The Activist Award live judging event in January was a huge success, and we’d like to share it with those of you who were unable to attend.
The event included lively discussions and heated debates about visual storytelling for non-profits, the ethics of photojournalism, narrative techniques, failures, and successes. In the video you can hear how the judges evaluated essays, and see which essays made it to the final rounds of judging.
Want to support the production of an in-depth photo story, or learn about a new platform form crowdfunded photojournalism? Check out Emphas.is.
2009 PhotoPhilanthropy Activist Award Entrant, William Daniels, recently launched a funding campaign for his book project, Faded Tulips using the photography-specific crowdfunding platform, Emphas.is. Check out Daniels’ project on Emphasis here.
If you are interested in supporting excellent photography, or if you’re interested in learning more about the growing role of crowdfunding in the field of documentary photography, you should definitely take a look at Daniels’ project and the entire Emphasis platform.
DANIELS DESCRIBES THE PROJECT: From late 2007 I travelled six times to Kyrgyzstan to document the unstable republic of Kyrgyz that experienced two revolutions in five years and a series of deadly ethnic clashes. The photoessay tries to understand and explain how this small country could descend so quickly into extreme violence.
I went back five times and travelled to every corner of the country. I covered electoral campaigns, pro and anti Bakiyev demonstrations. I photographed formerly flourishing soviet industries now abandoned, surrounded by majestic high mountains. I went to the opera, celebrated weddings and drank vodka with internal migrants. I met coal miners and inhabitants of villages polluted by uranium waste. I strolled along the ‘unemployment alley’ in Bishkek and shared the homeless life with those who spend the winter living underground. This country, its history, its people and tragedies touched me profoundly.
PHOTOS FROM THE PROJECT:
A soviet era building in the beginning of the winter in Bichkek. Photo by William Daniels.
A woman works at the Mailuu Suu factory in Djalalabad Region. During Soviet times, most of the electric lightbulbs of the USSR were made here. Today, only one third of the factory is still working and many workers haven't been paid for months. Photo by William Daniels.
Lev Tolstoy street in Bishkek, nicknamed "the street of the unemployed" since poor day labourers from the provinces, such as Kurman (right), come here to work for around 5 Euros a day. Today he hasn't found any work and says he would be ready to work for 2 Euros. Sometimes police come and racket them. Photo by William Daniels.
Jenish downs a glass of vodka. He works on the market on Lev Tolstoy Steet, nicknamed "the street of the unemployed" in Bishkek. In winter he lives underground close to the hot water pipelines. Photo by William Daniels.
Men try to repair an old coal plant dating back from the Soviet era in Tash Kumyr. Photo by William Daniels.
Tags: William Daniels
CommentsBelow are words from Inge Kathleen Hooker, winner of the 2011 PhotoPhilanthropy Activist Award. She won the award for her photo essay, “90 Days.” Hooker completed the project on behalf of The International Center of Bowling Green (WKRMAA).
It was January 2009, the beginning of the last semester of my senior year at Western Kentucky University. It was an unseasonably warm winter night as I drove with two International Center employees from Kentucky to the Nashville, Tennessee airport. We were on our way to welcome a freshly arrived Burmese refugee family to America.
When the six tired souls walked through the arrival gate, we made eye contact and with a smile and a nod, I put the camera to my eye and began a journey with that family that I hope will never end.
Over the next three months, I stayed in close contact with the International Center and almost daily I contacted their caseworker to learn what the family was doing and what the next days and weeks would hold for them.
We didn’t speak the same language, didn’t practice the same religion, nor did we share the same culture. Yet for some reason, they trusted me and let me into their lives to document them, and were always gracious and thoughtful.
I practically lived with them. I quietly observed all their firsts in this strange new land – their first snow day, English class, vaccination shots, the children’s first days of school. There were so many new experiences.
It was a fascinating few months to be there observing them awkwardly tiptoe through daily procedures that were, for me, as easy as eating or sleeping.
I was also going through my own awkward moments, trying to figure out how to tell their story best, and learning when I should maintain my distance as a journalist or put down the camera and help.
Most days I remained a journalist, and I tried my best to watch and learn. Like when the little boys would jump into the shower, fill up a bucket with water and then use a metal bowl to splash the water on themselves instead of just turning the shower’s head on.
This is a common bathing practice in Thai refugee camps because they have sporadic electricity and limited plumbing. Though it was hard, I resisted all the urges to step in and show them the amazing advances in bathing technologies.
