The Sydney Morning Herald has an amazing collection of interviews with their photojournalists, sharing how they approach photography and the stories they wish to convey through their images. Each photographer has a different focus and style, but all of their images and narrations are very inspiring. It’s powerful to see so much emotion conveyed and art created through photojournalism.
See them on the Sydney Morning Herald site.
TED has some of the most interesting talks you’ll find on the web, with topics ranging from how diet can prevent cancer to demonstrations of amazing new photo technology. They also have a great collection of talks by photographers, and we’ve compiled a list of 14 of them here. These short talks are eye-opening, jaw-dropping, and often quite moving.
You might want to bookmark this page to take them in slowly when you have some free minutes here and there. If you know of any other talks that we didn’t include in this list, please share it with us in the comments!
The photo director for National Geographic, David Griffin knows the power of photography to connect us to our world. In a talk filled with glorious images, he talks about how we all use photos to tell our stories.
Photographs do more than document history — they make it. At TED University, Jonathan Klein of Getty Images shows some of the most iconic, and talks about what happens when a generation sees an image so powerful it can’t look away — or back.
Taryn Simon exhibits her startling take on photography — to reveal worlds and people we would never see otherwise. She shares two projects: one documents otherworldly locations typically kept secret from the public, the other involves haunting portraits of men convicted for crimes they did not commit.
In this stunning slideshow, celebrated nature photographer Frans Lanting presents The LIFE Project, a poetic collection of photographs that tell the story of our planet, from its eruptive beginnings to its present diversity.
In stunning large-format photographs, Edward Burtynsky follows the path of oil through modern society, from wellhead to pipeline to car engine — and then beyond to the projected peak-oil endgame.
Nick Veasey shows outsized X-ray images that reveal the otherworldly inner workings of familiar objects — from the geometry of a wildflower to the anatomy of a Boeing 747. Producing these photos is dangerous and painstaking, but the reward is a superpower: looking at what the human eye can’t see.
In this image-filled talk, Yann Arthus-Bertrand displays his three most recent projects on humanity and our habitat — stunning aerial photographs in his series “The Earth From Above,” personal interviews from around the globe featured in his web project “6 billion Others,” and his soon-to-be-released movie, “Home,” which documents human impact on the environment through breathtaking video.
In this moving talk, documentary photographer Kristen Ashburn shares unforgettable images of the human impact of AIDS in Africa.
Ryan Lobo has traveled the world, taking photographs that tell stories of unusual human lives. In this haunting talk, he reframes controversial subjects with empathy, so that we see the pain of a Liberian war criminal, the quiet strength of UN women peacekeepers and the perseverance of Delhi’s underappreciated firefighters.
Artist Chris Jordan shows us an arresting view of what Western culture looks like. His supersized images picture some almost unimaginable statistics — like the astonishing number of paper cups we use every single day.
Photographer Rick Smolan tells the unforgettable story of a young Amerasian girl, a fateful photograph, and an adoption saga with a twist.
With stunning photos and stories, National Geographic Explorer Wade Davis celebrates the extraordinary diversity of the world’s indigenous cultures, which are disappearing from the planet at an alarming rate.
Photographer Phil Borges shows rarely seen images of people from the mountains of Dharamsala, India, and the jungles of the Ecuadorean Amazon. In documenting these endangered cultures, he intends to help preserve them.
The embed code for this talk is broken, but you can click the image to watch this talk on the TED website:
Accepting his 2007 TED Prize, war photographer James Nachtwey shows his life’s work and asks TED to help him continue telling the story with innovative, exciting uses of news photography in the digital era.
Do you recognize this photograph? It’s the wallpaper for Apple’s new iPad tablet computer, which found its way into hundreds of thousands of eager hands this past weekend. Photographer Richard Misrach created the image, titled Pyramid Lake (at Night), in 2004 at a Native American reservation in Nevada.
