Having Ora cave come up as an NG photo of the day last week reminded me of that long, hard expedition to Papua New Guinea. Exploring any cave is hard, big river caves are among the hardest. Not only are you fighting white water and gravity and darkness but also the constant roar of the river is deafening. Dave Nixon is heading back upstream from the end of the cave. At least we called it the end. It was the place that white water rapids began slapping the ceiling and further exploration was closely aligned with certain death. I remember all of us heading down to the last rock we could hold on to and looking around a corner at the maelstrom. No way to go on, certain death around the corner…

Staying motivated after that point was so hard. There were still weeks to go and our major objective was finished. It was hard not to just pack up and go home. But we didn’t pack up, we kept going. The expedition  kept finding new caves and we kept making pictures. 

It is a good thing too because some of the best photographs came from a cave explored in the last days of the expedition. 

It is a lesson I remember, no matter how you feel in the field, keep working.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

This past Thursday marked the passing of Horst Faas. Probably as much as about anyone since Capa, he was someone whose mere mention of a name — either first OR last, was enough to conjure up that big personality and , yes, talent, that he was. In an age when blogger-photographers rule the silicon airways, all the tricks of the modern trade — from blazingly groovy cameras to the concept of “we’ll fix it in post…” have created a new breed of semi-famous person. It’s no longer based simply on a smart, clever, wily, talented concept of what the news is and how to capture it in a single frame – it’s all about the buzz. Some of the biggest names in the current photoblog world, while talented, would, I suspect have some issues if they were limited to shooting Tri-x on a Nikon F (model F, not an F2, F3, or F4) with f/3.5 lenses, and no focus confirmation in the finder beyond whether or not it looked sharp. Horst had a 40+ year career with the A.P. – that giant lifeblood of news – at a time when the A.P. was the biggest carrier of news around the world. If you lived anywhere but London, Tokyo, Paris or New York, it’s pretty sure that anything you saw from some place distant was through their wires. He worked in the Congo, and settled early on in Vietnam at a time when there were but a handful of American advisers and troops. In the first few years of his tenure there, he quickly figured out that to get to where the pictures were meant you had to get somewhere early, and be ready when the shit hit the fan. Of course you never really knew when, or exactly where that would be, but intelligent reading of what was happening meant that experience counted – and he certainly used his own experience to great advantage. His pictures, I was reminded this weekend, were not just your standard “I was there…” wire service kind of work. He was a damn good photographer, and his pictures often reached deeply into a situation and came out with something far more meaningful. He had a eye, and understood that above all, you had to use your feet and your wits to get your camera to the right place, so that when you pushed the button, you were able to capture that telling moment. Perhaps as interesting as his own photography was the way he tended to the A.P. stringer corps. In Saigon during the 60s you could get accreditation if you had letters from two different publications who agreed that over time they would PROBABLY buy some of your work. But for many freelancers, like myself, there was no guarantee you’d be able to pay your apartment rent or buy a meal at Cheap Charlie’s Chinese restaurant if you couldn’t sell a few images. I was lucky to have an intro at TIME (for whom I’d worked considerably in the states) but for a lot of young stringers, the fact that Horst would buy a few pictures that he might not really need, which would permit that person to be able to keep working, meant that over time he had a very loyal group of shooters. When, eventually, they DID get something of value, the first place they brought those pictures was back to Horst at the A.P. He understood the value of building that network of photographers. The ongoing competition with U.P.I. – the other major wire service – created an additional motivation to find the best work, the quickest, and get it out on the wire. There was no time for lollygagging: The old A.P. phrase “a deadline every minute” was certainly true in the sense that someplace, somewhere, a newspaper editor was looking for the best, most up-to-date images, and that was the appetite Horst tried to feed. He seemed to me to be one of those larger than life figures that belied his own physical self. I always imagine him as a towering figure, with a bellowing, resonant voice, though when in fact I would run into him, we nearly stood the same height. It was something about his overall presence which made me feel that I was in the midst of some kind of larger than life character. In the end, though, I think one of the most meaningful things he did was to work on the Requiem project: a collection of photographs from the Vietnam war, done by photographers who were killed during that time, from both the South and the North. There are some very telling stories about what it took to get the Northern authorities to release pictures for the project – they were initially reticent. Yet when you look through this book, one of the most amazing compilations of photographs of war that has ever been printed, you see how important it was to include both sides. Almost as if the brotherhood of photography had eventually managed to trump the politics of war. In what must be seen as a great and tragic irony, he fell ill in 2005 in Hanoi, just after the reunion of foreign correspondents in Saigon on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the end of the war. In a country where he had cheated death many times, a bad reaction to a virus razed havoc with his body, rendering him more or less paralyzed from the chest down. But even though he was confined to a wheelchair for these past 7 years, his undaunted spirit never seemed to waiver. I last saw him at the opening of the memorial to fallen correspondents at the Newseum in 2008. There, on a large glass wall, emblazoned with the names of those killed covering conflict, he offered the last physical remains – a small box with bits and pieces of camera gear, mainly –found in Laos at the crash site of the helicopter which took four well known, great photographers to their death in 1971. The chopper had been heading into Laos to cover the Lam Son campaign (meant to seize control of the Ho Chi Minh trail) and was shot down just over the border. On that bird were A.P.’s Henri Huet, LIFE’s Larry Burrows, UPI photographer Kent Potter, Newsweek stringer Keisaburo Shimamoto, as well as a Vietnamese army photographer. Horst, along with A.P. writer Richard Pyle, had spent the better part of two decades trying to get to the abandoned crash site, and eventually did so, only after years of maneuvering in government channels. (see Richard’s book “Lost Over Laos.”) At the Newseum dedication, we tried taking a group shot of all the correspondents who showed up, a bigger group than any easily accessible area would hold, and even there Horst took charge, trying to arrange the group to sit still long enough for a picture. In the end, I suppose he would have liked to been thought of as a photojournalist. One who tells stories with pictures (whether his own, or at times by the wily ways of his editorship.) But have a look at his work again. (click here for a small selectionon the NYTimes site) You see pictures which are, frankly, pretty damn good. My favorite image of him in the ones which have come out this week is the one on the NYTimes Lensblog – there he is with a Zeiss Contarex SLR – a fumblingly slow to operate camera which was NEVER used by professionals (the Nikons were simply better for quick operation) but whose amazing optics would have probably found a soft spot in his heart. Horst pretty much dedicated his life energy to photography, and I’m pleased to have had a chance to know him. We’re just sayin’… David

Yours truly sitting just behind Horst, along with a gaggle of journos….

Hank Snow?

I photographed him in his dressing room at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville once back in the 1970s. Some Hank Williams records are in those boxes too, but he’s in a more revered class than Hank Snow. Now I’m looking for wooden crates to store them in and the possibility of thinning out some of our many bookshelves—dedicated readers, Ani and I have books in every room in this house—in order to make room for my suddenly greatly increased record library. I’ll probably never again have to check out another yard sale looking for record treasures, although I probably will. It’s hard not to.

The other day I pulled out from one of the boxes a 1973 recording of Jean-Luc Ponty and Stephane Grappelli and it reminded me of how much I miss my late brother Bruce’s music. Bruce was a wonderful violinist and a fine trumpet and flugelhorn player. He became enamored with Conn cornets from the 1930s late in his life. He was a smooth jazz player on both horn and fiddle, not someone very much caught up in bebop style. He got his professional musician’s union card at age 13 or 14. As a young man he played for about 15 years in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, leaving it to become a freelance violin and horn player, doing a tremendous amount of studio work in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area in the years before that business got digitized and the calls became few and far between. Bruce had a beautiful tone on his violin and could make the instrument sing. He never recorded himself with the exception of a few takes he made as demo CDs to use in booking his various ensembles. I have one of those CDs in my car and I play it frequently. He died of pancreatic cancer in 2008 at the relatively young age of 64.

If you’re wondering what Beryle got from me in trade, it was a couple of prints from my now and then work in Paris. Beryle knows and loves Paris far better and even more deeply than do I. Compared to him I’m a novice regarding that city. Beryle was actually with me one summer afternoon in 2002 when I made one of the pictures I gave him, a 13” x 19” print of a picture I made looking out on some terrace tables in front of what was then one of our favorite wine bars on Rue de Rivoli. He and I almost got caught in an unexpected and tremendous downpour but managed to duck in the doorway of La Tartine. As it poured rain the sun came out brilliantly and the light was champagne colored for just a few moments and I was thinking, this won’t last long, Allard, please don’t miss this. I think just one frame of the few I made with my M6 was successful. But that’s all you need, really. Having more just makes the editing more difficult, doesn’t it?

The other print I gave Beryle is a small one, the picture I call Towering Over Bardot, Paris, 1988, made in the apartment an American model shared platonically with Edouard, a young Frenchman who made collages out of pictures of Bridget Bardot he cut from old magazines. I’d remembered having seen Tanya in a colorful mini-dress one day and I asked her to wear it for me and I photographed her straddling one of Edouard’s collages. Other than some portraits it’s one of the very few pictures I’ve actually produced, made happen. I was working in Paris photographing the fashion world for an all-France issue National Geographic had in the works. They never used the picture but Esquire later published it double page in an issue called “Women We Love.” Both pictures I gave Beryle are in my recent book WILLIAM ALBERT ALLARD: Five Decades. So much for the trade. I think Beryle has a few more wine boxes of LPs for me.

Another accomplishment this past week was getting the 48 inch upright Yamaha piano in the music room tuned. I can only play chords and fool with it but my grandson Will Evans, the son of my daughter Terri and her husband Dwayne, is taking lessons from the amazing Charlottesville pianist and raconteur, Art Wheeler. Although the piano hadn’t been tuned in almost three years it was not too far out but I thought Will, who turns 11 this month, should have a good piano available if he wants to come over to practice on something besides his electric keyboard. Now what I need to do is discipline myself to take my flugelhorn out every day or night for at least a few minutes and try to develop some chops, at least enough to amuse myself. It’s a good horn and should be put to use. I guess I think of instruments somewhat as I do cameras. They can be nice to admire and to hold but if they are really good they should be put to use. I think that’s why they say fine violins will kind of “go to sleep” if not played. I don’t think a Leica M camera will do that but I could never understand why Leica thought it appropriate to put out some of those special edition cameras that were obviously meant to be looked at but not necessarily used. My brother Bruce’s old Yamaha flugelhorn hangs on the wall in my writing room in Missoula. It’s got multiple dings and dents, the silver finish is worn down to brass around the valve casings where he’d held it for so many years. It’s a well used horn, certainly not pretty, but I can still sometimes get it to play easier if not better than my Bach Stradivarius that I’ll haul out to Montana later this month along with the dogs and other stuff.

Last night I pulled out at random from one of Beryle’s wine boxes, a Sarah Vaughan LP, “How Long Has This Been Going On?” cut in 1978 with the personnel of Oscar Peterson on piano, Joe Pass on guitar, Ray Brown on bass, and Louie Bellson on drums. Listen again to those names: Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass, Ray Brown, Louie Bellson. Those were some of the finest musicians of their time or of any time. And they’re playing behind one of the greatest voices of any time: Sarah Vaughan. Listening to that record last night with a glass of Chilean red, I mused at what an extraordinary instrument is the human voice. This may not be one of Sarah Vaughan’s greatest efforts but she was such an incredible singer. Many of her contemporary female vocalists must have marveled at her ability to soar from a standing start with no apparent effort and her ability to bring it down again with such grace and feeling. Some might say she could sometimes go a bit too far with her vocal acrobatics, but at her best she was simply unsurpassed. At least that’s my opinion. A year or so ago I read a Sarah Vaughan biography called “Sassy.” She evidently loved to party hard after a gig and could do so long and late but still show up with all the goods when it was time to do so. There’s something to be said for that. On the other hand, she died at 66. I like to think that’s not exactly old. I was 66 once. It was nice.

This is a business of bounces, sharp turns, unexpected events, lean times, occasional joyous celebrations, and bouts of euphoria measured in slices of seconds. No matter what, be it an excellent day in the field, or a humdrum day filing pictures or doing billing, it is punctuated almost incessantly with the intrusive reality of just how difficult this is to do, over the long haul. Wonderful, but tough at the same time.

I’m the last staff photographer in the history of LIFE magazine. I had the job for a brief time in the middle 90′s and I’ve likened it to the photographic equivalent of a roller coaster ride. Intense, exhilarating, wild, constantly ironical, and relatively brief. I have to believe virtually any job in journalism nowadays is replete with almost daily irony. My boss when I joined the staff, a truly wonderful editor and wordsmith, and one of the few editors in the history of Time Life magazines who really, truly understood the value of pictures, stopped by my closet of an office at one point to tell me he was heading off on a corporate junket. Private jet to Ted Turner’s private island off the coast of Georgia, and in the middle of the this executive conclave, another private jet to Atlanta to watch a Braves playoff game from the luxury boxes. He looked at me and said, “And Joe, can you guess the reason for the meeting?” I answered without hesitation. “Cost cutting and layoffs?” He winked and nodded.

My own personal bit of irony occurred in my last year at the magazine. I won one of the first Eisie’s, for Journalist Impact, for a story called the Panorama of War, all shot in various stressed places on earth, all done with a 617 Panorama camera. (This and $2.25 gets me on the NYC subway system.)

I went to a swell party, and got a $1500 check and a sculpted Eisie eye. I thanked all concerned from the podium. The ironical part of all this was that during the week previous to the photo fete, I had been fired by LIFE. Shown the door, exited. Thanks for playing. At Time Warner, you are actually not fired. They refer to it as a “reduction in force,” or, “riffed.” I got riffed.

It was okay, actually. In my last year at the magazine, I got my kid on the cover! I was told later it didn’t do well on the newsstand but that was dad’s fault, not hers.

Cool. Once a freelancer, always a freelancer. Back on the street, once again jobless, which is a condition that has existed pretty unremittingly for me for over thirty years. I occasionally send in notes to the alumni magazine at Syracuse University when they send out missives requesting updates on the no doubt sterling state of their graduates’ careers. I simply say, after thirty plus years, Joe McNally is still jobless in the New York area.

At that point, though, I had to dig in, re-direct, and find work.

Point of the parable? No matter who you work for, LIFE, Time, the East Bramblebrook Daily Astonisher, your own blog about your own life, or just your Facebook page, you are working for yourself. You cannot take a camera in your hands and hope somebody just pulls you along. You can never feel safe, or self satisfied. If you predicate your sense of self worth, or self esteem, or fulfillment as a shooter on what somebody else does to and for you and your pictures, you will be miserable, ‘cause no one—certainly no publication—will treat your stuff the same way you would. If you hit a patch of easy street where some editor thinks you are world’s greatest picture maker and lavishes praise, high paying gigs and first class air tickets upon you, know that the editor in question will be fired.

Whatever good thing you have going as a shooter, understand this—it will evaporate, deteriorate, get worse, or just shrivel up and blow away.

Fun, huh?

The life of a shooter is driven by passion, not reason. This is not a reasonable thing to do. A colleague I know offers this advice: “If you want to do this, you have to make uncertainty your friend.” Indeed, you do.

In this life of uncertainty, it is, however, absolutely certain that some shit’s gonna happen to you. What follows below are some notions on coping.

If the angels sit on your shoulders on a particular day or job, and you knock it out of the park, feel good, giddy even, but get over it. Tomorrow’s job will be on you like a junkyard dog, and will tear the ass outta your good mood in a New York minute.

If you win a contest, appreciate it, be gracious, and give thanks to everybody involved, especially your editor and the magazine, even if they had nothing to do with it and actually did their level best to obstruct you at every turn. Contest wins give a warm fuzzy feeling inside but shrug it off ‘cause tomorrow you still have to put on your pants and go find work.

Understand that the money monitors who show up at these contest driven rubber chicken dinners and breathlessly exclaim, “Love your work!” while shaking one of your hands with both of theirs’ are simultaneously eyeballing you and wondering why you cost so much money and there’s lots of pictures out there for free nowadays and why aren’t we using them? Smile back, and be thankful to them that for a brief interlude, they lost their sense of fiscal responsibility, and somehow you got a bit of budget to do something that was terribly important originally only to you, but because you executed it with such passion and clarity, it has now become important to lots of people, given the impact of your photos.

Know that whole bunches of folks will try to take credit for everything you just did. It’s okay. You got a chance to do it.

Understand that in the world of  content-desperate big publications, and the multi-nationals that own them, that next year’s contract will be worse than this year’s. And if the contract is real, real bad, they might actually hire somebody to come in and explain why it is “good for you” in so many ways. Know that the phrase “good for you” is interchangeable with, “you’re screwed.”

(Recent update on that type of language. Lots of contracts now are accompanied by language that state that what’s being offered is in keeping with “current industry standards and norms.” For the translation of that, see the paragraph immediately above.)

Know there will be days out there that feel like you’re trying to walk in heavy clothes through a raging surf. The waves knock you about like a tenpin, you have the agility of the Michelin Man, and you take five steps just to make the progress of one. The muck you are walking in feels like concrete about to set. Even the cameras feel heavier than normal as you lift them to your (on this day) unseeing eyes.

There will these days. You must get past them with equanimity and not allow them to destroy your love of doing this. Know on these days you are not making great art, and that every frame you shoot is not a shouted message of the truth that will echo down the corridors of time forever. You are out there with a camera, trying to survive, and shoot some stuff, however workmanlike or even outright mediocre, that will enable you to a) get paid, and b) live to fight another day.

There will be times when you cannot pay the bills. You look at your camera and desperately wish it was an ATM or the stock portfolio of a far more sensible person. Have faith. Return your phone calls. Keep shooting, if only for yourself. Actually, especially for yourself. Use this work to send out reminders that you are around and alive. Stay the course.

Love this fiercely, every day. Things change, and generally for the lonely photog, they don’t change for the better. What you are complaining about today, after the next few curves in the road you’ll recall with fond reverie. “Remember those jobs we used to get from the Evil Media Empire wire service? The ones where they paid us 50 bucks, owned all our rights, and we had to pay mileage and parking and let them use our gear for free? Remember those sumbitches? God, those were they days, huh?”

Remember we are blessed, despite the degree of difficulty. We are in the world, breathe unfiltered air, and don’t have to stare at numbers or reports trudging endlessly across a computer screen. Most businesses or business-like endeavors thrive on a certain degree of predictability, sameness and the reproducibility of results. They kinda like to know what the market’s gonna do. By contrast, we are on a tightrope, living for wildly unlikely split second successes, and actually hoping those magic convergences of luck, timing and observation will never, ever be reproduced again.

We don’t know what’s gonna happen, and most of the time, when it does, we miss it. Or what we think we’re waiting for actually never happens. It’s anxiety producing, and laced with forehead slapping frustration. If we were a stock or a bond, we would undoubtedly get a junk rating. Not a smart pick, no, not at all.

But what a beautifully two edged sword this is! What shreds your hopes one day cuts back, just sometimes, and offers up something to your lens that’s the equivalent of paddles to the chest. Clear! You’re alive again, and the bad stuff and horrible frames fall away like dead leaves in an autumn rain.

At those moments, the camera is no longer this heavy box filled with mysterious numbers, dials and options. It is an extension of your head and your heart, and works in concert with them. Whereas many times you look through the lens and see only doubt, at these times, you see with clarity, precision, and absolute purpose.

Know these moments occur only occasionally. Treasure them. They make all the bad stuff worth it. They make this the best thing to do, ever.

More tk…

(A good deal of the above is reprinted from a book called Sketching Light. I hope the author doesn’t get teed off I swiped it.)

I’ve shown this on the blog before, a modern dancer, painted with tempura paint, and perched in a bird’s nest of tulle. It was lit with just one TTL flash, camera right, just out of frame. I used a Lastolite Ezybox hot shoe soft box (say that fast a few times) with a white interior, which is a wrinkle on their long existing design of soft boxes with silver clad interiors. It produces, predictably, a softer, more rounded light than the one with the snappy, contrast producing silver box.

Over the years, I’ve offered numerous photo manufacturers some suggestions, some complaints designed as suggestions, notes from the field, and a few WTFs. Most of the time (most of the time) in response to those suggestions, I’ve gotten a polite pat on the head, or potentially a bemused, bewildered smile, followed by a nod and a note that effectively says, “Thanks for playing, we’ll get back to you.” I’m sure all shooters have experienced this when they’ve offered an idea to a magazine, or publisher, or any of the array of powers that be that we routinely appeal to. It’s a bit like dropping a rock down a well. There’s a long period of silence, followed by a distant splash, as the idea makes its way to sleeping with da fishes. (In reality, that’s an appropriate resting ground for some of my nuttier notions.)

But the Lastolite folks, who make an array of light shapers I’ve become fond of, actually took action. I suggested the white interior box some years ago, and their peerless designer, Gary Astill actually made one for me, and then came out on location with me to see the light it produced relative to existing model. His verdict was to start producing the white version. Cool. It was a fun moment, actually. Kind of like being a long time golfer on the pro tour and then getting asked to design a course. (On a much smaller scale:-)

While in Vancouver, I took a day to just mess with light shapers, all of which I had either outright suggested, or had a hand in tweaking, and hopefully, making better. (I’ll write about the others presently.)

I took the white box, (Got my name on the side of it!) and dropped a fabric egg crate into it. The egg crate allows the light to remain softly directional, but it also corrals it, seriously cutting the spill and spread of it onto the set. I needed the light to stick with the model at the front edge of the set, and not drift to the background, which I wanted to remain dark-ish.

Reason being, I was going to try lighting the background with another lighting tool called the Tri-flash. This, too, had been on the market as an effective, small bracket onto which you can affix three hot shoe flashes in a coherent, singular direction. It eliminated the need for multiple sticks, clamps, zip ties, and other jury rig stuff myself and lots of shooters had been messing with to gaggle together multiple speed lights.

But, the cold shoe receptacles were fixed. In other words, for a unit like the SB900, which has light sensor panels only on one side, it automatically made it a tough throw for the commander flash signal to reach them all, especially if you had the three flash rig radically off to the side of the camera POV.

So, I suggested a ratchet. Make the cold shoes spin around 360, and thus enable a better, more unified directionality for the receptacles. They liked the idea, and made it.

For this shot, I did have the Tri-flash way to the side of camera, using it in a somewhat unusual way. Generally I put up a Tri-flash arrangement when I think I’m going to stress just one flash too much, and I want to get faster recycle, spread out the work load among multiple units, and just increase the volume, or surface area of the light. Here, I just pointed them through a couple of cucoloris boards that were hanging around David Cooper’s studio in Vancouver. Here’s the high tech setup.

Uh, bad model, but you get the idea. One light makes one shadow. Three sources of light, all slightly off axis to one another, gives a fuzzy, multiple edge to the shadows it creates. Flying it through the cookie and spraying it on the background gave out a sun dapple kind of effect, albeit not a crisp one, more like one where the leaves are swaying a bit in the breeze. (Actually, given the way the model is dressed and made up, maybe make that moon dapple.)

I ordinarily go for one light, one shadow, so this was in the realm of an experiment, and I’d thought I’d share it. At the end of the day, the light shaper for the background is a couple pieces of cardboard with some irregular holes cut into it, and the Tri-flash based speed lights, all zoomed to the max (200mm) just sprays across them, throwing unpredictable patterns and shapes on the wall. The model does her thing, and she is illuminated solely with the egg crated soft box. Commander flash on the hot shoe, at camera.

The makeup here was done by the wondrous Tamar Ouziel, and we used long time friend David Cooper’s photo studio for the shoot. Thanks go out to them, and Syx Langemann, who helped out on the set. Also thanks to the Lastolite folks, who listened, about these and a couple others I’ll talk about, and went to bat and made them. Even more fair and square, much like a book, I actually get a royalty on these puppies, which is cool. They still haven’t sprung for my idea for the hydraulically powered 22 Speed Lite Lifter, complete with tank treads and a turret, but I’ll work on them.

More tk….

Most professional photographers will sympathize. Via Rob Haggart

Stephen Alvarez

Boston, MA

Anytime I think that I’m some sort of storytelling mastermind I see a clip like the one above from David Mclain and Merge. Needless to say its humbling. Bounce will be an incredible film.

Stephen Alvarez

“Liberty and Justice (For All): A Global Photo Mosaic is an exploration of the concepts of liberty and justice. The 68 contributors [including Ed], among them many of the world’s leading photojournalists, were asked to select one image that speaks to their sense of the theme and to pair that image with a brief narrative. There were no limitations on timeframe, subject matter or geography. Taken together, their words and images create a tapestry of the varied nature of liberty and justice that coalesce to explore something more fundamental: the pursuit and importance of truth.

This project was born from reflection on the lives of photojournalists Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, who were killed on April 20, 2011, while covering the war in Libya. They were among their field’s most accomplished leaders, men who pushed boundaries and reshaped the landscape of visual communication. They were trusted friends for many included here. For me, they were also mentors.”

— Benjamin J. Spatz, Guest Editor, “Liberty and Justice (For All)” Alaska Quarterly Review

 Those of you who follow me on facebook know I have been working on a convergent film project. Now convergence is a word I throw out pretty often. By it I mean a place where the film and still photography worlds merge. This film is a perfect example. Not only is it made up entirely of still images -I’ll get to that in a second- but it is really a landscape photo essay except the pictures move in a surprising way. Our concept was to take 24 hours on the campus of The University of the South and distill it to one 3 minute ideal day. Beside vimeo the film resides here where you can download still as screen savers.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The entire film is time lapse photography. Over the course of 2 months I shot 27,500 photographs (722 Gigs!) and blended 5,000 of them into this film. Time laspe is fun, often frustrating and takes a degree of obsessiveness that I usually reserve for my work at National Geographic Magazine. How obsessive is that? Take a look at this video of me on the 5th day of trying to make scene 5 work.

There is nothing new about time lapse technique, people have been under cranking since film began. The big change is in delivery. Even 5 years ago it would have been hard to get this film distributed but now with sites like vimeo, youtube and facebook distribution is practically free and entirely governed by the film’s popularity. How popular will it be? Only time will tell.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

Actually you have to go to THAT LINK and then click on their film “On Assignment” and then hit the vote button.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The most memorable of the peaks, the one featured in the posters for Avatar, seems to be floating in space.  As part of a move to capitalize on the huge popularity of Avatar in China, this 3544 -foot tall pillar of sandstone was recently renamed the Avatar Hallelujah Mountain.  “Pandora is far, but Zhangjiajie is near,” goes the marketing slogan. And lest anyone forget the movie, huge billboards and flat-screen tvs blast reminders of Avatar at the entrance and throughout the park.

A forested island in a sea of mist, formerly known as the Southern Sky Column, is now Avatar Hallelujah Mountain.

More otherworldly pictures from Wulingyuan

Baofeng Lake is surrounded by lush foliage, and its emerald waters reflect the wild scenery surrounding it.

The world’s highest outdoor elevator, dubbed Hundred Dragon Elevator, emerges from a stone cavern into the sandstone mountains. The rice paddy in the sky (seen in foreground) is tended by local farmers.

The photographer aboard a model of a Pandoran banshee, courtesy CGI at the Park’s Photo Booth. Though the Navi tribe preferred getting around Pandora by banshee, Avatar’s designers used radio-controlled drone helicopters to photograph the eerie peaks of Zhiangjiajie.

A couple months ago I had the cover of Newsweek. It was a stock shot of the Navy Seals, running the beach at Coronado, their West Coast training base. I’ve worked with the Seals a bunch, and many of those frames are in the stock library at Getty Images, who made the contact and the sale. It was cool to see the image used in this way, and it gave me a quick snapshot off the biz as it stands. Getty billed Newsweek about $1700 for the usage, which then was split with me. (I have no input or influence over what Getty chooses to charge for the use of an image.) I was, honestly, happy to hear that figure, given the dire and prevalent news of covers being sold for $50 bucks and the like.

While rates haven’t advanced, in this instance, neither have they retreated drastically. I’ve shot a bunch of assigned covers for Newsweek over the years, and it was always heady to corral that coveted piece of real estate. When I was shooting a lot for Newsweek, editorial rates were hovering around $350 per day, and if you could pull in a cover for a couple grand or more, shazam, you just copped the price of a couple more weeks of day rates. (The formula we all worked for at that time was day rate against space. In other words, if you worked 10 days and they ran nothing, you got those ten day rates, plus the expenses. If you worked one day, and the force was with you and you produced a cover and three double trucks, you got all that space payment, even though you worked only a few hours.) Those days were the stuff of the fevered imaginations of every mag shooter out there.

TIME of course paid more. They always had more budget than Newsweek. As my friend Jimmy Colton, then an editor at NW and now at SI, was fond of saying, “TIME is a hospital. Newsweek’s a MASH unit.” Below is the first cover I shot for TIME, and if I recall, they paid about 3 grand. Other shooters, the real premier cover guys, got more dough, for sure. I was definitely not in that group. If I got a cover, it was either an accident or a last ditch phone call by a desperate editor.

But TIME was the big boy on the block. As a shooter or an agent you could always expect more days, or bigger stock checks from TIME. The two mags were neighbors actually, with Newsweek being on the east side of St. Pat’s, facing Madison Ave., and TIME of course sitting astride 6th Ave. on the west end of Rock Center, just a couple blocks away off 50th St. Picture agents, attempting to sell their plastic sheeted, pre-digital wares, would often be at both mags on a Friday as they closed, trying to push their agency’s stories. They used to call this newsweekly Friday night tour the “50th St. shuffle.” There were certain agents who operated in totally blase fashion, selling packages of pictures labeled “Exclusif! Mondial!” (Worldwide exclusive!) simultaneously to as many editors as possible.

Selling pictures had a certain charm to it back then. You could liken it to loading up a buckboard with a bunch of pictorial clutter, harnessing Old Blue and clip clopping through the neighborhood, intoning “Rags, clothes, pictures, bottles, shiny objects….” Digital delivery is vastly preferable in terms of economy and speed, though the personal touch is a bit lacking. As a shooter, I could lumber up to Newsweek on closing night, hover at the light table, beer in hand (supplied by the picture editor, Jim Kenney) and look and listen in amazement as experienced chrome editors flew through stacks of slides, clapping a Schneider loupe to each successive transparency with the insistence and speed of a well handled set of castanets.

I shot a lot more for Newsweek, the poorer cousin of the newsweeklies, and got used to doing more with less. When I got sent to Poland for the first visit of Pope John Paul II to his native land, we had 7-8 shooters, and predictably, TIME had about 12. But, we had an ace up the sleeve, in that Kenney had wisely gathered in the services of  Sygma, the Parisian based agency, to shoot for him. They were a wonderfully eccentric, experienced group of international news photogs, led by the incomparable JP Laffont. Shrewdly, they showed up in Warsaw in a Winnebago, driven in from France. In the initial days of the papal visit, while we were all in Warsaw, that meant that JP and company would routinely show up at your hotel door, and in gentlemanly fashion inquire, “May I please have a shower?” All of us fancy pants shooters with hotel rooms would make good-natured sport of our mobile home compatriots, down there in the parking lot with none of the amenities of the Warsaw Intercontinental.

Ah, but they were smarter than we were! When Il Papa got out there in the hinterlands of then severely Communist Poland, the press corps was relegated to cold water dorm flats and rickety, swayback cots set into ancient bed frames. Memories of the comparative luxury of the Intercontinental faded fast. The restaurants would routinely have a giant “X” through the entree list. They would often have only a bit of ham and some bread. And no booze! Everywhere the Pope went was dry. It was trying, I tell ya.

One night, having spent the day being harassed by the Polish militia, and fighting through thousands of people stacked against each other to hear the Pontiff say mass,  I was stumbling back to my prison cell of a room. I believe I had just dined on water and stale bread, and was tragically without the anesthesia of several beers. My desperate nose went up in the air. The smell of truly wonderful French cooking was wafting about! Fragrant and beautiful, the scent led me right to–you guessed it–the Sygma Winnebago. I stood at the door of this four star restaurant on wheels, and I must have looked for all the world like a refugee child at the screen. So much so that JP had mercy, opened the door and handed me a glass (not plastic) of wine. “Drink, McNally. Enjoy. It’s good French Bordeaux!”

At that moment, and it wasn’t just because we were on a papal trip, it was like receiving communion.

Lessons learned along the way….more tk….

Alan Lomax, wandering somewhere in Arkansas. This photograph of Alan conjures up the audio vision I have of the legend. October, 1959 ~ Photograph by Shirley Collins

Normally, it can take weeks (even months) preparing a story for this space. I need time in my attempts to share something imaginative, hopefully insightful — or dare I reach as an offering towards a sliver of enlightenment — in an era when everything and anything is brilliantly rehashed on the Internet.

