James Nachtwey’s Wish:

I’m working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age.

Watch the Video Talk

Update:

• TEDsters Jon Kamen, David Rockwell and Stefan Sagmeister acted as the creative trust, developing the idea and the design around the idea, including the slideshow created by Sagmeister and the architecture of the displays, created by Rockwell.
• Clinton Foundation and Partners in Health have been responsible for getting James access to Health Ministries in a number of different countries, allowing him to shoot stories that have been intentionally kept in the dark.
• TEDsters Bob and Colleen Benoit from Mode Studios, have acted as lead producers, helping to package the exhibition model to spread out to global partners. Mode Studios is going to produce the NYC event, which will act as the cornerstone of the global display.
• Scharff Weisberg will provide the production equipment.
• Time Magazine is running this story as an 8-page spread to be released the day of this worldwide event.
• PR Newswire has committed to time on the Reuters screen in Times Square, to create press around the event and to display the images on the evening of OCT 3rd

TED is asking bloggers to support this initiative by embedding a badge on their sites (see below)

Photojournalist James Nachtwey is considered by many to be the greatest war photographer of recent decades. He has covered conflicts and major social issues in more than 30 countries. he was a TED prize winner in 2007 with the following wish James Nachtwey’s Wish: I’m working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age. The TED Prize was created as a way of taking the inspiration, ideas and resources that are generated at TED and using them to make a difference. Although the winners receive a prize of $100,000 each, that’s the least of what they get. The real prize is that they are granted a WISH. A wish to change the world. For more details on the 2008 winners — including blog entries and updates on their wishes — visit TED.

bloggers can add a link to the project by visiting TED  and the project can be seen live at locations world wide by visiting a list of global venues

TED press release: James Nachtwey: Photojournalist Why you should listen to him: For the past three decades, James Nachtwey has devoted himself to documenting wars, conflicts and critical social issues, working in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, South Africa, Russia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo, Romania, Brazil and the United States. Nachtwey has been a contract photographer with Time since 1984. However, when certain stories he wanted to cover — such as Romanian orphanages and famine in Somalia — garnered no interest from magazines, he self-financed trips there. He is known for getting up close to his subjects, or as he says, “in the same intimate space that the subjects inhabit,” and he passes that sense of closeness on to the viewer. In putting himself in the middle of conflict, his intention is to record the truth, to document the struggles of humanity, and with this, to wake people up and stir them to action. He is the winner of the 2007 TED Prize, awarding him $100,000 and one wish to change the world. This was his wish: “I’m working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age.” On October 3, the story breaks … and we would like you to witness it. “Reticent about discussing his own life beyond the basic facts, he’s clearly one of those rare characters who focus singularly on their work with a missionary-like sense of purpose.” — Salon.com

This is potentially a very powerful combination of viral marketing and visual journalism – watch this space…

The plus version allows more interaction with the images including camera movements, and the beta version allows full screen mode, which should make for very exciting presentations. With a price of only $69.95 and a shallow learning curve it is a fantastic way to start making slideshows without having to learn complex flash or final cut pro techniques.

Most officials are acting way beyond their remit and the law when they stop filming and photography, so here are links to downloadable leaflets explaining your rights that can be given out to anyone who tries to prevent photography, one for the USA and one for the UK. And there is lots of useful information on War on Photography

This utter confusion over what is allowed and what is not is wonderfully and comically encapsulated in this clip from Fox5, where during an interview with the PR officer for the train station in which he explaisn that there are no restrictions on photographing there, a security guard comes over and tells the crew to stop filming!

see http://www.epuk.org/News/863/nuj-opposes-us-orphan-work

This is a major issue for European and British photographers, so I’ll post a longer piece on it next week, but for now urgent action is required to resist this move on copyright by the US Senate

It’s been a long time coming: i remember stephen saying when he left Network that he wanted to go into the stock world to find out how to make money so he could apply the lessons to the photojournalistic community: that was 14 years ago!

see also pdn’s story VII Names New Managing Director

welcome back stephen!

you are supposed to be in the US to sign up, but i just checked the box and it let me in

it is free at present, and the T&C dont seem too scary in that adobe aren’t trying to take any rights except in the provision of the service

I uploaded a set of images easily, and made a quick album of images of a story as a slideshow i did a few years ago on the threat to orangutans in indonesia from logging

you can view it here https://www.photoshop.com/user/paullowe

at first glance it seems like a high powered version of flikr, you can edit and even retouch images from inside the programme, and then make albums and slideshows that you can either share publicly or just with friends by email invites

(thanks to hao for the heads up on this)

this thought provoking piece by stephen mayes, the new director of photo agency VII, adds to the debate

http://www.rethink-dispatches.com/the-king-is-dead-long-live-the-king.php

he is critical of many of the simplistic multimedia put out so far:

‘It’s time for a complete re-think – it’s simply not enough to animate a slide show with a few graphics and some atmospheric audio.’

and sees the issue not as a lack of news, or of people interested in it, but in a lack of ways to bridge the gap between then in a compelling way:

‘The “crisis” in photojournalism is not an absence of newsworthy events, nor even the absence of an eager audience, it is the absence of imagination in bridging the two, and we are limited by the constant backward hankering for the way things used to be.’

the idea of some ‘objective, truthful observer’ too is long gone:

‘photojournalists need to engage the new audience by recognising their own place in the world and integrating this new self-awareness into their coverage of the world at large. Photojournalists are no longer disembodied observers; in the world of blogs, citizen journalists and hyper information sharing, we are all participants in the affairs of the world and in the reporting of events.’

and his critique of the ‘long tail’ of the web is as true of photography as it is the rest of journalism:

‘The fatal information trap that is built into the Internet is the ability to find people around the world who think like you, and to talk to them to the exclusion of all others; in this aspect the Internet is the antithesis of mass communication and its ability to filter ever-narrower interests is a snare as much as it is a liberation. The challenge is to break out, to find wider audiences and to connect meaningfully. And to do this, new languages must be learned.’

but what is better? reaching a passive mass audience who are only slightly engaged witht he subject, or a small but active one who are actively trying to impact on the situation