Tomas van Houtryve January 30, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in North Korea.Tags: North Korea
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Shooting Pool, North Korea
Photographer Tomas van Houtryve has reported from dozens of countries and received numerous international awards for his coverage of global contemporary issues. After initiating his career as an Associated Press photographer in Latin America, Tomas began working independently in 2003 to pursue stories that go beyond headline news coverage. Whether photographing communist guerrillas in the Himalayas or social unrest in France, he chooses themes that examine the paradoxes of our times. His work regularly appears in leading international publications including TIME Magazine, Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, GEO, Stern, The Independent on Sunday, Foreign Policy, National Geographic, Le Monde and Le Figaro Magazine.
About the Photograph:
“North Korea is the most closed society in the world. Information entering or leaving the country is strictly controlled by the state including a ban on mobile phones and the internet. Constant propaganda urges citizens to hate their enemies and revere the Great Leader. Since 1997, Kim Jung-Il has successfully implemented his “Army-First” ideology which “calls for giving priority to military issues over everything.”
Mustafah Abdulaziz January 28, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Chile, Patagonia.Tags: Chilean Patagonia
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Cerro Castillo, Patagonia
Mustafah Abdulaziz (b. 1986, USA) is a self-taught photographer who studied journalism in Pennsylvania and embarked on the road of documentary photography after freelancing and interning for the Tribune’s Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, PA. He has since done work for Newsday, Polaris Agency, and BlueCross/BlueShield. In 2008, he joined the photo collective MJR, a group of young photographers specializing in fashion, wedding, art, and photojournalism. He has attended both the Foundry Photojournalism and Eddie Adams Workshop in 2008. He has since relocated to Philadelphia to begin a long term project on the affects of the national economy crisis and escalating violence in the City of Brotherly Love. Mustafa recently won two 1st Place Awards at the Atlanta Photojournalism Contest (1st Place Portraits, 1st Place Sports Picture Story) and photographed the Obama inauguration on assignment for the Wall Street Journal
About the Photograph:
This was taken in Cerro Castillo, a small outpost town at the far bottom of Chilean Patagonia. I had been photographing cowboys and their changing culture for a few weeks before this, and when I heard there was going to be an annual rodeo held, I headed off to shoot it. I knew this rodeo would draw young and old from all over to prove themselves against each other, but I was interested to see what it’d be like. Patagonia is particularly harsh sometimes and the cowboys forged from this land have a bit of romance to them, which they are somewhat aware of. But taking part within the rodeo was this underlying current of cultural change: the young did not dress in the traditional clothing until they arrived. They text on cell phones and they drank Coca-Cola products. And even during the rodeo, they were videotaping on new Panasonic recorders. This picture represents the old culture in the story.
Dominic Nahr January 26, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in East Timor.Tags: East Timor
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25 year old Dominic Nahr was born in Switzerland and raised in Hong Kong where he established himself as a photojournalist. He worked for the South China Morning Post as a staff photographer for a year (’05-’06) before going to East Timor to photograph for L’Agence France-Presse. In early 2007 he traveled to the Gaza Strip to photograph for Polaris Images. In late 2007 he became a freelance photographer in New York and Toronto. Dominic’s work has been published in Time, GQ, Sunday Times Magazine, The Fader, The Guardian and PDN among others. Awards include Magenta Flash Forward book for Emerging Photographers 2008, PDN Annual 2008,POYi: Magazine News Picture Story, Award of Excellence 2007, Ian Parry Grant, Honorable Mention 2007. Dominic is currently a member of the Oeil Public Photo Agency and based in Paris.
About the Photograph:
“East Timor was my first story away from Hong Kong. It was also the first time I photographed in a crisis area. The day before this picture was taken I had spent the afternoon in the morgue as the only photographer allowed inside. I was photographing the bodies of the dead policemen, killed by the renegade soldiers. This was also a first for me. When the family’s finally began the funeral processions it was very emotional and classical in my eyes. They walked through the Santa Cruz Cemetery holding huge cross’s followed by the bodies of their loved ones. I wanted to create a picture that held the weight of what I had witnessed in the last 24 hours, while including the strength and beauty of the people of East Timor.”
