Please note that this is a one-day workshop that will run on consecutive days.

Photography projects require money. Many photographers produce work at their own financial cost. There are, however, plenty of funding sources available from different organizations. These organizations are ready to support image makers providing funding for research, creation, production, travel and living expenses.

There is a definitive technique to grant writing, learn this and strengthen your chances of reaching the top of the pile.

Donald Weber, an award winning photographer and a member of the VII Photo Agency, will show you how. He has been a successful recipient of many grants including a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Lange-Taylor Prize, The Duke & Duchess of York Prize, the Magnum Foundation’s Emergency Fund Grant and multiple Canada Council for the Arts grants in the last few years. He’s used the funding to create multiple award-winning projects, on his own terms and own time.

Synopsis:

1) The Proposal. Don will examine some award winning proposals, including his Guggenheim Fellowship, Lange-Taylor and two Canada Council grants. We will also look at other award-winning proposals, including Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, and other contemporary artists. We will look at why he wrote what he did and why it was successful. We will talk about the overall structure of writing a proposal, breaking it down into simple steps.

2) The Portfolio. After the proposal, an integral part of a successful grant is the portfolio and the editing of the photographs you choose. We examine what to look for and how to make the portfolio support your proposal.

3) The CV. Many people underestimate the power of a strong CV and its impact on a successful grant. We will discuss what makes a strong CV and how to turn your ordinary CV into extraordinary.

4) The Grants. Don will show various websites and calendars that list grants and their deadlines. We will also look at websites that help you in the preparation and finding of grants that apply to what you want to do.

What attendees have said about the workshop:

“This workshop is a good investment, it paid for itself when I received my first grant a couple months later.” Brett Gundlock, photographer and member of Boreal Collective

“Don really does a good job of getting the main points across in the time allotted. The grant writing course is an obvious choice for anyone who is interested in doing independent work. Its not easy to get one of these things, but Don clearly knows how to do it and keeps no secrets.” Aaron Vincent Elkaim, a recent recipient of a Canada Council grant

“Thanks for the very inspiring workshop! I can really see now what went wrong so far, and what to do differently from now on. I’m pretty sure there will be a grant soon!” David de Jong, Photographer, Amsterdam

“If you ever take a workshop in how to get more and better grants, Donald’s is the one. He is that rare photographer who has managed to live and pursue projects for many years primarily on grants.” Bill Crandall, Photographer, Washington, DC

Former student Uwe Martin has won three separate grants totaling 16,000 Euro ($22,000) since taking the Grant Writing Workshop in Berlin.

Jared Soares received a Puffin Foundation Grant after completing the workshop in Washington, DC.

Aaron Vincent Elkaim won a $20,000 grant after taking the workshop in Toronto.

Brent Gundlock won $5,000 from the Ontario Arts Council. Peter Di Campo has won many awards and received two Pultizer Center grants totaling over $25,000 after completing the workshop.

Several other students have also received awards, prizes, been shortlisted and furthered their careers after taking the workshop, helping them preparing their proposals, edit their proposals and craft a better CV.

Panos Pictures, Reportage by Getty Images and VII Photo all hosted events at the Club and a half-day seminar with VII Photo took place at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. A short video with a selection of clips from Photo Week can be viewed below.

Freelance photographers contributed images for a slideshow which was on display in the Club throughout the week. You can view their contributions in the following video- enjoy!

On Tuesday the Royal Institution of Great Britain was flooded with both aspiring and established photojournalists who had come to hear 13 photojournalists from the prestigious VII Photo agency.

Vaughan Smith, the Frontline Club’s founder, started proceedings by giving a brief overview of the challenges facing modern photojournalism. He explained that the decline of the traditional news model means that photojournalists cannot expect the kind of investment they once had from the print media, but that this development can be viewed in positive terms because they “can define the future of journalism”.

Smith believes that freelance journalists can take a more prominent place within the media landscape through social media and the Internet, and the members of VII Photo are doing just that. An agency “by photographers for photographers” they are “helping to change the media landscape”.

The first discussion of the morning was lead by Max Houghton, editor of Foto8 magazine, who was joined by two of VII Photo’s founders, Christopher Morris and Ron Haviv, and long time members Seamus Murphy and Franco Pagetti.  

