Multimedia Or Make Up Your Own Audio In Your Mind?

As my readers know, I've been privileged to attend the annual Foundry Photojournalism Workshop for the fifth consecutive time, every year teaching Multimedia For Photographers class. But for those who don't know; the purpose and aim of this class is to show photojournalists how to make quick work of slide show production, using their own images and audio generated in the field, to produce cogent photo stories under the simulation of publishing deadlines, rivaling other multimedia forms in terms of quality.At the end of Workshop, the instructors and staff gathered to discuss and suggest ways to improve it. The length of the multimedia presentations...

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POV: The 5th Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

Photo  Mervyn Leong-All Rights Reserved During the long flight from Bangkok to London, I thought I'd write up a personal POV on the Fifth Annual Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (FPW) which was held in Chiang Mai from July 29 to August 4, 2012. This will be the closing post on the Workshop. As my readers know,  FPW is an annual photo event held in various international locations, bringing well regarded photojournalists together to teach to emerging photographers and students who normally would not be able to afford workshops. Firstly, as I always do, I tip my hat to Eric Beecroft, the...

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POV: Have We Gone Over The Top?

Stanley Greene, in my view one of the best photojournalists in the business, just recently said I honestly believe photography is 75 percent chance, and 25 percent skill. In accidents, we really discover the magic of photography during the LOOK3 festival in Charlottesville. I agree wholeheartedly. All of us will agree. We might differ as to the percentages (I'm more in the 85% in favor of serendipity camp), but the concept is right on the money. Whether in photography, photojournalism, medicine, chemistry, technology, biology, etc....accidents have led to fresh discoveries, new approaches and life changing products. No...

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POV: 5th Anniversary...Yes, 5th!!!

I always write a post at this time of year to observe the annual anniversary/birthday of The Travel Photographer's blog. I've started the blog five years ago (in London actually, and probably only because I was stuck at home as it was raining) and since then, it attracted an astonishing number of readers and visitors. On the poster above, I haven't added my 5400 followers on Lightbox, an Android app (and soon to be on iPhone too as well). Over two million unique visitors! Two million!!!It established itself as a blog to read amongst a certain segment of the photography industry, and earned me the attention of many photographers (pros, semi-pros...

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POV: Moises Saman And Cairo Undone

Photo  Moises Saman-All Rights Reserved   How wrong I was! I always dismissed the idea of photographing street life in Cairo by saying that there was nothing to photograph there...not much color, no vibrancy....but that began to change after the January Revolution. Was it a subconscious rejection of the then-prevailing environment? Or simply because I was blase about photographing in my own backyard...albeit one that I left for more than 30 years? Was it both? Perhaps. That admission being made, I have to clarify that I speak only of street life rather than particular cultural subject matters, such as documenting Sufi...

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POV: 12 Out Of 30 Is Not Bad

Photo  Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty I was pleased to note that about 12 out of the 30 photographs featured in the Denver Post Photo Blog's Pictures of the Week: September 2, 2001 are by non Western photographers. The above photograph is of an Indian offering Eid al-Fitr prayers at the Jama Masjid mosque in New Delhi on August 31, 2011. Except for the images of the Libyan uprising, all the photographs of non Western subjects are by non Western photographers...Muhammed Muheisen, Vahid Salemi, Fareed Khan, Manan Vatsyayana, Anupam Nath, Khalil Senosi, Noah Seelam, Rajesh Kumar Singh, and Rahmat Gul. The world is changing! (I'm still...

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POV: Two "Must Read" Blog Posts

Photo  Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved I do not expect presents from Santa Claus at the height of summer, but these two posts are the equivalent of unexpected and incredibly useful presents.  I simply cannot encourage my readers (whatever their interest in photography is) in enough strong terms to read and enjoy these posts. Both are informative, well written, engaging...and useful to photographers, photojournalists and anyone remotely interested in this industry. My hat's off to both authors of these posts...very well done. 1. The War Photographers' Biggest Story: Themselves: Benjamin Chesterton (of the Duckrabbit blog) has...

