DC Nonprofit Photography & Biz Skills Workshop

Project DC 2013

Photography as a Force of Change

in collaboration with

Location: Washington, DC
Dates: September, 25 – 29, 2013
Cost: $1650 (Get 10% off if you are a student, current or former military or belong to a due paying professional organization!)
Please contact our office for itinerary and workshop information.

• Momenta provides each student with a detailed questionnaire. We use this to match each student’s interest with a nonprofit in Washington, DC
• Each student will get their own nonprofit to work with, based on your answers to the questionnaire and your interests in nonprofit story topics
• Momenta will do all the pre-workshop logistics for nonprofit assignments.
• Momenta presents an intensive instruction on Photo Mechanic and photo asset archiving & workflow
• You receive daily personal portfolio reviews with lead instructor and Momenta staff
• Nightly slideshows, lectures and group critiques
• Daily mentoring and story development editing one-on-one with an instructor for at least one hour a day
• Voluntary multimedia instruction for interested attendees
• Lectures on narrative storytelling, elements of a photo story and history of documentary photography
• Lectures on funding a personal project, business skills and working with nonprofits for profit
• Final slideshow and party hosted by Momenta for all students, nonprofit staff, general public and members of the photographic community

 

Momenta has been based in the Washington, DC area since our company’s founding and we are so happy to be doing another Project workshop in our backyard. If you have never joined Momenta for a photography or multimedia workshop, this will be a wonderful one to attend!

During your workshop with us, you will not only learn to work directly with a nonprofit on a relevant photo story but you will also receive lectures on business models for making nonprofit photography work for you, how to market your portfolio for nonprofit clients as well as financing a personal project through grant writing and public fund raising.

We choose our nonprofits based on need and we choose to work with small, local, underfunded projects that have a serious necessity for photography. These groups usually have very small budgets and have never had access to a photographer before. They give our students access and in turn the students learn how to work with a nonprofit to get quality imagery for a portfolio piece.

Momenta will offer to connect photographers with nonprofit organizations we have worked with in the past. However, we also encourage more advanced photographers to find their own photo story or charity of their choice. If you’ve never done this before but would like to try, don’t worry! Our team of instructors and staff will guide you every step of the way if you choose to venture down this road.

Every day of the workshop, Momenta staff and instructors with work with you to develop a photo story that is close to your personal vision. We do this through daily editing one-on-one with you and an instructor for about one hour each evening.

A great addition to our curriculum in 2013 is the collaboration of Momenta and Leica during our series of Project workshops. All photographers on this workshop will have the opportunity to borrow and use digital Leica M9s and lenses for use in their photo stories. We will have a special lecture during orientation about the use of Leicas and their great history in documentary photography.

Students are also encouraged to record audio for multimedia presentations and their portfolio. Momenta will have audio gear on hand to borrow. Multimedia instruction and editing will also be available for interested attendees.

On the final day of the workshop, Momenta will host a student slide show presentation for all the organizations who participated in the workshop as well as neighborhood residents, local photographers and journalists and the workshop attendees. The slideshow is truly a moving and emotional experience for everyone involved. It creates a wonderful atmosphere of camaraderie and celebration to conclude our learning experience together!

We hope you can join us for this very special workshop experience in one of America’s most vibrant and exciting cities!

Workshop fees include: one-on-one editing with instructors on a daily basis, personal portfolio reviews, a student handbook, all handouts and workshop materials, daily slideshows and lectures, software and equipment training, an opening night dinner, our final celebration and slideshow party provided by Momenta for the public at our headquarters.

Workshop fees do not include: meals not listed, transportation, hotel accommodations and personal amenities. Momenta does offer suggestions for housing and transportation deals in DC when you register for the program.

Please contact our staff for a trip itinerary and travel arrangement questions.

About your Instructors

Leading this workshop will be Jamie Rose, our Director of Workshops. Jamie has been a documentarian working out of DC for the last decade. Jamie is considered an expert in nonprofit photography. She has been interviewed by Photo District News (PDN), News Photographer Magazine and numerous online publications about the importance of nonprofit documentary photography.

In 2011, Jamie was awarded the United Nations’ IPC’s Photographers Leadership Award. She has also won numerous awards and grants for her documentary and nonprofit work from the Alexia Foundation and the prestigious White House News Photographers’ Association Project Grant for her portfolio of African nonprofit work.

Joining Jamie on this workshop is our newest instructor: award-winning Getty Images staff photographer Chip Somodevilla. Chip has worked for the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Detroit Free Press before moving to the nation’s capital in 2004. Somodevilla was twice named Michigan Press Photographer of the Year and was named the Photographer of the Year by the White House News Photographers Association. His work has been honored by the University of Missouri’s Pictures of the Year International and the National Press Photographers Association’s Best of Photojournalism competitions.