According to ARTINFO, Apple first requested 10 images from Misrach’s various series some time ago, but rejected them. Then, two weeks prior to the iPad announcement, Apple again approached him with a request to license Pyramid Lake. After laying out terms to an exclusive five-year deal without mentioning the iPad, Misrach was blown away (in a good way) when the photograph was featured in the announcement.
The web was abuzz for a few days due to the fact that the image Apple featured in the announcement was unlicensed, but Misrach likely signed a contract soon after, and states that the terms were good.
Few photographers will ever have the opportunity to have their work recognized on the scale of default wallpapers for one of the dominant operating systems. Bliss is another instantly recognizable photograph due to its presence on Windows XP:
It was photographed in 1996 by photographer Charles O’Rear. Here’s a look at the same location, taken in November 2006:
Can you think of other ways photographers’ work can gain the same degree of instant public awareness?
Image credits: Pyramid Lake (at Night) by Richard Misrach, Bliss by Microsoft, Bliss (location) by Simon Goldin
These glasses might look like typical geeky photo dad gear or something your eccentric uncle might wear, but if your eyes have uneven prescriptions, they can come in handy while shooting. That is, unless you’re classy enough to have a monocle (or contacts).
California-based photo accessory company, Hoodman, showed off this pair of glasses for photographers at PMA earlier this week. The glasses can be set with corrective lenses from an optometrist, and each lens can be individually flipped up. Corrections for the shooting eye can be adjusted with the camera’s diopter, remaining unhindered by an extra layer of glass, while the tracking eye can still benefit from corrective lenses.
Ben Cooper is a freelance photographer who works with the NASA imaging team. In addition to having his work published by NASA, he has been featured by publications such as Yahoo! News, Time magazine online, and the New York Times online. You can visit his website here.
PetaPixel: Can you tell me a little about yourself, your background, and what you do?
Ben Cooper: Well, I’m from NYC and have been taking pictures since I was a kid. My taught dad me, he was a photographer. I started getting interested in the space program and following shuttle and rocket missions sometime around 1998 and decided I had to go see one in person. So naturally, combining photography and space became my thing and I haven’t looked back. Finally, after three tries, saw my first shuttle launch in 2001 and then decided to attend school in Florida at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University studying engineering. Since August 2003 I have shot almost every launch out of Florida, and soon enough began garnering interest from some media organizations.
I love shooting what I do also because there is only one shot at it, no do overs with launches and other one-time space events that we have. A lot of pre-planning has to go into it, as opposed to less often spur of the moment type captures though we certainly have them.
Shooting launches in particular requires skill – and access, as media or otherwise – that not everyone can attain, and the main different is how you shoot launches up close when no one is allowed closer than several miles from the shuttle or rocket that’s launching. You have to keep in mind we are talking about sticks of dynamite as tall as 15-20 story buildings packing a tremendous amount of power, sound and heat with them when they lift off. So, we set up cameras 12-24 hours beforehand at the launch pads and leave them there, protected from weather and, hopefully, from the launch. And while you’re setting up you deal with alligators, snakes, spiders and swampland. Not to mention the mosquitoes.
Although we cannot get too close on the space shuttle, we can on rockets and I’ve lost a couple of lenses getting shots that are seemingly “right under” the rocket.
The remote cameras I use are mostly sound activated, though not everyone uses that method but it is the most common. They are homemade, not something you can buy in the store. Some are active all the time waiting, while others are on timers so they come on and listen at specific times around the launch window. Occasionally I may use a timer instead of a sound device, if there is a shot worth capturing where sound cannot come soon enough.
As people we get to watch from wherever the press site is or, sometimes, a public site further away depending on what shot we want.
PP: How did you get a job as a NASA photographer?
BC: Soon after graduating in 2008, even though my major was engineering, I really wanted to do something that at least combined photography, and with a lot of experience already shooting for media and myself (especially the remote cameras) I was hired to help shoot with the NASA imaging team.
