The largest photojournalism festival, Visa pour l’Image, kicks off on Saturday in Perpignan, France — and this year the festivities are sure to be bigger than ever. The festival, which met with extreme skepticism when it was first started by the inimitable Jean-Francois Leroy, is triumphantly celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year.

Visa pour l’Image runs for two weeks from August 30 to September 14, but it is during the first week that photographers and photo professionals flock to Perpignan to reconnect with old friends, to make new deals, and to celebrate and reassess the current state of photojournalism. American Photo’s editor at large, Jean-Jacques Naudet, and senior editor, Miki Johnson, will be there during professional week to provide daily coverage at the State of the Art blog.

The foundation of any photography festival is its exhibitions, and this year there are 30 around Perpignan and more at satellite locations in Paris. The long list of top-notch photojournalists with work on display includes Nina Berman, Philip Blenkinsop, Alexandra Boulat (who died this year and will be honored with a memorial presentation), Horst Faas, David Douglas Duncan, Brent Stirton, Paolo Pellegrin, Paula Bronstein, Jan Grarup, and Stanley Greene.

Visa pour l’Image is also known for its slideshows, which will cover the main news events around the world this year: Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Colombia, China, Tibet, Russia, Somalia/Ethiopia, the U.S.A., and Chad. A special program will also be presented on September 5 marking the festival’s 20th anniversary with highlights of the events that have had the biggest impact on it.

The festival’s awards are also distributed during these evening presentations. These include Visa d’Or awards for News, Feature, and Daily Press; the City of Perpignan Young Reporter Award, the Canon Female Photojournalist Award, and the CARE International Award for Humanitarian Reportage. Check out the extensive Visa pour l’Image website to see the nominees for each award as well as past honorees.

In recent years the festival has increasingly been a place for industry leaders to discuss the state of photojournalism and to help define the path forward in an increasingly dismal landscape. The 2008 symposium minces no words with it’s mission statement: “Thousands of photos are sent to Visa pour l’Image-Perpignan as proposals for exhibitions and evening programs, and over the last two or three years, these pictures have been increasingly ‘neat and tidy,’ increasingly standardized and, to put it bluntly, tedious, with the same old stories, seen from the same old angles; and this tendency is getting even stronger.” The symposium will attempt to find explanations and solutions for this tendency, while the Elle Magazine Panel Discussion will tackle the increasingly difficult situation for women in Afghanistan.

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About 10 years ago, Andy Patrick had just sold a very profitable company that set up huge e-commerce sites like AppleStore.com — and he was wondering what was next. Walking the streets of New York, he bought himself a digital camera, suddenly remembered how much he’d loved the medium back in high school, and soon had fallen in love all over again. Being the entrepreneur that he is, his mind immediately latched onto photography and began to ponder the best way to include it in his larger plans. Below, he tells that story and shares some of the wisdom he has gained from working with photographers and non-profit organizations for the last decade.

Now the CEO and president of liveBooks , which designs and hosts photography websites, Patrick is also the executive director the NGO Fifty Crows and a founding advisory board member of National Geographic’s All Roads photography program. LiveBooks also recently announced its Conscious Communities initiative, which brings together the many educational and social change projects the company supports.

Andy Patrick: I went home to Ohio where I grew up and I had dinner at home and started talking to my mom and dad about wanting to get into this social change work. I wanted to get into that but I also wanted to get into photography, and I saw the two coming together because I’m always amazed at the wealth of amazing photo essays that never see the light of day. So I went to bed that night and at like four in the morning I woke up to all this noise. I went to the window and the tree outside was covered in crows and they were all looking down at me and cawing. And it woke my mom and dad up too and they walked in and my mom said, what’s going on. And I said, I don’t know, there’s like 50 crows and they’re all yelling at me. And so I ended up calling Lily, my wife, back in San Francisco and I said, Lil this amazing thing happened. So she got out a book about Native American animal myths, and crow is said to be the keeper of the sacred laws, the laws that supersede those created by man, the laws of justice and harmony. And it was said that crow looked out of one eye into the past and one eye into the future, and that with this information crow was going to lead us to a place of peace and harmony and justice. And I was like, that’s it! We’re going to start a nonprofit, it’s gong to be called Fifty Crows and we’re going to take documentary photography and work with photographers to wake people up like the crows did to me, and to shout out to them that, hey there’s all this stuff going on in the world. You’ve got to wake up. To me that really has become such a great symbol, because to me the photographers that are doing such great work are kind of like that myth in that they are looking into the past and the future but they are capturing the present. And it immediately becomes the past but it leads us to think about what’s coming in the future.

As I got into photography I started to realize that grant programs are great, we can all use an additional $5,000 or whatever the grant might be, but ultimately that doesn’t create a career. That doesn’t create a sustainable business; it doesn’t create food on the table or mortgage payments or kids going to school or the next camera or whatever it may be. And so over the years I’ve come to learn how important it is to kind of support the whole photographer. With All Roads, one of the things I said early on to Chris [Rainier] is, the grant’s great, but it has to be a workshop, there has to be a way to take these indigenous photographers that are documenting their own culture and bring them together and teach them basic skills that in the business world we sometimes take for granted. Like how to shake hands and make eye contact. We’re trying to get photographers to understand the importance of building a set of skills beyond the skill of the eye. So that ended up transforming into a relationship with Michael [Costuros], my partner at liveBooks. LiveBooks was his original concept and then we formed a corporation in 2005. And the idea then and still now is to create a suite of applications across the entire workflow that makes photographers’ job, their business, their passion much more efficient and helps them to get their work out into the world and helps them to make their business sustainable.

Miki Johnson: What’s going on with Fifty Crows now?

AP: The most recent exhibition was in conjunction with the organization CARE and it was Phil Borges’s work called Women In Power. I thought what was so cool about that was to use it as an example for other photographers and for the general public at large about the impact that a photographer working with an organization can have on the world. That photography has become a real centerpiece to a re-branding of all of CARE, and Phil and CARE and Fifty Crows and Phil’s wife have leveraged so many different venues and distribution points. I have no idea what the numbers are, but it’s millions of people that have seen that body of work and read those stories, and that’s so cool. So I really wanted to use that as an example.

LiveBooks is now able to offer a website to Ed Kashi for his new book [Curse of the Black Gold]. We offered a website to Stephanie Sinclair’s work around the brides. You know, Fifty Crows gave Stephanie a grant back in 2004 for that child brides work. And I got this lovely email from her saying without that grant she never would have continued that body of work. Now you see what that body of work has become. Not because of Fifty Crows but because of her perseverance.

