Tim Page took some of the most confronting images of the Vietnam War. As a young photojournalist he spent six years covering the conflict for outlets including TIME-LIFE, UPI, PARIS MATCH and ASSOCIATED PRESS, and became one of a small group of iconic photographers whose arresting images of war woke the world up to what was going on. 

Page was also a man made mythical before his time, the inspiration for Dennis Hopper’s photojournalist in Apocalypse Now, he had a reputation for getting closer to the action than most of his colleagues. Embedded with the US military, he went everywhere, covering everything.  As a result, he was injured four times, once or twice almost fatally. 

Since then Page has spent decades covering events from Timor-Leste to Afghanistan and Cuba to Cambodia. His photographs are held by London’s Tate Gallery and Washington’s Smithsonian. He was recently named as one of The 100 most influential photographers of all time and has been the subject of many documentaries, two films and the author of ten books.  He now lives in Brisbane Australia and this is his first visit back to the UK in 14 years.

Tim will be talking to journalist Jon Swain about his work and career, focussing on Vietnam and Cambodia. A selection of his prints will be on sale following the event.

Marines coming ashore March ’65

In 2012, award-winning photographer Guy Martin moved to Istanbul. At the time, Turkey was regarded as a nation of wealth and power, with a stable democracy with secular leadership. However, this began to change with the rise of Islamic State, Presidential elections, the Kurds becoming a credible political force, the refugee crisis, and the failed coup d’etat by a section of the Turkish armed forces in 2016. In this volatile environment, fake news, before it was known as such, thrived, fuelled by change and instability. Since the abortive putsch, independent media workers have been sacked in their thousands, and scores imprisoned; Turkey is now the world’s leading jailer of journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Against this backdrop, Martin was drawn to explore Turkish soap operas, some of the most watched television shows in the world. The soap operas that had previously exported a simultaneously nostalgic and socially progressive vision of Turkey across the Arab world, refocused their storylines to emphasise the Turkish military and political power plots by deep state operatives, collusion by foreign powers, and terrorist attacks. Martin was introduced to a soap opera Director and given free rein to shoot on set, recording the action both during, before and after the cameras were rolling.

What began as a documentary project quickly spiralled into a deeper journey along the fault lines of truth, and the power of narratives to control reality. It is this dizzying blur of fact, urban myth, intense political fear and fiction pervading Turkish society – and Martin’s work – that we come together to discuss. Joining us will be storytellers of all stripes, from prizewinning authors to frontline journalists and translators.

Chair:

Maureen Freely was born in the United States, raised in Turkey, and educated at Harvard. A professor at the University of Warwick, she is currently the chair of English PEN. Her seventh novel, Sailing through Byzantium, was chosen as one of the best novels of 2014 by The Sunday Times. She has translated or co-translated a number of Turkish memoirs and classics, as well as five books by the Turkish novelist and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk. She is also the translator of two memoirs about Turkey’s Islamicized Armenians, and the biography of the Turkish-Armenian journalist and political activist Hrant Dink.

Speakers:

Guy Martin is a British documentary photographer. He graduated with a B.A(HONS) in Documentary Photography from the University of Wales, Newport and shortly afterwards, won the Guardian and Observer Hodge Award. He went on to pursue a long-term project in Southern Russia and the Caucasus, before documenting the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa. His work regularly appears in the Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, Der Spiegel, D Magazine, FADER, Huck Magazine, Le Monde M Magazine, Time Magazine, Bloomberg Business Week Magazine, WIRED, Harpers and National Geographic.

The Parallel State was supported by grants from the Magnum Emergency Fund and the Saint-Brieuc Photoreporter Festival and was the winner of the inaugural Viewbook Transformations Grant, and the Project Launch Award at CENTER, Santa Fe, New Mexico. The project was first exhibited in the Rencontres d’Arles 2017 as part of the New Discovery Award. Martin is a member of Panos Pictures, and his print sales and special commissions are represented by NineteenSixtyEight. An exhibition of ‘The Parallel State’ will be on display at Benrubi Gallery, New York, in February 2019.