This week I’ve decided to loose my laundry and dive as rapidly as I can into the Ring of Blogging Fire on a topic surely well written upon. What happened just under two weeks ago (though it’s been quietly going on for sometime) is indeed one of the biggest developments not only in the world of field recording history, it’s also a landmark moment for social documentary photography.

The Alan Lomax collection is now completely accessible online — 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes, piles of manuscripts — including 5,000 photographs he took over this astonishing career.

Alan Lomax dreamed of being able to give back to those he recorded. With the advent of technology, today the Association for Cultural Equity — the institution he started — is reaching out to living family members, finding ways to generate royalties to the late artists and their families. Here Alan is having Raphael Hurtault listen to playback of his recordings in La Plaine, Dominica. Ironically, I was in La Plaine for a National Geographic story last year. Have a feeling little had changed since the 1960′s. June 25, 1962 ~ Photograph by Antoinette Marchand.

Oh, did I mention the best part…these thousands of hours of audio are not only accessible in their entirity (most of the Lomax collection has been available online for years but as 45 second intro pieces), they are streaming for FREE!

Even the film and photographic archive is accessible for searching and viewing, for free.

Clearly Alan Lomax is passionate, utterly oblivious that his fly is open and probably sweating like a pig in the summer heat on the island of Mallorca yet still the gentlemen donning a tie while testing microphone at the Palma Festival, Palma, Mallorca, Spain June 23, 1952 ~ Photograph by Jeannette Bell

For those who do not know who Alan Lomax was, he was an American folklorist and one of the preeminent ethnomusicologists of our time. Born in Texas in 1915, Alan was the son of John Lomax, a teacher and pioneering folklorist in his own right. By age 17, Alan Lomax began traveling with his father throughout the American south and the Caribbean as his dad made what are considered some of the most important early recordings of American culture while working for the Library of Congress (John Lomax set out in 1933 on the first recording expedition ever undertaken by the Library of Congress with son Alan in tow). Throughout his life, Alan traveled with his audio recorder gear (about the size of a steamer trunk), and a camera or two, taking photographs that matched his field recordings in places like Haiti, Dominican Republic, Scotland, England, Ireland, all over the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain. Here are some photographs of Alan Lomax throughout his 60 years of literally recording our world ~

Wade Ward, old-time music banjo player and fiddler from Virginia, clearly enjoying the playback Alan Lomax had just made. Take a look at that kit…and we complain that a Fostex or a Sound Devices is big! Galax, Virginia. August 31, 1959 ~ Photograph by Shirley Collins.

I love this period-based photograph. Why? Look around the room and tell me what you see; Alan Lomax traveled/worked no different than we do today…living hotel to hotel in hot, tropical climates. Instead of a MacBook Pro, he used a portable typewriter. Jeez, remember TWA? Alan Lomax reading notes in Radix Village, Trinidad. May 20, 1962 ~ Photograph by Antoinette Marchand

Seems Alan Lomax also used a Canon camera, seen here at the Delta Blues Festival, Greenville, Mississippi. September 8, 1979 ~ Photograph by Bill Ferris.

When you go to the Cultural Equity website and stream Alan Lomax’s recordings, you’ll be amazed by how much sound he picked up with these truly tinny microphones. I bet Alan would be blown away by how compact audio recording kits are these days. Here Alan is recording the Pratcher brothers — Miles on guitar, Bob on fiddle — in Como, Mississippi. September 21, 1959 ~ Photograph by Shirley Collins

Alan Lomax inspecting film in Albarracín, Aragón, Spain. 400,000 feet of film and 3,000 videotapes make up the moving film archive of the Alan Lomax collection, which is now completely available online. October 15, 1952 ~ Photograph by Jeannette Bell.

Alan Lomax also played music, seen here jamming with the Selah Jubilee Singers likely in New York City. The Selah Jubilee Singers were an American gospel vocal quartet that formed in 1927. Circa 1950′s ~ Photograph by John Cohen.

When the Association for Cultural Equity, a not-for profit Mr. Lomax started, announced that the entire Alan Lomax Collection would be available for streaming, I was beyond thrilled. In my World Music collection I have two or three treasured CD’s of his which are as pure and raw as it gets.

During the last 20 years of his life, Lomax created an interactive multimedia educational computer project he called the Global Jukebox. This recent ability for the entire collection to be accessible to everyone is indeed a dream come true for Alan, who died at the age of 87 in 2002 — he wanted his messages of change, inspiration and education to be available for all.

This is huge on many levels.

Why?

Lomax wasn’t only the preeminent and pioneering ethnomusicologist and field recordist of our time, he was social documentarian who used both audio and photography to educate and raise awareness of issues. In many ways, he was a fellow photojournalist.

Take a gander as some of these rare contacts which a young Alan, about 18 years of age, took while he and his father worked for the Library of Congress ~

Some lovely portraits seen on this rare contact sheet during his years when he traveled with his father, John Lomax, while working for the Library of Congress. Contact. He seemed to already have a keen eye for composition at the age of around 19 when these photographs were taken. The musicians are portraits of Stavin’ Chain and Wayne Perry performing in Lafayette, LA, June 1935 ~ Courtesy of the Library of Congress ~ Photographs by Alan Lomax

More insight into how Alan Lomax worked behind the camera when not making audio recordings. This contact sheet shows portraits of of musicians Bill Tatnall and Susie Herring — Frederica, Georgia, June 1935 ~ Courtesy of the Library of Congress ~ Photographs by Alan Lomax

His microphones and cameras traveled the world during an era when musical traditions were already under pressure due to development and cultural apathy. Lomax knew the importance of creating audio recordings and photographs as a means to make change and raise awareness, well before a drop of notion that a tool called the Internet would arrive, let along recording device that would fit into a shirt pocket. Lomax knew that the musical and cultural traditions which took all of human civilization to develop was under pressure and about to becoming extinct, in the same manner of urgency that the present day preservation of linguistic heritage is sending anthropologists (sadly with scarce funding) to record the last speakers of dying languages on our planet — every two weeks a last speaker dies, taking with them the vestiges of our global language which not only makes up our global cultural heritage, we loose the wisdom of our ancestors.

Alan clearly understood magazine gutters yet was not a magazine photographer, placing the bamboo support smack in the middle with all sorts of lovely moments happening on the right and left. The white hands on the rear wall and the silhouette of the veiled women tops this image for me which was taken during a Hindu wedding ceremony in Charlo Village, Trinidad. May 12, 1962 ~ Photography by Alan Lomax

Lomax was also a social activist, focusing heavily on civil rights issues, once again using music/field recordings and photography as a compendium against social injustice and raising cultural awareness. He was a confounding member of People’s Songs, with Pete Seeger and others in 1954, with the belief that folk music could be an effective impetus for social change. His recordings from America’s southern states in the 30′s, 40′s and 50′s were key in raising awareness and helping to end racial discrimination while Lomax championed civil rights issues for African Americans.

When Alan Lomax was 17, he began traveling with his father, pioneering folklorist and author John Lomax, taking photographs and helping is dad with his audio recordings. Some of his early work with his father was at prison camps. Here is a photograph of a prisoner inside the camp hospital taken when Lomax was around 19 year-old — Darrington State Farm, Texas, April 1934 ~ Courtesy of the Library of Congress ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

Full frame — cropping in camera — clearly was how Alan Lomax saw the world. Unfortunately the cover image of the recordings, Prison Songs (next image) ended up being cropped. Tragic the art team removed the ax in the upper right of this photograph of prisoners chopping wood in order to make it a square album/CD format. Parchman Farm (Mississippi State Penitentiary), Parchman, Mississippi. September 16, 1959 ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

Final photograph by Alan Lomax as it appeared on the Prison Songs recordings. Well before Photoshop, the design team had a significant hand in making this work as a square, removing all background detail and getting a bit overly creative by adding clouds in the top right.

Alan Lomax used the power of images and the awesome power of sound not just to record history, he used these communication tools to make a difference.

This is one of my favorite Lomax quotes:

“The dimension of cultural equity needs to be added to the humane continuum of liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and social justice.”—Alan Lomax, 1972

I can type effortlessly for hours on how important Alan Lomax was to the preservation of culture and the weighted issues on a whole host of human rights efforts and activism he was connected to. Given the wealth of the Lomax collection now accessible to all — and the countless books, news articales and whatnot written/recorded about Mr. Lomax — you can easily learn more about this extremely talented and passionate individual yourself by making a simply Google search (click here). Anyone wanting to really delve deep into Lomax’s career and life, make sure to read the book, Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World.

My reason for rapidly writing this piece — and what’s often overlooked in all the writings, reviews and ravings about Alan Lomax — is his eye.

Alan Lomax was a pretty darn good photographer.

Alan Lomax could see, working the entire frame of the images in this scene while recording workers clearing land in The Valley, North Side, Anguilla. July 4, 1962 ~ Photography by Alan Lomax

Portrait of two women seated in front of their home, singing and shaking rattles during a visit to Andros Island in the Bahamas. This would have been taken when Alan was only 18-19 years old while traveling with his father in 1935 ~ Courtesy of the Library of Congress ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

Young boy, crying — Unknown Location, between 1934 and 1950. Photograph by Alan Lomax – Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Beautifully composed baptism near Mineola, Texas. Alan would have been only around 19 or 20 years-old when this photograph was taken in the summer of 1935 ~ Photography by Alan Lomax

Once again Alan Lomax finds his composition, using the entire frame, pushing the camera button right when a young newspaper boy appears in the frame, whistling. Festa brass band in Cinquefrondi, Calabria, Italy. August 1, 1954 ~ Photography by Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax clearly knew what he wanted to see in his photographs, here keeping in the row of elegantly hanging hats in the frame while the Rev. I.D. Back sings during recordings with the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church congregation, Blackey, Kentucky. September 5, 1959 ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

Simple yet poetic portrait of Harry Cox with unidentified woman and child at his home in Norfolk, East Anglia, England. Cox was a farmworker and one of the most important singers of traditional English music of the twentieth century. October 9, 1953 ~ Photography by Alan Lomax

I hope these few photographs — and Alan Lomax’s entire archive — inspires you as much as it has me for continuing to use our cameras to make social change for those who cannot themselves, while in compendium, make field recordings, helping to expand the minds and hearts of others through the consciousness arresting power of sound and sight.

These days we tend to call it multimedia.

Fine, though I prefer to call it Visual Audio.

Either way, well before anyone of us were creating such combination storytelling, Alan Lomax was…and most of us weren’t even born yet.

NOTE: An enormous level of gratitude goes to Nathan Salsburg and Don Fleming — both with the Association for Cultural Equity — for allowing me to used un-watermarked photographs taken by Alan Lomax over his amazing career. Nathan had the weighted task of gathering 20+ high res files and helping me source proper captions. A super group of people continue the legacy of Alan Lomax, all of whom I’d be honored to meet on my next visit to New York City.

Rich Clarkson was Director of Photography for the National Geographic Magazine from 1985 to 1988.

Since leaving the Geographic he operates the highly regarded editorial, sports, and adventure workshops, Photography at the Summit and heads a multimedia company, Rich Clarkson and Associates LLC, that packages photography books and manages sports photography services including “NCAAPhotos” in which they photograph all 89 NCAA championships every year.

Clarkson worked as director of photography for 25-years at the Topeka Capital-Journal where he started the careers of such noted photographers and editors as Brian Lanker, Chris Johns, David Alan Harvey, Sarah Leen, Jim Richardson, Susan Biddle, Mark Godfrey, and David Griffin. He also was a contract photographer for Sports Illustrated for 25 years, assistant managing editor of The Denver Post, and president of the National Press Photographers Association. He is a recipient of a Lucie Award, NPPA’s Sprague Award, the Alumni Medallion and the National Citation of the School of Journalism at the University of Kansas, his alma mater.

Like Kent Kobersteen, I have spent much of my professional life moving on from an early role as staff photographer to a director of photography. My time spanned two successful newspapers and eventually, the National Geographic Society. It included working as a contract photographer for a news weekly and the nation’s premier sports magazine, as well as the editor of a number of books and photographic projects. So from both sides of the fence, my career has been about the business of getting good pictures and then using them well.

So what did I learn in these various stages? And what should all photographers know?

This is about what directors of photography do, and how to use them well.

First, a director of photography is your friend — and your spokesman, your salesman and often, your mentor. But he is a middleman. His job lies between you, and the users of your work, along with a picture editor and various other layers of editors whose job it is to combine the visuals with words. It is a very competitive environment. Some managing editors are brilliant manipulators of all the elements to tell a story most effectively, but often they can use help. Dealing with various magazine editors over the years, often a scene of negotiations and compromises.

At National Geographic, tradition places emphasis on the pictures first and the compromises are mostly which pictures tell the story most effectively. Over the years, this tradition remains one of intelligence — understanding that the pictures do not need to tell the exact same thing as the text, but that the two should complement each other. The Geographic has been blessed with editors who understand this, as is currently the case with editor-in-chief Chris Johns, who spent most of his earlier professional life as a photographer. But Chris Johns also has an appreciation of fine writing — one of his first objectives when taking over as editor-in-chief was to raise the level of writing by bringing new voices of talent. The photographs were already in good hands.

The great underlying work of a director of photography is almost always (often quietly and below the surface) educating. Educating editors to appreciate pictures and talking about their best use. Sometimes a simple photograph makes the best statement, while at other times, a complex picture in a carefully orchestrated setting compliments the story telling. In some magazines, that extends to “educating” an art director who holds much power along with the editor. Luckily today at the Geographic, design and presentation is in the hands of a brilliant editor, Bill Marr.

It is a important for a director of photography to help photographers understand their story line — as often their preconceived idea gives way to the discovery of a different thrust as photographer and/or writer move forward. In mid-course (most Geographic stories have a halfway point to look at and discuss the initial work, sometimes to re-think the project) to plan how to make the story most effective. But the key to a successful story begins when the director assigns the photographer.

Bob Gilka told me the real role of a director of photography was assigning the right photographer to the right story. And he was right — a good start is crucial. Since many stories are proposed by photographers, those photographers arriving with good proposals have already made it to first base. It’s the job of the director of photography to help turn that idea into a home run.

Doing research and homework is crucial to getting that assignment. When Jim Richardson proposed a story on the Ogallala Aquifer stretching underneath the prairies of Kansas/Nebraska/Colorado, his research was so complete, that he helped educate the assigned writer. 

When I was director, a photographer we had never previously used arrived with a portfolio and story idea. His portfolio showed the talent of a National Geographic photographer, so what was the story idea? Oil exploration all over the world, explained George Steinmetz. The idea was instantly compelling. So how do you know about this? When George explained he had graduated from Stanford with a degree in geophysics — I took him right to editor Bill Garrett’s office and he had a major Geographic assignment in one hour. The story was one of the largest ever published in the magazine and was the first of 31 stories George has since done. Right talent, right place, right time – and most importantly, right homework.

Other aspiring photographers may not have such appropriate degrees, but there are many other ways to arrive informed. And that makes a director of photography’s job rewarding for all.

As a middleman, the director’s relationship with the Editor in Chief is also crucial. I was blessed at the Geographic when Bill Garrett was that editor. He was, in my opinion one of the two best editors in the 125 years of the magazine. No one today has the opportunity to work with/for/under (all those apply) Bill Garrett, who is now retired. After him, came Bill Allen, who presided over the “modernizing” of the magazine which set the scene beautifully for today’s magazine. My other favorite editor is Chris Johns, who runs the show today, and he is easy to approach.

Directors of photography are jugglers in an ever-changing scene and even respond to such interesting elements as changes in the personal lives of their staff members. How Robb Kendrick thought and worked at age 18 when I first hired him is much different than how he works today, influenced by many other factors in his life — including a talented wife and two young sons. How David Alan Harvey thinks and works today is different in some ways from 25 years ago, but in many other ways, is exactly the same. He is motivated today by the same ideas that drove his career at its beginning.

Every talent is different and the sands of change are always blowing — and good directors of photography understand that, often acting as if a practicing psychiatrist. Photographers who respect directors should share their changing priorities and interests regularly. Part of all this is career journalism and another part is artistry and all the passions, interests and desires that entails. Artists are different. And good directors appreciate that.

I was brought into the Geographic to change how the photographic department worked. The problem with that was almost no one wanted change — and that is still inherent in today’s National Geographic Society. Change comes reluctantly, and there are many things in the Geographic that should not change. The trick for the editor and the managers is to produce a contemporary magazine that readers want, while using your main tools — the creativity of the staff, some of which “get it” and some don’t. But in the end, the ultimate judge is the reader.

The Geographic is an American treasure that holds a unique place as a trusted and intriguing messenger that looks both backward and forward at the same time. Editors and directors of photography operate in that special arena. Photographers as the respected contributors need to understand that, too.

And the director is your friend.

So how does one get a job, an assignment, or simply crack the scene at the Geographic — or for that matter of fact, almost any other magazine or newspaper?

First, never approach anyone by telephone. You have no way of knowing what is on that director’s agenda at the moment — nor just what is going on at his desk when you call. You can use e-mails, but be aware most directors are getting scores of e-mails every day and will probably respond when they know with whom they are messaging. Short specific e-mails are best, and don’t ask for any information you should have already researched, such as, “What are you looking for in a new photographer?” E-mails can be good only if used correctly.

Do your homework. Find out just what your chances are, what the priorities are at the moment, and the likelihood of even getting to first base. How do you find out these answers? Get in touch with an insider who already works or does regular work there — and this will be someone who is not inundated with aspiring photographers who may have time to talk on the telephone. If you don’t know them, start out by complimenting them on a specific recent work. Of course, that means you need to have read the magazine/newspaper thoroughly in order to talk of specific work you admire. Then let them tell you such things as when the best time to contact the director may be, what he/she really wants to see/hear or what specialty they are interested in, and when they may be actually looking to hire.

When it comes time to present a portfolio, tailor it to a) what you do best and b) what the Geographic (or other publication) uses. Accompanying it with a story idea (assuming you have a good one and can present it well) that shows you are thinking. But be aware that you could be suggesting a story that may already be assigned or “in the can.” (The Geographic like many other publications has many subjects in progress long before publication.) That’s where your insiders can help. They can probably tell you if someone else is already working on something similar. The greatest sin is to suggest a story that actually ran in the magazine three years ago. Do your homework!

Make sure the portfolio is the best it can be — carefully edited and succinct. When I was director, I actually received the portfolio from an applicant for a summer internship that was so huge, it arrived in a wooden crate. The equipment shop had to open it for me literally with hammer and crowbar. And as you might suspect, it was not a winner.

Finally, let me tell you personally how I have always hired people — whether for a staff position or a single assignment. Bob Gilka used to say that I was the best “discoverer” of new talent in the country. To me, it was always simple for the best people were easy to pick — and Bob had picked some pretty good ones in his time, too. Good people, with intelligence, commitment and “fire in the belly” just stand out. I have always been more interested in the personality than the portfolio.

Someone who really cares will get the pictures – so the difference between individuals is called talent. I have never been interested in aspiring photographers who produce work (and portfolios) that look like the previous year’s contest winners, or their version of what they think I want. What I want is someone who is solidly professional, different from everyone else, and of course, publishable. 

It is called uniqueness. As the saying goes, I can’t define it but I know it when I see it . . . 

     - Rich Clarkson

Photos © Joshua Duplechian/Rich Clarkson and Associates

I’m still deep in the heart of a time lapse motion project, but while my 5D MK IIs have been running I’ve had the chance to experiment with the new MK III. So far all I can say is wow. The image above is an example. It is shot at 1/13 second at f 1.4 iso 25600. The thing is it is so dark that I could not even see the camera, I had to focus on the red led on the battery.

Check out the 100% detail below, this camera will open up photographic possibilities we haven’t even thought of yet. 

above iso 25600 at 100%

Obviously 25600 isn’t something that you could use all the time, but it could produce publishable images. Turn the iso down a little bit and the camera begins to really shine.

Check out iso 3200 below.

above iso 3200 f4 @ 1/30  

iso 3200 100% detail

Not bad huh? It only gets better as you go down.

above iso 400 1/500 sec @ f 4.5

The most obvious thing this camera might change for me is my cave lighting package. It can get a whole lot smaller because I can be working at iso 1600 instead of 400 where I am with the MK II. Big rooms won’t be the challenge that they were when I shot everything on Fuji Velvia. Early morning aerials are going to get less stressful as well. 

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

I said I’ve been corresponding. That’s quite generous. I’ve been a lousy letter writer. So many times I’ve wanted to respond, and events, an airplane or just plain sleep overtook me. I finally made a stab at a mildly complete answer to his archive of letters, and below is a piece of it. His persistent, thoughtful questions brought me back to a day when I might have made my first successful picture.

You made the choice to follow a photographic path sometime ago, and have followed that path with zeal and passion. That pursuit is something we share, to be sure. When I “found” photography, it drew me like nothing I had ever experienced. Up to that time, I was completely non-committal in all aspects of my life. Indifferent in school, a so-so athlete, just another beer drinking college kid, out there on Marshall St. Never thought about logging the 10,000 hours with anything and certainly hadn’t encountered one thing at that time that seemed to warrant that kind of effort.

But photography! Now this was something that involved the head, heart and hands in equal measure. This was balance. This needed no explanation or defense. It needed to be done. It required work. It became the focus of my life. And, a bit like a big rock blocking the way of the stream and roiling the waters, it has stayed there, in my consciousness, day and night, mocking me, taunting my relentlessly puny efforts. Day after day, year after year, I have gone after that rock, methodically, but sometimes with a vengeance, using the camera in my hands as one would wield a sledge, hoping to break it to bits, crack it open, find the gleaming secret within and thus finally obtain smooth portage.

You know what? After all my blood, sweat and tears, it still sits there, smiling at me. My encounters with it now are more conversational than rage filled and intense. We’ve come to an understanding, I think. I will pass from this earth and it will still be there, ready to taunt the next young pup with a camera in his hands and some big ideas. But there’s an unspoken agreement between the two of us that there were days I hit it hard enough to break off a couple of decent size pieces. I gave it a decent go, in other words. It’s all we can do.

Part of the pull of course is that photography involves an all out effort. You have to be at the top of the ladder for the best angle, not the middle. You don’t do it from the side of the road. You leave the car behind, climb the guardrail, and go out there to get in the middle of whatever you’re looking at. You walk into the village or the farm or the life of those in question. You get off the interstate, and, as Jay Maisel says, you walk—slowly. It’s a credential to life’s events you put around your neck that gets you past the barriers that hem in and corral the others. In return, it demands that you risk things—life, limb, emotions, embarrassment, failure, sometimes all at once. It seeks only the most ardent, passionate of suitors, and even then this fickle art and craft turns veiled eyes and offers the barest wisps of approval and acceptance, and those, only occasionally.

And I accepted that slim invitation, long ago, sometimes to my regret or comeuppance. I have failed, been broke down and wept for my own ineptitude. I have given up and given in. I have railed against the apparent injustice (to me) of others, be they editors, subjects, readers, friends or family that they seemingly don’t take this as seriously as I do. I have tired of explaining myself. I’m exhausted from imploring for just a bit more of an open door, just a bit more time. I mean, don’t they see? Don’t they know this is important? If you let me just do this, together we then create something that will outlast us, and isn’t that the fucking point?

Strangely enough, lots of folks out there have found my insistence and persistence odd, or even irritating. Put smiley face here.

You asked me once what photo started it all for me. For you it was your Auschwitz photo, the reflection on the floor. You also noted other high moments. The giraffe in Tanzania, and the soldier by the sunlit doorway. Those are all far more eloquent than anything I shot in my early years. My canvas was small as a photo student. Syracuse, NY, not the savannas of Africa. I turned, as a spectator at a football game, and saw an acquaintance about to go full throttle with a yell. I took my Nikkormat, loaded with Tri-x and a 135mm f2.8 lens and put it to my eye, and swung the focus to critical and hit the shutter at the absolute crescendo of whatever verbal abuse he was hurling at the opposition. It was the first time my camera felt like an extension of my hands. My fingers had flown (for once) to the right places, and moved the infernal dials and buttons in exquisite concert. It was one frame. I sat down and stared at the camera. And I don’t remember a single thing about the rest of that day.

More tk….

Click here to view the embedded video.

New York/New Jersey: Ch 13 THIRTEEN April 1, 2:30pm

Washington DC/Baltimore: MPT April 8, 3pm

Providence (they LOVE us!) Rhode Island Pub TV April 1 10pm; April 5 8 pm; April 7 2pm

New Hampshire Pub TV: March 31 8pm & Midnight; April 1 1pm

Oregon Public TV: April 5 11pm April 8 4am (a DVR setting, no doubt!)

Milwaukee Public TV April 1 3pm

Tampa (WEDU) Public TV April 1 7pm

Georgia Public Broadcasting April 1 10pm; April 5 8pm; April 7 2pm

call your local stations and verify the times as these all came from the “internet” and we know how reliable that can be… mostly… have a great Passover & Easter with your friends and family — and if you have a minute, and want to understand the real power of Family…. drop by our website musical.gefiltefishchronicles.com and see what our fans have written. It takes your breath away to see how people are so moved… we hope you will be too… Check in with the site now and then for news about Gefilte Fish Chronicles — The Musical …. to be staged late this year. Don’t be shy, add your two cents to our comments list

www.nationalgeographic.com: Around the World Jet Tour

-Amy

www.amytoensing.com
www.facebook.com/amytoensing
www.twitter.com/amytoensing

Featured in the newest Issue of Photographer’s i (screen shot above) is Michael Yamashita’s journey through the footsteps of Marco Polo. The book, Marco Polo: A Photographer’s Journey, was first published as a three part article featured in National Geographic Magazine.  This Article is now the inspiration behind Photographer’s i’s new interactive App. This magazine is the first of its kind to show you a Photographers’ perspective, using the combination of text articles with videos, audio recordings, and interactive tutorials. This App directly connects the viewer to first hand experiences from the Photographer.

Related links for more information:

Photographer’s i:  Michael Yamashita

iTunes Preview: Photographer’s I

Kids play in the streets in Kachhpura Village where Hirijan people live.

www.nationalgeographic.com: Around the World Jet Tour

-Amy

www.amytoensing.com
www.facebook.com/amytoensing
www.twitter.com/amytoensing

We are pleased to announce the release of Ed Kashi’s most recent photography book, “Photojournalisms,” showcased in the trailer above by Talking Eyes Media.

James Estrin further illuminates the intent of the book in a discussion with Ed recently in The New York Times lens blog. If you are in the New York area we welcome you to the International Center of Photography for a book signing on April 13, from 6:00 – 7:30pm at their museum bookstore location at 1133 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y.

In connection with the book release an accompanying app is being created by David Gross of Mimetic Books, which will be available soon in the Apple store. Please stay tuned here for updates on its release.

For more information about the book and for ordering a hard copy — this is a small run of limited edition books — please refer to the publisher, Nazraeli Press.

www.nationalgeographic.com: Around the World Jet Tour

-Amy

www.amytoensing.com
www.facebook.com/amytoensing
www.twitter.com/amytoensing

I’d like to be able to blog more often but I also like and need to read and a demanding assignment–and what other kind is there if  one is trying to do good work–is all consuming.  I’m lucky if I can get in a bit of reading time at breakfast, maybe some on the road but on the road in India is usually a long series of one-act plays going on in most any direction and requires my attention and admiration at times at the wonderment of the driver’s ability to avoid vehicle catastrophe.  At night the road seems to offer danger lurking in the darkness or in the overwhelming brightness of on-coming drivers who seem to have either headlights that don’t match each other–one is on dim, one is on super bright, or both may be blindingly bright and there may be none at all.  We come up quickly behind trucks rumbling on ahead with no apparent taillights or even reflectors.  The highways of India have improved immeasurably since my last visit eight years ago.  Still, at night, it seems a crap game of travel chance but I suppose if one lives here and hopes to continue to live, one gets used to it or at least has a good driver.  And to date I’ve seen only one accident and that was of no consequence and was within the city of Ahmedabad.  God only knows, or perhaps I should say one of the many Gods here may only know just how the cars, the trucks, the auto-rickshaws, the buses, the motorcycles, the motor scooters and the pedestrians somehow how criss cross each other’s paths in a series of sudden braking and renewal of speed, like some huge dodge ‘em car rink where everybody tries to avoid hitting the others, somewhat like a reverse demolition derby.  I think India has this mastered.  France, Germany, and Italy, may all have faster cars and highways but they often also have some spectacular high speed tragedies; I saw one once on night in the French country side I wish very much I hadn’t. I can still see in my mind the car, its top sheared completely off by the tree around which it had wrapped itself, ending at rest with the four young men sprawled in death within like some godawful horror exhibit.

Enough of that.

Better that I comment on the extraordinary visual effect common here in Ahmedabad and, I’m told, other parts of Gujarat, but not in other parts of India, and that is how the young women tear along within the miasma of the ever ongoing traffic, their heads and faces completely enwrapped in scarves, only their eyes visible and often those dark beauties are hidden behind stylish sunglasses.  And their slender arms are covered in gloves that reach to their upper arms.  What at first look I thought to be some kind of modesty given to a religious concern is simply their desire to protect their skin from the heat and grit of this city and its outlying areas.  When wandering in the markets and in their shopping ventures their faces are usually revealed. But while astride their scooters there is a wonderful visual secret behind all that fabric and those dark glasses.  And when there are no dark glasses, only dark but brilliant eyes seen framed by a narrow opening in the fabric, I always look to see if those eyes seem to be smiling as they pass me by.  Sometimes they are.

www.nationalgeographic.com: Around the World Jet Tour

-Amy

www.amytoensing.com
www.facebook.com/amytoensing
www.twitter.com/amytoensing

“What is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act?

The DMCA, as it is known, has a number of different parts. One part is the anticircumvention provisions, which make it illegal to “circumvent” a technological measure protecting access to or copying of a copyrighted work. Another part gives web hosts and Internet service providers a “safe harbor” from copyright infringement claims if they implement certain notice and takedown procedures.” (http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi#QID601)

That said if someone posts your image without your explicit permission, the web host must implement the “notice and takedown procedures.” Hypothetically, your image is removed and/or you are compensated and all’s well that ends well.

But what if you had agreed, without knowing it, to license your images to, for example, your social network sites?

You are. Every day.

If you read closely in the TERMS of your social networking sites, even apps like Hipstamatic or video platforms like YouTube, you’ll find that you have given them usage rights to your images that can be as generous as whenever, wherever, for the rest of time.

How do they get away with this?

For starters, most of us don’t read the Terms. Secondly, if we do read the terms we usually stop after a sentence much like this one “We (your social network or other) respect your copyright, acknowledge that you are the owner of your copyright and have in no way asked you to sign your copyright over to us.” For many of us, this seems to be equivocal to the understanding “don’t worry, you’re safe, stop reading here.”

But you’re not safe.

The next line or in the ensuing text usually you’ll find something like this: BUT, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). This example, with the especially disconcerting clause “now known or later developed,” happens to come from Twitter. Some sites, like Flickr, limit their wordwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license “solely for the purposes of providing and promoting the specific Yahoo! Group to which such Content was submitted or made available.” In instances like the latter your consolation is that if they use your images without your consent or due compensation, like signage in Times Square, at least the image usage is in association with Flickr/Yahoo. Facebook grabs “an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (to)…use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works, and distribute” your images subject to your privacy and application settings. Unless you manually go in and change it, the default setting on your posts is “public” thereby giving Facebook license to use any images freely.

Worst case scenario?

Imagine the database of images these networking sites have amassed, then imagine that they decide to license them, like the next Getty or Corbis, and finally, imagine that you receive absolutely no compensation or even credit. It would all be perfectly legal after all you agreed to the terms when you uploaded your first photo.

Best case scenario?

They’re not businessmen. You only uploaded very lo-res. They don’t have the necessary model releases. You watermarked the important images.

 Do you upload to any of these sites/apps? Take a look at their TERMS.

You may ask yourself, why? You are not alone. I’m still scratching my head. Here’s the law:
“Major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election. As defined in statute, the term “major presidential and vice presidential candidates” means those individuals identified as such by the Secretary of Homeland Security after consultation with an advisory committee. The Secret Service (SS), has no role in determining who is to be considered a major candidate. The Secretary of the Homeland Security determines who qualifies as a major candidate….”
on the Romney trail, last month
Let me get this straight. Janet Neapolitan decided that Newt Gingrich is a major Presidential Candidate? Well, maybe a month ago, but now? He hasn’t participated in a campaign event in weeks. Not that I blame him for the request. It’s much more fun and convenient to travel with SS than without, especially if you are tired of making your own travel arrangements, driving your own car, and having to be bothered with people you don’t like. It falls in that realm of “it’s nice to be king”.

