He was awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for his images depicting the families of Marines killed in Iraq titled ‘Final Salute’. He was also apart of the team that won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of wildfires in Colorado. Both prizes he earned with The Rocky Mountain News.

He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Kelly. Based in New York City, he covers a variety of assignments, focusing on national news and American life.

Becoming a photographer, it is his goal to make photographs that transcend the differences and help make sense the world we live in. “I want to make photographs that make people stop, to feel something, to gain a greater respect for people they may never meet,” he said once.

Image Source

Reene C Byer who won the award pulitzer prize 2007 (feature photography) for his yearlong story “A Mother’s Journey” in the September 2006. For her intimate portrayal of a single mother and her young son as he loses his battle with cancer. The photo stories was taken while she working as a staff at The Sacramento Bee, she has been a staff photographer at The Sacramento Bee since 2003.

Reene C Byer, whose works exemplify recent developments in photography, political activism and journalism, is the senior photojournalist at The Sacramento Bee. Byer is the recipient of numerous international awards, exhibitions and publications, and her photographs and photo-series on biotechnology, disease, the environment and women at war have been published in Business Week, Paris Match, Marie Claire, El Mundo, Photo District News, View Magazine and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Byer was born in Yonkers, N.Y., but grew up in nearby Rosendale where her father, Walter, was chief of police. She is a 1976 graduate of Rondout Valley High School. Her interest in photography began when she studied at Ulster County Community College, where she graduated in 1978.

In the North Galley, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist and James H. Ottaway Visiting Professor Renée C. Byer presents her “A Mother’s Journey” series, along with other early and recent photographs. This exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Department of Communication and Media’s annual James H. Ottaway Visiting Professor program.

“A Mother’s Journey”

Derek Madsen, 10, gets a soothing massage from his mother, Cyndie French, at her Sacramento nail and tanning salon. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to make him happy, to see him smile.” Cyndie says. A single mom of five, Cyndie had to give up her salon at a financial loss to care for her dying son.

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Brian Scott Ostrom cups his hand over his mouth as he tries to calm a panic attack at his apartment in Boulder, Colo. Scott says it’s been hard to find meaning in his life since 2007, when he was honorably discharged from the United States Marine Corps. (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

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Scott counts the stitches in his wrist a few days after he attempted suicide. Scott said many times he should have died overseas, and during a fight with his girlfriend, she agreed. ‘I just grabbed a pair of scissors tried jabbing them into my neck, but they were closed,’ Scott said. ‘So I grabbed a nice kitchen knife and cut my wrists.’ He said he believes every combat vet struggling with PTSD has a contingency plan. ‘Every one of us has a suicide plan. We all know how to kill, and we all have a plan to kill ourselves.’ (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

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Scott is comforted by a friend during an argument with his girlfriend over the phone. Sitting on the bed, he started crying. He said the anxiety he experienced that day was brought on by her moving all of her belongings out. Scott said she also took his anti-anxiety and sleep medication. ‘I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight – I’m not going to get over this panic attack. (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

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After punching a hole in his bedroom door, Scott panics in his living room. ‘My PTSD comes from long exposure to combat trauma,’ Scott said. ‘I think it comes from the fact that I survived. That wasn’t my plan. It’s an honor to die for my country, but I made it home.’ Scott said that being diagnosed with PTSD ‘means I have nightmares every night. It means I’m hyper-vigilant — It means I have no fuse and if I get attacked, I’m going to kill. ‘I don’t want to feel this way.’ (Craig Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

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A picture of Scott holding his little brother after graduating boot camp at Paris Island, S.C., in June 2003 hangs on the refrigerator at Scott’s new apartment. ‘I was happy after boot camp. I knew I was going to do something. My parents were proud of me.’ He talked about why he signed up. ‘I had just totaled my truck. I was like, ‘Do I really want to take the bus to work every day for $10 an hour and live in a crappy apartment?’ I was going to end up in jail or doing drugs. So instead of going to work one day, I just took the bus to the recruiting station.’ Scott said he was not aware of the looming war in Iraq when he signed up. ‘I was 18 years old. I didn’t watch the news. … I didn’t care. I just wanted to do something.’ (Craig F. Walker, Los Angeles Times – December 29, 2011)

