PHOTO
Jodi Cobb
May 2015
Steve McCurry
MOST ICONIC PHOTOGRAPHERS $ 3.75 usd
Índice 2 Steve McCurry
Artículo sobre el fotógrafo y biografía.
8 Jodi cobb Entrevista con la fotógrafa
1
2
I
t is without a doubt the photo that most people will recognize. The eyes are riveting and this is what draws you to this young girl. Few people know the name of the photographer. His name is Steve McCurry and he immortalized Sharbat Gula, the Afghani refugee girl with the striking eyes, on the cover of National Geographic in 1985. This may be the image that people remember most, but McCurry has a wealth of photographs to his credit. The Early Years, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1950 McCurry went on to study film history, cinematography and filmmaking at Penn State. While at Penn State he worked on the college paper taking photographs and soon found that this was his true calling. His Career Begins, McCurry was determined to become a photojournalist and he was willing to do whatever he could to achieve his goal. Upon graduation he worked for two years at a newspaper and then decided to leave for India to freelance. It was here where he learned his innate skill, waiting for the perfect shot. As he stated, “If you wait,” he realized, “people will forget your camera and the soul will drift up into view.”
3
Getting the Shot, few photographers would go to the lengths that McCurry went to in order to obtain those coveted images. His first foray into photojournalism was his coverage of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. McCurry disguised himself in native garb and he crossed the Pakistan border into rebel controlled Afghanistan just before the Russian invasion. He hid his film by sewing it into his clothes and was able to smuggle these shots out providing some of the first shots ever seen of the conflict.
His coverage earned him the coveted Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad If there was an international incident of any kind, McCurry was certain to be there camera in hand. He has covered the conflicts in Beirut, Cambodia, the Iran-Iraq war, the Philippines, the Gulf War, and Afghanistan. His images have appeared in magazines around the world including National Geographic. McCurry has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1986. What makes McCurry such a great photographer isn’t just his willingness to put it all on the line for his craft, but the fact that he captures the true essence of his subjects through his shooting style. Holding on to Kodachrome, a lover of film, he has been forced to move to the digital medium, using his Nikon D3s and Hasselblad HDII-39 to capture his award winning photographs. Prior to going digital his preferred medium was slides. To commemorate his love of slide film, Kodak gave him the honor to shoot the very last ever produced roll of Kodachrome transparency film. The images from this film are housed at the George Eastman House. Over his career he has managed to accumulate over 800,000 slides.
Photo by Steve McCurry
4
Returning to Afghanistan, one of the high points in McCurry’s career was going back to locate the subject of his famous 1985 National Geographic cover shot. Along with a team from National Geographic McCurry was able to locate the woman in the famous photograph. The identity of the “Afghan Girl” had remained unknown for over 15 years until the team located the woman, Sharbat Gula, in 2002. McCurry reported at the time, “Her skin is weathered; there are wrinkles now, but she is a striking as she was all those years ago.”Honors and AwardsMcCurry has won many honors and awards over the year including the Robert Capa Gold Medal, Magazine Photographer of the Year and four first prizes in the World Press Photo Contest. He has also won the Olivier Rebbot Memorial Award on two separate occasions. Besides appearing in various magazines, McCurry has published numerous books bringing these international conflicts into everyone’s consciousness.
5
Photo by Steve McCurry
6
Photo by Steve McCurry
7
8
J
odi Cobb specializes in large-scale, global stories exploring such topics as 21st-century slavery as well as more intimate stories set inside closed and secret worlds. A former staff photographer for National Geographic, she has worked in more than 50 countries, primarily in the Middle East and Asia. She is the author and photographer of the book Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art, which explores the previously hidden world of the Japanese geisha. Cobb’s photography has been honored many times by the National Press Photographers Association, and in 1985 she was the first woman to be named the White House Photographer of the Year. Cobb was one of the first photographers to cross China after it reopened to the West in the 1970s when she undertook a two-month-long, 7,000-mile (11,262 kilometers) journey for the National Geographic book Journey into China. Cobb has produced numerous articles for National Geographic, including “This Thing Called Love,” “21st-Century Slaves,” “The Enigma of Beauty,” and “The Women of Saudi Arabia,” and she has contributed to several National Geographic books. Cobb resides in Washington, D.C.