When I started in politics (yes I rode my dinosaur to work), The Secret Service protected the Candidate, and the candidate’s family when they were together. They never made decisions about the security at any campaign event. It worked like this; the campaign staff would design the event. It usually meant throwing the Candidate into the middle of (we all hoped) a screaming crowd which was driven to tears by the mere thought of getting to see this splendid political force (who they hoped would lead the nation). The Secret Service would consult with the campaign, usually insisting that the Candidate be put in a bullet proof glass box, and never allowed to shake a hand. The final arbiter in the discussion of how the candidate was introduced, was usually the campaign manager or, if the discussion got heated, the Candidate. In other words, the Secret Service would spell out the kind and seriousness of the threat, and offer suggestions about how to avoid a life threatening situation. The staff would insist that the politics of the event be considered, and ultimately, the Secret Service would protect the Candidate whatever was decided about the event. These, brave people, were willing to take a bullet for their protectee—which could not be said by any staff I ever knew – but the politics and the opinions of the professional political operatives , would be taken into consideration.

This is no longer the case. Every campaign aide thinks they are working with/for the Secret Service to protect the Candidate from the media and the public. Everyone who attends a political event, a parade, or anywhere the Candidate appears, is subject to serious scrutiny, and ultimately security will make the decision about who gets to be wherever – even if the intruder is an important political asset. Yesterday, two people who were kissing were removed by Santorum’s security detail. They weren’t lewd or obstreperous – but even if they were, why is that a threat to the candidate’s personal safety. (One of the reasons a Candidate has SS.)

Let’s be real here. The simple fact is that it’s easier for the SS, or police, to simply shut something down than to have to deal with the inconvenience of securing a site. That is not to say that the SS chooses to make it easy rather than complicated, but that should be taken into consideration when no one is permitted to cross a street six miles from where the Candidate will be. Security, like everything else about politics and campaigning, has simply decided on overkill rather than thoughtful planning and administering any political policy.

If you hurry, you can still get somewhat close to the Candidates. But make it quick, because by the time there is a nominee, you thinking you actually saw the Candidate will be a figment of your imagination. We’re just sayin’… Iris

Irish music, Irish dancing, Irish Coffee, and in fact the whole country, are some of my favorite things. But David says I’m just an old fart, because I don’t get the attraction of celebrating a holiday that mostly celebrates a good excuse for getting drunk. Is it that my age is showing? Or is it because I am just not any fun anymore? “OH PLEEEEZE”. It’s because where we live in NYC there are lots of Irish bars (Eamon’s, Dubliner) and by early evening there are a great many under- and over- aged people likely to be screaming obscenities, not singing celebratory Irish melodies, but throwing beer bottles and vomiting on our front steps, It’s just not my favorite day in the City.

The President went to an Irish bar on the Hill, and had himself a Guinness with the boys. Of course he did. When you are a politician and it is a political season, you either march in a St Paddy’s Day parade, or you go to an Irish bar a drink a beer –preferably green.

We thought we might have a glimpse of the St. Pat’s Day parade in NYC. What a terrible mistake. There we were walking East to West. We though it might be a good day to get half price theater TKTS – since all the tourists were watching the parade – or being in it. I’m not sure anyone but the marchers were watching the parade. The police had Madison Avenue, and 6th Avenue sealed. There was no way to even gain access to the parade. David even had on his press credentials and they did not care. No one was getting from Mad or 6th across 5th, at least not in the 30’s, 40’s or 50’s. Of course we all know what a terrible threat those drunk Irish teenagers can be, so it made absolutely great sense not to allow anyone in the entire city to see the earnest marchers strut their stuff. “OH PLEEEZE”!
the revellers arrving at Grand Central
Does anyone actually know why this holiday is celebrated? Well, I found out.
Patrick was born in Roman Britain in the fourth century, into a wealthy Romano-British family. His father was a deacon and his grandfather was a priest in the Christian church. At the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken captive to Ireland as a slave – nothing to celebrate so far. According to his Confession, he was told by God in a dream to flee from captivity to the coast, where he would board a ship and return to Britain. In 432, he again said that he was called back to Ireland, (Pay close attention), to Christianize the Irish from their native polytheism. Irish folklore tells that one of his teaching methods included using the shamrock to explain the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to the Irish people – hence the color green—(at first the Irish color was blue) Today, it is a celebration of bringing Christianity to Ireland. (And the drinking?) It also celebrates the end of lent and the brewing of great lager.

This blob sounds a little to whiny for my taste, so for the short time we have left, let’s change view. What I love about St Paddy’s Day, is that there is one day a year when everyone wants to be Irish – or at least dress in green. People of all colors, shapes and sizes, find something in common to celebrate. And whether it is the act of getting drunk or going to church, everyone really seems to like everyone else. (Except women with baby carriages who use them as a weapon to negotiate their way thru crowds). Everyone finds something attractive and friendly about being one thing. In this case it’s Irish, but wouldn’t it be lovely to find many days for everyone to like the same thing. And, by the way, Danny Boy was just a set of unsuccessful lyrics until finally sung to the tune of Londonderry Air – that most newcomers from Ireland have never heard. Why does one song make so many people cry?

I miss Steve Daley. We’re just sayin’… Iris

To read the interview visit the Asia Society’s Asia Blog

ABOUT THE ASIA SOCIETY
Asia Society is the leading educational organization dedicated to promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships among peoples, leaders and institutions of Asia and the United States in a global context. Across the fields of arts, business, culture, education, and policy, the Society provides insight, generates ideas, and promotes collaboration to address present challenges and create a shared future.

“Many of you didn’t know Paula Lerner, but those of you who did knew her for her commitment to photography, her out-going personality, and her straight forward, no nonsense views. Last week, after a long and tough battle with cancer, Paula passed away surrounded by her family.

Paula was a photojournalist since 1985 who regularly focused on women’s issues throughout her career. Her professional friends and family would like to continue to share in her legacy by honoring Paula’s requested that donations in her memory be made to Business Council for Peace.” Jose Azel, Aurora Photos

Visit the Paula Lerner Memorial Fund site and make a donation in her memory.

-Matt

www.mattmoyer.com
www.facebook.com/mattmoyerphoto
www.twitter.com/mattmoyerphoto

One such opportunity is to study with Lori Grinker, who will be teaching a two-weekend workshop here in NYC at ICP called The Photographer as Artist and Social Documentarian. Ed and Lori have been colleagues and friends for quite some time and when asked about Lori, Ed had this to say, “Lori’s work embodies the finest of both documentary and fine art photography, with a sensitive and fine eye for human emotion and visual detail. She is infinitely knowledgeable about photography, its uses and impact on the world, which makes her an inspiring and valuable teacher.”

Voices of the Children of the LRA from marcus bleasdale on Vimeo.

Video shot for Human Rights Watch by Marcus Bleasdale.

Both Marcus and HRW have spent years working in Central Africa with victims of the LRA. If you want to help the LRA victims Human Rights Watch would be a good place to start.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee,TN

www.nationalgeographic.com: Around the World Jet Tour

-Amy

www.amytoensing.com
www.facebook.com/amytoensing
www.twitter.com/amytoensing

 San Sulpice, Paris. This is the Parisian church made famous by The Da Vinci Code. According to Dan Brown there are secret passages underneath. I shot in here as part of the Paris Underground story. No secret passages in the basement, I checked.

Stephen Alvarez

We work with all manner of small flash techniques, from high speed flash to multiple speed light interiors. Balancing indoor/outdoor scenarios with flash, working with gels, line of sight TTL and manual radio syncing all gets covered, as does–available light! The week is dedicated to recognizing good light when you see it, using it well, and then augmenting it with small speed lights as appropriate. Hard light, soft light, and all manner of light shapers are discussed.

It’s one of my favorite places on earth, so much so, the ever gracious owners of the resort, which consistently ranks among the top resorts in the world, commissioned my studio last year to shoot a book about the place. Nick and Karolin Troubetzkoy carved out a piece of heaven in the splendor of the Caribbean, and the pictorial inspiration there is infinite. No matter how many times I go, I find something new to shoot.

Stay tuned to the blog for updates. This year, all participants get a free Language of Light DVD and a free copy of Sketching Light for attending the workshop. Already looking forward….more tk….

by Hannah Thiem, March 2009 (updated February 2011)

Jodi Cobb specializes in large-scale, global stories exploring such topics as 21st-century slavery as well as more intimate stories set inside closed and secret worlds. A former staff photographer for National Geographic, she has worked in more than 50 countries, primarily in the Middle East and Asia. She is the author and photographer of the book Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art, which explores the previously hidden world of the Japanese geisha. Cobb’s photography has been honored many times by the National Press Photographers Association, and in 1985 she was the first woman to be named the White House Photographer of the Year. Cobb was one of the first photographers to cross China after it reopened to the West in the 1970s when she undertook a two-month-long, 7,000-mile (11,262 kilometers) journey for the National Geographic book Journey into China. Cobb has produced numerous articles for National Geographic, including “This Thing Called Love,” “21st-Century Slaves,” “The Enigma of Beauty,” and “The Women of Saudi Arabia,” and she has contributed to several National Geographic books. Cobb resides in Washington, D.C.

I took a moment with Jodi to talk with her about her passion for photojournalistic photography. Jodi has an extensive 30+ year career as a staff photographer for National Geographic, and is currently doing freelance with them for the past year, expanding her photojournalistic coverage into other avenues as well.

It was interesting to find out her insider’s perspective on the creation of a story from start to finish—how she proposes an idea, the research that goes into the stories, and the length of time for completion. Her story on “21st-Century Slaves”, was a massive project involving following all forms of trafficking in 10 different countries and ended up being about a 28-page spread. It received the biggest reader response in the history of the magazine until that time. Jodi was carving new grounds with a story that had hardly been written about or researched.

As a strong follow-up to the interview, I attended Jodi Cobb’s An Evening with an Artist, organized by PIEA and sponsored by Nikon at PMA. Many of the stories and details she shared with a packed room full of eager listeners she also had shared with me earlier in the day. The difference was seeing the striking images that accompanied the dialogue. Cobb’s presentation spanned the length of her career touching on some of the more meaningful stories and projects she had completed with National Geographic, such as Saudi Arabian women, Beauty, Love, and the list goes on. She also presented on her book project Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art, for which she took a 6-month leave of absence from National Geographic to pursue, and the entire work on the project spanned three years.

It was extremely inspiring to speak with Jodi about her vision with photography. “The real joy of photography for me is in the actual taking of the photograph. It’s that zen state—completely focused on that one thing, that moment. I want my photographs to either be beautiful or meaningful.”

Tell us a little about your time shooting for National Geographic.

I’ve been a staff photographer at National Geographic for several decades. Prior to that, I had worked as a staff photographer for two newspapers for a short time right out of school, then went to Geographic and I’ve been there ever since. I had been on staff until last year. They’ve eliminated the position of staff field photographers atNational Geographic to switch to an all freelance photography department.

How does that change the relationship with National Geographic, moving from staff to freelance?

It’s very exciting for me. It was time. I’ve been there my whole life. I always talked about being on my own and doing other things, and now I can. When I left, it was a great time. Now, with the economy, it’s a little harder. It’s been pretty tragic since then. Who knows what’s going to happen with the photography business, especially with documentary/investigative journalism photography. I’m still doing work with them. I just finished an assignment on Venice, which was my first major assignment shot entirely in digital. We just finished the layout last week.

Jodi Cobb

National Geographic has been the pinnacle for so long for photojournalists, documentary photographers, and science photographers. How long do you see that lasting? Do you thinkNational Geographic will be able to survive the digital and online media push?

I don’t know. No one knows the answer. The more I’ve had time to think about my next move, the more I realize how much I love to photograph. I just love taking pictures. While there are other things I could do such as editing, there’s nothing like taking photographs for me, and I’ll be happy as long as I can keep doing that. The final medium doesn’t matter as much anymore. I used to think that you had to have a magazine in your hand. Currently, there are all sorts of ways of looking at photographs and I think that if photographers don’t embrace all that, we’re lost.

I’m one of the last converts to digital. Now that I have, the advantages of digital for me have been huge. It’s really renewed my enthusiasm for photography. Usually on a project, I’m in the field for a month or more at a time and unable to see any pictures that I’ve taken. To be able to see the pictures is huge. Before, I had to just rely on faith that the camera was working and that my settings were correct.

I never was that interested in equipment and technology until went freelance and switched to digital. I’ve always just used whatever I could to interpret what I wanted to show. The kinds of photography I was doing in small places, small rooms, and intimate spaces, I didn’t enjoy using flash. It was so intrusive, disrupting, and I never really learned to master flash technique. Now, I can see in the dark with digital. I like to think I waited to switch to digital until they’ve optimized all the equipment, and I was able to jump in at the end of the digital revolution [she laughed].

What is your typical lens kit these days? Have you had any major focal length changes over your career?

I find all the Nikon zooms with VR (vibration reduction) to be pretty cool. I’m using the same focal lengths, but instead of having to use five prime lenses, I have two zooms, which has simplified my life enormously. I do a lot of wide angle and moderate telephoto work, and occasionally will use a 300 or 400mm on very special things, such as the “21st-Century Slaves” story for long shots down streets where I was not supposed to be.

Can you relate a quick synopsis of how you broke into this field of work, specifically the larger format photojournalist story telling?

Our choices were much fewer when I was starting out. Fine art photography back then didn’t exist as a concept. It wasn’t appreciated as much as it is now. Only a few magazines existed for this line of photography: Life, Look, and National Geographic. Then Life and Look folded. National Geographic, Time, and Sports Illustrated, and newspapers were all that existed for a time. That has changed so much and so fast over the years. There are just so many venues and opportunities now for photographers, if you move away from the printed medium. You see newspapers dropping like flies, magazines folding or getting rid of their staff photographers. I don’t know what to tell you on the photography career path right now. It’s kind of scary in the documentary/news photography line of work to get paid for being a photographer. There are all kinds of outlets now online, but to have someone to support your work, that’s one of my biggest fears with all the newspapers folding—who’s going to pay investigative journalists? Can the people who do the work make a living?

Jodi Cobb

What were some real turning points in your career?

• In college, Cornell Capa who started the International Center of Photography, came out and saw my work, gave me a grant and got me exhibitions in New York. That was the start of a great relationship and got me onto a certain level of being seen or known.
• Getting a summer internship at a newspaper and staying on there.
• Being laid off at the Denver Post and having the Director of Photography at National Geographic call me the next day with an assignment. That was the major turning point, and probably the last big one.
• A grant from Kodak to do the Geisha book.
• Moving to freelance.

With so many outlets going down, disappearing, or changing, does grant work come into play in your career? When you mentioned Kodak, though, as a previous grantor, it’s apparent a lot of companies that you normally might have been able to approach for grants to support your work are fighting their own battles to survive.

That was something I was going to start looking into to support my freelance work. The kind of photography I want to continue doing is very much about human rights issues and “changing the world.” I was thinking that grants were going to be a way forward, but who knows about that.

Can you take a moment to describe what you enjoyed about working with National Geographic? What doors do you see opening for you now that you’re freelance, and what challenges do you face?

I really love the kind of work that shines a light on human rights issues. It started with the story I did on 21st-Century Slaves, and then I did the story on “Love”, which turned into Love & Marriage as a human rights issue around the world. I’m very interested in the conditions of women around the world and in some way helping to empower women in countries where they’re not empowered. National Geographic has always been a great medium to do that because of its reach. Currently, they also publish 32 language editions so the reach is all over the world, much more than it used to be. I know they still want those kinds of pictures and I fully intend to continue working with them on that.

I want to see what other kinds of outlets for this type of work there are. It’s just been so crazy lately. My wonderful assistant and I have been getting everything organized to set up my business at home—getting new computers and equipment, monitors and printers. Setting up a business at home. All these things I used to have readily available at National Geographic, but I now have to take care of myself.

Jodi Cobb

Photographers of the current generation don’t experience a male/female split. Was that a struggle for you when you were starting out?

When I got into the business, women in all sorts of fields and professions were finding themselves as the only women or first women in the business. I didn’t think about it in the beginning—I didn’t know that photography was considered a male profession. I just thought, “I can do this, this is wonderful,” and just plunged ahead. I was always the only women every place I worked on staff. I would be asked to do something and I would be glad to feel accepted at last. Then I would hear, “Well, we do need a woman on this panel because it’s all men, we need a woman.” It would be a slap in the head again. Which is it, you need a woman, or you like my photography? There was always that doubt because you were reminded constantly of it. Now it’s a non-issue.

Did you feel like that came from above? Were you fully accepted by your colleagues?

I had nothing but support from my colleagues. I think that photography is a really unique profession in the willingness that photographers have to share information and camaraderie. That’s been huge from day one and what I loved so much about the business. In the darkroom at the newsroom, the other photographers were fabulous helping me along. It’s been that way my whole career.

In the field, however, I sometimes was not taken seriously, especially in very male-dominated cultures. For example, I requested permission to photograph a king and the reaction was, “where’s your photographer?” Me! It was a struggle quite often. I’ve chosen to never dwell on it, for therein lies madness. You just do the best you can, and people are either going to accept it or not.

Are you currently serving in some sort of mentor capacity to younger aspiring female photographers?

Not in any sort of organized way. It’s more informal. I get emails from young women all the time. Also, many successful women have come up to me and said, “I met you at a workshop and you said this and that, you inspired me.” My reaction to that is “Oh, thank goodness.”

I wanted to get some background on how you’ve worked in the past and currently on some of your stories, especially the “Geisha” project. What is your process from start to finish? What’s your process for completing the project?

Early on, it was really hard to get a story idea through at Geographic. I took assignments they gave me for the first decade or so. As the only woman on staff, I also felt the need to prove that I could do anything the guys did. I didn’t really specialize early on, I just tried to do everything—sports, adventure, outdoors, landscape, people. When it seemed like the guys were starting to specialize in things, I thought, now I can specialize too. I’ve proven I can do all these other things, and now I started proposing concept stories, like “Beauty” and “Love” and “Slavery.” They were all my ideas.

Jodi Cobb

Could you walk us through the “21st-Century Slaves” story?

View a brief summary of the article and supporting images by Jodi Cobb.

That was my idea. I read a small thing in the newspaper about the passage of the Anti-trafficking Act. I started asking people what they knew about trafficking and slavery and nobody really knew very much at all. That inspired me to look into this issue further. I proposed the story, thinking it probably wasn’t the kind of topic National Geographic would do. To my surprise, they accepted it. I felt quite overwhelmed at that point, realizing I had no idea how I was going to do this. I started researching, placing one foot in front of the other. One thing leads to another and you start finding the people who are going to help you. You do your research and find the people who know the subject. I went to all these NGOs and conferences on slavery, I found anti-slavery groups that were helpful.

Then I sat down with the Illustrations Editor, Susan Welchman. Every story at National Geographic has an Illustrations Editor who shepherds the whole story through from the concept to the budget to the story plan, locations, length of time, how much you’re going to spend. We then planned what kinds of slavery and trafficking I was going to cover in this story. They wanted a broad look at all kinds of slavery and trafficking. I researched where I could get the most access for each kind of slavery and laid out a master plan of 10 countries I wanted to go to: the internal trafficking of children in Benin and Ghana in Africa; child labor in India; sex trafficking in Thailand, Israel, Mexico, Italy, and the US; illegal adoption in Guatemala. The legends writer and researcher are assigned to the story right at the beginning of the project.

Halfway through, we showed the pictures and the story thus far to the editor and the team, and they were really impressed at what we had been actually able to get, to see and shoot. They gave us the go-ahead to finish the story.

How many projects get stopped at that point?

Not very many. They have a good idea of what’s doable and what’s not and they tend to use photographers with a proven track record. It’s a very small proportion that get cut. Sometimes the photographer will say, “We just can’t do this,” for whatever reason. Also, at the halfway point, you can also completely revise your idea. If the entire story proved impossible to actually get photographic evidence of what was going on, maybe we would have just turned to child labor or to something else.

And then how do you bring a project to completion?

You complete the second half and show the final photographs to the editor and everyone else. It has to receive the final stamp of approval. Then, everything starts to come together in the office—the layout, the captions (legends), maps, charts, photographs. the research. I can’t tell you how grateful I was for the incredible research staff thatNational Geographic has, and to be able to tap into it on that story. Slavery really hadn’t been done before in a sort of global overall look and I was terrified that I had gotten it wrong. If this is so big and pervasive, why was I the first one to try to be photographing this? I almost wept with gratitude when the research department came back and confirmed that what I had found was all true.

What kind of time frame did you have to work with all of that?

I always come in under budget on these stories. We were very careful in targeting and very lucky in the quality of the help I had on the ground in the places we went to. All the research and arrangements we were able to make in advance meant I could hit the ground running—I could spend three days in Israel and find myself in a brothel in Tel Aviv shooting the story immediately and out in 3-4 days. It was that kind of advanced planning and setting up that really made the project possible. There had been previous stories out there on just sex trafficking, child labor, or illegal adoptions. No one had the budget to do the entire issue of trafficking in a huge global way—onlyGeographic had the budget to do a story that all-encompassing.

Jodi Cobb

The entire spread ended up being about how long? That’s a very broad topic to cover.

The final story ended up being 26 or 28 pages, which was a lot at that time, and is a lot now. Just one picture was featured on each of the different aspects of trafficking. The project got the biggest response in the history of National Geographic up to that point. This was just unbelievably gratifying to me. The overwhelming response wasn’t just people writing in congratulating us on the story, it was people sending money to the organizations combating trafficking, FBI agents asking to be trained in trafficking issues, (which was one of the issues in this country, that they didn’t recognize trafficking for what it was, they just looked at it as prostitution or immigration issues. Law enforcement didn’t really know how to deal with the issue of sex trafficking. Now, FBI agents have been trained in that issue.) The publication of the story actually instigated changes—and you can’t ask for more than that.

What work of yours are you most proud of, either because of a personal triumph, the physical success of the project, or you just really liked the images that came out of the project?

Almost every project up until then has been astounding for different of reasons. The “Geisha” project was my favorite to do. It was something I did on my own outside of National Geographic. It felt wonderful that I was able to do something like that all by myself—organize everything, get the publisher, write it, organize the editing and layout—everything from beginning to end. That was huge for me, especially given the fact that it had never been done before, that nobody had ever photographed extensively inside the Geisha world before. I had no idea when I started if I could do it—if there was any way a geisha was going to let me inside a geisha house. At the end, the project was very gratifying to me and so beautiful to photograph. I want my photographs to either be beautiful or meaningful—and hopefully both. This project was a combination of both. Mainly, it was just a pleasure to shoot and look and to be there. I love writing, so it was also a chance to prove I could write.

About half the time, it seems that the photographer and writer run in separate circles and about half the time, they’re in the same foxhole. Does that depend on the story?

It depends on the story. If it’s an adventure trek and the writer and photographer are together, they’re going to be having the same experiences. On all stories, the photographers and writers meet in the beginning and really hash out what direction they want to take, what their point of view is about the topic, and find out if they’re on the same page on the point of view, and making sure they going to end up at the same destination even if they go different routes. They’re completely different disciplines: photography and writing. A photographer often doesn’t like waiting around with the writer interviewing the Minister of Information, and the writers really hate sitting in the car with no one to talk to while the photographer waits for the beautiful light and the camel to walk by. They can really get on each other’s nerves if they’re trying to accommodate each other on an every day, all-day basis. Writers don’t usually have as much time in the field as the photographers do. By necessity, the positions are not hand-in-hand.

What kind of mode do you go into when you’re in the middle of a project? How do you feel when you know you’re onto something and following the leads that keep coming?

It’s very exciting. You feel really good on an intellectual basis—that you’re nailing the story and heading in the right direction. For most photographers, when they really love what they’re shooting and into the photographs, they’re in the zone and it’s a zen thing. Nothing else exists. You’re in your groove. I’ve talked to other people like figure skaters, athletes, writers, people who love what they’re doing and it’s so intense. That’s the joy and the payoff for them—to be completely engrossed in that incredible creative zone. That’s what’s fun. Of course, it ebbs and flows. The next day, you couldn’t shoot your way out of a paper bag. Nothing goes right, the people don’t show up, all your reflexes are off, and you’re missing every picture.

What’s not fun about your job? Even great jobs have aspects that aren’t wonderful. National Geographic is a highly idealized job.

The things that photographers go through to get those pictures are really incredible. If you get a group of photographers together and start telling war stories, you just can’t believe what you’re hearing. Some of the projects have been dangerous physically, stressful mentally, and you’re off by yourself for weeks or months at a time with no friends, no time off, no way to escape the project. It really has downsides. Your personal life really takes a hit. I didn’t know how hard it was going to be when I started out. When I realized how hard it was I thought of just doing this for five years and then move on. But, the opportunities just kept getting better and better—offers to cover more interesting stories, go to more interesting places—and soon a lifetime went by!

What is your process for gaining people’s trust, either before while starting out a project, or when you’re in the middle of the project, how do you get to the core of what you’re going after?

I’m always completely upfront with everyone about what I’m doing, what I’m looking for, and what I’m going to do with the pictures. I try to engage them in the process—to become interested and invested in it too. Then I enjoy the people. In terms of long projects, like the “Geisha” project, you just show up every day, and you try to befriend one person and ask them if you can photograph their friends. For a lot of projects, I just take it one person day by day. It’s just who you are and the way you approach people and relate to them that enables you to gain strangers’ trust.

Have you had any of the people write to you, follow your stories, or request copies of the photographs?

Usually, I get the names and addresses of everyone that I photograph in any real extensive way. if we use their picture in Geographic, they get copies of the magazine. For the rest, since I photograph so many people, I tell them at the beginning that I can’t give them copies. I don’t have enough time or resources to send them pictures. I’ve stayed in touch with a lot of people.

You’ve talked about 21st-Century Slaves as an example of one of the largest you’ve worked on through the magazine. How does what you’ve learned from working with National Geographic on the large projects translate to your average small-town photographer who wants a project to call theirs?

There are stories everywhere—in your own house, your backyard, your town. You need to find out what you’re interested in, what you’re passionate about, what you want to change, celebrate, illuminate, interpret. It’s right there. You just need to get started. Once you do, things start falling into place, after you’ve made the first introductions or the first start on the project. If it’s going really well and you feel you’re onto something or doing a beautiful job interpreting what it is you love, you can take that beginning to someone to get funding. You can say, “This is what I’ve done, I want to continue this in a global way or in another country, but I can’t do it on my own.” Rarely will an editor just take a chance on someone and just offer a project out of the blue, without some kind of demonstration of your abilities to execute the idea. I know a lot of projects at National Geographic that started that way. People came in with an idea that they started and then they’ve gotten funding to finish it.

More

• Jodi’s National Geographic bio page
• Jodi’s 21st-Century Slaves
• Jodi’s On Assignment National Geographic Photo Gallery
• Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art
• Photo.net Travel Photography Forum

On February 20^th, 1962, Friendship 7 blasted into space powered by an Atlas rocket, destined to orbit the earth three times before it splashed back into the Atlantic. I was ten years old, and my particular, very small world revolved around another type of orb called a basketball. But even I knew, at that innocent age, that something momentous was going on. The hopes, and fears, of a nation rode the on the smoke trail of that rocket, shot skyward out of the Florida haze, from a place then called Cape Canaveral.

I didn’t spend much time thinking about the Cold War, except during the drills at school when we got under our desks or marched in semi-orderly fashion to the basement gym so we could survive a Russian nuke attack. But it was a real deal, regularly dished up on the front pages of newspapers everywhere.  We were locked in a duel with the Soviets that extended from the Olympic playing fields to the numbers of nukes each of us had pointed at each other to the race to space. Which we were determined to win. As then Vice-President Lyndon Johnson is said to have drawled, “I do not want to go to sleep by the light of a Communist moon.”

Given the benefit of hindsight, a lot of the twitching and posturing, thankfully, was just so much nationalistic johnson measuring. Nobody pushed the big red button, and, now, all these years later, now the former Soviet Union goes by the name of Russia, and, while our two countries still have bones of contention, no one (apparently, anyway) has an actively itchy trigger finger.  And our two space programs collaborate, share rockets, space stations and technology. If we had gotten into the swing together all those years ago and combined efforts, Lord knows we might even have those lunar colonies Newt Gingrich dreams about. (And I’m sure we’d all have our own private list of folks we’d like to send to them, too:-)

But, hey, it was 1962, and tensions were high. We were, quite honestly, getting our ass kicked in the whole space deal. It was, as Sean Connery famously gargled in The Hunt for Red October, “the heady days of Yuri Gargarin, when the world trembled at the sound of our rockets.” The Sovs had scored a number of firsts, and our Mercury program was a determined, all-out effort to regain the lead, and our national pride.

Enter a quiet Ohioan named John Glenn, a Marine pilot who did not cuss and married his high school sweetheart. By all accounts, he was cool under fire, having earned the moniker “magnet ass” for drawing so much enemy flak on combat missions in Korea. He was chosen as the first American to orbit the earth.

Thirty six years later, he once again donned astronaut’s garb, and went flying, this time aboard STS-95. I had the good fortune to be inserted in the loop as the official STS-95 photographer of record for NASA, courtesy of the National Geographic. I spent quite a number of weeks with Senator Glenn and the crew, feeling my way through the labyrinthine bureaucracy known as NASA. I entered a world of regulations and acronyms, not to mention a time lined world of dedicated, hard working folks whose lives are dedicated to pushing back the frontier of space.

I also, quite wonderfully, got to know John Glenn, and his wife Annie, who was with him every step of the way. He took the sting out of the natural tendency we all have as shooters to feel like an intruder, or worse, a stalker. He actively wanted to be photographed, as he felt documenting the mission was an important piece of the puzzle. I always teased him that he had been trained well, having gone to “The Ralph Morse School of Being a Photo Subject.” Ralph, of course, was the original prime recorder of the Merc Seven bunch, back in the heyday of LIFE. (Another one of the joys of the assignment was to watch Ralph work, all those years later, to recreate the Glenn cover of LIFE he had shot back in ’62.)

To be in John’s company was to be in the company of a quintessentially decent man. The worst word I ever heard him say was “Shoot!” when we encountered a locked set of doors that impeded our fast paced walk around the Senate.

On one particular day, he had promised me he would do his exercise program after a day in chambers. (His physical fitness was part of the story of his role as the oldest person to go into space.) He didn’t want to do it. He was tired, and things had been hectic, and once again, I was confronted with that eternal question of how much to push the ticket. Can I get this another time, or do I have to once again be the pesky photog, the speed bump in someone’s day?

MJ Veno, his legendary chief of staff, saw my hesitancy and slumped shoulders, wavering outside his office. She looked at me and said, “He promised you didn’t he?” I nodded. Then she said, “Well you just go in there and remind him!”

I walked in. He looked at me and sighed. “I did promise you.”

“Yes sir, you did.”

He donned shorts, and went to exercise. It worked out even better than I could have hoped, as he bumped into a bunch of staffers playing softball, and was soon roped in, which, truth be told, he thoroughly enjoyed.

The gift of time is a rare one to receive as a journalist, but, courtesy of the lengthy history Nat Geo enjoys with NASA, that’s what I had on this story. I got to know the Senator, the crew, and many of the people who surrounded and supported the mission. It allowed me to take things a step at a time, to let things develop in their own way, and not force the moment. It also let me work the bureaucracy to gain permissions, such as mounting cameras inside a T-38.

It also let me get the last picture of the Senator as before he went to space. I was friendly with the crew, and the technicians who made sure their LES (launch-entry suits) were rigged up properly. I gave Scott Parazynski, one of the flyers with Glenn, one of my F5 cameras, loaded with color neg. He was the astronaut walking across the gangway to the shuttle vehicle just ahead of the Senator. I told him, just turn, point and shoot. (Being a civilian, I was allowed nowhere near the fully loaded rocket. On assignment for a mag, the picture’s important, not who shoots it. If you can’t be there yourself, find a way to give a camera to someone who will be. I learned this from Heinz Klutmeier at Sports Illustrated.)

He shot some frames, then dished the camera to one of the suit techs I knew pretty well, and when they finished their duties, they drove back to a prearranged spot along the cyclone fence that marked off the launch area, and pitched the camera over the fence to me. Inside were the last pictures of Senator Glenn before he blasted off.

