Mark E. Johnson – Page 21 – Visual Journalism

October 15, 2015

Matt Black Wins 2015 W. Eugene Smith Grant

It’s not so much the announcing of the award (a $30,000 grant for humanistic photography) as it is how Matt Black talks about the importance of the work: Black says he has struggled with the question of how much his work can affect change. “In the end, I have to accept the role I have—to make these photographs—and have faith...

Competitions/Good Work/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

October 13, 2015

The Photo Not Taken

Nice look at how a photo Gordon Parks didn’t make helped him with access later on. Sometimes compassion pays off.

Ethics & Legal/Journalism/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

October 13, 2015

Big List of Internships

Benjamin Mullin at the Poynter Institute has pulled together a list of 70 internships – a quick search shows the word photo popping 24 times. Get your resume together.

Advice & Learning/Business & Industry/Photojournalism

October 9, 2015

Going Light

I hate talking about tea, but I’m fascinated with it, too. It’s this never ending internal battle between the journalist in me saying it doesn’t matter and the geek in me saying yeah, it does, because if it’s right, it disappears … my mind is a loud place, some mornings. The folks at VII Photo Agency asked seven of their...

Photojournalism/Tech Talk

October 5, 2015

Picture Africa … and Everywhere Else

Close your eyes for a moment and picture Africa. What did you see? Where did that image come from? Good thought piece by Jorrit R. Dijkstra on how we have seen the continent over the last century. Now, close your eyes for a moment and picture where you are. What did you see? Where did that image come from? And...

Craft/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

October 5, 2015

The Pursuit of Technique

Mike Johnston at The Online Photographer put up a post on photographic techniques and it’s worth pondering for a while. He started a list of things to know, it barely scratched the surface as he admits: Allow me to name just a very few of the many things you might think you need to know: exposure; focus accuracy and depth-of-field;...

Photojournalism/Tech Talk/Thoughts & Theory

September 27, 2015

Overpowering the Sun

Nice behind-the-scenes look at PetaPixel on how photographer Dustin Snipes made an image of Anthony Davis dunking the sun. Oddly enough, the same day that was published we were doing a similar exercise in my Advanced Photojournalism course, syncing 15 Canon strobes together to overpower the sun … (Exposure was ISO 50, 1/200, f/22 at 4:00 p.m.)

Photojournalism/Tech Talk

September 24, 2015

Photojournalism Ethics Study

Released yesterday by the University of Stirling, the World Press Photo Foundation and the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, a substantial report on ethics in photojournalism drawn from a world-wide sample. I’m still digging through this as there is a lot of data, but I’d start with section 3.4 – that’s the ethics debate and...

Business & Industry/Competitions/Ethics & Legal/Photojournalism

September 22, 2015

Copyright and the Monkey, Phase Two

Remember the monkey selfie? That’s come back into the news … PETA has filed a lawsuit saying the macaque monkey should own the copyright to a photo it made. I kid you not.

Ethics & Legal/Photojournalism

September 16, 2015

Stay Off the Tracks

It happened again, another person killed by a train while taking photos on railroad tracks. New class rule: Shoot photos on or near railroad tracks without written permission, you fail the assignment.

Advice & Learning/At Work/Ethics & Legal/Photojournalism

Author: Mark E. Johnson