Multimedia Reporting Fall 2017

   

The photography festival known as Photoville in Brooklyn Bridge Park brought up controversial issues around the world such as immigration, climate change, gender identity and much more. In their many exhibits, one in particular that captured my interest was the Isle Landers by Darrin Zammit. This particular exhibit awakened me in seeing the decade of immigration crises of African refugees and migrants arriving in the country of Malta.

When speaking with Mr. Zammit he stated that this project was something that was important to him, due to the fact that Malta was his home country. He started off by shooting for a Non-government organization in Uganda and felt that he could show the crisis of immigration in Malta. Darrin Zammit took the first steps in his project by working on the Phoenix( A migrant rescue ship in the Mediterranean Sea) that was operated by a non-government organization called MOAS were Zammit was an eyewitness of the dramatics of migrant entering into Malta. Zammit worked on this project for more than 15 years and saw many tragic events but  the worse for him was watching the migrants slipping and going under the water. A specific time that Darrin Zammit recalled being on of his hardest experiences was on an Easter Sunday while he was out rescuing migrants, there was one migrant who slipped bring down bring down ten others with him. Zammit stated how he could see through his lenses the hands reaching out for him and he quickly threw down his camera and started to help pull the migrants aboard.

There were so many amazing and interesting exhibitions and Photoville. All of them told their own stories and the stories of others. However, the exhibition that really stood out to me was Insider/Outsider presented by Women Photograph. Women Photograph is unique and important to the photojournalism community because they aim to ensure the representation of women photographers in an industry that’s very male dominated.

Insider/Outsider focuses on the relationship between the photographer and the subject. Those who personally know the subject consider themselves insiders. Insiders are able to have more access and photograph their subjects in more intimate settings. Outsiders have more limited access and perhaps no actual relationship with the subject other than they are telling their story.

The photographer of this image above is Raphaela Rosella. Raphaela and her subject, Tricia, are both from the same town in Australia. They both grew up in the same area and have had similar life experiences. They met over 10 years ago at a community arts organization. What I found to be so interesting about this is that the photographer actually sat and breastfed her own child while with Tricia. Raphaela is an insider as she is able to share experiences with this young woman and capture this moment.

Katia Repina, the photographer of this image, is working on a project that depicts the lives of intersex people. The subject here is a 35 year old Dominican woman living in NYC. She had realized she was intersex well into adulthood and Katia was able to capture this moment of her cutting off all of her hair. Katia is also an insider. This woman is naked and vulnerable, but Katia is able to capture this experience on Rockaway Beach with her.

Both of these women are able to show the more intimate parts of their subjects lives through their photography as an insider.

Walking around Photoville on a warm Thursday afternoon, I found choosing a single exhibition to focus on quite difficult. Though each exhibition was unique, nothing really screamed out at me. That is, until I saw Barron Clairborne’s iconic portrait of Biggie Smalls in the corner of my eye and stopped dead in my tracks.

“Contact High: Hip-Hop’s Iconic Photographs and Visual Culture” showcases the evolution of hip-hop through the eyes of more than thirty photographers. Portraits and contact sheets that span across 40 years line the walls, featuring an array of hip-hop artists that range from Public Enemy to Nicki Minaj.

“The exhibit starts here in 1979,” associate curator Syreeta Gates tells me, pointing to a photo of Larry Levan DJing with a poster of a young Robin Williams behind him. “It ends in 2017,” Gates says, staring at a portrait of reggae artist Chronixx. The exhibition is a sneak peek, as it will be turned into a book in Fall 2018.

Viewing the photographs in order is crucial, as it feels like you’re literally walking through time. Sophie Bramly’s photograph of Futura 2000 and Keith Haring with their backs against each other encapsulates the 1980s in the same way that the contact sheets of Tupac and Aaliyah are the epitome of the 1990s. In the last 40 years, hip-hop has evolved from a subculture to a defining culture. This exhibition captures that incredible journey.

 

Gerd Ludwig is a photojournalist who created a photo book from his twenty year long coverage of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. In describing the book Gerd states, ” I want this photo book to stand as a complete document of this man-made disaster, to remember the countless victims of Chernobyl, and to warn future generations of the deadly consequences of human hubris.”

On April 26th 1986, the worlds worst nuclear disaster to date occurred. The cataclysmic event occurred after a botched safty test. It was projected that 350,000 people were driven from their homes, from a radioactive fallout that spread over tens of thousands of square miles. The land around the reactor known as the Exclusion Zone is said to be inhabitable for the near future. Cleanup crews ranging from 800,000 were exposed to the harmful radiation. Thousands have died in the aftermath and, ” the long cloud of Chernobyl,” still lingers.

