2018 Awardees

Congratulations to the SIX photojournalists receiving The 2018 Yunghi Grant! 

 

Paula Bronstein

Erin Clark

Nora Lorek

Cheryl Diaz Meyer

Byron Smith

Joao Velozo

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We thank all those who submitted entries to this year’s grant; it was a challenge to narrow it even to six .So we added one additional grant to award six photographers this year total of $12,000 in grants, $2,000 to each photojournalist.

Additional, a $1,000 partner grant goes to Steven Frischling, from a generous $500 donation from Manuello Paganelli and I matched it with $500 from in a new Partnership Grant.  

Jeffrey Smith and I feel truly privileged to read everyone’s stories and proposals, and are always heartened to see that there is really strong editorial thinking and story development each year with stories driven to completion in a very challenging editorial market.

One of the photographers received his grant because of considerable evolution of his project from past years. The Yunghi Grant is especially mindful of photojournalist’s growth: personally and professionally. The perseverance and resilience to take a story to its conclusion, or nearly so is well noted.

If you have a moment over the holidays, look at each photojournalist’s website. Note too, the caliber of photojournalists who navigate a wide range of situations from breaking news to intimate moments.

Thank you all, happy holidays and here’s to a healthy, safe and successful New Year. 

Yunghi Kim  

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In Alphabetical Order:

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PAULA BRONSTEIN

© Paula Bronstein

*Opytne: Donetsk region: Raisa Petrovna, 80 and her husband Stanislav Vasilyevich live in a village often caught in the crossfire between Ukrainian and Pro-Russian separatists, too close to the contact line. Raisa says that tanks were driving in front of their home in the first year of the war, now they have learned to live with the sound of shelling and gunfire daily.  “We were sitting last home, screaming at them not to kill us!” Riasa said. Her husband was injured twice by shrapnel, once in his abdomen, requiring surgery. He suffers from a hernia that keeps on growing. Stanislav suffers from dementia now along with his other medical issues. “I have to treat him as a child, I am so sorry that he is like this now, I am afraid to leave him even for a moment.” Raisa stated. Their two sons live on the other side of the contact line unable to visit often because of the war. Their village, Opytne depends on humanitarian organizations to help the elderly who refuse to leave their homes and are trapped in a dangerous situation.

Paula Bronstein.Com / Bangkok, Thailand / “Lives Frozen by Conflict” Ukraine.

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ERIN CLARK

©Erin Clark

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Russell rests in the back of his minivan after collecting plants in the Northern Alberta bush. Russell is a Cree healer and was collecting the plants to make Thunder Medicine, a traditional healing method he learned from his grandfather. “If this doesn’t heal me, nothing will,” said Russell, who was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Erin Clark.Com / Boston, USA / “Medicine Man” Northern Alberta. 

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NORA LOREK

©Nora Lorek

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Dandan, Wessam and Ibrahim from Daraa in Syria met in Calais in the fall of 2015 and moved in together shortly thereafter. Back then there were about 3500 refugees in the camp and new people arriving every day. The first few months they tried to get on trains and trucks, but in the end they managed to collect money and pay for smugglers. Even with smugglers they failed dozens of times. Since July 2016, all three are with their relatives in the UK. The Jungle was a refugee camp in the vicinity of Calais, France. According to Help Refugees 9106 men, women and unaccompanied children were living in mud, tents or temporary shelters they’d build themselves and decorate as best as possible. They all had the same goal: to enter the UK. In October 2016 the eviction of the Jungle started and after three weeks the camp was demolished

Nora Lorek.Com / Gothenburg, Sweden / “After the Jungle” refugee camp in Calais.

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CHERYL DIAZ MEYER

© Cheryle Diaz Meyer

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Hungry, tired and dehydrated, a Rohingya refugee carries his unconscious wife to a nearby auto rickshawÊas theyÊflee toÊBangladesh, in Teknaf Upazila, on Oct. 4, 2017. Many refugees spoke of drinking salt water for several days to survive and fights erupting as they waited for boats to ferry them from Myanmar to Bangladesh. To date, over 740,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh in the latest spate of violence. The crisis that began as a counterattack by the Myanmar government against Rohingya militants who had attacked several police bases on August 25, turned into a full scale “ethnic cleansing,” according to the UNHCR, as the army and local Buddhists firebombed, raped and murdered across Rakhine state, the predominantly Muslim western region of Myanmar. Myanmar, also known as Burma, has a predominantly Buddhist population, and the Rohingya are a Muslim minority who are considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh–they have not right to vote, and are restricted in access to education, healthcare, travel, work and marriage. Myanmar’s de Facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has been criticized for failing to condemn the violence.

Cheryl Diaz Meyer.Com / Washington, DC, USA / “Survivors of Enslavement” Filipina Comfort Women.

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BYRON SMITH

©Byron Smith

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Lafi, 63, (no last name is given) tries to calm his grandson Yousef, 2, as he and his family joined other Internally Displaced People fleeing ISIS from Mosul as Iraqi Security Forces move to clear the city of the terror network, at Khazir Camp in Kurdistan Region.

Byron Smith.Com / Brooklyn, USA / Mosul “They Called Us Kafir” book project.

 

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JOAO VELOZO

©Joao Velozo

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The Brazilian semi-arid is home to more than 23 million people. It is the largest and most populous semi-arid region in the world. It’s been six years since the last rainy season, and no one knows when it will rain again. A cow is being rescued from the canal at the Barreiro district in Sertania, Pernambuco.

