MEDIA THAT MATTERS: Call for Entries-Deadline January 22, 2010

“Screen.  Act. Impact.”

Media That Matters is a showcase of films which are based around the idea of social change.  This international campaign is meant to create discussion and encourage educators, youth and organizers to “Take Action around these films.”
For information about submission criteria and festival details, go HERE.

From Rural Community to City: Chiapas, Mexico

Side by Side Gallery has just posted an online photography exhibit of work by photographer Refugia Guzµán Pérez, a Ch’ol photographer from Chiapas, Mexico who is affiliated with the Chiapas Photography Project (CCP) and Archivio Fotográfico Indígena (AFI). Side by Side is an organization based in Australia that is committed to collaborative ethnography through art. CCP and AFI were founded by Carlota Duarte in 1992 to provide Mayan people based in Chiapas with an opportunity to document their lives. For more information about the project, click here. To see Side by Side’s online gallery, click here.

Internships Available for Students of USC Students

Web Assistant, Institute for Photographic Empowerment and the USC Global Health Institute

This Internship will support both the Global Health Institute’s website and Venice Arts’ IPE site, including researching and compiling participant–produced projects from around the world, particularly those with an emphasis on public health; identifying interesting issues in the field or unique projects that might comprise an IPE story feature; drafting IPE story features; maintaining the IPE website.

Internship pays $15 per hour for 20 hours per week with time split equally between the two sites.

To see complete position descriptions, click HERE.

NOTE: These Internships are only available to students of USC.

EYES of DEAFNESS: Photography By 20 Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Adults

Eyes of Deafness Press Release

Click above link for more information.

FOTOKIDS Guatemala Benefit in Los Angeles

FOTOKIDS, a participant-photography organization based in Guatemala, uses photography, graphic arts, and scholarships to give children an opportunity to get ahead. Join founder Nancy McGirr on Thursday, February 18th from 6:30–9pm at a special reception being hosted by Altered Space Gallery, located at 1221 Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice. For more information call: 310-452-8121.

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.

Collectively, the thousands of images taken by professional photographers represent one of the most compelling depictions of a catastrophe that I have seen in my 40 years as a professional photographer. With no yellow police tape stretched across the tragedy, as would be customary in the United States, the photographers had complete access and, under perilous conditions, created beautifully crafted, albeit gruesome, photographs. They did a superb job depicting epic horror, which millions of others witnessed at a distance through their newspapers, Internet sites, and television.

In addition to still image coverage, television crews from across the globe sent their star on–camera reporters who provided round–the–clock coverage. CNN, for example, sent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and anchor Anderson Cooper. While watching CNN, feature after feature showed Dr. Gupta saving lives, while nimble enough to also report the story. Cooper, a heroic Johnny-on-the spot, conducted interviews with people who had just lost their entire family or had been recently dug out of the rubble, some cooperating with Cooper’s interviews even while dying of hunger and thirst or requiring emergency medical care which, in the earliest days of the crisis, was essentially unavailable. I was mesmerized by their stories, although it was increasingly unclear who the story was really about: the reporter, devastated by what she or he was witnessing, or the people living the nightmare.

By year’s end, when the images from Haiti are a blur in the public’s mind, the major publications will devote significant time and resources toward winning the coveted Pulitzer Prize; winners will earn bragging rights over their competitors. It is also conceivable that, in a decade or two, some of the beautiful but devastating images may be hanging in a gallery or museum and sold as art to wealthy patrons.

What was missing from this reportage—both still and moving—was the opportunity for Haitians to tell their own stories. One blogger stated on internet site Newspaper Death Watch, “When Diane Sawyer arrived on the scene she got to practice her O-Level French but, apart from that, there was nothing she said that could not have been said better, more concisely, more urgently, by anybody whose house had been reduced to splinters and rubble and who’s family members were buried under it all.”

This brings me to the heart of the issue: Why wasn’t more time devoted to citizen storytelling? And, when the media departs to await another earth shattering story, will we continue to cover the story; especially if it is told by the people of Haiti, showing and telling the world of their ongoing struggle to rebuild their lives?

