This is a guest post by Gerik Parmele. He is the director of photography at the Columbia Daily Tribune. Prior to moving to Missouri in 2005 to work at the Tribune he worked as a staff photographer at the Grand Island Independent, in Nebraska, for eight years.

The economy is tough, especially in photojournalism. As a photo editor in charge of a staff at a small newspaper it can be pretty stressful dealing with things like budgets and workloads.

But recently one situation came up that really drove home the point of what it's like for photojournalists, especially those vying for newspaper jobs, in this new economic climate. It's what happened when one of my staff gave his two week notice to move on to another newspaper.

The last time I hired a photographer here at the Columbia Tribune was in 2007. I had the luxury of mounting an extensive search for the right candidate. I posted on job boards and list-serves. I used my network of friends and colleagues to find candidates who would be a good fit. I gave it weeks.

Once I found a candidate that I felt was perfect for the job we were even willing and able to wait several weeks for her to finish a previous obligation before joining our staff. Those were the days.

Then things took a slight turn. Our budgets got pinched and our staff was reduced by one photographer, the one we waited weeks to hire a 19 months earlier. Our workload was increased with new initiatives to produce more web content. You've heard it all before I'm sure.

So for the last year we've been doing more with less, but getting by. Well, that is until I got the two week notice.

With the reality of having to replace a photographer in two weeks while already short staffed I thought back to the days of 2007 when I had the luxury of methodically sorting through more than 70 portfolios of photographers wanting to work here.

Not this time.

I knew I needed to act quickly and decisively.  I wanted to get someone on board as soon as I could. I was scared our open position would be frozen. I knew our sanity would not last long with 50 percent less staff than we had 2 years ago while covering the same amount of assignments.

Thankfully there was someone right here in Columbia who is a great photographer, who I was familiar with, who was interested in working here and who was available. We offered him the job days after we knew we'd need a replacement.

So what's the take away for you if you are a photojournalist looking for work in this weak economy? Here's a short list of my opinions and things I learned the hard way.

1. As a photojournalist looking for work you need to have a very clear idea of where (city, state, region) you want to work and for who (newspaper, specific photo editor or agency) you want to work for.

2. Do your research about these places and be very familiar with them.

3. Make sure they know you want to work for them and why.

4. Be in touch frequently, but not to frequently.  A postcard now and again is good. Phone calls every other day, bad. One of the things I've found that photojournalists were not good at was staying in touch with potential job prospects, even when I asked them “Please, stay in touch.”

5. Take a chance and move to the location you desire to work. It's easier to network and become known than if you lived 1000 miles away.

6. Be excellent in what you do. Remember a couple of paragraphs higher I wrote I received more than 70 portfolios for one entry level job opening? The competition is pretty tough.

Jobs don't open very often on the photo staff of our paper. I would guess that is the same for most around the country. But when they do, are you the first person that photo editor will think of when they need to hire someone right away?

You may also want to read this article from the National Press Photographers Association about Getting Started in Photojournalism.

Mario Mattei is a photographer, visionary, & president of IGVP, based outside of Istanbul, Turkey.

I’m the kind of person who likes to ask “what if…” I’ve learned that I’m not alone in this and not alone in asking one particular “what if,” one that my friends and I were asking in 2008 …

In light of the tragedies on 9/11 and the fear-based reactions so often caused by worldviews shaped in onslaughts of “shocking” visual media, what if humans instead got consistently exposed to “other” cultures through photography and media themed on dignity, hope, and common humanity? Would the world be a different place?

This idea developed and is now known as “visual peacemaking.” All this year we’ve been moving it from dreams to action. Visualpeacemakers.org will be launching very soon. It’ll be a place to “get exposed” to the world’s peoples. And to get involved in contributing.

With this larger-than-life vision, my closest and most brilliant friends (Logan McAdams, John Machado and Jim Mullins) became co-founders with me in initiating, creating, and recruiting the International Guild of Visual Peacemakers (IGVP).

The vision spread through emails and Skype conversations. Matt Brandon, Nicole Gibson, and David DuChemin were in on the ground-level. It became our dream to form an organization and cross-promotional website that would advance the cause for visual peace and leverage photographers from around the globe to “SHOOT FOR PEACE.”

Not much time passed and we soon invited Gavin Gough, Matt Powell, Ami Vitale, Jeffrey Chapman, and Kerry Lammi into the Guild. These world-class photographers, and do-gooders, immediately clicked with the call to “peacemaking and breaking down stereotypes by displaying the beauty and dignity of various cultures around the world.”

We quickly ran into a wonderful “problem.” Everyone wanted in. We had some strategies in mind for how a small guild could operate, so we created a second, connected strategy. We’re forming a branch of the Guild called the Visual Peacemakers Community, able to grow wide in numbers and deep in impact. These will be members on our site with Peacemaker Profiles, galleries, etc.

Today we’re defining visual peacemakers as photographers/ videographers who especially:

• Document our common humanity
• Display the beauty & dignity of people
• Make an unknown culture known to another.
• Tell stories of hope
• Bring new perspectives where harmful stereotypes exist

Their images foster peace by building bridges of awareness & understanding between ethnic, cultural, & religious identities.

On the website each photographer will have an in-depth profile and portfolio. It’s being developed as a place to create, connect, and catalyze through tools & social media. Resources for photographic growth will be available like ebooks, podcasts, articles, mentoring, portfolio reviews, grants and world workshops. This aspect has really been developing and has been rewarding to see just how much visual peacemakers can and will be equipped to make a difference.

Each and every member will be inviting their friends, co-workers, and family to take part by signing a half-page Charter for Visual Peace that expresses what it means to be a socially conscious viewer of visual media. And here you have the beginning of impact beyond our group of visual communicators.

