livebooks blog

• Almost four decades after John Filo took his Pulitzer-Prize-winning photo of a student shot at Kent State University during an anti-war protest, the photographer was reunited with the then-14-year-old girl, Mary Vecchio, who appears in the image with her arm outstretched, caught in a terrified scream. The Akron Beacon Journal has a nice piece on the reunion, which was the first time the two met in person.

• The Obama administration and its White House photo team led by Pete Souza proved its distinctly updated understanding of image use recently by launching a White House Flickr photostream in addition to its regular slideshows. Last week, Official White House Photographer Pete Souza did an interview with CBS sharing his insider view of Obama presidency.

• The multimedia dream team at MediaStorm announced this week that it will donate its services for a one-time, TUITION-FREE Advanced Multimedia Reporting Workshop, in Brooklyn, NY from June 20-26, 2009. Expect a very competitive application process as there are only 8 spots available. Application deadline is next Friday May 15. Check out more details on their blog.

• LIFE.com picked the 10 most photographed cities in the world. The results are based on the number of photographs associated with each city on Flickr. Being San Franciscans as we are, we’re happy that the City by the Bay made it to number 4. Can you guess the top three?

• RESOLVE contributor Michael Shaw is hosting his next BAGnewsSalon over at BAGnewsNotes this Sunday, May 3. Michael hosts these online, real-time image analysis sessions frequently and the discussion is always lively. The topic this time is Obama: The First 100 Days; guest participants include Alan Chin (another RESOLVE contributor), Nina Berman, David Burnett, Brian Ulrich, Mario Tama, and PDN news editor Daryl Lang, plus a bunch of historians and professors.

• In keeping with the Obama theme, the “I Do Solemnly Swear: Photographs of the 2009 Presidential Inauguration” exhibition is currently on view at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. David Hume Kennerly, the Ford White House photographer, and Robert McNeely, President Clinton’s official photographer, were commissioned to lead a team of more than 24 photographers in capturing the inauguration. It opened April 29, the 100th day of the Obama administration, and will run through July 12.

• The New York Times has a fantastic slideshow of pictures buried in the recently found “Mexican Suitcase,” three filmsy cardboard boxes of negatives of photographs taken during the Spanish Civil War by photographers Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and David Seymour. Capa left the boxes of negatives in his Paris darkroom before he fled to America in 1939. It was believed that the negatives traveled from Paris to Marseille and eventually to Mexico City, where they resided for more than half a century before they were turned over to the International Center of Photography in NYC last year.

• Since the high-def video camera RedONE was launched last year, photographers everywhere have been curious to see how it would eventually make the still cameras obsolete. Then Greg Williams, uses one to shoot his June Esquire cover of Megan Fox and needless to say, people like APhotoEditor have things to say about it. You can also watch a sneak peek of Greg’s behind-the-scenes video.

• In the latest update on Iranian-American photojournalist Roxana Saberi, after being charged with espionage two weeks ago, she was subsequently convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison. Her parents, Reza and Akiko Saberi, who are staying in Tehran to press for her release and Roxana has announced a hunger strike in protest. In the meantime, students at Northwestern University, where Roxana received her graduate degree in journalism, are rallying in her support. According to ABC News, Roxana’s parents have hired new lawyers for her appeal, which could be decided within a week.

• Congratulations to Damon Winter of the New York Times and Patrick Farrell of the Miami Herald, the winners of this year’s Pulitzer Prizes for photography. Damon’s coverage of the Obama presidential campaign garnered the award in the Feature Photography category, and Patrick’s photo story of the aftermath of Hurricane Ike in Haiti earned him the award in the Breaking New category.

• Showing that they aren’t resting on their Pulitzer laurels, the New York Times posted a nice multimedia slide show featuring Tyler Hicks’ photographs of American soldiers in Afghanistan.

• Photojojo alerted us to World Pinhole Camera Day on Sunday (April 26) and also to the extravagant pinhole cameras for free download from Corbis. They come as a pdf that you cut out and assemble yourself — warning, these are the most complicated instructions we’ve seen in a while, but they look cool! All the designs are created by Fwis, a small design firm based in New York.

