Featured Guests

Guest Lecturers & Team Leaders

TOM KENNEDY - website
Tom Kennedy is an internationally known visual journalist with 35 years of print and online journalism experience, including positions as Managing Editor for Multimedia at The Washington Post and Director of Photography for the National Geographic Magazine.  He has created, directed, and edited visual journalism projects that have earned Pulitzer Prizes, as well as EMMY, Peabody, and Edward R. Murrow awards.

Kennedy has been a featured speaker at some of the most prestigious journalism conferences and media workshops around the world, while also consulting to various academic institutions and international media companies on topics ranging from media management to multimedia storytelling and innovating within a corporate environment.

As the Managing Editor for Multimedia at washingtonpost.com, Kennedy conceptualized and developed its multimedia section, and created the first documentary video team to produce stories for a newspaper website.  His expertise in identifying, recruiting, and managing creative talent led to a continuous stream of professional awards over an 11-year period, while also generating 16 million page views per month for visual content and contributing revenue via high-CPM video pre-roll advertising.

Prior to joining washingtonpost.com, Kennedy was the Director of Photography at the National Geographic Society for ten years.  He directed the Photographic Division that produced all still photography for the Society, with the primary focus on National Geographic Magazine.  While at the Philadelphia Inquirer as Deputy Graphics Director, Kennedy directed two projects that earned Pulitzer Prizes for feature photography.  Early in his newspaper career, he worked as a photojournalist at The Gainesville (FL) Sun and The Orlando (FL) Sentinel Star.

Kennedy serves on the Board of Advisors for The Knight Center for International Journalism within the School of Communication at the University of Miami, and on the Board of Visitors for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.  He is also an advisor to visual journalism programs at the University of North Texas and University of Florida, as well as serving on the Board of Directors for the Eddie Adams Photo Workshop.

Kennedy graduated cum laude with a degree in journalism from the University of Florida.

DAVE LABELLE - website
Dave LaBelle began his photojournalism career at the Ventura County (California) Star-Free Press as a weekend sports shooter and lab man while still in high school.During his 35-year career, LaBelle has worked for 20 newspapers and magazines in nine states, including the Anchorage Times, San Bernardino Sun-Telegram, The Chanute Tribune, Ogden Standard-Examiner, The Sacramento Bee and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where he was assistant managing editor for photography.

LaBelle’s love for feature photography and his ability to hunt out feature ideas has helped him win numerous awards. At 19, he was the National Press Photographers Association Region 10 Photographer of the Year, an honor he repeated the next two years. He was runner-up to W. Eugene Smith for the first Nikon World Understanding award in 1974 and runner-up for the NPPA National Photographer of the Year award in 1979. In 2002, the Photographic Society of America Inc. honored LaBelle with the International Understanding Through Photography award. The award’s judges said, “LaBelle’s background and accomplishments in photography have contributed to greater understanding among people everywhere.”

LaBelle joined the faculty at Western Kentucky University in 1986 and taught photojournalism for more than a decade. In 1989 while at Western, LaBelle published the first edition of “The Great Picture Hunt.” LaBelle is also the author of the book “Lessons in Death and Life,” which was published in 1992 and deals with the ethics of photographing grief. In 1991, the NPPA honored LaBelle with the Robin F. Garland Award for photojournalism education.

LaBelle now resides back in his hometown of Oak View, Calif., where he is living with his family, writing books and teaching classes in photography.

JIM MERITHEW
Jim Merithew is the online photo editor for Wired.com. Wired.com was named MPA’s Best Magazine Web Site 2009 and AdWeek’s Best Magazine Web Site 2009. Prior to that he worked for the San Francisco Chronicle as a picture editor for eight years. During those eight years he worked on A1 desk, the Sports Desk, the Chronicle PM desk and in the end was the photo editor for Features department, including Food/Wine and the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine. He has also worked at the Evansville (IN) Courier & Press, The Kalamazoo Gazette and the St. Joseph (MI) Herald-Palladium. He has shared in numerous awards with the Chronicle, including helping to edit Deanne Fitzmaurice’s Pulitzer Prize. He has also been part of a team at the paper to win the James Beard Award for best food section two years in a row.