There is a decades old criticism of the “outsider,” most often journalists from developed nations, arriving in underdeveloped nations to tell the story of “insiders.” Whether HIV/AIDS in sub–Saharan Africa, conflict in the Middle East, violence in economically depressed U.S. inner cities, poverty and alcoholism in Native American communities or, currently, victims of the earthquake in Haiti, the outsiders’ stories are often the only stories told. Criticism tends to focus not on the presence of journalists but, rather, on the ways in which they depict the story and the lack of acknowledgment that there is an equally, if not more important role, for local storytellers.

With the attention that professional journalism has brought to both the plight and strengths of the Haitian people, perhaps this is a perfect time to expand the practice of participant photography in Haiti, providing Haitian citizens the opportunity to develop their media skills and visually share their continuing stories over the coming decades. There are, currently, a host of NGO’s in Haiti capable of training people in the tools and technology necessary to sustain global attention for their long–term struggles. One group, Zanmi Lakay, has been teaching participatory photography for several years. Founded by American Jennifer Pantaléon of Pacifica, California, along with her Haitian husband Guy, they are dedicated to improving the quality of life for current and former Haitian street children and orphans.

It is urgent that the Haitian story continues to be told long after the journalists leave. Engaging Haitians to tell their own stories to the world, through pictures and words, is one way to reveal the resiliency and beauty of the human spirit and to show the rest of the world Haitian’s are valued in God’s creation.

Outside the Lens Partners with ‘The Last of the Gunslingers’ Doc Fundraiser

Outside the Lens is hosting a fundraiser to support the documentary film-in progress, “The Last of the Gunslingers.”
The event will be held on February 2 at the Pearl Hotel in San Diego.
For more information about this event, go HERE.

Venice Arts Seeks Documentary Photographers

Venice Arts is seeking to expand its pool of qualified, professional documentary photographers and/or photojournalists interested in working on projects on an Independent Contract basis. Selected faculty will be trained by Venice Arts and given teaching assignments in either ongoing programs or special projects locally, regionally, statewide, or internationally.

Qualifications:
Must have experience and strong commitment to documentary photography, photojournalism, or street photography. Prior experience teaching youth a strong plus, as is familiarity with participant photography and visual storytelling. Must be expert working in digital media, including image management. Must be available during standard after–school hours and/or on weekends or, if assigned to a special documentary project (regional, international), available for one– to two–week intervals. Must be interested in a long–term affiliation with Venice Arts.

To apply:
In your cover letter, among other things, please indicate your availability (weekday, weekends, full–week or multi–week intensive projects). Attach your résumé and samples of class syllabi that you have created, along with 10-20 digital images of your work or a link to your portfolio website here.

HeartSongs for Haiti: A Benefit

Please join us on Saturday, January 30th from 7-11pm at the Venice Arts Gallery for a special benefit event. Coordinated by a group of community members, 100% of proceeds will go to Haitian relief. Live music, light snacks, wine, and beer. $40 suggested donation. Click here for more information or to donate online.

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.

“Citizen journalism” is a term coined in the last several years to describe individuals who, whether using cell phone or consumer pro cameras, record events that they consider newsworthy, submitting their images to news outlets, blog sites, or other Internet or print venues, in the hopes of seeing their work published. Participant photography is a precursor to citizen photojournalism and differs from it in that images tend to be generated primarily, although not exclusively, by youth through special projects or ongoing programs to either depict social issues affecting the project participant’s life, such as poverty, health, or violence, or to paint a broader, more human portrait of a community. Both represent images that have been created by everyday people with cameras in their hands.

To read this paper in its entirety, please download the attached PDF below. I invite you, also, to weigh–in with your comments and to read the comments of students in my class Visual Communication and Social Change, which will post over the next several weeks.
Everyone Is A Photographer

Through the Lens: Selections from MoPA’s Education Programs

Through the Lens is an exhibition being shown at The Museum of Photographic Arts from October 3, 2009-January 24, 2010.  This show features artwork from San Diego students between the 3rd-12th grades.  For more information about this exhibit, go HERE.

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