Without glossing over tragedy and conflict, IGVP is seeking to show more than human hardships. We’re displaying all that is beautiful about us, and all that connects us. Visual Peacemakers treat humanity’s similarities as sacred and our diversities things to be honored. We’ve got a long list of photographers to be notified of the launch. So, though this seems to have been going on for awhile to some of us, for most, it all really begins on launch day!

Will you join us?

David H. Wells is a photojournalist with over twenty five years' experiences in photography. Since 1986 he has focused on in-depth photo-essays for publication and exhibition. Between 1986 and 1996 he produced 16 photo-essays for the Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday Magazine. His photo-essays have also been published in Aramco World, the Chicago Tribune, Geo Magazine, Life Magazine, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, National Geographic Publications, Newsweek Magazine, the New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, U.S. News & World Report and the Washington Post Magazine, among other publications.

Wells has extensive work experience in India, working on assignment for Aramco World and the Ford Foundation, among others, during numerous trips to India since 1995. Wells spent five months in India in 1999-2000 on a Fulbright fellowship. During 2001-2003 he was working in India on an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship photographing the winners and losers in India’s globalization. In 2005-2006 he was on his second Fulbright fellowship, photographing the impact of globalization in rural South Asia.

This David's first guest post here on Tiffinbox. Please make him feel welcome by commenting below. Thank you!

This work explores the fluctuating encounter between the eternal and the newly global in South Asia. Some images show physical manifestations of globalization’s forces for change interacting with local culture. Others use the play of light and shadow to highlight the eternal magic and beauty at the core of daily life in South Asia. The work is assembled to mimic the visual cacophony that is so much a part of life across the region. Some images are presented as singles, and other as diptychs or triptychs, collectively recreating South Asia’s omnipresent visual noise. Interspersed within the pages are blocks of text that allude to the dissonant sounds, ideas, names, faiths, places, cultures, and people that are encountered across the region. The complete photo-essay encourages a better understanding of the powerful, duality of forces that are vying to shape the future of South Asia.

Streets in South Asia offer patient observers an infinite number of dualities including; compassion and greed, hope and fear, wealth and poverty. Over the last eleven years, I have encountered these same dichotomies as both an insider and an outsider. While I am shaped by my Western upbringing, I am also married to an Indian woman. Her experiences and those of her extensive family network have helped me better understand India, and South Asia in general. Three grants (two Fulbright fellowships and an Alicia Patterson fellowship) as well as magazine assignments have expanded my appreciation of South Asia’s many cultures. Also, extensive reading of the popular press and academic publications, both Western and local, have informed my understanding of the area.

When working there, I have observed moments where the timeless in South Asia confronts the newness of globalization. I record these instances, creating images that highlight the changes sweeping across the region. The photographs explore the swirling human milieu that is unique to the local cultures, but is also being reshaped by globalization. The images show the physical manifestations of globalization’s forces for change interacting with local cultures in both urban and rural areas. Interspersed within these dichotomies, I also use the play of light and shadow to highlight the eternal magic and beauty at the core of daily life in South Asia.

The work I am producing explores these dualities, focusing on the continuously fluctuating encounter between the eternal and the newly global in South Asia. When I am exploring the newly global in the region, I emphasize the color that is common to so many global logos. With others, I compose my images in order to extract the color from the images, highlighting the simple play of dark and light.

The work is assembled to mimic the visual cacophony that is so much a part of life across the region. Some images are presented as singles, and other as diptychs or triptychs, collectively recreating South Asia’s omnipresent visual noise

Globalization is clearly trickling into the lives, villages, and the psyches of people across South Asia. Though the forces of globalization are external and frequently visual, the internal process of change is largely unseen. Far too many discussions of globalization focus on efforts to somehow “stop” the historically inevitable force that has been shaping and reshaping humanity for centuries. Rather than being fixated on opposing globalization, this photo-essay encourages a better understanding of the powerful duality of forces that are vying to shape the future of South Asia.

Like so many photographers I “meet” today, Matt Brandon and I came to know of each other thanks to Twitter. His passion for photography, people and travel intrigued me. Scanning his blog one day, I stumbled upon the beautiful multimedia show you see below on Bangla Sahib. What I liked most about this slideshow was Matt's use of ambient sound and interviews as we are taken through the lives of those who visit this beautiful Gurudwara (a Sikh temple).

Matt Brandon has a special eye for portraits of people set in their natural environment. He photographs images of the forgotten, the unknown and the helpless. He shoots beauty and sees it everywhere. The beauty in the eyes of a seven year old street girl of Old Delhi, an eighty year old shepherdess in the Himalaya. He sees the beauty in the face of the over worked 60 year old Indonesian farmer or the Buddhist monk Cambodia. He sees value in telling their story. These are stories that most people would over look. The cultures of the “other part” of the world have a special draw for him, ever since he was a child in Alaska.

Matt spent over thirteen years living in India and now resides with his family in Malaysia. He shoots often for international faith based NGOs and non-profits. He takes assignments regularly. Matt's images have been used by international clients such as Partner Aid International, NeighborWorks, the BBC, Honda Motor Corporation, and the Bombadier Transport Corporation. If you are looking for a photographer for your next assignment, no matter where, please give Matt a call or email him.

It was a magazine clipping that my mother handed me on my way back to the US that first introduced me to Homai Vyarawalla, India's first woman photojournalist. In a field that is clearly overrun by men, I was easily charmed by her tenacity and resolve to also bear witness to India's first waking moments as an independent nation.

Check out this film – it's rather long at 70 minutes – to get acquainted with a legend in the field of photojournalism.

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

Post your thoughts below in the comments section. I look forward to hearing from you.