Inspiration with a Humanitarian Side
In my preparations for my trip to Iraq in late January of 2010, I’ve been doing a lot of research on things like humanitarian photography, photojournalism, photo essays and other related topics. I’ve come across some pretty amazing sights. I thought I’d take this moment just to share with you three links that you might inspiring and motivational. I hope you enjoy these sites. The first selection of images is from a Spanish site called 20 Minutos.
The other site is of a friend of mine, Matt Powell. Matt works for the Christian aide and relief organization Samaritan’s Purse. Matt is a great guy and a wonderful photographer.
Then, I found Black Snapper, a site that gives, as they put it “a daily dose of inspiring photography from around the world”. Do yourself a favor and poke around this site. They highlight a different photographer every day and have different theme weeks. It is way cool and a gold mine of great images.
Good stuff! I just completed a course through ppsop.net in documentary photography and found a niche I really enjoy: telling stories through pictures. Some other sites I’ve found useful include http://www.mediastorm.org, http://vewd.org, and http://www.socialdocumentary.net. Enjoy your trip!
Tim, great links, thanks. I know mediastorm.org, Brian Storm is a real advocate for multimedia work. vewd.org looks like a close second. Very impressive.
Just a minor correction.
20minutos.es is not a ” stand-alone site” in itself, it is the online version of a free, daily newspaper. That particular gallery (which they fail to mention what edition represents) is for the annual photojournalism contest put forth by Médecins du Monde.
Luis Valtueña was a Spanish photojournalist that was gunned down in Rwanda among with two other volunteers (a fourth I believe, an American managed to survive loosing “only” a leg) on January 18, 1997. He was an avid mountain biker.
I realized that 20minutos is not a stand alone site for photojournalism. But the gallery contains some amazing images. The story you relate is quite interesting and make the images even more poignant. Thanks
Unfortunately, info is pretty sketchy, even in Spanish, with texts little more in length than this: http://www.mdmuk.org.uk/events/luisvaltuenainternationalhumanitarianphotographyaward.asp
And if you try to search for just about any of his images, well, they´re dwarfed by the contest´s results. This link contains one of the few images by him you´re likely to find http://actualidad.orange.es/fotos/periodistas-espanoles-en-guerra/luis-valtuena.html (and also, one of the few I´ve seen that got the date of death right).