And then Fifty Crows in conjunction with liveBooks is helping with the What Matters book. Twenty photographers coupled with incredible journalists and Pulitzer prize-winning authors writing about, what are the twenty most important issues of our time. We’re supporting that a lot. What I find is that, again, we could give another $5,000 grant, but these are the type of things that make for sustainability.

A little side story. I was at the Palm Springs Photo Festival and I was on a panel with Antonin Kratochvil and Bruce Davidson and Adam Weintraub and Michele [Dunn Marsh] from Aperture and it was to be about social change photography. So Antonin showed his slides and Bruce showed his slides, and I was like, you know what guys, I just have complete and utter respect . . . I do what I do and I work my tail off because of people like you, so don’t get me wrong, but I’m pissed. I’m tired of this. We come to these festivals and we show our slides and we show our work and that’s it. We all bitch and moan about the state of the world and we feel good about ourselves because we are fighting the good fight — but we are losing. We are getting our butts kicked. So the crowd sort of cheered. I’m like, we need to come together, the photographic industry, the publishing industry, the non-profit and NGO industry and once and for all figure out what the hell are we really going to do here? That’s not so say a body of work put into a book that’s going to cost $39 and they’re going to print 3,000 copies . . . it’s not to say that’s not important. Yes it’s important. It’s an incredible historic document. How many people around the world see it? Eh, you know, fair amount, but not huge. How many people see an exhibition of Darfur work that Fifty Crows showed four months ago? Fourteen-hundred? In San Francisco? We’re kind of singing to the choir there. So that’s great and we definitely should keep doing them, but we need to figure out how we’re going to pool resources. What would happen if all our organizations said, in 2009 we’re going to take 10 percent of our budgets and we’re going to put it into a pool and we’re going to find somebody to match that and we’re going to do one thing. I don’t know what that one thing is; we’d get together and figure that out. But that one thing should create change.

MJ: Do you still see that change coming through photography and how?

AP: I see the language of photography as being a major part of that change. But I don’t think we need to put the pressure on ourselves that photography’s going to change the world. I think it is a language that can provide great transparency and honesty and truth about situations that are going on in the world, that bring about awareness, that lead to change. And that’s why I say I think this needs to be a kind of holistic approach.

I gave a talk to the Hewlett Foundation a few months ago; this is a huge organization, I think it was $380 million they distributed last year. They’re doing incredible work and their understanding of the language of photography was at a first grade reading level. So that’s not a criticism, that’s a challenge for us in the industry to improve their reading skills, and get that language up to PHD level or whatever. So they understand that no, [photography] isn’t an expense, this is an investment that bears HUGE returns. I gotta tell you, with the photography of Borges and related photographers that CARE has used, I don’t know the numbers but I know the results — they’re huge. It’s completely re-branded CARE. So that’s what I mean by language.

At liveBooks I can look at our support team and I can see, wow that’s a big expense, but you know what, I’m going to pull out my iPhone and read you and email I got sitting at lunch about two hours ago, because I can’t say it any better, it’s beautiful. “Hi Andy, I’ve been with liveBooks for over a year now. I had a technical issue and changes to my site last week. I just wanted you to know by making one phone call at one o’clock to liveBooks on a Monday I had three phone calls from your company by four o’clock to help solve the issue the same day. Everything was solved brilliantly by three o’clock the following day. Site changes were up and running. Way to go by hiring great talented people.” I sent him a response immediately thanking him and saying, you know, like most things in life, liveBooks is not going to be 100 percent 100 percent of the time. But knowing that, if you have great people that you’re kind of in it with, whatever the experience might be, it’s a better experience. And that investment in support pays off ten-fold, it’s what makes liveBooks this nice experience. Likewise, an investment in photography and in photographers pays off ten-fold for organizations. And the really smart organizations have figured that out and are continuing to figure it out.

MJ: You know so many nonprofit organizations and photographers. I wonder if you have any insights into funding routes that photographers are overlooking or funding routes that are changing that may become more important in the future.

AP: A lot of people say, I’ve sent my stuff there and I don’t hear back from them. Well, you have to cultivate a relationship; it goes back to that language I was talking about. Hewlett Foundation gave $380 million last year, so they have tremendous resources, REALLY smart people, really well-traveled people. So there has to be a relationship that’s developed. They don’t really know how to talk to photographers. They just think, well, could you send us some of your photos? So the really good photographers build a good relationship and they get to a point where they can sit at a table and they can start brainstorming a little bit. This is about how are you and I going to collaborate and create something that’s magical? You have to find those people that you can create magic with. And when you do, they don’t just hire you by saying those are really great photos, we’ll take three of those for our annual report. They hire you on an ongoing basis; they give you projects because they believe.

At National Geographic with the All Roads winners, we bring them in and all the editors from National Geographic and the other magazines come in and start talking. And I remember one of the editors saying to the photographers, you know, when you send me a portfolio, or your website, that is part of it. But ultimately I need to figure out a way that I can trust you with $40,000 to go out with a writer for three weeks, and I’m on deadline and I need to know that you’re going to have something. So how do I get to that trust level with you? So you know, is there money in the hills of NGOs and do they have opportunities? Absolutely. But that takes cultivation.

You need to take some risks as a photographer. Not just in your photography but in your approaches to people. I’ve heard photographers say, that’s really great but I don’t have those ideas. Ok, then I would suggest that you start to talk to people. Get with people that are writers, people that are journalists, people that are artists. Get with people in the colleges that are doing policy kind of work. Chat ’em up. I heard Salgado, you know he was trained as an economist; he’s looking at macroeconomic global statistics. That’s how Migrations came about. It’s not just that he’s got great connections and he’s Salgado . . . he’s smart as hell. And he really does his homework.

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Combat photojournalist Stacy Pearsall was named the Military Photographer of the Year recently for the second time. One of only two women to take home the honor, she is the first woman to take it twice. Having just finished serving as a mentor for the annual Department of Defense Worldwide Military Workshop, Pearsall talked with American Photo about how she proved she could hang with the boys and her fast rise through the ranks.

American Photo: To get started, please tell me how old you are, where you were born, where you live now, and what your basic job description is.

