Photographer Paula Lerner, past vice president of the Editorial Photographers trade association and creator of an Emmy-winning multimedia piece, died today at her home in Belmont, Massachusetts, according to her family. The cause of death was breast cancer.

Raised in Hudson, Ohio, Lerner attended Harvard University and became a photojournalist in1985. Her clients included Time, Inc., People, and Harvard Business Review. In the Nineties, she became a leader of Editorial Photographers (EP), the volunteer organization supporting the rights of editorial photographers. She was a frequent lecturer on photographers’ rights and business practices.

“Paula dedicated a good portion of her life to help make life as a editorial photographer better for others,” notes Seth Resnick, past president of EP. “Paula always fought for what she believed in and always eloquently conveyed her position. At times she sacrificed  her own career to better the industry.”

Brian Smith, EP’s president notes that as the organization’s founding VP, “[Lerner] was directly involved in negotiating the Business Week and Forbes contracts that raised the bar for fair deals for editorial photographers. Paula remained committed to educating and inspiring others and it is extremely sad to lose her just as she was producing the finest work of her career.”

Her photography often focused on women’s issues. In 2003, she began volunteering her time to photograph the work of Business Council for Peace (Bpeace), a non-profit organization that helped women in conflict zones develop businesses. She eventually began recording sound and shooting video. From 2005 to 2006, she traveled to Afghanistan five times, on her own and with Bpeace, to document the lives of women in Kandahar.  She spearheaded the multimedia piece “Behind the Veil,” a six-part multimedia series published by the Globe and Mail newspaper. In 2010, it won an Emmy award for New Approaches to News and Documentary  Programming: Current News Coverage. “People in the West know very little about Afghan women…This feature tells some very important, untold stories that we need to hear in order to inform our policy decisions,” Lerner told PDN.

Lerner also co-authored the book Why We Walk: The Inspirational Journey Toward a Cure for Breast Cancer, published in 2005. While working on the photos for the book, she herself was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Lerner is survived by her husband, Thomas Dunlap, their two daughters, her brother and her parents and stepmother.

A memorial service will be held March 9th at 10 am at Beth El Temple Center, 2 Concord Avenue, Belmont, Massachusetts. Lerner requested that donations be made in her memory to Bpeace www.bpeace.org and to Metavivor, which supports research into metastic breast cancer and supports the families of patients with metastic breast cancer.

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LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph announced today that Alex Webb, Donna Ferrato and Stanley Greene will be the featured “INsight” artists at this year’s festival, to be held June 7–9 in Charlottesville, VA. As featured artists the photographers will create solo exhibitions for the festival and speak about their work during the program of talks and presentations.

This year’s festival is being curated by Washington Post visuals editor David Griffin and photographer Vincent J. Musi.

Outdoor exhibits will be presented by Hank Willis Thomas and David Doubilet, LOOK3 has also announced. Doubilet will be this year’s “TREES” artist, hanging work in the trees that line the Charlottesville Mall.

LOOK3 also released a partial list for the series of “Master’s Talks” that takes place during the festival. Bruce Gilden, Robin Schwartz, Camille Seaman, Lynsey Addario and Hank Willis Thomas will all speak at the festival, the organization said.

For more information please visit: http://look3.org/

Related: LOOK3 2011 Recap: Photographers and Other Fest-Goers Discuss the Highlights
More LOOK3 2011 Coverage

On balance, not so much.

That was the consensus of the women photojournalists who participated in the panel discussion “Groundbreaking Women in Photography,” organized by the International Center of Photography in New York on January 10. The first in a series of annual “Spotlight” events ICP will hold to raise funds for its programs, the panel was made up of photographers Mary Ellen Mark, Gillian Laub, Samantha Appleton, Stephanie Sinclair and The New York Times Magazine director of photography, Kathy Ryan. NBC anchor Ann Curry moderated the discussion.

Photo © ICP. Left to right: Mary Ellen Mark, Stephanie Sinclair, moderator Ann Curry.

Gillian Laub, who has photographed intimate portraits of young people on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian divide, noted that being a woman has often helped her gain access to people’s homes. “I’m not an intimidating person,” she noted. When she enters strangers’ homes, “People feel comfortable with me” in a way that they may not if she were a man.  Being a woman can be an “asset, depending on the kind of work you want to do,” said Stephanie Sinclair, who has photographed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon and covered gender issues such as female circumcision and the problems faced by child brides. Luckily, Sinclair said, “I like to do intimate work.”

Samantha Appleton, who covered the war in Iraq, said that early in her career covering conflict, “I worked hard not to be classified as a woman photographer. I fought to be one of the boys.” Over time she’s let go of that battle. “There are a thousand things in your personality that affect how you tell a story. Being a woman is a part of it.” Ryan concurred. While noting that in certain countries or political situations, sending a woman photographer can be risky, Ryan said that when she has to choose the right photographer for an assignment, she first considers their vision and eye, then she considers their personality and what it might add to the assignment.  “Some women are forceful, some are quiet,” she noted.
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On Alec Soth’s blog, Little Brown Mushroom, the Magnum photographer has responded to a reader whose partner is a photographer, and wants advice about planning a future life together, “marriage and babies included.” His post has inspired loads of comments (51 so far) from photographers and people married to photographers.

