micdotcom:

Jeff Sharlet’s stunning Instagram stories are breaking new ground for journalism

Jeff Sharlet felt suspicious when he joined Instagram last August. He saw it as a dumping ground for the trivial and the superfluous — cat photos, food porn, selfies; the things important only to an amateur photographer and his or her inner circle.

“I was really dismissive of this stuff,” Sharlet, a magazine journalist and author, told Mic by phone from his home in Vermont. “I signed on, actually, just for family things and kid pictures.” But after a time, he began to recognize that Instagram wasn’t just a platform for pointless personal junk — it was also a brilliant storytelling tool. Read more of his incredible profiles.

gettyimages:

Today we’re launching the Getty Images Instagram Grant, in collaboration with Instagram, to support photographers using Instagram to document stories from underrepresented communities around the world.

 This grant intends to support emerging voices, outside the mainstream media, who are creating projects of social importance. Share your work and apply at gtty.im/grants.

Applications will be accepted until June 4, 2015, at 11:59 p.m. GMT. All entrants are required to complete the online application at gtty.im/grants to be considered by the judges: @kirapollack, @malinfezehai, @maggiesteber, @dguttenfelder and @ramintalaie.

reportagebygettyimages:

Beachgoers in Babolsar, Iran, on the Caspian Sea. Photo by Instagrammer @abolfazlsalmanzadeh, included in our weekly #ReportageSpotlight roundup. See our other favorite images from Instagram users on @GettyReportage.

To be featured in our Friday roundup, tag your Instagrams with #ReportageSpotlight and we’ll pick our favorites each week. Please see our Terms & Conditions for additional rules.

instagram:

Commuting Through the Borderline Fictional Universe of @kdickerman

To see more of Kenneth’s photographs, follow @kdickerman on Instagram.

“It’s been a steady progression away from professional cameras for me,” says photo editor Kenneth Dickerman (@kdickerman), a photographer turned photo editor, now working at The Washington Post (@washingtonpost). “I have a certain kind of look I’m going for, and that would be moody and introspective, sort of borderline fictional”.

He contrasts the personal images he records at home or on his daily commute to work, with his years of working as a photojournalist in places like Gaza and Afghanistan, and covering the Occupy protests in the United States. “It’s not documentary. It could be whatever I want,” he says. “My cats are a big part of my life. I know a lot of people say cat pictures are stupid on the Internet. To me, they’re a huge part of my life, so I take pictures of them.”

Kenneth treats each image, photographed with an iPhone 5, with a post-production process that includes using the Drama filter on Snapseed, not once, but several times, and sometimes adding or removing texture to emulate film grain.

He explains his approach by citing an adage he attributes to many of his favorite photographers: “Create your own universe. With pictures that’s one thing I’m really trying to do — trying to create my own universe, and inhabit it.”

Eric Talmadge is the only Western reporter regularly in North Korea. Here’s what it’s like.

via @washingtonpost

Photos: Eric Talmadge, AP

instagram:

Around the World from Australia to Afghanistan with @andrewquilty

To see more of Andrew’s images from Afghanistan and beyond, follow @andrewquilty on Instagram.

“I try to articulate the simple, yet harsh everyday lives of Afghans. I suppose I’m fascinated to observe a young population that has known no reality but war in forty years,” says Australian photojournalist Andrew Quilty (@andrewquilty). Currently based in Kabul, he covers news events around the region, including the unfolding crises spilling across the borders of northern Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. His own life journey began very differently, on beaches in the South Pacific. “I grew up in Sydney and spent my post-high school years surfing there and all over Australia and Indonesia,” he explains. “My interest in photography came a couple of years into that, and I began to combine the two obsessions when I got myself an underwater camera housing. Over time my passion for photography—as it became my career—began to override surfing. So much so that I now find myself living in a landlocked desert of a country, Afghanistan.”

reportagebygettyimages:

Time Magazine Picks Instagrams that Defined 2014

From Ukraine to the US-Mexico border, Time Magazine and Instagram looked for images that tell stories of the year’s major events. We’re pleased to see they included images from Reportage photographers Daniel Berehulak and Charles Ommanney, and Getty Images News photographer Brendan Hoffman. See the full gallery on Time Lightbox.

Captions, from top:

Photo by Charles Ommanney (@charlesommanney) | McAllen, Texas. A group of women and two unaccompanied children are detained on a levee. Exhausted and hungry the group appeared relieved to be found. It turned out they had travelled from Guatemala and Honduras together.

Photo by Brendan Hoffman (@hoffmanbrendan) | One of a group of local coal miners searches a field of sunflowers near #Grabovo #ukraine for #mh17 airplane debris and human remains. #україни

Photo by Daniel Berehulak (@danielberehulak) | Boarding the bus, sent to greet us, on the tarmac at the airport in Mogadishu, Somalia

instagram:

Rediscovering Inspiration in Hungary and France with @balintporneczi

To see more of Bálint’s portraits from Hungary and France, follow @balintporneczi on Instagram.

“I had a burnout. I thought I was in the wrong place — in the head, and in the soul,” says Hungarian photographer Bálint Pörneczi (@balintporneczi), describing a period working for a newspaper in Budapest. “When you wake up in the morning, you don’t want to shoot the same thing, knowing it will be in the trash the next day. This thing became like a life in a factory.” With that, Bálint started a new life in France, where he delivered newspapers in small villages before finding work again as a photojournalist. On Instagram, he shares a series of street portraits of the people he encounters in his daily life. He cites August Sander, an early 20th century German portraitist, as an inspiration, and describes his surprise to find himself making portraits with an iPhone. “It makes me happy, I enjoy photography as I did in the beginning. I re-found the pleasure, and slowly different doors start to open.”