Stacy Pearsall: I am a globetrotting 28 years-young female combat photographer. I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas. My dad was and air traffic controller serving in the Navy and we were at the air station there. I currently am stationed in Charleston, South Carolina, with my husband, Master Sergeant Andy Dunaway. We are both aerial combat photojournalists with the 1st Combat Camera Squadron. My job as a combat photojournalist is to deploy around the world to various locations to document Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines taking part in combat operations, humanitarian relief, and exercises. Ultimately our imagery is used to keep the senior military leadership (combat commanders, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of Defense, and the President) abreast of the day-to-day military activities. Also, our imagery is put on a server, which civilian news agencies may access and use and for historical purposes.

AP: It says in your bio that you started out as an Air Force photographer when you were 17. How did you end up there and what was that experience like?

SP: While growing up, I really liked to paint and draw. I took a small photo class in high school, which was pretty fun. However, I didn’t know that is what I would do later down the road. I just thought of photography as another means of expressing myself. When it came time to graduate and fly the nest, I had every intention of going to college. I started looking at the cost and didn’t think I could manage. My sister, Meggen Pearsall-Ditmore, had joined the Air Force right after school, so I started looking into the service too. I found out that the Air Force had a really great graphics art and photography program. I thought, bingo! I talked it over with my parents and they agreed to sign the age-waiver, which would allow me to go to basic before my 18th birthday. I told my recruiter that I would like to be either a photographer or a graphics artist. Well, a photography position was open and I jumped at the opportunity.

I found out quickly that the photography career field was quite small in the Air Force and that I got lucky with the job. Moreover, the pool of DoD [Department of Defense] photographers is small, so I got to know everyone quickly.

I didn’t take to photography at first. I spent my first four years processing U-2 (spy plane) aircraft film. It wasn’t a glamorous job, but it taught me patience and motivation. I focused (no pun intended) my spare time on building a portfolio, which would eventually get me into one of the coveted Combat Camera Squadron slots in Charleston.

AP: What has your career progression been since you started as an Air Force photographer? How do promotions and job changes work within the military?

SP: I started out as an Airman Basic, which means I had no rank or real authority. My sole purpose was to watch, learn, and practice. I was trained at the Defense Information School in Laurel, Maryland, with a Nikon film camera. I got a basic course on how to shoot as well as process film and caption pictures. After I finished the six-month course, I was assigned to the U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. I processed huge roles of five-inch film from the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. I also trained on one of the first Nikon digital cameras.

Over time, I got promoted a couple of ranks and transferred to the Joint Analysis Center at Royal Air Force Molesworth, United Kingdom. I did more film processing, went to college at night, and worked on getting a portfolio together.

I really excelled at being a model Airman. I was on the honor guard, won many awards for being an outstanding volunteer, went to school, and really gave 100 percent all the time. I went from being the trainee to being the trainer within months.

After four years of darkroom work, I got accepted into the 1st Combat Camera Squadron (COMCAM) at Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina. I was on cloud nine. I re-enlisted for another four years of service and got promoted to Senior Airman (E-4).

When I got to COMCAM, I really felt out of my league. Many of my colleagues had years of shooting experience and had attended the military photojournalism course at Syracuse University. I struggled at first, but I handled it like I do anything else: I just kept plugging away. I shot every chance I could and listened to the feedback I was getting. COMCAM sent me to the DoD Workshop, the Multimedia Bootcamp, the Eddie Adams Workshop, and more. The more I put into learning, the more I improved. It was not easy, though.

My first major deployment was to Chile where I was supposed to document the U.S. Army participating in Cabanas (a training exercise). That is where things started to click for me. After I got back, I got promoted to Staff Sergeant. I went to Korea and did some aerial missions over Iraq until I finally had ground orders to deploy to Baghdad. When I returned from Iraq, I won Military Photographer of the Year and was accepted into Syracuse. I took a year off for school and went straight to Africa after graduation. I was then sent to Cyprus to cover the Lebanon evacuations and then back to Iraq. I won Military Photographer of the Year for a second time after returning from Iraq. I have been to several other places in between, but those are some of the highlights of my tours.

I pretty much went from learning to teaching. But I still stand firm in the belief that you never stop learning. At least that is what I believe for myself. As the industry changes, so does military photography. We do our best to stay current with trends.

AP: Tell me about your photography now. What is a typical week like for you? How much are you shooting, why types of stuff, and where?

SP: I just shoot for the troops. I try to pack as much information and emotion as I can into one frame. I find that my biggest weakness is my biggest strength, and that is really getting in touch with my subjects. Most of the time, if they are suffering, so am I. I shoot what is around me and try to convey that energy with the use of light and body language.

As I mentioned before, I never stop learning. So I have taken this last year as an opportunity to practice with lighting and sports. I already have a solid grasp on both, but I would like to know more. Photographers like Bill Frakes, who is a sports legend, make me want to try new angles and Joe McNally, a lighting master, encourages me to improve my strobe skills.

Most of what I have shot this year has been in Charleston, South Carolina, with the exception of the Kentucky Derby and the DoD Workshop.

AP: How is being a military photographer different from being any other kind of photographer? Does it influence what images you make or which of your images are distributed?

SP: Well, it’s hard to say how I differ from other photographers because being a military photojournalist is all I have known. However, I have the same education as any civilian journalist and am held to the same ethical standards. My imagery has been used in many types of media such as newspapers, online new sources, and magazines.

It is pretty rare that the military will dictate what I shoot in the field. I usually have free reign because I am there to document for the service. However, our Public Affairs Office (PAO) will determine what is considered okay for public release to the civilian media. That said, the PAO usually has a good reason why they will not release a picture.

AP: What is in your usual camera bag? You probably subject your equipment to more difficult circumstances than most photographers; what kind of things have you had to deal with and do you have any good tricks you’ve learned?

SP: I have a tan Domke bag, which I use to transport my gear. But I usually use a shooter’s vest in the combat zone. I have to carry a weapon as well as my camera gear, so I stuff the pockets with camera batteries, M-9 bullets, and lenses.

The biggest problem I faced was wear and tear. I lost one camera to bomb fragments and one from being banged around too much. The sand gets in every possible crack and crag, so canned air and lens clothes were my saving grace. When I was on a mission, I would clean my camera every chance I got.

Traveling light was essential, because I would have my body armor, camera gear, and weapons. I weighed myself one day and I had an excess of 70 pounds worth of gear. Plus I would have to lug that for days at a time. In my camera vest I would store water and snacks. I also had to keep a first aid kit too.

