Where are the images of Haiti, by Haitians?
by Jim Hubbard

There is no better time than now, nor place than Haiti, to provide citizens with cameras to tell their own story.

Last month, media professionals dropped in on Haiti following the devastating 7.0 earthquake. Major print media, competing for viewers, dispatched star photographers to the scene. The Washington Post sent Carol Guzy, winner of several Pulitzer Prizes. Her images, posted to the Internet, are shot in stark black and white, making them even more dramatic. The Los Angeles Times sent Carolyn Cole, and the New York Times sent Damon Winter, also Pulitzer winners. Even legendary war photographer James Nawtchwey was there a few days after the quake. They, along with scores of other photographers from around the world, captured devastating images of death, despair, and destruction that were relayed to those outside Haiti via the Internet and 24/7 news outlets.

The volume of such images in the U.S. press, particularly of dead and dying people, eclipses the number of similar images from any other natural or unnatural calamity in recent memory. In fact, this may be the first time that mainstream media in the United States has saturated the public with death imagery, upsetting many viewers but also inducing sympathy prompting significant philanthropy. Read more

Everyone Is A Photographer
By Jim Hubbard

Decades before the advent of digital technology and cell phones equipped with cameras, working photographers were often insulted by the growing perception that everyone was a photographer. Proof was often provided by such statements as, “Anyone can take a picture—all they have to do is push a button.” For the serious photojournalist creating images of news events, or for the documentary photographer engaged in in–depth and long–term projects, taking pictures was a calling, not just a job and not, certainly, just pointing and shooting.

This paper discusses two groups of novice image makers whose photographs are, increasingly, used by the media, studied by academe, and seen by millions of viewers around the world: citizen photojournalists and individuals involved in “participant photography” programs. Both create photos that they hope will reach a broad public, although the image creation methods and their goals may differ. Read more

Seeing Beyond Sight: An Interview with Tony Deifell

Los Angeles, October 2009 - It started in 1991 with a question: What would happen if you put a camera into the hands of a blind student? For Tony Deifell, a photojournalist turned non-profit leader, the inspiration behind this question was two-fold. “I was really interested in the intersection between documentary work and social change,” he explains over the phone from his Bay Area home. Read more

A Modern FSA?

Los Angeles, April 2009 - It would be easy to dismiss the latest group of efforts by various organizations and enterprising individuals to organize a modern day Farm Securities Administration (FSA) documentary project. For all the good intentions that lay behind its creation, many have come to believe that the FSA was essentially a propaganda arm of the New Deal, simultaneously raising awareness about the plight of fellow Americans, but also persuading us to believe in the social policies of the Roosevelt Administration. Read more

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