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Scott looks over his military service records and weeps after being told his apartment application had been turned down. The leasing manager said he couldn’t allow Scott to move in because of an assault charge on his background check. Though Scott had his honorable discharge papers and his good-conduct medal, Scott said they meant nothing. ‘I’m not a criminal. You would think this would be worth something. It should be. It’s not, though.’ (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

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Scott tries to leave his apartment as his girlfriend seizes his glasses. ‘She steals my glasses because I can’t see without them. She antagonizes me. She does it to push my buttons, but I’m not going to do anything. I’m not going to hit her,’ he said. ‘I dated this girl for almost two years, and it was the most tumultuous relationship I have ever had in my life. It was the closest thing that got me back to the levels of stress I had in combat.’ (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

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After a sleepless night, Scott stares out the window of his new apartment, in Broomfield, Colo. ‘I decided to move because there were too many bad memories at that apartment. I was arrested twice, there’s blood all over the bathroom floor, it was small, it was loud,’ Scott said. He hoped for a fresh start, but just two weeks later his old feelings had resurfaced. (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post- December 29, 2011)

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Scott lays on the floor with his dog, Jibby. He was exhausted and said, ‘I’m tired of having bad f—— dreams. I can’t take a nap because I’ll feel worse. I fall asleep, but it doesn’t make it better. Everybody says, ‘With time, with time it will all go away.’ So I’m waiting. He often credited his dog with saving his life. ‘For me Jibby is very therapeutic. … Sometimes I feel like a burden when I unload my emotions on friends, but Jibby’s always there, regardless of what mood I’m in.’ (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

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Scott laughs with Marine Sgt. Dean Sanchez of the Wounded Warrior Regiment while shopping for a suit in Denver, Colo. Scott was invited to attend ‘Great Outdoors America Week’ in Washington, D.C.. ‘Sanchez was instrumental in saving my life,’ Scott said. ‘When he couldn’t help me, he put me in touch with the people that could. … Sanchez is there to make me proud to be a Marine. He doesn’t let me forget where I came from. É There’s a lot of people that care about me right now,’ Scott said. ‘I can’t thank them enough.’ (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

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Scott talks with his attorney, Christopher Griffin, at the Boulder County Justice Center. Scott had been charged with third-degree assault but ultimately pleaded guilty to harassment. A violation of a protection order was dismissed, and he pleaded guilty to driving while ability impaired. Griffin said he was concerned for young veterans. ‘We send these kids off to war — we make them see things people otherwise wouldn’t have to see. Then we expect them to come back and behave like the rest of us. It’s breaking my heart.’ (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

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Scott looks through ties at Nordstrom Rack in Boulder, as he gets ready for his first day of work. ‘It’s just the Cheesecake Factory, but I hope I don’t blow up on a customer. I’m worried about what people will think about me. … I don’t want them to point me out and say, ‘This guy doesn’t belong here.’ … I don’t know if my anxiety is normal or not. It’s a new job, so it’s probably normal. I’m a hard worker. I have a good work ethic. I can multitask. I can lead. I just hope my personal life doesn’t interfere.’ He quit his job three months later because of just that. (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post- December 29, 2011)

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During their breakup Scott watches as his girlfriend struggles to carry his Tempur-Pedic mattress from his apartment. After a 15-minute struggle, she gave up and left in a rage. He said the relationship was exactly what he needed at the time. ‘I needed someone to affirm the way I felt about myself. … I felt like if I stayed with that person long enough and received enough punishment, then I have in some way sought redemption for my actions overseas in Iraq.’ (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