Gerd has entered the the Chernobyl Zone nine times, on assignment from National Geographic. His first visit was in 1993, exploring the pollution in the former Soviet Union. He returned several times in 2005, for a more in depth cover story. According to Gerd,” During my visits I captured post apocalyptic scenes of abandonment- trees growing through streets, schools rotting, and apartment buildings littered with personal belongings left behind by those who hastily fled their homes in fear.” In the Excusion zone Gerd photographed elderly returnees who, despite radiation,came back to live out their lives at home. Gerd has also been the closet to the damage reactor than any Western documentary photographer. On the Outside Zone, Gerd met and documented the victims, ranging from children suffering from physical and mental disorders, as well as those affected by the dramatic rise in cancers in the nuclear fallout area of Ukraine and Belarus.

On the eve of the twenty fifth anniversary in 2011, the fund me campaign knowned as Kickstarter sent Gerd back to continue his coverage. This visit led to several exhibitions for Gerd, in Europe, as well as an award winning IPad app,”The Long Shadow of Chernobyl, an interactive digital book.

Gerd once again returned in March of 2011, where an earthquake triggered a tsunami in Japan, causing the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Gerd reiterates, ” the accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant is a powerful reminders that disasters like Chernobyl are a possible outcome of nuclear power- anytime, anywhere.” Finally Gerd states, “Ultimately however at the core of my photographs are the people who continue to suffer this tragedy. I am driven by the duty to act in the name of these silent victims,to give them a voice.”

Jessica Earnshaw is a Brooklyn-based photojournalist, who focuses her pieces on criminal justice, health care, and music. Using funding from the Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation Fellowship & Grant, Earnshaw was able to gain unrestricted access into Maine and Indiana State Prisons, in order to photograph aging within American prisons.

Earnshaw’s prime reason for documenting this particular story was her interest in what happens when you are cut off and isolated from society, after being imprisoned for decades. Earnshaw’s piece focuses on aging inmates, who are either on death row, or have been serving long prison sentences for crimes committed nearly 30+ years ago.

Earnshaw first began to contact multiple prisons across the country, and as a result, two Maine state prisons, one a women’s and the other a men’s correctional facility were among the first to grant her access. 

Earnshaw essentially shadowed four inmates, one of them being Norma, who at 74 years old, is the oldest female inmate in Maine. Norma is serving a 70 year sentence, and has a shocking 56 more years in the Maine prison system. Norma has three children, all of whom have ceased contact with her, and she hasn’t had any visitors in the 14 years that she has been imprisoned.

Prison sentences this long, especially when the inmate is as old as Norma, piqued Earnshaw’s curiosity, and mine as well. Yes, someone who committed a heinous crime 20-30 years ago at the time was violent, but the real question is, are they still violent today? When they are old and senile is it really imperative that they continue to spend the rest of their days in a penitentiary? Earnshaw questions this, and also wants to know how these inmates are doing after spending so much time in prison.

Before visiting Norma and the Maine Correctional Center, Earnshaw visited Maine State, where she spoke to Robert and Albert. Robert, (above) is 70 years old and has served 30 years in prison for murder. When Earnshaw left the prison, he told her that speaking to her about his time in prison was the best day of his life. 

Albert (above), is the oldest inmate in Maine State prison at 82 years old, and has successfully escaped from prison four times. He has been in and out of prison since the age of 16, and has served a 10 year sentence in solitary confinement. He says that he spent that sentence reading, writing, and designing a home.

Overall, Earnshaw’s experience within the prisons was smooth, considering major factors: the inmates have been imprisoned for so long that they missed the new technological advancements which in turn gave them “no reservations or self-awareness about being photographed”. Also, given that many of them are alone most of the time, human interaction, especially with someone who wants to know about their lives, was easily a highlight of their lengthy prison sentences.

Earnshaw hoped that her time in the prisons, and her subsequent article, would help to humanize those who spent so long in prison, and show people that they are humans as well.

Michael Nichols created an exhibition called “wildlife” for Visa pour l’Image 2017.  His exhibition was sponsored by Canon and shots he took were truly incredible. The main focus of this exhibit is to give an inside look at natures wildest creatures and landscapes across the world.  As an award winning photographer, he decided to take his talents into the wildlife and take shots of some of the most incredible pieces that haveever come across to begin with the project.  He would send the exhibit some pictures to go with in order to add more flair to the exhibit.

