Dec 31 2010

My Favorite Image of the Year (of Mine)

Category: Viewpoint — Ethan G. Salwen @ 4:07 pm

Here, a few hours before 2011 rolls around, I like the idea of sharing my favorite five or ten images from the year — images I’ve taken that is. And I also like the idea of identifying them with my memory, without searching through my high-ranked images in my catalogs, although that would be fun. I mean, shouldn’t we remember our favorite image, even if we captured hundreds or thousands that we might need to see again to really see for the first time?

Thing is, I got only 20 minutes before I walk out the door to meet up with the parents-in-law-to-be, before we head over to brother- and sister-in-laws to be, for a late night of ¡Feliz Año!, which gets a heck of a lot more play here in Argentina than any other holiday. This one is big!

But perhaps less (time) is more (honest). With no time, I’m going to share, as my favorite image of the year (0f mine), one that I’ve already shared before, when I reported on my teaming up with Human Rights Watch.

Here it is:

ACBlog_100810_HRW_2_Salwen_100728_0409

A few reasons this simple image gets Ethan’s #1 for 2010:

AC_Blog_100810_Human Rights Watch_11. It landed on the this cover for this Human Rights Watch report, which has turned out to be important in relation to current politics in Argentina (which is another story):

2. Actually, it didn’t just “land” on this cover. I made it for this cover, on assigmnment, which had very specific, but yet very open-ended requirements. In other words, this was a very real image-making challenge, and I succeeded at it, which makes the image more likable to me.

3. I captured this image very near the end of my four-hour shoot in Continue reading “My Favorite Image of the Year (of Mine)”

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Aug 31 2010

Learing on the Job, Or Not?

Category: Business & Marketing, Creative Process, Multimedia & Video — Ethan G. Salwen @ 1:53 pm

“I’m not sure I’d agree with you as far as learning multimedia on the job,” Gail Mooney commented to one of my recent posts. I’m glad she brought the point up. In writing about the new multimedia project I have taken on for Human Rights Watch, I wrote: “Photographers can learn multimedia skills on the job,” and explained that thinking this way is what allowed me to take a leap and offer HRW services requiring skills I am still learning.

Learning on the job can mean taking a calculated leap, with plenty of support - like this woman boarding a train in Lima, Peru.

Learning on the job can mean taking a calculated leap, with plenty of support - like this woman boarding a train in Lima, Peru.

I think that Mooney and I are probably really on the same page, and simply looking at the fine line between offering services we are not capable of delivering professionally and offering services out of our skill range but that we know we can deliver. When it comes to still photographers offering video and multimedia services, we can do this by outsourcing services or, more specific to my point, knowing through experience that we can learn the skills called for — before and during the job.

Not Pro Cake Baking

It would be an unprofessional disaster if I sold professional services to bake a wedding cake this weekend. I just couldn’t do it. But regarding my offering multimedia services to HRW, there are a few thing to consider that put this “learning on the job” in a different category:

  • I studied multimedia in college pretty seriously, making a polished project that was used by the United States Post Office for public education. (Yes, the technlogy was very, very different.)
  • I’ve been playing around with modern multimedia, learning some skills and — just as important — identifying the many skills I still have to learn.
  • I’ve been interviewing numerous photographers over past three years on the topic, processing their advice by writng articles.
  • Many of these photographers have become friends and have made it clear that they will support me when I need help with my own projects.
  • When I pitched the project to HRW, I made it very clear that this would be a relatively simple project, fundamentally using the skills I already have (if not yet at the most professional levels).
  • I was honest and direct with HRW that I would be learning on the job, and that we would need to consider this in terms of both project timeline and our working relationship.

Learning on the Job IS Professionalism

None of these points are to argue with Gail Mooney. She’s been working very, very hard for more than a decade on her film-making skills and she’s still learning. This must be respected. It is why I wrote a post about how hard it is to make movies, in which I encouraged photographers to Continue reading “Learing on the Job, Or Not?”