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Scott drinks a beer outside the VFW Post in Longmont, Colo. Scott recalled his worst day in Iraq. ‘We got this infantry platoon attached to us to beef up our numbers. … There was this one guy, and I knew right away that we were going to be friends. … The vehicle he was riding in the passenger seat hit a really big bomb that day – really big IED, and it trapped him inside the humvee, and I got to listen to and watch him scream as he burned. And I never learned his name. There was nothing I could do. … I lost a friend that I never had.’ (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

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Scott watches an evening storm roll in outside his apartment. ‘I’m just feeling guilty about the things I did. I was a brutal killer, and I rejoiced in it. I was bred to be a killer, and I did it. Now I’m trying to adapt and feel human again. But to feel human, I feel guilty. I did horrible things to people… That’s why I can’t eat: I feel guilty, I feel sick.’ (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post- December 29, 2011)

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Scott stands tensely in the kitchen, where his day starts with a panic attack. He said the day before was ‘one long panic attack’ and that this day was starting out similarly. Scott said his PTSD was becoming unmanageable. ‘I don’t know what I want. I need someone to tell me what to do,’ he said. He explained his panic attacks as tingling hands and feet – that his arms and legs felt detached. ‘I’m short of breath and my chest is tight, painfully tight.’ (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

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Scott says he is deeply concerned about his health and his future. Down 45 pounds from his normal weight — Scott says his appetite and stress are directly related. He said he was anxious to explore a residential PTSD program at the VA Medical Center. ‘I have to, or I’m gonna end up on the street talking to myself,

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Scott waits outside the pharmacy at the VA Medical Center in Denver, Colo.. After seeing Scott’s mental state, a doctor gave him a prescription for an antipsychotic medication. ‘I was terrified. I couldn’t control my own thoughts,’ he said. Two months later Scott was accepted into the PTSD Residential Rehabilitation Program at the Center. ‘Eventually you get to a point where you just … break down,’ he said. ‘The only other option is to put a hand out and ask for help.’ (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

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CRAIG F WALKER

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, Denver Post staff photojournalist Craig F. Walker has covered some of the most important threads of the terror attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., fixing a compassionate lens on the men, women and children tangled then, and now, in the continuing story of geopolitical conflict. He chronicled the aftermath of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in New York, the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, the inauguration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai in 2001, and the deployment of American troops in Kuwait in 2003, and in Iraq in 2005 and 2009.
In 2009, his photo essay “Ian Fisher: American Soldier” won the grand prize in Editor & Publisher’s Photos of the Year competition. His honors also include a first-place National Headliners Award in 2002 for a portfolio of work. Walker was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photographer in 2010 as well as the American Society of News Editor Community Photojournalism award, and the Sidney Hillman Foundation prize for Photojournalism and third place Photographer of the Year from the Pictures of the Year International competition.
Walker came to the Post in 1998 from the Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass., where, he chronicled the final six months in the life of a woman with AIDS. He began his career in Massachusetts, at the Marlborough Enterprise.

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Source: pulitzer.org

Weeki Wachee Springs by Toni Frissell

Antoinette Frissell was born in 1907 in New York City, New York, but took photos under the name Toni Frissell, even after her marriage to Manhattan socialite McNeil Bacon. She worked with many famous photographers of the day, as an apprentice to Cecil Beaton, and with advice from Edward Steichen.

Her initial job, as a fashion photographer for Vogue in 1931, was due to Condé Montrose Nast personally. She later took photographs for Harper’s Bazaar. Her fashion photos, even of evening gowns and such, were often notable for their outdoor settings, emphasizing active women. Read more from source: wikipedia.org

photo by Massoud Hossaini, AFP

‘When I could stand up, I saw that everybody was around me on the ground, really bloody. I was really, really scared,’ said the Tarana, whose name means ‘melody’ in English. Out of 17 women and children from her family who went to a riverside shrine in Kabul that day to mark the Shiite holy day of Ashura, seven died including her seven-year-old brother Shoaib. More than 70 people lost their lives in all, and at least nine other members of Tarana’s family were wounded. The blasts has prompted fears that Afghanistan could see the sort of sectarian violence that has pitched Shiite against Sunni Muslims in Iraq and Pakistan.