There were other times when the choices were much more serious. Like the day I stopped by their apartment, and Mi Too’s baby was sick. Neither of them had slept for days, both parents were deeply worried.
I didn’t know if it was a serious illness or just a mild fever. I knew I was a journalist, and was not supposed to influence the situation, but what if something happened and I didn’t step in and try to help? So I picked up my car keys and took Mi Too, and the baby to the pharmacist.
It is a difficult line to walk.
After photographing the story came to a close, I published a book for the family to keep in remembrance of their first days in America, then I graduated from the university, said my goodbyes and moved to Asia in search of adventure. I have been traveling and working here for almost three years.
In December of 2011, I went home to visit both my American and Burmese family for the Christmas holidays. This was the first time I had seen them in almost three years.
I was excited to see how they had progressed, but when I arrived at their home my heart dropped. I realized that all wasn’t as it should be. The family, though financially stable, wasn’t really thriving. They were having real difficulties culturally and emotionally adjusting to what it meant to be an Eastern family living in a Western world. It was something I did not expect, but in reflection I am glad that I did. It made me realize that this story isn’t over.
They and families like them not only need the International Center’s help, but they also need people in their local community to participate in their lives and help them adjust. Giving support to people in need is not about whether or not we have money to give. It’s about stopping to learn what people really need and then giving in the best way that we can.
It’s a hard challenge because life is busy.
But pause a second. Imagine that the situation is reversed. Your family is now the refugee. You’ve fled your country to a refugee camp because your own government thinks that burning your villages and committing violence against your people is acceptable.
In the refugee camp you are safe, but you have no future or purpose. You are essentially living in a human warehouse. Then the moment comes when you see a hope, a possibility for a future and maybe even a good one, but only if you move to the other side of world.
In this world there is a promise of freedom, but when you get there you know that you will have no money, no language, no friends, different customs, climate, laws and religion. Nothing is the same, not even your toilets. It is the biggest risk of your life, but you take it for your family’s sake.
Imagine how scary this would be.
But then something beautiful happens, in the mist of your fears, one local person stopped to reach out to you. What a relief! Life would still be hard, but you are no longer alone. The gift of time and relationship would probably mean more to you than the fanciest clothes or the fastest computer.
Can we stop our life for a moment and find one person that we can help, by making their lives less lonely? That person could be a refugee or a local, rich or poor, young or old. It seems trivial, but it is not. Community is vital and rewarding.
The most curious thing that I am learning about life is that when the priority in life becomes working toward healthy relationships and community – the money, the perfect job, happiness, peace, Oh! and we can’t forget the delicious fruit (Yes, I am proudly obsessed with fruit!) – well these things somehow begin to effortlessly come. And the things that we did as acts of selflessness end up bringing more blessing and purpose to our life than we can ever contained.
By Inge Kathleen Hooker
See Inge Kathleen’s full essay here.
Learn more about the PhotoPhilanthropy Activist Awards here.
Do you know the photo of the young Vietnamese girl crying, naked, her face straining to scream of the terror from the clouds of smoke that are behind her as she flees? She is on a road surrounded by other children, and you can almost hear their screams; they seem so scared. Oddly, there are U.S. servicemen on this same road walking away from the smoke, calmly adjusting rifles and checking radios in what is apparently a mundane activity. The little girl is maybe 10 years old.
This 1972 photo by Nick Ut had tremendous impact on the way Americans saw the Vietnam War; it is an unsettling and evocative account of the human cost of war. This image touched the American public in a way that words had not, driving social awareness and ultimately influencing governmental war policy.
Do you also know the full frame photo of children’s faces? It is a telephoto image, so the many faces appear tightly compacted. The children are young, under 6 or so; we see every race and hair color, every size and every emotion. They are wiggly and energetic, and you wonder that the photographer got them all to stand together long enough to take the picture. One child looks directly at the camera, and you go immediately to her eyes. You can detect a tentative openness and a hint of confidence. She is maybe 5 years old. She is one of thousands of children that have benefited from the refuge, stability and support of the Respite Home of the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center.
Do you know this photo? No? That is because it hasn’t been taken yet.
The untaken photo is the purpose of PhotoPhilanthropy. We know that photography has always been a powerful social change agent. We know that there are thousands of organizations around the world doing great work every day. We also know that there are thousands of photographers around the world who want to be part of this work. We connect them.