The magazine elected not to publish those images, but they did run a worthwhile select of the Senator’s return to space.

The lasting thing for me was not so much the pictures, but the respect I accumulated for a decent, easygoing man who, many years ago, shouldered the hopes of an entire nation in an unassuming, matter a fact way, and blasted into the heavens with them. And then was willing to do it again.

More tk….

Have come to the conclusion that feeding this blog will happen on event time, not calendar nor clock time. When having the ability to ponder, pen and present something meaningful, it will arrive.

What has helped inspire me back onto the saddle of this beast — for what I sense will be longer sustained ride — are two pieces of audiophile brilliance which recently arrived in the post box.

Binaural microphones and dead kitten binaural ear muffs by Soundman.

What are binaural microphones?

It’s important to show just how small a kit this binaural mic setup actually is yet sound quality is off the charts.

For those who know about binaural microphones, skip the following bits and go to Creating.

Human Nonsense

Most of us see in three dimension. With two separated eyes, signals to our brain present a rich perspective of depth, layers, texture and most importantly, a sense of place. It’s easy to take the simple act of sight for granted until loosing it.

We also hear in three dimensions. With separate ears on both extreme sides of our heads, the audible world around us is being presented in a spellbinding rich landscape of spacial sounds. Because of the spacial separation of our ears, we can sense discernible distance, layers, texture, even feel sound elicit it’s flow and movement.

Tech Nonsense

With a mono microphone (and most shotgun and lavaliere clip mic’s), you’re presented with a one dimensional sense of our world. Perfect for listening to someone speak or to isolate certain sounds but otherwise flat, simple and completely dimensionless.

With a stereo mic, we think we’re being presented with sounds that represent what our ears hear, however that’s not the reality. Stereo microphone field recordings basically fake a sense of spacial audio by presenting our brains with a concept of left and right spacial sounds. The main field of sound recording heavily overlaps with their left or right counterparts in front of the mic, focusing 40 percent or more (depending on the microphone) on the sound in front of us, which is actually incorrect in regards to how we hear. We accept this because our eyes see forward in this rather narrow 40% overlap, therefore we think that is how the sound actually moves around us, but that’s not correct. In addition, stereo never reaching much further than beyond a 180º sound plain. What about the sounds behind us that we can hear equally as well as the sounds before us?

Look at this stereo “polar pattern” for the Rødes VideoMic, a brilliant stereo microphone many of us use with our 5D Mark II and equivalent Nikon gear, and witness what this stereo microphone actually hears (polar pattern diagrams shows how each specific microphone pick up a field of sound):

By no means can a stereo microphone truly present the dimension of sounds which naturally emanate not only from the left, right, but before and behind us, in the same manner which our ears deliver to our brains the exact audible landscape we hear.

With binaural microphones, we are presented with an exact replication of the entire theater of sound surrounding us in the exact same way our ears send the audible sensation to our brains. I like to call this, Reality Audio, because a binaural audio recording is the unconditionally true presentation of dimensional sounds that we hear.

Here is the polar pattern for the Soundman OKM II Classic Studio microphones showing just how unique the audio field of recording actually is on binaural microphones:

Why

Binaural mic’s are placed in each ear, allowing for the exact same sound dimension to be recorded to tape or SD card as our ears hear, in turn it’s what our brains process into diminutional understanding of sound space.

Placement of binaural microphones go into each ear.

The natural divide — the extreme separation of left/right channels — caused by, yes, our thick heads, replicate exactly the natural three-dimensional sounds that are swirling all around us. It’s only possible therefore to bring a true audible sense of location from the sounds moving and emanating around us via binaural microphones.

There is indeed another level of sound recording even more spacial — surround sound. That’s über technical and far more involving than most photographers will want to dabble in — not to mention you wouldn’t blend in too well wandering the streets of New Deli or New York City (ok, maybe in NYC) with a getup like this on your head from Sonic Studios: Click Here

Evolution

On a professional level, I’m a photographer. The power of the still image will last for all the history to come. Anyone wanting to debate this reality till it turns to glue can do so to your hearts content. Just do so while defending your theories to a doorknob, not me. Such discussions are by far the grandest waste of ones time in this art and profession. The discussion should be upon what we can do with all forms of communication.

On a personal level, I’m a field recording junkie. While living in Italy in the mid 80′s — using a camera in a completely, unequivocally, different form of photography…fashion — I would roam around Milan making recordings on a macro cassette recorder, moving onward to a Sony stereo cassette recorder once realizing I was hooked by the mesmerizing sounds of sound. It was during this time in my early 20′s that I also became utterly intrigued by global music after spending Christmas and New Years in Tunisia in what I think was either 1984 or 85. The triple combination of what I saw, the cultural absorption combined with what I heard, produced a deep communality I could feel, however it would be 20 years and hundreds of hours of audio later to realize the magnitude of not only the audio archive, but its power of merging together what we now call multimedia or what I prefer to call, short films.

Having a profound event happen one evening in 1986 — a complete awakening — I left the fantasy world of fashion and moved to Madrid, throwing myself as deep as possible into the power of reality photography. My audio interests followed to similarly focus on somehow recording the natural human symphony around all of us, as unaltered and real as possible. I began collecting high-end stereo mic’s like the Audio-Technica AT825. Now, scratched and dented as if dragged behind a truck down a dirt road, I sill have and use this wonderfully balanced microphone but it always felt limiting and required the loss of a free hand when taking pictures.

Around seven years ago I stumbled upon the solution which dramatically changed how I not only record audio, it also allowed me to be a photographer at the same time — binaural microphones.

I was gone.

Creating a binaural album for the Bauza Drummers in Lusaka, Zambia, in 2006. This entire album can be purchased on the Field Recording Store of this website. It’s amazing performance of traditional drumming. Photograph courtesy of Roy Obobo

When purchasing my first iPhone (version 3), I went berserk creating what I thought were stereo and then binaural recording, like here attempting to make a binaural recording of men collecting guano on a remote island off the coast of Peru in 2006. Little did I know at the time that iPhones did not (and still don’t) allow for stereo recording. All that is about to change though with the arrival next week of the Soundman stereo adapter for the iPhone.

Recording an album of tabla and songs from artists Ratan and Piddut performing in a small drum shop in northern Bangladesh in 2008. These recordings can also be heard and purchased in the Field Recording Store of this website. Photography courtesy of Adnan Wahid

I take my children on assignments as often as possible. Here my eldest son, Richard, came with me to a cremation ceremony in Ubud, Bali, in late 2006. During this event I was not only working between a Holga and a Canon digital camera, I was effortlessly making binaural field recording’s with Soundman mic’s in my ears, attached to a Roland digital recording in my sarong. Photograph courtesy of Lukman S Bintoro

Creating

Before the dawn of what really was the turning point — when still photography and filming merged more seamlessly with the arrival of the Canon 5D Mark II — photographers would tote around flash recorders, capturing ambient sounds that were then used in slideshows for what became termed as multimedia, though I prefer the term Visual Audio. To do so meant not only carrying your camera, a camera bag and an audio recorder, there was the microphone which needed to be carried in the kit. A street photographer begins to look like an over decorated Christmas tree that much gear.

We are now being asked to produce short films as compendiums to a photographic story. Excellent. We should relish the act of expanding lateral and outward, same as a guitar player can only expand their art further by learning and then playing the piano.

But how can we make this deliberate act of going from the fluid function of taking still images, then switching over to filming, without taking on an epic level of bulky audio gear or a secondary sound person?

Filmmaking

After each stellar National Geographic seminar (the latest being last January 12th), the next day is reserved as a gathering of photographers who regularly work for the magazine. The day-long event begins Friday morning at 8:30 with a session titled Nuts & Bolts. During past sessions, brilliant talents like Kenji Yamaguchi and Dave Mathews from National Geographic’s Photo Engineering department, would demonstrate the latest in remote aerial camera planes like the one now being used by  Michael ‘Nick’ Nichols for his latest project on lions, new camera trap designs by the ever inspiring Steve Winter or utterly trip-out underwater custom camera housings used by the likes of the brilliant Paul Nicklen and David Doubilet. 2012′s Nuts & Bolts was on the greater merging of stills and filmmaking.

The photo department at National Geographic had recently hired the talented, Pamela Chen, as a Senior Photo editor. Her background in filmmaking, photography and audio reads like the who’s who of present-day photojournalism. Her presentation on the audio and film background to a piece she’d produced for the NYT’s was enlightening. Afterwards, questions began swirling around the room, the usual we tend to hear when still photographers mull the prospect of juggling both mediums where one key aspect, the stills, outweigh the moving images:

“How can we be expected to jump between still image making and video in a seamless manner?”

“With all the gear needed to produce video, how can I also manage decent audio without hiring assistants?”

All super important questions, however there is a solution to solve much of the general audio kit catastrophes related to filmmaking.

Sitting in the back of the room, I raised my hand:

“All of this is getting too technical. Use binaural microphones.”

50 or more sets of eyes gazed at me as if I were speaking in tongue. Understandably so. Many have never heard nor even used such microphones.

By using binaural microphones when filming, you’re hands are free to hold the camera and BE a filmmaker, easily switch back to BE a photographer. Even better, no bulbous microphone attached to the hotshot of the camera.

Then the crowning touch, your bringing to the film a dimensional sound experience, equally layered as your film and photography.

And the best part…when not wanting to film, the mic’s fit in your shirt pocket or can stay resting in your ears till wanting to film again later. Here’s how small these microphones actually are:

Soundman OKM II Classic Studio binaural microphones, about the size of a dime.

For poshing the sound quality even further, make sure to order the Soundman A3 Adapter, a mini preamp and noise reducer when going with the 1/8″ jack directly from the Soundman earbud binaural mics into your camera. The binaural mic’s can work without the preamp however the difference in sound quality is noticeable:

Soundman’s A3 Adapter, some of the smallest pre-amps around. It has a mini battery in the housing which on my original unit lasted well over a year with heavy use.

And for those who want to really up the sound quality even further by taking the Soundman binaural mic’s into a Sound Devices or another high-end audio recorder, Soundman has a new XLR connector with A3 mini pre-amp:

Soundman’s new XLR connectors with A3 adapter.

Binaural mic’s in your ears is not the solution for everything. Not all aspects of filmmaking can be accomplished with them. There are indeed moments when a lavaliere mic clipped on a persons lapel is needed for an interview (call it the macro mic) or a shotgun mic may be used to isolate sound you want within a crowd (call it the telephoto mic). But I would imagine 60-80 percent of all audio needs for journalistic reportage filmmaking can be accomplish with extremely small, unobtrusive, binaural microphones, which allow your hands to be completely available to focus on filmmaking.

Wind

My original Soundman binaural’s had its wire ripped out a few years ago — got snagged on something. In the interim I’ve been enjoying the Rødes, Sennheiser lavalieres and my original Audio Technica from the early 1990′s but I sure was missing those awesome — and small — binaural microphones. When ordering this replacement pair last week, I noticed a new piece of kit on the Soundman website that all audiophiles need — dead kittens.

These dead kitten’s made exclusively by Soundman are the poshest most wind suppressing dead kittens available for binaural audio recording. Listen to the field recordings below for just how well they work in 30+ mph wind.

These dead kittens (wind screens) aren’t just any type of kitten. They are custom made earmuffs to avoid wind sounds while making handsfree binaural recordings.

When they arrived as I was as excited as my 8 year-old tends to be when receiving a gift on his birthday. Fiddle and faddling around the house completed, I couldn’t wait to hear how these kittens worked in wind. Trouble was, no wind.

Two days later I had my chance. A 15-30 mph cold wind was blowing through the Berkshires.

Here are a few recent binaural field recordings. The first is test recording made specifically for this blog when the wind was whipping through large pine trees in front of our home. There’s also sounds of the gate opening, a car passing and the arrival home on the bus of Konstantin.

The second field recording was created while I wandered through snow around the farm wearing the dead kitten earmuffs (it was windy) while our family dogs, Emma and Asia, followed. It’s a simple, short piece, but if you listen closely you’ll hear — hopefully feel — the movements of Asia, a 30 lb. Beagle, running past me on the right, followed by Emma, a 110 lb. French Mastiff, thudding just a second or two later on my right. Crank the bass if you really wanna hear Emma’s gait.

The third recording was also created last week while on a brief visit to New York City. To test wirling wind suppression moving around the city — and to bombard the binaural mic’s with as many dimensional layers of sound as possible — I took a brief stroll through Time Square at around 5pm.

Make sure you have either excellent speakers connected to your computer or posh headphones so you can sense the spacial sound.

Each afternoon, the school bus arrives to drop off Konstantin. This recording is a test to see how well the new Soundman dead kitten earmuff wind suppressors worked in 30 mph winds. Also on this recording is the opening of our front gate, a car passing and of course, the arrival and departure of the school bus. Try to take notice on what the wind actually sounds like — not the wind baffling the mic’s, that didn’t happen because of the dead kittens but rather the actual sound of wind moving through trees.

Wind, Car and School Bus
(iPhone and iPad)

Wandering around the farm in the snow with Emma and Asia.

Walking in the Snow with Emma and Asia
(iPhone and iPad)

You run into a mighty wide collection of unique individuals when wandering through Time Square in NYC.

Binaural Recording while wandering around Time Square
(iPhone and iPad)

Field Recording Store

If you’ve ever poked around this blog you’ve likely stumbled upon the Field Recording Store. In this section you’ll find entire albums from musicians who otherwise wouldn’t ever have the opportunity to share their music globally, let alone locally. Two of the albums in the store, Bauza Drummers of Zambia and Ratan and Piddut of Bangladesh were recorded using Soundman binaural mic’s, bringing an entirely different dimension of live musical performances.

Insights

While in NYC this week filling a missing gap in a National Geographic story code name, “Sweetness”, I meandered in B&H Photo and picked up a pair of micro-dead kitten wind covers made specifically for lavaliere mic’s. Amazingly, they fit perfectly snug on the recording ends of binaural Soundman mic’s. Making some basic recording level tests I could see that the wind does diminish with these macro-kittens but if in heavy wind, far more noise is suppressed with the Soundman muff versions. This lavaliere option makes a nifty secondary wind sound removal whenever recording in warm climates because the ear muffs dead kittens do keep your ears warm.

Found these lavaliere dead kittens at B&H, here attached to the Soundman binaural microphones. Insanely expensive for their size — $40 for a pair — but they are the minimum you should use when wandering about in any breeze over 5 mph. For strong wind you’re going to want the thick, padded design, of the Soundman earmuff dead kittens. Suggest having both types of dead kittens if you’re wanting to be prepared.

iPhone

And some big news about to completely change audio field recording…we’re only a week or so away from the first meaningful stereo-IN recording option for an iPhone. There has been another on the market for some time, the GuitarJack by Sonoma. There are two problems with this iPhone add-on — the GuitarJack is large and the audio-IN connector is a 1/4 inch plug, meant more to be used for a guitar then a small yet powerful stereo field recording kit. The soon to be released Soundman As looks promising — a mini clip-on item which by the looks of the photograph seems to be petite, making it less prone to flexing when attached to the iPhone…and it has a 1/8 inch audio jack. It should make for an extremely small audio field recording kit when combined with some of the pro-recording app’s for the iPhone.

A4 stereo connector for iPhone.

More on this iPhone add-on in the coming weeks.

Till then, keep well and enjoy making your life as a photographer and a filmmaker more seamless, less technical — and far less cumbersome — by using binaural microphones.

I hate working at night. I like to drink, eat too much and fall asleep in front of the TV – not freeze my nuts off trying to get a photo of an animal that probably isn’t going to turn up. So why do I keep choosing subjects to film and photograph that only come out at night? Well it’s a strange addiction I have with infra-red. I started out shooting video seriously on infra-red back in 2003. I’d flirted with it a bit before then but the quality of the cameras was so awful (200-300 TV lines) that it just wasn’t really broadcastable. The arrival of the Ikegami 47 security camera changed all that. They were first used on Life of Mammals to film various sequences and soon got picked up by all of us wildlife cameramen hanging around the BBC back then.

I first used them to film otters with. I was shooting a film ‘My Halcyon River’ for BBC 2 Natural World series with my then assistant (and now very well respected cameraman) Jamie McPherson. We were trying to film otters on English rivers at night. Back then no one had ever really filmed otters seriously in England. There had been a few attempts and a few nice sequences but the otters were just too damn elusive. Our first shot took two weeks to get. We stuck an Ike 47 with a small C mounted Switar lens (which I robbed off an old Bolex) on a rudimentary pan and tilt head and then wired the camera back to Jamie’s car in a field. The idea was to be as far away from the river as possible so we didn’t disturb the otters.  We lit the scene with two or three small IR security lights (Derwent mini floods). These were powered by 12v car batteries and could just about last the night. A BNC broadcast cable ran the image from the camera back to the car along with the control for the pan and tilt. In the car we had a small Sony video camera (PD100) which we put in VTR mode and just used as a monitor and recorder. After we’d figured out our system all we had to do was wait. Two weeks later we had a shot! A large dog otter sniffing around the tripod legs. It wasn’t very good but it was a start.

Filming otters hunting ducks at night for Halcyon River Diaries

Over the next 18 months we basically went on a massive learning curve. The kit was fairly straightforward; the otters however were killing us! They were just so damn sneaky. Jamie and I would be out for nights on end, just grabbing the odd few seconds here and there. If we managed thirty seconds of broadcastable footage a week then we were doing very well. The kit stayed pretty much the same whatever we did – an Ikegami 47 wired into a PD100 – whether we were shooting remotely with 200m of cable between the security camera (IKE 47) and the monitor/recorder (PD100) or whether the cameras where on a tripod wired directly into each other with a long lens attached, the assembly was basically the same.

It was back then that I first got into camera traps. I have no idea why, we never really got a useable shot out of them. Jamie and I created a great system though. It was a double beam system that would turn on the Ike and PD100 when triggered and go straight into record for a set amount of time. It also had a 12v tap on it so it would turn all the IR lights on for filming and then power everything down when it timed out. It meant we could leave it out for days on end on one battery. It was a really cool bit of kit back then and much sought after but in reality it really didn’t bare many fruits. The odd shot of an otter crapping or walking past.

I kept filming otters on IR for years (in fact I still am). My office is filled with boxes and boxes of footage probably around 200 hours or more – 95% never broadcast. Otters playing, fighting, fishing, eating, fishing underwater, sleeping in holts, grooming. Everything otters do basically. All shot on miniDV with the old system.

About three years ago I changed to digital. Everyone was looking for the solution to the IR HD problem (the problem being there was no solution). I wanted to photograph otters at their holt entrance. I knew how sensitive they’d be as they emerged at dusk from the safety of their holt and figured I could shoot stills remotely using an IR converted camera. First I looked at cheap ways of doing it Canon 350/Rebels, 50Ds, then I thought ‘bugger that’ and bought a new Canon 5D MK2. It had all the latest features including ‘live view’ which I figured was pretty useful. I sent it off to Advanced Camera Services in Norfolk who did IR conversions on DSLRs. They called me up and said they’d never done a 5D MK2 and wasn’t sure whether it was possible. They went off and spoke to Canon who gave them a chip block to take apart to see if it was possible. The problem with the newer cameras was that the low pass filter, the bit that blocks IR light, was fused to the sensor – something to do with the dust removal system. They weren’t sure it was possible to prize the two apart. It turned out that it was possible and they converted my camera and one that belonged to Canon. It meant I had one of the very first 5D’s converted – a camera capable of shooting HD infra-red. It was the Holy Grail of wildlife cameramen at the time and a highly valuable bit of kit for hire. So obviously I took a few pictures of my wife’s chickens and then stuck it on my shelf for a year and forgot about it.

When I got it back out I was again filming otters for Halcyon River Diaries. I was still wedded to the Ike 47 system though for ease of use – I could put my massive HJ18 lens on it (Canon 28-500mm 2.8 with built in x2 for all those stills photographers who’ve never had the joy of using a decent video lens). I wanted to do some tests though and see just how well it performed shooting video. The answer was, pretty well. It created perfectly usable images at 1600 ISO. It was far more sensitive to light over 850 nanometres than it was to white light, which meant it worked well with my two new large Derwent LED IR floods.

I used it for various bits on the series and continued to play with it afterwards, although I was drifting back into stills with it. I wanted to put it inside the otter’s holt and photograph them without disturbing them. I built various housings to try to dampen the sound but couldn’t get it quiet enough. In the end I phoned my man at Canon and he sent me an IR converted G11 which was totally silent and did the job. I wrote a blog on that bit – http://www.charliehamiltonjames.co.uk/blog/1/Is-there-anything-you-don-t-take-apart.html

The IR 5D went back in its box again until last March when I went to film lions in Serengeti. On the morning I left I decided to get the IR 5D out of its box and stick it in my camera bag. I’m so glad I did. It was a couple of days before I pulled the IR 5D out of the bag but when I did and started shooting with it, it blew me away. The first thing I noticed was that it really worked when the light for colour photography was rubbish. The sun rises in East Africa just before six and is shite just after six! It really is so quick from the golden rise to burnt out bright shite. The IR 5D loved the shite light though, in fact the good morning and evening light didn’t really work. The bright blue skies and white fluffy clouds were what it wanted. I went mad with it for a few days, shooting everything as everything looked great. The greens went white, the blues went black; everything else was beautifully tonal, images just sprang off the computer screen. They were super real, ethereal, other worldly but surprisingly grounded at the same time. The Serengeti is a truly epic place and lions are epic animals in the landscape. The IR images seemed to marry the two together just beautifully – it had the epic feel the landscape and lions deserved. I shy away from photography that takes manipulating techniques too far. I think that photographs can too easily become just pictures if we mess with them too much. I believe this is true for some infra-red images but something about the Serengeti was different, it seemed more real in infra-red.

Pride rock. The IR camera during the day gave the images a stunning 'platinum' tonal quality.

I started shooting lions a lot with the camera. They’d stand out against the dark skies in a way they wouldn’t in colour. This meant they worked well in landscapes, I pretty much forgot about shooting them close up. I just wanted big vistas with lions in. I used my Lee grad filters occasionally but they didn’t have a huge effect, they darkened the sky down a little. What the camera needed was mid day rubbish light. The sort of light you ignore on safari because photographing anything in it is like putting wheels on a tomato – pointless and a complete waste of time. The beauty of this of course meant that the whole day was opened up to photography rather than just the mornings and evenings.

My favourite image I took late one morning. We came across a two cheetahs sitting on some rocks watching a distant lioness. They sat stock still for about ten minutes watching her and ignoring us. The light was appalling, high sun, burnt out grassland plains, bright bleached cheetahs. It was one of those gorgeous scenes that would never make it in colour as it would be wishy washy and bleached – horrible. On the IR it came alive. I had set the camera to show me black and white images on the LCD screen and I could see I was onto something. I wanted the symmetry. It was obvious in the cheetahs but I wanted it in the sky – it took a bit of waiting but then everything fell into place. The tiny cloud above them on its own in the middle is the cherry on the top for me.

This shot would have looked rubbish in colour but came alive in infra-red

I also found the IR camera to work well in low light. Not in the sense that it was super sensitive, it wasn’t, it needed IR light not white light. This worked in my favour though. I was chasing grainy images. The grandfather of all wildlife photography and filmmaking Hugo Van Lawick described the Serengeti as a ‘savage paradise’. He hit the nail right on the head. I wanted to try and capture this idea – the darkness, the dirt, the savagery. I started shooting images of wildebeest at dusk in infra-red. The camera was loving the light and I was ramping the ISOs up to 12,800, the effect was exactly what I wanted – dark, dirty, fear filled images, silhouette wildebeest horns, chaos and grain, lots of grain. I was shooting out of a moving car as we pulled into camp every night on slow shutter speeds 8^th, 15^th of a second. It wasn’t easy framing and focusing but I was getting exactly what I wanted.

Shot at 12,800 ISO the IR camera gave me the gritty look I was after

More recently I’ve been using the IR 5D in the Amazon to film black caiman. The results have been fantastic, especially when shooting with the new Canon 400mm 2.8. The kit is simple and easy to use. Much more portable than the old Ike 47 with PD100 and shooting onto CF cards makes life so much simpler. I particularly liked the look of the camera at dusk. Richard the director/cameraman was filming me talking about caiman and the tones and crispness of the image were beautiful – especially when we used the 24mm 1.4. I did take a few stills of the rain forest in IR but they didn’t do it for me, they just looked too ghostly and unreal – the technique didn’t lend itself to the place like it did the Serengeti.

The IR and high ISO worked well to make this shot of the great migration look like an old canvas

Gerd Ludwig and Kent Kobersteen had a conversation that led to this post. Kent was the Director of Photography for National Geographic magazine from 1987 to 2005.

When it was suggested that I write about what it takes to be a National Geographic photographer I was somewhat reluctant to do so.  I cannot speak for the leadership of the Magazine today.  Certainly every Director of Photography, and every Editor in Chief, has his or her own requirements and preferences. 

I began my career with the National Geographic in 1983 as a picture editor, became the deputy to the Director of Photography in 1987, and became Director of Photography in 1998.  I left the Magazine in 2005. 

Since leaving the Magazine I have kept in close touch with many photographers, and also with the worldwide photographic family.  I have continued to do workshops and give talks in Poland, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Italy, on National Geographic ships in Antarctica and the South Atlantic, and on a National Geographic Around the World by Private Jet journey.

While I cannot speak for the leadership of the Magazine today, I think there are several required attributes that are constant – they’re the same today as they were when I was Director of Photography, and earlier.

Those attributes are intellect, passion, maturity and drive.

Reading this, you may say “What about the photography?”  Of course any person under consideration must be a great photographer.  The National Geographic needs photography that is strong aesthetically and has a sophisticated use of color, photography that is poetic, journalistic, memorable, and comes from unique and intuitive seeing.  But, that’s obvious, that’s a given. 

All four of these attributes – intellect, passion, maturity, drive — ARE about the photography.

If one looks at the work on this site, and reads what the photographers have said, I think it’s obvious that each of them possess these attributes.

I worked with most of the photographers represented on The Photo Society site, and I am very proud to say that a significant number of them are people who did their first work for the Magazine when I was Director of Photography – they are my legacy, if you will. 

I always felt that my responsibility was to get the best, most appropriate photographer for a given story, and then to make it possible for that photographer to do his or her best creative work. 

Certainly who is the “best, most appropriate photographer” is a personal value judgment.  What is the “most appropriate” to one person may not be to another.

The creative part of my job as Director of Photography was to match photographer and subject, and to do everything I could within the Magazine to make it possible for that photographer to do his or her best creative work.

Often that meant returning to photographers who had a long track record with the Magazine.  They were known quantities – they knew what we needed, we knew their photography and their working methods.  Occasionally there was opportunity to work with photographers who were new to the Magazine – but always these were photographers whose experience on other publications, and reputation in the photographic community, was well known to us.

So, what does it take to be a National Geographic photographer?  As I have said, great photography, but also the photographer must possess the attributes of intellect, passion, maturity and drive.

Intellect is essential when working for the National Geographic Magazine because it is a journalistic magazine, and because – most importantly – the photographer shapes the story, and works independently of the writer, and to a great degree independent of direction from the picture editor.  The photographer must be an intelligent, ethical, informed journalist.  It is, very much, the photographer’s story.  At the end of the coverage the photographer will present the photographs to the Editor in Chief, and whether or not the story is published will depend on that presentation.

Passion is an important attribute because without caring about the subject one cannot do their best creative work.  Also, because of the amount of time a National Geographic photographer spends on a given story, without a real passion for the subject and the story, the photographs will really suffer.  Any photographer can do a good job on an assignment of a day or a week.  But when the coverage lasts for several weeks, or several months, and has tens of thousands of dollars in expenses involved, passion for the subject is essential.

Maturity is another essential attribute.  In the span of a single story a photographer may be working with slum-dwellers to a head of state.  The photographer must have the maturity – the “salesmanship”, if you will – to convince this broad spectrum of individuals to give him or her access, and to allow him or her to do their photographic work.

In addition, because the photographer is part of the entire editorial process at the Magazine – story conceptualization and planning, editing, and layout – the photographer must have the maturity to understand that he or she does not control each element in the process, and must have the maturity and diplomacy to work within the editorial structure of the Magazine.

The amount of drive – just plain hard work – necessary to accomplish a National Geographic Magazine assignment cannot be overstressed.  I have often said that I would rather have a photographer whose eye was not the best, but who worked very hard, rather than the person with the best eye in the world, and who was lazy.  I can certainly give examples of both – but I won’t.  And, in the end, I chose photographers who had both the eye and drive.

The ability to work hard is also important for the National Geographic photographer because of the huge amount of planning and logistical complications that must be dealt with in each coverage for the Magazine.  It’s not all about shooting photographs.  Any Geographic photographer will tell you that the actual photographing is an extremely small part of the job.

In addition, with today’s smaller budgets, and with the additional chores placed on the photographer by digital and web requirements of the coverage, the ability to work hard is an even more important attribute.

So, that’s the long answer to the question “What does it take to be a National Geographic photographer?”

The short answer:  Be the absolute best photographer there is for a given assignment.

It’s no different than if Manchester United is looking for a forward, or the Los Angeles Lakers are looking for a center.  Because of the place that photography plays at the National Geographic Magazine, and because of the tremendous investment in each photographic coverage, the Magazine is no different than a top sports team.  What does it take?  Be the best there is.  It’s quite simple.  The Magazine can afford nothing less, and the competition for work for the Magazine is the photographers on this site.

Again, this is all my opinion, my criteria, and my way of working from the time when I was Director of Photography. 

Furthermore, there are venues from which you can sell your self published book. We asked FotoEvidence about their new online bookstore and what the requirements are for being represented there.

FotoEvidence: “There are just two requirements for a book to be considered for our self-published book section: the book to be self published; the book to be documentary. Our editorial focus is on social documentary and of course we review the books before we listed them on the FE site.  To review a book we need a copy of the book sent to our address or  an email with a description of the book  sent to our editorial director David Stuart at: Dstuart@fotoevidence.com

FotoEvidence
178 Frost street, 3L
Brooklyn, NY 11211″

© Amy Toensing

It was a tough food week in Clarksdale, MS.

-Amy

www.amytoensing.com
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I’ve always liked time lapse films. They can be a really powerful way to look at things with a fresh perspective. I’m not alone in thinking that. Some of the most popular videos on Vimeo are well constructed time lapse sequences. While I have shot some in the past, they have been sort of accidental, by products of trying to make other pictures. 

Lately I’ve gotten interested in learning how to shoot well made time lapse films. It is learning process for me so here is some of the problems I’ve worked out.

Flicker. The biggest obstacle to shooting smooth time lapse is avoiding flicker in the footage. In general flicker is caused by the lens aperture not being exactly consistent each shot. Even on a high quality lens the aperture can vary 1/4-1/3 of a stop in different frames. When shooting stills that is not such a big deal but in a sequence of images the variation produces flicker. The tighter the aperture the worse the flicker will be. With big f numbers the aperture blades travel far and there is more room for error. There are two strategies to avoid flicker.

1 Use an open aperture. If you can shoot at 5.6 or 4 or even more open the aperture blades don’t have far to travel and the error between shots is likely to be minimal. That is fine when you are shooting in the evening but to use that technique in the day requires ND filters. 

2 Use lenses with a manual aperture. On Nikon cameras you can just use older lenses. For us Canon shooters it’s not so easy. A regular EOS lens will not keep the aperture locked down even when the mirror is locked up. There are some excellent cine lenses for EOS cameras that have manual apertures. They are also really really expensive. 

There is a work around for EOS lenses. Set the camera manually, then press the depth of field preview button and while holding it down press the lens release button and turn the lens slightly but don’t detach it. You just want to move the lens on the body far enough to disconnect the electrical contacts. The lens will stay stopped down. 

Then assuming you are using a reasonable shutter speed, you can shoot flicker free.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

Click here to view the embedded video.

Camp 4 Collective — Carston Oliver — Nate Balli [Edit] from Camp 4 Collective on Vimeo.

They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one – They promised to take our land…and they took it.”
– Chief Red Cloud

Over the past seven years I have made many stories, but one project has come to own me.  I am completely swept up in its current and I do not know where it will end.  That overflowing, undercurrent filled, story is about the Oglala Lakota of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.  Many of you may have heard of the Lakota, or at least the larger group of tribes called the Sioux.  They are one of many tribes that were moved off their land to prisoner of war camps now called Reservations.   The Pine Ridge Reservation is located about 60 miles southeast of the Black Hills in South Dakota.  It is sometimes referred to as Prisoner of War Camp Number 344, and it is where the Lakota now live.  If any of you have ever heard of  the Wounded Knee Massacre, AIM (the American Indian Movement), Leonard Peltier, or of the stand-off at Oglala, then you know that Pine Ridge is ground zero for Native issues in the U.S.

