With this month’s theme being “War” it was a perfect opportunity to show you photographers who are photojournalists. I have so much admiration for the work they do and the images they capture. For instance, many of you may have seen the recent NY Times Blog post “You Might Die Tonight” on the four photojournalists who were captured in Libya.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/you-might-die-tonight/

It is a terrifying read, and yet, not long after their safe return, one of them, and the only woman of the group Lynsey Addario, said she’s sure she will cover another war – “It’s What I Do!” More power to her!

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/lynsey-addario-its-what-i-do/

And now for this month’s photographers, ladies first!

Alison Wright

First up is Alison Wright, a photographer I met through my friend Keith Barraclough, and I was very taken with her beautiful, bold work. When she’s not traveling the globe on behalf of National Geographic for example, she spends time working on her non-profit foundation “The Faces of Hope Fund” about which she says, “As a documentary photographer, I regularly travel world-wide and bear witness almost on a daily level to the dire needs and situations of the children of each of these countries. When you hear that over 230,000 were killed in an earthquake, the numbers are almost too much for us to comprehend. But when you look into the eyes of one child, the situation becomes more personal. My aim is to not only bring a face to the place and raise social conscious awareness, but to also see if there’s some financial assistance I can bring to the communities that I’ve worked in that have touched me so deeply.” Another of the projects Alison is involved with is “Ripple Effect Images” whose mission is to raise awareness and funding to help empower women and girls in emerging nations around the world. Ripple Effect’s extraordinary team of journalists includes not only Alison, but also Lynsey Addario (already mentioned in my introduction above) Ami Vitale and Annie Griffiths, to name but a few. Great work ladies!  http://www.Facesofhope.org/&http://rippleeffectimages.org/

Afghanistan, © Alison Wright

http://www.alisonwright.com/

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This month I decided to switch it up and bring you some painters and illustrators instead of photographers. With Pisces being a water sign, they are dreamy space cases living inside of their imaginations – they believe in love and beauty, after all…

Richard Bagguley

Richard Bagguley and I have known each other since we were 14 or 15 years old, when my mother, sister and I moved into the other half of his mother’s cottage following my parents’ divorce. So he is more like a brother to me than just an old friend and we certainly shared some great laughs and wonderful stories in our teenage years! Fast-forward 40+ years and we have an extremely talented artist and muralist. I chose this painting because of the angel, and the association to the spiritual sign of Pisces, who should now be ready to ascend to the heavens, but is torn between the two worlds!

© Richard Bagguley

http://www.art-richardjbagguley.com/

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