Protesters rally in St Petersburg, some placing ‘No voice’

stickers over their mouths. 

Photograph: Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters

Read about the anti-Putin prostests here via The Guardian

Charlie Rose Interview With John Loengard: "A great photographer has the knack of putting a great picture in front of his camera"

John Loengard appeared on the Charlie Rose program to discuss his new book: "Age Of Silver - Encounters With Great Photographers". Watch the interview here, as Loengard recounts photographing Annie Liebovitz, Henri-Cartier Bresson, and Jacques Henri-Lartigue; and Charlie Rose airs part of an interview with Henri-Cartier Bresson.


View John Loengard's photography here.

Photo District News: John Loengard - Photos of the Day

John Loengard: The Development of Photography

La Lettre de la Photographie: John Loengard: Age of Silver

John Loengard: Encounters With Great Photographers

William Wegman. All images © John Loengard/Courtesy Monroe Gallery

PDN Photo of the Day displays photographs selected by the editors of Photo District News, a publication for photo professionals.

The photos on this blog come from a variety of sources. All images are published with permission of the photographer or copyright owner, are handouts provided for press use, or are images known to be in the public domain. PDN cannot give you permission to copy or publish these images. Whenever possible, we provide a link to the copyright owner or publisher of the original image.

PDN Photo of the Day, December 8, 2011:

A new exhibition of the work of LIFE magazine staff photographer and editor John Loengard’s black-and-white photographs is currently showing through the end of January at the Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Full post here.

"We firmly believe and we maintain that nothing can be more powerful than the truth”

 

Reporters Without Borders - Le Monde Prize for Press Freedom

Published on Thursday 8 December 2011

2011 Press Freedom Prize awarded to Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat and Burma’s Weekly Eleven News.

With the support of TV5MONDE, Reporters Without Borders and Le Monde are pleased to award the 2011 Press Freedom Prize to two symbols of courage, Syrian newspaper cartoonist Ali Ferzat and the Burmese newspaper Weekly Eleven News . The award ceremony was held today at the Le Monde auditorium in Paris.

“This year we are honouring a courageous journalist who has been the victim of brutal repression by an obsolete government,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said. “Ali Ferzat fully deserves this award. His cartoons target the abuses of a desperate regime with its back to the wall and encourage Syrians to demand their rights and to express themselves freely.

“We are also honouring a newspaper that has never bowed to Burma’s censors. Weekly Eleven News has always stood up to the military junta, using extraordinary ingenuity to slip through the censorship net and inform the Burmese public. Its editors and reporters have taken considerable risks and deserve our encouragement. At a time when Burmese political life and society seem to be showing signs of opening up, Weekly Eleven News has more than ever a key role to play.”

Ferzat was chosen as 2011 Journalist of the Year because of the quality of his cartoons and his commitment to defending media freedom. Original and rebellious, his non-conformist attitude and creativity earned him powerful enemies such as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who threatened to have him killed after an exhibition of his cartoons in Paris in 1989. He was banned from visiting Jordan, Iraq and Libya for years.

Al-Domari, the satirical newspaper Ferzat launched in 2000, was the first independent publication since the Baath Party takeover. The authorities forced it to close three years later. Since this spring, the street protests and ensuing crackdown have been at the centre of his work. For denouncing the corruption and abuses of Bashar Al-Assad’s rule, he was attacked in August by masked gunmen, who broke his hands as a warning.

“I would have liked to have been with you this evening to take part in this beautiful event,” Ferzat said in a letter read out by the French cartoonist Plantu. “I dedicate this award to the martyrs, to those who have been injured and to those who struggle for freedom. May thanks be given to all those who have turned the Arab Spring into a victory over darkness and repression.”

Presenting the 2011 Media of the Year prize to Weekly Eleven News, the writer and journalist Jean Rolin, winner of the Albert Londres Prize in 1988, paid tribute to Reporters Without Borders’ local correspondents and to all journalists working on the ground in difficult parts of the world.

