Convergence Convergence Convergence

Another big announcement today! Yes the mother ship, National Geographic, has entered the assignment business with the announcement of a new business National Geographic Assignment. Under the helm of Alice Keating, a NG veteran, they will begin be representing 27 photographers covering all facets of assignment photography, even fashion.

Back in the fall, World Picture News, announced that they were changing their business model to focus exclusively on assignment work, so it looks to be more than a trend.

BBC PUBLICATION

After emailing and calling, calling and emailing, and being close a few times with publication, I finally got my immigrant story on the life of Sub-Saharan Africans in Spain published on the BBC web site. If you'd like to take a look here it is.

The Stories Behind the Stories

World Press Photo just announced a new section of their site with interviews with some of the winners from 2007 and 2008. 

Dispatches Magazine Debut

The long awaited debut of Dispatches Magazine finally happened today. VII founder, Gary Knight, is behind the magazine that hopes to break the mold of photojournalism oriented media.  Just read the mission statement as it's a criticism of the current news media an argument for more independent news.  I wish them all the success.

A Real Inspiration

Check out this YouTube clip on the work of Philip Blekinsop. It's truly inspiring!

Ron Haviv Interview on Charlie Rose

I came across this video the other day trolling around some other photography blogs. It's a great interview with Ron Haviv on Charlie Rose back in February 2001. Here he tells the stories behind some of his most iconic photos from conflicts he witnessed in Panama and the Balkans.

Bombay Flying Club

I just came across this link today as I was reading one of my favorite blogs, The Travel Photographer. I don't know much about the group, but I will say that I like the site put together by the Bombay Flying Club. It looks something like MediaStorm, which has quickly become THE site for multi-media content.  I especially enjoyed the piece on Romanian families living in the sewers of Bucharest.

As I have mentioned before, I really think that this is the future of photography. As radio, television and print media continue to converge, I think we will one day go to NPR, National Public Radio in the U.S., or the New York Times Channel to watch short photojournalism oriented documentaries on demand. It makes perfect sense.

More Good News

After spending ten days in the Sahara desert without my cellular phone, email or any other outside world contact, I arrived on Monday night to some good news. I won a scholarship to the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City in June. 

I found out I was a finalist before I left for Libya, but the best part was to find that VII photographer Ron Haviv chose the scholarship winners is a incredible honor.

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION

Yes, sad it is, but I won my first major photography competition, Travel Photographer of the Year, and everyone likes a little recognition.

Here's an article from the Times online and the photos at TPOTY.

The NY Times sees positive results from online slide shows

So the other day I exchanged emails with a friend of mine, Mark Lubell.  I've known Mark for a long time, way before I got interested in photography and before he became the executive director of Magnum. 

He was recently in Barcelona for business so we were able to get a chance to sit down over lunch and really talk shop. We spoke about the future of documentary or reportage photography, his vision for Magnum in Motion, the potential of online marketplaces like DRR, PhotoShelter, and even the potential of Flickr but more than anything else we talked about the potential of multi-media. I had just seen the highly publicized piece entitled "The Marlboro Man" by Luis Sinco which was published by Media Storm, so I knew we were on to something, but then we got some really good news! 

The New York Times announced on beet tv that they were seeing increased interest in their online content every since they started using a new multimedia template. You can see the interview here. So for a nice change the Times sees the value of photo essays and with their web presence they can deliver this content in a way that they can no longer afford to do so in print.  When I shared this news with Mark he was exstatic.  

He gave me permission to share his email here:

"When I first met with the Times....they moved out the entire Times.com into another building. It was a real war between the physical paper and the web. Now the web is back in the same building and everyone understands it is the future. 

The fact their slide shows makes up 7% of all traffic is amazing....because yes they rarely are good. They increased their web traffic by 30% after eliminating a fee....can you say hello Advertising money! I am sure the increase in 30% traffic made up three times what they were making in subscriptions. AOL did the same thing.

I agree the Times should be commended for their actions......now we must see if the market really cares about quality!"

Of course it's early to say anything based on such short term statistics but this is promising news for the documentary photographer.  

I'm putting an audio recorder on my Christmas list.