In keeping with my “travel light” theory, I would only bring two lenses and one flash. But I have to say I rarely ever used a flash. My lenses were a 17-55mm and a 70-200mm Nikon. Most of the time, I was up close and personal, so I shot mainly with my 17-55mm. I believe that your equipment is a tool. It doesn’t matter what you are shooting with, because you are what makes the photo.

AP: Being a military photographer must be a difficult job for anyone, but did you ever feel that it was particularly difficult as a woman (in what I can only assume is a predominantly male industry)? Are there advantages to being a female photographer as well? Or did gender not make that much of a difference?

SP: There have been successful women journalists before me and they set the bar high. I can smile knowing that I raised it a little higher. I can also be happy in the fact that I have raised the standards for the men too!

Being a woman has its disadvantages. We are few in number and often not taken seriously right away. I have been in situations where I have had to work with all-male Special Forces or infantry units. These guys are used to seeing “Army-types” and NO WOMEN. Then I show up (Air Force and female) and they do a double take. Most of them stare and others whisper. But I go in there with confidence and let them know that I can hang. After a grueling day of marching through ankle deep mud, firefights, and 100-degree heat, they realize that I am no different from the rest. I just let them draw their own conclusions based off of my tenacity and drive to complete the mission and provide the best pictures I possibly can.

There is an upside to being a female too. I get to see what it is like to be a woman service member and male photographers don’t. I get access to places men might not, so that has come in handy.

AP: What is the most difficult part of your job? What is the most rewarding?

SP: It is difficult being away from my husband for months at a time. We both do this job, so being together for any length of time is a miracle. So we take advantage of our time together by shooting projects and just enjoying photography together.

The most rewarding part of this job is touching people’s lives. I can make someone feel so important when his or her picture is published. I can make war-weary soldiers laugh at themselves over goofy photos. I can make them weep when I share the last photo ever taken of their comrade. I document history — I make history. That is rewarding.

AP: Do you also work outside the military. If so, has that work been influenced by your military photography?

SP: I have shot some projects for USA Today and have assisted Sports Illustrated photographer Bill Frakes. I was told many years ago during the DoD Workshop that I should do some freelance work. Well, I took what they said seriously and pursued some civilian projects. So you can say the military encouraged me to shoot outside of the Air Force.

My work on the outside has shown me that I have to learn a whole new process of picture making. The assignments are similar: Go make contact with a subject, shoot a story, caption, and transmit. However, the terminology is a bit different, so there is a learning curve.

I also volunteer at the Eddie Adams Barnstorm Workshop. So I have picked up quite a bit from the staff there. They have always been very welcoming of military and willing to show us the civilian side of the journalism world too.

I would like to thank the Air Force for giving me such great opportunities these last ten years. I am sad to let it go.

More of Pearsall’s work is available at f8pj.com.

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A new online gallery launches today, and it’s name says it all: Women In Photography. Organized and curated by photographers Amy Elkins and Cara Phillips, the site will highlight a different female photographer every two weeks. Here Elkins and Phillips explain the project’s synthesis and their goals for the project, each in her own words.

American Photo: Please tell our readers a bit about Women In Photography. How did the idea arise and what are your goals for the project?

Amy Elkins: Women In Photography (WIPNYC) is a bi-monthly online venue for showcasing female photographers from around the globe. It is co-curated by Cara Phillips and myself and is open to submissions on a rolling basis. Our goal is to bring attention to the abundance of talented women working in the photographic medium in a way that makes it accessible to everyone.

I believe there were a few things that slowly started stirring the pot, leading to WIPNYC being born. Humble Arts Foundation put together a show of emerging female photographers during the month of March, purposefully up during Women’s History Month. The exhibition, 31 Under 31, featured 31 female fine are photographers under the age of 31. A panel discussion featuring women in art photography, occurred as part of 31 Under 31 that brought a lot of interesting statistics to the table. Shortly after an article titled “Gallerinas” was run in the New York Times Style section, discussing the various roles women have in the gallery scene. It seemed to over-emphasize beauty over talent, style over substance and it painted the gallery world to be quite shallow and seemingly sexist. With the sudden shift in gaze towards women in photography quite a few female photographers were interested in having their voices heard. There were blog articles posted in reaction to the New York Times article, emails sent out and banners created (such as the one Liz Kuball created “Women Photographers Helping Women Photographers”).

WIPNYC came at first as a spontaneous reaction to an email Cara Phillips, my partner and co-curator on wipnyc.org, had sent regarding the article that ran in the New York Times. Rather than a cry for help or a stifled whimper about the art world not being fair towards women, I thought of doing something proactive, creating a venue that allows the strength in the work to shine through. The evolution that followed came naturally. Cara and I set up our initial site with info about the open call as well as an account to receive emailed submissions. Humble Arts Foundation and Made By Brown stepped in to offer sponsorship, supporting our ideas and building us a unique website to showcase the work. Cara and I have been working together for a few months and have been building a wonderful lineup, with our first featured solo show going to Elinor Carucci.

Our goals are wide open at the moment. We are focusing at the present on making sure that the solo shows are hand picked and of high caliber, mixing both emerging and established photographers into our selections. Eventually we want to reach out to strong female editors and gallery owners or directors to do guest edits. If this leads to bigger things in the future, such as physical exhibitions or publications, we will be glad to step up those challenges.

Cara Phillips: Women in Photography came about after I was a speaker on the Humble Arts “Women in Fine-Art Photography” panel at the 3rd Ward in Brooklyn. The panel was part of the “31 Women Under 31” exhibit. As the panelists were talking it seemed that most of us had more male mentors and peers. We all thought it would be great to try and create a network of female artists. Sometime after, I wrote a post on my blog Ground Glass discussing an article in the New York Times on gallerinas. It generated a lot of conversation and I sent a call to action email to several women asking what we could do to make positive changes rather than just complain. Amy, who I had never met before, suggested we start a blog forum for women. And shortly after WIPNYC was born. Humble Arts Foundation offered to sponsor us and Amani Olu (co-founder of Humble) designed a fantastic site for us. Everything so far has been collaboration, with both of us working together to create WIPNYC. Amani from Humble has been a great help.

I would say our goals are very simple, to create a space for women at all stages of their careers to show their work. To be a resource for both curators and editors and to help women artists develop more community. This is a really exciting time. Artists are able to show their work to much larger audiences online. The more interest and excitement we can create, hopefully the more people will consider collecting contemporary female photographers.

