livebooks blog

This Valentine’s Day (Saturday, February 14, 2009), photojournalists, videographers, editors, writers, and volunteers are working in 18 locations nationwide to tell the stories of homeless teens. Their work will be uploaded in real time to the Do1Thing website, where many of their images and multimedia presentations are already available. One of my favorites is “Portrait of Perseverance” by Chris Stanfield, which tells the story of  22-year-old Sakina Lockhart, who made it all the way through college while living in shelters or hallways of rundown motels.

Do1Thing was conceived after photographers donated their time to shoot portraits of 346 foster children, 150 of whom were consequently adopted. Realizing the power photography could have to mobilize people around an issue, Najlah Hicks and Pim Van Hemmen decided to shine the light of visual storytelling onto several social issues affecting children and teens.

This is a model I think we’re likely to see cropping up more and more. It reminds me of the RAVEs that the ILCP does, sending a bunch of photographers into a threatened area to create a cache of images and other content that can be used to draw media attention to the issue. Both websites are also rich resources, giving people many options for how to help, and undoubtedly counting on the top-quality content there to drive potential donors and advocates to the site.

It also doesn’t hurt to have huge names associated with the project, like Do1Thing does. Of the more than 130 photographers, editors, and videographers signed on, here are just a few heavy hitters (although every participant deserves to be recognized for his or her contribution): Nina Berman, Bill Frakes, David Leeson, Tyler Hicks, Ed Kashi, David Hume Kennerly, Martin Schoeller, Vincent Laforet, Jimmy Colton, Stephanie Heimann, Bob Sacha, and pretty much every VII photographer.

Check out the Do1Thing website to see how you can join this prestigious group and other ways to help the more than 1.3 million homeless youths in the country through this initiative.

• After Tom Gralish helped pinpoint the photo that was used as the starting point for the famous Obama HOPE poster (by Mannie Garcia for the AP), the AP on Wednesday “reached out” to the lawyer of Shepard Fairey, who created the poster and is now much richer and famouser. Carolyn E. Wright, the author of the Photographer’s Legal Guide and the writer of the Photo Attorney blog, wrote a long post Thursday analyzing the AP’s case and concluding that she, at least, would take the case. via: Online Photographer. John Harrington has several good posts on it too: here, here, and here.

• Everyone is atwitter over Paolo Pellegrin’s photo essay for the New York Times, Great Performers. And they should be. It’s stunning and unveils just how staged most celebrity photos are with its dedication to a photojournalistic truth. It also reminded me instantly of Paolo’s Iraqi Diaspora project, which I saw at Visa pour l’Image this year, and which had everyone in Perpignan atwitter to see a photographer so skilled in black and white also blow us away with color.

• Greg Gibson has a great post on his blog explaining in detail how McLatchy-Tribune News Services photographer Chuck Kennedy convinced the White House to let him set up a remote camera at the foot of the podium during Obama’s swearing in. Probably the most impressive part is seeing just how many front pages ran the image…a great lesson for photographers about always trying to do something new, even when it seems like it’s all been done before.