Chip’s photography has been published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Time magazine, Newsweek magazine and many other publications around the world. He is an inspiring, patient and motivating instructor who takes a personal interest in student’s growth. We are so lucky to have him on this amazing workshop!

Learn more about your instructors by visiting Our Instructors page.

For More Information

Please email our staff for further information at info@momentaworkshops.com. You may also reach Director of Workshops Jamie Rose between the hours of 9:00 a.m – 5 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday at our offices at 202.688.1448. Please call or email to set up a weekend or evening appointment.

http://momentaworkshops.com/washington-dc-2013.php

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Do NOT miss Craig Semetko this Saturday!

On a personal note, Craig came to speak at Momenta’s Project DC: Working with Nonprofits workshop in 2012 and he was amazing! I highly recommend seeing him speak at the Leica store in DC this weekend! -Jamie

 

The Return of Craig Semetko

Join us on Saturday, January 19th for a return visit from our exhibiting artist Craig Semetko as he discusses new images from his ‘E Pluribus Unum’ project and signs copies of his book UNPOSED.

If you have not had a chance to see his UNPOSED work in our Gallery, this is the perfect opportunity to hear the stories behind the images directly from the photographer.  Also debuting, is a haunting print of the rollercoaster swept out to sea during Superstorm Sandy.

All prints are available for purchase in addition to signed copies of Craig’s book UNPOSED.

Come join us for a Saturday of excellent photography and entertaining stories behind Craig Semetko’s images!

Saturday, January 19th:

12pm – 1:30pm

3pm – 4:30pm

Please RSVP to rsvp@leica-store-dc.com and specify the time you would like to attend.

Look forward to seeing you then!

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$15,000 is waiting for you, photogs!

The Alexia Foundation Professional Competition (Deadline: Jan. 18th)

Portfolio Format and Requirements

Applications must be submitted through our online application process. (If you find it impossible to enter online, contact grants@alexiafoundation.org and we will find a way to get your entry into our system.)

Your portfolio must not have more than 20 photographs.

Deadline

Applications must be received by 5 p.m. EST, January 18, 2013.

Introduction to the Professional Competition Rules

The Alexia Foundation offers the professional grant to enable a photographer to have the financial ability to produce a substantial picture story that furthers the Foundation’s goals of promoting world peace and cultural understanding.

Eligibility

Any photographer from any country may apply for this grant. Proposals that have received grants or awards exceeding $1,000 in the previous calendar year are not eligible. This award is for an individual photographer. Collaborative applications are not accepted.

Judging Criteria

The Alexia Grant was not established with the single purpose of rewarding the best photographers – this is not a portfolio competition. The grant will be awarded to a photojournalist who can further cultural understanding and world peace by conceiving and writing a concise, focused, and meaningful story proposal, and who can demonstrate the ability to visually execute that story with compelling images. There is no mathematical formula for determining grantees, but the proposal and photography must both be considered of the highest quality.

Professional applications will be judged in two rounds. First, members of the Alexia Board and its executive advisors will review portfolios and move those demonstrating strong visual skills to a second round. In that round, judges that are industry leaders first read and rank the story proposals for all those portfolios brought forward. If no judge thinks the proposal is worth considering, the portfolio is not reviewed in the second round. A winner is chosen based on the judges’ determination of the combination of the strongest proposal and photography.

http://www.alexiafoundation.org/grants/professional_rules

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Amazing 8×10 lineup on Jan. 15!

ASMP 8×10 on January 15th

Join ASMP on Tuesday, January 15, 2013 in the Wechsler Theater on the American University campus and help cheer on eight of our fellow ASMPDC members as they take ten minutes each to present their work. This year we’ve asked that they highlight some of their personal work and talk about how it relates to and informs their commercial, editorial and other assignments. Don’t miss this lively evening from a diverse group of our fellow photographers as they show us their approach to the craft and business of making great images.

Uliana Bazar
Uliana Bazar is a Ukrainian documentary photographer and multimedia producer based in Washington, D.C. She is currently working toward a master’s degree in New Media Photojournalism at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington with the documentation of post-Soviet immigrants in New York as her final project thesis.

John Boal
John Boal has been a photographer in Washington DC for the past 7 years and honed his skills as a portrait and documentary storyteller while a staff photographer at The News & Messenger from 2008 until he left to freelance in March, 2012.

Brad Howell
Brad Howell has been working in the photography business for 8 years. Brad draws from his background in theater and film to construct expressive and narrative qualities in his editorial portraiture. Recently moving back from New Mexico, Brad is re-establishing himself in the DC market.

