Showing posts with label news photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news photography. Show all posts

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Stanley Forman talks about bearing witness to the news, being the first on the scene, and the importance of photography

Credit Stanley Forman
The flag turns into a weapon in fight outside City Hall during the busing riots in 1976. Forman won a Pulitzer Prize for for this photograph

Via WGBH

Photojournalist Stanley Forman has been at the scene of most of Boston’s news events for the past 40 years, capturing iconic images that define the people and places in those stories. His work has earned him three Pulitzer Prizes, and he’s now working on a book entitled “Before Yellow Tape: A Pulitzer Prize Winner’s Fire Images.”

Forman sat down with Emily Rooney to talk about bearing witness to the news, being the first on the scene, and the importance of photography.



On becoming a photojournalist…

As a kid, I [followed] the sirens, the blue lights, the red lights. And finally, when I was around eighteen, my father said, “You go to all these things — why don’t you take a camera?” I thought I was going to be a firefighter. But he gave me a camera, and I got interested in photography, and I was very lucky.

On covering fires today…

You don’t have the access. I get to a fire, forget yellow tape — no matter what it is — you just don’t have the access that we had in the ‘60s, the ‘70s, the ‘80s. Everything has changed. I blame [changes in access] on O.J. Simpson, because everything changed after the mistakes they made at the scene.

On technology turning everyone into a photographer…

I’m self publishing — I know nothing about publishing … Anything you want to do in this digital age, you can become it. Do I like everyone taking pictures? I’m beat before I get there. No, I don’t like it … I’d like to think my framing is better than the guy with the iPhone, or the woman with the iPhone, but they have the image. Everything gets used.

On moving from the Boston Herald to Channel 5 in the ‘80s…

You cover news … with a still camera or a video camera. You use a Phillips screwdriver or a standard screwdriver. I’m still covering news, and that’s the most important thing to me.

Credit Stanley Forman
Fireman rescue Tammi Brownlee from a burning building in South Boston, 1977
 
 
 
 
Credit Stanley Forman
Evacuating horses from a burning stable at Suffolk Downs
 
 
 
 

Monday, April 18, 2011

LA Times, Washington Post Photographers Win Pulitzers for Photos



Via PDNPULSE
April 18, 2011


Barbara Davidson of the Los Angeles Times has been awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Feature Photography for her story on innocent victims of gang violence. Carol Guzy, Nikki Kahn and Ricky Carioti of the Washington Post were awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Photography for their images of the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. The Pulitzers were announced today at Columbia University in New York.

Both prizes come with a $10,000 award; the Washington Post photographers will share their $10,000 prize.

Finalists were also announced today. In the Feature Photography category, Todd Heisler of The New York Times was cited for his photo essay on a Colombia family carrying a genetic mutation that causes early Alzheimer’s; Greg Kahn of The Naples Daily was cited for his study of how the recession in Florida has meant loss of jobs and homes for some, and profits for others.

In the Breaking News category, Getty Images photographers Daniel Berehulak and Paula Bronstein were cited for their images of people surviving the floods in Pakistan. Carolyn Cole of the Los Angeles Times was named a finalist for her images of the oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico and her documentation of its widespread devastation.

The jury for the Pulitzer’s photography prizes was chaired by Nancy Andrews, managing editor/digital media, Detroit Free Press. The other jurors were Francisco Bernasconi, senior director of photography, Getty Images; Colin Crawford, deputy managing editor, photography, Los Angeles Times; Richard Murphy, photo director, Anchorage Daily News; and Steve Gonzales, director of photography, Houston Chronicle.

The full list of 2011 Pulitzers can be found at http://www.pulitzer.org/. Davidson’s gang story can be found on the Los Angeles Times web site. Images from “Haiti Profound Sorrow” can be viewed on the Washington Post web site.