Carrying Photojournalism's Practices to the Marketplace    [Print This Page] Time: 3:45-5:00 p.m. Date: Thursday, Sept. 11 Place: 110 Lee Hills Hall A photojournalist's approach brings a spirit of vitality, spontaneity and creativity to advertising, public relations, nonprofit and corporate projects. In this presentation, award-winning photojournalists will lead a discussion about how to approach marketing-oriented assignments. The conversation promises to be valuable for both photojournalists and those who employ them. Discussion Leaders Jennifer Loomis Photographer Jennifer Loomis Photography Seattle, Wash. Jennifer Loomis, MA '97, is an award-winning and internationally recognized photojournalist and fine-art photographer known for her groundbreaking work with the pregnant nude. She has photographed more than 1,000 mothers, including the wife of pro-golfer Rich Beem among other celebrities. Identified in 2003 as one of the emerging photographers of the northwest, Loomis uses her training as a fine art photographer and her expertise as a documentary photojournalist to tell the story of each woman. Loomis is passionate about changing the way pregnant women see their bodies as well as the way society sees pregnant women. To keep her work fresh, Loomis breaks away to do documentary work all over the world, and these projects have taken her to Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, Mongolia, Singapore, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark and many cities within the United States. She has served as a fellow and a faculty member at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Loomis has taught a variety of university-level courses and classes and conducted numerous workshops. She has focused on many international women's health and education issues for a wide range of editorial and nonprofit clients including Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, MSNBC.com, CARE International, TIME Magazine and Catholic Community Services, among others. Loomis has produced several online documentary photo projects with audio and video including several projects on birth and home birth. Her forthcoming book on pregnancy will be published for Mother's Day in 2009. Mark Petty Photographer Mark Petty Photography St. Petersburg, Fla. Born in Tulsa, Okla., Mark Petty, BJ '75, was an undergraduate teaching assistant for Professor Angus McDougall at the Missouri School of Journalism. After a brief stint at The Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, he and his wife, Marty, BJ '75, lived for 18 months in Carville, La., documenting the lives of patients at a leprosy hospital. Subsequently, Petty worked at The New Orleans States-Item, where their story on the leprosy hospital was published, followed by freelance work for Black Star in New Orleans and in Kansas City, Mo. Having graduated with honors from the University of Connecticut law school in 1987, Petty practiced real estate and zoning law until his family moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., in 2000. Petty now considers himself a "recovering attorney" who has gone back into photography. His journalistic photographs are in the permanent collections of several museums, including the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. Petty, who now focuses more on fine art photography than on photojournalism, has had images included along with those of such photojournalism luminaries as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Arnold Newman, Robert Capa and Elliott Erwitt in "Witness to the Moment," a 2007 exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Fla. Jean Shifrin Freelance Photojournalist Jean Shifrin Photography Atlanta, Ga. In her 28-year career as a photojournalist, Jean Shifrin, BJ '79, has photographed subjects ranging from a gospel group traveling through the rural South to the changing face of Christianity in Europe. She has documented tornado damage from a helicopter and the lives of Muslim women in the Middle East. In her 15 years as a staff photographer at the Atlanta Constitution, Shifrin photographed countless celebrities, including Woody Allen, Morgan Freeman, Usher, Maya Angelou and Hugh Grant. But throughout her career, it has been documenting the lives of children, and capturing the priceless moments they create, that she has enjoyed the most. Consistently over the years, Shifrin has received national recognition for her documentary photography. Her photograph of children playing in the fountain at Centennial Olympic Park was selected for the cover of the Georgia 24/7 coffee table book. The depth and professionalism of her photojournalistic work has been recognized with an Overseas Press Club Award, the Society for Professional Journalists Award, the Clarion Award and the Nikon Documentary Sabbatical Grant. Shifrin has been a judge for the prestigious Pictures of the Year International contest and a visiting photojournalism instructor at the Missouri School of Journalism. She has held staff positions at small, medium and large metropolitan newspapers in addition to working four years in a commercial photography studio, where she honed her lighting and location skills. Brian Smith Photographer Brian Smith Miami Miami Beach, Fla. Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Brian Smith, BJ '81, has been creating bold, graphic images of celebrities, athletes and executives for magazines, annual reports, corporations and advertising for more than 25 years. Smith's photographs of famous and infamous faces of the noteworthy and notorious have graced the covers and pages of hundreds of magazines, including Sports Illustrated, ESPN the Magazine, Time, Forbes, New York Times Magazine, Parade and Ocean Drive. His corporate clients include the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, Kraft, Nabisco, TNT and NBC. His first magazine photograph appeared in LIFE Magazine when Smith was a 20-year-old journalism student at the Missouri School of Journalism. Just five years later, Smith won the Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography for his photographs of the Los Angeles Olympic Games. He was again a finalist for the Pulitzer for his photographs of "Haiti in Turmoil." Smith's photograph of Greg Louganis hitting his head on the diving board at the Seoul Olympics won first place in both the World Press Photo and the Pictures of the Year competitions, and he was twice named as one of American Photo magazine's "New Faces in Photography." Smith is the president of Editorial Photographers, an organization of more than 2,000 of the top magazine photographers and newspaper photojournalists from around the world. His photography career began as a high school swimmer clearly not destined for the Olympics in the pool, yet this provided him with the opportunity to photograph swimming and other sports as a stringer for the Ames (Iowa) Daily Tribune. About the Futures Forum Top journalists, advertisers and thought leaders will lead numerous interactive sessions during the Sept. 11 Futures Forum, a day of cutting-edge discussions about the next century of journalism. Ethics, convergence and politics are just a few of the many hot topics that will be explored in this diverse program dedicated to challenging industry thinking and visualizing possibilities for the future. Sessions will be 75 minutes long and held concurrently with others on the schedule. Full schedules will be available during on-site check in during the Sept. 10-12 celebration. Close Window