MYUNG CHUN - website
I have been a newspaper photographer since 1988. My first job was at the Los Angeles Daily News where I worked for nearly 11 years. During that time, I had the opportunity to cover some major local news stories — the 1992 Rodney King trial and verdict and the riots that followed, the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the OJ Simpson murder trial and being the only photographer to get pictures of Simpson’s reactions during the reading of the verdicts. I’ve had the opportunity to cover the numerous brushfires and floods that seem to plague the region.

In 1999, I was hired by the Los Angeles Times as a photographer. My greatest experience to date was watching a nuclear submarine crack through four feet of ice during US Navy winter exercises in the Arctic in 2007. The second greatest experience was hiking to the top of Mount St. Helens and watching the spewing gases from the edge of the crater lip. I’ve also met numerous wonderful people and have heard just as many fascinating stories. In late 2007, I was re-assigned to shoot video on a fulltime basis. The move was something I wanted to make and saw videos as a new and creative challenge.

GROVER SANSCHAGRIN - website
Grover Sanschagrin is Vice President of Business Development and co-founder of PhotoShelter. An industry veteran, Sanschagrin, who started his career as a photojournalist, has vast experience with online productions including major roles with SportsShooter.com, ChicagoTribune.com and the Quokka Sports Network (including NBCOlympics.com and FinalFour.net). Sanschagrin studied photography and photojournalism at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Ohio University. He has spoken at numerous industry conferences and universities with one goal: To educate photographers about the importance of building a successful online marketing strategy that will result in more image sales, and less time in front of a computer.

PAULINE LUBENS
Pauline Lubens, 53, has been a staff photojournalist for the San Jose Mercury News since 2000. Before joining the Mercury News she spent 17 years at the Detroit Free Press, and worked for the Trenton (N.J.) Times. Much of her work has been self-generated documentary photojournalism, focusing on individuals whose lives reflect current issues. In recent years her story telling has evolved into multimedia photojournalism.

Lubens traveled to Iraq twice to cover the war, both times working independently of the military and focusing on the impact of the war on civilians. She has also covered international stories in Cuba, Russia, the Middle East, Japan, South Korea, Cambodia, Indonesia and Eastern Europe. Born in New York City and raised in Dayton, Ohio, she graduated from the University of Michigan in 1977, with a bachelor’s degree in history. Since returning from Iraq in 2004 Lubens has focused much of her coverage on the impact of the war on people who live in the Bay Area.

Three years in a row she won awards for multimedia work in either POYi or BOP. Her story about the recovery of a soldier wounded in Iraq who was recovering at the VA in Palo Alto won first place in the Best Multimedia Package in the Best of Photojournalism smaller website division in 2007. The same story took an Award of Excellence in the Multimedia Feature Story or Essay category in the Pictures of the Year international competition. She also won an Honorable mention in BOP’s Best Published Picture Story category for a still photography version of the same story.  Last year she was awarded First Place for Multimedia News Story from the POYi competition for a multimedia essay about the controversy over a display of crosses that marks the number of US soldiers killed in the war. And this year she took a first place in News Video in BOP and 3^rd place for News Audio Slideshow.

She has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist twice — in 1991 for a team entry documenting the U.S. visit of Nelson Mandela and in 2003 for a team entry covering the California recall election. Over the years she has won numerous other national as well as regional awards. Lubens lives in Oakland, Calif.

ALEX MANNING - website
Alex Manning is an award winning visual journalist and video producer at Reason TV in Los Angeles, California. Manning covers a wide range of assignments including the 2008 Democratic National Convention, issues with the US/Mexican border, Medical Marijuana and a Los Angeles ban on bacon wrapped hot dogs.He is a graduate of the Rocky Mountain School of Photography and holds a Bachelors Degree from the Brooks Institute of Photography. His video work has appeared on NBC, ABC, Biography, The Wall Street Journal and Fox News.

A five time technical advisor veteran of the Platypus Workshop Alex not only enjoys hearing and telling the stories that are the make-up of life, but also enjoys teaching others how to adapt and tell these stories using a wide variety of new tools.

Currently Alex is working on a story about “Slab City” near the Salton Sea and another the drug war in Mexico.