"Eden" by Women In Photography exhibitor Kelli Connell ©Kelli Connell

Miki Johnson: Tell me briefly about the goals of WIPNYC and why it was important to be able to offer this grant.

WIP: Women in Photography is an online exhibition project designed to highlight the work of emerging, mid-career, and established artists. Our goal is to be a resource for curators, editors, and publishers, and also to create a visual dialog between women artists working in the photographic medium.

We have both been overwhelmed by the positive response to the site. Both of us have spent a great deal of time thinking about what we want the site to contribute to the photographic community. The next logical step in our programming was a grant. Because like the site, it allows us to both support and call attention to the work of women artists.

MJ: What is the main goal of this grant?

WIP: The main goal of the grant is to provide funding to one female photographer in support of a project. I think funding is a problem for artists working in all mediums, unless you have independent means or are extremely successful in the commercial art world. Photographers must pay for film, processing, equipment, travel, in addition to the high cost of creating work for exhibition or self-publishing. We both have struggled to fund our own work and find great importance in these types of opportunities. With so few grants available, it just seemed great to be able to give back.

MJ: How will you determine the recipient? Do you have any tips for photographers planning to submit?

WIP: We will select the recipient based on the quality of work, and the need of the applicant along with the strength of their project proposal. The most important thing is to submit five of your strongest images from a cohesive body of work as well as make sure to write clear, concise, and persuasive project goals. The grant is open to women at any stage in their career, except students. It is open to the artists previously shown on WIPNYC.org as well.

MJ: And the grant recipient will also be exhibited at WIPNYC.org?

WIP: The grant recipient will have a solo show on the site in June. In addition, we will have an award reception, including a slideshow presentation of the grant recipients’ work at the National Arts Club in New York City.

Because the solo shows we feature are online, we can reach a broader audience. Our visitors do not need to be in a specific city because they are accessing the work worldwide. The site traffic has grown dramatically with each show, which is one of the benefits of exhibiting work online. Several of our artists have seen a noticeable increase of traffic on their own sites. Being featured on the site has led to many things, including magazine assignments and inquiries from publishers and galley representation.

• How much Photoshopping is too much? Judges of a Danish photo contest seemed to think that they have the answer. Last month, Danish photojournalist Klavs Bo Christensen was disqualified from the Danish equivalent of Pictures of the Year contest because the photographs that he submitted “went too far” in digital manipulation. The incident, not surprisingly, sparked a lot of discussions in Denmark and eventually among the English-speaking blogosphere. According to NPPA, Jens Tønnesen, the webmaster for the Danish Union of Press Photographers, decided to explain the story to people outside of Demark, and did an English translation of an article he posted on the Pressefotografforbundet website, where you can see the three images in question placed side by side with their RAW files. Check out interesting comments about this story at PDN Pulse and The Online Photographer.

• Robert Adams, who is known for his landscape photography of the American West, has won the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography and received a $60,000 prize at an official ceremony in San Francisco on April 15, 2009. The Foundations’s citation describes Adams as “one of the most important and influential photographers of the last forty years.” An exhibition of Adam’s work will open at the Hasselblad Center, Göteborg Art Museum in November, 2009. Ansel Adams, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, and William Eggleston are some of the previous award winners.

• Paul Melcher, named one of the “50 most influential individuals in American photography” by American Photo, explained in a post on the Black Star Rising blog why the Chris Usher v. Corbis case is important to all photographers. While Usher won the case, he was only compensated for “a lousy $7 per image” for the 12,640 images that Corbis has permanently misplaced. Melcher argues, with great reasoning, that what this ruling means is that agencies or publishers will no longer have to worry about losing photographers images because “it will be cheaper for them to trash them than to return them to you.”

©Dietmar Busse

Q: What do you see as your greatest success from your eight years of personal work?

Dietmar Busse: The most important thing that came out of that time was that I found my own language as a photographer. There was so much I had to learn about who I am as an artist and as a human being. For example, I don’t like to be in a crowded place with a lot of people I don’t know — and I like it even less if I have to take pictures there. It makes me completely nervous and I just want to leave. On the other hand, I really enjoy being with just one person in the room and taking their picture. I learned how to create the right atmosphere for my shoots, and consequently my work has become much more focused.