Alex Jamison
Alex Jamison views and pursues photography as a graphic medium in the context of the fine arts. He served as apprentice to Frederick Sommer before moving to Washington in 1979. He has photographed art and architecture for institutional, corporate, and private clients. A master printer, he has made silver-gelatin and ink jet prints for special exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of American History.

Leena Jayaswa
Leena Jayaswal is an award wining fine art/documentary photographer and filmmaker. Her work often refers to identity issues. Leena is the Director of the Photography Concentration at American University where she has taught for the past 17 years.

Andrew Propp
Originally hailing from Washington D.C, Andrew Propp began experimenting with photography at the early age of seven. After earning a history degree from Whitman College and taking part in a documentary studies program in Portland, Maine, he returned to the DC area in late 2011. Andrew recently joined Washingtonian Magazine as a staff photographer.

Liz Roll
Liz Roll is a freelance photographer who has lived in the DC area for 26 years. After four years as a photographer at the American Red Cross, she became a freelancer, while also moonlighting for FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). Over the years, she has photographed scores of natural disasters, from spring floods to earthquakes to Hurricanes Ike, Rita, Katrina, and most recently, Hurricane Sandy.

Jonathan Timmes
Jonathan Timmes is an editorial and commercial photographer based in the historic district of Georgetown in Washington, DC. He specializes in character-driven portraiture that is both modern and dramatic.

Register Now

When
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Social time starts at 6:30 PM

Where
Wechsler Theater
Mary Graydon Building, 3rd floor
American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
campus map
Costs

$10.00—ASMP member
$20.00—non-member
$10.00—Professional Association member
$5.00—Student, AU Students Free with ID

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Jamie’s Charities: Ripple Effect Images

The next of my Jamie’s Charities suggestions for the end of the year giving is the amazing Ripple Effect Images. Read more about them here and the links to donate are below.

Remember: If you donate $10 a day for the rest of the year, you’d get a tax deduction & spend less than a night out for dinner!

Ripple Effect Images is a team of journalists dedicated to documenting the plight of poor women and girls around the world, and highlighting the programs that are helping to empower them, especially as they deal with the devastating effects of climate change. Working closely with scientists and NGOs to identify both the needs and the innovative programs that are helping women and girls, Ripple Effect journalists make strategic trips to document these programs. They then donate their photographs, video, and stories to the Ripple Effect Images Archive . This Archive is made available, at no cost, to our partner aid organizations and to policymakers who are working to help poor women as they deal with the tremendous challenges caused by climate change. The extraordinary Ripple Effect team includes a MacArthur Genius Fellow, as well as Pulitzer Prize, Emmy Award, and National Humanities Medal winners.

Donate to Ripple Effects here and change a woman’s life.

Ripple Effect Images is a registered 501 (c) (3) organization

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I got blogged!

Hey guys! I thought I’d share the interview I gave for Strategic Frames, a blog by DC photographer Robert Dodge. He invited me to sit down and talk about the future of nonprofit and documentary photography. Hope you like it! -Jamie

http://strategicframes.com/2011/12/photography-as-a-force-of-change/

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Thoughts on internships for a Saturday.

About three years ago in December, I posted an opportunity on here that was sent to me advertising for a free internship. I had posted the same job three months earlier and not a word was spoken about it. Somehow, someway though, word got out and it went viral. It started a completely unexpected firestorm in a matter of two days that got over 13,000 hits, hundreds of comments and blog posts and a wave of vitriolic jabs at successful photographers who hire free labor.

It was a HUGE learning experience for me. First and foremost, I learned how to turn off comments until they’d been approved! I also learned even the most respected professionals in our career are not immune to criticism by a disgruntled industry, no matter how misguided. But mostly, I learned we as an industry need to consider this issue more closely and must decide what using free interns says about us.

After carefully culling the vicious/curse word filled comments, the discussion turned for the better. The follow up posts created a very interesting series of thought-provoking commentary on the world of free interns. This discussion still rages on on other blogs, newsletters and articles. Now, it seems the issue has moved in the courts as you’ll read below.

The following article by NPR should make us all in the photographic industry consider what it means to be an intern, why we hire interns and what are the risks and benefits of free labor. Do we continue to allow each other “eat our young” as many suggest free internships do? Or will we try to find the best ways to foster the next generation of storytellers?

I don’t have an answer and I don’t think there is a simple one to this issue. However, the choice of using interns, made by all who employ or use free labor, needs to be made not for personal gain but to help support the industry’s long term success.