Their story is long and sad, and filled with many massacres, but the end goes something like this:  In 1980 The longest running court case in U.S. history, United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, was ruled upon by the U.S. Supreme Court.  The court determined that, when the Sioux were resettled onto reservations and seven million acres of their land were opened up to prospectors and homesteaders, the terms of the second Fort Laramie treaty had been violated. The court stated that the Black Hills were illegally taken and that the initial offering price plus interest should be paid to the Sioux Nation. As payment for the Black Hills, the court awarded only 106 million dollars to the Sioux Nation. The Sioux refused the money with the rallying cry, “THE BLACK HILLS ARE NOT FOR SALE!”

in 2010, after years of superficial journalism and disappointing magazine stories I decided that I had to do something more.   The magazines weren’t doing enough, and they would never let me do it through them.  They weren’t representing the people well enough; they couldn’t say the things that needed to be said, and they couldn’t choose a side.  But I did not have those restrictions.   In the summer of 2010 I chose a side.

Using the TED.com stage I made my choice clear: “Give back the Black Hills.  Its not your business what they do with them.”

 And from TED it began to grow, snowballing until it landed on the doorstep of National Geographic magazine.  This summer National Geographic will publish my Pine Ridge work and the real story of the Oglala Lakota.

Pine Ridge was a project that I tried to escape many times.  And I did succeed, on a few occasions, to have 6 month or year-long breaks before diving back in.  Those were in the days when I would call home in tears, broken by the seemingly bottomless darkness.   I did not want to go back to hear about another subject-turned-friend who had just died a gruesome death.  I did not want to hear any more stories about the children I knew being raped.  In the seven years I have been returning to Pine Ridge I know over 30 people who have died unnatural deaths, and as for rapes I dare not ask, it would break my heart beyond repair.

Despite my attempts to give up I would always be lured back by an email from someone I knew, and a desire to go deeper because I knew the story had not been told.  In time I found new communities, and learned from my mistakes.  And eventually I learned to see beyond the superficial stories that magazines had been hiring me to tell in those first years on the Rez.  Beyond the seductive photographic surface of poverty and despair, beyond the caricature that was so easy to find in drunks and pow wows.  In my final act of print journalism on the Reservation, National Geographic made sure I had the time and resources to find the heart in this story, everything I needed to do it right.  I emerged on the other side of that long journey and found myself being called “brother” and “uncle” and sitting down to eat with the family I had built in those seven years.  Mitakuye Oyasin,  you are,  “All my relations.” 

Since defining my vision two years ago, I have been working on behalf of that family to tell the world a story that does not fit into the pages of most magazines.  One of the greatest outlets for this has been my collaboration with Shepard Fairey, the most prolific street artist in America (famous for his Obama “HOPE” campaign and his ongoing OBEY propaganda).  Together we have taken my photographs of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the message of the Oglala Lakota to the streets of America.

Our most recent installation on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles covered a 22×60 foot wall.(photo by Taylor Kent)

(photo by Eric Becker)

My friend Daryl Hannah even showed up to help cut and paste!  (photos by Eric Becker) 

SEE THE WHOLE MURAL COME TOGETHER IN THIS AMAZING TIME-LAPSE VIDEO (made by the talented Sinhue Xavier).

Click here to view the embedded video.

And in an ongoing, crowd-funded, street art campaign we have seen the walls of 20 cities, from San Francisco to New York City, covered with 7,000 2×3 ft wheat-pasted images.(photo courtesy of studio number one)

 (photo from anonymous paster)

(photos from anonymous paster)

(photo from anonymous paster)

Photojournalism CAN leave the pages of magazines!   Full resolution versions of the work Shepard and I made are available for download at www.honorthetreaties.org so that YOU can choose when and where this issue is seen.  The site also includes a library of every treaty made with Native tribes in the continental U.S.Stay tuned for more, the next installment is about my collaboration with activist, artist, and friend Ernesto Yerena!  His work is the backbone of this street campaign.

 To see more of the photo essay (2005-2009) visit www.aaronhuey.com  

You will have to wait until the summer to see the new work from 2011 in the magazine!(the legendary photo editor sarah leen in our first layout session at NG HQ) 

We’ve known John since he was an intern at the Pittsburgh Press where we all worked… We’ve vacationed in Africa together and kept up pretty well until he started covering conflict zones… and for years, we would only see him on CNN every now and then when they would show a brick slamming into his head in SLO-MO while he was covering some uprising somewhere in the world. He was nearly blown up with Benazir Bhutto… and… and… and…

It’s nice to finally see a video of what he’s been up to…

Ed Kashi personally appeals to you to support former member of Kashi Studio, Alison Shuman, a dedicated and talented photographer, in her “Dissolving Borders” Kickstarter campaign. Not only will you be supporting an emerging photographer but the project itself, with its focus on tolerance, is a relevant and inspirational topic that will help us all by revealing solutions in a discordant world.

In Alison’s words “‘Dissolving Borders’ is a documentary photography project that examines how the Muslim Tatars and Orthodox Christian Russians of Kazan not only live peacefully side-by-side, but are also working to create a more tolerant society.”

Click here for more information.

above, Band Yakchel, Iran

It often surprises people to find out that I started life as a portrait photographer. I’m well known for my adventure and underground work, but I learned about light and photography by assisting Doug Merriam on portrait jobs. 

above, Katherine Kiko Mongula Uganda

Portraits fascinate me. The challenge is to tell a person’s story in one frame often with nothing else in it but them. A good portrait is a moment of clarity between the photographer and the subject. Not honesty, but clarity, a moment when the subject and what the photographer is trying to say line up. A moment when the photographer lets the person come through. Portraits are tough, nerve wracking to shoot, but when they come together very rewarding. 

Everyone has different techniques for shooting portraits. In Uganda, I’d make sure to run a long interview with a person first. It helps me understand what I want to say and establishes a connection. It also gets them into the right fame of mind, a place they can be opened.

Corporate work requires a completely different technique. People are very busy and need help concentrating on what we need to do, so when I am doing corporate work I take a different tack. I’ll use lights and set a stage. 

above, Ashanti Davis, Nashville, Tennessee

When the subject sees the lights set it helps them leave what they were doing in the office behind and concentrate on the photograph.The photo above has 7 lights. The subject has to walk through the lit background to get to where we are shooting. The message is “we are doing something important, it requires your concentration.” Every portrait is different, every situation is different. They key is to get your subjects attention and hold it long enough for a moment of clarity.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

A few catalysts for this might be camera phones and “citizen journalists,” video and audio technology, and the worldwide web. More information is being presented to us in more ways, more often then ever before. How does one generate stories that can stick – stop the user — amidst this monstrous flow of data, words, images and sound?

 Oftentimes, bloggers ask the Ed Kashi blog about how to get exposure and how to get funding. With so much free content being aired, where is the revenue stream?

In 1995, Ed and filmmaker and wife, Julie Winokur, embarked on a personal, passion project that would eventually take them all over America, over a span of 8 years, documenting the lives of seniors. What began as a leap of faith blossomed into a career game-changer.  The work produced in Aging achieved funding through magazine publications worldwide, grants and contests, was shown in galleries and museums, and most importantly, attracted other unexpected opportunities that continue to fulfill the original mission of increasing the visibility around aging issues.

The most recent example of this, nearly a decade after the completion of Aging in America, came this year when Ed accepted his first major corporate job as a Media Spokesperson for a new treatment for the rare blood cancer myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Ed was hired to showcase the victims of MDS while they are on the new treatment to promote awareness for others about how to manage and be proactive with this condition. You can read more about his role, as spokesperson and photographer and about MDS in The Bankok Post.

It used be that as pedestrians with cell phones and other devices one looked for “hot spots.” The latest trends indicate that instead we will be seeking out dead zones, places where our signals are intentionally repressed, so that we can stop the mania and…

…focus.

So when bloggers ask us here how to get exposure and how to get funding the answer is still just that; focus on the story you want to tell and the rest will fall into place.

Churchgate Station used to be the easiest place in India to take photographs of teaming hordes coming off the trains. There was a lunch counter balcony directly over the area where everyone got off the trains and came through the station. But then there was a bombing at Churchgate and the lunch counter balcony turned into a military observation area. After that, Anglo guys that looked like the bomber (and me), had absolutely no chance of getting into this secure area..

So my story fixer (Vinay Diddee) and I hired a runner who carried official National Geographic paperwork to all the offices of the bureaucrats that control the station and we had him plead our case for me to have access. It took the runner two weeks and the answer was always NO… but one bureaucrat said: “If he was an Indian, then I would let him up there.”

So, we decided Vinay would take the photograph and he was allowed to go up to the military area with my camera and tripod and I showed him a sketch of the photo I wanted. Then I waited in the van and we had the same runner that schmoozed the bureaucrats go between him and me with the camera cards Vinay was using in my camera. When I received the cards down in the van, I put them into another camera to view them and then called Vinay on his cell phone. The first time I talked to him I said…. bring the lens down a little… the second time I said it needs a slower shutter speed….. the third time I asked him to put on a darker ND filter… fourth time.. zoom in… etc… etc…

It took eight trips back and forth with cards to get the framing and everything else right… then I just told him to keep shooting whenever there were big crowds that filled the foreground of the photograph. Then for two hours I sat in the van and watched the movie GI Joe in HINDI on the DVD player hanging from the roof of the van. it didn’t matter that it wasn’t in English… it was just guys running around blowing stuff up… so I was working an Indian fixer by remote control while watching a shoot-em-up movie in a van in Mumbai in a language that sounded pretty weird coming out of American actors.

So.. I went back to the hotel and ordered a bowl of soup and a waiter in a tux with a dining room table size cart trundles into my room with one little 6 oz bowl of soup on it. I should say here that Vinay has connections with a very nice hotel chain that is actually cheaper than staying in some businessman hotel. But being in this nice hotel is complicated by the fact I am working in the biggest slums in the world. So I decided not to do the butler in the room thing again and that night I went down to the dining room and had dinner alone and the waiter brought a bowl with two big goldfish and set them across from me at the empty seat to keep me company. I had my iPad reading the paper… I was fine.. but now I had these two huge goldfish staring at me… sucking their cheeks in and out… the waiter felt sorry for me eating alone… but how pathetic…

The next day was my birthday and I didn’t intend to repeat either of those experiences…

So.. I thought I would just let the day go… disappear…. but this morning as we were getting ready to leave at 5:30AM Vinay said “Happy Birthday” and it turns out Vinay’s wife has some weird-crazy-accurate-deal with dates… and she had run my passport thru for visas a few years ago…

And then… after a sucky shooting day… I went back to hotel… the phone rang… and a woman said… Mr. Olson we understand it is your birthday and I would like to celebrate it with you… The hotel also had my passport copy… so a guy in a tux AGAIN and a customer relations guy and this woman all came up with what was ACTUALLY a great cake… a HUGE thing of flowers… a brass hindu god kinda gift and took their photos with my arms around them… and sung happy birthday. Then they bowed for awhile… did a bunch of Indian head wobbles… said sir a lot and asked if I wanted them to close the door on the way out.

I received a terrible email this morning informing me that the Rabaul Queen has sunk while sailing between New Britain and the main land of PNG. Hundreds are feared dead. This tragedy got me thinking about ThePhotoSociety’s Reality Check section. How many boats and airplanes have we been on that later sank or crashed?

I’ve not been on the Rabaul Queen, but have been on a sister ferry that later sank and a freighter out of Rabual that later sank. It gives me pause. But then if you actually live in Rabaul, or New Guinea, or Africa, or the Philippines sinking ferries are a fact of life. If you are a journalist interested in working in those places sinking ships become part of your landscape too.

One of the best night’s sleep I have every had was on the deck of this freighter out of Rabaul headed toward Jacquinot Bay. The air was warm and the sea was gentle, every now an then a deep shudder would run down the ship. I slept like a baby on deck. I was later told the ship went down shortly after dropping us off in Pomio.

My heart goes out to the victims of the Rabaul Queen.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

Terra Incognita just published my work on Guaranda:
If you are in Ecuador pick up a copy!

Esteban and I thought this would be an excellent opener…..It feels like you’re just about to explore a new place or somebody is about to tell you a secret…Hmmmmm.  I wonder what’s inside…

I love the details in Segundo’s bedroom.  Even though I had more traditional portraits of Mr. Yambombo, this one pulled me in. I like how he’s floating in his personal space.  It also feels spiritual, maybe because it looks like he’s crossing himself, which ties into the religious aspects of Carnival and to the Virgins in back of him.

Often in Ecuador you’ll find juxtapositions that make photography a blast.  I love these innocent young mini mouses in front of people who look a bit worn down from life in the campo.

I really got into to taking portraits of people in their houses before they left their communities.  While interning at the Oregonian, Mike Davis really pushed me to pay attention to all the little details in the background that tell the story of the person you are photographing.  I was especially attracted to the excitement and pride of these individuals as they dressed up in their outfits.

More portraits or to read the article in English

Got Cuy? Food is an integral part of all the fiestas.

Both Andres and I chose this photo for its timeless quality.  It could have been taken yesterday or 40 years ago.

We closed the article with lent, the official end to Carnival, and this elderly lady’s face.  The party is over…

Wow! What space!  All photographers know how difficult it is to get this kind of room to tell stories.

Thanks to Terra Incongnita, truly independent, a wonderful place to learn about Ecuador.

See more photos from the is story on Panos

Check out more work at Runa and ivankphoto

Ed Kashi is pleased to announce the Award for “Emerging Photojournalist” from PROOF. Submission deadline is 5pm, March 15th, 2012. Learn more here.

by Charlie Hamilton James

I don’t generally photograph people, I’m a wildlife guy. I get asked to do family weddings, which I do because I hate small talk and buzzing around with a camera means I don’t have to do much of it. I enjoy photographing my kids, sometimes because I’m playing with new kit or sometimes because my wife has handed me a camera and told me to shoot some pictures “even if the bloody light isn’t right!” Over the past few years however  I have begun to enjoy shooting more images of people. I guess this comes from working with National Geographic and understanding that I can’t be a one trick pony, I need to be a good all round photographer, not just the ‘otter guy’. Look at the works of people like George Steinmetz or Joel Sartore and you’ll see what I mean. These guys shoot beautifully, whether they’re shooting people or wildlife. So while I was out working in Peru and saw an opportunity for a proper bit of photojournalism I jumped at it.

 The Yawar Fiesta is a truly strange event. It involves capturing a wild condor. Strapping it to a bull and then having a bullfight. It happens in around 38 villages across the Peruvian Andes at least once a year. The reasons for this ‘blood festival’ are unclear. Some say that the bull represents the Spanish Conquistadors and the condor the brave Incas over powering them. Whatever its meaning, it has been going on for up to 200 years and seems in no hurry to stop.

 The village of Cotabambas is cut off from most of the world by its unforgiving location. Five hours from Cuzco, along what I consider to be the most dangerous road in the world, it perches high up on the side of a mountain; along with a few other similar villages in this poor and remote region. The road there is cut along the edge of one of the deepest canyons in the world and doesn’t really bother itself with safety barriers or any other form death preventing paraphernalia. Instead it beckons you to your grave, 4,000 feet below. As my friend and colleague Dr Rob Williams explained “you’d die of boredom on the way down” if you happened to drive off the edge; which is usually half way under the tyre tread as you go round a corner. Looking out of my window I would often see nothing at all, no verge, just sheer, unrelenting space between myself and the bottom of an ‘Ande’.

The fear of the journey to Cotabambas was only tempered by the fear of knowing that we’d be going home on the same road but in the dark. This road is known for its 24 bends!

Anyway that’s enough of my whingeing. Rob has been working hard over the last year to get to know the people of Cotabambas. He’s one of the world’s modern, sensible conservation scientists. Condors are in serious trouble at the moment and Rob knows that to save them, he needs the people who live with them onboard and working with him. So Rob wasn’t in Cotabambas with me to shoot brutal images of the condor fiesta to expose it to the world and have it stopped.  He was there to learn about it and meet the people involved so that he can try to work out a way forward.

 The first thing I noticed as we pulled up into town was how friendly everyone was to Rob and by reflection, us (me and Hector my assistant). We were welcomed by everyone and immediately invited into the Mayors garden for beer and soup. Inside we were met by many jolly people, some dogs and the remains of a cow, strewn in various places throughout. Its freshly cut hide hung from a hook buzzing with flies. The offal was on the floor and bits were being chopped up by an old woman and put into a large pot of foamy bubbling water. Towards the back of the garden there was a long wooden bench and sat on it were three men and a condor.

 The first thing that I assume hits anyone when they see their first condor is just how massive they are. This one certainly was, standing about a metre high and bulky. We went over to see it and Rob explained that it was a small, very young recently fledged female. The story emerged that this was a replacement condor that had been borrowed from the village next door. Cotobambas had originally started with an adult male, which they had captured after it had been attacked and injured by other condors. It had spent a few days with them until it went down hill and had to be driven to a vet in Cuzco. What surprised me about the condor was how relaxed it seemed. I doubt it was that relaxed sitting on a bench drinking beer with three blokes while people and dogs wandered about, but it certainly seemed relaxed. Rob and I wondered whether it was just so far removed from its world that it just didn’t have a programmed reaction to deal with these events and had as a result gone into this relaxed state.

 It took me a while to build up the courage to start shooting pictures of it. I was judging the situation and wanted to be accepted a bit, rather than going in all guns blazing. When I did start shooting I politely asked the guys holding the rope that was attached to the condor whether it was ok. They all seemed happy so I sat by the condor and took a few shots. The light was bad though and the situation wasn’t photogenic so I wasn’t getting much. Also lets face it, a condor is not exactly Christy Turrlington is it, so I was struggling to make the poor bird look half decent. I tried various shot sizes, bunged a flash on and diffused it but nothing. In the end I stuck the 100mm macro on and shot pictures of the bird’s enormous feet with the rope tether on. These pictures worked better for me. I’m trying to represent a whole scene in one image and sometimes a detail does the job just as well as an all encompassing wide.

If you can’t find the answer in the whole scene, look in the detail

 We sat and drank some beer and had some soup for a while, whilst I explained to some of the friendly villagers that I couldn’t speak any Spanish. Instead I did what I always do in these situations – show them pictures on the screen on the back of my camera. It’s a trust thing as far as I’m concerned. I wasn’t there to rubbish these people or condemn them, I was there to document. I wanted to let them know that and showing pictures is a great way of doing that.

 After eating lunch we headed up through the village to the bullring. Hector was lagging a bit because he had drunk a glass of Babycham the night before and his stomach was playing up. Cotabambas is a very steep village and by the time we got to the top we were all wheezing and regretting not being fitter. The view was stunning through, a classic Andean village stretched out before us, with a backdrop of enormous UV blue mountains stretching off as far as the eye could see.

 The bullring was already filling up when we arrived and we’d arrived an hour or so early. I say bullring, it was a 100m x 100m square of mud surrounded by houses. We scouted for somewhere good to shoot from. We needed a good view of the area where the bulls were released and we needed something to hide behind or jump over if they mistook us for matadors. The first place we tried turned out to be right next to the public toilet or ‘pile of shit in the corner’ as it is in Cotabambas. We soon moved and found a spot directly opposite the area where the bulls were released from. It was a good spot as it was fenced and we could duck in and out of the fence when the bulls choose to attack us.

 I was shooting a lot by this point. The backdrop of the Andes, with the full spectrum of colours in the foreground was so visually exciting. Peruvians are not conservative and careful with their colours like the British, they love colour. Their houses are greens and reds and blues. Their clothes are bursting with colour, especially the woman, many of whom were decked out in the full traditional Andean garb; colourful layered skirts, colourful tights and tops and of course a bowler hat to top it off. There was a great buzz, everyone happy smiling and laughing and of course still drinking.

 The bull fighting started at around 2 p.m. The Matador had arrived to much excitement a few minutes earlier and proceeded to dodge and twirl and avoid being killed by the parade of fairly disinterested bulls that were released from the corral. They weren’t enormous bulls, some were feisty others couldn’t really be bothered. The Matador was however very splendid and the crowd loved him. I was very pleased that nobody had any designs on killing the bulls, they were simply let out for three or four minutes of charging and feet scraping before being put back in the corral just a bit irritated. Bullfighting has always fascinated me. I spent hours watching televised bull fights on Spanish TV and guess I did what all anti bullfighting people do when watching one of these things – sided with the bull. This was different, it was more innocent. The Matador brought some ‘art’ to it, in the same way that Spanish bullfighters do, but it wasn’t a nasty affair. It was just one man dressed like a dandy outwitting a cow.

 I was loaded with memory cards so shot a lot of pictures of the bullfights. The light was still pretty poor so I choose to grad the background with a .9 soft ND grad and a .6 hard ND grad. The result was that I managed to get the sky down, find some detail in it and nicely expose the mountains beyond. By grading like this you are deepening the sky and trying to balance it with the foreground. However if you over do it very slightly, you also make the foreground more striking as it looks a little more ‘lit’. It does mean I spend all my time riding my grads up and down in the filter tray, which is a real pain. It also means that when I have to shoot something that doesn’t need grads I am waddling around with a filter set clutched between my knees as I never seem to have a bag handy. I was mixing up my lenses – 16-35mm, 24-105mm and 70-200mm. I wanted the big wide with vista behind so was shooting the 16-35mm with the grads on the 5D MK2 for a while but then wanted it a bit tighter so swapped onto the 24-105mm and finally nailed a few nice shots.

I used 2 ND grads to bring the background and sky into this shot.

 I had my 1d MK4 with the 70-200mm attached to get the close ups of the bullfight and these were fairly straightforward and working well. I began to fix onto certain shots as I always do and pursue them. I liked the cowboy hats the men were wearing and I wanted to silhouette them in the foreground by exposing for the background. I was trying out various speeds on the bull fights gearing up for when the condor came out. So shooting some really fast 1500-2000^th of a second and then some slow at ¼ of a second to try and get some blur into the moment, capture the colours as they move. It’s always worth experimenting with speeds like this; it’s too easy to play it safe and end up with the same shots as everyone else. More importantly your job in a situation like this is to capture the essence of a situation through just a few images, maybe just one. Envisaging that moment and knowing your kit and the theory well enough means you can get what you want, not what your camera gives you.

this is my wife’s favourite shot

The condor appeared to great excitement after a few bull fights and was bustled through the front door of a house next to the bullring. We were sought out by some of the guys looking after the condor and invited in to see it. We were led through the low dark house into the back garden. The condor was on the grass and a few men were pouring beer and chatting around it. I shot a few pictures of it. A man poured some beer into a cup and offered it to the condor who drank it all excitedly. It was bizarre. They then all took turns drinking beer from a large shell and then pouring some on the condor’s back as a blessing. My flash was killing me at this point as it was running low on power, so I was frantically trying to replace the batteries and capture the scene. I also had a photographer to deal with who seemed to want to shoot everything from the exact opposite direction to me, so he was appearing in all my shots.

Condor drinking beer 

When the condor was eventually led out onto the bullring there was huge excitement. It was held by a man on each wing and paraded about. I grabbed some pictures whilst this was going on. I was shooting close and wide and keeping with the grads to try and get the mountains in the background. I was having to spin the filter holder a little for some of the shots to darken a corner rather than the whole top if people’s head were breaking the skyline which sort of worked. The crowds deepened as the condor was led to the bull and it was tough getting close enough. I was eventually forced to hold my camera up as high as I could above the scene and shoot down blind.

 This whole moment was the most traumatic to witness. In order to secure the condor to the bull, the bull was first restrained. Then metal spikes were driven through the skin on its flanks. From what I could see, the condor was then tied by its feet with cords strung through the holes in the bull’s flanks. The feet were then covered in a silky red blanket.

 I broke off from the large crowd at this point to shoot a portrait of the Matador. He was standing close by watching. I approached and asked if I could photograph him. He of course agreed (being a matador!) I shot two frames. The first didn’t work, the second did. I love the image. I rarely love images that I take as I find too much fault with them, but I love this image. It’s loaded with character. The Matador, all beautiful and confident, glowing straight into the lens a single sparkle in his eye; going to the farthest extent a man can go to, to try and be cool. And then there’s his mate who frames him. Effortlessly the coolest guy in the world. Too goddam cool to look into the lens.

The matador thought he was cool. His mate really was cool.

The fight itself was fast. They let the bull go and it went crazy, trying to get the condor off its back whilst the Matador and a pile of other guys (who were mainly drunk) tormented it. I was shooting all guns blazing with both cameras. After spending the day working out which speed to shoot this moment at I opted to ignore everything I’d discovered and shoot slow. Not too slow, I was thinking 400^th of a sec. I wanted a bit of movement in there. I didn’t want pin sharp, clinical explanations of the event. I wanted blurry wings, dust, a smidgen of motion blur. The problem was that the sun had come out just before I started shooting and it went in just after, so I was shooting for sun and not shadow. The result was, without clocking it, I was down at 200^th . I shot intensely for the three or four minutes the bull and the condor were out there, trying to get that shot, that all encompassing moment. I knew it was there. The moment when the whole story falls into one image. I needed the Matador, the bull and the condor in full fight. There were lots of moments when they all came close but something would always ruin the shot – a drunk guy would stand in the way, the bull would have its back to me, the auto-focus would pop out at the wrong moment. Towards the end however it happened. The bull went for the Matador one last time. The Matador dodged him and the bull fell to the floor. I shoot three consecutive frames and then it was suddenly all over.

 The bull was lassoed and taken away and the condor released, before being paraded about again. I was excited and began to spin through the images, confident that I’d got something. The 200^th had worked badly for some but really worked well for others. There was one in particular that stood out though. It was the shot I wanted. The Matador dodging and the bull falling. I couldn’t tell how sharp it was on the camera screen and had to wait until I got back to my computer that night to see if I’d got it.

 It’s a shot that I often stare at for ages. I love the eye of the bull, the white in its eye. The condor is in perfect position, wings out, beak open – terrified. The Matador is caught in a moment of dramatic expression, full dodge. The background is a mess of Peruvian colour. It’s a painful shot. When I show people they are horrified by it.

 Underlying all this of course is the tragic story of these condors. As a wildlife photographer I sometimes find it hard to wrestle with the pleasure I get from capturing whilst documenting an animal experiencing events that are ultimately just downright cruel. It’s a line many photojournalists walk though.

 I left Cotabambas not really knowing what to make of it all. It was like spending a day in a Louis de Bernieres novel. Bizarre in the extreme but fun and sad in equal measures. I’m hoping to go back this year with Rob. I’m hoping Rob will be able to navigate a way through this conservation maze to try and save these condors. He’s certainly got his work cut out. These people are welded to their lifestyle and culture, why shouldn’t they be? It’s just a shame that such a rare bird is forced to share it with them.

 The drive home was painful. It was dark. It was long. It was raining and Rob was too tired to drive the most dangerous road in the world; but he had to.

This was the shot I was after – everything fell into place for one split second.

www.charliehamiltonjames.com

It’s a comical sight here behind the scenes at the National Aquarium in Baltimore: Sartore, two animal handlers and a ridiculous amount of gear are cramped into a tiny, 50-degree back room. All for a puffin. Sartore is doing all he can to coax the little guy into a handsome headshot. In my mind, this is fun, but for him, it’s serious business.

This is what Sartore does in his down time, between Geographicshoots. His ambition: Photograph as many zoo species as possible.

Read more on NPR’s Picture Story blog / See more photos from the project on Joel’s website

Nepali Border Police Officer, me and Neil Gelinas. Photo by Suraj Shakya

As a National Geographic Photographer, one of the first questions I’m asked when I meet someone new is, what countries have you been to? For years, my standard answer has been that it would be easier for me to name the countries where I haven’t been. Everyone is surprised to hear that India is one of those places. I just have never had an assignment there. Currently I am in Lumbini, Nepal, about 13 kilometers from the Indian border. Today I decided that it would be a good time to at least step across the border and maybe even get an Indian stamp in my passport.

In preparation, I consulted some local Nepalese who told me that this particular border crossing was so small that I couldn’t get a visa. The closest crossing where I could apply for one was an hour away and it would take at least a day for the visa to be processed. Neither having the time nor the inclination to wait 24 hours for a visa, I decided to take my chances at crossing the border at New Buddha Nagar, Kalidaha, Nepal.

My local assistant Suraj Shakya and Neil Gelinas, the producer/camerman from National Geographic Television who is working on the same project with me in Nepal, were going to accompany me on crossing into India. As we got closer to the border, the villages began looking extremely poor. Trash in the street, skinny dogs and oxen, dirt roads and profound odors. When we finally arrived at the Nepali border, we could see Siddhartha Nagar, India fifty meters away. Neil, Suraj and I walked towards the border police. We were ordered to stop and since Neil and I were Americans who didn’t have Indian visas, we were forbidden to proceed towards the Indian border station. We were also admonished not to take photos in the direction of the Indian border. Suraj didn’t have this problem. As a Nepalese citizen, he doesn’t need a visa or a passport to travel between Nepal and India.

Although I tired my best to convince the police to let me cross, nothing worked. So when people ask to what countries I’ve been, I still have to answer that I’ve never been to India.

PHOTO: Christiane Badgley. “Fishing is all we know.” Abuesi in Ghana’s Western Region is one of countless villages along the Gulf of Guinea whose residents are entirely dependent on subsistence fishing.

PHOTO: Christiane Badgley. Ghanaian fishermen repairing nets at dawn. Oil is the latest threat to an already precarious way of life.

The festival is dedicated to the goddess Mariamman, and though on the surface it’s a grueling, stomach-turning ordeal, it’s actually a raucous and joyous event.  I got to witness it at the Sri Poyyatha Vinayagar Moorthi temple, the oldest Hindu temple in Malaysia.  Datuk Chachar is unlike the typical religious festival as its devotees give thanks to their gods for answered prayers by skewering their flesh with needles and fish hooks big enough to snag a shark, all done in a trance and supposedly without pain.

The festival was the perfect way for me to show the Chinese diaspora that was a key part of a story I was working on.  Instead of seeing Indian faces, as you’d expect at a Hindu celebration, most of the participants looked Chinese.  They are, in fact, so-called Straits Chinese, descended from Chinese settlers who sailed through the Straits of Malacca during the expeditions of the great Admiral Zheng He and landed in Malaysia.  Here, the Chinese culture melded with the local traditions, and many of the offspring of overseas Chinese grew to embrace Indian Hinduism, some with a fervor bordering on fanaticism.

Impossibly loud drumming signals the beginning of the ceremony. Smoky incense billows from inside the temple.  Men in trances stare bug-eyed off into the distance, as temple elders poke long needles through their flesh. There’s no blood, but the whole operation looks very painful.  It’s surely painful to watch.  Next comes the procession – a three-mile walk to a sister temple.  Some of the faithful pull chariots carrying images of gods, using ropes attached to their bodies by hooks imbedded in the angry red flesh of their chests or backs.  Hooks and ropes tether other marchers to handlers, who hold onto the celebrants as if they were dogs on a leash.  Still others stagger down the road with pierced cheeks, tongues and lips.

Happy I could accommodate my daughter’s request, I offered to present my Datuk Chachar photographs to her class. She politely declined (actually, her exact response was “Ewwww!”), then said she’d go with a shot that she found online — of Jersey Shore’s Snooki doing yoga.  Namaste.

Most of the festival devotees are Chinese, descended from settlers who arrived with Zheng He’s fleet. These Peranakan (Straits-born Chinese) have adopted many of the local customs and religious practices.

In Malacca’s biggest Hindu festival of the year, Datak Chachar, celebrants give thanks to the gods for prayers answered by parading with spikes and hooks driven through their skin.

In the most extreme form of body piercing, a Malaccan kavadi bearer wears this cage of spikes and fishhooks as reparation for answered prayers.

At the peak of the Datak Chachar festival, the procession of penitents, skin punctured with fishhooks, passes through Malacca.

Malacca, Malaysia was China’s first large-scale overseas settlement and now home of the Peranakan, or Straits-born Chinese.

The wounds inflicted by the spikes and hooks do not bleed, and participants claim not to feel pain while in their trancelike state.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We shot this short, sweet and simple,’cause that’s what we know how to do, just a little, right now. We’ve taken first steps into the world of moving, talking pictures. For fully developed, expansive video efforts shot with the D4, please check the sites of my colleagues, Bill Frakes and Corey Rich. (Those guys know what they’re doing.)

