The South Asian Journalists Association will convene at Columbia University from June 17 through June 20 for its annual convention. If you haven't signed up and registered for it, you will be missing a real treat. Lots of wonderful speakers and panelists. If you are out to network you couldn't ask for a more congenial atmosphere. While the focus is journalism and South Asia, those who are interested in one or the other but not necessarily both should still choose to attend. Convention information here. Registration information here.

I manage the PHOTOFORUM, the photojournalism activities during the convention. If you haven't responded to the Call For Entries for the annual digital photo exhibit, tick-tock, the count-down to the May 31 deadline looms ahead. Consider submitting your photography. After all when was the last time you showed off your work to 600 journalists?

The Photoforum workshops this year is an attempt to provide some “hands-on” photography training to participants at the convention. David H. Wells, an internationally known photojournalist and a highly regarded teacher will lead two workshops. Click the link below to find out more about the workshops and about David. Plan to attend both!

Please bookmark this link to come back and check for updates. All events and activities are subject to change.

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“The Australian PhotoJournalist is a non-profit publication compiled at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University and focuses on social documentary photography and photojournalism.

Each edition is dedicated to one topic which is thoroughly investigated and presented to our readership. This issue will celebrate journalism that has made or is making a difference to the world in which we live.

But where to begin, the possibilities are so numerous that we have decided to begin this project by contacting people such as yourself who have received the respect of the industry and ask which journalists (photo or text) you believe we should consider. Our intention is to gather a breadth of data and then begin the selection and investigation process.

We hope to go to press in late July for an August edition of the APJ. As such whatever help you could extend to us in the next one or two weeks would be enormously appreciated.”

Send your ideas to Steve Kerr at APJ.

A couple of days back I wrote about how the power of images is shifting public opinion. Here is the promised link to the Deborah Norville Tonight show's transcript.

According to the DNT show three images have set the tone of this war in Iraq. What do you think?

I still don't get it why a photojournalist wasn't asked to be on the May 11 panel.

It's not easy coming up with a list of women photographers whose work inspires me. It's not because there are so few of them. In fact, it's just the opposite. The list is so long!

I'll begin by a listing a few here and add to this list from time to time. I think you will agree that these women are masters of their craft, have incredible discipline and present their subjects with great dignity, style and class.

Jodi Cobb in National Geographic and Photo District News

Melissa Farlow on the Aurora Photos website and at the Missouri Photo Workshops

Melissa Lyttle's personal web space and A Photo A Day

Karen Kring's personal site and her Picture This Projects

Julia Dean's site about her active workshops and her baby, The Child Labor Project

Joyce Tenneson's personal site

Mary Ellen Mark's personal site

Helen Levitt on National Public Radio and in the New York Times

Also check out Photo Betty

Via Sanjiv Sirpal

I love it when members of the audience raise their hand and say – “Yo, check this out!” Sanjiv Sirpal, a photographer, writer, designer – shall we just call him a Renaissance man? – wrote in to suggest a wonderful photo agency based in Delhi called PhotoInk.

I'll let you surf out to the site and check it out, but let me tell you that some of India's best known photographers are represented there. It's great to see a home for social documentary photography in India. Bangladesh has Drik and Pathashala, wonderful, progressive organizations doing great things thanks to Shahidul Alam's leadership.

I was pleasantly surprised to know that Robert Pledge's Contact Press Images was connected to PhotoInk. Devika Daulat-Singh, PhotoInk's director interned at Contact Press Images a while back. These sort of relationships run deep. Students reading this ought to take note – internships do pay in the end. It is what you make of it that either sustains you or cripples you in this business.