Martin Parr, who has been married for 35 years to a woman “who is bored with being Mrs. Martin Parr,” cites the challenge of constant travel. Zoe Strauss says if it weren’t for the support of her wife, “I doubt I’d be a photographer.”  Rachel Cartee Soth, wife of Alec Soth, notes that when you live with an artist, things can be fantastic when “the creative juju is flowing,” and not so great when the juju is blocked.  She also warns, “It’s easy to lose yourself, especially when your partner is successful.” Photographers Rebecca Norris Webb and Alex Webb are thoughtful and candid about the problems and rewards of life in a two-photographer household.

Having met lots of photographers struggling with the demands of family and a freelance career, I was touched by photographer Paul Shambroom’s comment about what sacrifices have to be made when both partners are “accomplished and busy”: “Many of us (some posting here) could probably also be wealthier, but we made career adjustments in order to have functional marriages and try to be good parents.”

Take a look: littlebrownmushroom.wordpress.com.

Photographer Guy Martin, who survived an April rocket attack in Misrata, Libya that killed colleagues Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, will hold an exhibition of his images from the “Arab Spring” next week.

The exhibition, which is being presented at the Poly Arts Center in Falmouth, UK, by University College Falmouth, will be on view from January 10–January 14, 2012, and includes photographs Martin made in Egypt and Libya between January and April 2011. Titled “Shifting Sands,” the show will also feature a conversation between Martin and Julian Rodriguez, head of the department of media at University College Falmouth.

Martin was with Hetherington, Hondros and Michael Christopher Brown on April 20 in Misrata when the photographers were hit by rocket fire. Hetherington and Hondros died of their injuries. Martin, who was severely injured, and Brown, who suffered multiple shrapnel wounds, were operated on at a hospital in Misrata and then evacuated to Malta.

“They say if the rocket’s really close you never hear anything,” Martin told the BBC for an article about his exhibition. “I didn’t hear anything. I just remember falling to the ground and then waking up in hospital.”

A screening of “Restrepo,” the Afghanistan war documentary by Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, will also take place. Proceeds from the exhibition and events will benefit The Rory Peck Trust, an organization dedicated to the safety and welfare of freelance newsgatherers and their families. The proceeds will be donated to the Rory Peck Trust in Hetherington’s and Hondros’s names.

For more visit: http://bit.ly/x2QzpG

© Todd Hido from, "House Hunting," available through Aperture

Weary of shopping malls? Trying to have a less commercial holiday this year? Several photo organizations are offering sales this season to entice shoppers to give photography as a gift while supporting worthy causes. But time is running out if you want your gift to arrive by Christmas.

Aperture Holiday Sale
Until January 5, the non-profit Aperture Foundation is offering 30 percent discount on books, including Josef Koudelka’s Gypsies, Bruce Davidson’s re-issued and updated Subway, Brian Ulrich’s Is This Place Great or What and other books named on PDN’s Notable Photo Books of the Year roundup. Aperture is also offering 15 percent off prints by Paul Strand, Todd Hido, Sylvia Plachy, Richard Renaldi, Eikoh Hosoe and many other photographers.
Note: Place your order by December 15 if you want your gift by Christmas.

Nuru Project
Nuru Project sells photos to support a variety of non-profits, including Millenium Promise, Malaria No More and many more. The deal is that Nuru splits its online print sales between the photographers and its non-profit partners.  Starting this week, they’ve been offering express shipping on prints by Teru Kuwayama, Ben Lowy,  Ami Vitali, Espen Rasmussen, and many more. The site lets you browse photos or shop by issue or country.

collect.give
The photographers selling their prints through the collect.give Web site donate 100 percent of their profits to worthwhile causes of their choice.  You can browse through work by Amy Eckert, Matt Eich, Annie Marie Musselman, Shane Lavalette, Kevin J. Miyazaki and others, then click on a print to see where your money will be used. Collect.give is also offering a $22 book featuring work by dozens of photographers, and printed by HP MagCloud. Sales of the book benefit The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Light Work: Enter to Win
Light Work, the non-profit, artist-run educational organization, is drumming up their social media contacts with a sweepstakes that could take care of all your gift shopping at once. The big fat prize they’re offering, worth $250, is the Light Work Holiday Giveaway Package that includes three photo monographs (by Hank Willis Thomas, Carrie May Weems and Gary Schneider), an artist book by Jim Pomeroy, a set of postcards by Michael Bishop, and four issues of the publication Contact Sheet.  The winner will be announced December 15. To enter you can “like” and recommend their Facebook page, follow them on Twitter and tweet your favorite issue of Contact Sheet, or get a subscription to Contact Sheet.