Pelin Turgut is a London-based writer, storyteller and international facilitator. Co-creator of the popular alternative film festival -!f Istanbul-, several unique storytelling courses at institutions across Europe and a teacher of the art of storytelling, her first novel Secrets of a Vanishing Country was published in Turkey last year. The book is currently being translated into English.

Join photojournalist Lynsey Addario in conversation with Fiona Shields as she showcases her latest work in her collection Of Love and War.

Lynsey Addario has captured audiences with her disarming and compelling photographs and her uncanny ability to personalise even the most remote corners of our world. In OF LOVE AND WAR, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist returns with a stunning collection of more than two hundred of her photographs from across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa from the last twenty years. In her distinctively dramatic style, Addario documents families living in Afghanistan under the Taliban; the stark truths of sub-Saharan Africa; the daily reality of women in the Middle East; U.S. military units on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan; the faces and bodies of the refugee crisis; and much more.

Through Addario’s eyes we bear witness to the human cost of war in gripping, full-colour photographs and in the form of field notes, personal letters and emails Addario has written over the years. The book also features revelatory essays from esteemed writers such as Dexter Filkins, Aryn Baker, and Lydia Polgreen, and public figures such as Christy Turlington. OF LOVE & WAR is a compelling statement about the world, and all its inescapable chaos and conflict, from one of the most brilliant and influential journalists working today in any medium.

Fiona Shields

Fiona Shields is Head of Photography for the Guardian News and Media Group For over twenty years,Fiona has been picture editing across a range of newspaper titles and was picture editor of the Guardian for the last nine before taking up her role Throughout her career she has been involved in the coverage of some of the most historic news stories of our time. Fiona has judged the Sony World Photography Awards, the UK Picture Editors Guild Awards, the Renaissance Photography Prize to name a few. Last year she was a a nominator for the Prix Pictet and joined the jury of The Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize.

Award-winning photographer Nish Nalbandian spent three years documenting life and war in Northern Syria from the frontlines to the everyday lives of people struggling to survive amid the ruins. A selection of photographs from this powerful body of work were published in Nalbandian’s critically acclaimed first monograph A Whole World Blind (Daylight, 2016). In 2014, as the situation in Syria escalated and it was becoming too dangerous to stay there, Nalbandian shifted his focus to another story close by: the lives of the nearly three million Syrian refugees still living in southern Turkey. Nalbandian’s humanistic portraits of Syrians in Turkey are published in his second book: A Handful of Dust (Daylight Books, April 2018).

In the book’s introduction, Nalbandian writes: “My intent in this book was not to produce a ‘poor refugee’ story, showing sad pictures of exotic Middle Eastern people living in poverty. I do have some pictures like that. But I challenged myself to show a wide swath of the Syrian population from all walks of life. I do not claim to show a complete picture, just a broad picture of what life is like for these people in this place at this time. I also tried to leave people’s politics and specifics of the war out of it”.

About the photographer

Nish Nalbandian working in Aleppo, Syria. Photo courtesy of Richard Charles Harvey

Documentary photographer Nish Nalbandian has photographed in more than 35 countries worldwide, in a variety of situations and environments, from wars to sporting events, cities to remote deserts. His work has appeared in such diverse outlets as The Human Rights Watch World Report, The Los Angeles Times, NPR, The New Yorker, Bag News National Geographic Traveler, and New Scientist. His first monograph, A Whole World Blind:War and Life In Northern Syria (Daylight Books, 2016) received critical acclaim in such outlets as Smithsonian Magazine, The Daily Beast, Vice, American Photo, Square Mile Magazine, Lensculture and The New York Review of Books. Nalbandian’s work has been shown in the New York Photo Festival, Powerhouse Arena, and IPA Best in Show in New York, and in exhibitions around the world.He has received many honours, including: Applied Art’s 2014 ‘Best Portrait Series’ Award (Portraits of the Syrian Opposition); American Photography AP30 (Aleppo Struggles On); First Prize, IPA (International Photography Awards) Editorial/Conflict (Aleppo Struggles On); Silver Medal, ND Awards (Special – Panoramic, Panoramic Photographs in and around Aleppo); Honourable Mention, ND Awards, Special PhotojournalismStory (Aleppo Struggles On); and Lensculture’s Top 50 Emerging Talent Award for 2014. For more information, go to: http://www.nishnalbandian.com/