Joao Velozo.Com / Recife, Brazil / Drought in Brazil’s Northeast

 

 

 

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PARTNERSHIP GRANT $1,000 

A generous $500 donation from Manuello Paganelli and matched with $500 from Yunghi Kim. 

 

STEVEN FRISCHLING

© Steven Frischling

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Water sprays all around, as volunteer
firefighters from the Clinton and East Lyme Fire Departments advance a hose line through a burning house, while battling a multi-alarm structure fire, Thursday, March 1, 2018, in Old Lyme, CT.

Steven Frischling. com / New London County, Connecticut. / “The World Of Volunteer Firefighters”

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PARTNER GRANT AT NSC $1,000 ANNOUNCEMENT:

With financial support provided by Yunghi Kim and Todd Bigelow, the Photojournalists Cooperative Facebook Group will be awarding two $500 grants at the Northern Short Course. The grants will be chosen and awarded by NSC during the Saturday evening awards dinner March 9, 2019. 

The Photojournalists Cooperative, a private Facebook group with over 5000 photographers, is dedicated to supporting and advancing the careers of freelance photojournalists through education about business matters including copyright, licensing, contracts and other pertinent issues. Yunghi and Todd believe that freelance photojournalists who understand the industry are able to  better navigate the business side of photography not only serve themselves better but elevate the professional of our industry overall. The NSC/PJ Cooperative Grant recognizes those who have done so through their association with the Northern Short Course.
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Judges Comments:

One of the interesting stories we reviewed this year was by Joao Veloso. Joao first applied last year seeking the grant to rebuild his failing equipment. Joao re-applied this year and we were pleasantly surprised to see the improvement in his work as well as his taking on important project about drought in his region of Brazil. 

Also notable is Nora Lorek’s work, who demonstrated important skills navigating news but also showed quieter moments with her own elegant eye masterfully handling color. 

 

Paula Bronstein, has been one of the hardest working photojournalists for decades. As always, Paula is resilient and we appreciate her latest strong work evidence here with her Ukraine project and earned respect even from her old friend and colleague, Yunghi.

 

Twenty-two years ago, Yunghi first photographed the Comfort Women and helped introduced the Comfort Women to the West in 1996. This issue, with its aging, destitute survivors, straddles several countries and is still not settled. It is often in the news re-opening painful scars as countries and governments complicit in these crimes still refuse to responsibility for the wartime taking of locals as “comfort” prostitutes for soldiers. Pulitzer Prize winning photographer and Filipino American Cheryl Diaz Meyer will now tackle the under-covered Filipino chapter of Comfort Women for her 2018 Yunghi Grant.

 

Erin Clark, a recent grad school alum from Ohio U, showed dedication to her story. She spent two months living with a Native Canadian medicine man residing in Canada, treating others and setting aside his own terminal illness. Yunghi first reviewed Erin’s portfolio two years ago at Atlanta Photo Seminar and her work has improved incredibly each year.  

 

We appreciate the difficulties of navigating the frontline of conflict. Byron Smith’s raw images from war torn Mosul, Northern Iraq are gritty and strong and puts the viewer right there. We are happy to help support his efforts of taking this work to book form.

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The judges also want to recognize Steven Frischlinger with the 2018 Partnership Grant. Frischling is using his photoJ skills producing a remarkable spot news portfolio — a pillar of photojournalism — to educate the community to recruit EMTs and volunteer firefighters to local departments. 

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Winners:

2017: Amber Bracken, Andrea Campeanu, Mikala Compton, Marko Drobnjakovic, Brendan Hoffman, Lauren Justice, Leo Novel, Michael Santiago, Andrew Seng, Ines Della Valle. 

2016: Frank Fourkier. Amnon Gutman. Carol Guzy. Derek Hudson. Dania Maxwell. Myriam Meloni. Jackie Molloy. Rick Rocamora. Ann Wang. Rony Zakaria. 

2015: Jason Houge. Kenneth Jarecke. Andrew Lichtenstein. Leonie Marinovich. Michelle McLoughlin. Matt Mendelsohn. William B. Plowman. Rikki Reich. Ray Whitehouse. Angel Zayas. 

 

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*Image posted with the announcement not necessarily photographer’s proposed project. 

* We thank all of those who submitted to this year’s grant. As every year, a huge thanks to Jeffrey D. Smith of this guidance and his patience!!  I hope to do this again next year.  It will be announced November 2019.  Peace, Yunghi

*Grant winners image COPYRIGHTED to each photographer.  All Rights Reserved.

* Photo Credits of photographers portraits: Erin Clark by Kelsey Brunner, Cheryle Diaz Meyer by Conchitina Miguel, Stephen Frischling by Sean D. Elliot. 

* Yunghi Grant was started in 2015 by photojournalist Yunghi Kim with earnings she made from unauthorized use of her photographs.  She started this grant to help bring awareness of the importance of copyright and to encourage photographers to register their work with the US Library of Congress.  Photographers owning their work is important.  Yunghi is paying it forward by giving back to photojournalism – an industry that she has proudly been a member of for 34 years.  Yunghi Kim and Contact Press Images Executive Director Jeffrey Smith were jurors of this grant.

* Interested in sponsoring a “Partnership Grant” next year? Please contact Yunghi@YunghiKim.Com. 

Updated 12/ 25/ 2018

 

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