IPPA member Chris Birks is running for Region 5 NPPA Director!
IPPA member Chris Birks is running for Region 5 NPPA Director!
Be sure to vote, and about 60% of our membership are NPPA members.
Director Candidate Statements:
Chris Birks
Photo Editor
Kane County Chronicle
Geneva, IL
I want to help rebuild the membership’s trust in the organization. With all the financial problems, the POY contest split and dues increases, a lot of members are questioning whether they want to stay in NPPA. I think the organization has been focusing on what needs to fix, and has forgotten to highlight it can do for the members. NPPA needs to do show all of us what we get for our dues. I think we need to build on what the organization does right and let the rest go.
Areas like the JIB, the mentor program, educational workshops and being a national voice for photojournalism; these are what I think we need focus on. Programs and events that are no longer relevant should be cut. I would like to continue the honest flow of information about the hurdles the group faces, but also prove to members that the NPPA is important to their professional lives.
Any questions/support/suggestions? E-mail Chris at -email-.
(Via Steve from the list)
Polaroid Transfer workshop on October 24
Making pictures just for work ain’t enough fun, usually, so consider this quick workshop. Chicago Photography Center offers a Polaroid Transfer workshop on October 24.
Description: This workshop will cover the basics of Polaroid transfer techniques, starting with the wet transfer to achieve a painterly effect. We will also explain and explore emulsion transfers onto a variety of different media, including handmade paper, canvas and wood. Bring a few properly exposed slides of your own or experiment with slides that we provide. These will not be damaged or altered in the process! You will have a chance to make at least one transfer of your own. We will also discuss options for the presentation of your finished piece. Bring your imagination…the possibilities are endless!
Instructor: Kerry Bolger who’s reachable at -email-.
Equipment needed: 5 properly exposed color or b & w slides
Cost: $75
Register at: http://www.chicagophoto.org/classes/register.html.
Call Richard Stromberg at (312) 671-7717 if you have questions.
(Via Karen Kring from the IPPA list)
Bob Black honored at Brownlee Journalism Series
Our friend and colleague Sun-Times shooter Bob Black’s contributions to the profession will be recognized next Friday, October 7 at the Les Brownlee Lifetime Achievement Awards with 4 other accomplished journalists. (More about Bob below.)
Consider coming to the dinner Friday night at the Chicago Athletic Association on Michigan Ave in Chicago. Details are at
http://www.headlineclub.org/mc/community/eventdetails.do?eventId=63264
More about Bob:
Bob Black started his career as a staff photographer with the Chicago Daily Defender in 1966. He served with the Illinois National Guard’s Signal Corps Battalion, documenting its field operations including Chicago’s west side riots.
In 1968, he joined the Chicago Sun-Times and covered Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination and the resulting riots, the takeover of a Northwestern University administration building by the Black students who felt the school was not addressing their concerns and the Democratic National Convention.
In 1984, Black’s image of a 110-year-old man being kissed on the forehead by his great-great-great-granddaughter was awarded a first place in the World Press Photo of the Netherlands competition. The international panel had reviewed more than 5,000 entries from professional photojournalists in 48 countries.
Black’s photos have appeared in Glamour Magazine, Time, the New York Times, the Newhouse newspaper chain and Jet Magazine. Black also freelances for Community Media Workshop, Centers for New Horizons
Annual Reports, the Tribune McCormick Foundation and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
In 1990, he was one of 50 photographers chosen to participate in “Songs of My People,” a book and traveling photographic exhibition project depicting life in the Black community throughout the U.S. His work is also in the books “The African Americans” and “We Come this Far by Faith.”
Black has participated in numerous group exhibitions throughout the country. He co-directed, “Journey: The Next Hundred Years,” a photographic project documenting Chicago’s African-American community since the turn of the 21st Century with 250 images by 25 Chicago-area photographers at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
He is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and a founder of its Visual Task Force, the Leica Historical Society of America, and is a founder and past vice president of the Chicago Alliance of African American Photographers.
Black has taught photography classes at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Marwin Foundation, the University of Missouri’s Urban Journalism Program and the Southside Community Art Center, and speaks often at John White’s Columbia College classes and in the city’s public schools.
Black lives on the near Northwest Side with his wife Olga, a photographer in her own right, and son Alejandro.
(Thanks again to Karen Kring for the news)