PP: What was your first camera?
BC: A plastic Olympus point and shoot; I still have it but it’s at my family’s house so I don’t remember the model!
PP: What equipment do you use now?
BC: Today I have a couple of Nikon D200s personally, as well as sharing a few Canon digitals with friends of mine (we share equipment a lot and help each other out). I’ve gotten to use a wide range of cameras in both Nikon and Canon, anywhere from Nikon D70 (my first digital) and Canon 10D up to D3x.
PP: Do you use your own gear or NASA’s when shooting launches?
BC: On the job I use NASA’s gear, but shooting for myself or media outlets I use my own. I have used anything from Canon 10D and Nikon D70s, to Kodak Pros, to Nikon D3Xs.
PP: How close do you actually get to the launch site?
BC: For launch itself, you the person are several miles away at the closest (for the space shuttle, three miles is the closest anyone gets and this is limited to press, employees and VIPs. For the public, it’s 6.5 miles). Setting up cameras at the pad, the “remotes”, for the shuttle it’s about 1500 feet closest; and for unmanned rockets we can place them as close as say 100 feet away, much more in the danger zone.
PP: What’s the process of photographing for NASA like?
BC: All I do is take the raw images and hand them to the photo editors, whether for public display after a launch or event, or for documentation records on other things. I don’t think they do much post processing for public images at least because I never see corrections made. Which is probably a good thing to an extent. No, I don’t do anything from home.
PP: Do you travel to different launch sites, or do you mainly photograph at the site closest to you?
BC: The United States has two main launch sites, Cape Canaveral, FL and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Obviously, the shuttle is here in Florida, as are the majority of US launches (Cape Canaveral and Baikonur in Russia are the big, busiest ones).
I have not gotten to Vandenberg yet, however I did have the opportunity of shooting the launch of a smaller rocket out of Walops Island, Virginia, on the Delmarva Peninsula. They decided to revive this NASA facility as a small-rocket launch site in 2006 after a 21 year absence. I shot the first one they had in 2006, and there have been two more since.
PP: What advice do you have for someone who dreams of doing what you do?
BC: Start off by trying to see a launch! There are only six shuttle launches left as of now and an uncertain future in manned spaceflight until a decision is made later this year. Advice for coming to see one.
Garnering some experience shooting launches or aerospace events, say airshows and such, would probably be a plus. It’s hard to anyone to get close enough to shoot things other than launches, though.
PP: What are some mistakes you see photographers commonly making?
BC: Assuming what they are going to get and what it’s going to look like. Until you see one for the first time, you might not have an idea of what you are about to shoot. And with no second chance on any particular launch (or if you aren’t coming back) could lead to a disappointment. With astrophotography, except in cases where it’s a one-time event, you can always try again because objects stay where they are and you can practice. With a launch I would advise doing a little research or asking around to make sure you get the shot right. I did that my first time ten years ago, and still do it today sometimes despite all I know and can teach. The learning never stops.
Most common mistake, though? Not enjoying the launch. “Watch with your eyes and not in the viewfinder” is my usual advice to people who email for information. I do that myself any chance I get.
PP: Who are some of your favorite photographers?
BC: Boy I don’t know, I haven’t thought about that too much. I might have to think about it.
PP: Who is one person you would choose to be interviewed by PetaPixel?
BC: That’s a tough one, especially in another field.
I have a friend who I have known a while who has also focused on a specific photo type and become quite good, and that’s shooting trains.
I have other friends who do what I do who I have learned from over the years, and we exchange ideas regularly. Bill Hartenstein is one; James Brown is another.
PP: Anything else you’d like to say to PetaPixel readers?
BC: I try to encourage everyone to come see a launch, especially the space shuttle, before it’s too late. Everyone should see one once and soon it will be too late. It’s an experience you’ll never forget, especially at night. And I’m happy to help with any advice people may seek!