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POV: Photo Assignment RAW FILE

Photo  Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved Through Twitter, I've noticed a post by RAW FILE, Wired magazine's blog, which is starting a new series of posts called Assignment Wired, where the magazine will hand out photo assignments to its readers, and then eventually choose some submissions to publish and critique. WIRED's expertise and interest is in reportage and photojournalism, and it expects its participating readers to get quotes, do some writing, do some research and take emotive photos. "We want gritty, real and human stories. We want to throw you into new situations and give you a chance to sink or swim." It actually just...

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POV: Leroy's Visa Pour L'Image Says....

Image  Alexandra Avakian. Courtesy British Journal of Photography From The British Journal of Photography: Jean-Franois Leroy, Visa Pour l'Image's director, believes it's essential to remind "people of the important role photojournalists play in keeping us informed," which, he says, will be reflected in this year's edition of the world's largest photojournalism festival. "But don't expect to see projects on Tahrir Square. I've never received that many CDs about one particular event. I know that square by heart now. I could draw you a plan from memory. I've seen it all: Tahrir during the day, Tahrir at night, Tahrir and the dogs,...

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POV: Yes, I Have A Name. It's Mohamed Shaglouf!

"From the pickup, Lynsey saw a body outstretched next to our car, one arm outstretched. We still dont know whether that was Mohammed. We fear it was, though his body has yet to be found." We all remember the relief that the photojournalism/media felt when Stephen Farrell, Tyler Hicks, Lynsey Addario and Anthony Shadid were freed from their brutal ordeal at the hands of the pro-Qaddafi military. Those us who have long memories also recall that the photojournalists' Libyan driver was named in the various articles that reported on the event as Mohammed, or "the driver", if at all. I wrote a blog post lamenting the fact that Mohammed's...

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POV: Missed Opportunity?

Photo  MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images (Via denverpost.com) As readers of this blog know, my In Search of Sufis of Gujarat Photo-Expedition coincided almost perfectly with the revolution in Egypt, and I was torn between my commitment to its participants to continue leading it as if nothing was happening in my homeland...and flying off to Cairo and cover the events as best I could. I stayed on. It was a difficult decision and certainly a missed opportunity to get involved in Egypt's historic moments, but I had a commitment to the group of photographers who chose to accompany me on this trip. Had I sensed that I needed to be there because...

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POV: Omid And Why We Will Never Win

Photo  Michael Kamber- Courtesy The New York Times Michael Kamber is a well known New York City-based freelance writer and photographer for The New York Times. He worked in West Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean, covering conflicts in the Ivory Coast, Congo, Liberia, Haiti, Afghanistan and Iraq. Apart from frequently-published photo essays in The New York Times, he also authors a journal of his Afghanistan experiences. Its entries began in December 2010 and appear on the newspaper's LENS blog. His latest entry -along with over a dozen of his excellent photographs- is on yesterday's LENS blog under the title of Deeper Into Fathomless...

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POV: Face Covered, Women Only...Must Be Islamic!

Photo  Gali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images  But it's not. The caption as per the WSJ Photo Journal is this: "A member of the religious group Women of the Wall wore the traditional Jewish prayer shawl of men called the tallit during a prayer service at the womens section of the Western Wall in Jerusalem Monday." So the traditional Jewish prayer procedures at the Western Wall call for the separation of women from the men, and for women to cover their heads and faces? Huh? You mean like in traditional Islam? Gos...

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POV: Les Chiens Aboient La Caravane Passe

My post on McCurry's taking a celebrity photography project was criticized on another blog by a handful of readers as being misplaced, rude and judgmental...which puzzled me since I specifically wished him the best of luck with his new project, and described him as a pioneer and an inspiration to many.The thrust of my post was not about McCurry or his future but to stress the need for all of us to diversify by learning and using multimedia, FCB and Soundslides...and not remain stale and repetitive. In fact, here's a quote from the post which encapsulates my point of view:"McCurry is one of the pioneers of travel photography and is an inspiration...