Justin Jin January 23, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in China.Tags: China
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Garment factory in Zhongshan City, China
As a child Justin Jin (b.1974 in Hong Kong) yearned to see the world. He left for boarding school in England and went on to study philosophy and political science at Cambridge. Reuters hired Justin as a correspondent in Beijing, giving him an entry into journalism. While working as a reporter, he became fascinated by photography and taught himself, soon after leaving the wire service to produce in-depth photo reportage. In 2002 Justin was selected for the World Press Photo Master Class. Some of his stories are self-initiated, others are commissioned. Having spent the previous seven years in Amsterdam, in 2006 Justin moved to Moscow.
About the Photograph:
“Workers take a dawn break after scrubbing jeans all night using a sanding machine in Mr Huang’s factory in Zhongshan city, China. The blue dust from the jeans is a heavy irritant to the lungs. China, the “factory of the world”, is also the major producer of blue jeans. To meet production demand, thousands of workers sweat through the night scrubbing, spraying and tearing trousers to create their rugged look. At dawn, workers bundle the garment off to another factory for packaging and shipping around the world. The workers are among the 200 million migrant laborers criss-crossing China looking for a better life, at the same time building their country into a mighty industrial power.”
Edward Linsmier January 21, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Hollywood Beach, Florida
Edward Linsmier (b. 1982, American) graduated from the photojournalism program at Western Kentucky University in 2006 and working as a freelancer for an international relief organization based in South Florida. He has worked in locations such as Uganda and Rwanda, but now works primarily in Central America and the Caribbean. For his project documenting the effects of methamphetamine use in Kentucky and was chosen as one of six college photographers in 2007 for the William Randolph Hearst Photo-journalism Championships.
About the Photograph:
“I started a project about the beach when I moved to Florida almost two years ago. The place just fascinated me from the first time I was there. I’m pretty serious with the rest of my work, so this is an outlet to mess around and do my own thing. It’s a project about more than just the beach; it’s about why people go there to begin with and what they’re looking for when they get there. Almost any stereotype can be found, perpetuated to a comedic level. It’s a fun place to shoot and the characters never seem to let me down.”
Brian Cassella January 21, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: USA
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Brian Cassella joined the Tampa office of the St. Petersburg Times as a staff photographer in 2006. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, he graduated in 2005 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After beginning his career at The Daily Tar Heel, he interned at The Seattle Times, the Hartford Courant and the Cape Argus in Cape Town, South Africa. Awards include recognition by the Best of Photojournalism, the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, the Society of News Design, the Southern Short Course, the North Carolina Press Photographers Assocation, the Hearst Foundation, the Society of Professional Journalists and College Photographer of the Year. In 2007, his work was featured in the Emerging Artists Showcase at the Festival of the Photograph.
About the Photograph:
This photograph was taken in June 2004 while I was an intern at The Seattle Times. I spent several days a homeless tent community in suburban Seattle and while I was there I met Tony and Laura Stull. They had recently hitchhiked from Florida to Seattle because they were out of money and heard there were co-ed shelters in Seattle. Around the same time I met them, a nearby church heard that the couple planned to marry and offered to host their wedding. The church community donated their building, clothes, time and services to throw the event several weeks later. Over a couple of months, I visited with Tony and Laura while they went through their daily routines and chores, leading up to their wedding day.
Siddharth Jain January 19, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Italy.Tags: Italy
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From the series: Orthodox Church of San Damiano. Asti, Italy
Siddharth Jain (b. 1980, India) is a freelance photographer from India. He began photography after completing a degree in business administration from IIFT, Delhi in 2005 .Since then he has been selected to attend workshops such as Young Asian Photographers Workshop 2006 at Angkor Photography Festival), VII at Kashmir (2007) and TPW’s Focus at Monferrato 2007 (Italy). His work has been shown at festivals such as Foto Freo 2008, Fotonoviembre 2007, Musee d Elysee, Switzerland (March 07) , Angkor Photography Festival 2006. He has also been published in Asian Geo and Himal Mag. His work is distributed by Zuma Press (USA) and OnAsia Images (Singapore) and Siddharth currently he is working on long term book project about Rajasthan.
