November 17 – 23, 2011 in Siem Reap, Cambodia. As per the previous years’ workshops, 30 participants will be selected from amongst the applications received. The deadline to submit the application is July 15, 2011.

Since its inception in 2005, more than 180 young photographers from all over Asia have been selected to participate in the annual free Angkor Photo Workshops. Conducted by renowned international photographers who volunteer their time, the Angkor Photo Workshops provide participants with firsthand training, invaluable exposure and a chance to perfect their art.

Over the years, the workshop has highlighted emerging talent from the region, and many previous participants go on to embark on successful photography careers both regionally and internationally.

I'll be there!!

POV: Leroy's Visa Pour L'Image Says....

Image © Alexandra Avakian. Courtesy British Journal of Photography

From The British Journal of Photography:

Jean-François Leroy, Visa Pour l'Image's director, believes it's essential to remind "people of the important role photojournalists play in keeping us informed," which, he says, will be reflected in this year's edition of the world's largest photojournalism festival.

"But don't expect to see projects on Tahrir Square. I've never received that many CDs about one particular event. I know that square by heart now. I could draw you a plan from memory. I've seen it all: Tahrir during the day, Tahrir at night, Tahrir and the dogs, Tahrir in the morning, Tahrir in the evening. So what? What's the point? What's the story?"

- Jean-François Leroy, Visa Pour l'Image's director

What's the story, he asks. What's the story in Tahrir??????

After guffawing at that er...statement, what can I say other than some people are visionaries, and others are myopic, provincial and silly...and past their useful shelf life?

In contrast, take a look at NOOR Images current involvement in Cairo, where Stanley Green and others are leading a photojournalism workshop.

Olivier Laurent of The British Journal of Photography conducted the interview, and has written this response (which I quote in its entirety for fairness) on my Facebook page:

" I conducted the interview with Jean-François Leroy, and in case things are not clear enough, Leroy did say that he would not show Tahrir Square-related stories (i.e. reportages that only focus on the events at Tahrir Square) because they lack incredible context over the entire Middle-East revolution movement. Instead, he chose to show Yuri Kozyrev's work, which includes images shot in Tahrir Square but put into a wider context thanks to the images he shot in Bahrain, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, etc. To react to some of the comments here, I don't think he uttered "une connerie"** (I wish there were a perfect english equivalent to this word). In my opinion, he's quite right. I'm not saying that there hasn't been meaningful work coming out of Tahrir Square, but have these photographers submitted their work to Visa? A lot of the images I've seen coming out of that square were repetitive (in some cases, shot by three or four photographers at the exact same time) and lacked that overarching meaning - the true impact of this revolution on the Egyptian people. There's nothing wrong with a photographer parachuting in Cairo for such a story (and it's much needed to bring attention to the story) but at the end of the day, I find it more enriching when I look at these events through the lens of a photographer that truly understood these events. Laura El-Tantawy springs to mind, for example...

One clarification though, we're talking, in this case, of the exhibitions presented at Visa. There's no doubt that countless of images from Tahrir Square will be shown during the evening projections there."

** To keep things succinct and brief, I still think it was "une connerie", and an unfortunate one at that. It will be up to the attendees of the Visa Pour l'Image event as to whether ignoring a seminal and historical uprising in the Middle East (notwithstanding Yuri Kozyrev's wider work) was another "connerie", or not.

Katharina Hesse: Human Negotiations

Katharina Hesse is a damn good documentary photographer, and here's one of the many reasons why I say that:

She and her colleague, Lara Day, are requiring support for a worthwhile photographic book project Human Negotiations. It's on Kickstarter, and is an independent, self-funded documentary, exploring the lives of a community of Bangkok sex workers through both images and text.

Human Negotiations is not a journalistic account of the sex trade, but instead is a personal interpretation of a line of work that is frequently misunderstood.

To date, the project has garnered international support and was shown at numerous spaces and international festivals. Pledged funds will go directly towards printing costs so that Human Negotiations can be published as a book to coincide with an exhibition in China's foremost space for contemporary photography and video art.

So do consider to help Katharina and Lara with your pledges! It's really a worthwhile project and will encourage other documentary photographers to bring similar projects to the fore.

Katharina Hesse is a Beijing-based photographer who has lived in Asia for nearly two decades. Her photography focuses primarily on China’s social concerns among them youth, urban culture, religion and North Korean refugees.

Lara Day is a writer, editor and photographer based in Hong Kong and Bangkok whose work has appeared in leading publications including TIME and Travel + Leisure.

Al Jazeera: Vietnam

If you think Al Jazeera is only an excellent source of international news, and the Arab satellite television channel that left all our cable networks in the dust during the momentous events in the Middle East, you'd be wrong because it also features photography essays such as the one by Nicole Percel's Vietnam: Between Tradition & Modernity.