Burma is one of the world’s most repressive countries for the media, and the staff at Weekly Eleven News often risk prison by daring to run stories on subjects that the authorities regard as sensitive. In August, it paid a high price for defying government orders not to cover the flooding in the northern city of Mandalay. Several of its journalists were arrested and it was forbidden to publish for several weeks.

“At Weekly Eleven News, we firmly believe and we maintain that nothing can be more powerful than the truth,” the newspaper’s spokesman said. “We are honoured to receive this award, but we are also very sad when we think of all the Burmese journalists who are still in prison. We must never forget the sacrifices that some have made so that change come to Burma.”

The American photojournalist Stanley Greene, founder of Noor Agency was the guest of honour this year. He paid tribute to his fellow photographers who died this year, especially Tim Hetherington, Chris Hondros and Lucas Dolega.

The Reporters Without Borders Prize has been awarded every year since 1992 to a journalist and a news media in different parts of the world that have made a significant contribution to the defence and promotion of press freedom. The prize winners are selected by an international jury of journalists and human rights activists.

Le Monde decided to become a partner in the prize this year. The newspaper’s publisher, Erik Izraelewicz, explains : “From Sidi Bouzid to Sanaa, from Rangoon to Benghazi, from Damascus to Cairo, there has been no shortage of major developments in 2011. The international media have covered them without forgetting that local journalists, often at risk to their lives, have for years been combating the constant violations of media freedom in these places. For 20 years, the Reporters Without Borders Prize for Press Freedom has been reminding the public that their struggle is also our struggle. Le Monde is pleased to join Reporters Without Borders in this undertaking.”

Press Freedom Prize received the support of TV5MONDE. Marie-Christine Saragosse, director general, added: “This is a logical involvement for a French-language TV station whose universal values are transmitted every day in the 200 countries where we are present. TV5MONDE has decided to participate in this prize and thereby join with those who constantly strive to bear witness, often at the cost of their freedom or their lives, to a world in rebellion and to the realities of war.”

The Post, NYT and WSJ show same scene of Kabul carnage via different photos

Intersting discussion amongst photoeditors, via The Washington Post

"The images that came out of the suicide bombing of a Shiite mosque in Kabul on Tuesday were graphic, showing dozens of people killed. One scene in particular stood out from the rest. At the center a woman in green was standing, surrounded by the injured and dead, including several children and a baby.

We spoke to Post visuals editor David Griffin, director of photography Michel Ducille, and deputy director of photography Sonya Doctorian about the Post’s photo choices, as well as NYT photo editor Michele McNally and deputy photo editor Meaghan Looram, and Wall Street Journal director of photography Jack Van Antwerp about their choices"

Full post here.


See also: "Amid a Horrific Scene, Tears": Massoud Hossaini recounts making Tuesday's photos of bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan

The most unforgettable images of the year / Best photographs of 2011

UPDATED Dec. 30, 2011

"2011 was a year of global tumult, marked by widespread social and political uprisings, economic crises, and a great deal more. We saw the fall of multiple dictators, welcomed a new country (South Sudan), witnessed our planet's population grow to 7 billion, and watched in horror as Japan was struck by a devastating earthquake, a tsunami, and a nuclear disaster. From the Arab Spring to Los Indignados to Occupy Wall Street, citizens around the world took to the streets in massive numbers, protesting against governments and financial institutions, risking arrest, injury, and in some cases their lives."  Via The Atlantic





