In an era where the work of photojournalists is devalued and at risk of being lost, we seek to archive and amplify their most important stories so they can continue to affect change, foster empathy and elevate communities. 

Each year, more than a trillion pictures are taken and billions are shared daily on social media. And yet, the men and women who work on the front lines of history have seen their profession disintegrating under their feet. The result is: 

• Publications folding in record numbers.
• Photographers disproportionally laid off.
• Photo morgues thrown out or sold piecemeal. 
• Assignments disappearing.
• Compensation crashing to unsustainable levels.
• Images stripped from digital stories to save on storage costs.

The focus of the Photojournalism Archive Project is preserving the visual stories photojournalists have dedicated themselves to documenting.  But, starting an archive is a daunting challenge. To ensure this project’s survival and growth, we are building a digital-based archive focused on displaying the work without the limitations and considerable expense of housing physical material or attempting to acquire complete archives.  

OUR PROJECT:

• Allows photojournalists to curate their own visual stories as they would edit and display them.
• Works with publications to restore the photojournalists’ lost work.
• Connects masters of the craft with emerging storytellers.
• Contextualizes the stories to deepen understanding of the photojournalists’ process.
• Uses the stories to stimulate empathy, build communities and explore solutions.

J. Scott Applewhite 

Alan C. Berner  

Jim Bourg

Paula Bronstein  

Saul Bromberger & Sandra Hoover 

Renée C. Byer   

Mary F. Calvert  

Cheryl Diaz Meyer  

Corinne Dufka   

Barbara Davidson  

Pat Farrell   

Bill Frakes   

Tom Gralish   

Carol Guzy  

Ken Hawkins

Nicole Hester

John Kaplan   

David Hume Kennerly  

Yunghi Kim  

Paul Kitagaki Jr.   

Mary Beth Meehan    

David Peterson

Lucian Perkins   

Martha Rial   

Rick Rickman   

Marko Risovic  

April Saul    

Pete Souza  

Daniella Zalcman

… and growing 

Today’s emerging storytellers are media savvy but often lack the necessary media literacy to engage critically with the material. Our project brings together students and experienced photojournalists to create a dynamic archive using the MediaStorm platform. We believe that this direct, one-on-one mentorship will allow students to engage with the work at a much deeper level.  

We are partnering with the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Reynolds Institute and the Pictures of the Year digital archive.

This joint effort will generate the only dual archive of its kind and safeguard the project in perpetuity.

We will also fold both archives into a Digital Asset Management system to support robust academic research into longform visual storytelling. 

The essence of a good photojournalism story is IMPACT. These stories are windows into problems we must face, human experiences that unite us, and worlds we have not seen. The Photojournalism Archive Project will ensure these stories live on, long beyond the daily headlines, and remain accessible to everyone.

A snapshot of some of the stories that will be featured in the archive:  

• The crisis of homelessness. 
• Sexual abuse of women and men in the military. 
• The financial impact of health crises on families.
• The impact of war on civilians, communities, soldiers, countries, and governments.
• The costs of child labor. 
• The clash between environmental protection and economic hardship. 
• The beauty of the land and the people who live off of it.
• An inside look at politics in action. 
• The enjoyment of good music. 
• The immigrant and the migrant experiences. 
• What unites a community. 
• Children learning formal dance. 
• The environmental impact of generating fuel. 
• A child’s experience learning to use a prosthetic.
• A president in crisis. 
• The impact of gun violence. 
• Gender affirmation at any age. 

Our goal is that within five years the archive will becoming a self-sustaining project, permanently hosted by the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. 

Simutaneously, the University of Missouri is migrating their Pictures of the Year archive to a digital, online collection. Both archives will be folded into a Digital Asset Management System to create a comprehensive photojournalism database that will allow for in-depth study of the work. 

Once built, the joint archives will support a wide range of projects to: 

• Combat eroding trust in the media and its impact on society.
• Raise awareness on social and environmental problems. 
• Explore diverse voices and perspective in storytelling. 
• Contextualize the impact of photography in social media amid the rise of Artificial Intellegence. 
• Connect with other archives to create a network of institutions dedicated to photojournalism.

When it comes to preserving their work, staff photojournalists for newspapers and other publications face the added burden that they often do not own the rights to their photographs. While respecting copyright is essential, it should not be the reason the best photojournalism stories are inaccessible. 