In our most recent video effort on 9/11, I was basically an interviewer, while the gang at my studio, Drew Gurian, Mike Grippi, Mike Cali, and Lynda Peckham, at different times for different subjects, ran the D7000 cameras. The questions I asked came naturally to me, as the subjects of the interviews I knew for ten years, and call many of them my friends. This was different. I took a dive into Little Freddie’s music and history, which I didn’t know anything about, and found myself drawn to his lyrics, and sounds. His songs formed the basis for my questions. At one point I said to him, “Little Freddie, you’ve written some of your songs about bad women. Are they real?” He shook his head. “Oh, yeah,” he replied. “I never should have gotten into that cab that night. It was the gin talkin’ to me that made me do it. I got in the taxi with her. She was a bad woman.” He shook his head again, mournfully. “My wife.”

It was also very different, making a video with a D4. The camera enhances and enlarges possibilities, simply put. For tech info and specs, hit this link.

For the interview, I asked the questions and ran a static D4 on sticks, which was no big deal in terms of camerawork. Drew Gurian and Mike Grippi both did the heavy lifting for the moving and sliding views. It was strange for me, I have to admit, having my eye glued to a monitor instead of an eyepiece while we, as a team, walked along here and there with Freddie. My whole career, I’ve told stories by stopping things. Now, in addition to seeing a frame, I found myself thinking about where that frame could move. But, here’s the thing I do know, being a photographer. When a shooter comes to you, impassioned about making a shot, you say yes. Drew and Mike would conjure a camera slide, or a pan, and describe it, and we’d shoot it. It makes sense to allow visually talented eyes to roam, and do what they will do.

Drew then did a rough cut, and organized the footage, and we worked with Russell Peckham of Peckham Productions, a long standing video operation on the East Coast.  Russell has taught us the meaning and importance of having a good, experienced video editor on our various projects. His post skills shape the look, and the logic of the story.

During the two days we shot this, besides working the video, I also had still responsibilities, and I was not going to pass up the opportunity to do portraits of a truly unique subject like Little Freddie. In the old kitchen of the plantation we worked at, I made one of my favorite portraits of late. Shot with a D4, ISO 100, 19mm lens, f5, 1/10th.

We also went across the river from New Orleans, right at the cusp of darkness, and shot this CLS portrait, using a Lastolite 8 in 1 umbrella. I love this thing. You can shoot scattered soft light when you use it as an umbrella, but then pull a velcro port off the backside of it, pump a light through that small area of diffusion, and it behaves like a soft box. Shot with a D4, ISO 400, 24mm lens, f4, 1/2.5.

Little Freddie, showman that he is, was a natural in front of the camera, of course. He made for a wonderful subject for stills. But, his is a story that has heart, soul, history, legs and music. Shooting the video let us see him, and let us listen, too.

More tk…

It’s been just over a week since the annual National Geographic Photo Seminar ended, and I’m finally beginning to float back down to a cloud better suited to bear my own weight. My photojournalistic life is a pastiche of shards, millions of microscopic fragments of my own and others’ worlds collaged together:  hoboing on the road, researching stories, clickity clicking, on the phone with family, in class, in prayer, in motels, in between. And then suddenly, in the National Geographic headquarters, at a podium addressing a room full of my childhood heroes; photographers whose backs I flew on as a little girl, watching as they discovered the world. I was bewildered-eyed, feeling equally stunned and small when editor-in-chief, Chris Johns, addressed the herd of National Geographic photographers as a unit, and I was included.

At the podium, I spoke about photographing my first feature story for the Geographic, about being embedded in high school, only seven years after graduating myself.  I mentioned a response that one of my subjects, Dandilion Olsen, gave when I asked her how she felt about having her image published so broadly in the magazine. She humorously replied, “I thought WOW! This photo is great and in ten years my face will be used in an arts ‘n crafts class somewhere.”

Her sentiment was echoed later, when, fellow speaker, David LaChapelle (who, for those who haven’t met him in person, is a treat of a human being) presented his epic tableau, Rape of Africa. He revealed the sketches and collages, which led up to the making of this image, unmasking his alluring inner process. Much to the surprise of the audience, his image was not only inspired by Botticelli’s Venus and Mars, but by Randy Olson’s January 2009 NGM cover story, The Real Price of Gold, which addressed the environmental and human costs of gold mining in Africa.  It was so powerful to see influence laid so bare, to witness a kernel of a human thought traced from one artist to another, from one artifact to the next. To me, this was the peak moment of the seminar; when fragments in the universe collide and give birth to a new text. 

       

David LaChapelle - The Rape of Africa (sketch)

The yellow border yields a power, which extends far beyond physical geography. It reins in the mythological, transporting its readers back to their wide-eyed childhoods, to their parent’s bookshelves and basements made up of solid yellow blocks, while simultaneously influencing some of our generation’s greatest visionaries and iconographers. Who hasn’t made a collage like David Lachapelle?

I spent the greater part of my childhood lost in the alternate dream-life National Geographic allotted me. 1954, 1975,1993, 1995, the years went whizzing by as briskly as the countries and species. One moment, I’d be breathing underwater, in a gush of penguin bubbles, and in the next, soaring above the Sahara, my little feet dangling from George Steinmetz’s lens hood. I, too, remember playing arts and crafts with the pages of the Geographic. On my 4th birthday, I sat with my mother for hours cutting through the magazines, leaving behind sparse landscapes, with empty outlines where the wild animals and humans previously grazed and roamed on the pages. Secretly my mother would would tip-toe outside, and free each paper lion, hyena and bear to our suburban Vancouver wilderness. When my kindergarten playmates came over we would hold each others hands, running through the tall backyard grass, scavenging for our little friends.

The practice of collaging far predates the first images to appear in National Geographic magazine.  (In 1905, Gilbert H Grosvenor filled eleven pages of the magazine with photos of Lhasa, Tibet, and then in 1906, he published pioneering flash photographs of animals at night, which spurred two National Geographic Society board members to resign in disgust, claiming the magazine had turned into a “picture book.”) However, collage rose as an art form in the 20th century. (Literary critic Gregory Ulmer goes so far as to argue that collage is “the single most revolutionary formal innovation in artistic representation to occur in our century [the 20th].” Others agree.)   Just as it is hard to imagine the magazine without photographs, so too is it difficult to imagine the world of collage/assemblage without National Geographic.  I would like to devote the remainder of this blogpost to the National Geographic collage artists, who reassemble the laboriously-made fragments of the magazine into new compositions; who, at times, give deep insight into the realities we photojournalists strive so obsessively to represent, while, at other times unabashedly pervert it.  For some collage artists, the goal is to abstract any semblance of this world, while others put all their work into distilling a personal story, weaving the public with the private as in the case of Dutch artist, Luuk Wilmering’s, A Personal Geography. While some of the other collage artists presented below use other source materials in addition to the magazine, Wilmering exclusively uses photographs from National Geographic, because, according to text on his website, “this periodical has made the aesthetic representation of reality its trademark”.

To all those who dissect the worlds we memorialize. An ode to cutting and pasting.

Luuk Wilmering 

Luuk Wilmering - 2005 - A Personal Geography - The Acts of Mercy - Receiving the Stranger nr. 7

Luuk Wilmering - 2005 - A Personal Geography - The Acts of Mercy - Feeding the Hungry

Luuk Wilmering - 2005 - A Personal Geography - The Acts of Mercy - Ministering to the Sick nr. 3

Luuk Wilmering - 2005 - A Personal Geography - The Acts of Mercy - Burying the Dead

Brian A. Kavanaugh

Brian A. Kavanaugh - 2011 - Ember - 48x96 inches

Brian A. Kavanaugh - 2009 - True Believer - 44x32 inches

Brian A. Kavanaugh - 2010 - March - 44x32 inches

 Brandi Strickland

Brandi Strickland - 2009 - Inner Space - Strange Loop - 12x12"

Brandi Strickland - 2009 - Inner Space - Intertidal - 12x12"

Brandi Strickland - 2010 - Seed Stone - 16x16"

 Jessalyn Aaland

Jessalyn - 2010 - Accumulations - Trying To Reach The Point Of Largest Growth - 15x20.5"

Jessalyn Aaland - 2010 - Accumulations - Bury Me Deep - 14x17"

Jessalyn Aaland - 2009 - Locations - A Quiet Place - 14x17"

 Wangechi Mutu

Beth Hoeckel 

Beth Hoeckel - Plume

Beth Hoeckel - Rider

Beth Hoeckel - Solar Eclipse

Beth Hoeckel - Tidal Wave

Nick Paliughi

Adrian Kenyon

Adrian Kenyon - France in 2050

Adrian Kenyon - Deforestation

Able Parris

Nathaniel Whitcomb - 2010 - Collage Poems - God Wished

Nathaniel Whitcomb - 2010- Collage Poems - We Eyed Longingly

Nathaniel Whitcomb - 2010 - Collage Poems - No Longer Death

Click here to view the embedded video.

Paul “Presser” Towner

Jheri Evans

Emily - False Gods

Jesse Treece

Jesse Treece - Untitled # 2

Jesse Treece - An Alien Coast

Jesse Treece - Untitled

 Lynn Rodriguez

Emily Promise Allison - National Geographic collages

Emily Promise Allison - National Geographic Collages

Tim Manthey

Tim Manthey - I Shall Be Released

Tim Manthey - Helium Hearts of Our Ancestors

Tim Manthey - Let There Be More Light

Oriana Skye

When I have workshops, one of the first things I find out from the students is: do you really want this to be your career? Or do you want to be a good photographer and have a nice hobby? There’s a real distinction between taking pictures for yourself and taking pictures as a career.

One of the things that’s been frustrating is my students will say, I’ve saved up all my money, I’m going to shoot a photo story in Pakistan, or Afghanistan or South Africa or Bali. And that’s exactly how you don’t get your break at Geographic. Because then you’re competing with me, and James Nachtwey, and all the others that go to those places. 

If you say you really want my job, okay, here’s the deal. There are no more hobbies, no more fun. You can have fun doing the work, but you have to be completely obsessed with it. I think 99% of the people think that professional photography is travel and adventure, and they forget that photography is very, very hard work. You’re “on” all the time. When you go out the door to take pictures, nobody cares about any of the excuses about bad weather or logistics, or how the authorities wouldn’t let you do your job. All that matters is what the photos say, how much money the magazine spent on that time, and whether or not it’s a successful coverage. Most people don’t really want that.

If you want your story in Geographic, unfortunately, the reality is that there’s very little chance they’ll take an untried photographer’s idea. But, given that, here’s my advice: 

- Know everything that’s been in the magazine. The big mistake most people make is proposing a story that’s already been published recently.

- Don’t attach a writer to your story, and if you’re a writer, don’t attach a photographer. If you do that, you’re asking the magazine to take a chance on two new people they don’t know, instead of just one. 

- [Nick's Take was written in 2001, NGM is 90% digital as of June 2011] Geographic is still shooting transparencies. I think technology is probably the least important thing to consider. But you do have to be able to handle transparencies to shoot for the Geographic. That’s more difficult exposurewise than color negative or digital.

- Especially if you don’t have a track record, shoot a story 75% or 90% done, and then show those pictures to the Geographic.

Where you get your break is shooting personal projects in your backyard, your home town, places you can go to repeatedly. Find something that we haven’t done, make it your own, and beat it to death. Put your blood and sweat in there. Work like that is how most new photographers come to National Geographic. It is how I got picked up — my work in caves is what opened the door for me. A lot of photographers have gotten in the door with projects there’s no way we would publish, but the director of photography was able to see that the person could really handle a story.

So take a subject that’s your own and spend four or five years on it. And if you balk at doing that, well, that’s where you weed out the pretenders.

This is an excerpt from Nick’s Take, a series of short writings about photography written by Nick. They are available – along with his wonderful images –  on his iPad App, available in the iTunes App Store.

We are back in Alaska, falling silly in love with animals we meet.

First, there are red foxes, three kits as bright as new flames, tumbling across the road on Denali’s Polychrome Pass at daybreak.  It turns out the things you can do with a roadside boulder are many. You can jump on it and play the king of the castle, while other two foxes try to pull you down.  You can all hide your heads behind it, so only three butts and three enormously bushy tails stick out, and stand like this for a while.  You can run around the boulder one way, and then the other way, very fast.  You can stop near it and pant, and then you can jump back and forth.  Forgetting the boulder, you can run up the trail and stand together with shoulders touching and turn your heads in the same direction, so the bunched up faces look like a big red artichoke with fox ears for petals.

Not even a quarter of a mile down the road from the fox artichoke, there are four wolves, both parents and their two big pups, sitting on top of a small hill.  As we watch, they occasionally produce a gentle communal howl, nothing serious, just a little morning song with dark noses lifted high and furry throats vibrating. After the last song they sneak away so smoothly we hardly notice their departure.

There are also freshly fledged golden eagle chicks playing high in the wind, and northern harrier hawks flying and diving in search of Denali’s voles and mice and other tasty snacks, and a trumpeter swan taking off from a small tundra pond, his huge snowy wings doing the heavy lifting.

There are partridgeberries and blueberries and a long afternoon sleep in the tundra under the warm sun, with our arms entwined.

Last night we arrived at the campground in Denali after sleeping in the high country gravel pit, and learned there was a family of lynx hunting in the nearby woods.

John thought we should just go and see them. I insisted we needed at least one camera. He maintained that walking camera-free guaranteed a good sighting. After some to and fro and many associated and not always helpful remarks, I grabbed my camera from the truck and off we went. It was getting dark, the time when every river corridor in Alaska becomes a natural animal highway, so we kept our eyes peeled for grizzlies and anything else that moved.

It did not take long before John whispered: there is a lynx!  but later told me that at first he thought it was a big snowshoe hare with enormous hunches: same color, same stillness in the woods. The big cat sat on his rump in a mossy patch, straight and tall like a Great Dane, ignoring us. Then he bounded silently on his huge soft paws into the thicket, flushing out several jays which scattered loudly: it looked more like a “here I go” kind of romp than a real hunt.  I looked through the viewfinder but my camera was defunct: I forgot I already took my digital card out, and this is like pulling all books out of a library — there was nothing to read.

Miraculously, the lynx took a beeline back to the campground.  We followed at the respectful distance, grabbed my card and another camera, and just as well since another lynx appeared.  John and his lynx went to a meadow, while I tried to keep up with my cat who preferred the thickest of thickets, and after some scrambling among the trees we photographed our moving felines until they disappeared like fuzzy ghosts into the night. After we looked at the images later that evening we felt the joy again: two graceful, big-footed, black-ear-tipped cats, melting into the black spruce forest.  I do not know how my freshly mended leg carried me over ravines, mossy brooks and lumpy forest floor in semi-darkness, but it did. And I am not sure if I ended up dreaming about lynx, but it was a dream of quiet alertness, full of bouncy and exuberant life.  

©Yva Momatiuk

www.momatiukeastcott.com

“This is a very difficult position for photographers to be in. You would like to take down rogue sites plastered with your copyrighted content when they don’t respond to DMCA notices and at the same time media conglomerates are finding ways to undermine your ability to make a living producing copyrighted content. Ultimately, I think it is best to not side with the Media Conglomerates. Their business model is dying. Breaking the internet will not fix it.” APhotoEditor

TED Talk: Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea

Funny Rachel Maddow show about the main sponsors of SOPA stealing photographs (Roy Blunt) to put on their Twitter sites… etc…

Almost 2 years ago I hung over this 150′ pit in West Virgina as part of a survey team looking at how White Nose Syndrome was effecting hibernating bats. The incredible thing about this photo is not the guy hanging in in space or even the bat flying around but the capture date. It was February and there were bats flying around in the cold and snow.

The disease seemed to be spreading south and the great fear is that it will infect the large bat colonies that we have in the southern cumberland plateau. So far we haven’t seen great mortality in Tennessee, but this winter is when the disease would seriously hit. Fingers are crossed here.

Stephen Alvarez

Chattanooga, TN

“Angry Birds, beware – a new iPad photography app has cracked the top-40 most popular downloads list in the iTunes Apps store.” - TIME LightBox Blog

The iPad App featuring the photography and methodology of George Steinmetz is now available in the iPad App Store. 

• Hear directly from George how each photograph came to be, as well as the police chases, windstorms, equipment malfunctions and rocky landings that nearly got in the way.

• Explore satellite imagery and maps of each location to discover exotic places throughout the world where George has taken his pictures.

• Learn about George’s motorized paraglider and what makes it fly, through interactive graphics and an exclusive video that puts you in the harness.

• Analyze the details of each picture — George’s camera settings, caption information, and high-resoltuion enlargements that provide an up-close look.

• Share your favorite photographs through e-mail at the tap of a button. (Internet connection required.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

I just wish I’d known it would be that easy. Some things just fall into place. Others, well they need a little work. A little concentration, a little effort. When I first signed on for the Yearbook (the “Olympian”) staff in high school, I was 15 years old, looking for , as my mom reminded me any number of times, something that would qualify as an ‘extra-curricular’ activity if I had any hope of actually getting into college. You couldn’t simply own a decent GPA, attend classes dutifully, and hope to be able to get into a good school. As a member of the first class of the Baby-Boomers, competition was fiercer (more fierce?) than we ever thought it could be. So I suppose I had secondary interests in the back of my mind when they accepted my yearbook application, and I had to fill in which staff I thought would be appropriate for me: Literary, Business, Art, and Photography. I ticked off – in a negative way – each of the first three, and ended up, with some ambivalence, as Photography got my vote. I had no idea what it would entail, but it was the least uninteresting of the lot. When I finally received word weeks later that I was accepted on the Photo staff, I was excited to see what it was all about. I was a pretty good Chemistry and Physics student (yes, I could fire a steel ball-bearing from a spring on a bench, and calculate how far it would go before it hit the floor – oh, that gravitational constant!) The first day of school the following autumn found me with several other newbies in the darkroom with our advisor , Mr. Blackham ( a rotund but very game Math teacher) huddled around a not yet antique Omega enlarger, watching him project a picture of the French club onto a sheet of white photo paper. His hands moved in a few phantom patterns (I would eventually discover what burning and dodging was ) over the photo paper, and then the enlarger light went dark. Mr. Blackham then lifted the paper out of the easel and slid it into the Dektol. In a room bathed in the yellow glow of a safe-light, I saw my very first photographic image appear, magically, like some kind of sorcerer’s alchemy, on that piece of photo paper. No tongs for him, Mr. Blackham reached in and grabbed a corner of the picture…. Shaking it gently, as the tones slowly went from light to dark gray, and some to black. It really was magic.
a school crisis, the “leadership meets,” 1964
A few days later, I was given a roll of Tri-x and a Rollei, and told to go shoot a Friday afternoon football game. I wandered out to the field, looking around, trying to figure out where to stand, how to hold the camera, when it dawned on me I had NO idea how to set it. In one of those scurrying moves, where you can feel the sweat starting to ooze through your pores, I raced through the halls of school, trying to find George Carmen, one of those kids whose dad had gotten him started in photography in Jr. High, and who I knew would be able to guide me in the mysterious world of Shutter Speed and Aperture.
the Graham Special at the Salt Flats, 1963
When I finally did find him…. he helped me set both, and back I went to the game. It was one of my first days as — dare I say it – a photographer. And if you carry on the idea of what I was doing that day, it might have even been my first day being a photojournalist. I don’t think I was even aware of what ‘photojournalist’ meant or implied. Sure, like most families we subscribed to LIFE and LOOK, those magazine stalwarts of photographic storydom. The twenties and thirties saw the birth of photo magazines, first in Germany, and England, and later in the U.S. The idea of taking cameras out of the drawing room, and using them to photograph actual “things and events” was quite new. It was the birth of what would become Photojournalism. And let’s face it, there is a bit more cachet to ‘photojournalist’.. working on a ‘reportage’ than a photographer working on a mundane ‘assignment.’
George Romney (Mitt’s dad) speaks about his Presidential aspirations to the Utah Legislature, 1967
In the beginning I counted myself among the latter, until sometime in college – my Senior year after I’d had a summer internship with TIME in New York – some snotty NewEnglander kid a bit my junior was explaining that his older brother was busy creating, as his Locust Valley Lockjaw might have put it, “reh-pour-TAHZE.” I had to admit that his way of putting it made it sound pretty cool. It took years, of course, for the rest of the world, and the rest of the business to use “reportage” on a daily basis. I still feel a little funny when I use the word “reportage” but, it sounds way too groovy not to.
Bobby Kennedy speaks at BYU, 1968

All of which leads me to think, that given my forty plus years of photographing ( O M G, next year it will be fifty! Don’t tell anyone!) and feeling that even now as I’m learning something about my chosen field everyday, that this is a world of unending possibilities. I write this on a plane flying across the country, and in the seat pocket in front of me, are copies of Pop Photo, and Shutterbug. There are a zillion cool things inside of each, little techniques, little hints of things yet undiscovered. You never really know it all. Every day is full of new possibilities, new ways of expanding your personal vision. So it was all the more amusing when I recently received in my email inbox one of those updates from LinkedIn, that crazy, billion dollar company (how did THAT happen?) which advised me that one of my LinkedIn contacts had updated their profile, and added “Photojournalist” to their list of talents. Apparently they are already working as a photojournalist somehow, somewhere, but forgot to mention it when they filled out their profile. The most amusing part of the message was the imploring by LinkedIn, to me, that I add the talent “Photojournalist” to my own profile, and that it would … well.. make me a Photojournalist. Damn, I had no idea it was that easy. Just add it to your list of attributes and you’re IN. Like many of the misunderstandings which clouded my early days in the photo world the lights went on more quickly than I could keep up with them. In 1969, when I moved to Miami to be the TIME contract photographer based in the SouthEast/Caribbean, I had a card printed up. I had already poached what I thought was a cool line from Norm Betts, an AP shooter I’d met the previous winter. My card read

David Burnett
Photojournalist
655 Eldron Drive
Miami Springs, FL

“Matthew Brady is alive and well, and living in Argentina”

Oh, there was a phone number on there as well, and so I thought that once I’d printed up my card, and started passing them out, the phone would start to ring off the bloody hook with offers to shoot hither and yon. In fact, nothing was more frighteningly silent than my phone. It just refused to ring. But hey, I was a photojournalist. Eventually, thank God, things slowly began to change, and my career grew as I started to understand what it took to connect with editors, and make pictures which would be worth looking at.
the Vietnam “Moratorium” in Miami, 1969
Recently, we were saddened by the passing of Jim Atherton, who worked in Washington DC for UPI, and later the Washington Post. He spent decades shooting the pants off young’uns like me. Jim Atherton was one of those guys who really got it. He understood that elusive point where life intersects with the camera. That in fact, for the most part, we “make” pictures, not “take” them. We do all that is necessary to get our viewfinders in the perfect place where the pushing of the shutter button creates that moment in time, frozen forever. Unlike the rookies like me, who would arrive early, and look around at a Senate hearing room, trying to figure out how to spend the next three or four hours squatting on a knee-high bench, looking for some key image of a semi-famous person, Atherton would make the rounds of the Capital, usually arriving somewhere in hour 3 or 4. While the rest of us had so tired of looking, so fatigued we could barely see any longer, Jim would walk into a room, and like a sniper hunting his target, peer though his squinted eyes, sum it all up in a few minutes, and just BE where he had to be, to get a picture the rest of us usually missed altogether. Bang! Another time I’ve been knicked by Jim Atherton. He did it time and again, never settling for the obvious.
John Dean being sworn in at the Watergate hearings (1973), Jim Atherton bouncing in on the right for his exclusive
Atherton was a special breed. He apparently more than once corrected someone who called him a ‘photojournalist,’ saying that no, he was a News Photographer. He imbued the idea of “News Photographer” with something special, and though I doubt he was ever on LinkedIn (what, really would have been the point?) he was the quintessential definition of the term. It was his years of perceptive seeing, and listening, and watching and knowing. You couldn’t just add that talent to your resumé. No, it’s just not that easy. We’re just sayin’…. David

For more information or to download APP go to the iTunes store HERE

Photographers Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky introduce their first app for the iPad, a personal photographic journey exploring the diverse cultures of five countries in South America. Karla and Ivan traveled for seven months in Sancho, their trusty red jeep, documenting thirteen photo essays along the way, from the equator down to the farthest tip of the continent.

The app features:
• Fourteen photo galleries including more than 165 photographs from Ecuador, Peru,
Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina
• Five videos
• Author narration for each of the fourteen stories plus the introduction
• Eleven pan-and-zoom images, pop-up images, and an interactive map
• Foreword by respected photographer and commentator Pablo Corral Vega
• World Press and POY award-winning coverage included

Ivan Kashinsky and Karla Gachet are freelance photographers based in Quito, Ecuador.
Both Ivan and Karla have earned many awards, including World Press, POY, and BOP.
Their work has been published in National Geographic, Time, Smithsonian, The New York Times, and Geo, among other publications.
Short Stories is a joint production of Runa Photos and Lightbox Press, a new publisher of digital photography books.

A selection of images available for use in press for “Short Stories” iPad app is available upon request. For requests and inquiries, please contact:
Lightbox Press
Lisa Lytton
+1(434) 295-4847 lisa@paraculture.com http://www.lightboxpress.com
Runa Photos
Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky
+1 (593) 98127559
ivankphoto@gmail.com
kgachet@gmail.com
http://runaphotos.com
http://www.ivankphoto.com
http://www.karlagachet.com

1. CURIOSITY

Afghanistan was not a topic in the mainstream media back in 1994 when Seamus first entered Afghanistan and began shooting the local people. What began as an instant of curiosity turned into a project that lasted for 3 decades.

2. COURAGE

In 1994, when Seamus first began documenting Afghanistan, the Soviets had pulled out and left in their wake a nation controlled by warlords and eventually the Taliban. Photography was not welcome and quite dangerous. Seamus chose to embed with the local people instead of the US Military in years to come in order to stay intimate with the Afghan people, his mission from the start.

3. COMPASSION

For his dedication to serving the interests of the local Afghans and finding inspiration in civil life, Seamus won POYi’s World Understanding Award in 2005. The latest iteration, with MediaStorm’s involvement, is a seminal project that chronicles a people through decades of strife with compassion and intelligence.

This was posted on Jean-François Leroy La Lettre de la Photographie site:

The annual National Geographic seminar took place last week in Washington. Jean-François Leroy, director of the Visa pour l’Image Festival, was there:

“It was a beautiful Thursday morning. In the National Geographic lobby, the crowding meant it would be a brilliant new convention.

After National Geographic Photo Director Kurt Mutchler’s welcome speech, activities began with a screening of Paolo Pellegrin’s preceded by his homage to France 2 senior reporter Gilles Jacquier, recently killed while on assignment in Homs, Syria. The editing was a bit choppy, but the film provided spectators with a glimpse of the astounding work of the photographer in the last ten years.

A moment of relaxation with the next subject by Robin Schwartz who presented her work with her daughter Amélia about animals. Dogs and cats, of course, but also giraffes, elephants, tigers and kangaroos.

Many of us were a bit disappointed by Cirenaica Moreira’s work. The pictures were interesting, but the comments were laborious and too long. 45 minutes of comments and not enough pictures, which kept us yearning for more at lunch break.

Editor in Chief Chris Johns welcomed us back after the break. He greeted the many photographers and former editors in the room, with a warm acknowledgement to Kent Kobersteen, absent for health reasons but whose latest test results, we learned, were encouraging. Then he gave a long homage to the late Susan Smith, one of photography’s pillars for so many years, who passed away last July.

Kitra Cahana presented her work on teenagers ,that was one of the year’s story most recognized and most approved by National Geographic reader.

She was followed by Anthony Suau who spoke of the evolution of « Facing Change », that can already be compared to Carl Mydans and Dorothea Lange’s famous FSA… Would you believe it? In any case, the project is taking shape, advancing, and we can follow and encourage it here: 
http://facingchange.org/ 
Look at the participating photographers… Very interesting isn’t it?

Gillian Laub’s work on racism in small southern American cities and the changes her work provoked – notably after being featured in the New York Times Magazine – is just incredible. Sometimes but rarely photography can change the world.

The day’s final presentation was eagerly awaited. David Lachapelle! Everyone was expecting slightly pretentious extravagance. We were going to show him, the King of Photoshop, what a “real” photo was. Every one was nicely surprised. Lachapelle was very much himself. Humble, funny, immensely cultivated, he shocked everyone! At the end of his interview, he showed us the making of his Pieta. When spectators realized there was NO photo manipulation involved, he triumphed!”

Jean-François Leroy

The Photographers’ Seminar is a time when one might see certain friends for the only time during the year.  They may have come from Paris, New York, Sweden, almost anywhere.  But because many of us lead a semi-nomadic life, crossing paths with others of the same ilk can be rare.  Like the sighting of some elusive species of wildlife.

It’s the one time in the year when many–although never all–of the photographers who contribute to the magazine are brought together to share their thoughts, their work, and to enjoy and contemplate the work of photographers invited to speak and show work, photographers whose photographic interests and aspirations may be greatly dissimilar to those of the Geographic photographers, but still of strong interest and visual value.

There was a time when photographers not part of the Geographic’s stable of staff and freelancers were not invited as speakers.  Fortunately, that changed years ago, notably when Rich Clarkson came in as Director of Photography. It’s not important if the speaker does work that doesn’t come close to what the Geographic might publish; that’s actually often very refreshing and stimulating.  In fact, au contraire.  What a bore it would be if all of us leaned in the same direction in our efforts.

Paolo Pellegrin, who opened the seminar Thursday morning, showed a variety of his work, ending with a selection of images on New York.  Paolo’s pictures are always so well seen.  He is a favorite of mine.  I can sink into his images at times.  On my writing desk I still have a copy of the New York Times Magazine from February, 2009, with his marvelous portraits of Oscar nominees.  Much of the work he showed last week was far darker. I won’t say deeper because some of them showed  the seemingly never end of man’ capability for brutality.  Maybe they could be fairly said to be more important.  But I wouldn’t ever want to give the impression that his movie star pictures were shallow in comparison; nothing could be farther from the truth, in my opinion.  His access to those people who act and create a place for us to momentarily escape and at times bring us to a higher emotional and intellectual level, was evidently better than very good and he took advantage of that access and depicted the various players in ways really brilliant.

I won’t go through all the presenters at the seminar other than to say it was, as usual, quite a mixed bag.   I wish I could remember it accurately enough to quote from National Geographic senior picture editor Todd James’ well thought out introduction to David La Chapelle, who closed the seminar, but I will say that La Chapelle’s pictures ran the gamut from startling to stupendous, and his visual thinking is extraordinary. His imagery is such a wonderful combination of intellectual interpretation and photographic mastery.  Even if one is not quite taken with some of his pictures, I, for one, find his visual contemplation fascinating.

I am now going to take a break from writing here in a Waynesboro, Virginia Starbucks(I suppose if I were a tweeter I could announce it that way but I’m not and why tweet, anway, about just getting in a car to go home?) and go home to my writing area where I can play some music and finish this up.  I’m in Starbucks because our Hughes high speed Internet connection has given up the ghost and we can’t get a service guy until the end of the week.  And then they say we have to pay a service charge.  How is it that when a service one pays for breaks down, the person being serviced gets penalized by having to pay for it to work?  We live on the side of a mountain with not much in the way of high speed Internet options.  We’re a step up from dial up, but it’s a very short step.  And for now there is nothing.  No step. No signal. Nothing.

It’s an hour or so later and I’m back.  I had to stop at the deer processing guy’s house to find out why my son Anthony got all burger and no steaks or summer sausage from the deer he brought in last week and I picked up on my way home from the seminar.

But now I’m not really up for music, having stopped on my way up the driveway at the pump shed to check on the water pipes after a very cold last night and discovered we have a leak, maybe from a frozen pipe and now must have a plumber come out, after normal workday hours to fix what ever needs fixing. Last week while I was up in D.C. the boiler providing our hot water and heat went bad and was exhausting carbon monoxide into the house so we now need a new boiler and the accompanying new exhaust piping and tearing out of ceilings and all of that.  It will cost a lot.  Possibly over twelve grand.

And now we need a plumber. At after hours prices.

Sadly, I’ve lost my craving for music for the time being.  Can’t think of anything to play that will help my anxiety over the onrushing bills to pay, so I’ll try to finish up this thing while writing at a table just off the kitchen, watching Every Day Italian with Giada on television, between paragraphs.  She’s always a pleasure to watch and I may, although not often, jot down a recipe or take note of a cooking technique.  It sometimes depends upon what Giada is wearing.