In February 2011; Nicole Precel and Nick Ahlmark were in Chi Ca Commune, a cluster of villages in Xin Man district, part of Ha Giang province in northern Vietnam, the poorest province in the country, to make a movie for the final episode of Al Jazeera's Birthrights, a series examining maternal health around the world.

Al Jazeera also features social documentary work such as the accompanying video The Mountain Midwives of Vietnam.

POV: Yes, I Have A Name. It's Mohamed Shaglouf!

"From the pickup, Lynsey saw a body outstretched next to our car, one arm outstretched. We still don’t know whether that was Mohammed. We fear it was, though his body has yet to be found."

We all remember the relief that the photojournalism/media felt when Stephen Farrell, Tyler Hicks, Lynsey Addario and Anthony Shadid were freed from their brutal ordeal at the hands of the pro-Qaddafi military.

Those us who have long memories also recall that the photojournalists' Libyan driver was named in the various articles that reported on the event as Mohammed, or "the driver", if at all. I wrote a blog post lamenting the fact that Mohammed's last name was unknown, despite his probable end at the hands of the Libyan loyalists.

Felix Salmon of the Reuters blog has written The Hermetic & Arrogant New York Times which, among many targets, aims at Bill Keller's (the NYT's editor) by writing this:

He (Keller) talks at length about Hetherington and Hondros, and about other photographers, like Joao Silva, who parachute in to war zones, meet fixers, get their shots, and then move on to the next job — if they don’t get their legs blown off in the process. He writes movingly about NYT photographers Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario, who were brutally treated in Libya but survived; he doesn’t mention their driver, Mohamed Shaglouf, who almost certainly didn’t.

For the life of me, I can't understand why he didn't. Is it tribalism, elitism, myopia, "i don't give a shit" about non NYT people...or non-Americans?

Holy Week Celebrations

Holy Week in Christianity is the last week of Lent and the week before Easter, and provides remarkable opportunities to photographers to capture the various religious festivals, rituals and pageants that are scheduled, particularly in Catholic communities, during the period. The week includes the religious holidays of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

Some of the featured rituals in Spain, Portugal and Italy include the processions of hooded flagellants during Lent, as well as self-crucifixion in the Philippines considered as a form of devout worship.

In the top photograph, a masked flagellant is comforted by a colleague at the end of his penance during the 'Los Picaos' brotherhood Good Friday procession in San Vicente de la Sonsierra, northern Spain. The second photograph is of a penitent dragging his chains at the same venue. Both photographs are by Alvaro Barrientos, and I think they're some of the best amongst featured by the various photo blogs.

Flagellation is not restricted to Catholicism, but is also practiced in other religious traditions, notably in Shi'a Islam during the Day of Ashura. Much older religious tradtions, like the cult of Isis in Egypt and the Dionysian cult of Greece, practiced their own forms of flagellation.

Apart from a Holy Week spent in Guatemala in 2002 photographing the processions, I haven't photographed Catholic religious traditions (except for a short photo shoot at a small festival in Oaxaca), and I ought to plan for 2012.

Of course, it depends if the 21st of May doesn't turn out to be the end of the world as a demented US preacher predicts....then I (and the majority of us) would've missed the chance.

But something tells me we needn't worry.

Happy Easter to those who celebrate it!

Vivian Maier: Street And Yes, Travel Photographer

Much praise has been deservedly written and said about Vivian Maier, and of her photography. The story of this nanny and her photography has impressed the world, and now she (through the work of John Maloof) has a dedicated website.

Maier’s work was discovered in 2007 by John Maloof at a local thrift auction house on Chicago’s Northwest Side, while researching material for a book on that area of Chicago.

Whilst I knew that Maier's work was principally in street photography, I found out that she undertook trips on her own to Canada in 1951 and 1955, in 1957 to South America, in 1959 to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, in 1960 to Florida, and in 1965 to the Caribbean Islands. Amazingly, she traveled to India (as evidenced by her portraits in Cochin) and to Yemen in 1959.

The website gathers many galleries of her work; street photographs of New York and Chicago, her travel portfolio (Yemen, India, Canada, France, etc).

I have always maintained that there are no amateur photographers....the work of Vivian Maier validates my point of view.

Tim Hetherington

To some of my readers, Tim Hetherington's death from wounds received during an RPG attack while covering the front lines in the besieged city of Misrata, Libya yesterday was a great shock...to others, he may be just another photojournalist killed while documenting a civil war. Covering conflict has always been dangerous, and many famous photojournalists have given their lives doing it. Tim Hetherington was one of them.

For most of his distinguished career, conflict photographer and filmmaker Tim Hetherington documented some of the world’s bloodiest conflicts. He was one of the best known photojournalists and winner of the prestigious awards, produced powerful pieces for ABC News' "Nightline" from the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, and directed the documentary "Restrepo," which won an award at the Sundance film festival last year.

It'a grave loss to photojournalism.

The same RPG attack also gravely wounded photographers Chris Hondros (now confirmed dead by Getty), Michael Christopher Brown, and Guy Martin.

fantastic world travel