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Aug 11 2010

A Photojournalist (Published) in Argentina

Category: Business & Marketing — Ethan G. Salwen @ 1:04 pm

AC_Blog_100811_HRW_1Today an image of mine from yesterday’s Human Rights Watch press conference appeared in “Pagina 12,” Argentina’s biggest progressive newspaper. Images of mine from the press event also ran on a number of international news Web sites. Yes I’m pleased about this, but I’m also quite surprised.

When I arrived at the Human Rights Watch press conference (to unveil “Illusions of Care”), I had two goals. My primary goal was to meet contacts to help with my multimedia project for HRW. My second goal was to experiment with photographing still images while also capturing video and, gulp, recording audio as well.

I figured that the material likely would not make it into my multimedia project, and so I didn’t have to worry about the low quality of the video from my Canon G9, nor about the fact that I had no idea how to record audio with my brand new Zoom H4n, which looks like a spaceship and comes with an instruction manual that left me confused an anxious.

In other words, although I was messing around with a lot of equipment, I wasn’t nervous. No pressure. But then. . .

I noticed that there were no other photographers at the press conference and I thought, um, shouldn’t we be putting my work to use for HRW? At least, I thought, I should make sure I get one or two suitable images for press use, just in case.

I only really got my head on straight regarding press images after the conference, back at the hotel that HRW was using as their strategic center. There were giving lots of interviews and so I finally said, “Shouldn’t we be offering my images to the press?”

Indeed!, the team said. So I rushed back to my computer, set up a gallery of selects, and started responding to emails and calls that were coming in.

Marianne Mollmann speaks at Human Rights Watch press conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, August 10, 2010, to release report "Illusions of Care: Lack of Accountability for Reproductive Rights in Argentina"

Marianne Mollmann speaks at Human Rights Watch press conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, August 10, 2010, to release report "Illusions of Care: Lack of Accountability for Reproductive Rights in Argentina."

Thinking About the Client

I realize, of course, that daily news photographers think very clearly (and in advance) about how to get their images quickly into print. I’m not that kind of photographer, and so I don’t think that way. (That’s not an excuse; I’ll be more alert in the future.)

In terms of getting my images published I wasn’t thinking about how to make a few extra bucks on licencing a few tiny images. The important thing for me was to make myself part of the HRW team, help them with their press efforts and — no small matter — show them what I look like working in action.

Yes, I’ve already got the “go” for the multimedia project, but I am working with only one contact, who already has my confidence. Yesterday, two of her colleagues saw me go the extra mile for HRW, and I’m sure that, at some point in some way, this will serve me well.

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Aug 10 2010

Working for Human Rights Watch – Multimedia Style

Category: Business & Marketing, In-Camera Techniques, Viewpoint — Ethan G. Salwen @ 10:39 am

AC_Blog_100810_Human Rights Watch_1Human Rights Watch held a press conference in Buenos Aires today to drum up interest in their latest report: “Illusions of Care: Lack of Accountability for Reproductive Rights in Argentina.” I’m pleased to announce the cover image of the report was made by yours truly. It was great to put my photography to work for HRW. It’s even greater that it’s a relationship that has just begun. The next phase will involve my making for them a multimedia production, a topic about which I have been writing so much lately. (In fact, my writing led directly to this job, which is very cool and which I will explain below.)

For the “Illusions of Care” cover I was charged with making an image that spoke to the report’s theme — roadblocks to better reproductive health care for women and girls in Argentina. I could not show the identity of anyone I photographed, unless I obtained a model release, and so I focused on a graffiti-filled hallway in the maternity ward at Hospital Alvarez in Buenos Aires. (The graffiti “Aca nacio” features prominently in the image. “Born here” in Spanish.)

Actually, I was able to get model releases from a number of women I photographed. And some of these images show the women with distressed expressions that might have made a more powerful cover image. However, using one of these images for “Illusions of Care” would have been disingenuous, to say the least. The care at Alvarez maternity ward is excellent. The women’s expressions were the result of them being in various stages of labor.

Although many of the images I made at Alvarez were not right for the report cover, I’ll likely be able to use some in the multimedia project I am now working on for HRW.

Building Trust Was Key

A couple months back Marianne Møllman, the author of “Illusions of Care, contacted me to see if I might be able to make a cover image for the report. I told her I was Continue reading “Working for Human Rights Watch – Multimedia Style”

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