Probably one of the most awaited aspects of the National Geographic Photographers’ Seminar is the day after the seminar speakers, on Friday afternoon when “Works In Progress,” kicks in for about three hours.  Open basically only to photographers who are regular contributors to the magazine or who have recently had something in the magazine, they are invited to show work they may be in the midst of producing, not necessarily for the magazine, although many do show assignments on which they are currently working.

The natural history guys never cease to amaze me at the “Works in Progress” sessions. They seem to constantly raise the bar ever higher for excellence in what they do.  I’m so happy I don’t have to compete with them for a gig.

Paul Nicklin and Brian Skerry continue to make incredible images in their underwater explorations; David Doubilet, now, I think, considered one of the pioneers at underwater work, always seems to have that slightly more artistic edge to his images. He showed some fascinating half in/half out-of-the water pictures.

Tim Laman, whom I kiddingly called “The Blue-Eyed Maniac” after watching his video of him descending from a canopy where he had been photographing Birds of Paradise or some other winged creature reached photographically only by climbing high into the jungle tree tops using some kind of rope device and once there, by climbing by hand, limb-to-limb.

Nick Nichols is in the process of making pictures of lions in the Serengeti with an intimacy perhaps never before seen.  Some of the pictures he showed were made through his use of a camera mounted on a motorized, miniaturized tank-like vehicle that rolls along, moving in on the lions in a way one normally cannot and with a far greater intimacy than with a long lens.   Once he has this thing fully mastered his pictures are going to be something else, indeed.  Unless, of course, the lions refuse to consider it something to be tolerated and eventually kill it.  At least they probably can’t eat it and the parts might be salvageable for some other use.

Alex Webb showed pictures from East London.  As usual, his pictures often had a lot of moving parts; his opening, bus stop picture was a favorite of mine.  David Alan Harvey showed pictures ripe with the fervor of Rio.  And a young couple with names I’m embarrassed to say I don’t remember, showed some images from the Andes I liked a lot.

Gerd Ludwig showed some very surreal cityscapes from his work in Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan.  An extraordinary set of pictures with the people as well.

I can’t possibly list everybody that showed great work in what was a strong afternoon of well-seen imagery.

As for me, I didn’t have an assignment last year and photographed not much more than a few portraits of a naked pole dancer at her home and a hair stylist in her Day of the Dead makeup in a small, empty room at her hair salon. Both women live in Missoula, Montana and I may eventually add them to my ongoing “Her Picture in a Frame” project but I didn’t think it was enough to show.  I spent most of my time in Montana last summer and fall working on a novel I started maybe 15 years ago, then put aside for a long time and just last year returned to and hope to finish sometime later this year as time permits.  I’m not a good multi-tasker and if on assignment I don’t try to write on the side if I’m not writing the story.  Can’t do that.  An assignment is an all-demanding kind of thing.  And good writing is hard work and takes a lot of time.

But I’ve always participated in the “Works In Progress” part of the seminar so I asked Nick if I it would be okay to read a couple excerpts from my novel and I did.

I’ve read a piece of my writing before at “Works In Progress,” eleven years ago.  But that was non-fiction from a retrospective book I was working on.  That reading was about a range detective  in
Wyoming I photographed for LIFE who once drunkenly held a gun on me.  That was for real.  This time it was fiction and fair to say, more sexual than riding the range with a range detective . I needed a bit more than the three-and-a-half minutes limit imposed on the photographers, some of whom honored it.  I think part of what I read might have struck some as a bit over-the-top, but that’s what this kind of thing is about and you  have to be willing to stick your neck out.  I chose excerpts that had lots of word pictures, ones that didn’t have to deal with the vagueness of plot in such a brief time.  When you take a piece of writing out of context and let it float out there by itself, it may not fly as well or as high as you would like.  But I was in the mix and enjoyed it.

During his presentation David La Chapelle made an interesting note of something quite unusual to him: the comradeship he witnessed among photographers who work for National Geographic.  Quite different from what he’s used to in the world of fashion, I guess.  And he’s right on the mark today because the comradeship among National Geographic photographers has never been better or stronger, not because the times are better, but very probably because they are not.  We seek common goals and it isn’t just about making more money.  It’s about getting a fair trade for what we do and what we do has always had maintaining the highest excellence of the magazine possible at the top of our priority list.  We in the newly formed Photo Society, with its dedicated and extremely hard working elected advisory board, have a presence not seen before among our type and I’ve been around National Geographic photographers for 48 years.

The seminar wrapped up Friday night at a place called the Potomac Boat House in Georgetown and it was a fine party.  I had new boots that were hurting and did not dance, but many did.  And there was that same spirit of comradeship evident on the dance floor.  Even John Fahey, CEO of the National Geographic Society was out there, looking good.  I think it was a night to remember.  I also saw several interesting women during the seminar days that I hope I’ll be fortunate enough to photograph some day, if they’d like.

Just a closing note that fits right in with the way things have been going around here on the mountain lately: While trying to finish this blog the plumber arrived. It seems a pressure gauge down in the pump house is what has broken, sprouting a steady stream of water, requiring the water to be shut off until the plumber can return in the morning to replace the gauge.  So from here on to morning, no water.  It’s not quite dinner time.

After the plumber left I’ve taken telemarketing calls from someone offering “A really good way to avoid septic tank problems…” (we do have a septic tank but currently and surprisingly enough, no problem), and just now, a call from a guy with some company called, I think, “Walk In Care.”  He said it’s “A walk-in-bathtub.”  I said, no, I’m not interested.  Don’t need one.  I guess they have information that tells them who to prey on, who lives at such and such an address and how old the inhabitants are. Not to say there aren’t people who would find benefit from having a walk-in bathtub.  My wife is much younger than I and doesn’t need one and although I may be 74, I can still shower with the best of them.  That is, if I had water.

It’s now the next day.  The plumber came early this morning.  It took 15 minutes for him to install the new water pressure gauge.  The gauge cost $11.00.  The total bill for the part, putting it in, and the time involved, coming from his house to mine last night and then this morning, came to $491.00.  The hourly rate yesterday because it was after hours was $150.00 an hour.  Today it was down to $105.00 an hour.

Am I in the wrong profession? If so, it’s way too fucking late to change.

It started simply enough with endangered amphibians. I read an essay on amphibian decline and knew I needed to do something to show these species to the world before they were gone forever.

How to Help 

Some support for the project is being provided by National Geographic and their Field Test blog. The zoos and rescue facilities I’ve worked at have all been incredibly generous with their time. One of the most important sources for funding, though, is individuals just like you.

If you like this work and want to see more of it, please consider purchasing a print from the Project.

Visit The Biodiversity Project on my website, www.joelsartore.com.  When you find a picture you like, there’s a “Buy This Print” button just to the right.  Click on that to start.

In the world of fine art photography, our prints are ridiculously cheap – 8 x 10s are $40 – and we do that because I want people to see these images and talk about the species they show.  A print above the right kitchen table can have just as much of an impact as one in a gallery.  You’ll get a signed archival print, and the proceeds will fund additional shoots.  National Geographic has supplied some of the funding, but it only goes so far.

On a typical shoot, I go through half a roll of background paper and a few yards of black velvet.  The sale of one 8×10 print covers the paper, and an 11 x 17 will supply me with velvet.  It’s not a lot, but multiply that by 50 shoots or a hundred and it really adds up.  We reuse what we can, but once a hippopotamus or chimp has had its way with background material, there’s not much else to be done with it.

Another way you can support the Biodiversity Project is by visiting and patronizing your local zoo.  Zoos and aquariums are vitally important to conservation today.  Not only do they fund and manage captive breeding programs, but they are increasingly involved in conservation of habitat in the wild.  Find an accredited zoo or aquarium in your area here.

Last but not least, learn more about your favorite animal.  A simple web search will likely lead you to the organizations working on its conservation.  Support them.  And share what you know with your friends and family.  The more people who are informed and who care, the better.

Click here to return to the Biodiversity Project gallery and pick a print.

Why Studio Portraits?

Well, first, some of the species in the project simply can’t be found in the wild any more. Another reason for this portrait style is that it gives equal weight to creatures big and small. Some of the frogs I’ve photographed are the size of a thumbnail, and this is a way for me to put them on equal footing with bigger animals like lions.

Which Species Do You Photograph?

Though I started with amphibians, as I went from place to place, I’d hear about other species in trouble — primates, reptiles, migratory birds, and more.  So now, I photograph anything that will hold still on a background long enough for me to take a picture.

For Updates:

Follow Joel’s Progress on National Geographic’s Field Test blog
Follow Joel on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook

There were lots of bad things about being an American photojournalist in Iran last year. Primarily I had no freedom of movement. I could not go where I wanted to go, I could not do what I wanted to do. I really couldn’t even talk to the people I wanted to. For the month I was there I was only alone in the bathroom and even then…?

The best part of being there was how generous average Iranians were with me. Yes, Americans are met with official suspicion, our countries are virtually at war, but Iranians are quick to move beyond the official party line. Greg Crouch and I were staying in a hotel near Shahmirzad, intending to climb some of the nearby big walls. We got invited to a wedding going on in our hotel and were treated like honored, out of town guests.

No one could tell me if the bride and groom had met before, and the wedding itself was something of a mystery. Men danced on one floor while the women had their own celebration locked away on the floor above. I asked to see the women’s floor but was told we’d pushed our luck far enough.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

Perhaps the greatest pleasure I get from being head of the Photographer’s Advisory Board is to give out the annual National Geographic Photographer’s Photographer Award. To me, there is no greater honor than to be recognized by ones peers, especially with a crowd as accomplished as this.  The award is for the photographer who has most inspired us by expanding the possibilities of our medium. This definition is purposely vague, as what inspires is almost always something unexpected.

Nowadays, when you can open up Google Earth on your iPhone and see a satellite view of every corner of the earth, people feel that there is nothing left to explore.  But this photographer proves them to be dead wrong on virtually every assignment. Although he works in what most people would perceive as the most hazardous locations on earth, he is the opposite of reckless, and mixes courage with curiosity and cool calculation.  He knows how to stop at the boundaries of what’s possible, which are way beyond where most of us would go.  And he goes there to capture his awe and fascination with the natural world.

We are a semi-nomadic specie with only a few watering holes left to sustain us.  And so I guess it is appropriate that I first time I met this individual he was in his tame state… in the hallways of this building.  It’s curious that this is how we all know each other… in our tamest state of being, for we are here because of what we do out there.  It’s a bit like knowing Mick Jagger from a ride in the record company elevator, but never having seen what he’s like in spandex.  So I had to make a few phone calls to see what this individual is like… in GoreTex.

I found out that he once held the world record for the most altitude gained with a motorized paraglider… going form sea level to 12,860 feet on a single flight. And that is a lot of air to have under your feet.

Our honoree seems to prefer working in zones where technology usually fails.  One time when he was in the field with a TV crew, they had seven TV cameras go down in one day, and nothing was working, except our honoree, who was still shooting and ended up winning an Emmy for his efforts.  This is a guy who really knows how to take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’.

I spoke with a writer who had accompanied our honoree up the side of an active volcano.  The writer asked what to do in case the volcano erupted while they were up on the rim.  He said don’t run, but instead look up, that way you can dodge the incoming blobs of molten lava.  This same writer noted how odd it was that our honoree, who was often the closest one to the rim, was the only person who finished the trip without any burn holes in his fleece jacket.

And while our honoree has a thick hide, he also has a soft heart.  On a recent assignment in the Congo, he organized a photo competition for street kids, buying their cameras and providing the processing and prize money.And while the idea of this award is to have recognition from your peers, this year’s honoree was also the champion in the modern arena of public opinion.  He had a photo from his winning coverage viewed over 19 million times in four weeks on the National Geographic website, a multiple of any other story.

So without any further froth, I would like to present THE SECOND ANNUAL NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHER’S PHOTOGRAPHER AWARD TO to our very own Ice King and Rock Star, Carsten Peter!

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

ARTIVIST FILM TOUR @ COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY (Award Winning Shorts Program)

MILLER THEATRE / 2960 Broadway at 116th St.

Charlie Gabriel, Preservation Hall Band. Nikon D4, 200mm, f2, 1/160th, ISO 12,800, Tungsten AWB.

Technology marches on. We now have cameras that perform well in the realm of ISO numbers previously only associated with highly complicated math problems. I took the prototype D4 into Preservation Hall, and made some portraits during the day, then lingered for the evening show, and shot available light. Below is Charlie that afternoon, under flash conditions. D4, ISO 200, 1/80th, f5.6, cloudy WB, lens at 26mm.

The Hall is tough to work. Wonderful ambiance, and almost zero usable light. I found this out years ago when I shot there for Sports Illustrated prior to a Super Bowl. I squeezed a few pictures because that night because they gave me a pass to put up a flash–a Norman 200B–in the ceiling. It amped up the light just enough for Kodachrome 200. But the stuff I tried with existing light was pretty much DOA.

So shooting the picture up top at 12,800 ISO was definitely a revelation. The quality of the light in that venerable music hall is still super warm and soupy, but…I could work. That’s the bottom line with new gear. Does it help? Does it make the job easier? Does it open the door to a picture?

Technology and me have always had a love/hate thing. I love that fact that it can help create pictures I want to make. I hate the fact that even relatively simple items come with a manual the size of War and Peace.  I’m still pretty much a Neanderthal on the computer, and of the fancy gadgets I own, like an Iphone, I probably use about 20% of its capacity. (I’m definitely not one of those folks who pitch a tent outside an Apple Store for days and days when a new gizmo is announced.) The younger guys at my studio either chuckle or turn away when I attempt post production, or the loading of new software on my computer. And certainly, my blog is not where you would come for a highly evolved technical discussion of the shape of the pixels. There will certainly be sites out there which will, eventually, take this camera apart, like a car in a body shop, and look at every gear, bell and whistle. Not here. I work at the technology stuff a bit, but, you know, life is short, and I’d rather shoot. Or dream up a picture I want to shoot. Or write. Or, best of all, be at home with Annie.

But I have to admit, despite my stumbling gait, my path as a shooter has fortuitously crossed over with new camera tech at some crucial times. When I made climbs up the mast on the Empire State Building, I was fretting as to what single lens to bring up with me. Didn’t want to do the fisheye. I was working for Geographic, and many editors there are not wildly enthusiastic about distortion. The available older versions of super wide rectilinear glass were problematic. I was chagrined. But–presto! Right about then the 14mm f2.8 rectilinear came out. Fast, sharp, and not flare prone like its predecessors. I immediately went in to rent it for my last climb. The guys at the counter, who knew me pretty well, casually asked me what I was shooting, and, excitedly, I told them I was climbing the antenna on ESB. They took the lens off the counter and said, “You know, dude, you really should just buy it.” Which is what I did. Later that week, on my fourth climb up there, I got lucky with the light, and the lens.

The above version is not the select Geographic ran. It’s later in the morning, as the sun got stronger. Here’s what I was worried about up there. It wasn’t falling. It was repeatedly loading new film cassettes into the camera. I was levered backwards at about a 45 degree angle, pushing off the mast with my feet, hanging onto the aerial with my left hand, and shooting with my right. Because even back then I couldn’t see anything up close, I also had a pair of granny reading glasses taped and tethered to my neck. Juggling a bunch of stuff, in a word. My panic time was those moments I reloaded. A dropped film canister from that height, if it finds the street, could kill someone. I would have loved a 32 gig card, but those were many moons in the future.

When digital dawned, I had no idea. I stuck with film as long as I felt I could, and then made a jump for survival to this fancy camera known as a D1X. First thing I shot with it was a Kentucky Derby, and my brothers Mike Corrado and Skip Dickstein had to show me what do with my cards after the race. I was hopeless, but I didn’t care. The digital camera felt like a film camera. There was a shutter, and a lens. I frankly didn’t care what was happening inside of it. Plunging on, and resolutely placing faith in the old adage that the Lord looks after a fool, I ended up shooting the first all digital coverage in history of National Geographic some months after this first outing.

Fast forward to a camera I was just tickled with, the D3. Thought, as I have mentioned, I would go to my grave with that camera. It simply suited all the needs I had in the field. Then, the D3S came out. I thought, nah, don’t need it. I’m cool with what I have. But then, Geographic assigned me to a story on the electrical grid of the United States, and I realized I was about to spend a ton of time in helicopters at night, observing the illuminated grids of various cities. The D3S promised better chip performance, and improved results at high ISO. So, I re-upped. Sold my D3 cameras and bought D3S models.

It was good that I did, I think, as the lead to the story was a night view from a chopper, with long glass. The technology I employed, at this point unthinkingly and reflexively–excellent high ISO, VR in the lens, bright viewfinder, accurate AF–the myriad of camera advances I often now just take for granted, helped me come back with pictures that night from that very expensive chopper ride.

D3S, 200-400mm lens, ISO1600, f4, 1/125th. Lucky shot. Goldman Sachs building, lower Manhattan, with virtually every room lit up.

D3S, ISO 1600, f2.8, 1/60th. Lucky with the sunset.

So I guess that’s one big question that drives all this. Our eternal responsibility as photographers is to deliver the best possible quality image we can manage back to the client. And that’s become a part of the digital equation every shooter has to work out as a personal and professional decision. What’s the best gear for me, relative to my work flow and my mission? Shooting night sports for the wires back in the day, when everybody on the sideline was pushing the hell out of tri-x, it didn’t really matter too much if you were still shooting an F2, and the guy next to you was shooting an F3. But now, shooting ones and zeroes, the machinery used to shoot that same game has an impact on the quality of the pictures produced, for sure.

That night in Preservation Hall, I got to test high ISO response at 12,800, which is an ISO territory that is completely alien to me. And the results, relative to that speed, were terrific. Now, if you’re always shooting in that realm, you’re probably working a tough gig, photographically. Being at that ISO a lot might mean you’ve got a badge and a gun, and you’re up very late at night. And you might be sitting in a non-descript car that’s filled with candy wrappers and crumpled fast food bags, sipping bad coffee, and trying to sight a lens through a rain pocked windshield as Tommy Two Toes passes yesterday’s New York Post with an envelope in it to Mikey Gaga on a street corner somewhere in the Bronx. I mean, maybe.

Or you could be shooting sports at night under bad light. Or you might be a music shooter, or perhaps theater and dance is a specialty. Or, you’re a news shooter whose job it is to observe and record, despite the adversity of the conditions. The mission at hand is, at least partially, the driver for the choice of gear.

For me, I’m looking down the pipe of a six week job, starting pretty soon, and, given the parameters of that job, this tech evolution known as D4, is, I feel, another one of those fortuitous bends on this long road, and it arrives just in time for a task at hand. High ISO capability is yet another one of gifts placed on our doorstep as shooters. I honestly hope to not have to use it too much, but it sure is nice to know it’s there.

More tk….

There comes a time in every photojournalist’s journey when the desire to quantify one’s impact is overwhelming. As a photojournalist who engages in concerned photography, naturally, it follows that one wants to know if the work is helping make the public socially and politically aware. That learning curve, from making eye-catching imagery to making imagery that instigates real change, is a steep one. So what is the tipping point? Summary: partnerships. Below are two questions Ed frequently receives on the topic.

Do you feel like your photographs have impacted society in any way? If so, how?

ED KASHI: This is a very big question and one that is generally hard to quantify, but I can certainly sense a greater than usual impact from particular projects I’ve worked on. The constant in all of the following examples, related to successfully raising awareness about a subject, was that the work was done not by me alone or by my images alone. It required collaboration with the media, academia, activists, NGOs, governments and even private companies sometimes.

“Aging in America” and the two films about my father-in-law living and dying in our home (“The Sandwich Generation” and “Living Your Subjects”) have certainly touched many people. That work has cumulatively reached millions of people at this point. These bodies of work were not only given kick-starts, but marathon legs after the initial exposure by utilizing academia, particularly in social work, geriatric, nursing and care giving professions. My project on the Niger Delta has similarly reached many people by continuing to be sited by institutions, NGOs, academia and media to explain the issues of oil, environment, conflict and development associated with energy resource exploitation. Finally, my work on the Kurds, which began in 1991 with the help of National Geographic, had an extended reach with the help of advocates and activists in the UK, Germany and Kurdistan, subsequently impacting the perceptions and understanding of the Kurdish people, particularly in the West.

Do you think photography alone has enough influence to change opinions of the public?

ED KASHI: I absolutely know that photography has enough influence to change public opinions, but only in rare instances and with less frequency. I see imagery as playing a vital role in how people learn about the world, both close to home and far away. However, as media transforms, as the web increasingly plays a role in how we consume and contextualize images, and as video becomes more and more prominent, I fear that still photography has lost and will continue to lose its impact. That is not because photography is inherently less powerful but that it just can’t compete with video in so many ways.

But, the main mission, over time, has remained. Tell a good story in pictures. The major components–photographer, picture editor, designer, magazine editor–are all still in place, and the interplay among them is ongoing and largely unchanged.

This video looped on a continuous basis in Explorer’s Hall at the headquarters of Geographic for many years, and was seen by lots school groups, tourists and visitors. Geographic graciously gave us permission to put it on the blog. It’s a fun interior look at how the magazine puts a story together, if you can stand the time warp and the truly embarrassing haircut I had back then.

Here’s the funny thing about persistence. Bill Douthitt and I are still at it. We start another story in a couple of weeks. Like unruly children, we refuse to pipe down or go away. Bill continues to shape coverages as only he can, and his warped brilliance remains a lifeline when things don’t go well in the field, as is often the case. (He won a Picture Editor of the Year award for his efforts on the sight story. And in the video, he actually appears rational.) The upper echelon of magazine management is all different now, of course. Bill Marr art directs the look of the book. And the shop is run by a photographer, Chris Johns, which is appropriate, given the pictorial bent of the magazine. As a shooter, in the field, he turned a two lane strip of pavement into one my favorite stories ever published in the magazine–The Hard Ride of Route 93.

The people change, but the pictures remain. I look forward to shooting some more of them in 2012.

More tk….

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Steven Colbert brings his satirical comedy to bear on the notion of “free reporters” who get paid nothing, like CNN’s iReport, in the wake of the layoffs of 50 CNN photojournalists and other staff.

Colbert notes CNN also launched an “Assignment Desk” where you an actually go out and report on things that CNN wants, and then goes further, saying “iReporters do not get paid, they get something even better, badges, which, I assume, are redeemable for food and rent.”

View the VIDEO HERE.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Technical innovation has always driven visual storytelling.
The photo essay was perfected on 4×5 Graflex cameras at places like Look and Life magazine, the introduction of smaller more discrete cameras opened up photographic opportunities that the larger cameras did not allow. They changed the speed that a photographer could work and how discrete one could be. Essays got more intimate, more real. Photographers had to adopt to the new technology and new shooting style. The economics shifted as well. The Graflex company that manufactured 4×5 press cameras all but disappeared.

The introduction of high quality digital cameras have changed the craft of storytelling, but they have changed the economics of publishing even more. Now the cost of shooting and publishing an image has fallen to near nothing. Advertisers have fled traditional publications to the Internet and publications have folded like never before. Conventional wisdom at magazines is that tablet publication is the savior, yet this piece in the NYT points out that tablets are likely to be competition for current television networks  more than magazine replacements. After all a screen is a screen is a screen. All of this circles me back around to films and dslr video. Photographers, like it or not motion is here to stay. Much like color film or smaller cameras it is here and not going away.  Photographers will be able to survive without embracing it, but it is one more option for telling a story.

They key for still photographers who are working in film is to understand what to expect out of this new tool. The first thing to point out is that you can either shoot stills or video. Editors might like to think that since one tool can now produce video and still images that one person can do both, but really you can’t. Video storytelling is fundamentally different from still storytelling. A videographer needs sequences of moving images and sound that fit together, a still photographer needs one all encompassing image. The two are mutually exclusive. I have set my Canon 5D up so that it is virtually impossible to shoot stills with it if I’m doing video. I learned early on that if I try to do both at the same time I might as well do neither one.

The second important things is that you can not do video alone. The minimum crew is 2 people, one running the camera and the other running sound. There is just too much going on to try and do both alone. Still photographers need to think of themselves as producers. What is the story? How do you want to tell it? With the Prostitution film I shot, Jacki Lyden did the sound but we both shared producing duties, shaping the story, figuring out the questions and where we should go next. The wonderful thing about these new tools is that a crew can be as small as 2 people but a more typical crew is the one who made Percebeiros. 5 or 6 people at a time worked on that film along with 2 video editors and the results are beautiful.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The biggest question in publishing right now is will traditional magazines budget for films in online publishing? After all they are now competing not just with other print publications but with television networks, and unknown players like Google’s commitment of $100 million for YouTube programing. The lines are shifting and rules are changing. It is a fantastic time to be telling stories. Making a living at telling stories? Well only time will tell.

Stephen Alvarez

From thelongshadowofchernobyl.com

At 1:23am on April 26th, 1986, operators in the control room of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant botched a routine safety test, resulting in an explosion, and a fire that burned for 10 days. The radioactive fallout spread over tens of thousands of square miles, driving more than a quarter of a million people permanently from their homes. It was the world’s worst nuclear disaster to date.

To commemorate the tragedy 25 years later, I returned to the Exclusion Zone in early 2011 to continue my coverage of the aftermath of the accident; to update it; to expand it in respect to region and content; and to take my cameras again to severely contaminated areas with the understanding that some of my explorations are not without personal risk. Like many of my colleagues, I do this on behalf of the otherwise voiceless victims who expose their own suffering solely in the hope that tragedies like Chernobyl may be prevented in the future.

As traditional news outlets struggle financially, photojournalists must now turn to alternative funding methods for long-term projects close to their heart. While many in the media have turned to celebrity reporting, photographers like myself are convinced that there is both the need and the demand for serious content. Therefore, as the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster approached, I turned to the crowd-funding website Kickstarter and pitched my idea to the public in order to help fund my long-term project.View the original Kickstarter page.

The Kickstarter campaign was a resounding success: with 435 donors, I rased $23,316 – nearly twice my initial fundraising goal. With the funds, I was able to spend 5 weeks in the region, photographing deep inside the reactor and the communities affected. See Donors and Sponsors.

The images were first exhibited in April 2011 at the EBRD headquarters in London. This special exhibit at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development commemorated the 25th anniversary of the disaster during an international conference used to help raise the addition 1.5 billion dollars needed to build the New Safe Confinement and safely deconstruct the ailing Chernobyl shelter. The exhibit was attended by the ambassador to Ukraine and EBRD board members. See news post, Exhbition at the EBRD in London.

In May 2011, I exhibited over 50 large-format prints during the Horizonte Photo Festival in Zingst, Germany. The exhibit, held in a run-down East German navy barracks, became nearly an installation with the addition of videos, diagrams, and extended captions and summaries. See news post, Zingst Exhibition Success.

One of my goals with this project was to utilize social media and new technologies to help spread the word about the Chernobyl aftermath. In that vein, I released an App for the Apple iPad in December 2011. The App includes over 150 photos, exclusive videos, detailed essays, interactive panoramas, and resources to explore the disaster in a comprehensive manner. Learn more about The Long Shadow of Chernobyl iPad App.

Future projects include a book, currently in the works, and future exhibitions. Please check back, sign up on the Facebook page, and follow me on Twitter to keep up to date with The Long Shadow of Chernobyl project.

-Gerd Ludwig

ABOUT THE CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR DISASTER

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sits inside a fenced area known as the Exclusion Zone. Radioactive remnants of the failed reactor continue to smolder inside the so-called sarcophagus, a concrete and steel encasement hastily erected after the accident. Leaky and structurally unsound, it now threatens to collapse, shaking loose enough radiation to cause a second disaster of similar magnitude. Work has already started on a new encasement, which will slide over the existing sarcophagus to seal in the remaining nuclear fuel. In the mean time desperate efforts are underway to shore up the sarcophagus to protect it from collapsing.

In the 1970’s the town of Pripyat, only 2 miles away from the reactor, was constructed for the plant’s personnel. Its 50,000 inhabitants were evacuated 36 hours after the accident. Today a chilling ghost town, its buildings still bear witness to that hasty departure. While nature is rebounding, the town is unfit for human habitation for hundreds of years to come.

Ignoring radiation levels, hundreds of elderly people have returned to their village homes inside the Exclusion Zone, preferring to die on their own contaminated soil instead of from a broken heart in anonymous city suburbs. 70% of the fallout drifted into Belarus contaminating nearly a quarter of that country. Here mobile medical units are still reporting severe thyroid anomalies.

An earlier report by the United Nations estimated that 4,000 people will eventually succumb to cancer-related illnesses as the result of the accident. However, major environmental organizations state that more than 100,000 people have already died as a consequence of the disaster. No matter the official toll, and in light of a worldwide effort to paint nuclear energy as green energy, it is important that we remember the Chernobyl accident as a possible outcome of nuclear power.

Read the article online: http://www.digitalphotopro.com/profiles/gerd-ludwig-living-with-chernobyl
Download The Long Shadow of Chernobyl iPad App: http://itunes.apple.com/app/the-long-shadow-of-chernobyl/id484752718

By PATRICA COHEN

It’s the dream of every art collector to buy a painting from a little-known artist for $100 and later sell it for $1 million. But how does that artist feel? Some think it unfair that artists typically do not directly benefit when a particular work escalates in value, and a bill introduced Thursday by Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, and Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, seeks to redress that.

With the support of organizations like the Visual Artists and Galleries Association and the Artists Rights Society, the lawmakers propose setting aside 7 percent of the price of artworks that are resold for more than $10,000 at auction houses. Half of the commission would go to the artist and the other half to nonprofit art museums. The legislation, which would apply only to the resale of work, models itself on laws — more commonly known as droit de suite — already on the books in dozens of countries.

More here:

“There’s a bit of an exploitative relationship between citizen journalists and news organizations. You have to know enough to ask before you can get paid.” — Steve Myers, Managing Editor, Poynter.org

 
“It certainly has swung too far in one direction. Whether it’ll ever swing back or not, I don’t know.” –Stanley Forman, Photojournalist

 
When an amateur photographer stumbled onto an accident scene in 1953 and snapped a photo of a man being rescued from the side of a bridge, she was considered a witness. She was awarded $10 for winning The Sacramento Bee’s photo competition that week, and later won a Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography. Today, Virginia Schau would be called a citizen journalist, and she would have thousands of eager, unpaid colleagues in the United States, perhaps millions around the world. She would be a source of frustration for professional photographers, and a source of revenue relief for news organizations. She would also be part of an evolving media business model that may soon reach its peak.

“I notice 15 cameras pointed at the cop-only ONE is a professional photographer,” said Al Tompkins, a senior faculty member at The Poynter Institute, in an email exchange.
“This speaks loudly to what is happening in our world,” he said. “As newsrooms downsize, more people who are not traditional journalists capture and document the world around us.”

You can read more about it here.

We’re back in Virginia after a long drive from Missoula, Montana, a town I already miss. We stopped in Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska on our way back and in that order although it doesn’t seem the logical way to go from western Montana if one consults a map. But it’s the way we went and now we’re here at our Afton, Virginia home again after almost four months away.

As much as I miss Montana it’s good to be back here in the woods of Nelson county in central Virginia’s Rockfish Valley. We came in accompanied by rain all the way from Indiana. The leaves are all down and wet,  the aroma of the woods surrounding our house is an intense, earthy, fragrance; nothing else quite like it. Oaks, poplar, maple, gum, hickory, and locust, a seemingly endless variety of trees all stripped of their summer garb creating a carpet of amber and gold hues on the forest floor.

Driving back I thought a bit about an evening in Missoula when I was speaking to about 60 University of Montana students in an evening class called “Montana Writers Live,” conducted by my friend Robert Stubblefield, a member of the formidable Creative Writing faculty.

I read to them some excerpts from a book of fiction I started years ago, set aside for some years and have returned to and worked hard on this past year. It’s something I hope to finish by the end of next summer. It’s the first time I’ve read from my fiction and I think it went well. There was a long period of Q and A following my reading and I did my best to answer their questions. They were not all about my fiction, of course, many were about my long career as a photographer and writer for National Geographic magazine, a career that will reach 48 years this coming June.

One student asked, “How did you become a National Geographic photographer?” I answered as best and as honestly as I could, relating back to the day I got an unexpected appointment with Bob Gilka, Director of Photography at National Geographic. The appointment came through Yoichi Okamoto, at that time the head of all photography for the U.S. Information Agency in Washington, D.C. where I’d gone to see someone about a possible job after I would receive my degree from the U of Minnesota, several months later.  I wanted to be a magazine photographer but I was married, had four small children, and needed a job, and in reality, it could be any job, despite what I wanted at heart.