AP: Why is it important to you to showcase the work of women photographers?

AE: Because it seems there are plenty of ways to sit back and not be content with the current state of the art world. It has long been male dominated. Do I think that every female photographer deals with injustices or unfair standards or feels they need the label themselves as a “female photographer” rather than just a photographer? I’m not sure they all do. There are plenty of strong female photographers who seem unhindered by most any challenge. They have unique methods, face challenging subject matter, and have strong visual voices. There are more female art photographers working now than ever. As a positive reaction to an art world that is competitive, challenging, cut throat and at times impossible to step into, we have created a unique curated venue to share bodies of work for those who you may not have heard of otherwise as well as to celebrate the work of successful, established photographers.

CP: Well, female photographers are still featured less in museum shows, and their prices continue to be less on average than male artists of similar stature, the exceptions being Diane Arbus and Cindy Sherman. But for me, it is about artists taking charge of their careers. Getting a show in a New York gallery is pretty difficult. Of course we all want a book deal and a solo show in Chelsea, but these things take time and are not the only option. Personally, I get a great deal of satisfaction out of the emails I get from people who have read my blog and relate to something I have said. If I can help a female artist’s career or give her her first solo show on WIPNYC, I feel that I am doing something for all of us because both Amy and I are, of course, women in photography.

AP: I assume you already have the first few photographers lined up. Give me some of the logistics you’ve had to work through. And what have photographers’ responses been to the project?

AE: It’s been an interesting process. I would say that a good deal of the work being emailed to us is by emerging photographers who show a great level of excitement for the project and have strong bodies of work but perhaps haven’t had a chance to show their work yet. We have had a strong reaction across the board from those who have submitted their works and from the established photographers we have contacted. We have had to do quite a bit of research to get into contact with some very esteemed photographers and virtually have had to do a good amount of “cold-calling” through email to explain our project and why they would be such a great addition to it. Sometimes we get no reply, but more often we get an enthusiastic response along with an emailed edit of their works and a statement. It’s been fantastic to suddenly be in contact with photographers whose work I’ve always admired and to have them personally sending work in for the site.

CP: The site looks great and we have solo shows lined up for quite a while. For us, looking at the entries and contacting established photographers has definitely been a lot of work. As a result I have learned a ton about editing and submitting my own work. The response to the site has been pretty incredible. We have received so many entries that include notes from women saying, “Thank you for doing this,” or “Even if you don’t show my work, I think you are doing something great.” In addition, the generosity of the established artists, who certainly don’t need the exposure and who responded to our call to participate. Their willingness to trust us with their work has really impressed me. And the photo blog community has been really supportive.

AP: You talk about “creating a visual dialog” and it seems that you want to make WIPNYC kind of a forum. Do you have plans for other facets of the project besides the online showcase? Will there be online discussions, events, etc.?

AE: It’s our hopes that Women In Photography will branch out in the future to include guest interviews and curators from top gallery directors, owners, and editors. At this point we are not planning on having online discussions and are leaning away from the traditional blog format.

CP: For now we are concentrating on showing the best work and getting a good readership. I think Amy and I are open to other possible projects, but we would like to wait till we get going. We would love to have some guest curators down the road or group shows. This all came together so fast we are sort of making it up as we go along.

AP: I appreciate that your introduction is about celebrating talented women not lamenting that there is not always a place for them. Still, do you think it is sometimes hard for women in photography, which has long been a male-dominated industry (in some ways at least)?

AE: I think it can definitely be hard to find your place in an industry as competitive, cut throat, and fast paced as it is with both the fine art world and the commercial world of photography. I’m not sure every female photographer faces or feels the same challenges, but they do exist on a larger scale, whether it’s felt personally or not. The statistics are there, despite the abundance of talented female photographers out there — the scale tips heavily in favor of male photographers both in regards to fine art and commercial fields. Women In Photography is a venue created to help draw attention towards talented photographers with unique vision and impressive work.

CP: I think that women face certain challenges when they are trying to break into any field. The thing I found most upsetting about the New York Times ‘Gallerina’ article was its emphasis on looks. The message was clear: If you are attractive you can get ahead. And the photo industry has its own challenges. Most women going into photography are going to study with male teachers, which can be problematic. Or if you work for a male photographer sometimes you get hit on or have to deal with inappropriate behavior. The first time I assisted, the photographer and his first assistant did nothing but tell very raunchy sex stories. I felt like they were doing it to rattle me. Then of course, they did not want me to lift anything too heavy. Beyond the challenges of the industry, women also have to contend with how they are going to manage children, family and a photo career. Editorial shooters sometimes travel weeks at a time with only a day or two off. I think these are issues in our society, they do not only occur in the photo world. One solution is for women to network and support each other more. I think by taking action, we become stronger. Of course not all women in photography have to contend with these things, and there are many artists for whom gender is a non-issue.

AP: Please tell me a bit about yourselves, your work, etc.

AE: I was born in Venice Beach, CA in 1979. After spending some wonderful years in New Orleans I now reside and work in New York. I received a BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in May of 2007. My work has been published in PDN, American Photo, EyeMazing, Dear Dave, NY Arts, Corduroy, Out, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek Japan, and Newsweek US. My work has been in various group exhibitions, including the PIP International Photo Festival in Pingyao, China, Gallery Gagopa in Masan, South Korea, Gallery Elsa in Busan, South Korea, Jen Bekman Gallery, PEER Gallery, Visual Arts Gallery and Affordable Arts Fair in NYC, Fette’s Gallery in Los Angeles and Aqua Art Fair in Miami, FL. I am currently represented by Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York City.

My work explores notions of vulnerability, identity and transitory states. My main body of work, “Wallflower,” investigates and confronts some of the cultural grounds underlying gender. I have a personal photo blog that hosts various ideas and projects including the self-portrait project “Beyond This Place: 269 Intervals.” In addition, I curate and maintain Wanderlustagraphy.

CP: I studied with Joel Sternfeld and Penelope Umbrico at Sarah Lawrence College. I went back to get my B.A. in my mid-twenties so I came to photography after spending years in the beauty business both as a child model and as a make-up artist. I grew up in the Midwest in suburban Detroit and I think that gender stereotypes are a bit more entrenched there. I was raised to think girls should always be sweet, accommodating and nice. When I was in high school my math teacher made a crack about how girls should learn to cook rather than geometry. Not too long ago, I tried to buy 220 film while visiting my parents and the guy at the store spent ten minutes trying to talk me out of it, explaining to me what a medium format camera was. I guess my upbringing and selling lipstick made me more aware of the struggles women can face. So when I began my second real body of work, I returned to something I knew: the world of beauty.