The attack was the deadliest strike on the capital in three years. President Hamid Karzai said this was the first time insurgents had struck on such an important religious day. The Taliban condemned the attack, which some official viewed as sectarian. On the same day, a second bomber attacked in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Karzai said on December 11 that a total of 80 people were killed in both attacks. Published December 7, 2011

MASSOUD HOSSAINI
Afghanistan Photographer for Agence France-Presse (AFP)

Massoud Hossaini was born in Kabul in 1981, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. His father’s opposition to the Afghan communist regime meant the family had to flee the country, to Iran, when Hossaini was six months old. After finishing high school in 1996, Hossaini joined the Iranian reformist movement as a political activist. After a while, he realized that he should be recording the historical events that were going on around him, and chose photography as the means of doing so.

As a refugee himself, it was too difficult and dangerous to risk photographing in the streets of Iran, so he decided to focus on fellow Afghans sheltering in Iran. He was documenting the life of refugees in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, when the events of 11 September 2001 changed his direction completely. Hossaini decided to go back to Afghanistan, at the beginning of 2002, where he joined Aina, an organization aimed at training people in media and communication skills, founded by National Geographic Fellow and photojournalist, Reza Deghati. He learned his photography skills from Reza’s brother, Manoocher Deghati, and was soon being given professional assignments. Hossaini joined Agence France-Presse (AFP) in 2007, and covered the war in Afghanistan, part of the time embedded with US troops. In doing this, he traveled to isolated villages, where he also documented local life. Hossaini’s work has twice been exhibited in Berlin, and he is currently still an AFP photographer in Afghanistan.

World Press Photo of the Year in 2012 by photographer Samuel Aranda, from Spain to New York Times, shows a Yemeni woman hugging her brother who was injured in the protests against President Saleh in Sanaa, Yemen, October 15, 2011.

Aranda’s shot the winning photograph last October at a mosque that was used as a field hospital during the demonstrations. The chair of the World Press Photo jury, Aidan Sullivan, vice president of photo assignments for Getty Images said of the winning photo, “[It] shows a poignant, compassionate moment, the human consequence of an enormous event, an event that is still going on. We might never know who this woman is, cradling an injured relative, but together they become a living image of the courage of ordinary people that helped create an important chapter in the history of the Middle East.”

Aranda will receive a 10,000 Euro award and other prizes at a ceremony to be held in Amsterdam in May. Source

Photo by Dmitri Kasterine
February 1962. A nice moment to see Venice for the first time – mist and rain for three days. Hardly a sole about, just Venetians enjoying the emptiness of their city judging by the spring in this man’s step. Others possibly looking forward to the spring hordes.

Man with Cigar

Photo by Dmitri Kasterine.
“I can remember to this day catching sight of the man as I walked along the Thames in Putney. I crept up along side him, and pretended to look out at the river. I guessed the distance I was from him and turned away to set the focus on the lens. I then leveled the Leica at my waist and pointed it towards him out of the corner of my eye”.

Conrad Schumann

Conrad Schumann, East German border guard Conrad Schumann leaps into the French Sector of West Berlin over barbed wire on August 15, 1961.

Born in Leutewitz near Riesa, Schumann served as a soldier in the East German Bereitschaftspolizei. After three months’ training in Dresden, he was posted to a non-commissioned officers’ college in Potsdam, after which he volunteered for service in Berlin.

