Writing Here:

duckrabbit
David White
Ciara
John Macpherson
Peter
Sara Trula
Carl Pendle
Joni Karanka
Mike Lusmore
Julian Lass

What they say about duckrabbit:

'One of the hazards of publishing a well-known photojournalism blog - getting multimedia like yours, where the photos are both powerful and moving, and I end up in tears at my desk.'

Alan Taylor, Boston Big Picture)

'David White's multimedia work with duckrabbit is very exciting.'

Kate Edwards (Guardian Magazine Picture Editor)

'I am a fan of duckrabbit. I am not a fan because I agree with everything Ben has to say, but because he says it without frills and then will spend the time necessary to engage the consequent discussions. Such commitment is a priceless commodity.'

Prison Photography

'I met one of them at an academic conference in the summer. He was the sanest person there, but sure enough by damn gadnabbit ruffled more than a few fluffed up peacock feathers.'

The Photography Pages

'If you haven't seen the duckrabbit blog on multimedia you should.'

Stephen Alvarez

'duckrabbit has done another jaw-dropping job with Condition Critical, a highly commendable and important project for Medecins Sans Frontiers.'

The Travel Photographer

Ed Ou and his vantage point

Ed Ou is a sickeningly young, talented and humble Canadian photojournalist who has spent much of the past five years covering stories in Somalia and, this year, the Arab Spring. He speaks with a lot of maturity about his journalism in this Canon interview – well worth a quick listen.

[...]

Photographing War and Photographing Africa

With all the debate both about how war is photographed and about Africa is photographed, this African football tournament for amputees injured in war seems like an interesting story to tell as an alternative narrative.

Football is immensely popular in the continent, and sport is often used as a strong tool by which to [...]

What groundbreaking images of ‘Africa’ can we expect this year from Visa Festival of Shanty Towns?

If the video running off the front page of the Visa website is anything to go by they are:

MADNESS and DESPAIR? VIOLENCE and FEAR? EXODUS or maybe just WALKING FOR THE BUS? and BLACK AND WHITE STICK BENDING

I can’t wait and I’m really pleased to see that festival Director J F [...]

Male rape – Guardian photofilm

When I watch a photofilm in which the audio features the photographer talking about their images, I often switch off quite quickly. But when I heard Will Storr talk about his project on male survivors of rape in Congo and Uganda, I didn’t – in fact I was stopped in my tracks. I [...]

Congo through rose-tinted glass

 

“Bereft of a clear narrative, journalists and photographers often confine themselves to stories of suffering, anchored in bleak statistics: 400,000 rapes in one year; 5.4 million deaths between 1998 and 2007. Richard Mosse’s pictures of Congo draw from a different palette of colours, literally….It feels as if we have fallen down [...]

‘Showing Congolese as only traumatized victims (or killers) may be highly offensive … but mostly it’s untrue.’

Yesterday I put up a post that in part explored how highly staged and stylized photography has come to define how we perceive women survivors of rape in The Congo. I’ve been pretty amazed that no-one wants to defend what has become the pre-eminent way of working on projects as a documentary photographer/photojournalist?  Shouldn’t we just admit what [...]

Getty Grants For A Good Laugh

close today.

Last year they awarded the major grant to Stefano De Luigi for a project title T.I.A, ‘This Is Africa’. If you get to the end of this (extended) post you’ll be able to read what a group of Kenyan photographers think of the judges choice but for those who don’t stay the [...]

Tonight I’m going to let you into one of photojournalism’s dirty little secrets

The Democratic Republic of Congo is the most colourful place I’ve ever visited. The women even smile.

Madam Agata teaches a group of women in their last month of pregnancy to knit (c) Yasuyoshi Chiba/duckrabbit/MSF

Infact it’s the Muzungus (white people) who were the most drab, including this dodgy looking geezer:

 

Pretty pictures but journalism my arse

Ciara Leeming summed it up beautifully on the BBC recently when she said the problem with many ‘photojournalists’ is that they have little understanding of journalism.

Dominic Nahr’s set of pics in TIME is a great example. Why?  Where is the coherency and where is the story?

To be fair to Dominic he’s run [...]

JR from Agence VU – “Women are Heroes” – Photojournalism for the socially networked generation.

This is very worthy of winning a TED award this year.

A lesson in how to give women a voice, deal with tragic circumstances, get away from those socially exclusive private openings, do more than just frame suffering on white walls, use the landscape and bring new people into the beautiful medium of socially [...]

Emotional maturity and an inclusive message.

I love this. It starts with redemption. Goes to shock and then back to redemption. The emotional maturity and the awareness of the need to engage, not to either preach nor alienate audiences really comes through.

I know it is a video but photofilms/photography can and does have this transformative potential by thinking outside [...]

duckrabbit faces the cane

There is good news and there is bad news.

The good news is that duck is having an amazing adventure in Kenya.

I’ve been attending a four day Masai ceremony in which warriors make the transition to elders. Myself and Yasuyoshi have been the only foreigners invited. It is a great honor.

Actually its [...]

Life without lights – Peter DiCampo

“Year-round in Ghana, the sun sets at 6pm and rises at 6am – thus, the residents of communities lacking electricity live half of their lives in the dark. Over ten years ago, the government of Ghana began a massive campaign to provide the country’s rural north with electricity, but the project ceased almost immediately [...]

For your viewing pleasure: The Big Caption

As you’ve probably read over the last week, we’re big fans of photo-blogs like the New York Times’ Lens blog, which showcase some of the best photography from around the world each and every day.

Alongside Lens, there’s also the Big Picture, run by the Boston Globe. Again, it shows big images every day [...]

Mishoka's story

(3rd Place, Feature Audio Slideshow, Best of Photojournalism 2010)

Congratulations to all the other winners.

This video was produced in collaboration with MSF as part of their amazing Condition Critical project. Please do visit the website and leave a comment. [...]

Bombay Flying Club's Streetlights: a last for Flash?

Multimedia producers the Bombay Flying Club have just published their latest piece, shot in Ethiopia.

At 11 minutes, Streetlight is a little on the long side for most armchair viewers, and the Flying Club’s trademark use of rich black and white photographs, while stunning, perhaps steals something from the overall piece. Their use of [...]

Photo: the last night of the noughties on the hill of Masailand (Kenya)

Photo: the last night of the noughties on the hill of Masailand in Kenya- Yasuyoshi Chiba on duckrabbit [...]

Do unto others ...

Very roughly some 2000 years ago we nailed some bloke called Jesus to a tree.

Nothing new about that. Nailing people to trees was a rather effective form of crowd control.

Since then though a lot of people have been following this Jesus bloke. One of his oft quoted mantras was treat other people [...]

The Vision and the Voice

A few days back I exchanged emails with the photographer Stephen Alvarez, who for the last fifteen years has shot for National Geographic. He suggested we take the conversation onto our blogs.

If you’re not aware of his work than I would say it is characterized by being both hard won and sublime:

(click on photo, the video player will load, then click again to play)

It’s one of those moments you don’t forget.

This term I’ve been a guest lecturer at Birmingham City University.  I sat twenty students down in front of one of the four videos we’ve been producing for MSF (more [...]