MJ: What has your experience been now that you are moving back into fashion and commercial photography?

DB: In many ways it’s much easier now. Getting some distance has helped a lot. I think I am much humbler now, and I appreciate every opportunity to do my work.

The most difficult thing has been to get access to the “right” people. So much of this business is social networking, and it’s a real challenge to rebuild a support system. But once I sit down with an art director or editor, I feel really comfortable. I think my work has a definite point of view, and people either like it or they don’t — it’s pretty straightforward. I am almost a bit embarrassed to say it, but I absolutely love showing my work now, and I am sure clients notice that.

MJ: Do you have advice for young photographers who are in a similar situation to you when you started out?

DB: I think it is very important to know what you want. Be honest with yourself. Why do you want to be a photographer? Why do you take pictures? Are you interested in the money, the models, self-expression?

At least for me it took quite some time to figure this out in my head, and later to build a body of work that corresponded to that. But I believe it was totally worth it. As we know, so much of our culture is about being richer, more beautiful, more famous, and all of that. People are divided into winners and losers. It’s important not buy into that. I think building a strong sense of self helps you to be immune to that and will hopefully lead you to create something unique and photographs that are meaningful to you.

Esperansa, 9, is the first girl in her family to attend school. Her mother, Catarina, although illiterate, leads a group of eighty indigenous women in their struggle to gain gender equality and end racial discrimination in Ixtahuacan. ©Phil Borges, courtesy CARE

Miki Johnson: What were the logistics of how you collaborated with Phil?

Valenda Campbell: We took our basic system for executing a photo commission and sort of tweaked it. We knew that Phil wanted to really understand the projects, the community context, and the culture in order to develop more meaningful stories. That meant he would need some time in the communities to suss out the best subjects. Up to this point, most of our photo commissions were typically teaming up photographers with the local country office staff who would take you and a writer out to a community. The writer would interview, the photographer would take photos, and you’d spend an afternoon there doing that. The country office staff is usually anxious to hurry on to the next community so they could show you the next great project to photograph. So this time we had to say, “Okay, we need to be able to spend four days in a community. And we need to be able to stay either in the community or very close to the community so that we can maximize our time there.” It was actually quite a challenge, and still can be, to shift their understanding as to how we needed to carry out this work.

What we typically try to do with a commission now is close to what we did with Phil. We coordinate with our country office, give them some dates, and tell them what we want to focus on. We want to go out and see this type of program, we’d like for them to talk to their field staff in hopes of identifying any particular women that really stand out as stars. Hopefully, we can find people who are not too shy, who are articulate, and who can help us tell this story through their experiences. So the country office provides all the logistical support: the in-country transportation, the lodging, translator, driver, etc. And then we go out to the community and stay for a few days. We started this process with Phil’s first trip with CARE to Ethiopia where he met the people who the field had staff pre-identified. We needed to get everything started in advance because for Phil, spending four days in a community is considerably less than what he would do if he were working a project more independently. So we just tried to get everything lined up as best we could and made sure he wouldn’t need to worry about the logistical support so he could focus on finding those stand-out subjects.

But CARE wants to be careful and considerate about the disruption that we cause with the community when we come to visit and any particular burden that we put on them: keeping them away from their daily lives and the way they generate income or food for their family. We can’t be too disruptive and overstay our welcome. We also like to be there to help make the introductions and answer questions about the programming or the local community, so that Phil has an expert on hand and he can be really tuned into what he’s seeing and what he’s hearing from the interviews.

MJ: Did you have different specifications for the images from Phil than you normally would have because you were thinking ahead to a book project or an exhibition?