In the beginning I was interested in showing the places women go to seek beauty, as an investigation into what these places represent and why we return to them over and over to get fixed. Eventually I started to focus on the interiors of cosmetic surgeons offices after hours. They are the epicenter of our society’s current expectations for the female body. But they also have certain psychological implications. In these chairs you confront what you dislike or find repulsive about yourself, and with machines, scalpels, or syringes you are made better. There is something very powerful about the promise of being instantly fixed. I have had my own personal struggles with body and eating issues, so in a way my work is about me confronting my own desires and self-judgments. Also, selling make-up showed me how people give power to things and places to make themselves feel better. So I guess that is partly why I am interested in images that are both seductive and a little scary. Currently, I am looking for a publisher for a book of the project, which includes text of the voices of women who have had surgery.

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Despite the sudden rise and slow decline of skin-baring laddy mags in recent years, U.S. males still seem eager to contemplate the relative hotness of modern screen sirens. Yet in this marketplace crowded with Top This or Top That lists, Esquire’s annual Sexiest Woman Alive issue has remained at the top of the heap, aided by the magazine’s sass, wit, and top-notch art direction. The unveiling of Esquire’s favorite female is now a bona fide media event, speculated on in hundreds of online forums and teased in four preceding issues of the magazine with images that obscure the woman’s identity.

Los Angeles-based photographer Sheryl Nields, who has made a name for herself with her portraits of famously beautiful women, created the photos of Esquire’s 2007 Sexiest Woman Alive, Academy Award-winning actress Charlize Theron. Nields admits that it makes her job easier to work with someone like Theron, who is often compared to classic screen beauties like Grace Kelly. But the teaser photos that appeared in the lead-up issues presented a challenge: They had to be sexy without capturing the famous traits that make Theron recognizable.

Luckily Nields had plenty of experience to fall back on, including 12 years working in editorial and advertising with celebrities from the film and music scenes. She had also worked with Theron on an earlier assignment and photographed Esquire’s 2006 Sexiest Woman Alive, Scarlett Johansson. From this extensive portraiture work, Nields has come up with a few techniques to help her get the most out of her subjects. Her most important trait, she says, is her fun-loving attitude: She works hard to make the set an enjoyable place to be. So even though her high energy level sometimes “scares people,” she knows that “people who trust it learn that it also allows them to be free.”

“She has more energy than anyone I’ve ever met,” confirms Theron. “She’d hang from a chandelier if she thought it would make a good picture.”

Nields also prides herself on being “nimble,” which for her means being able to rework a shoot at a moment’s notice. Because she considers her portraits collaborations between herself and her subject, she is always willing to make last-minute changes. “I see what works with the sensibility of the artist I’m working with,” she explains. “I see where their lines are, and I like to respect those lines.”

For the Esquire shoot, the magazine’s art director discussed ideas with Theron in advance, then passed them on to Nields. In effect, she would be shooting a movie in stills: Theron would start on the bed (referencing another glamorous star of the screen, Marilyn Monroe) then move on to other sets, including a tiled shower and a wall of venetian blinds (for an image that would become the Esquire cover shot).

Nields shoots with a Mamiya 645 (with an 80mm lens) or a Mamiya RZ67 (with a 110mm) on color negative film. She also tends to use a mixture of HMI and strobe lights. Other than that, she keeps an open mind on set, leaving room to incorporate her subject’s opinions.

And Theron has plenty of opinions. “She’s such an amazing woman, so down to earth, and has such a good idea of what she likes and doesn’t,” Nields says of the actress. Working with Polaroids, Theron and Nields negotiated what poses worked best: Theron would say, “It’s a stronger image if you only see skin,” or would want to try it without jewelry or without shoes.

“It’s really intuitive,” Nields reiterates. “It’s more about energy than verbal picking apart of things; it’s like a fluid dance.”

Which is not to say that Nields lacks her own opinions about how to create strong images. The initial idea for the venetian blinds was to have Theron peeking through them for one of the obscured pictures. But Nields “wasn’t loving it,” so she switched to the other side of the blinds, in a move she’s made so often that her assistants tease her about it.

“I did what I normally do, which is build a whole set and then shoot from the other angle,” she says with a laugh. “It always reveals some spontaneous thing.”

It seems to be that spontaneity, along with the trust Nields engenders, that keeps Hollywood’s biggest names, as well as big-name magazines like Esquire, coming back for more of her images.

“Working with Sheryl is as unique as it gets,” Theron says. “Her photos are interesting, complex, and beautiful at the same time; she has a special way of looking at things, and this comes across in her photographs.”

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From his first job at a small south Chicago paper to his current position as a staff photographer for the Chicago Tribune, Scott Strazzante has carried with him a personal project about a family farm near Lockport, Illinois. Now presented as a slide show for the Chicago Tribune Magazine titled Another Country, Strazzante’s diptychs pair images of the Cagwin farm with subsequent shots from the subdivision that was built on their land. After American Photo senior editor Miki Johnson wrote about the project on the magazine’s State of the Art blog, Strazzante got in touch and the two struck up a conversation about the ongoing project.

Miki Johnson: I’d like to start by talking about why this project attracted you in the first place. You initially documented the Cagwin’s farm for eight years, I believe. Why did you start photographing them? How did you find them? And what kept you coming back?

Scott Strazzante: In May, 1994, I was assigned to photograph a handful of people who raised animals in Homer Township, a mostly rural area, 35 miles southwest of Chicago. Two of those people were Harlow and Jean Cagwin who owned a herd of Angus beef cattle. After a daylong shoot, of which two of the photos are in my current project, I asked the Cagwins if I could come back again and photograph them. They agreed.
Being a city boy, I was drawn to the slower way of life and the opportunity to shoot something real. Over the next five years, I didn’t photograph much more than once a year but I kept in touch with Harlow and Jean.

In 1999, I moved to The Herald News in Joliet, a paper located several miles from the Cagwin farm. I pitched the farm story to the photo editor and started making regular visits. Harlow’s body began to break down and the story switched from just a general farm story to one of aging. As the suburbs started to grow and populate Homer Township, Harlow and Jean started talking about selling their land and moving to another farm away from the city. In addition to the aging angle, now suburban sprawl and the disappearing family farm in Chicago’s suburbs were added to the issues that this story covered.