On 15 August 1961 he found himself, aged 19, guarding the Berlin Wall, then in its third day of construction, at the corner of Ruppinerstraße and Bernauerstraße. At that stage of construction, the Berlin Wall was only a low barbed wire fence. As the people on the Western side shouted Komm rüber! (”come over”), Schumann jumped the barbed wire and was driven away at high speeds by a waiting West Berlin police car. Photographer Peter Leibing captured a photograph of his escape on film and it became a well-known image of the Cold War.
Photographer: Peter Leibing. Source: wikipedia

Lunch atop a Skyscraper

Lunch atop a Skyscraper (New York Construction Workers Lunching on a Crossbeam) is a famous photograph taken by Charles C. Ebbets during construction of the GE Building at Rockefeller Center in 1932.

The photograph depicts 11 men eating lunch, seated on a girder with their feet dangling hundreds of feet above the New York City streets. Ebbets took the photo on September 29, 1932, and it appeared in the New York Herald Tribune in its Sunday photo supplement on October 2. Taken on the 69th floor of the GE Building during the last several months of construction, the photo Resting on a Girder shows the same workers napping on the beam.

Girl on a Swing

Girl on a Swing Pitt St., New York 1938 by Walter Rosenblum
Walter Rosenblum was an influential photographer for over fifty years, as well as an important figure in the advancement of twentieth century photography. His early involvement with photography began when he was seventeen years old, when he joined the Photo League and met Lewis Hine and studied with Paul Strand.

MBTA Moment

The photograph depicts 11 men eating lunch, seated on a girder with their feet dangling hundreds of feet above the New York City streets. Ebbets took the photo on September 29, 1932, and it appeared in the New York Herald Tribune in its Sunday photo supplement on October 2. Taken on the 69th floor of the GE Building during the last several months of construction, the photo Resting on a Girder shows the same workers napping on the beam.

Photographer Stephies eye captured a nice moment on the Green Line in today’s photo of the day. This, like many of her photos, reminds us how useful it is to always carry a camera and not be afraid to use it—even in quiet moments. We also like how the lights on the top of the car and the light coming through the windows on the side guide our eye to the subject and his book.

Eng and Chang were born in Siam (modern day Thailand) on May 11, 1811 to a Chinese father and half-Chinese, half-Malay mother. Thanks to their heritage, while growing up in Siam the boys were known as “The Chinese Twins”.
Despite the fact that their birth was initially believed to be an omen of the end of the world, they brought celebrity to their small village. Their mother refused to allow doctors to attempt to separate the boys, fearing that to do so would result in the death of one or both. Instead she taught them to stretch the tissue that joined them so that they could stand side-by-side rather than always face-to-face.

In 1824, Scottish merchant Robert Hunter discovered the twins by accident while they were swimming. He introduced himself and became a friend of their family. Later he asked the Siamese government for permission to take the boys to Europe, but his request was at first denied.

In 1829 Hunter and his associate Captain Abel Coffin offered money to the boys’ mother for permission to take them abroad, then tried again with the government; this time they succeeded. In April, 17 year-olds Chang and Eng left for Boston, excited to see the world.

After a successful and profitable tour of the States, the group then sailed to England where they became quite popular. They were extensively examined by doctors and visited by royalty.

Unfortunately, their next planned stop, France, did not receive them quite so well; they were denied entry by the French government. The rest of Europe, however, was not closed to them, so they toured extensively, continuing to pack venues.

In 1832 Chang and Eng broke off their arrangement with Captain Coffin (Mr. Hunter having sold his share of the rights to Coffin while they were in Europe) when they realized that he was taking the vast majority of the money received for their tours. This break led them to P. T. Barnum, with whom they toured until 1839, when they decided to quit the exhibition life and settle down.

They chose Wilkesboro, North Carolina where they began the life of farmers. In 1839 they became United States citizens, but lacking last names they were simply listed as “Chang and Eng, Siamese Twins.” In 1844 they decided to remedy that by petitioning to adopt the name Bunker, although it is not known for sure where this came from.
Chang and Eng began to date Adelaide and Sarah Ann Yates, two of nine daughters of local farmer and part-time clergyman, David Yates. The townspeople disapproved, so Chang and Eng scheduled a separation surgery in Philadelphia. Their fiancées found out and quickly stopped the proceeding, and in April, 1843, Chang was married to Adelaide and Eng to Sarah Ann in a double wedding.