National Post: 25 best Occupy photos of 2011

The White House: 2011 Year in Photos by Pete Souza

NOOR: 2011 Year in Review

Telegraph: Pictures of the year 2011: weird news photos

Washington Post: Iconic and Memorable Images From 2011


The Guardian: Cameraphones capture the images of the year – in pictures

LA Times Framework: The Year in Pictures

Via Bag News Notes: The Best 2011 Photos We Never Saw – Reuters Edition

The Frame: Looking Back at Images From 2011

Review of the year 2011: pictures of Libya and Egypt by Telegraph photographers

Photos: 2011 The Denver Post Year’s Best Photos


BBC News Pictures of the Year 2011



The Guardian: Pictures of 2011



The Guardian: Favourite Photographs of the Year 2011

Wall Street Journal: Photos of the Year 2011


AP Video Sights and Sounds: Looking Back at 2011

Yahoo: Top Viral Photos of 2011

The Guardian: iPhone photos of 2011 - in pictures


US News and World Report: Best News Photos of 2011


Globe and Mail: Pictures of the year: The best photos from 2011

Globe and Mail Photojournalists pick their favorite images of 2011

Bloomberg: 2011: A Year of Firsts Remembered


The Telgraph: Pictures of the year 2011: UK news stories


Best of Washington Post Photojournalists 2011


New York Daily News Top 100 Photos from 2011: A Year In Review


The New York Times Lens : New York The Year in Pictures


New York Times Sunday Review: 2011 Year in Pictures Arab Spring


New York Times Sunday Review: 2011 The Year in Pictures

TIME’s Best Photojournalism of 2011


TIME Looks Back at The Best Photos… of Photos from 2011



Getty Images: Year In Focus: The Images That Defined 2011

2011 Getty Best News Photos Of The Year from Around The World


NPR Picture Show: 2011 Replayed in Iconic Photographs

The Big Picture: 50 Best Photos from The Natural World


The Big Picture: The Year in Pictures: Part I

                           Part 2

                           Part 3


Unicef photo of the year 2011


Reportage Year in Review 2011


Via BBC: The story behind the news pictures of 2011

Part 1: A year in the life of a press photographer: Leon Neal

Part 2: Matt Dunham looks back at his year covering the biggest news
stories for the Associated Press


Wall Street Journal: Photos of the year 2011 (10 catagories)


Wall Street Journal: New York Photos of the Year 2011

MSNBC The Year in Pictures 2011

Chicago Tribune Photojournalist Scott Strazzante - 2011 best news photos

TIME Picks the Most Surprising Photos of 2011

Pete Muller: TIME Picks the Best Photographer on the Wires

The Guardian UK: The best photography of 2011: Sean O'Hagan's choice

The Atlantic 2011: The Year in Photos (Part One)
Part Two
Part Three

TIME's Top 10 Photos of 2011

TIME Picks the Best Viral Photos of 2011


Buzzfeed: The 45 Most Powerful Images Of 2011

Best News Pictures of 2011: Your Picks From Nat Geo News

Reuters: Best Photos of the Year 2011

UPI: 2011 News Photos of the Year

International Business News Year 2011: Best Photographs From Around the World

LIFE: 2011 Pictures of the Year   


David Schonauer's Annual World Tour  Part 1
                                                               Part 2

Vanity Fair’s Year in Photos, 2011

Obama, Euro Crisis, Buffett, Tsunami, NYC Demo: Bloomberg Best Business and Finance  Photos 2011

Conscientious: My favourite photobooks this year


Bookmark this page to see additions as they are published from around the world.

"To flip through the pages of this handsome book inevitably elicits a wave of nostalgia, a desire to roll back the years to a time when print was king and a dime could buy this singular curated version of the world"

Sunday Book Review


"Now comes “75 Years: The Very Best of Life,” a coffee-table behemoth weighing nearly seven pounds, featuring unforgettable photo­graphs (Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous kiss, “V-J Day, Times Square, New York City, 1945”) as well as never-before-published photos from the archives."

Read full article here.

75 YEARS

The Very Best of Life

Illustrated. 224 pp. Life Books. $36.95

"Nothing makes a better case for the First Amendment than good video of a police officer behaving badly"

Via American Journalism Review

Arrested for Doing Their Jobs   

The rising tension between news photographers and law enforcement officials. Mon., December 5, 2011

By Deborah Potter
Deborah Potter (potter@newslab.org) is executive director of NewsLab, a broadcast training and research center, and a former network correspondent.