As the story continued, The Herald News ran periodic stories on the Cagwins. In 2000, a photo story on the Cagwins was part of my first place National Newspaper Photographer of the Year portfolio in the POY contest. In 2001 I was hired by the Chicago Tribune and the farm story came with me. I owned all of the previous images so I started shooting the story with my own cameras on my own time usually on my off day Mondays. On July 2, 2002, Harlow Cagwin sat on a felled tree in his front yard as his home for the past 70-plus years was torn down behind him. An era was over. The story was published in the Tribune’s Sunday magazine and in Mother Jones magazine.

MJ: In the introduction to your piece by Rick Kogan, he writes that you never intended to follow the Cagwin’s to their new farm downstate, but that you always planned to go back and photograph their land. What was it about the place that compelled you more than the people?

SS: When the Cagwins moved to a new farm in Ashkum, Illinois, about an hour from their old farm, I started to photograph the Willow Walk subdivision being built. The Cagwins decided to lease out their new farm and retire in a new house on the land. I made several visits to document their new life but I decided that the Cagwin story had run its course. For the next five years, I busied myself with other stories. I had always planned on returning to the subdivision to find a family to document there but I always found an excuse not to go.

In March 2007, the subdivision found me. While speaking to a photo essay class at a community college, I showed my farm piece for the millionth time. As per usual, I said that someday I was going to go back to the land. Blah, blah, blah. After my talk, Amanda Grabenhofer, a mother of four, raised her hand and said, “I live in that subdivision.” Within in a week, I was at the Willow Walk subdivision on Cinnamon Court — a perfectly suburban cul-de-sac situated about 100 yards from where the Cagwin home once stood alone — photographing an Easter egg hunt.

MJ: Tell me about the time you spent documenting the Grabenhofer family. Were they aware of the farmland their house was built on? Did they have a connection with farming or the land that was at all unusual?

SS: Amanda became aware of the land’s history only when she saw my photo story during class. Neither the Grabenhofers nor any of their neighbors had any connection to farming or the area in general. Most had moved in from other suburbs closer to Chicago.

MJ: The introduction also talks about the similarities you began to see between the new pictures you were making and the ones you’d made years before. Can you describe what those similarities were (emotional, thematic, compositional)? Once you recognized these echoes, did you examine your old photos more carefully and consciously start to look for similar moments?

SS: As I began photographing the Grabenhofers, I had no idea of how I was going to make this story work with the farm photos. My only plan was to eventually publish a book with a chronological narrative going from the Cagwins to the cul-de-sac.

In mid-April, I was shooting the kids when Amanda and her husband Ed’s oldest child Ben started wrestling with his cousin CJ. They had a jump rope and it ended up getting wrapped around Ben. As I shot this scene, I had a quick flashback to a day in 2001when I photographed Harlow wrestling with a two-day old calf that had escaped from the barn.
I played around with the two images eventually making a diptych out of them. I belong to the online group aphotoaday.org, and I posted the diptych. Immediately, I got several positive responses to the pairing. The next day, I pulled out my bulging binder filled with Cagwin negatives and started looking for pairs. I made five or so on that day. Now fresh with Cagwin memories in my brain, I began seeing echoes everywhere. Most of the diptychs came from photographing the Grabenhofers and then finding a match but several were driven by the Cagwin images, like the aerial and the view from the 2nd floor window.

MJ: In the introduction you are quoted saying, “I had no agenda. I am not anti-subdivision,” and I think this project is so strong because you didn’t go in with a one-sided opinion to express. But now that it is “completed,” is it possible to step back and feel a few personal things about it? You’ve read my blog post, so you know it struck a chord for me. When you look at Another Country now, is there anything new you see in it?

SS: My view is simply that life is life. I was very lucky in finding the Cagwins and equally fortunate when the Grabenhofers found me. Harlow and Jean were wonderful photo subjects who went on living their lives like I wasn’t there. As for the Grabenhofers, they are gold, with their four children, three of which are triplets, and their two dogs, one of which looks like a cow. With Amanda being a budding photographer, the children were all used to being in front of the camera. I just slid in and was making good photos from day one. There are so many more moving parts in the subdivision so it has been much easier to be playful than it was on the farm where half my photos seem to be Harlow struggling to make it through another day.

I dearly love both the Cagwins and the Grabenhofers and I don’t want this essay to turn into a “the suburbs suck” essay. I enjoy photographing the everyday, the mundane and showing that captivating moments happen in everybody’s life. The pairings I have constructed have mostly come from similar moments, emotions and compositions. I haven’t really let societal issues influence my choices. As I continue this project, I hope to dig a little deeper and try to be a little subtler with the diptychs. But mostly I tend to shoot and let other people figure out what it’s all about.

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The third annual Hexathlon, presented by the New York chapter of the Advertising Photographers of America, pitted six teams of assistants against one another in six feats of strength, speed, and dexterity that are required of assistants every day. There was a sandbag relay, a Flexfill folding speed trial, a 12×12 frame team set-up, an Octabank build and break-down, a seamless hang, a “pack the right equipment” memory challenge, and, as a tie-breaker, an extension cord untangling race.

The top team — Steve Zadrozny, Esteban Aladro, Zach Callahan, Gabriela Herman, and Anthony Cunanan — won a bag of prizes that included a Canon PowerShot SD850 IS Digital Elph, a Lenbaby 3G, and a $100 Fotocare gift certificate. The second- and third-place teams took home smaller prizes. And, of course, all participants received their very own roll of gaffers tape from Set Shop.

While the prizes were a big draw for the competitors, the APA conceived of the event mainly as a way to put assistants in touch with the other assistants and photographers who come out for the event. Tony Gale, an APA member who helped organize the event, explained that when a photographer’s regular assistants are booked, the photographer usually asks those assistants to recommend someone to fill in for them.

Jena Cumbo, who was on the winning assistant’s team the first two years, has experienced that friend-of-a-friend phenomenon many times. “Most of the new work I get is through other assistants,” she said, adding that the hexathlon is a great way to meet other assistants, especially for aspiring photographers who have just moved to the city.

And it’s a good way to build up something else every assistant needs: a thick skin. While professional photographers stood on the sidelines swapping battle stories about their days as assistants (one got beaned with the dark slide from a medium format camera when he forgot to remove it), the current assistants struggled to do things they had done a million times before on set — but without a timer running.