During the course of their marriages, Eng fathered six boys and five girls; Chang seven girls and three boys. All were normal except for a son and daughter of Chang’s who were deaf mutes.

In January, 1874, Chang Bunker died after a severe case of bronchitis, possibly from a cerebral clot. Eng died shortly thereafter.

After their deaths it was determined they could have been successfully separated, a medical option that was never offered to Eng and Chang during their lives.

Although Eng and Chang’s fame helped coin the phrase ‘Siamese Twins’, they were not the first pair of conjoined twins recorded in medical annals as there were probably about 100 such pairs known by the time of their 1811 births, a fact which helped the King of Siam reverse an early death sentence on the brothers. In fact, conjoined twins were recorded as early as 945 in Armenia and the first pair of successfully separated twins took place in 1689 by German physician G. König.
( Biography Source )

Image Source

Born in Bronx (New York) on June 14, 1904, she was the daughter of Joseph White and Minnie Bourke. Her father was a naturalist, engineer and inventor; her mother, a resourceful homemaker. She learned from her father perfection; from her mother, the unabashed desire for self-improvement. Married in 1924 to Everett Chapman. Divorced in 1926, she escaped to the security of Cornell University to complete her education and find…and define…herself as the Margaret Bourke-White the world came to know through her pioneering photojournalism.
She first gained recognition as an industrial photographer based in Cleveland, Ohio. Arriving in the Lake Erie city by boat in 1927 she said, “I stood on the deck to watch the city come into view. As the skyline took form in the morning mist, I felt I was coming to my promised land…columns of machinery gaining height as we drew toward the pier, derricks swinging like living creatures. Deep inside I knew these were my subjects.” Her pioneering photographs of steel mill interiors came to the attention of Henry Luce. He brought her to New York to work on Fortune, a magazine drenched in the romance of industry.
Then as a photojournalist who emphasized the human side of the news as seen in the pages of LIFE, another Henry Luce production. As a founding mother of LIFE (she shot the first cover ), she became a world-famous symbol of swashbuckling photography. And that she did it in a male world made her success even more spectacular.
During her unique career, Bourke-White was torpedoed in the Mediterranean, strafed by the Luftwaffe, stranded on an Arctic island, bombarded in Moscow, and pulled out of the Chesapeake when her chopper crashed. She was the first Western photographer to document Soviet industry after the revolution, to create a travelog of Czechoslovakia and other Balkan states just before Hitler moved in to ignite World War II, and to be stationed in Moscow just before Germany bombed its former ally.

Aggressive and relentless in pursuit of pictures, Bourke-White had the knack of being at the right place at the right time. For example, she interviewed and photographed Mohandas K. Gandhi a few hours before his assassination in India. And she was the only American photographer in the Soviet Union in 1941 while the battle for Moscow raged. Alfred Eisenstaedt, her friend and colleague, said she was great because there was no assignment, no picture that was unimportant to her. She was also credited for starting the first photo lab at LIFE.
Bourke-White’s second marriage was to Erskine Caldwell, the novelist, in 1939. This marriage ended in divorce in 1942. She had no children. Thus LIFE became her family. And when Parkinson’s Disease started to sap her strength her associates at LIFE supported her. She said, “The camera is a remarkable instrument. Saturate yourself with your subject and the camera will all but take you by the hand.”
Her photographs are in a number of museums, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She is also represented in the collection of the Library of Congress.
Margaret Bourke-White had mastered her medium. But, she also had the daring, cunning, and intuition to be where news was happening.
Margaret Bourke-White is exclusively represented in the Rocky Mountain Region by GALLERY M.