About the Photograph:
“This photograph is from a story about Zaharie Catalin, a priest of the Orthodox Church of San Damiano, Asti. The images were taken during in his church and at his home while I attended a master class conducted by TPW in Italy. I was asked to do a story on religion and decided to focus on a single life rather than doing some random images that covered a broad nature of the topic. Religion can be anything: faith, hope, love… It was important for me to understand a priest‘s life…and to visualize a life in images…to understand the contrast if any between the church and home…and the person between the two to whom its all one.”
David Zentz January 16, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Haiti.Tags: Haiti
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Bord de Mer de Limonade, Haiti
David Zentz (b.1978, American) is a photojournalist based in Los Angeles, California. Following his master’s in mass communications at the University of Florida in 2005, David completed internships at a number of newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times, before landing a full-time position at the Journal Star in Peoria, Illinois in 2006. In 2008 he left newspapers and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a freelance career. He has completed numerous projects, both domestically and abroad, on subjects ranging from mental health issues among Peoria’s chronically homeless population to the hip-hop culture in Haiti. His work has been recognized by CPOY, the Southern Short Course and the NPPA.
About the Photograph:
A man bathes in the Atlantic Ocean near Bord de Mer de Limonade on the northern coast of Haiti as a boat of men row a sailboat across the horizon, likely on their way to a fishing spot. I spent a couple weeks this past summer traveling in Haiti to document several of the annual Voodou festivals that take place each summer across the Caribbean island nation. One of them, where this image was made, was a sunrise ritual during which pilgrims who have come from across the country bath in the sea at Bord de Mer de Limonade. However, this image, for me, stands apart from the rest of the photos taken that day because it is less about the ritual than it is about the Haitian people’s relationship with the water that surrounds them.
Christopher Capozziello January 14, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in United States.Tags: United States
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Hanging Doll
Christopher Capozziello works as a freelance photojournalist based in Hamden, Connecticut. He focuses on documenting social issues in order to facilitate awareness and conversation about different facets of life. Christopher is a member of the Aevum photo collective that includes five other young photojournalists based in different areas of the United States. His images have been recognized by World Press Photo, the Alexia Foundation, the Golden Light Awards, the National Headliner Awards, and the China International Press Photo Contest. Christopher’s clients and publications include The New York Times, TIME, Newsweek, The Dallas Morning News, L’Express, World Vision, and Christianity Today, among others.
About the Photograph:
“His parents and the rest of those at the picnic laugh because to them it is a joke, but I look at his eyes and his hands clenching the stick. He beats the doll, looking back to his parents afterward for approval and finds faces that are laughing at what he has done. Images of the KKK are seen by most as examples of hatred, yet members of the organization see themselves as a group calling for white people to assert, or regain, a power they feel has been lost to them in America. They see a multicultural America favoring people of color over whites and a nation too willing to open its borders to immigrants. A pattern emerges when looking at the Klan’s history. Activities have increased whenever white folks perceive a diminishing sense of power. This often occurs at times when racial, ethnic and religious diversity have increased or when our country examines its attitude and behavior regarding minority populations: the end of the Civil War, the beginning of new waves of immigration just after the turn of the 20thcentury, the onset of the Depression, the 60’s civil rights era, and now the position of non-white people in a new global economy.”
Adam Dean January 12, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Tibet.add a comment
Hair Salon. Lhasa, Tibet
Adam Dean is a freelance photographer based in Beijing, China. His work has been published in many of the leading world news publications including Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone Magazine, Stern, Days Japan, Forbes, Internazionale, The Sunday Times Magazine, Le Figaro Magazine, New York Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, Le Figaro and many others. NGO clients include UNICEF and Save The Children (UK) and commercial clients include Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani, Ogilvy and Honda. His work has been shown at Visa Pour L’Image festival in Perpignan in 2007 and 2008, was exhibited at The Ian Parry Scholarship print exhibition at the Getty Images Gallery in London and at the Luis Valtueña International Humanitarian Photography Award Exhibition across Europe.
About the Photograph:
A KTV (Karaoke) hostess has her hair styled in a modern hair dressers before starting her night shift at ‘Lhasa Nights’ karaoke bar, often a cover for prostitution, in the new entertainment district of Lhasa, China on 8 August 2006. The development is designed to cater to wealthy Han Chinese tourists, businessmen. government and military officials. Beijing has flooded Lhasa with ethnic Han Chinese causing tension amongst the local ethnic Tibetan community which the Dali Lama describes as “cultural genocide.”
