Photojournalism
Moments and missives from our world
June
22
2010
Bafana Bye-Bye
The vuvuzelas will continue to bleat like stunned cattle, even after Bafana Bafana has been eliminated in the World Cup.
Twelve years ago, South Africa made its initial appearance in the World Cup, opening against France in Marseille. A few thousand gathered at a drive-in theater in Johannesburg, braving the winter chill to support the team, with barrel fires keeping the fans warm.
June
06
2010
Environmental tragedy in the Gulf
Some compelling images from the oil spill by a couple guys who can see really well, Charlie Riedel and Win McNamee.
May
25
2010
Capa’s World
66 years ago today, a simple step in the wrong place permanently shut one of the most illuminating eyes of the 20th Century. On 25 May 1954, Robert Capa stepped on a landmine while photographing a French patrol in Indochina, and died at age 40.
John Steinbeck wrote, ““His camera caught and held emotion. Capa’s work is itself the picture of a great heart and an overwhelming compassion. No one can take his place. No one can take the place of any fine artist, but we are fortunate to have in his pictures the quality of the man.”
Capa photographed five wars in his career, beginning in Spain, continuing through China, World War II, Israel and finally Indochina. Steven Spielberg and Janusz Kaminski used Capa’s nine surviving photographs from D-Day as guiding references for the first 24 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. Recently, Time put together a piece on his iconic photos from that day:
Yeah, the dryer situation was bad.
Steinbeck continued, “I worked and traveled with Capa a great deal. He may have had closer friends but he had none who loved him more. It was his pleasure to seem casual and careless about his work. He was not. His pictures are not accidents. The emotion in them did not come by chance. He could photograph motion and gaiety and heartbreak. He could photograph thought. He captured a world, and it was Capa’s world.”
Steinbeck also thought Capa’s legacy moved far beyond his images. “He gathered young men about him, encouraged, instructed, even fed and clothed them, but best he taught them respect for their art and integrity in its performance. (Capa) proved to them that a man could live by this medium and still be true to himself. And never once did he try to get them to take his kind of picture. Thus the effect of Capa will be found in the men who worked with him. They will carry a little part of Capa all their lives and perhaps hand him on to their young men.”
Richard Whelan has edited numerous books of Capa’s work, and was chosen by Robert’s brother, Cornell, to write the story of Robert’s life. Above all,” wrote Whelan, “he left behind an extraordinary body of work that showed not only the nature of war as it had never been shown before, but also a tremendous sympathy for individuals in all kinds of circumstances, and a legend that would long continue to inspire other photographers.”
Barcelona, January 1939, © Robert Capa / Magnum Photos
At the tail end of the Spanish Civil War, Capa photographed a beautiful refugee child in Barcelona, and subsequently wrote, with his usual understatement, “It is not always easy to stand aside and be unable to do anything except record the sufferings around one.”
Richard Whelan concluded his biography:, “Capa set a standard of bravery and compassion for all war photographers who have followed him, and he died… working in the tradition which he invented, for which there is no other word but his name.”
One of Robert Capa’s mantras for story telling was “if your photographs are not good enough, then you are not close enough.” That holds for both physical proximity and emotional proximity. Capa liked people, and let them know it by engaging with his subject and pouring his heart into his work. When people ask me about my photographic influences, Capa is at the top of the list.
As Sam Capa Zielenbach grows in future years, he will be able to learn how people experienced turbulent times in world history through the eyes and heart of his namesake.
April
22
2010
Presidential Road Trip
Yet another story from the Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-kuhl) Files in the New York Times yesterday.
Neil MacFarquhar of the Times speaks to Estonian President Toomas H. Ilves about his return from Turkey.
“LONDON — When President Toomas H. Ilves of Estonia arrived in Turkey last week, he had prepared for a state visit — one state visit. What he got, courtesy of an erupting volcano in Iceland, was more like a presidential road trip — nine countries in four days — evoking the sedate diplomacy of a bygone era.
Mr. Ilves left Istanbul on Sunday. On Monday he ate an impromptu dinner with President Boris Tadic of Serbia. In Poland, he stopped to lay a wreath on the fresh tomb of President Lech Kaczynski. In between, he and the Estonian first lady got their coffee and gas at convenience stores.”
Read the full piece here.
April
12
2010
The man in the flying lawn chair
Longtime National Geographic photographer George Steinmetz is profiled in this week’s New Yorker, with a video teaser as well.
Find the full piece here.
March
28
2010
The Petionville Club Tent City
44,000 Haitians displaced by the quake have created a small city on the grounds of the nine hole Petionville Club. Damon Winter of the Times provides a feel of the place through a collection of photographs.
March
26
2010
Marty Lederhandler RIP
Marty Lederhandler died on Thursday at 92. He worked as an Associated Press photographer for six decades, filing images via carrier pigeons and FTPs.
At work on a bright September morning in 2001, he ascended to the Rainbow Room to make a photograph of the newly changed city, with the Empire State Building framing the two burning towers. He retired soon afterwards, with that’s day’s experience helping to make his decision.
An obit and slide show can be seen here.
March
25
2010
Jim Marshall RIP
Jim Marshall, who photographed musicians for fifty years, has died at 74.
March
22
2010
Where there’s war, there’s iPhone
David Guttenfelder is a very, very talented photographer for the Associated Press who has spent much of the past seven years documenting the conflict in Afghanistan.
A portfolio of his work was featured in the Times last summer, a short while after he made an image of a soldier fighting in pink boxers that caught the attention of the Commander-in-Chief. See it here.
He has now included an iPhone with a Polaroid App as part of his camera arsenal.
March
21
2010
What the Still Photo Still Does Best
There’s a very interesting piece in the New York Times today about whether the surge in Citizen Journalist has dulled the influence of photojournalism.
“…the surge in the number of photos and videos from nonprofessionals gives news outlets more eyes on news. Editors are busier than ever sorting through citizen offerings of earthquakes, tornadoes, riots and, of course, dogs dressed up for St. Patrick’s Day, and then confirming the veracity of those from politicized situations.
“In the diffuse media landscape it is much harder for any particular image, much less a piece of serious photojournalism, to command the consciousness of a nation or the world,” Mr. Young said.
But, he added, “the nonprofessional picture increasingly has the possibility of punching through to center stage.”
Read more here.