Matthew Cassel 

Matthew Cassel is an award-winning filmmaker and multimedia journalist based in the Mediterranean region. For more than a decade he has documented stories of people facing conflict and persecution in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and beyond. He works mainly as a one-person video crew, filming, producing and editing short and long-form documentary content for various publications.

Learn more here.

Formerly a Blue Planet producer, Jo wanted to raise awareness and show the true extent to which plastic has polluted the world’s seas. Accompanied by scientists, conservationists and engineers, Jo set out to some of the most remote parts of the world to document the true extent of plastic pollution and its consequences on ecosystems and human health.

We discuss how both visually stunning and shocking images can be used in environmental activism, and the best tactics to bring about change.

Jo Ruxton worked for the WWF in Asia for 7 years, before joining the BBC Natural History Unit as a Producer, where she was a part of the celebrated Blue Planet Team. Much of her life has been spent filming underwater. She is a co-founder of Plastic Oceans Foundation, and a Producer of and Ambassador for the film A Plastic Ocean

Oliver Steeds is a critically acclaimed international investigative journalist and broadcaster. His films, reports and series have been broadcast by NBC, ABC, Al Jazeera, Channel 4 and Discovery Channels. He is also a founder and Mission Director of Nekton, a new marine institute that explores and protects the deep ocean. Oliver’s investigations have included exposing ongoing chattel slavery in Niger and Mauritania; the theft of malaria treatment drugs in the ‘malarial capital in the world’ in Uganda; grave robbing in Peru; thousands of mentally impaired people being abducted into slavery in China; antiquity smuggling in Israel; hidden ethnic wars in Burma; the lives of 9-11 hijackers in Saudi Arabia, and al Qaeda gun markets in Yemen. He has been nominated for the Rory Peck Impact Award, Best Current Affairs Programme, Livingstone Award for Young Journalists and Overseas Press Awards.

A Plastic Oceans Foundation: http://plasticoceans.uk/

*Tickets include lunch

This one-day workshop will teach you how to tell humanitarian stories through photographs for media, NGOs, charities and corporate social responsibility programmes. This is a hands-on photography experience aimed at people working in the NGO sector and non-professional photographers who want to tell compelling humanitarian stories through photos.

What you will cover:

• An introduction to Adobe Bridge (an archiving and captioning program) and Adobe Photoshop (for retouching images),
• How to caption and send an image ready for editorial use; size, resolution and format,
• We will talk through five images from each participant and discuss how they could be improved,
• Using examples, we will look at composition and use of light,
• Participants will be asked to shoot a short photo story based on what you’ve learnt. This will take between one and two hours. You will then download all images with captions and, with the trainer’s help, edit your photos into a short story which will be presented and critiqued by the group

What to bring:

• Five photographs for discussion,
• A digital camera (quality and size not important) or smart phone with camera,
• A laptop if possible,
• Adobe Bridge and Adobe Photoshop (CS5) will be used for the training – if participants have this on their laptops already it would be good to bring along.

About the trainer – Kate Holt
Arete is the expert humanitarian storytelling agency for non-profits and NGOs, working with award-winning journalists and content specialists to help tell stories that make a difference. The agency was founded by Kate Holt, a photographer and journalist. Holt trained at the BBC before gaining her first field experience in Kosovo photographing the unfolding refugee crisis in 1999. Since then she has travelled extensively documenting refugees and the effects of war and poverty in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti. Holt and her team have worked with numerous NGOs and UN agencies including UNHCR, UNICEF, WHO, WFP, MSF, ICRC and Oxfam. She is a regular contributor to both the BBC and the Guardian.

