In Focus: March/April 2022
In this issue: Honoring David Leeson, Sheleah Craighead's Trump dilemma, Black photographers documenting history, and much more.
Hello. It’s Saturday, April 30.
Welcome to the combined March and April 2022 issue of “In Focus” — a newsletter bringing you photojournalism and photography-adjacent resources, news, and opportunities straight to your inbox. This edition of the “In Focus” newsletter is written and edited by Brian Munoz.1
As trade publications have shuttered in the last several years, the Fellow Photogs team looks to fill the gap with this newsletter while helping connect those within the industry, domestically and afar. We took a little break last month but are back and roaring to go.
This newsletter accompanies the Fellow Photogs group on Facebook. If you’d like to join our community, just click on the group link above. Do you like what you see here? If so, you can subscribe to the newsletter below and get it straight to your inbox.
News in a flash: Here are tidbits of photo news and other things that came across our feeds we found interesting. Is there something that we should be paying attention to or featuring? Please reach out at fellowphotogs@gmail.com.
David Leeson is an internationally acclaimed Pulitzer-Prize-winning photojournalist who passed away on April 16. Reading through memories posted in the David Leeson Memorial Page on Facebook, it quickly is apparent how amazing of a storyteller and empathetic individual David was. One memory noted he would “[run] toward danger rather than from it” and was especially fearless in capturing truth.
Pulitzer-Prize winner Barbara Davidson shares the following anecdote: “One night I talked to him while he was "standing down" in what was then known as the Ivory Coast in West Africa. He told me he'd lost all but one camera and all of his valuable lenses to a troop of baboons.
He said he was following several of them and shooting photos when he heard his rental car door slam and turned to see several other baboons running off with his cameras. Instinctively, he started clicking away at the thieves escaping.
When the newspaper filed with its insurance company for more than $10,000 worth of camera equipment "stolen by baboons.” The company denied the claim, until David produced the photographic evidence — the claim was paid in full.”
Donations can go to Abilene Christian University, David’s alma mater, which has set up a memorial scholarship in his honor or The Wounded Warrior Project.Wildfire Media provides a great resource in their “funding dictionary” for visual storytellers. The blog breaks down what public funding is and how to capitalize on such opportunities in your projects.
Sarabeth Maney, a photography fellow for the New York Times and Oakland-native photojournalist, garnered international attention for her photographs of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings. You can hear from Many and three other Black photographers who documented the proceedings in this great HuffPost piece.
Shealah Craighead served as President Donald J. Trump’s official White House photographer, but as Craighead has tried to create a photobook of her photographs as many of her predecessors, she’s run into a snag the New York Times reports — Trump himself.
The New Yorker asks the question: Have iPhone cameras become too smart? Their short piece explores the intricacies of computational photography and how the latest round of iPhones create high dynamic range images by merging pixels across images with multiple exposures each time you click the “shutter.”
Analog_NFT_Lordz has taken Instagram by storm, posting memes that feel a little too real in the photojournalism industry.
St. Louis Public Radio (KWMU) announced the winners of their 2022 Teen Photojournalist Prize. The contest received 202 student entries from 48 schools across the St. Louis and Rolla, Missouri regions. The submissions represent a range of perspectives from promising young photographers and journalists who visually documented the world through their lenses.
Queer The Lens is asking LGBTQIA+ creatives in photography and video to fill out its community needs survey. Responses will be collected through the end of the day in hopes of making the industry more inclusive.
Black Women Photographers hosted a wonderful Twitter Space about balancing motherhood and photography spaces. You can listen to the recording of the talk by clicking on the Tweet bellow.
Featured Jobs and Internships
Staff Photojournalist, The New York Times | New York City, NY
Staff Visual Journalist, The Greenville News | Greenville, SC
Chief Photographer, TCPalm Newspapers | Fort Pierce, FL
University Photographer, Illinois State University | Normal, IL
Sports/Night Photo Editor, The San Francisco Chronicle | San Francisco, CA
Features Photo Assignment Editor, The Washington Post | Washington D.C.
Senior Video Producer, The Washington Post | Washington D.C.
Visuals Social Media Strategist, The Indianapolis Star | Indianapolis, IN
Find more jobs and internship opportunities on the Photography/Multimedia Internships and Jobs group, Jamie’s List, or at Fellow Photogs. Have a job to feature? Please send it over to fellowphotogs@gmail.com.