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POV: The Guardian Eyewitness iPad App

I saw this posted on various blogs, and thought I'd add my two cents. It's the newly released Guardian Eyewitness app for the Apple iPad, shown off by photographer David Levene. I can't argue with the premise that it's gorgeous...but what does it bring to the table beyond what a laptop and/or netbook already does? The Guardian photographs can be appreciated on a laptop/netbook as well, no?I have a Mac Book Pro and its display is equally gorgeous. I have a cheap Acer netbook, and its display is certainly not as great, but it's cheaper than the iPad, and it allows me to use all types of software, and fiddle with my photographs using Lightroom...infuriatingly slow perhaps, but it does, and iPad does not.I frequently visit the Apple store in the Meatpacking district to play with the iPad (by the...

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POV: The Fact of The Matter...

The Marco Vernsachi & The Pulitzer Center "affair" seems to have somewhat calmed down after the considerable airing of divergent views, opinions and debate between photojournalists, photographers and journalists in the blogosphere. Some of these views were expressed on Lightstalkers, which is a popular no-holds barred forum for photographers. Going through the posts, I saw one that claimed that the story (and its handling) was not only a blow to the credibility of photojournalism (which I agree), but also a blow to the credibility of some blogs (and their authors). Huh? The Pulitzer Center was forced to formally admit (twice) its mistake...

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POV: So Whose Lapse In Judgment Is It?

Update evening of 4.25.2010: Both Marco Vernaschi and the Pulitzer Center For Crisis Reporting responded to the critics. I was pleased to read this final paragraph of the response (my emphasis): We do not suggest that the decisions involved in this reporting project are anything but difficult, as we hope was apparent in our statement accepting responsibility for what we believe was a mistaken decision to exhume the body of Babirye and to publish the image on our site. It is our hope that these issues can be discussed without malice, distortions and groundless attacks on the personal motivations of others.-- Jon Sawyer, Pulitzer Center Executive...

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POV: Marco Vernaschi & Child Sacrifice

Update: 4.25.2010: See my follow-up post So Whose Judgment Lapse Is it?Update 4.22.2010: Jon Sawyer of the Pulitzer Center responds, and within the response is this:"Yet we also believe, and Vernaschi agrees, that it was wrong to ask that the body be exhumed. It showed disrespect for the dead, and forced a grieving family to suffer anew. It also had the effect of focusing attention on the actions of one journalist, as opposed to a horrific crime that needs to be exposed.We regret any damage that may have been caused. We intend to continue this project, documenting the phenomenon of child sacrifice, but in so doing we we will redouble our efforts...

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POV: On Unpaid Photo Internships

A famous award-winning conflict photographer seeks an intern, for 3 days a week for three months, with demonstrable experience in photo and processing related tasks, but the position is unpaid. And the blogosphere and photography forums erupt! Perhaps for good reason. As one can imagine, photographers of all stripes with opinionated but honest points of view, others with axes to grind and a lot of personal luggage, all made their voices heard...which made for an interesting read. Unfortunately, some of the commentary devolved into personal attacks on the famous photographer's character, and used ad hominem arguments. Such comments demean...

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POV: Nepal's Gadhimai Mela: Atrocity?

Photo  Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP/Courtesy WSJ-All Rights Reserved Here's a thought to coincide with Thanksgiving, one of our most hallowed of celebrations. The Bariyapur festival (also known as the Gadhimai Mela) has been in full swing in Nepal for the past few days. As you can read in the following excerpt, the age-old festival involves slaughtering of thousands of animals as sacrifice to a Hindu goddess of power. The ceremony began with prayers in a temple by tens of thousands of Hindus before dawn Tuesday. Then it shifted to a nearby corral, where in the cold morning mist, scores of butchers wielding curved swords began slaughtering...

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