*The tickets include a light lunch

In an increasingly competitive media marketplace, gaining maximum coverage for the issues that matter is key to making sure your stories make a difference. Learn why editors reject or select humanitarian and NGO stories and how to avoid the classic pitfalls. This course will show you how to produce fantastic visually led pitches using the right platforms to ensure maximum coverage and compliments the storytelling courses held in January and March.

What you will cover:

• How to tell visual stories that sell in well,
• Pitching photo stories to the media,
• The relationship between media and photography,
• Understanding what the media wants,
• Understanding what the media doesn’t want (what not to do),
• The role of wire services like AP, Reuters, AFP, and EPA,
• How to file photographs as press handouts to the wires,
• Using web platforms and social media effectively for dissemination photography.

What to bring:

• Laptop to take notes,
• At least two story ideas.

About the trainer – Nadene Ghouri
Arete is the expert humanitarian storytelling agency for non-profits and NGOs, working with award-winning journalists and content specialists to help tell stories that make a difference. Nadene Ghouri is an award-winning investigative journalist and a key member of the Arete team, with two decades of global experience producing news, current affairs, documentary investigations and features. She has been a staff reporter/producer for the BBC and Al Jazeera English. She is a two-time finalist for Broadcast Journalist of the Year, Popular Features and Best Television Documentary at the One World Media Awards and a former winner of the Amnesty Media Awards (Best Radio Investigation). Ghouri is also a winner of the Human Trafficking Foundation Media Awards (Best National Newspaper Investigation) and the Ethnic Minority Media Awards (Best Broadcast Journalist and Best Documentary). Ghouri is a highly experienced international media trainer and consultant, with a particular focus on storytelling training and strategic communications.

This one-day workshop will teach you how to tell humanitarian stories through photographs for media, NGOs, charities and corporate social responsibility programmes. This is a hands-on photography experience aimed at people working in the NGO sector and non-professional photographers who want to tell compelling humanitarian stories through photos.

What you will cover:

• An introduction to Adobe Bridge (an archiving and captioning program) and Adobe Photoshop (for retouching images),
• How to caption and send an image ready for editorial use; size, resolution and format,
• We will talk through five images from each participant and discuss how they could be improved,
• Using examples, we will look at composition and use of light,
• Participants will be asked to shoot a short photo story based on what you’ve learnt. This will take between one and two hours. You will then download all images with captions and, with the trainer’s help, edit your photos into a short story which will be presented and critiqued by the group

What to bring:

• Five photographs for discussion,
• A digital camera (quality and size not important) or smart phone with camera,
• A laptop if possible,
• Adobe Bridge and Adobe Photoshop (CS5) will be used for the training – if participants have this on their laptops already it would be good to bring along.

About the trainer – Kate Holt
Arete is the expert humanitarian storytelling agency for non-profits and NGOs, working with award-winning journalists and content specialists to help tell stories that make a difference. The agency was founded by Kate Holt, a photographer and journalist. Holt trained at the BBC before gaining her first field experience in Kosovo photographing the unfolding refugee crisis in 1999. Since then she has travelled extensively documenting refugees and the effects of war and poverty in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti. Holt and her team have worked with numerous NGOs and UN agencies including UNHCR, UNICEF, WHO, WFP, MSF, ICRC and Oxfam. She is a regular contributor to both the BBC and the Guardian.

Contreras travelled through the complex tribal society of post-Gaddafi Libya from February to June 2016, photographing the brutal reality of human trafficking. His photographs lay bare an unfolding humanitarian crisis in which migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are at the mercy of militias who exploit them for financial gain. Held in detention centres for illegal migrants, they are subjected to inhumane conditions including overcrowding, lack of sanitation and vicious beatings.

