PDN - August 2012

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

PHOTO DISTRICT NEWS
www.pdnonline.com
Volume XXXII Issue 8 August 2012

THiS MONTH WE pROFiLE pHOTOGRApHERS WHO SHOW US places that are beautiful, newsworthy or so remote that few of us ever dream of seeing them: hidden byways of distant cities, disputed territories in conflict zones, polar bear hunting grounds, volcanic lava lakes. Are these intrepid and enterprising photographers living out the dreams of every aspiring amateur who picks up a camera? At portfolio reviews, i’ve noticed that the number of people who say, “What i really want to do is travel and take pictures” is rivaled only by the number who say, “What i really want to do is shoot fashion” (which i’ve discovered is often code for “i really want to spend more time with beautiful models”).

What the outstanding photographers profiled this month make clear, however, is that their work is difficult in numerous ways. Travel assignments come with long shot lists, tight schedules and high standards. The enormous popularity of travel photography means there’s more competition. Travel photographers have to hone their distinctive points of view, just as travel clients like Travel+Leisure (see this month’s “Create” section on page 74) now need to do more than just show more pretty photos of places thousands of tourists have photographed before.

Given the wild locations where Carsten peter (page 32) and Florian Schulz (page 26) work, you wouldn’t think they would have to be concerned about other photographers chasing after them, but they both strive to innovate. A dedicated conservationist, Schulz believes that it takes interesting, original storytelling to engage the public in environmental issues. To create his compelling narratives, he has spent as much as five months at a time living and shooting in the Arctic.

The writings of photojournalist Ed Kashi and his wife, writer and filmmaker Julie Winokur, which we’ve excerpted (page 44) from Kashi’s new book and app, offer us a glimpse of the strain that long-term photo projects and constant travel place on a photographer and the photographer’s family. in journal entries and letters he wrote to his wife while working on social documentary projects in the West Bank, Syria, india, China, iraq, Nigeria, Vietnam and elsewhere, Kashi recorded the typical insecurities that creative people face, expressing them as doubts that anything he was doing was worth so much time away from his wife and kids. it’s refreshing to hear his partner talk candidly about the frustration of being the one who stays behind, the difficulties of coping with a career, kids and an aging parent while on her own for weeks at a time, and finding strategies for protecting their kids from a sense of abandonment each time their father departs.

How photographers balance work and family inspires a lot of curiosity, but not much discussion. A recent exception was a provocative post Alec Soth had on his Little Brown Mushroom blog; he titled it “On Marrying a photographer.” Someone whose partner is a traveling photographer wanted advice: She didn’t know if they could manage marriage and raising children, as Soth and his wife, Rachel Cartee Soth, seem to have done. The post inspired an outpouring of comments from photographers whose partners stay home, photographers whose partners have busy careers of their own, photographers whose partners are also photographers, photographers whose spouses want nothing to do with photography. Their descriptions of the ups and downs, the solutions and adjustments and compromises, were as individual and unique as the relationships themselves. Among all the different models of photographer-spouse relationships, Kashi and Winokur’s is unusual in that, amidst the comings and goings and their domestic and family concerns, they’ve also managed to have a professional partnership that has been unusually fruitful, producing award-winning multimedia pieces. it would be interesting to know how they pulled that off, but that, perhaps, is a subject for a whole different book.

EDITOR HOLLY STUART HUGHES

Executive Editor David Walker

Senior Editor Conor Risch

Managing Editor Meghan Ahearn

Photo Editor Amber Terranova

Technology Specialist Dan Havlik

Creative Director Darren Ching

Art Director Frank Webster

Regular Contributors Edgar Allen Beem, Kristina Feliciano, Jay Mallin, Theano Nikitas

Editorial Intern Erica Siciliano

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