Covering fires is a routine part of a television news photographer's job. Clint Fillinger has been doing it for more than 40 years in Milwaukee, so he knows the drill: Stay behind the yellow police tape and roll on everything. But this fall, while doing exactly that, Fillinger went from shooting the news to making it when he was knocked down, handcuffed and arrested at the scene of a house fire. When did videotaping become a crime?
 
Several recent incidents suggest a disturbing new trend: public safety officials targeting photographers, including professionals. "Cops don't want to be identified," says Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "They don't want their pictures taken."

The relationship between journalists and police officers has always been tense, of course. "They're both aggressive professions, and sometimes they get in one another's face," says John Timoney, former police chief in Miami and Philadelphia.
 
But something clearly has changed. "It used to be guys with a reputation for not following orders" who wound up in confrontations with police, Dalglish says. "These days, it's folks keeping their mouths shut and doing their jobs."
 
In the Milwaukee case, Fillinger was charged with obstructing a police officer after he objected to being forced back "for safety" while members of the public were allowed to stay put, watching the house fire from across the street. His boss concedes that he used an expletive and raised his arm when the officer closed in on him, but says the arrest was not justified.
 
"While the language was coarse, I truly believe Clint had no intention of touching the officer, and the whole thing certainly did not rise to the level of being dropped to the ground and handcuffed," says Jim Lemon, news director at Milwaukee's Fox affiliate, WITI. "It was a bad spur-of-the-moment decision made by the police commanders on the scene."
 
Two recent cases in Suffolk County, New York, reflect similar bad decisions. In late July, a photographer for a local TV news service was arrested while videotaping the end of a police chase. An officer ordered Phil Datz to leave the scene, even though he was standing on a public street with other people. When Datz asked where he was supposed to go, the officer responded, "I don't care where you go, just go away." After Datz set up in the next block and started shooting video again, the officer jumped in his squad car, raced up to Datz and arrested him for obstruction. The charges were dropped.
 
A few weeks after that incident, an emergency services official in the same jurisdiction manhandled a photojournalist for New York's NBC-owned station, WNBC, as he tried to videotape the cleanup of a chemical spill. The official grabbed the photographer's camera and tried to wrestle it away.
 
What's different now, some say, is the proliferation of cellphone cameras on the street combined with heightened concern about terrorism. "I think that post 9/11 police treat everyone with a camera as suspect," says Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association. "In certain instances, news photographers are singled out because of their high visibility."
 
Photojournalists aren't the only ones who have been targeted. Cases are pending in several states against citizens who have been arrested and had their cameras confiscated after videotaping police action. And the arrests keep coming, even though the police keep losing in court. The latest ruling, from an appeals court in Massachusetts, said the First Amendment "unambiguously" protects the right of citizens to videotape police officers performing their duties in a public space. Journalists clearly deserve the same protection.
"The press may have no greater rights than those of the general public," Osterreicher says. "They certainly have no less right of access on a public street."
 
Police officers should know better than to run anyone in just for taking pictures. "We tell them constantly at the academy, 'Take it for granted, you're going to be on camera,'" Timoney says. "Everybody has a camera and they're entitled to use it. We police have to suck it up."
 
Journalism groups say officers need training to make sure they understand the rights of professionals and citizens alike to take pictures of police activity in public places. But Timoney doubts that more training is the answer. "If police don't understand this now, all the training in the world isn't going to help."
 
Piling up victories in court probably won't help either. When charges against photojournalists are dismissed, as they inevitably are, the police officers involved pay no penalty and face no sanctions. Suing for false arrest might make a difference, Dalglish says, by hitting the police department where it hurts – in the budget. But it's unlikely any cash-strapped news organization would be willing to shoulder the cost of a lawsuit just to make a point.
 
So what's to be done? Keep shooting, I say. Nothing makes a better case for the First Amendment than good video of a police officer behaving badly.

LONE PROTEST

 

Mohammed Mirza, via Yfrog

As the security forces in Bahrain fired tear gas at protesters on Saturday, Zainab Alkhawaja, an activist and blogger, blocked a line of police vehicles.

