Ed Kashi Response | Picini

I'm a photojournalism major so getting to hear from Ed Kashi was an awesome opportunity. My goal is to become a Documentary Photographer to basically do exactly what he's doing. There's so much I love about what he said. He mentioned that Magazine Photography is basically all shot in a studio, and he wanted to be out in the real world shooting issues and advocating for people who's voices aren't being heard. He chose to pursue Advocacy Journalism, diving into an area of issue and making pictures that foundations and NGO's can use to help a group of people or issue even after the photographer is gone. He mentioned that he doesn't get payed a lot for what he does, and said "If I hadn't [pursued Advocacy Journalism], I would've been much richer, but much poorer in that I wouldn't be doing what I love." I've always accepted and joked about the fact that if I do what I'm passionate about I'll be flat broke for the rest of my life, but it'll be worth it and it was great to hear him back that.

Another thing he talked about that was straight out of my head and what I want to do was the idea of focusing and "drilling down deep" to really learn about a subject you're photographing. My goal is to travel around the country and live for at least several months (after listening to him I think I'll be staying longer) in the areas I'm photographing, so I can be in the culture and learn as much as possible about it. If I'm photographing the people of a poor village in India, I don't want to live in a fancy hotel in the nearest city. I want to live in their village, eat their food, wear their clothes and be as much involved in the culture and lifestyle as possible (of course only if it would be respectful to be involved, I wouldn't want to intrude on traditions I wasn't welcome in).

In our world of changing media and technology, he talked a lot about using multimedia, integrating stills and sound to create a fuller perspective. I think a standard worry among photographers though, is that still photography will become obsolete, so I love that he said, "Stills will never go away because too many people love photography." I think knowing that they won't disappear completely makes many photographers more willing to accept the move into multimedia.

For anyone that didn't go I really encourage you to look him up and watch some of his pieces on Aging in America (especially!), Iraqi Kurdistan, the Niger Delta Project (Curse of the Black Gold) and The Human Toll. They're breathtaking.

So I don't babble on endlessly, I'll just bullet a couple other things he said that really stuck with me.

-"These topics don't all have to be tragic, hopeless ones. You are just as capable of covering good stories and they can still have edge and street credit; they're actually the hardest ones to cover."

-"There are so many inspiring stories here in America- you don't need to go to Iraq to find them."

-"Open heart, open mind- look what's out there"

-"You need to be ready. This is not an easy life. It's an incredibly rewarding life, but it is not an easy life."

And my personal favorite: "Anyone who says that images do not have power is full of crap." Brilliant.