Canon Female Photojournalist Award

Canon and the Association des Femmes Journalistes (AFJ) have opened submissions for the tenth competition to find 2010’s Canon Female Photojournalist of the year.

Sponsored by Canon France and granted by AFJ, the winner will receive an €8000 prize and a photojournalistic project.

The competition is open to any female professional photojournalist of any age or nationality.

This year’s applicants will be judged both upon the presentation of their project, the quality of their photographs, relevance of their chosen subject, the inspiration behind their story and any previous work.

The deadline for submissions is 31 May 2010, and a jury will select a winner in June.

You can read the rules and dowload an application package from the Canon Female Photojournalist Award site.

Burn photo grant deadline extended

The deadline for the photo grant issued by Burn magazine has been extended until May 1.

The Pierre & Alexandra Boulat Award

This year, the Pierre & Alexandra Boulat award, supported by Canon Europe, will be launched at Perpignan, during the Festival Visa pour l'Image.

The intention of the award is to allow the winner to produce a story that has never been told but that the photographer cannot find support for within the media.

You can download the application package here. The deadline for submissions are June 30.

Conveying emotion to the viewer...

"My Mum died suddenly on September 4th, 2006. After she died, I realized how much she'd been shielding me from my father's mental state. He doesn't have Alzheimer's, but he has no short-term memory, and is often lost. I took him to the funeral, but when he got home, he kept asking me every 15 minutes where my mother was. I had to explain over and over again, that she had died. This was shocking news to him.... -Phillip Toledono writes in the opening passage of a photo essay about his father.

We are looking at this moving photo essay to see how emotion and intimacy can be conveyed to the viewer in pictures and by the accompanying captions. When creating a photo essay, it's important not only to communicate the concept behind the story, but also the emotional content.

There are many ways to edit, sequence and lay out your photo essay. In class, we will be looking at some things to consider in this regard.

Arnold Newman

PDN has put together a fabulous resource on Arnold Newman - one of the greatest (environmental) portrait photographers of our time.

Here you can view galleries of his work, including portraits of Alfred Stieglitz, Pablo Picasso and Marilyn Monroe.

You can also listen to instructional audio interviews on how to approach a subject and setting up your portrait; as well as a clip in which Newman comments on being called the original "Environmental Portraitist."

Annie Leibovitz

Here is a PBS photo gallery showcasing some of Annie Leibovitz most known celebrity photographs, including Whoopi Goldberg in a milk bath and a naked John Lennon with Yoko Ono.

For new portraits published this month, check her new Hollywood portfolio in Vanity Fair.

Henri Cartier-Bresson and the “decisive moment”

"Photography is not like painting," Henri Cartier-Bresson told the Washington Post in 1957. "There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative," he said. "Oops! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."

French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson (August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004) is by many considered the father of modern photojournalism. He was a master of candid photography and at capturing “the moment”.

Often times, what may look like a photographer’s lucky break has taken careful planning. For example, in the photo Behind Saint-Lazare Station, Cartier-Bresson framed the shot first – i.e. he selected the background, including the big puddle – anticipating what might happen when someone needed to cross it. He then waited for a person to walk/jump into his picture. And: Voila!

Use Cartier-Bresson’s photos (as seen in class) for inspiration as you go about capturing “the moment(s)” in your subjects’ lives.

Emerging Photographer’s Fund grant 2010

Burn Magazine is now receiving submissions for Emerging Photographer’s Fund grant 2010 a grant of $15,000. The deadline is April 15.

Funding is designed to support continuation of a photographer’s personal project. This body of work may be of either journalistic mission or purely personal artistic imperatives…

The Emerging Photographer Fund grant was initiated by David Alan Harvey in 2008, and is awarded by the Magnum Foundation, a non-profit created by the member photographers from Magnum Photos, Inc. Funding for the EPF has come from several private donors who have chosen to remain anonymous.

The EPF Jury for 2009 was: Martin Parr, Gilles Peress, Eugene Richards, Carol Nagar, Fred Ritchin, Maggie Steber, David Griffin, John Gossage and James Nachtwey…

The 2008 Emerging Photographer Fund grant was awarded to Sean Gallagher for his essay on the environmental “desertification” of China.

The 2009 Emerging Photographer Fund grant was awarded to Alejandro Chaskielburg for his essay on the Parana River delta.

Mary Ellen Mark

Continuing our study of environmental portraits and documentary photographers, we will look at the work of Mary Ellen Mark, including her ‘Mexican Circus’ and 'Indian Street Performer' essays.

Mark's images of the world's diverse cultures have become landmarks in the field of documentary photography. Her work from India, include her portrayals of Mother Teresa, Indian circuses, and brothels in Bombay.

Here's a link to Mary Ellen Mark's gallery online.

Books by Mary Ellen Mark:

Seen Behind the Scene: Forty Years of Photographing on Set (Photography)

Mary Ellen Mark: Falkland Road

Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen Mark: Twins (Aperture Monograph)

Photographers we'd like to connect with...

Hey thanks class for your entries about photojournalists and documentary photographers whose work you find interesting, fascinating, worth learning from or outrageous. Throughout the year, we will come back to them and study these photographers' work more closely. Here is a list of these photographers, in no particular order:

Peter Mugabane;
Annie Leibovitz;
Mikhael Subotzky;
Alf Khumalo;
Judy Griesedieck;
Zwelethu Mthetwa;
Sam Nzima;
Robert Leon;
Paul Weinberg;
Shirin Neshat;
Jonathan Torgovnik;
Johan Bavman;
Milton Rogovin;
Cathy Muiek;
Will Robson-Scott;
Sebastiao Salgado;
David Goldblatt;
Alon Skye;
Milton Brooks;
Bill Beall;
Peter Hugo;
John Robison;
Mariella Furrer;
Tim Hetherington;
Aida Mulench;
Steve McCurry;
Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi;
W. Eugene Smith;
Jennifer Bruce;