9
10
Jodi has an extensive 30+ year career as a staff photographer for National Geographic, and is currently doing freelance with them for the past year, expanding her photojournalistic coverage into other avenues as well. It was interesting to find out her insider’s perspective on the creation of a story from start to finish—how she proposes an idea, the research that goes into the stories, and the length of time for completion. Her story on “21st-Century Slaves”, was a massive project involving following all forms of trafficking in 10 different countries and ended up being about a 28-page spread. It received the biggest reader response in the history of the magazine until that time. Jodi was carving new grounds with a story that had hardly been written about or researched. As a strong follow-up to the interview, I attended Jodi Cobb’s An Evening with an Artist, organized by PIEA and sponsored by Nikon at PMA. Many of the stories and details she shared with a packed room full of eager listeners she also had shared with me earlier in the day. The difference was seeing the striking images that accompanied the dialogue. Cobb’s presentation spanned the length of her career touching on some of the more meaningful stories and projects she had completed with National Geographic, such as Saudi Arabian women, Beauty, Love, and the list goes on. She also presented on her book project Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art, for which she took a 6-month leave of absence from National Geographic to pursue, and the entire work on the project spanned three years. It was extremely inspiring to speak with Jodi about her vision with photography.
The real joy of photography for me is in the actual taking of the photograph. It’s that zen state-completely focused on that one thing, that moment. I want my photographs to either be beautiful or meaningful.
11
JODI
National Geographic has been the pinnacle for so long for photojournalists, documentary photographers, and science photographers. How long do you see that lasting? Do you think National Geographic will be able to survive the digital and online media push? I don’t know. No one knows the answer. The more I’ve had time to think about my next move, the more I realize how much I love to photograph. I just love taking pictures. While there are other things I could do such as editing, there’s nothing like taking photographs for me, and I’ll be happy as long as I can keep doing that. The final medium doesn’t matter as much anymore. I used to think that you had to have a magazine in your hand. Currently, there are all sorts of ways of looking at photographs and I think that if photographers don’t embrace all that, we’re lost. I’m one of the last converts to digital. Now that I have, the advantages of digital for me have been huge. It’s really renewed my enthusiasm for photography. Usually on a project, I’m in the field for a month or more at a time and unable to see any pictures that I’ve taken. To be able to see the pictures is huge. Before, I had to just rely on faith that the camera was working and that my settings were correct. I never was that interested in equipment and technology until went freelance and switched to digital. I’ve always Tell us a little about your just used whatever I could to interpret what I wanted to time shooting for Nationshow. The kinds of photography I was doing in small placal Geographic. I’ve been es, small rooms, and intimate spaces, I didn’t enjoy using a staff photographer at Naflash. It was so intrusive, disrupting, and I never really tional Geographic for several learned to master flash technique. Now, I can see in the decades. Prior to that, I had dark with digital. I like to think I waited to switch to worked as a staff photographer digital until they’ve optimized all the equipment, and I for two newspapers for a short was able to jump in at the end of the digital revolution time right out of school, then [she laughed]. went to Geographic and I’ve been What is your typical lens kit these days? Have you there ever since. I had been on staff had any major focal length changes over your career? until last year. They’ve eliminated the I find all the Nikon zooms with VR (vibration reposition of staff field photographers at duction) to be pretty cool. I’m using the same focal National Geographic to switch to an all lengths, but instead of having to use five prime freelance photography department. lenses, I have two zooms, which has simplified How does that change the relationmy life enormously. I do a lot of wide angle and ship with National Geographic, moving moderate telephoto work, and occasionally will from staff to freelance? use a 300 or 400mm on very special things, It’s very exciting for me. It was time. I’ve been such as the “21st-Century Slaves” story for there my whole life. I always talked about being long shots down streets where I was not supon my own and doing other things, and now I can. posed to be. When I left, it was a great time. Now, with the econCan you relate a quick synopsis of omy, it’s a little harder. It’s been pretty tragic since how you broke into this field of work, then. Who knows what’s going to happen with the specifically the larger format photojourphotography business, especially with documentary/ nalist story telling? investigative journalism photography. I’m still doing work Our choices were much fewer when I with them. I just finished an assignment on Venice, which was starting out. Fine art photography was my first major assignment shot entirely in digital. We back then didn’t exist as a concept. It just finished the layout last week. wasn’t appreciated as much as now.
12
Only a few magazines existed for this line of photography: Life, Look, and National Geographic. Then Life and Look folded. National Geographic, Time, and Sports Illustrated, and newspapers were all that existed for a time. That has changed so much and so fast over the years. There are just so many venues and opportunities now for photographers, if you move away from the printed medium. You see newspapers dropping like flies, magazines folding or getting rid of their staff photographers. I don’t know what to tell you on the photography career path right now. It’s kind of scary in the documentary/news photography line of work to get paid for being a photographer. There are all kinds of outlets now online, but to have someone to support your work, that’s one of my biggest fears with all the newspapers folding—who’s going to pay investigative journalists? Can the people who do the work make a living?
