It is safe to say that anyone in photojournalism with an interest in conservation and wildlife knows the work of Joel Sartore - to be honest I usually assume that most people have seen what I always describe to them as “the beautifully lit studio-type wildlife portraits on black of white backgrounds.” Like every year the honor medal awards brought us a great opportunity to talk with a leader in our field and so Joel’s presentation fit right in.
To me the part that stood out the most was his clear and unwavering mission of conservation and protection of our planet that remained through the talk. Whenever people get awards, I go into talks wondering whether they will fully express their honest opinions, or whether it will be toned back for the sake of winning an award and therefore not offending anyone. I appreciated that Joel never once seemed to stray from what he honestly felt for the sake of a presentation - it felt very honest in that way. Obviously I could talk about the photos forever, like we all could, but I will say I really enjoyed his way of using the photos to getting at bigger messages. Regardless of whether you agree with his opinions or ideas for how to help save the planet, he uses beautiful, powerful imagery as a way to get people’s attention and gain their interest in what he has to say - and that to me is the power that photography and photojournalism has in making people think.
After a quick disaster and a near crash on our project, we were able to put together a reasonable package for this week’s multimedia project. Despite losing our main interview, we were able to put together a good chunk of our final video, our full website, text piece and a group of image portraits linked with audio files. We were already planning on resubmitting later on after the final performance of the play so this isn’t the absolute end since we were doing this already. It also helped us to know exactly what we need out of the interview now that we have put the package together as we currently see the story. On the second hand, we also really didn’t like the first interview for look and content so it is kind of a blessing.
Plus a good lesson to us for making sure to check files on the computer immediately after recording so as to avoid these situations. Excited to finish the project through and see what we can do with new content that we get over the two or three weeks.
Check out our progress here.
After really fleshing out essays again in class and after seeing so many at MPW, my mind immediately went to Nat Geo to look for an essay. Although when I first started looking through I actually found a couple stories this time which I feel like I find less of on their site so the irony of seeing them when I now need an essay made me laugh.
Anyway, the essay I chose to look at is about photographer Charlie Hamilton James and his work to document the daily lives of indigenous peoples of Amazonia. The work highlights several different indigenous communities in Brazil and Peru who are on a range of isolation and “primitiveness.” The photographs don’t follow a single individual, group or even a specific issue, but rather center around the idea of being indigenous in those areas.
The photos are held together by the indigenous identity alone although some could be split off and maybe paired with additional images to form more specific story lines. The two images from the pageant for example could be honed in on for a more specific story or the portrait series of people and their monkeys can stand alone as a story by itself. But altogether the collection of images that ranges everywhere from aerials and environmental landscapes, to details, portraits and daily life shots of groups and peoples stretched across several different locations makes for a broader telling essay.