Firstly, Houghton wanted to know how their work has evolved over the years. They all agreed that they had become more thoughtful in their practice, but they had differing views on how they and their work fitted into the new media landscape.

Ron Haviv asserted that “new tools are enabling us to become full authors”, and that a lesser dependency on print media is liberating the photographer from the constraints placed by picture editors. 

Conversely Christopher Morris has “struggled with the new marketplace” and has had to reinvent himself as a fashion photographer. He explained that in the past large media corporations would fund lengthy projects abroad, whereas now photographers are forced to turn to methods including crowd funding and self-financing.

The second panel lead by the London College of Communication’s Paul Lowe was comprised of VII Photo co-founder Gary Knight, alongside Ashley Gilbertson, Anastasia Taylor-Lind and Ron Haviv. Their discussion began with the role of mentoring and education within the field of photojournalism. Ron Haviv stated that “its integral to all…photojournalists’ to give some thing back to the next generation.

Anastasia Taylor-Lind, who was mentored by Haviv, felt that she gained invaluable guidance from the experience and his “generosity of ideas”. 

Gary Knight expressed his hope that “a greater diversity of people and communities” would begin to engage with photography, in the hope of opening up the field of photojournalism to new perspectives.

Paul Lowe then asked the panel whether research prior to shooting a project was important. All agreed that it was essential, with Ron Haviv asserting that the journalism aspect of photojournalism is often ignored, but that in fact it is essential:

“the more knowledge we have of what we’re photographing the better”

Ashley Gilbertson agreed but explained that invariably all one’s research takes on a different meaning when you are actually in the field, and that covering a story ends up being very “organic process”. 

The discussion was concluded with a question from the audience on the importance of a formal education in photography. Anastasia Taylor-Lind explained that her extensive education – the completion of a BA, MA, numerous workshops and a mentoring scheme had been incredibly useful in her development as a photojournalist. While Ashley Gilbertson felt that his lack of formal education meant that his progression into a “thinking photographer” was slower than his peers, and that he had to force himself into academia later in life.  

Gary Knight emphasised the importance of a rounded education, because he believes that to be a good photojournalist “you need to be a thinking person”.

The final panel of the day, moderated by the director of VII Photo in New York Stephen Mayes, included VII Photo members Venetia Dearden, Ed Kashi, Tomas van Houtryve, Gary Knight, Donald Weber and Jon Jones, the director of photography at The Sunday Times. 

Mayes opened the discussion with an optimistic interpretation of the current climate faced by photojournalists. He believes that photographers are in a better place to get funding because they are liberated from the previous “monolithic model”. At present there is not just one “singular solution” but instead many ways to fund work. He concluded that “the greatest challenge” faced by photojournalists is “the challenge of imagination”.

The panel members then described their own wildly different approaches to funding projects. Jon Jones and Gary Knight collaborated on the compilation of a book of photographs from the Bosnian conflict. They described raising half of the $35,000 needed from licensing and the rest from crowd funding through social media and personal emails. 

Donald Weber explained that his approach to funding projects was through corporate and private sponsors. Consequently he has “complete freedom and control” over his work, something he would have to relinquish if being paid by a magazine. 

Tomas van Houtryve felt that he didn’t “want to be held hostage” by the constraints of a commission. He therefore looked to individuals to help him fund his book Behind the Curtains. Through his website and blog he was able to interact with his audience throughout the process of shooting the project, which gave his backers “a sense of investment beyond the financial”. 

The corporate world, as Venetia Dearden explained, has the resources to fund work. Therefore photographers need to look for companies that have “a natural fit” with their work. In her case it was the fashion brand Mulberry. Her relationship with them was forged after they saw her project ‘Somerset Stories’. Mulberry, which has strong connections with Somerset, have gone on to publish three of her books, as well as commissioning a book to celebrate 40 years of Mulberry. 

She urged fellow photographers to find “imaginative and resourceful” ways to fund their projects. 

Photography agency VII’s latest publication, Questions Without Answers, not only spans over two decades of world history, but it also spans the evolution of photojournalism and the photographers who have pioneered their own take on the industry.