VC: Usually when we’re doing a photo commission, we want to produce photos that could be used for anything and everything. We’re a non-profit with modest budgets, so we need to make every dollar we invest in these photo commissions yield the most value possible. So, while we went into this project with the primary objective of creating an exhibit and producing a book, we also wanted to make sure that in working with Phil we were able to help populate our stock of images. We rely on that stock for calendars, annual reports, brochures, posters, and the web site – basically everything. We wanted to make sure that, in the end, we had something that not only reflected Phil’s style but also really represented the brand of CARE and our messaging around the empowerment of women.

At the time CARE was also launching a new marketing and print PSA campaign –- “I Am Powerful” — that had a distinct type of image we were looking for. We put together a creative articulation of what the images for this campaign should convey; we were looking for that portrait that compels the viewer to feel a connection with the subject. Through the image and her expression, the viewer should see or sense the latent potential within this woman, her determination to make her life, her family’s life, and her community’s life better. So we offered some creative direction, but Phil’s style of portraiture just naturally nailed it. It was like preaching to the choir.

In general we write up scopes of work that spell out all of the different things we could possibly use the images and caption information for. We try to give the photographers we work with an idea of the important aspects the program and what we find to be visually effective in helping to communicate what the project is about. We give them some ideas to think about but ultimately look to them to use their unique creative and journalistic skills to execute the idea.

What we asked for from Phil — and he was already doing — holds true today. We want engaging environmental portrait photos, but we also want to show people in action and carrying out their daily lives, overcoming their greatest challenges, along with CARE’s program in action. We try to make the photographer aware of what is most important to CARE to capture and what else we find really useful. Over the past eight years we’ve worked hard to strengthen our scopes of work.

When I first started the standard scope of work was pretty much give us everything and take pictures of anything that moves. But now we’ve really refined them to convey that the images that are most useful to us, and that most accurately reflect CARE’s work, are the images of actual project participants. We certainly appreciate the pictures you just can’t help but take because it’s just such a nice shot. But in the end, we won’t be able to get as much use out of those images because we can’t speak about that person as an individual and how their life relates to the work CARE is doing in the community. So we have really tried to get photographers to keep their focus on our programs so that their images and supporting caption information is very applicable to our communications. We want to make sure that the photographers are able to focus their efforts on delivering what CARE needs most, and what supports our efforts to accurately and effectively tell the stories of the women who are so committed to overcoming poverty for their families and their communities.

Luz Maria Marin holds the head of her husband Angel Toala one day before he died of stomach cancer in his home in Shushufindi. ©Lou Dematteis

Click below for segments from a recent audio conversation between Lou Dematteis and Michael Costuros, the founder of liveBooks. Lou speaks candidly about the tangible social change produced by the project and how his involvement with the cause continues to nourish his own passion and creativity.

Part 1: How did Amazon organizers initially use your images? “I found out that photographs I had taken that I had passed on for use in Ecuador had been used as part of an education and organizing campaign.”

Part 2: How did the book Crude Reflections come about? “In 2007 we received a Distribution Grant from the Open Society Institute, and that allowed us to print a set of photos and display them back in the Amazon, so the people living this and experiencing this had a chance to see their photos. They were literally in tears.”

Part 3: What effect has the book had in South American communities? “The book is bilingual…we didn’t just want to produce a book we were going to show in the United States. We wanted to make it useful and available to people in Ecuador and Latin America.”

Part 4: How has this project enriched your life? “I’ve developed an incredible bond with many people there. They are very thankful that I’ve helped give a voice to their community. That is tremendously fulfilling to me.”

A father with his young daughters at the Hadj pilgrimage. © Newsha Tavakolian

MJ: Maybe we can talk about a couple of the images. I’m looking at number 6. There’s a father taking a picture of his daughters with a little camera.

NT: That picture was taken around 2am. At night many people are sleeping, resting from the long day. But it’s also less busy so some people take the opportunity to visit the Grand Mosque when the crowds have left. While wandering through the corridors of the Mosque, I met this family. The father was with his four daughters who were dressed up in Hajj dresses, and I thought they were so cute. The father was so excited to be there, sharing the moment with the family. When he started taking pictures of the girls, I thought this was a nice moment to capture. Generally Muslims are too often portrayed as large groups, not individuals. The picture of a father being happy with his children hopefully shows that there is fun and happiness out there.