The killer, by far, was the Flexfill folding challenge. A penalty time was imposed this year after participants last year simply couldn’t get the biggest one folded (this year’s was as tall as most assistants and an unwieldy rectangle). If someone couldn’t get the three reflectors folded and bagged after several minutes, they took a 30-second penalty and moved on to the next team member. Almost half the assistants ended up with penalties.

Eventually, a few professionals had to step in to show them how it was done. Simon Biswas, who competed in last year’s hexathlon, volunteered this year as a ref — and made quick work of the biggest Flexfill. “It’s way more fun to be a ref,” he observed. “It’s rough out there when you can do this stuff in your sleep, but you choke when everyone is watching.”

Jon Wasserman, who came up with the hexathlon after seeing a similar event in Los Angeles for film assistants, showed up midway through Sunday’s events to cheer on (and good-naturedly mock) the competing assistants. While most APA events are slightly more serious affairs, Wasserman and the other APA members agreed that fun events like the hexathlon are a great way to bring in new members and to foster community. “We like to have industry-related events that are just about having a good time,” Wasserman said.

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Mike Brodie is barely old enough to drink alcohol legally, yet he’s already achieved something photographers twice his age are still striving for: He makes enough from his photos to keep taking pictures.

Brodie fell in love with photography a few years ago when a friend lent him her vintage Pol­aroid camera. “I took a photo of the handlebars of my BMX bike, and the Polaroid that developed blew my mind!” he wrote in our e-mail interview.

Equipped with a Polaroid SX-70 Sonar OneStep from eBay and stolen packets of its hard-to-find film, Brodie began obsessively photographing the things around him and uploading scans to his burgeoning Website (Google “The Polaroid Kidd”).

The results have blown several well-respected minds, including magazine editors and curators at Los Angeles’ M+B gallery, which added Brodie to its roster and staged his first show in 2006.

Now living with his mom and brother in Pensacola, Florida, Brodie is fleshing out a new project in 35mm film, photographing his friends and fellow travelers as they hop trains around the country.

You’ve said you can’t have a job. Why not?

I think working is great and all, ya gotta make money, but personally I don’t like having time restraints on me. I say this now, but years from now I’ll feel totally opposite I suppose. Haha.

In recent work you have shot people you travel with. Are you friends with the people in your photos?

Photography has made me what I am. It pulls me in all directions. It gives and takes friends, and pushes me to move miles and miles. My desire to photograph these people in the beginning is what led me to develop such great relationships with them; some being relationships that will last clear on ’til the day I die. I’m really lucky ’cause I never used to be this social.

Why are you drawn to photography?

I don’t really like getting into the “why” question; there’s no tellin’ really why people do what they do. Photography is especially important; images are one of the leading medias that shape our lives. There’s so much bullshit out there. It’s nice to see/show things you’ve never seen before.

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In the early ’90s, Magnum photographer Bruce Davidson suggested a project on Central Park to the National Geographic editors he’d been working with in recent years. They hadn’t done a piece on the park in decades, so they agreed, but insisted Davidson shoot in color, a thorn in the predominantly black-and-white photographer’s side.

“But I was a good boy and I exposed about 500 rolls of Kodachrome,” Davidson says. “And they hated it.” Upon hearing that National Geographic had decided to give the Central Park story to another photographer, Davidson says he “went right back into the park and worked in black and white for three more years.”

More than a decade later, that project has been turned into a full exhibition, currently part of Madrid’s 2007 PHotoEspaña festival. It was also on view in New York City as part of the Magnum Festival, the agency’s 60th anniversary celebration.

The show’s master prints created by Davidson’s long-time go-to printer John Delaney are a welcome rebirth of the monograph published by Aperture in 1995. A very small selection from that Central Park book was presented at the Aperture Gallery at that time, but since then it had languished in Davidson’s personal collection — until this year when he revisited it while putting together a forecasted retrospective show.

“This project has been dormant so long and it’s just coming out of the closet now,” Davidson mused at the recent opening in Madrid. Davidson has also recently brought another dormant series out of the archive: his circus images. In Madrid he showed off his early copy of Circus (Steidl), which includes images from circuses around the world and reaches back to Davidson’s early days as a photographer.

Central Park is a kaleidoscopic survey of the Manhattan landmark, utilizing square, 35mm, and panoramic images to capture everything from a whited-out great lawn to the homeless men and birdfeeders who call the park home. Davidson worked with Hasselblad, “every lens Canon makes,” and especially the Noblex 120 Panoramic, to capture the “movement” that designer Frederick Law Olmsted envisioned for the park.

“Too many bums” was National Geographic’s purported complaint with the color series Davidson first submitted to them — but the present incarnation hovers between rough reality and grandiose beauty in a way that often leaves the viewer with a sensation of the magical.

The images are also marked by Davidson’s painstaking care for shape and perspective. In one beautiful panorama, an entwined couple sprawls across a rock face overlooking a waterfall, their bodies curving gracefully to mirror the river’s path.

“I look at a rose not for its color, but for its shape,” Davidson explains. “The shape of things in Central Park became important to me; I didn’t need the color.”

Anyone who sees this show is likely to agree.

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As guests arrived at the 23rd annual Infinity Awards on Monday, the flash bulbs were popping — and for once, the photographers were in front of the cameras. The awards, given by the International Center of Photography, were held this year at Pier 60 in New York City, where the entry hall bristled with cameras angling to capture photography and fashion glitterati, as well as supportive celebrities like Julianne Moore, Sean Lennon, Calvin Klein, and Infinity Award winner Karl Lagerfeld.

After cocktails in the photo gallery, the approximately 700 guests took their seats in the adjoining dining room lined with video screens, on which were presented short video interviews and photo montages for each winner (see photos). The night’s most raucous applause went to William Klein, who ended his acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement award in his characteristically implacable way with, “F*%# ’em all.”

2007 Infinity Award Winners

Christopher Morris, My America
Photojournalism

Ryan McGinley
Young Photographer

Gap
Applied/Fashion/Advertising Photography

Karl Lagerfeld
ICP Trustee Award

David Levi Strauss
Writing

Sommes-Nous?, by Tendance Floue
Publication

Tracey Moffatt
Art

Milton Rogovin
Cornell Capa Award

William Klein
Lifetime Achievement

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