I very rarely write personal thoughts on this blog as you all know. However, this is one of those few days where I wanted to reach out to you all to encourage us all to act in the best interests of the industry for the future of photojournalism and photographers everywhere.

I encourage you to read the article, comment on this post if you want or simply share the article with others. Let us strive to the other industries know: we in all avenues of photography will try to act a shining example of the best treatment of the youth in our career field. Let’s begin a dialogue about our future.

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/12/142224360/unpaid-interns-real-world-work-or-just-free-labor?sc=fb&cc=fp

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GRANT: WHNPA Grant $5,000 (due Oct. 31)

• A $5,000 PROJECT GRANT has been established for a WHNPA member to work on an in-depth undertaking of his or her choosing. This grant is designed to give a member the opportunity to work on a project that might not be possible without financial assistance. Some of the work produced will be featured in future WHNPA publications such as the online Member Gallery and The Report.

Please submit your completed applications by email to the Education Chair, or mail to:

Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Associated Press Photo
1100 13th St NW Suite 700
Washington DC 20005

pmonsivais@ap.org
Office-202-641-9510
Mobile- 202-365-2642

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JOB: Web Photo Editor

Smithsonian.com is looking for a Web Editor:
 
Develop the editorial vision, strategic plans and editorial calendars for
the Smithsonian.com web site.
Work with marketing/advertising sales team to communicate editorial plans.
Oversee online editorial budget.
Develop, manage and edit Web stories, multimedia packages and Web
departments by freelancers and editorial staff.
 
Together with the Chief Digital Officer, Smithsonian Enterprises:
o Oversee and direct site upgrades and search engine optimization
improvements with the goal of increasing audience size and engagement.
o Forge editorial partnerships; oversee day-to-day partner management and
execution.
o Manage strategic relationships with content and syndication partners from
within the Smithsonian Institution and outside.
o Collaborate on digital content distribution strategies, including RSS,
blogger outreach, mobile, tablet, etc.
 
Bachelor¹s degree (B.A.) or equivalent in a related discipline from a
four-year college or university.

Minimum of five years full-time work experience developing online tools,
features and community elements for high-profile online news or feature
sites required. Journalism and management experience required. Must have
strong news judgment and a commitment to journalistic ethics and standards,
as well as superior writing and editing skills. 

Must have experience
developing, assigning and editing stories, and producing multimedia
packages. Demonstrated technical proficiency with Web design and
development, including working knowledge of content management systems,
HTML, XML, RSS, Flash, editing software for audio and video, site taxonomy
and content distribution techniques required.
 
Please forward a resume with cover letter to: (Please include salary
requirements)
sbvcareers@si.edu
Please include position title in subject line

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Atlanta Photoj Seminar & Contest Info

39th Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar

Early Registration & Contest Opens

The 39^th Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar will be held Friday & Saturday December 2-3, 2011 at the Westin Atlanta Perimeter North Hotel.  The annual seminar – which draws attendees from the U.S. and Canada – features Friday workshops, our Saturday speaker series, our print auction, a Saturday trade show and a photojournalism print and multimedia contest. Each evening, we’ll hold portfolio reviews where you’ll interact with our speakers, workshop leaders and peers.

First – about our contest. This year, we’ve made entering our photojournalism contest easier for you and eliminating that last minute dash to FedEx. Now all entries will be submitted via our FTP server through our partnership with our friends at US Presswire. Contest rules and information may be found at  http://www.photojournalism.org/contest/rules

Early registration opens today. We’re already the best value in pj education and networking, but early registration will save you even more! Find out more at   http://www.photojournalism.org/registration

Our Friday, December 2nd workshops are being finalized now.  Here’s a partial list of confirmed workshops…

Rich Addicks / “Producing DSLR Video Projects”

Deb Pang Davis / Cococella / “Branding Strategies & Marketing Yourself“

Tom Kennedy / ASMP, Nat. Geo., Wash. Post, Newhouse Faculty / “Understanding the Changing Media Landscape“

- Additional workshops will be announced on Monday October 17th -

Here’s this year’s all-star lineup of our Saturday, December 3rd featured speakers…

David Burnett / Contact Press Images

 Mary F. Calvert / ZUMAPress

 Barbara Davidson / The Los Angeles Times

 Mike Davis  /  Nat. Geo., Oregonian, White House, Picture Editor At Large

 Julie Jacobson / The Associated Press

 Greg Kahn / The Naples (FL) Daily News

We have a new hotel! This year we’ve moved to The Westin Atlanta Perimeter North Hotel where we’ve held the line on room rates to just $87 per night (plus tax). This is an extraordinary value and the offer is limited to the first 100 rooms – so make your reservations now at  http://www.starwoodmeeting.com/Book/photojournalismseminar

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