Upcoming Opportunities and Resources: A special hat tip to the National Press Photographers Association’s David Calvert for compiling many of these. Become an NPPA member today and help support visual journalism across the country.
The Fellow Photogs group allows all of their members to submit their information for our public database directory. The directory is consistently updated and can be used by members to connect and share job opportunities. You can access the database here.
The La Loba Festival is hosting a virtual monthly photo editor round-table bringing “together 5-6 photo editors in the industry each month to have a conversation about their career paths, navigating the industry as editors, ethical obstacles faced in the job, the future of editing, their relationships with photographers, and the list goes on.”
Getty Images announced $85K in new editorial grants for photojournalists and organizations. The initiative includes a grant for editorial photography covering "Forced Displacement," a grant for educational photography programs and the Women Photograph and Diversify Photo Inclusion Grants.
DUE TODAY: The Curve Award is a grant from The Association of LGBTQ Journalists to support emerging journalists who identify as lesbians, queer women, trans women and/or nonbinary people and are based in the United States.
DUE TODAY: The Visura Project Grants for Freelance Visual Journalists is for visual journalists working on stories about climate change, environmental justice, gender equality, racial justice, and human rights.
DUE TODAY: The Inge Morath Award is a grant given annually by the membership of Magnum Photos to a woman or nonbinary photographer under the age of 30.
DUE MAY 1: The Doug Pensinger Photography Fund is accepting applications for its 2022 Sports Photography Grants from March 15 - May 1. The organization is going to be gifting $35,000 in grants and mentorship opportunities to up-and-coming sports photographers.
DUE MAY 9: The TRACE Mentorship Programme is launching a year-long no-cost mentorship programme for 24 female-identifying photographers in the United Kingdom over 35.
DUE MAY 15: Women Photograph’s 2022 project grants for women & nonbinary photographers are $5,000 grants will support photography projects — either new or in progress — from visual journalists working in a documentary capacity. Seven grants are available, at least one of which is earmarked for a nonbinary or transgender photographer.
DUE MAY 15: Diversify Photo is also accepting applications for its Inclusion Grant.
DUE MAY 20: The Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award facilitated by FotoDocument and supported generously by Nikon UK, is granted annually to a professional womxn photographer towards the completion of a compelling and cohesive documentary photo essay, which addresses an important social, environmental, economic or cultural issue, whether local or global.
DUE MAY 30: The Eddie Adams Workshop, held Oct. 7–10, which typically accepts students and professionals with up to five years of professional experience, will accept applications from folks with less than six this year.
DUE MAY 31: The W. Eugene Smith and Howard Chapnick Grant and the W. Eugene Smith Grant for Student Photographers, which assists student photographers whose work renews the tradition of W. Eugene Smith’s humanistic and compassionate photographs.
Good Reads: If you like this newsletter, check out what our members are diving into:
Seeing versus capturing as a photographer by Michael Rubin for Petapixel.
A celebration of the iconic funkiness of the Oakland A's Coliseum by San Francisco Chronicle’s Scott Strazzante.
Full Stop: Melyssa Little gives you insight into her mind through conversation about life, photography and creativity. “I’ll be highlighting the work of others, pointing out great photography and interesting things (books, podcasts, articles, art) I’ve come across,” she writes in her first post.
The FlakPhoto Network: Andy Adams takes you into the wider world of photography within his various social media groups that are part of the “FlakPhoto Network.” His communities have rich dialogue about everything from historic photo work, printing and other photo-related topics.
The Objective: a bi-weekly newsletter “covering the steps forward and backward newsrooms have taken to make journalism a more equitable field.”
Quote of the month: Houston Chronicle photojournalist Elizabeth Conley shares the following bit of advice in a recent advice thread for young photojournalists: “Never assume someone doesn’t want to be photographed. Ask. Not just permission or their name, but find out a little bit more about that person, give the conversation space and listen.”
That’s all for now, thank you for reading.
A note from the author: The Fellow Photogs are looking for individuals to help with this newsletter –– anything from contributing a special section or anecdote each month to helping compile information. Please email fellowphotogs@gmail.com or brianmunozjournalist@gmail.com if you are interested in participating.