Susan Meiselas on The Engaged Photographer

Editor’s note: Susan Meiselas, Magnum Photographer and long time great documentarian, discusses documentary photography, motivations, uses, intentions and hopes for the work’s impact on subjects and society.

This project, funded by the Open Society Foundations (Meiselas Co-Curated the project’s exhibition), shows the work of some of the world’s best contemporary photographers working in this discipline.

 

Continue Reading

Ami Vitale; Beauty, Power, Life

Hungary Baths by Amy Vitale©2011

From Ami Vitale’s website (http://www.amivitale.com):

Ami Vitale’s journey as a photojournalist has taken her to more than 75 countries. She has witnessed civil unrest, poverty, destruction of life, and unspeakable violence. But she has also experienced surreal beauty and the enduring power of the human spirit, and she is committed to highlighting the surprising and subtle similarities between cultures. Her photographs have been

exhibited around the world in museums and galleries and published in international magazines including National Geographic, Adventure, Geo,  Newsweek, Time, Smithsonian. Her work has garnered multiple awards from prestigious organizations including World Press Photos, the Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism, Lucie awards, the Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding Reporting, and the Magazine Photographer of the Year award,  among many others.

Now based in Montana, Vitale is a contract photographer with National Geographic magazine and frequently gives workshops throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. She is also making a documentary film on migration in Bangladesh and writing a book about the stories behind the images.

Continue Reading

JR Is Outside In

Outside In by JR

Editor’s Note: This is an amaz­ing project. In the era when peo­ple worry about the demise and/or future of jour­nal­ism, when aca­d­e­mics ques­tion the effec­tive­ness of jour­nal­ism in a 24/7 news cycle world, there is JR, who is pro­duc­ing and pro­mot­ing another form of pho­to­jour­nal­ism and not only bring­ing his sub­jects into the com­mu­ni­ca­tion process, he is bring­ing the work done on the sub­jects back to their envi­ron­ments. Check it out:

INSIDE OUT is a large-?scale par­tic­i­pa­tory art project that trans­forms mes­sages of per­sonal iden­tity into pieces of artis­tic work. Every­one is chal­lenged to use black and white pho­to­graphic por­traits to dis­cover, reveal and share the untold sto­ries and images of peo­ple around the world.

SEE VIDEO

Continue Reading

Shawn Baldwin Feels Egypt

picture-11

Man selling popcorn at a moulid, Tanta, Egypt, ©Shawn Baldwin

GO TO: http://www.shawnbaldwin.com/

Shawn Baldwin’s photographs of Egypt are lyrical, soft, sometimes tough, nuanced and, mostly, an eye that sees with the heart and feels with the intellect.

This is the kind of documentary that lets its viewers see as if they were there (although you’d have to be looking as hard as he is and putting in your time to get these beautifully done images).

In the end, because these are not screaming and specific, this work let’s us know a place and people without prejudice.

Continue Reading