As a social documentary photographer and Founder of PhotoPhilanthropy, I am driven by the untaken photo that tells the untold story. I consider myself lucky that my camera allows me access to amazing people working with non-profits that are addressing profound need in their communities. As photographers, we are constantly navigating the continuum of hope and despair in our subjects. Yet the nature of NGO work is that people are addressing need in their community; they are forming soup kitchens, sheltering animals, fighting against poison in their water. There is great work being done to meet need. My role is to provide the untaken photo to document the work, and get it out to as broad an audience as possible.
Photo by Nancy Farese on behalf of Mercy Corps, Liberi
Once, I was with The Carter Center in Ghana photographing the people who have dedicated their lives to eradicating one of the world’s worst scourges; the guinea worm. We sat out of the equatorial heat in the shade of a huge tree, as locals gathered to be checked out and get the new nets that are so important for filtering water to remove the larvae. Kids gathered to see what was going on, and a beautiful young girl walked up gracefully balancing a huge washing dish on her head. She laughed and jostled around with her friends, taking in the message about filtering of water and hygiene, all the while effortlessly balancing her load. Guinea worm is an ugly 3000-year-old parasitic disease that kills and maims so many, and yet The Carter Center’s work is diligent and effective, dramatically improving the chances that this beautiful girl will live a healthier life.
That is what we do.
Tags: Nancy Farese, The Untaken Photo
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A rape survivor sings in prayer in Goma, DRC. Photo by Alissa Everett on behalf of HEAL Africa.
Tags: Alissa Everett, photo of the week
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PHOTOPHILANTHROPY ACTIVIST AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED
Photo by Inge Kathleen Hooker on behalf of The International Center of Bowling Green.
San Francisco, California – January 2012 – PhotoPhilanthropy has announced the recipients of the 2011 PhotoPhilanthropy Activist Awards. With the Activist Awards, PhotoPhilanthropy recognizes outstanding projects by photographers working in collaboration with non-profit organizations. Awards are given in three categories: Professional, Student, and Amateur. The winning photographers and non-profit organizations are:
Professional, $15,000: Inge Kathleen Hooker on behalf of The International Center of Bowling Green
Student, $2,000: Oxana Onipko on behalf of Pravozashita
Amateur, $2,000: Paolo Patruno on behalf of Seva Canada
For more information about the winning entries and the finalists click here.
This year’s winning projects support the work of non-profit organizations from around the globe, from Malawi, to Russia to Kentucky. The winning entry in the professional category, by Inge Kathleen Hooker, is a story of a Burmese refugee family of six, two parents and four young boys. In January of 2009, they traveled from a Thai refugee camp to resettle in the United States. The story begins the day the arrived in the United States and follows them as they try to settle and adapt to their very new, strange life, in rural USA.
The esteemed panel of judges for the Activist Awards included:
Ami Vitale: Award-winning Photojournalist
Keith Jenkins: Supervising Senior Producer for Multimedia at NPR
Valenda Campbell: Director of Photography and Manager of Creative Production for CARE
Barbara Kinney: Award-winning Photojournalist
Chris Rainier (standing in for Larry McNeil): Documentary Photographer and National Geographic Society Fellow
Last weekend, PhotoPhilanthropy hosted a Live Judging Event to decide the winners of the 2011 Activist Award. The event was held in San Francisco at California College of the Arts. The all-day event was a huge success, with interesting discussion from the judges about the final photoessays, including a few moments of heated debate about specific photographs. Everyone, including the PhotoPhilanthropy staff, learned about what makes or breaks a photoessay. With judges from varying backgrounds (NPR, CARE, National Geographic, freelance photographer), the conversation was lively, and we can’t wait for next year’s awards!
For information about the PhotoPhilanthropy Activist Award click here.
Experience & Dreams
Benedict J. Fernandez and the Language of Photography
By Andy Prisbylla
If you ever have the good fortune to sit down with photographer and educator Benedict J. Fernandez, his stories are just as rich and interesting as his photographs. “I grew up in Spanish Harlem. My mother was Italian and my father was Spanish. We lived in quote ‘the ghetto’ which turned out to be the best place for me. It was a mixture of all kinds of people – some very affluent, some very poor – but we were all mixed. Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Blacks, Whites, Chinese, so that was a positive thing. For example: Third Avenue was a dividing line. Now my name is Fernandez, and on the west side of Third Avenue they spoke Spanish. On the east side of Third Avenue they spoke Italian. So I was able to survive by being able to cross either side and speak the language. So that was a technique of survival, which was important because when you leave the ghetto and you get out into the real world, it’s all a matter of survival. So I had tools in which to survive, and photography became one of my tools.”