The book reflects the independence that the VII founders established for themselves when they set up their agency in 2001 – the ability to change and develop and evolve. Three out of the original seven founding members were on the panel for Monday’s event, Gary Knight, Christopher Morris and John Stanmeyer. All have been able to escape the constraints of the major agency, setting their own agenda and timetables.

Three years in the making, Questions Without Answers covers a broad spectrum of reportage. Chairing the event, Alexia Singh, Editor-in-Charge of the Wider Image Desk at Thompson Reuters, remarked on the contrast of Gary Knight’s coverage in Iraq – “a terrifying blood, sweat and tears story” – to his slower paced, contemplative documentation of poverty in India.

Knight said: “I got a lot more than I bargained for. . . . I really grew a little tired of the violence and I started to think of ways to move away from that kind of photography.”

But non-conflict work also brings its horrors. In 2004, John Stanmeyer’s reached the tsunami-torn shores of Sri Lanka within 24 hours of the waves hitting, before moving on the cover the impact in Aceh.

“I’ve been in a lot of natural disasters, of course a lot of conflicts, but natural disasters have a different psychological effect,” said Stanmeyer. “In a natural disaster there is no one to blame. Who are you going to blame? Are you going to blame God? Allah? Buddha? It was a calamity of a scope that is beyond human scale. It was beyond photography, it was beyond a camera, it was beyond me.”

Christopher Morris has also made a move from conflict photography, which he initially considered “the ultimate in photography – man trying to kill another man – the ultimate evil in humanity”. But that move away from conflict photography has allowed him closer focus on the decision makers:

“For me it’s fascinating to cover politics because you cover conflict all your life and these are the people that actually carry it through, these are the people that make the decisions.”

The agency seems to have created the space for its members to explore the space that surrounds the actions of war and conflict. The fourth panellist, Lynsey Addario, said that she was always drawn to “the issues surrounding war – on the margins”.

Addario is one of the seven women who now make up the agency of 23, helping to tip the scales in this once male-dominated industry. Admitting that the work can be “physically gruelling and emotionally draining”, she said that a person’s reactions depend on their own sensitivities: “It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman.”

Knight expanded on this point:

“Too much can be made of [the gender issue] – they’re out there and they’re doing it, and they’re doing it very, very well. . . . Over the course of my career, you see many, many more women photographing, one of the problems is you don’t have many ethnicities photographing.”

To try and rectify this imbalance, VII launched a mentor programme to try and encourage photojournalism globally, giving budding photographers a chance to develop and find their own voice and audience.

In Stanmeyer’s words, this is the kind of “empowerment” that VII has brought to its members, a freedom to act independently, which Knight likened to the lunatics taking over the asylum. But Questions Without Answers is a testament to the lunatics’ success. “The challenge now,” said Knight, “is building something that will last . . . a legacy.”

Eight of VII Photo’s 23 members will be available to review photography portfolios at the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Budding photojournalists, experienced photographers and students of photography will all benefit from a review from VII Photo’s respected members. 

To book a review, click book above and follow the instructions on screen. Once you have paid you will be emailed a slot between 15:00 and 17:00. Each slot is 30 minutes long. 

Confirmed portfolio reviewers are as follows, with more on the way:

If you are not able to attend your slot, please email events@www.beta.frontlineclub.com to change the time.

Sponsored by:

Join more than 15 photojournalists from the prestigious agency VII Photo for a half-day seminar on photojournalism at the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

The seminar will be split into three panel discussions with opportunities to ask questions and learn more about the work of VII and the state of modern photojournalism.

9:00 Keynote address 

Director and Founder of the Frontline Club Vaughan Smith 

9:30 The Creation of VII – The role of photojournalism in the 21st century

With Ron Haviv, Christopher Morris, Seamus Murphy and Franco Pagetti. Moderated by Max Houghton.

11:00 Photographic Education: Finding your way

With Ashley Gilbertson, Ron Haviv, Gary Knight and Anastasia Taylor-Lind. Moderated by Paul Lowe.

