Abir Abdullah, an award-winning photographer and friend from Bangladesh and Harish Tyagi, a budding photojournalist based in Delhi, India have won awards at the annual UNICEF Photo Of the Year 2004 competition.

Abir won second place for a gruesome image of rescue workers pulling the limp body of a six-year old child after a six-storey, 100-year old building collapsed at midnight on June, 9 2004 in Dhaka.

Harish Tyagi's image of a child navigating his way in a garbage dump received an honorable mention.

What Abir and Harish have in common (other than working in South Asia) is that they are both deeply committed to documenting children and the environment they live in.

Via Donald R. Winslow

The American Journal of Nursing (AJN), the largest and oldest continually circulated nursing journal in the world (first published in 1900; 340,000 subscribers) is calling for entries in a photojournalism contest.

Nurses provide care to people who are experiencing dimensions of life that we often don't want to think about: illness, dying, labor, bodily functions out of control, pain, suffering, immobility, and ignorance about how our bodies work and how to care for them, among others. If you are fortunate, nurses are with you when you are born, when you are sick, and when you die. Nurses serve as sentinels in hospitals, in your home, schools, industry, and other settings, as they monitor health and illness, intervening to prevent deterioration and promote recovery.

Today, there is a serious global nursing shortage. A visual portrayal of nurses at work would do much to inform and to communicate to the public the important work of nursing, contemplate that social contract, and inspire some individuals to pursue a nursing career or encourage others to do so. The American Journal of Nursing seeks compelling contemporary photographs portraying nurses at work. Selected photographs will be used on the cover of the journal, included in a public exhibit in May in New York City, and possibly published in a book or in a DVD.

Prizes
First prize : $2,500
Second prize: $1,000
Third prize: $500
Honorable Mentions: Nine additional winners, along with the top three, will appear on the covers of AJN and will be part of an exhibition in New York City in May 2005, and possibly other venues. Winners will be notified by telephone or mail by April 10, 2005. There will be additional judge's choice winners that will be part of the exhibition.

How to Submit
You may enter up to five photographs. Each entry must be accompanied by an application form. Send in an 8 x 10 print and a CD (jpeg or tiff files, 300 dpi resolution minimum). Print photographs should be labeled on the reverse side with your name. Unless the photo is taken in an open, public setting, a release form is required for all subjects in the photo who can be identified. Photos should not be posed.

Deadline
All submissions must be received by March 1, 2005. There is no fee to submit.

Terms
AJN will retain nonexclusive permission rights to use the photographs in print, online, and as part of a photography exhibit, and possibly other mediums. Materials submitted will not be returned. Photographs awarded nonfunded prizes (honorable mentions, judge's choice) will receive remuneration at a standard rate.

Send Entries to:
American Journal of Nursing
C/o Wolters Kluwer Health
Attn: Dana Carey, Photojournalism Contest
333 Seventh Avenue, 19th Floor
New York, NY 10001

For more information, contact Dana Carey, 646-674-6602.

The New York Times reports that Slate now belongs to The Washington Post Company. This now makes a lot of sense. Though Microsoft generously backed the idea behind Slate, the divestiture of it's content creating units should be seen as a good thing for the company and journalism in general.

Saritha Rai's article in the NYTimes about Baazee.com CEO Avinash Bajaj‘s recent unwarranted arrest.

Fotovision is now selling Sahel: The End of the Road, by Sebastião Salgado as a fundraiser. For $100 you get a book that has been signed by Salgado and carries some of his early documentary work

“Working with the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, Salgado documented the enormous suffering and the great dignity of the refugees in the Sahel region of Africa (Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, and the Sudan), where approximately one million people died from extreme malnutrition and related causes.”

Yes, you can get the same book at Amazon.com for $28.35 but look at it this way – you will have a priceless work of art that has been signed by the artist AND will have helped a great organization that is dedictated to documentary photography achieve its financial goals.

Go ahead and give yourself a gift this Christmas. Trust me, you'll feel good about it. And, yes, my copy is in the mail.

On December 16, 2004 The Hindu Group of Publications launched an online image library.

Pictures can be downloaded from the website by making payments through credit cards. Prices of pictures start from Rs. 500.

The website, I gather, holds 40,000 images from The Hindu's archive. The images are available for commercial use.

At about $10 an image, though, I have to wonder how much the photographers who shot these images will make. Or, is it a venture by The Hindu, for The Hindu?

Via Pooja Bharadwaj

Seeking Talented Musicians !

SAAFA (South Asian Films and Arts Association) a not for profit films and arts promotion organization is presenting the music competition – Rock n Dhol.

Rock n Dhol invites all aspiring musicians to submit their original music to win the opportunity to be published on the soundtrack of the new film My Bollywood Bride starring Jason Lewis (Sex and the City fame) and Kashmera Shah. If that isn't enough they can also win cash prizes amounting to $20,000.

Entry forms are available here. For further questions please contact Pooja Bhardwaj.

Via John Laxmi

New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority has revived its earlier effort to ban photography from New York's subways and buses and the National Press Photographers Association is asking all journalists to join in the fight against this proposed ban by submitting public comments.

The change in MTA policy would make photography on the historic subway system punishable by a $25 fine and/or up to 10 days in prison. Other banned activities include smoking, jumping turnstiles and putting one's feet on the seat. This effort to criminalize photography is presented as necessary in order to increase security on the transportation lines and to prevent terrorism, although it would continue to be legal to carry a licensed, concealed gun on the subway.

While the proposed regulations contains an exception for journalists with NYPD press credentials, the NPPA supports right to free expression for all photographers, not just photojournalists. We also believe that no government entity has the Constitutional right to determine who is, or who is not, a journalist with First Amendment protections.

In addition, because of the availability of hidden cameras and camera telephones, this proposed ban will merely result in police wasting valuable time harassing innocent photographers and tourists with visible cameras.

The photography ban, which NPPA has opposed since we first learned of the plan in May 2004, was posted in the New York State Register on November 24. The official public comment period has begun but it will end shortly, on January 10, 2005.

We encourage all of our members and other interested parties to submit comments as soon as possible here.

According to the MTA Web site, comments that have already been submitted will be reviewed and considered along with the any new comments submitted during the official comment period.

The NPPA believes this proposal represents a part of a larger, ongoing trend in the United States and that it is important for all NPPA members to take action, regardless of if they are a New York resident or not. Under the umbrella of “fighting terrorism” we have seen government officials nationwide moving to limit free expression, free speech, and free press. While such rights may often be inconvenient for the government, we believe that they are essential to ensuring the liberty and freedom that we enjoy in this nation.

For a related story click here.

For more information, please contact Alicia Wagner Calzada, NPPA Vice President.

Via Tom Weirich

The 24/7 project that Rick Smolan and David Elliot Cohen pioneered has gone to the dogs, and ahem … cats.