HYUNSOO LEO KIM
Hyunsoo Leo Kim is a multimedia producer for The Virginian-Pilot.

Leo joined the Pilot photo team in March 2004 after his extended internship started summer of 2003. He did his undergraduate work in journalism at Ball State University and finished his graduate school in photojournalism at Ohio University School of Visual Communication. Originally from Seoul, Korea his exposure to different languages and cultures has helped him become a better photographer, and he enjoys work in newspaper because he likes being exposed every day to “a variety of experiences of others.”

CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

Christopher Johnson is a freelance reporter and producer. He joined National Public Radio in 2002. Christopher spent seven years with the network as a producer, reporter, editor, and commentator. He has worked on four NPR programs, including Morning Edition. He also helped launch NPR’s Day To Day and News and Notes.

As a reporter, Christopher covers popular culture, technology, and social issues - or what he prefers to call “people stories” (including one about a massive MMA fighter who loves his mama). His primary beat is music. For several years, Christopher has reported on artists, trends and controversies in hip hop, punk, reggae, and soul.

He’s currently developing an online multimedia pop culture and social commentary forum. Be sure to ask him how THAT’S going. Oi…

But all that just about pales in comparison to his true love - the African-Brazilian martial art capoeira angola.
The DC native lives in Oakland, CA.

SEAN CONNELLEY

KATY NEWTON

AMY WALTERS

Amy Walters is a producer for NPR based at NPR West in Los Angeles. After graduating from Earlham College with a Bachelor’s degree in English, Walters joined NPR’s Middle East Bureau in Jerusalem. In 2000 moved to Washington DC to work on NPR’s Flagship programs, Morning Edition and All Thing’s Considered.  On September 11, 2001 Walters was in Washington DC working on All Things Considered as the smoke from the Pentagon drifted across the Mall.  She was part of the All Things Considered staff that covered the events of that day, the many days following it through to the initial stages of the war in Iraq.

In 2003 Walters was hired as NPR’s first field producer to be based in California.  While there she returned to covering the ward in Iraq, this time from Baghdad.  She also spent several months in Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico producing NPR’s post-Katrina coverage.

While at home in California, Walters has been busy covering Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s prison system, and the trial and funeral of Michael Jackson, the King of Pop.

Much of her work has been with NPR’s Award winning Crime and Punishment Correspondent, Laura Sullivan. Their series, The Sexual Abuse of Native American Women, was honored with the DART Award for Excellence in coverage of Trauma, the RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting and a 2009 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award.

The Sullivan-Walters team continued their award winning streak in 2009. Their 3 part series on a crime and its punishment at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola Louisiana received many awards and high accolades the most distinguished of which include The Peabody Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Journalism

Alumni Producers

GENEVIEVE ALVAREZ - website
Genevieve Alvarez is an award winning multimedia producer for the Seattle Times. Her passion for visual story telling began at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and the Academy of Art Institute in San Francisco where she studied animation and illustration in hopes of one day becoming a storyboard artist. In 2001 her passion changed course as she picked up camera and went on to enroll in Brook’s Visual Journalism program. After graduation she set her sights on the east coast where she began as photographer and multimedia producer for the New York Daily News contributing to their initial launch into multimedia on such projects as Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. She now resides in Seattle, Washington as Associate Producer of Multimedia for Seattletimes.com where she shoots, edits, and produces in addition to training the Seattle Times newsroom staff on video and multimedia.
GRANT MORRIS - website
With love as his guiding force, Grant Morris is an award winning freelance photographer and previous Staff Photographer and Multimedia Producer at The Telegraph in Nashua, New Hampshire. Prior to working for The Telegraph, Grant was a Contract Photographer for Zuma Press, with work appearing worldwide in publications such as Time Magazine and innumerable newspapers and online publications.

In 2007 he was invited to attend the prestigious and life changing Eddie Adams Workshop in upstate New York. His work appears in various regional clip contests, poynter.org, and has been recognized in 2008 by Pictures of the Year International as part of Time Magazine’s picture editing third place win. He has a drive to deliver information and to tell international and national stories. He’s covered a wide array of important events including the 2007 Southern California Wildfires, the 2008 New Hampshire Primary Election, told stories of eviction and illegal housing, and the New England Ice Storm of 2008 that left thousands without power for weeks on end.