MJ: I haven’t seen a lot of pictures of families there; usually the images are of crowds. There was another one in a hospital. I thought that was interesting because usually pictures of Hajj are outside with beautiful buildings.

Pilgrims inside a hospital during Hajj. © Newsha Tavakolian

NT: Hajj is expensive. To go there and come back you need at least five thousand dollars. Because when you go on the pilgrimage, you have to return with gifts for all your family members. There are cost for hotels and transportation. People from countries like Yemen or Bangladesh spend so much money to buy tickets to get to Saudi Arabia and Mecca that they want to stay a long time. They don’t want to just go there for 4 days; some people who go there stay for one month. So it’s an expensive trip. Not many young people can afford to go there. Many people who go are old and have saved up for a large part of their lives to do the pilgrimage.

Some even pass away while they are there. I saw over 20 dead people on the street, wrapped up in white sheets. They died because they were too old, from heat, from pressure. This gave me the idea to spend one day only in the hospital and take pictures. Also National Geographic magazine supported me on this trip and they had asked for behind-the-scenes images of the pilgrimage.

I also want to point out that many Muslims want to go to Hajj, but the Saudi government cannot handle all of them, especially because Mecca is a small town. The authorities say they cannot deal with more than 2 million people, and point at disasters in the past in which pilgrims died in stampedes or giant fires in the tent camps. So you have to apply to come to Mecca during the Hajj. Your country has to submit your name, and you wait until it’s your turn. For example, if I were to submit my name as a pilgrim, it would take 17 or 18 years until I could go. As a photographer, different rules apply.

Newsha's Hajj dress hanging in her Tehran apartment. © Newsha Tavakolian

MJ: Maybe we can talk about the last photo, of your white dress hanging up in the window. It’s really poetic. I wonder if you have any special feeling about it.

NT: One of the special things about Hajj is the dress. Everybody wears the same dress, all in white. That is quite impressive. The idea is that everyone is the same in front of god, it doesn’t matter where you came from or if you’re poor, rich, black, white, or yellow, you all look the same in the same dress. That was why I took the opening picture of my ironing board and the Hajj dress; the clothes were the main symbol of the pilgrimage before I started the trip. When I returned, I hung the dress at the window, as a souvenir. The next evening, when I walked into my workroom, the image suddenly struck me and I knew that the dress pictures would be my opening and ending shots.

Before I went to Hajj, I decided to mix my work with the intimacy of my personal trip there. Since I work with Polaris news agency, most of my work has been straight photojournalism. Being a photojournalist in Iran, where I work and live, poses certain challenges, so I am now focusing on documentary series, which I really enjoy.

Non-Muslims cannot enter Mecca, so I decided that I wanted to show the pilgrimage like the journey that it is, close to the people, seen through their eyes. I hope my images give people a realistic idea of what it is like to be there.

• According to an Associated Press report, Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton called for the release of detained American-Iranian photojournalist Roxana Saberi at a press conference yesterday, two days after the NPPA released an announcement that the Iranian government admitted Saberi was held in prison. Since the US currently has no diplomatic relations with Iran, the State Department is now working with Swiss officials to find out details of her detention. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) started a Facebook petition which had already collected over 5,500 signatures as of yesterday afternoon. NPPA has more on Saberi and the arrest here and here. For a complete story and update, go to Free Roxana website.

• Moodboard, the London-based stock photo agency that has gained popularity in this struggling economy, debuted its digital magazine ONE this week. While some think that the stock industry is in freefall, Moodboard CEO Mike Watson thinks it is the perfect solution for photographers and creatives to counter the slashed marketing and photography budgets companies everywhere are experiencing. Regardless, we think the 34-page magazine is visually pleasing and a great attempt to connect with the photography community at large.

• The 50 States Project published its first “assignment” on March 1. The innovative online gallery pulls together 50 emerging photographers, one from each state, and asks them to make a photo according a bimonthly theme. The first theme was “People,” and the photographers were asked to create images that convey their own style as well as the feel of their home state. A Photo Editor has already given it his blessing and undoubtedly other editors have bookmarked the page as well.