Fernandez’s life has followed a path where many fear to tread. As a photojournalist he has covered many historical events of the last century, while as an educator he has helped to mold many young minds through his innovative photography programs and workshops. Whether it’s covering the protest movements of the 1960′s or documenting Dr. Martin Luther King in the last year of his life, his camera is an active participant. His images, even in their quietest of moments, have energy. You feel the immediacy of the moment, and the experience is a potent one. It’s experience that matters to Fernandez, who prefers to call himself a photo-anthropologist rather than a photojournalist. “A journalist is someone that writes and talks about photography. I live it. Basically I live it. I have to have something happening to make the pictures. I don’t sit down and take the camera and say I’m going to take pictures. Click. Click. Click. No, something has to happen in order for me to want to take the pictures, because I don’t read or write. I live.”
Born on April 5, 1936 in East Harlem, New York, Fernandez turned to photography as a means of communication. “Basically I suffer from a malady called dyslexia. I had trouble reading, and they sent me to all kinds of remedial reading classes and so on in the school system in New York. They could never comprehend why I could speak so well and yet not be able to read well. Then all of a sudden, the Bureau of Child Guidance started giving me special testing and they came up with this problem called dyslexia. So I had to develop techniques in which I was able to develop reading techniques. I don’t read in a normal way. I have a vocabulary of words that I know what they are. I look at them as pictures. So that’s where you can say my reading capability was formulated in the technique of photography. Words are images for me, and that’s made a big difference.”
After high school, Fernandez found work as an operating engineer and crane operator at the Bethlehem Steel Shipyard. During this time, Fernandez photographed his fellow coworkers in what was to become his first major photographic portfolio Riggers. Fernandez eventually moved on to a position at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, but was blindsided when operations shut down in 1963. Making his love for photography his new profession, Fernandez started working bar-mitzvahs and weddings. While attending a performance with his father, Fernandez was photographing when an older gentleman asked if he had any film to spare for his camera. Fernandez obliged and gave the man a few rolls. “So I keep shooting, and at the end of thing he called me back and said, ‘You know I could have had you thrown out. I’m the official photographer. But you were so generous with me by giving me film, I would like to do you a favor.’” This favor ended up being the chance to meet Alexey Brodovitch, art director for Harper’s Bizarre and creator of the Design Laboratory – an advanced workshop for photographers and designers. Through this meeting Fernandez was granted a scholarship to Design Laboratory, which instigated a contentious yet fruitful relationship with Brodovitch.
Fernandez spent the next several years working with Brodovitch. Having already been photographing the ensuing protest movements that were taking place in the 60′s, it was through Brodovitch that his project found its most valuable support. Over the next several years, Fernandez covered the protest movement in a detail rarely seen up to this point; examining such groups as the Anti-War & Pro-War Movements. Fernandez utilized creative techniques to gain access to the groups and capture the pictures he needed. “When I started photographing the protest movement, I went to a demonstration in Washington. So I put a flower in my hair because it was the hippies. I forgot about it and continued on to see George Lincoln Rockwell in Arlington. That was the American Nazi and the Nazi headquarters was in Arlington, Virginia. Just over the bridge from Washington, D.C. I walked into Nazi Headquarters with a flower in my ear and I almost got killed!” he says with a laugh.
His visual documentation would ultimately culminate in the wildly successful exhibition Conscience: The Ultimate Weapon at the George Eastman House in 1968. Curated by Nathan Lyons, the show became the most controversial exhibition in the museum’s history. “Beaumont Newhall was the director of Eastman House, and Nathan was his assistant. Beaumont was going to do an exhibit about the sky, but when he looked at my work he said he would give me a week. The newspapers, everyone at Eastman House, pushed the event because this was the moment, this was 1968. Everything was going crazy, with the Chicago Demonstration and all that stuff. Well, it just exploded. Nathan was excited. Beaumont said, ‘Okay, we’ll go from one week to three weeks.’ Well, the United States Information Agency came and other organizations came, and it went from three weeks to six months.”
Among the photographs that appeared in Conscience: The Ultimate Weapon was a series on Martin Luther King, who Fernandez photographed during the last year of his life. Fernandez would later create an influential exhibition of this time entitled Countdown to Eternity, which traveled to 18 cities across the United States. “I learned more from King’s attitude than I learned from King. I had a situation where I was having dinner with King at his house, and these people were sitting there and asking him to make a demonstration. He was breaking these things on his food. So all of a sudden they see this, and they start to eat them too. Well, they’re hot chili peppers. Very hot. These people are drinking water, trying to put out the fire, and King’s watching and I’m enjoying it. He says to me, ‘You like hot food? You know it’s good for your digestive system, and it’s good for you in the summer because it gets you warm so you cool off, and in the winter it keeps you warm so you warm up.’ And that was King (laughs). I worked with him, and I stayed there three days photographing him. Came around everyday to his house and he let me work with him. King was a very interesting character. He was killed too early.”