With integrity as a key intent, he has a knack for building trust with subjects and keeping it for good.

JASON BEAN - website
I am a Brooks Institute of Photography Visual Journalism graduate who has gone on to work as a multimedia journalist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper.  Before finding work in Vegas, I interned as a photojournalist for the Christian Science Monitor in Boston and the Idaho Falls Port Register.

Prior to pursuing a career in visual journalism, I spent twelve years living, working, and skiing (a lot) in Telluride, Colorado.  As an avid traveler, I have had the opportunity to explore different places and cultures around the world, often by undertaking self-supported bike tours.  It was through these experiences that I found the inspiration to pick up a camera.

JOHN WASKEY - website
John Waskey is consumed by the drive to tell other peoples stories. “It is my belief that storytelling is one of the most important human characteristics we can share with each other. It brings us closer to each other and helps us understand the world around us. I feel honored everyday for the opportunity to visually express these stories.” John is a Visual Journalist based in Portland, Or., and primary focuses on the production of international social documentaries.

John has worked on projects in the United States, Peru, Turkey, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Afghanistan. John is also a founding member of New Sky Productions, a socially responsible multimedia production company that provides quality, thought-provoking visual storytelling in a variety of media.  The organization recently finished a documentary on the health conditions in Kabul for the Afghanistan Dental Relief Project.

BRENDA MANOOKIN - website
Brenda Manookin is an award-winning freelance photographer.  Capturing images for over nine years, she is knowledgeable in multiple fields of photography. Her interests are diverse, but focused primarily on international social storytelling, as well as in taking action for the causes she documents. She has covered a variety of subjects, from the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina to the health conditions in Afghanistan and beyond.  Her work has been seen in numerous exhibitions and publications throughout the United States and Canada including The Pacific Coast Business Times, Ventana, Monthly, and The Daily Herald, as well as in multiple film festivals. She has received awards from College Photographer of the Year and the Society of Professional Journalists and was a Barnstorm XX attendee at the prestigious Eddie Adams Workshop in 2007.

Brenda is also a founding member of New Sky Productions, a socially responsible media production company, which focuses on providing quality, thought-provoking visual storytelling in a variety of media. The organization recently completed a documentary in Afghanistan for the non-profit organization, Afghanistan Dental Relief Project.

GWYNETH ROBERTS - website
Gwyneth Roberts attended Brooks Institute of Photography where she earned a Bachelors Degree in Visual Journalism in 2006. She gained professional experience through internships at the Ventura County Star in Ventura, Calif., and the Lincoln Journal Star in Lincoln, Neb. As a full-time photographer for the Journal Star, Gwyneth designed and implemented video production training for the newsroom.

Gwyneth’s skills have earned her a wide variety of assignments at the Journal Star as a photographer and producer of multimedia. These include natural disasters, such as the tornado destruction of Greensburg, Kan.; and NCAA sporting events, such as the 2009 Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla. Gwyneth’s work has been recognized by the NPPA, AP, and Nebraska News Photographers Association.

LINDSAY HUTCHENS - website
Lindsay Hutchens has been establishing herself in the photography and music industries since her sophomore year in high school. Her music photography has been published in magazines, including Rolling Stone and Spin, albums, included in a documentary film, and was awarded honorable mention in the photography contest How to Judge a Band by Its Cover, judged by rock documentarian Charles Peterson.Flogging Molly invited Lindsay to fly to Ireland and photograph the campaign for their latest release, Float, which debuted at #4 on the Billboard music charts. Lindsay’s photos appeared on the CD cover and throughout the album, were used on Flogging Molly’s website, and featured in publications nation-wide promoting their US tour, with the cover image displayed atop Amoeba Records in Los Angeles, California.

With a Visual Journalism degree from Brooks Institute of Photography, Lindsay began her post-graduate career on a two-month U.S. tour with the bluegrass/punk band Scotch Greens. She then interned for Norman Jean Roy, followed by an internship with renowned photojournalist and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield, after which she was offered a full time position. Lindsay worked two and a half years for Greenfield as photo assistant on editorial and advertising shoots, multimedia projects, major television commercials and an award winning short film for HBO.