Full article via The New York Times

LIFE photographers: "He or she needs to bring empathy, insight, patience and frequently courage"

America in Pictures: The Story of Life Magazine, BBC Four
How the camera captured America's golden age
Via The Arts Desk

by Adam Sweeting  Friday, 02 December 2011


Before the internet and the Kindle were invented, generations of Americans saw their lives refracted through the pages of Life magazine. In particular, through its photography, since writers at Life were largely relegated to supplying glorified picture captions. They were also allowed to carry the photographers' equipment.

Obviously the idea of being an object of reverence appeals to photographers. Portrait and fashion snapper Rankin has long admired the work of the great Life lenspersons, and in this film he reviewed their accomplishments and tracked down some of the magazine's fabled survivors. Not that Rankin is the world's greatest TV presenter, frankly. His voice is the sort of nondescript Home Counties drone that American satirists love to parody. As an inquisitor, he looked a bit blank when he found himself face to face with the likes of Burk Uzzle, now retired to small-town North Carolina after a vivid career in which one of many highlights was being assigned to document Hugh Hefner and his voluptuous Playmates at Hef's mansion.

Luckily, though, most of his subjects were rather awesome characters who had no difficulty in filling the screen unaided (Life photographer Bill Eppridge, pictured right). Indeed, this seemed to be rather the point - a photographer isn't, or shouldn't be, just some geek who knows how to work a camera and programme an array of electronic flashguns. He or she needs to bring empathy, insight, patience and frequently courage to an assignment if they're going to bring back anything that will resonate with readers.

Amid a mostly male roll call, Margaret Bourke-White inevitably stood out, not only because she was a fabulous photographer, but also for the way she candidly used her sexuality to gain maximum professional advantage. A highly successful tactic was bedding American generals in order to get priceless wartime scoops. A rival lensman was chastised by Life HQ because she was beating him to the best stories. He cabled back: "Bourke-White has a piece of equipment that I don't have."

But there were many other stars in the dazzling Life firmament. Alfred Eisenstaedt (pictured left with Marilyn Monroe) was the magazine's grand eminence, and a pioneer of the "candid" style in which he used a Rolleiflex camera held unobtrusively at waist level. W Eugene Smith did pioneering work in the photo-essay genre, gaining extraordinarily intimate access to his subjects in stories like "Career Girl" or "Country Doctor". Rankin noted that "Smith was a tortured genius, Life's Van Gogh." John Loengard shot Marilyn Monroe, The Beatles and the Vietnam War.

Life became so singular and influential during the mid-20th century, when 100 million readers would see it every week, that the question inevitably arose of to what extent the magazine was making the news rather than merely recording it. John Shearer's assignments covering the Civil Rights protests in the 1960s became a part of the fabric of social change, as did his astonishing work during the 1971 Attica prison riot. Shearer spent four days inside the jail as a ferocious miniature war raged, leaving 41 men dead.

Life took a dim view of the Vietnam conflict and ignored demands to tone down its frequently shattering battlefield photographs. British photographer Larry Burrows (seen in clips from a 1969 Omnibus film) talked about his concerns that he was exploiting wartime deaths and suffering, but felt his pictures were justified if they "contribute to the understanding of what others were going through". He was killed in Laos in 1971 (Larry Burrows, pictured right).

Rankin reckoned that it was the arrival of celebrity culture in the 1970s which pulled the carpet out from underneath Life, which published its last issue in December 1972. Celebs were going to rule, and the intimate, deeply researched work that Life had specialised in would become outmoded. Glaswegian snapper Harry Benson, a transplanted Daily Express veteran, was in at the death of Life, and famously became the man who gained access to mad chess genius Bobby Fischer as he played his epic tournament against Boris Spassky in Iceland. The recent documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World gave the impression that Benson had become friendly with Fischer, but the photographer didn't see it that way.

"Everyone knew he was a piece of shit, he was terrible!" he declared. "But it was worth fighting for, to get as close as you can and then get out." He never, ever wanted to become friends with any of his subjects, he added. Photography was apparently no mere popularity contest.