A special screening of “Restrepo,” the acclaimed Afghan War documentary directed by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, will be held next week at the San Francisco Film Society/New People Cinema.

Sponsored by Open Show, the San Francisco Film Society and National Geographic, the December 7 screening is being held in memory of Hetherington, who was killed in Libya in April 2011. Proceeds from ticket sales and the auction of several limited edition posters from Hetherington’s exhibition of his “Infidel” body of work will benefit the Committee to Protect Journalists, an organization dedicated to the global defense of press freedom.

For more information on the screening visit Open Show.

The Photographer’s Advisory Board for National Geographic magazine has launched a new Web site to showcase the work of National Geographic photographers. Membership in the group, dubbed “The Photo Society,” is limited to photographers who’ve published at least one feature story in the magazine.

The purpose of the group and their Web site is to promote the work of the photographers, and to inform the public about their work. It also appears the site is meant to help would-be (or wannabe) National Geographic photographers understand what it takes to work for the magazine.

“Explaining the diversity and composition of this group is the easiest way to answer the question, ‘How do I become a National Geographic photographer?’” writes photographer Randy Olson on the site. “‘It is not easy or glamorous,” he explains, “And this is not where you begin your career. You are competing with world-class documentary photographers and within that genre there are men and women who are the absolute best at their specialty.’”

Check out The Photo Society site here: http://thephotosociety.org/

A print auction held at the annual PDN PhotoPlus Expo Bash on October 28 raised more than $8,000 for the Red Cross’s relief efforts in Japan, PDN PhotoPlus Expo has announced.

Harry Benson, Douglas Kirkland, Susan Meiselas, John Isaac and Art Streiber were among the 50 photographers who donated prints for the benefit silent auction.

Unique Photo, Fuji Film and Modernage sponsored the event, held at Highline Stages in New York City, which featured live music by Tyburn Saints and was attended by more than 1,200 people.

“It was important for us as an organization, and an industry, to organize an event that would give us an opportunity to participate in the worldwide efforts to help the victims in Japan,” Jeff McQuilkin, Group Show Director for The Nielsen Company, said. “Obviously, the photographic industry has strong ties to Japan and its culture and was deeply affected by the disaster. The fundraising event was one way we could show our support.”

“It was amazing how the industry came together to support this event,” added Lauren Wendle, Vice President, Nielsen Photo Group. “Everyone had a great time but never seemed to lose sight of fundraising aspect of the event. The print auction was very active and we want to extend our warmest thanks to the photographers who donated prints, and our guests who bid and bought them.”

During a seminar titled “The New World of Online Magazines and Curator Web Sites” this afternoon at PDN PhotoPlus Expo, photographer Sophia Wallace posed a question to photographers who’ve been hesitant to harness the full power of the internet for fear that their work might be stolen: Should you be more afraid of image theft, or of working in obscurity?

This rather direct question, which had resonated with Wallace after she heard it at another talk recently, gets to the heart of the decision that photographers must make in today’s market. You can embrace online publishing on blogs, online magazines, Tumblr pages and the myriad other platforms on which people are looking at imagery these days, or you can keep your work to yourself.

Suffice it to say that nobody in the audience was interested in the latter option. But in case they were, Wallace and fellow photographer Manjari Sharma shared stories about their own experiences that made a strong case for diving headlong into promoting one’s work online.

By getting their work featured by online platforms, such as those run by moderator Stella Kramer (StellaZine) and panelists Julie Grahame (aCurator) and Michael Itkoff (Daylight), each of the photographers had built momentum for bodies of work that eventually led to concrete achievements like exhibitions, advertising commissions and essential project funding.

After having her work circulate one image at a time across various online publications (and in a couple of print magazines), Wallace received what she termed “the email she’d been waiting for.” It was from a curator asking if she would show her work in a three-person show at Colgate University’s Clifford Gallery with photographers Catherine Opie and Jo Ann Santangelo. During her presentation Wallace also showed how, through Google analytics, she could track who was looking at her site and where they came from. It was amazing, she said, to realize that people all over the world were looking at her photographs.

Sharma showed two projects that she’d promoted online. A series of portraits of people taken in the shower in her Brooklyn apartment was discovered by art directors at the ad agency JWT in Delhi, which lead to a commission to replicate that work for ads for a German maker of shower heads that was expanding their business in India. Sharma’s photographs appeared on billboards in 23 cities, she said.

After she created a well-produced Kickstarter video to raise funds for her project Darshan, several photo blogs and other online publications wrote about the work. She ended up raising $26,000 of funding over the course of three months.

Each of the panelists encouraged the audience members to build networks online through Facebook and Twitter, and to help promote other photographers whose work they appreciate. Wallace made the point that opportunities for group exhibitions often come from other artists, and introductions to clients often come from fellow photographers.

Kramer also made another useful point for photographers who might still be hesitant to publish their work online: “The more you are associated with your work, the harder it is to steal it,” she said.