12:30 The New Economy: How to fund your projects

With Venetia Dearden, Ed Kashi, Tomas van Houtryve, Jon Jones (The Sunday Times),  Gary Knight and Donald Weber. Moderated by Stephen Mayes.

14:00 Book signing of Questions Without Answers – The World in Pictures by the Photographers of VII and more.

The seminar will be followed by portfolio reviews with eight VII Photo photographers. More details on how to book a portfolio review are available here.

Sponsored by:

Since its formation in 2001, VII Photo has represented some of the leading photojournalists of the 21st century. As a collectively owned agency, it has grown from seven to 23 members, diversifying from conflict photography to all branches of photojournalism.

VII’s new book, Questions Without Answers, tackles issues that have shaped the world in our lifetime.

A powerful visual history of the world from the end of the Cold War to the present day, the book features a startlingly wide variety of work; from coverage of the war in Iraq and the events of 9/11 to an exploration of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, from portraits of our most significant cultural figures to dispatches from the current economic crisis.

VII photographers Lynsey Addario, Gary Knight, Christopher Morris and John Stanmeyer will be at the Frontline Club to discuss the key themes in the book and their individual experiences of covering history in the making. The event will be moderated by Alexia Singh, Editor-in-Charge, Wider Image Desk at Thompson Reuters.

Lynsey Addario began photographing professionally in 1996 for The Buenos Aires Herald in Argentina, with no professional training. Since 2001, Addario has freelanced for the daily New York Times, National Geographic, and TIME while living in Mexico, Iraq, Turkey, and India, covering feature stories worldwide, in addition to conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Lebanon, and Congo. Addario has won many awards and was part of the NYT team to win the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, for her Talibanistan photographs.

Gary Knight made his name covering the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and conflicts arond the world. His work has been widely published by magazines all over the world, exhibited globally, is in the collections of several museums and private collectors and has been the recipient of numerous high-profile awards. Knight lectures on photography an journalism at Tufts University in Boston.

Christopher Morris is also a founding member of VII. He spent the first twenty years of his career covering conflict and a further eight years as the White House photographer for Time Magazine. He has won numerous awards, including the Robert Capa Gold Medal award, the Visa d’Or award and numerous World Press Photo Awards.

John Stanmeyer another founding member of VII, has witnessed nearly every major historical event in Asia in the past 12 years, photographing the rapid changes taking place throughout the entire region. Working regularly for National Geographic Magazine and Time Magazine, Stanmeyer has been awarded the Robert Capa and numerous World Press Photo awards. In 2008 he received the National Magazine Award for this in-depth essay on the global Malaria epidemic.

Questions Without Answers will be on sale at the event and available for signing.

Sponsored by:

 

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A decade ago, photographer Jocelyn Bain Hogg got under the skin of organised crime for his book The Firm which portrayed the lives of the gangsters, pimps and prostitutes who roam Britain’s shadowy underworld.

The VII photographer has revisited the UK’s gangland to complete his recent three-year project The Family looking at a younger, more chaotic generation and the decaying empire of the British mob. By providing an intimate window on their criminal lives, Bain Hogg gives a rich picture of the UK’s crime scene and the new characters who orchestrate it.

Jocelyn Bain Hogg started his photography career as a unit photographer on film sets after studying Documentary Photography at Newport Art College. He shot publicity for the BBC and photographed fashion before moving into documentary projects and editorial assignments. His work has been included in numerous publications, including Vogue, Vanity Fair, the Sunday Times, The Independent, The Observer, GQ and Le Monde. He is a member of the VII photo agency.

He will be in conversation with journalist and documentary filmmaker Sean Langan.

The Family is available to pre-order from the Foto8 website.

All Frontline members have been invited to a reception and exhibition opening to mark the 10-year observance of Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and Security.

With gender-based violence as its theme, the exhibition will feature photographs by VII photographers Marcus Bleasdale and Ron Haviv alongside Lynsey Addario and James Nachtwey.

The opening will take place on Wednesday 20 October, 2010 7pm-9pm at The Atrium, Old Building London School of Economics & Political Science Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE.

To RSVP please email: RSVP@congowomen.org

Photo credit: Lynsey Addario/VII Network