What were some real turning points in your career? • In college, Cornell Capa who started the International Center of Photography, came out and saw my work, gave me a grant and got me exhibitions in New York. That was the start of a great relationship and got me onto a certain level of being seen or known. • Getting a summer internship at a newspaper and staying on there. • Being laid off at the Denver Post and having the Director of Photography at National Geographic call me the next day with an assignment. That was the major turning point, and probably the last big one. • A grant from Kodak to do the Geisha book. With so many outlets going down, disappearing, or
13
changing, does grant work come into play in your career? When you mentioned Kodak, though, as a previous grantor, it’s apparent a lot of companies that you normally might have been able to approach for grants to support your work are fighting their own battles to survive. That was something I was going to start looking into to support my freelance work. The kind of photography I want to continue doing is very much about human rights issues and “changing the world.” I was thinking that grants were going to be a way forward, but who knows about that. Can you take a moment to describe what you enjoyed about working with National Geographic? What doors do you see opening for you now that you’re freelance, and what challenges do you face? I really love the kind of work that shines a light on human rights issues. It started with the story I did on 21st-Century Slaves, and then I did the story on “Love”, which turned into Love & Marriage as a human rights issue around the world. I’m very interested in the conditions of women around the world and in some way helping to empower women in countries where they’re not empowered. National Geographic has always been a great medium to do that because of its reach. Currently, they also publish 32 language editions so the reach is all over the world, much more than it used to be. I know they still want those kinds of pictures and I fully intend to continue working with them on that. I want to see what other kinds of outlets for this type of work there are. It’s just been so crazy lately. My wonderful assistant and I have been getting everything organized to set up my business at home—getting new computers and equipment, monitors and printers. Setting up a business at home. All these things I used to have readily available at National Geographic, but I now have to take care of myself. Photographers of the current generation don’t experience a male/female split. Was that a struggle for you when you were starting out? When I got into the business, women in all sorts of fields and professions were finding themselves as the only women or first women in the business. I didn’t think about it in the beginning—I didn’t know that photography was considered a male profession. I just thought, “I can do this, this is wonderful,” and just plunged ahead. I was always the only women every place I worked on staff.
14
I would be asked to do something and I would accepted at last. Then I would hear, “Well, we do need a woman on this panel because it’s all men, we need a woman.” It would be a slap in the head again. Which is it, you need a woman, or you like my photography? There was always that doubt because you were reminded constantly of it. Now it’s a non-issue. Did you feel like that came from above? Were you fully accepted by your colleagues? I had nothing but support from my colleagues. I think that photography is a really unique profession in the willingness that photographers have to share information and camaraderie. That’s been huge from day one and what I loved so much about the business. In the darkroom at the newsroom, the other photographers were fabulous helping me along. It’s been that way my whole career. In the field, however, I sometimes was not taken seriously, especially in very male-dominated cultures. For example, I requested permission to photograph a king and the reaction was, “where’s your photographer?” Me! It was a struggle quite often. I’ve chosen to never dwell on it, for therein lies madness. You just do the best you can, and people are either going to accept it or not.
Are you currently serving in some sort of mentor capacity to younger aspiring female photographers? Not in any sort of organized way. It’s more informal. I get emails from young women all the time. Also, many successful women have come up to me and said, “I met you at a workshop and you said this and that, you inspired me.” My reaction to that is “Oh, thank goodness.” I wanted to get some background on how you’ve worked in the past and currently on some of your stories, especially the “Geisha” project. What is your process from start to finish? What’s your process for completing the project? Early on, it was really hard to get a story idea through at Geographic. I took assignments they gave me for the first decade or so. As the only woman on staff, I also felt the need to prove that I could do anything the guys did.
I didn’t really specialize early on, I just tried to do everything—sports, adventure, outdoors, landscape, people. When it seemed like the guys were starting to specialize in things, I thought, now I can specialize too. I’ve proven I can do all these other things, and now I started proposing concept stories, like “Beauty” and “Love” and “Slavery.” They were all my ideas Only a few magazines existed for this line of photography: Life, Look, and National Geographic. Then Life and Look folded. National Geographic, Time, and Sports Illustrated, and newspapers were all that existed for a time. That has changed so much and so fast over the years. There are just so many venues and opportunities now for photographers, if you move away from the printed medium.
You hang out until you become invisible. But you’re always looking for the telling moment.
15
16
Photo by Steve McCurry
17
CrĂŠditos
Steve McCurry
Steve McCurry Bio by Judith Habert (2011) photography.about.com
Jodi cobb
Intreview with Jodi Cobb, National Geographic Photographer, by Hannah Thiem (2009) photo.net
EstefanĂa Flores Minutti 146430