Friday highlights
The World Press Photo Festival 2019 kicked off with the Joop Swart Masterclass (JSM) alumni, a week ahead of the 2019 JSM announcement, followed by presentations on solutions journalism, safety, modern ways of storytelling, ethics, and human impact in the environment. The side events program featured film screenings at Ketelhuis, a website building workshop by Fotomat, and a safety meetup with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), among other events. The day ended with the opening of the flagship World Press Photo 2019 Exhibition at De Nieuwe Kerk.
Tina Rosenberg, co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network and co-writer of The New York Times Fixes column, launched the World Press Photo Foundation’s Solutions Visual Journalism Initiative. On stage with Geesje van Haren, editor in chief of Small Stream Media, and David Campbell, World Press Photo, director of programs and outreach.
In her presentation 'Making the Photo, Telling the Story', Kathy Moran shared her experiences of producing and editing over 350 stories for National Geographic magazine.
With a presentation and panel talk on 'Modern Ways of Storytelling', Zackary Canepari, Claudia Hinterseer, Zahra Rasool, and Casper Sonnen drew attention to new ways of approaching journalism.
Patrick Brown, the winner of the 2019 FotoEvidence Book Award with World Press Photo; Mário Cruz, 2019 World Press Photo Contest winner and human rights activist; Mikael Owunna, 2019 FotoEvidence Book Award with World Press Photo finalist; and Matthew Smith, co-founder and chief executive officer of Fortify Rights, analyzed the use of photography in drawing attention to human injustice in the panel 'Crisis Ethics: Social Justice in Photography'.
The flagship World Press Photo Exhibition 2019, displaying the winning work of the Photo and Digital Storytelling Contests, premiered at De Nieuwe Kerk during the festival. More than 500 visitors were able to see the work before it travels to 110 locations world wide.
Saturday highlights
On the second day, the 2019 World Press Photo Contests winners presented their work and discussed topics such as long-term and investigative journalism, reporting beyond the news cycle, the impact of a story in an individual, and coverage of migration issues. Photographer Aida Muluneh closed the festival with the Sem Presser Lecture supported by DuPho.
At the Women's Meetup, over 40 women explored how to create a safe space for women in the photojournalism industry to report sexual harassment. Anastasia Taylor-Lind, a photojournalist who has spent more than a decade documenting women, violence, and war issues, shared her experiences in conversation with Naina Bajekal, deputy international editor at Time Magazine.
Multidisciplinary artist Alexandra Bell presented Counternarratives, a work analyzing the ways media frameworks construct memory and inform discursive practices around race, politics, and culture. Adama Delphine Fawundu and Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, co-founders and editors of ‘MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora’, and Dustin Thierry, a visual artist working on African/Caribbean queer diaspora in the Netherlands, joined her in a panel discussion and presented their work.
In the talk on 'The Impact of a Story on an Individual', 2019 World Press Photo Contest nominees Mary F. Calvert and Philip Montgomery, 6x6 talent Gulshan Khan, and Whitney Johnson, vice president, Visuals and Immersive Experiences, at National Geographic and 2019 Photo Contest jury chair, addressed how photographers and photo editors evaluate the effects that images can have on individual lives in our current media landscape.
World Press Photo of the Year winner John Moore, World Press Photo Story of the Year winner Pieter Ten Hoopen, and World Press Photo Online Video of the Year winner Almudena Toral, shared their experiences reporting on migration, and discussed the consequences of government policy experienced by the migrants.
The Sem Presser Lecture, supported by DuPho, was given by Aida Muluneh. She delved into her journey as a photographer and an advocate for supporting the new generation of photographers who are the witnesses of the changing dynamics in their own countries across Africa.
Photo credit: Frank van Beek/Hollandse Hoogte
Women's Meetup photo credit: Juliette Garms