Steven St. John January 9, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Guatemala, United States.Tags: United States
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Repeat offenders, Columbus New Mexico
Steven St. John (b. 1977) worked as an assistant picture editor and staff photographer at his home town newspaper, The Albuquerque Tribune until it ceased publication in 2008. His work has been recognized multiple times by such organizations as the National Press Photographers Association, Pictures of the Year International, the Associated Press, and the Scripps Journalism Awards. In July of 2008, he moved to Guatemala to study Spanish while pursuing personal projects and freelance opportunities in Latin America. His Spanish is OK, but he misses New Mexico green chile and his mom.
About the Photograph:
“This photo comes from a reportage I worked on about the situation along the U.S.-Mexican border. The processing station in Columbus is really just a double-wide trailer in the desert, it’s most prominent feature the enormous framed American flag. I had photographed larger groups of immigrants in the area, but came back later to find this Guatemalan mother and her 10-year-old daughter sitting alone awaiting processing. Border patrol officials classified them as repeat offender OTM’s (other than Mexican) after they were caught trying to cross for the second time. When the reporter I worked with on the series, told me that they were from Guatemala, I tried to connect with them up saying I had visited their country. The mothers response was that so many people travel to her county, she didn’t understand why she isn’t allowed into mine. Now, just a few years later, I’m living in Guatemala documenting the conditions of poverty that they were trying to flee.”
Nanna Krueztmann January 7, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Mexico.Tags: Mexico
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Oaxaca, Mexico
Nanna kreutzmann (born 1975) is a Danish photojournalist who graduated from the Danish School of Journalism 2007. She took up photography during her Bachelor degree in art history. As a freelance photographer her work has been published in various magazines and in most major Danish newspapers. Nanna is also working on long-term projects and exhibitions.
About the Photograph:
“Vicente is four years old and lives in a rural area in Oaxaca, Mexico. It is a part of my reportage about the human consequences of migration- for those left behind in Mexico. It is said that between 11 and 12 million Mexicans are working in the USA and every year around 400.000 Mexicans are leaving their homes and heading north to the United States searching for work. Vicente is from a family of seven children, so poor that they cannot afford for a family member to cross the border to the USA. They live in extreme poverty. Most of the men who leave are hoping for a job so they can send money home. Women and children are left up to several years alone and risk losing their husbands, who may choose to stay in the USA or disappear in the desert crossing the boarder. The Mexicans have a saying; Poor Mexico, So far from God, so close to USA.”
Dana Romanoff January 5, 2009
Posted by Geoffrey Hiller in Ghana, Ohio University.Tags: Ghana
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Emilia, Ewe Region, Ghana
Dana Romanoff is an award-winning photographer freelancing outside of Denver, Colorado. She recently completed a project for National Geographic Magazine entitled: No Man’s Land about the changing roles of women in left behind in Mexico due to immigration. Before working freelance, Dana worked as a staff photographer at newspapers including The Charlotte Observer, The Free Lance-Star and The Oregonian. As a journalist, Dana combines her passion for cultural studies, social issues and photography. She believes that photographs have the power to break down barriers and build bridges whether it be across oceans or between backyards. Raised in New York, Dana received her BA in American Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester and MA in Photojournalism from Ohio University. Dana has worked and lived around the globe as a photographer and outdoor and cultural guide.
About the Photograph:
“This photograph was made while working on a project about women in a controversial practice of African Traditional Religion in the Ewe region of Ghana, West Africa. There, women and girls are sent to shrines to atone for the crimes of their ancestors. Christian NGOs say the females are slaves to the shrines and have called world-wide attention in attempt for funding to “liberate and rehabilitate” the women and girls. The practitioners say the females are the queens of their towns and that Christians are trying to eradicate traditional religion. I spent six months studying and photographing the people of the town and their religious practice. I saw no human rights abused and feel the controversy truly is an attempt to exploit a traditional practice and people to spread Christianity. This particular photo is of Emilia whose father’s family helped establish some of the shrines which serve as a moral and educational institution in the town helps to prevent premarital sex and crime. Emilia, 15, is heartbroken because her father prohibited her to see her boyfriend. She sits along the main road in town clutching a fake flower.”
Verve Photo- The New Breed of Documentary Photographers 