Nichols in his efforts to contribute to the exhibit , wrote a book entitled “A wild life”.  It is said that this is an inside look at what he had to overcome in order to get the shots he needed and to get all the shots he took approved by his photo editor.  Nichols feels that every photo that he takes must tell a story and the story must be the worthy of being take.  In an interview with Time Magazine he said that “In a time where we are covered in either the truth or lies, it is best we look back at the pictures”.  The pictures are out number one source to get the information we need.  In that same interview he said that the pictures play the “strongest role” because data and readings aren’t always the truth but it is what it is.

As a kid, Nichols used to runaway into what he called the woods and he said in doing that continuously made his body used to what he would realize is the cold outdoors in order to get these phenomenal shots.  His works have influenced many in the photography community and served as a mentor to many as he shared his works with the up and coming photographers. He provides leadership and great opportunities to allow the youth to learn how he took those shots and what he did to make himself notably famous around the community.  His influence and style made photographers change the way they went about taking the shots the needed to go with all the shots All of these shots were hard enough for him to take but with time and practice, they were able to come out just perfect to be used in exhibitions in order to get the name out there as we speak.

While searching around for an interesting and powerful documentary photography project, I came across Thomas P. Peschak who is an assignment photographer for National Geographic. His main focus is on wildlife conservation, more specifically in the way humans affect marine life, and his photos are stunning.

Peschak was originally a marine biologist, but realized he would have a greater impact on people with pictures rather than statistics, so he switched his career to become a wildlife journalist. He has published a handful of books loaded with statistics and serious research, along with his photography of sharks, manta rays, and other marine life.

While some of his pictures have a serene, peaceful feeling to them, Peschak’s goal in his book, Sharks and People: Exploring Our Relationship with the Most Feared Fish in the Sea, is to show the reality of human interference with these creatures who have been around for millions of years. Fisheries and the finning industry are huge threats to sharks.

In these photos, Peschak shows some unsettling moments of the finning industry, which is an extremely wasteful and cruel business, and has been banned in over 60 countries. Humans are killing sharks for less than 5% of the animal’s body, and this is clearly depleting shark populations. According to an article he wrote for Time Magazine, Peschak witnessed over 1,000 sharks auctioned off in just one single night and each year. In Sharks and People he writes that roughly 10 million kg of shark fins are auctioned off, equivalent to the weight of 2,000 African Elephants.

Peschak also touches on ways that people are trying to understand and co-exist with sharks.

Peschak tells Nat Geo that he often sketches out pictures he wants to capture before diving in the water, so he knows what to look for. He never uses any SCUBA gear, just a weighted belt, some flippers and a snorkel, and holds his breath for several minutes, giving him a lot more mobility in the ocean. Peschak has studied sharks long enough to understand their behavior and says they are not dangerous if you know what you’re doing.

 

 

“Lost Rolls America” is an exhibit curated by Ron Haviv, Robert Peacock, Lauren Walsh, and Roger Gorman. Their aim was simply this; to publish and develop forgotten film from people’s pasts. Their stories showcase poignant memories that often recall a yearning for the past, and a nostalgic flair was brought to life in this exhibit with the utilization of the R.V, amongst other various items, such as 35 mm cameras and record players. Photojournalist Ron Haviv explained to my boyfriend and I that he takes submissions on the website, if interested, on thelostrolls.com. It is an ongoing project that has spanned over the course of 6 months, and it is still being curated to this day. Fujifilm North America will scan and develop your images free of charge, and a short description of the selected images is needed to be in the book of photos that Haviv plans to publish later this year.

Upcoming due dates:

No class on Wednesday.

First draft of photo projects is due by end of class on Monday, Sept. 25. Monday’s class will be a production day where I can come around to check in with you all individually, assist you with last-minute edits and with structuring and posting the photo essays, etc. I will get you feedback on your projects as quickly as possible so you can have as much time as possible to incorporate those edits by the due date.

Final draft of photo projects is due Monday, October 2.

Pitches for your radio piece will be due Wednesday, October 4.

For those of you who were unable to make it to Photoville in person, here is your alternative assignment: Research a documentary photo project and write a blog post of about 400 words describing what this project is about. See if you can find interviews with the photographer where they talk about their process, how they went about shooting it, whether they received any kind of support or funding, etc. Please include relevant links, sample photos, etc. A good place to find examples of powerful documentary photography, apart from the Photoville website itself, is at the site for the International Festival of Photojournalism aka Visa Pour l’Image (which happens every year in Perpignan, France, around this time), or by following photographers who have done the Eddie Adams Workshop, or by checking out the latest World Press Photo winners. Please get these posts to me by Monday Sept. 25.

---

Today we’ll discuss the basics of photo editing in Lightroom and how to post your photo essays.

I recommend Google Slides, Exposure or Imgur.

If there’s time, we’ll also take a look together at your posts about Photoville.