travling photography

Photo Courtesy PetaPixel I've recently seen a blog post by PetaPixel  (which is one of the blogs I visit very frequently for news on photography), and read that a photojournalist in Bangladesh vented his ire and frustration at non-professional photographers (or non photojournalists...and presumably non Bengalis)) who descend on the country during its largest religious festivals to make "award-winning" photographs. His issue is that these photographers staged scenes to make compelling photographs to enter in photography contests, for a chance of recognition, cash awards and other prizes. He pleads with these photographers to not come to these festivals and ruin his, and other "real' photojournalists, chances at making their own (presumably) non-staged images. I believe it's quite rich for any photographer to take such a position, and while a small part of me sympathizes with it, should the Bangladeshi authorities have no mechanism to only authorize accredited ...

The New York Times recently featured two articles concerning the future of photojournalism, through interviews with Donald R. Winslow (editor of the National Press Photographers Association�s News Photographer magazine and newspaper) and Leslye Davis , a young video journalist and photographer for The New York Times. In essence, the viewpoint of a veteran and an another  from an 'emerging' photojournalist. Some of the statements made by both interviewees just jumped at me...total deja vu for me. Why deja vu? Well,  because I said exactly what they said during my classes at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshops and more recently during my 2016 talk at the Travel Photographer Society in Kuala Lumpur. The statements that mirror mine (or vice versa) are: " If you�re going to earn a living now, you have to be a photographer who occasionally does photojournalism. You have to be able to do wedding photography, corporate photography or event photography." (Donald...