mapjd@lcc

Do We Need Photojournalists? Plus Lost Art of Black & White So if you have a hoard of amateurs shooting photographs, do you need professional photojournalists? I want to use our SoCon08 event at Kennesaw State University as a little test, so you, not I, can answer that question.

"RGMP 2: Start a blog Yesterday I started this series of posts called "Reporter's Guide to Multimedia Proficiency." (I like the way the abbreviation RGMP reminds me of the Canadian Mounties - RCMP.) The first topic was Read blogs and use RSS. Today's topic might seem mundane to many of you, but I always say that writing a blog with commitment, on some kind of regular schedule, makes you smarter."

"Everyone, especially photographers, wants to be loved. But, unfortunately, not all are. Love and respect are earned, and it's usually a two-way street. Yesterday's post, "Top 13 Ways to Piss Off a Photo Editor" was a view of what actually gets a photo editor angry. (If your reaction to yesterday's post was to immediately start bitching, moaning and whining, please re-read point #11: "Complain.") So today, I gathered a different kind of information from that same panel of photo editors in an attempt to find the quickest paths to their heart."

Albert Maysles on Documentary Filmmaking With his late brother David, Albert Maysles is a giant among documentary filmmakers. Over the past half century, he has produced behind-the-scenes chronicles of cultural icons (the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Marlon Brando, Truman Capote, Vladmir Horowitz, Christo, Jessye Norman), and is best known for "cinema verite" documentaries such as "Grey Gardens," in which the camera captures natural conversations and activities without the intrusion of interviews or narration.

"Khalid Mohtaseb was on the ground shooting in Port-au-Prince less than a week after the earthquake hit Haiti on 12 January, 2010. His job was not an easy one. Today, those behind the lens covering the news are rapidly becoming the news themselves. The dramatic footage that Wikileaks released of the Reuters' photographer and driver shot in Iraq has focused attention on the dangers of covering news on the ground; it has also sparked a discussion about how news videos should be packaged. Did the effects Wikileaks staff added to the footage bias the story of what happened to these Reuters' newsmen?"

"Illegal exhumation - A debate about Marco Vernaschi´s methods "

"Following up on our previous coverage, Marco Vernaschi let us know that the Pulitzer Center has published another post about the subject, "Uganda: Response to Critics." The post includes both a response by Vernaschi and a note from the Pulitzer Center Executive Director Jon Sawyer. The response specifically addresses questions raised by A Developing Story and Vigilante Journalist and includes a link to an interview with a Ugandan lawyer about the inadequate police response to the murder of Margaret Babirye Nankya, as well as a video of Vernaschi's interview with the girl's mother. Of specific note, also, is Vernaschi's statement about removing another photo from the project, this one of a child's coffin. Three bodies were exhumed in a separate case and this coffin was one of the exhumed bodies."

"On digging up the truth, and Marco Vernaschi April 21, 2010 Leave a comment Go to comments These are the facts: the Italian photographer Marco Vernaschi, working on a story dealing with child sacrifices and mutilations in Uganda, a story supported by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, persuaded a family to exhume the recently buried body of their murdered daughter (photo here), so that he could photograph it. It is also a fact that he gave them money-about $70. Vernaschi and the Pulitzer Center are now getting plenty of criticism for this, and also for publishing (as part of the same story) a full frontal photograph of a naked child whose penis had been cut off."

"dvafoto - photojournalism - M. Scott Brauer and Matt Lutton Matt Lutton and M. Scott Brauer share their work and others' Ethical Transgressions in Marco Vernaschi's Coverage for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting Apr 23, 2010 by M. Scott Brauer 3 Comments » What started as a long accusation in a lightstalkers thread has turned into a large-scale discussion involving a Pulitzer Center apology and coverage on the Guardian website. Marco Vernaschi's coverage of child sacrifice in Uganda (another with the offending image removed and another) for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting initially looked like a hard and gritty glance into a little-known-outside-of-Africa problem of ritual child sacrifice. Issues of exoticism and the colonialist view notwithstanding, numerous bloggers began lobbing serious allegations of paying for access, illegally exhuming a child's body to take pictures of the corpse, child exploitation, and outright fabrication. A Developing Story raised some strong questions of both Vernaschi and the Pulitzer Center. The Pulitzer Center took time in responding to the allegations. Other bloggers led the charge, with Anne Holmes of Vigilante Journalist providing invaluable investigation into the case with Ugandan authorities. Holmes had previously interviewed Vernaschi for her blog and has retracted those articles due to concerns about Vernaschi's ethics and journalistic process. The Pulitzer Center has issued a statement responding to these allegations, in which it agrees that the bounds of journalism, ethics, and human decency were crossed. Asim Rafiqui has a great perspective on the issue, as does Tewfic El-Sawey. Pay special attention Rafiqui's analysis of the motivations for a photographer to manufacture a story as regards the media eco-system of photojournalism awards, publications looking for sensationalism, and historical portrayals of Africa. "Mr. Vernaschi's transgression is not just that of an individual, but of an indust

"Interview with Marco Vernaschi Retracted For those of you who check in regularly, you may have noticed that I have removed two posts on the subject of child sacrifice in Uganda by the photographer Marco Vernaschi. I took my time in making this decision and I believe that the details should be revealed to the public so that it is clear how I became involved in this story and what led to my decision to retract the interview. If you have not already read Mr. Vernaschi's article on the Pulitzer Center's website, please do so now."