Okamoto went on to become the first official White House photographer under President Lyndon Johnson. I didn’t go to U.S.I.A. to see Okamoto, I went to see someone else about a non-photographic job and that didn’t go all that well.  The interviewer was an obese, cigar-smoking bureaucrat.  I knew Okamoto worked there and when my interview was over I asked if he was in and if so would he look at my portfolio. He was, he did, and he called Gilka on the spot, telling him he should look at my work if he “wants to see a good people photographer.” I saw Gilka the next day and walked out of his office with the offer of a paid summer internship which led to a contract position at the end of the sumer and 6 months later to a staff position which I worked at for a couple of years before deciding to seek the freedom of the freelance world.

After explaining to the students how all that had taken place, I emphasized how difficult it would be today for that same procedure to happen. One just doesn’t walk in off the street to get a job at National Geographic anymore. That was almost half a century ago when there were many more magazines being published that used good photojournalism. And the number of really fine photographers was not nearly as high as I believe it is today. So it’s much tougher to do what I did so long ago. But not impossible.

Days after my reading at the University of Montana, on a drive somewhere, my wife Ani, who is not shy about voicing her opinion about some of the aspects of my professional life, commented to me that I shouldn’t make it sound so tough for a young person to break into the profession. She seemed to think I’d been too negative and that bothered me because the last thing I want to do is to step on the aspirations of young photographers who seek to do what I’ve done over the years. I didn’t think I’d been that negative. I do try to be honest. The Geographic is a tough nut to crack; there is tremendous amount of competition for very few assignments. They no longer employ any staff field photographers. When I first went on the staff in the mid 1960′s there were almost twenty on staff. Jodi Cobb and I were the last two photographers to hold regular staff positions and ours were terminated in July of 2008. Since that day, I have been a part of the huge freelance photographer population as well as a part of a much smaller group of regular contributors to the Geographic.

I would never tell anyone you can’t get there from here, regarding getting to photograph for National Geographic. But, if that’s what you want, you have to want it really bad and dedicate yourself to developing your eye and photographic abilities to the very best you can, and then try to do even better than that. Don’t worry about being better than anybody you know personally or whose work you admire. Simply try to be better tomorrow than you were yesterday. You are not so much in competition with others as you are with yourself. Be your own toughest critic. Show only your best and develop your self-editing abilities so you know just what your best is. Beyond that, if you’re a documentary photographer, which I assume anybody who wants to work for the Geographic probably is, I’d suggest not spending all your time looking at other photographers but to look at other artists, painters, in particular, painters throughout the centuries. See how they take space and divide it, portion it out; how they capture your eye and attention with their use of a given space. How you put your pictures together is what will separate you from others, not in any revolutionary way, but in the way  you draw or do not draw a viewer in to your pictures. It’s not rocket science and it’s not necessarily even a craft now that digital imaging making prevails,  but it can be an art.

So, if you want it badly enough, self-critique your work severely enough, and I don’t mean to go off the far end and become a despondent wreck–after all, they’re just pictures–you will grow. The whole thing comes down to being ready if the opportunity arises to show what you can do.

I’m not sure how they look at portfolios at National Geographic today.  I know they do, but I’m not sure just how or through whom.  I’m seeing some good work in the magazine today by photographers who’s names are not familiar to me.  You can still get seen there and if you are ready, somebody may give you that first great chance. But you need to be ready.

I’m not sure that’s a big help but I hope it might be.

Read more…

The Amazing Yellow-Bordered Magazine — Part II
by John Stanmeyer

Nuts

Some stories can be tough nuts to crack.

Girl Power, in this months issue (September 2011), was one such nut.

Last year in late September the phone rings. The letters NGM appear on the iPhone over a screensaver image of my daughter, Francesca, mixing paints — caller ID cannot determine who’s number at 1145 17th Street Northwest in DC is ringing.

Read more on his blog HERE.

Here is the final long form edit of “The Denali Experiment.” I just watched it again last night and laughed when I realized how little ski footage is in the movie. I guess it is the antithesis of the modern ski porn flick. Lots of rock star skiers and not much skiing! Well, hopefully having a cool narrative helps the piece along. It was a tough piece to put together with all the different characters, carrying all of the camera and audio equipment, filming and, of course, all while trying to climb and ski Denali as well. I decided to focus the story on Sage and Lucas and was hoping the piece would give people a sense of who they are besides being rock star skiers/snowboarders. I also wanted to give some insight into all the other interesting characters who were mentoring and helping Sage and Lucas along the way. I often feel like the whole process of skiing and who the skiers actually are gets lost in most of the ski and snowboard films today. I hope you enjoy this one.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Denali Experiment from renan ozturk on Vimeo.

Ed was asked recently by Whitney Johnson at the New Yorker magazine how he defined photojournalism today. Below is his response, illustrated with examples that highlight the 3 distinct parts of Ed’s definition.

PART I: Photojournalism is a unique and powerful form of visual storytelling originally created for print magazines and newspapers but has now morphed into multimedia and even documentary filmmaking. Through the internet, apps and the mobile device explosion, photojournalism can now reach audiences never before imagined with immediate impact, while continuing to write our visual history and form our collective memories.

In recent years, Stephen Ferry, self proclaimed “non-fiction photographer,” was the recipient of the Audience Engagement Grant from the Open Society Foundations for his body of work “Violentology: A Manual of the Colombian Conflict.” The photo essay is being made manifest in a book release (2012, Umbrage Editions), exhibitions, booklets, a video and a blog. The work is an exquisite example of photojournalism and the multi-platform approach that is being utilized today. Read more on Ed’s site.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Stephen Alvarez says: A couple of weeks ago a tv company asked me to tell stories about my assignments. It sounded like such a good idea that I’ve started doing it here. This story is about climbing Mt. Ampato on my first NG story and going blind in one eye. THE VIDEO IS HERE.

Reasons Why Professional Photographers Cannot Work for Free

Dear potential photo buyer,

If you have been directed to this page, it is likely that you have requested the use of an image or images for free or minimal compensation.

As professional photographers, we receive requests for free images on a regular basis. In a perfect world, each of us would love to be able to respond in a positive manner and assist, especially with projects or efforts related to areas such as education, social issues, and conservation of natural resources. It is fair to say that in many cases, we wish we had the time and resources to do more to assist than just send photographs.

Unfortunately, such are the practicalities of life that we are often unable to respond, or that when we do, our replies are brief and do not convey an adequate sense of the reasons underlying our response.

Circumstances vary for each situation, but we have found that there are a number of recurring themes, which we have set out below with the objective of communicating more clearly with you, and hopefully avoiding misunderstandings or unintentionally engendering ill will.

Please take the following points in the constructive manner in which they are intended. We certainly hope that after you have had a chance to read this, we will be able to talk again and establish a mutually beneficial working relationship.

Photographs Are Our Livelihood
Creating compelling images is the way we make our living. If we give away our images for free, or spend too much time responding to requests for free images, we cannot make a living.

We Do Support Worthy Causes With Images
Most of us do contribute photographs, sometimes more, to support certain causes. In many cases, we may have participated directly in projects that we support with images, or we may have a pre-existing personal relationship with key people involved with the efforts concerned. In other words, each of us can and does provide images without compensation on a selective basis.

We Have Time Constraints
Making a leap from such selective support to responding positively to every request we get for free photographs, however, is impractical, if for no other reason than the substantial amount of time required to respond to requests, exchange correspondence, prepare and send files, and then follow-up to find out how our images were used and what objectives, if any, were achieved. It takes a lot of time to respond to requests, and time is always in short supply.

Pleas of “We Have No Money” Are Often Difficult to Fathom
The primary rationale provided in nearly all requests for free photographs is budgetary constraint, meaning that the requestor pleads a lack of funds.

Such requests frequently originate from organisations with a lot of cash on hand, whether they be publicly listed companies, government or quasi-government agencies, or even NGOs. Often, it is a simple matter of taking a look at a public filing or other similar disclosure document to see that the entity concerned has access to significant funding, certainly more than enough to pay photographers a reasonable fee should they choose to do so.

To make matters worse, it is apparent that all too often, of all the parties involved in a project or particular effort, photographers are the only ones being asked to work for free. Everyone else gets paid.

Given considerations like this, you can perhaps understand why we frequently feel slighted when we are told that: “We have no money.” Such claims can come across as a cynical ploy intended to take advantage of gullible individuals.

We Have Real Budget Constraints
With some exceptions, photography is not a highly remunerative profession. We have chosen this path in large part due to the passion we have for visual communication, visual art, and the subject matters in which we specialise.

The substantial increase in photographs available via the internet in recent years, coupled with reduced budgets of many photo buyers, means that our already meager incomes have come under additional strain.

Moreover, being a professional photographer involves significant monetary investment.

Our profession is by nature equipment-intensive. We need to buy cameras, lenses, computers, software, storage devices, and more on a regular basis. Things break and need to be repaired. We need back-ups of all our data, as one ill-placed cup of coffee could literally erase years of work. For all of us, investment in essential hardware and software entails thousands of dollars a year, as we need to stay current with new technology and best practices.

In addition, travel is a big part of many of our businesses. We must spend a lot of money on transportation, lodging and other travel-related costs.

And of course, perhaps most importantly, there is a substantial sum associated with the time and experience we have invested to become proficient at what we do, as well as the personal risks we often take. Taking snapshots may only involve pressing the camera shutter release, but creating images requires skill, experience and judgement.

So the bottom line is that although we certainly understand and can sympathise with budget constraints, from a practical point of view, we simply cannot afford to subsidise everyone who asks.

Getting “Credit” Doesn’t Mean Much
Part and parcel with requests for free images premised on budgetary constraints is often the promise of providing “credit” and “exposure”, in the form or a watermark, link, or perhaps even a specific mention, as a form of compensation in lieu of commercial remuneration.

There are two major problems with this.

First, getting credit isn’t compensation. We did, after all, create the images concerned, so credit is automatic. It is not something that we hope a third party will be kind enough to grant us.

Second, credit doesn’t pay bills. As we hopefully made clear above, we work hard to make the money required to reinvest in our photographic equipment and to cover related business expenses. On top of that, we need to make enough to pay for basic necessities like food, housing, transportation, etc.

In short, receiving credit for an image we created is a given, not compensation, and credit is not a substitute for payment.

“You Are The Only Photographer Being Unreasonable”
When we do have time to engage in correspondence with people and entities who request free photos, the dialogue sometimes degenerates into an agitated statement directed toward us, asserting in essence that all other photographers the person or entity has contacted are more than delighted to provide photos for free, and that somehow, we are “the only photographer being unreasonable”.

We know that is not true.

We also know that no reasonable and competent photographer would agree to unreasonable conditions. We do allow for the fact that some inexperienced photographers or people who happen to own cameras may indeed agree to work for free, but as the folk wisdom goes: “You get what you pay for.”

Please Follow-Up
One other experience we have in common is that when we do provide photographs for free, we often do not receive updates, feedback or any other form of follow-up letting us know how the event or project unfolded, what goals (if any) were achieved, and what good (if any) our photos did.

All too often, we don’t even get responses to emails we send to follow-up, until, of course, the next time that someone wants free photographs.

In instances where we do agree to work for free, please have the courtesy to follow-up and let us know how things went. A little consideration will go a long way in making us feel more inclined to take time to provide additional images in the future.

Wrap Up
We hope that the above points help elucidate why the relevant photographer listed below has sent you to this link. All of us are dedicated professionals, and we would be happy to work with you to move forward in a mutually beneficial manner.

Note to photographers: You can use the above text under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please ensure that you include a link to this page. If you’d like to add your name to the list below, please use the contact form. Text by Tony Wu.

The Photo Society (TPS) lists hazards (like dysentery) that NGM photographers experience in the field. TPS began as an idea in the summer of 2011 for an electronic campfire to bring together National Geographic contributing photographers. The only qualification for membership is completion of one full feature story for National Geographic Magazine.

I was tasked with this site by the PAB (Photographer’s Advisory Board), which negotiates contracts with National Geographic Magazine.

Deb Pang Davis volunteered to design the site—the look and feel is her work—and she managed it during a period of relocating and handling a cross-country move to take a teaching position at Syracuse University.

The developer of the site was absolutely critical and so talented that I am not giving his name out until he finishes our site. George Steinmetz asked me to do it and championed it all the way through. Ami Vitale was very gracious when we told her we liked her site and wanted to do a cloud with names similar to her content cloud. The name Photo Society came from kicking around options with Amy Toensing, George, and Katie Joseph just after we finished a negotiating session in Washington DC. My wife, Melissa Farlow, and I figured we would just pay for it if we had to and not worry so much if PAB membership dues actually paid us back or not.

Mike Hettwer and I had a conversation about how we weren’t really sure that everyone knew what we actually do in the field and he suggested a survey and then he put it together. That survey asked photographers what hazards—physical, financial, whatever—they were up against. After the survey was done, it languished for a few months. When I was trying to figure out what a crew of one could actually accomplish, I picked that survey apart and it became the Reality Check section on the site. Ed Kashi came up with the name for the section.

When the site soft-launched with a few Facebook posts and blog posts by members it was picked up by a number of highly visible blogs like PDN, APhotoEditor, PopPhoto and they primarily referenced the Reality Check section. So the analytics were interesting . . . people were going to the Reality Check section instead of the home page. The hook for the site was the list of hazards faced by National Geographic photographers. There was so much traffic they had to switch TPS to a bigger server—it broke the one it was on.

And I have to admit, after the launch it got a little weird. I had picked apart this massive ugly Excel spreadsheet from the hazards survey to glean the bits that made up the Reality Check section and that dissembled information got enough traffic that one person decided to REASSEMBLE and put all of that information BACK into her own Excel spreadsheet for some reason I still can’t quite figure out.

So I know we started all this with the hazards archive, but the blogs made us seem even more swashbuckling. Pop Photo says: In a rare pulling back of the curtain, the “Reality Check” section of the site lets the public in on the perils and life-threatening circumstances that the photographers endure to bring home such gorgeous and powerful shots. The tales of being held at gunpoint, attacked by animals, contracting dysentery, imprisoned, and more will put getting out of bed at 4am to catch a sunrise sound like a picnic. The most recent tale of going to extremes to get the shot is told in this video from Photographer Stephen Alvarez . . .  most photographers aren’t willing to risk their health and safety for a shot, but the world is certainly a better place because some people are crazy enough to carry on when all logic tells them they shouldn’t.

Oh, yes . . . Ok . . .  But I think it is due diligence to insert here that there are a lot of puffy 40-year-olds in the news business whose job is to get out there and manufacture an adventure. I barely remember landing on a dirt runway on a remote Pacific Island but the writer’s report made it seem so swashbuckling and potentially life threatening that I would have been afraid to be there . . . oh wait, . . . I was.

The hazards we all face are real. And the events on the list we created all actually happened over many lifetimes to many photographers. Not to take anything away from anyone’s individual experiences in the list, but by and large we lead pretty nice, cushy lives with only a few moments of sheer by-the-grace-of-god-go-I terror. I’ve personally had very few but being assaulted while in the water by an angry 12-foot, female crocodile in Maningrida would be one of them.

A number of people actually looked up one of the hazards called a loa loa worm. Some were upset that they HAD to look it up:

Gizmodo called us a bunch of SHUTTERBUGS. Jeez… for the love of all that is good in this world (quoting FlawedHero above) if there is ANYTHING professional photographers hate more than being called SHUTTERBUG, I can’t think of it right now.

Gizmodo did mention that the SAME Florida Panther tried to forcibly F*#% both me and Melissa on two separate assignments:

But in general, all the work on this site has been worth it. I’ve been talking to photographers that I’ve lost touch with. I get calls from photographers that worked at NGS 30 years ago and remember not even having a passport and being contacted by someone at the magazine, showing up at the office and being told to go out front to a waiting limo that took them to get that passport they never had and it was stuffed with enough visas to go to 22 countries on a 9 month assignment.

And through the analytics on the site I’ve learned one important thing: Red-painted-nearly-naked-women-carrying-fire is always a good situation to go to if you get the chance. That photograph gets 50 percent more clicks than any other on the home page.

By Don North

When Microsoft founder Bill Gates bought the once-mighty French photo agency Sygma in 1999, there was hope that his vast financial resources and renowned business skills could rescue not only Sygma but the profession of photojournalism.

Photojournalists still had the hunger to capture on film the stark realities of war, but this dangerous task was increasingly compensated at shockingly low rates for the intrepid photographers whose skills at working a camera must be matched by their personal bravery.

Just last April, two more top combat photographers joined the ranks of those who died for their work. Tim Heatherington, 40, an Academy Award nominee for his Afghan film “Restrepo,” and Chris Hondos, 41, of Getty Images were killed in Libya while traveling with advancing rebel forces in the city of Misrata. They died in a hail of mortar fire.

Yet, for taking these risks – and giving the world a close-up look at the triumphs and tragedies of recent history – many photojournalists get paid barely enough to get by. One veteran French photojournalist recently reported earning 70 Euros (about $100) for three weeks work in Libya.

After returning from war zones, photojournalists also must cope with PTSD and other stresses with little or no support structure.

These dangers of photographing war have been a part of journalism at least since the 1930s and the advent of the 35 mm Leica camera, which let photographers take shots of the action as it unfolded and brought demands from editors for daring images at the front lines of battle.

But this heroic profession was undercut in recent decades by the disappearance of big glossy news magazines like Life and Look and the decline of Paris Match and Stern. The struggles of these magazines then hit the big photo agencies hard, the likes of Sygma, Sipa and Magnum – and thus the photographers who worked for them.

Next, with the rise of the Internet – and with the often illegal distribution of copyrighted images – the world seemed to be treating photographs and the people who took them as devalued currency.

So, there was a flash of hope in the community of photojournalists when Gates, one of the world’s richest men, took an interest in buying up struggling photo agencies.

Working through his investment firm Corbis, he sought to preserve art, photographs and other historic images with the goal of delivering them into consumers’ homes for display in digital frames. His motives seemed to match the desire of the photojournalists who hoped their work could help educate future generations.

In 1995, Gates bought the huge Bettmann Archives, which included the library of United Press International. And in 1999, he added Sygma, the largest news photo agency in the world, bringing 40 million more images to the company’s collection.

The Corbis archives are stored 220 feet underground in a 1,000-acre limestone mine kept at 45 degrees Fahrenheit in Iron Mountain, Boyers, Pennsylvania. The archives use technology that is designed to preserve the art and photographs for centuries.

Yet, while the art and photographs are treated with the utmost care and stored at precise temperatures, it turned out that some of the professionals whose work was in the archives found themselves out in a different kind of cold.

Dominique Aubert covering Afghan war against the Soviets in 1988. (Photo by Don North)

Dominique Aubert, once a top photographer for Sygma, got a decidedly chilly reception from his old agency when he sought compensation for its distribution on the Internet of some of the 250,000 photographs that he shot for Sygma in war zones.

Aubert, a tall man whose amiable personality cloaked a fierce ambition to excel as a photojournalist, had spent eight years with Sygma, capturing images of conflicts from Afghanistan to Cambodia to the Middle East.

When I was on assignment for Newsweek in 1988, I personally watched the intrepid Aubert at work in Afghanistan. Traveling with the mujahedeen’s National Islamic Front on a mission to harass Soviet forces near Kandahar, we bounced along rough desert roads on motorcycles at high speeds with Dom and me perched precariously on the back seats with our cameras.

One day, I watched him get close enough to photograph Russian tanks and crews with a 300-millimeter lens, when one shell from the tank could have vaporized him. Risking his life for a photo went with the job.

However, by 1995, he recognized that the old world of photo agencies was in rapid decline and decided it was time to change his career. So he left behind Sygma and his quarter million photos and trained to become a pilot for a French airline company. He hoped the residuals for his photos would provide a source of continuing income.

Then, in 2000 during a trip to Los Angeles, Aubert discovered that some of his photos were being used in magazines for commercial advertising, which he had not authorized and had not been paid for.

Later, he found on the Internet a photo he had taken in Burma of Buddhist monks. The image had been altered to show them carrying a brand of computers.

After researching what was going on, Aubert said he also discovered that Sygma had lost 750 original slides from the files. He made inquiries to and lodged complaints with Corbis/Sygma, but according to Aubert, he was rudely rebuffed and told that if he had complaints, “see us in court.”

Two years later he took that advice and hired a lawyer to confront Corbis/Sygma. After several years of tedious litigation in a French court, Aubert won a judgment of 102,000 Euros (or about $140,000), what he considered a modest sum but one that he reluctantly accepted.

“Tired of all the legal hassles I decided to let matters rest,” Aubert said. “I had enough of this crazy story and did not appeal the court decision.”

Corbis, however, did appeal, challenging the judgment. To the company’s chagrin, the Appellate Court of Paris last April not only upheld the decision but ordered Corbis to pay a judgment 16 times higher, more than 1.5 million Euros (or over $2 million).

As a result, Corbis closed down Sygma in France and dismissed its 29 employees, blaming Aubert.

“The fine is immensely disproportionate to the revenue opportunity with the images, and given previous decisions and other likely future lawsuits, Corbis came to the conclusion that it is no longer possible to maintain Sygma,” a Sygma spokeswoman said.

One month later, in an apparent attempt to avoid payment, Corbis decided to file for bankruptcy and the legal liquidation of Sygma France.

However, Aubert’s lawsuit continued to mushroom. In June, he was joined by four more former Sygma photographers – Derek Hudson, Philippe Ledru, Moshe Milner and Michel Philippot – in his legal case.

They hired a criminal lawyer, Jean-Philippe Hugot, to lodge a complaint with the District Attorney of Paris charging Sygma with fraudulent insolvency, breach of trust and misusing corporate assets by transferring them to its U.S.-based corporation Corbis/Sygma without financial compensation for its France-based organization, leaving it without the means to pay the 1.5 million Euro judgment.

The District Attorney of Paris has until the end of September to determine whether there is enough evidence to justify a criminal investigation.

Corbis says it is continuing to maintain the Sygma Access and Preservation Facility in a warehouse in Normandy, preserving 75 percent of the 50 million images from those photographers who have signed a contract to be represented by Corbis.

A liquidator is managing the 25 percent of files of photographers unrepresented and is trying to locate the owners. (It would seem an excellent time for photographers who at any time sent their work to Sygma to contact the liquidator : Mr. Stephane Gorrias, #1, Place Boeldieu, 75002, Paris, France.)

With the current attitude toward corporations in France – similar to how many Americans feel about Wall Street banks – there is little sympathy for Sygma and its creative efforts to avoid paying a court judgment in favor of an ex-worker.

There are plenty of precedents in courts on both sides of the Atlantic finding Corbis’s actions at odds with fair play in the marketplace.

Recently, a New York court awarded $472,000 to photographer Arthur Grace, who claimed Corbis lost 40,000 of his photos. The Court determined that Sygma, before it was acquired by Corbis, never had a system in New York for keeping track of images in its inventory. No record was kept of which images were sent to clients or which were returned.

As Bill Gates is the sole stockholder of Corbis, it may be fair to ask how much oversight he actually has over Corbis’s business practices. It may be understandable that he was not aware that Corbis/Sygma staff in Paris was allegedly playing fast and loose with photographers’ properties.   Read more…

NEW YORK

Russia and Mexico, two of the world’s most murderous countries for the press, are heading in different directions in combating deadly anti-press violence, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in its newly updated Impunity Index. The index, which calculates unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population, found improvement in Russia as journalist murders ebbed and prosecutors obtained two high-profile convictions. But deadly anti-press violence continued to climb in Mexico, where authorities appear powerless in bringing killers to justice.

Colombia continued a years-long pattern of improvement, CPJ’s index found, while conditions in Bangladesh reflected a slight upturn. But the countries at the top of the index—Iraq, Somalia, and the Philippines—showed either no improvement or even worsening records. Iraq, with an impunity rating three times worse than that of any other nation, is ranked first for the fourth straight year. Although crossfire and other conflict-related deaths have dropped in Iraq in recent years, the targeted killings of journalists spiked in 2010.

“The findings of the 2011 Impunity Index lay bare the stark choices that governments face: Either address the issue of violence against journalists head-on or see murders continue and self-censorship spread,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “Convictions in Russia are a hopeful sign after years of indifference and denial. But Mexico’s situation is deeply troubling, with violence spiking as the government promises action but fails to deliver.”

CPJ’s annual Impunity Index, first published in 2008, identifies countries where journalists are murdered regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes. For this latest index, CPJ examined journalist murders that occurred between January 1, 2001 through December 31, 2010, and that remain unsolved. Only the 13 nations with five or more unsolved cases are included on the index. Cases are considered unsolved when no convictions have been obtained.    Read more…

I’m not some elder statesman and I’m a very youthful 32 years old with only about 5 years as a true professional. I do however get quite a few emails from photographers just getting started in the freelance business trying to figure out what their fist step should be. I’m going to start a column dedicated to them. It will be a mix of my thoughts, emails I receive, and just ridiculous rants that I need to get off my chest. Not sure what to call it but for now I’ll go with “Now What?” because I feel a lot of these photographers graduate and they aren’t really sure what’s next. I also welcome guest columnist so if you have any advice for the newborn freelancer please feel free to write to me.

Why Being Busy Can Mean Being Broke

When I first started off in SE Asia things were slow and when they finally picked up I went broke. So you save up (or charge) for the right set up of gear; macbook pro, one or 2 DSLR’s, L Series lenses, a sweet bag line up, insurance, website fees, etc. You are easily 10K deep before your first big assignment not to mention school loans.

Now you are ready to roll, but wait you need a solid portfolio add another few months finding the right story to explore so add some exploring debt.

Now you got your gear and your portfolio and your debt and perhaps the assignments start trickling in. Surely relief is right around the corner, your payday is here. Not quite and don’t call me Shirley (RIP Leslie Neilson).

By the way this upcoming bitchfest is mainly focused on photographers doing editorial work.

My first assignment out of the country was in Malaysia. Shortly after that came a shoot in Indonesia and not long after that I was off to Australia. Sounds great and it was but this is a cautionary tale so lets focus on the bad. In a matter of a few months I accrued over 5K in expenses for airfare, taxis, hotels, etc.

Being a freelancer doesn’t come with a company credit card for expenses. Okay no problem and yes I realize it’s annoying that I’m have a hypothetical conversation with myself but just bare with me.

I got to the point where I was maxed out and I was nervous about taking on any new assignments. I actually couldn’t afford to work, doesn’t make sense but it’s true.

Here is the cautionary part of the tale. I guess I was naïve or just thought perhaps I’d be treated fairly oh but I thought wrong. I figured a month tops to get my money, at least my expenses. Wrong I was again and wrong I still am.

The thing is getting the pictures on deadline is a must for us but getting paid in a timely manner is not a priority for them. I’ve learned over the years that we are not a priority and we can be extremely expendable.

A few things to consider when you enter the freelance world:

-Expect editors to respond to all things photo related at 1/8000th of a second for your assignment and to respond at all things money related at Bulb. That was an extremely geeky way to put that, I’m much cooler than that by the way.

-Don’t expect payment for your rate and expenses to be made until at least 45 days typically a lot longer.

-Expect your editor to blame accounting as if it’s not their job even though it’s the same company and they are your only contact person. Can we blame our assistant for not getting them the photos and get away with it?

-If you’re dealing with an agency or worse a partner agency of your agency you are looking at more like 3-6 months to get reimbursed. I should add my agency Redux Pictures is pretty awesome to me but I’ve worked with others that are horrible and I have loads of friends with horror stories.

-Expect to send really nice and friendly follow up emails once a week and never get a response or a short response saying, “I’ll look into it”

-Don’t ever expect an apology for late payments.

-Expect some sort of issue with at least 75% of your payments. Anything from “oh you need to fill out this WQX 90-42A form that we never told you about to Susan from accounting is on vacation this week so…”

-I once had to threaten legal action to my old agency for being over 6 months delinquent on a payment of over 5K so as a last resort get a lawyer ready.

-Be wary of special projects that will pay you upon completion. These are tough to gauge but I’m now over a full year being owed 2K and I’m just told, “the funding never came in so we don’t know when you’ll get your money”. They are nice guys and all and it’s a great project but I’m out 2K and that was money I counted on.

Lets dive in a little deeper and analyze this. As a freelancer we are constantly working for new publications and many times it will be a one shot deal. Perhaps some random German (nothing personal to Germans just an example folks) magazine is doing their once a year story about Vietnam. Since it’s the first time working for them you will need to complete paperwork to get registered into their system. Without a doubt that paperwork will have a problem with it that will only be brought to your attention when you follow up on why you haven’t gotten paid yet. Since it’s most likely a one shot deal the idea of them caring about a solid relationship with you isn’t a factor, they already got what they needed.   Read more…

It’s been awhile since my last posting, as I’ve been up high up on the Tibetan Plateau for six weeks. The locale couldn’t have been better for pictures – amazing scapes, colorful Kham cowboys, and a great subject – yartsa gombu, the strange worm with incredible healing properties that is infusing new life into Tibet’s economy. But for my fixer, Fu Qing, the trip was not only scary, but downright life threatening.

Fixers are the unsung heroes of photojournalism. They’re a combination of boots-on-the-ground guides/ production coordinators/researchers/interpreters/secretaries/accountants/restaurant critics/bag carriers and sometime drivers. I like to say that the job of a fixer is to put the subject in front of my lens. And Fu is one of the best – a seasoned mountaineer who is familiar with the harsh terrain of Tibet, as well as a knowledgeable and amiable travel companion. I’ve been working with him for the last three years.

Our trip started out positively, with three days of travel by Land Cruiser to get to our location in Sichuan, near the Qinghai border, an area famous for yartsa gombu and the nomad markets where it’s sold and traded. We were following a family of nomads collecting this precious commodity worth more than the price of gold. Yartsa gombu’s scientific name is cordyceps sinesis, and it has for centuries been known as a potent folk medicine.

In recent years, thanks to several scientific studies that confirmed its efficacy for certain conditions, the yartsa gombu trade has exploded. Part of the mystique of this wonder drug is in the way it grows: a parasitic fungus invades the head of a caterpillar, which then hibernates under the snow. The fungus continues to infest it, and by the spring thaw, a brown, gnarly worm-shaped mushroom is what remains. Eaten whole or consumed in pill or tea form, it’s supposed to cure everything from cancer to impotency.

The next day, we hiked all day following twenty of the nomad clan members crawling on their hands and knees over mountains in search of the elusive fungus. After a heavy spring snow, things began to take a darker turn. Fu complained of shortness of breath and chest pains, so I told him to rest and take it easy. But by sunset it was clear that Fu was more than just tired. An overnight in a nomad tent under falling snow and the incessant barking of Tibetan mastiffs outside didn’t help.

The next day we were headed to Serxu at 15,000 ft., way above the tree line. Unfortunately, Fu was worse. He had awakened from a fitful sleep with a racing heart and was coughing up blood. We knew we needed to head for a lower elevation, so we set out for Yushu, in Qinghai province — a five-hour drive away. This town, with an elevation of about 12,000 ft., is noted for the massive earthquake that leveled it, turning it into a tent city. We found the only doctor in town, who had set up shop in a makeshift tent when the earthquake destroyed the city’s hospital. He confirmed that we were dealing with HAPE (high altitude pulmonary edema), serious and sometimes fatal altitude sickness. He administered oxygen, but ordered us to descend even lower. By the fourth day, after driving for 16 hours, we had made it to Xining, where Fu got to a proper hospital. But even here, at just over 7000 ft., the doctors felt the elevation was too high, so they instructed Fu to head home as soon as possible – but via train, not air, as he was still dangerously sick. Fu, ever the consummate professional, was reluctant to leave the assignment, but the doctors and I gave him no choice.

When the doctors gave the go-ahead for travel, I put Fu on the train, in a soft sleeper car, bound for Chengdu and some much-needed R & R. Back home, he recuperated quickly, though his enthusiasm for mountain adventures has ebbed a bit for now. After seeing Fu off, I couldn’t help but notice the irony of the whole experience. HAPE is a strange condition, as it ironically tends to affect those who are young and fit. So it was Fu, who was younger and an experienced climber, rather than I, who succumbed

I was soon back on the road with Michael Deng, another fine fixer from Beijing, in hot pursuit of the yartsa gombu. Alas, despite the worm’s reputation for curing hundreds of maladies, HAPE is not on the list.