Most still photographers say their best pictures tell stories. To a limited degree, this is true. But photographers need to start thinking about more complete and complex stories, not just the best story they can tell in a single frame. This is where the opportunities lie.
Currently, there is such an abundance of single-frame stories, created by amateurs as well as professionals, that the market is saturated. It has become difficult to compete. Amateurs are taking a significant share of the market for this type of imagery.
Two years ago, as I sat on the sidelines of my very first college basketball assignment — Northwestern v. Indiana — I glanced over at the photographer sitting next to me and found myself scrambling to find words to strike up a conversation.
His press pass read “The Associated Press,” and my D90 and 18-105 mm kit lens paled in comparison to his two professional Canon cameras and fast prime lenses.
Christopher Monger will direct from his own screenplay, based on his novel of the same name.
There are at least three ways of looking at this (and probably many more):
1: Jodie Bieber won the World Press Award for an important and eloquent photograph that has done much to highlight the abuse of women and their resilience in the face of unspeakable barbarism.
2: The photograph that won the World Press was used as propaganda that helps justify the billions of pounds of profit made from war. Bieber is not to blame for this and this should not be a consideration in the jury’s mind.
3: The photograph that won the World Press was used as propaganda that helps justify the billions of pounds of profit made from war. Bieber is complicit in the way the image of Aisha has been (ab)used.
If the answer is 1 then we should all be celebrating the award going to Bieber but if it is 2 or 3 then we should be worried.
I would not be the only person who is genuinely concerned that words were may have been put into Aisha’s mouth (not of course by Bieber). Read this extract from an interview with veteran journalist Ann Jones, who spoke with Aisha, as featured on Democracy Now:
It used to be you won an award and people would say nice things, at least to your face; now it’s an excuse for a mob to take to the Internet and vilify you. In the week since Jodi Bieber’s portrait of Bibi Aisha, a young Afghan woman disfigured by her family – who may or may not have been members of the Taliban – arguments have raged over World Press Photo’s decision to award their premier prize to the image.
Of course there’s always an argument about the WPP winner: what made this different was that it was not the usual “wrong choice” wrangle. Instead the controversy had its roots in Time Magazine’s previous use of the image to support the US military presence in Afghanistan. WPP had judged the image, but Bieber’s critics were focused on the use of that image and her part in its use: as a result discussion rapidly descended into a de facto personal attack on Bieber.
The debate’s current terms of engagement were set in World Press Or Propaganda?, a post by Ben Chesterton at DuckRabbit:
World Press Photo’s Afghan War » The Russian Photos Blog
German artist and photographer Michael Wolf received an honorable mention in this year's World Press Photo for his work A Series of Unfortunate Events based on Google Street View. He speaks with BJP
Freelance photographer Daniel Morel, who has found himself in the middle of a legal fight after his images of last year's Haiti earthquake were distributed by Agence France Presse without authorisation, won two World Press Photo awards
Renowned photographer William Eggleston has chosen Benjamin Lowy as this year's CDS/Honickman First Book Prize winner for his images taken in Iraq, through Humvee windows and night vision goggles
CaptionEarthquake aftermath, Port-au-Prince, 15-26 January. Image copyright Olivier Laban-Mattei, France, Agence France-Presse, who won the General News Stories
Demonstrators in Cairo calling for Hosni Mubarak's removal are resorting to bottles, boxes, bits of foam and anything else they can find to protect themselves from rocks and other objects thrown by regime supporters
Darcy Padilla was awarded the grant to continue her documentary "The Julie Project." A visual epic, the intensely intimate story of the life and death of Julie Baird spans 18 years starting with a chance encounter in 1993, and provides an in-depth look at poverty, AIDS, and social issues affecting American Society.
The summer of '53 Elliott Erwitt's eternal image of his wife, daughter and cat is the starting point for a tribute by Misha Erwitt to his mother, who died recently aged 82.
مجموعه ای از عکس های اعتراضات مصر در روز جمعه را در روزنامه وال استریت زورنال با کیفیت خوب ببینید
مجمواه ای از عکس های اعتراضات مصر را در صفحه بیگ پیکچرز روزنامه باستن گلاب در اینجا ببینید