"Last week's crisis in Haiti has yielded a significant response from photographers and editors in the photojournalism community. Photographers were sent to Haiti on assignment, and others left for the Carribean on spec to document the devastation and help tell the tragic story. In looking at the various outlets for imagery from Haiti, I'm wondering if there might be a new way that photojournalism could capture a story of this magnitude, and if the current, traditional way in which multiple media outlets send multiple photographers to places of crisis has preventable pitfalls of its own."

"Courts have long ruled that the First Amendment protects the right of citizens to take photographs in public places. Even after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, law enforcement agencies have reiterated that right in official policies. But in practice, those rules don't always filter down to police officers and security guards who continue to restrict photographers, often citing authority they don't have. Almost nine years after the terrorist attacks, which ratcheted up security at government properties and transportation hubs, anyone photographing federal buildings, bridges, trains or airports runs the risk of being seen as a potential terrorist. (Can an entire downtown be declared a no-photo zone?) Reliable statistics on detentions and arrests of photographers are hard to come by, but photographers, their advocates and even police agree that confrontations still occur frequently. Photographers had run-ins with police before the 2001 attacks, but constitutional lawyers say the combination of heightened security concerns and the spread of digital cameras has made such incidents more common. "

"Donovan Wylie became the youngest ever full member of Magnum Photos in 1997, when he was just 26. Born in Belfast in 1971, he has explored the architecture of conflict in Northern Ireland and, more recently, in Iraq, where he hopes to return later this year. One of his images is going on show in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester from 25 September - 23 January, in a group exhibition called The Land Between Us: place, power and dislocation. BJP took the opportunity to catch up with him."

"Lessons from Perpignan: What We Learned at Video Camp For most of July we taught a videojournalism workshop in Perpignan, France, for eighteen American students. It was part of a study-abroad program co-sponsored by the Institute for Education in International Media (ieiMedia) and San Francisco State University. Here are a few tips we can pass along, based on common student errors and problems we encountered. "

OpenZine is a publishing platform with web browser based tools that provides an easy way for anyone to make their own magazine, for free. The best way to describe what OpenZine provides is by understanding how magazines work. Magazines have a staff of writers, photographers, designers, illustrators and editors that create & contribute. Here at OpenZine you create & contribute on those same principles but your resources are other OpenZine users! To preserving the design experience of print we've created amazingly powerful one click layouts. You can even change them as you go! Create your magazine cover online with the OhhZee Image Editor. In just a few clicks, you can add shapes, text and effects the OhhZee way!

Paolo Pellegrin has been widely regarded as one of the world's best photographers for a decade now, at least since he won the Kodak Young Photographer Award in 1996. But in a little over a year, Pellegrin has made a major breakthrough in his work that places him at the forefront of contemporary photojournalism.

what's pdfX12|photo documentary folioX12? pdfX12 is an online, monthly free  photo journal that presents and features a series of photos  by various photojournalists living and working in various communities around the world.  These photos tell poignant stories about people who are facing harsh social, economic, environmental and political conditions. Photojournalists presented here are those, with their own resources and energy, who have chosen to dedicate their life's work to documenting certain human issues in order to bring about greater attention to harsh human conditions that many people would brush aside. It is thus very important that the voices of these photojournalists, who are living and working in communities that they are documenting, are heard through this type of online venue, which everyone can access. 

link to a very useful set of articles on visual journalism from the Nieman foundation Context. Layered information. Voice. Movement. Transparency. Photographer as "author." Subject as "storyteller." Image as "instigator." Words and phrases that even a few years ago were not used to describe the practice of photojournalism surface today with hesitant certainty. Where the digital road is leading those whose livelihood relies on the visual portrayal of our contemporary lives might not be entirely clear. By adapting to technology in shooting their images and in how they publish and distribute their work, photojournalists are constructing roads that are already taking them in new and sometimes unanticipated directions.

"Lars Tunbjörk Represented by Gallery VU' Swedish. Born in 1956 in Boras. Lives in Stockholm. Whether creating an acid portrait of Sweden, representing the nightmarish world of business offices, tapping into the desolate uniformity of petrified, petit-bourgeois neighbourhoods, examining the state of marginalised peoples in a nation praised for its system of social protection, or exploring the strangeness of a town on the cusp of the Arctic Circle, Lars Tunbjörk has totally forgotten his black and white beginnings. All his energy is now devoted to the exploration of colour, which he approaches in the style of 1970's American photographers. This is his starting point for questioning the world, a series of interrogations more than observations, which he develops without pessimism but with an undeniable affliction softened by a biting humour. Over time, his approach has become radicalised and purified by being less and less anecdotal. Consequentially, his series no longer represents characters but rather the often absurd track of their presence and their actions."