Using one of his images of King as an example, Fernandez expresses how photography can not only document social change but influence it as well. “This portrait of King has gotten me more opportunities. What has happened is that people see these images and it triggers ideas, so that’s what does it. If a picture has no capability of instigating anything, than nothing happens. So there are some pictures that are just that: pictures. But there are photographs that are statements, and that picture of King is a statement.”
While Fernandez captured the world around him with his camera, he also captured the imaginations of countless students through his progressive educational work. As the photographer at the esteemed Public Theater, Fernandez was given room in the basement to establish the PhotoFilm Workshop. Here, Fernandez taught photography to community youth, free of charge. Michael Engel, the Assistant to the Dean of the New School of Social Research, approached Fernandez about teaching and soon he was developing classes. “Michael never gave me trouble, the department ran, and he put up the money. Anytime I would dream up an idea, he would put up the money. And it took off! In about four years it was the biggest photographic school. We bought out Parsons in 1970. We got a new building, and we went from ten enlargers to a floor of about 35 to 40 enlargers. This became the New School of Photography at the Parsons School of Design. Then things just took off, and it became very big. I said later, ‘Why don’t we got to Europe?’ So we went to Europe and I set up a class in Paris. Then I did the Focus Program, which was a one week concentrated photography program. I created the Leica Medal of Excellence. The first group of people to get the Leica Medal of Excellence were Jill Krementz, Jill Freedman, and Mary Ellen Mark. It was quite an experience.”
Now 75 years old, Fernandez’s age in no way reflects his youthful mind and spirit. “Maturity sucks,” he says with a smile. When asked what advice he has for up and coming documentary photographers, his answer is honest and to the point. “Work. Don’t ask questions, work your problems out. In other words, if you ask somebody, they’ll tell you. But if you explore yourself, and answer your question with your exploration, that’s the way to do it. Getting experience. Basically, have an experience.”
Tags: Andy Prisbylla, Benedict J. Fernandez, Martin Luther King Jr.
CommentsNon-Profit Organization Profile: Universal Giving
“Create a World Where Giving and Volunteering are a Natural Part of Everyday Life.”
UniversalGiving is a website that allows people to donate and volunteer with the top performing projects all over the world. Their projects are vetted to ensure effective and trustworthy philanthropy.
CEO Pamela Hawley is a winner of the Jefferson Award (the Nobel Prize in Community Service) and was selected as one of 50 leaders to the White House’s Next Generation Leadership and Social Innovation event. She is also a Finalist for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and a Colburn S. Wilbur Leadership Fellow at the Global Ethics Institute. She has been chosen as a Fast Company Expert Blogger on CSR. UniversalGiving recently won Opportunity Knocks’ Best Nonprofit to Work For Award for 2010.
UniversalGiving’s vision is to “Create a World Where Giving and Volunteering Are a Natural Part of Everyday Life.”
To find out more about Universal Giving, visit universalgiving.org, or visit the founder’s blog: Living and Giving, and of course, you can follow them on Twitter: UniversalGiving.
Photo by Gemma-Rose Turnbull on behalf of St. Kilda Gatehouse
Photographer, Gemma-Rose Turnbull, spent a year working with the non-profit organization, St. Kilda Gatehouse, in Australia.
St. Kilda Gatehouse works with women involved in street sex work, who are often marginalized and have life controlling addictions. For many who come from a background of abuse and poverty, St. Kilda Gatehouse is a source of dignity and hope – where they can find the support and care they need as they attempt to build a life off the streets and beyond drug addiction.
Gemma-Rose Turnbull photographed the women, and gave them their own cameras to document their lives. Gemma-Rose commented on her experiences working with St. Kilda Gatehouse:
“When I began teaching and photographing the sex workers, I only expected gritty, hard-hitting snapshots of their lives. A year on, I view the scene with a greater depth of field. Their situations are so much more complex than the sensational images we are so often exposed to. Regardless of whether or not they fit the stereotype, whether or not they’re drug-affected, they’re still women who have stories who matter.”
See more photos from the series in Gemma-Rose’s submission to the 2011 PhotoPhilanthropy Activist Awards here.