Throughout this report, Contreras weaves a compelling narrative to show how, instead of being a place of transit for migrants on their way to Europe, Libya has actually become a trafficking market where people are bought and sold on a daily basis.

The purpose of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award supports a photojournalist in undertaking a photographic and investigative assignment exploring zones where human rights and freedom of speech are violated. Endowed with 50,000 euros, the Carmignac Award logistically supports and enables the laureate to report on a selected theme, and funds a touring exhibition of the project and the publication of a monograph.

Chair:

Emeric Glayse was appointed Director of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award in 2015. Since joining the Fondation Carmignac, he has organized the exhibitions and published the books Blank pages of an Iranian photo album by Newsha Tavakolian (2015), Colony by Christophe Gin (2015) and Libya: A human marketplace by Narciso Contreras (2016) and he curated the Photojournalism Award Retrospective at the Saatchi Gallery (2016) – the most visited photojournalism exhibition in the world in 2016. This year, Glayse and the Fondation Carmignac took a particular attention within the frame of the 7th edition in order to ensure that, in collaboration with consultants and NGOs, all necessary tools are gathered to successfully carry out the investigation.

Speakers:

Narciso Contreras is an award winning documentary photographer born in Mexico City. Narciso’s work in Syria was awarded with one of the Pulitzer Prizes in 2013, and received recognition in Pictures of the Year International. He has contributed to magazines and media outlets around the globe including TIME magazine, The Guardian, The New York Times, Paris Match, RT TV, MSNBC News, AP Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, Der Spiegel, Newsweek, Al Jazeera, The Daily Beast, National Geographic, The Sunday Times magazine, The Telegraph, The Washington Post, CNN and many more.

Sir Richard John Dalton  was a senior member of the British Diplomatic Service until he retired in 2006. His assignments included British Ambassador to Libya and Iran. He was an Associate Fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme where he led from 2011 – 2014 on Libyan affairs. He is a regular commentator for UK and overseas media on Middle East issues.

In an increasingly competitive media marketplace, gaining maximum coverage for the issues that matter is key to making sure your stories make a difference. Learn why editors reject or select humanitarian and NGO stories and how to avoid the classic pitfalls. This course will show you how to produce fantastic visually led pitches using the right platforms to ensure maximum coverage and compliments the storytelling courses held in January and March.

What you will cover:

• How to tell visual stories that sell in well,
• Pitching photo stories to the media,
• The relationship between media and photography,
• Understanding what the media wants,
• Understanding what the media doesn’t want (what not to do),
• The role of wire services like AP, Reuters, AFP, and EPA,
• How to file photographs as press handouts to the wires,
• Using web platforms and social media effectively for dissemination photography.

What to bring:

• Laptop to take notes,
• At least two story ideas.

About the trainer – Nadene Ghouri
Arete is the expert humanitarian storytelling agency for non-profits and NGOs, working with award-winning journalists and content specialists to help tell stories that make a difference. Nadene Ghouri is an award-winning investigative journalist and a key member of the Arete team, with two decades of global experience producing news, current affairs, documentary investigations and features. She has been a staff reporter/producer for the BBC and Al Jazeera English. She is a two-time finalist for Broadcast Journalist of the Year, Popular Features and Best Television Documentary at the One World Media Awards and a former winner of the Amnesty Media Awards (Best Radio Investigation). Ghouri is also a winner of the Human Trafficking Foundation Media Awards (Best National Newspaper Investigation) and the Ethnic Minority Media Awards (Best Broadcast Journalist and Best Documentary). Ghouri is a highly experienced international media trainer and consultant, with a particular focus on storytelling training and strategic communications.

As guest speakers we’ll have Zing Tsjeng Editor at VICE and Jonathan Paterson Digital Editor at BBC who will be sharing their experience on pitching and what they expect from a good story.

This workshop is part of a series being run in partnership with Arete. To find out more about their other workshops, click here.