Working publication by publication, the Photojournalism Archive Project is building a network of cooperating copyright holders, making it possible to showcase the work in one digital location.

We are finding editors and publishers are very aware of the crises in journalism and supportive of the project. 

The Photojournalism Archive Project was born out of a desire to preserve the work of Carol Guzy. 

Her record of the human experience during her unparalleled, 40-year career has earned her four Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other photographer – man or woman - plus a long list of other accolades.

When approached about preserving her work, Carol asked that any effort include her peers.

With the help of former Washington Post Publisher Don Graham and Carol Guzy’s vision, the Photojournalism Archive Project was born, dedicated to preserving long-form visual stories that transcend the written word. 

Carol Guzy has spent more than 40 years opening her heart, her eyes, and her camera to human suffering on a global scale and placing herself in the crosshairs of conflicts, calamities and crises in the hope of raising awareness so those who view her images will care enough to try and make a difference.

She specializes on long-form documentary human interest projects, news and feature stories, both domestic and international.

She is the only photojournalist awarded four Pulitzer Prizes. 

Her many other accolades including being the first woman to receive the Newspaper Photographer of the Year Award from  the National Press Photographers Association and received that honor two more times. She received the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award from the Overseas Press Club of America. The White House News Photographers Association named her Photographer of the Year nine times and recently honored her with a Lifetime Achievement Award. 

David Hume Kennerly has been a photographer on the front lines of history for more than fifty years. At 25, he was one of the youngest winners of the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for his pictures from the Vietnam War, refugees from East Pakistan, combat in Cambodia, and the Ali-Frazier fight.

Two years later, at 27, he was appointed President Gerald R. Ford's chief White House photographer.  Kennerly’s photos have appeared on more than 50 major magazine covers, and he has documented historic events in more than a hundred countries, served as a contributing editor for Newsweek magazine for ten years, and a contributing photographer for Time & Life Magazines for more than fifteen. 

In 2019, The University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography acquired the David Hume Kennerly Archive, which features almost one million images, prints, objects, memorabilia, correspondence and documents dating back to 1957. 

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

Most recently, he was Executive Director of ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers), this country’s leading trade association representing independent photographers working across commercial and editorial genres.

Previously, he has also worked as an independent consultant coaching and mentoring individual photographers, as well as providing strategic analysis on visual storytelling for media companies and nonprofit organizations. 

He serves on the Board of Directors for the Eddie Adams Photo Workshop and has been on the Board of Visitors for journalism programs at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the University of Florida and the Knight Center in the School of Communications at the University of Miami.  He was also previously an Alexia Chair Professor of Documentary Photojournalism at Syracuse University.

John Kaplan is one of America’s most accomplished narrative photographers, having been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography, National Newspaper Photographer of the Year in POYi, the Overseas Press Club Award, two Robert F. Kennedy Awards, and the Nikon Documentary Sabbatical Grant. 

Kaplan’s work is exhibited at museums and galleries worldwide including solo exhibitions in the United States, Peru, Bolivia and Korea as well as shows in China, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Korea, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. He has twice been selected as a Pulitzer Prizes juror and has also been a judge for POYi.

His academic honors include being named a Fulbright Scholar, University of Florida International Educator of the Year and a UF Research Foundation Professor. He has also been named Teacher of the Year and Scholar of the Year by the UF College of Journalism and Communications.

In 2019, he was asked to join the distinguished Nobel Laureates Forum Lectureship series held in China, the first non-Nobel Prize winner invited.

Indira Williams Babic is a visual storyteller and curator with more than 20 years of experience in photo research, editing and curation, acquisition, copyright management, digital processing, printed image quality control and Digital Asset Management Systems (DAMS) migration.

As a photo editor for National Geographic, Indira currently commissions and directs photo assignments; and edits, selects, processes and distributes publicity images to the Press to promote National Geographic and Disney-Branded television content. 

Ray Shepherd is a media marketing audience analyst, strategic communications planner, and marketing media consultant. He’s recently provided actionable consulting advice for TheSkimm, an online millennial newsletter, and Blue Star Publishing, a book publishing, and distribution company.  

He served 29 years in the Air Force, retiring as a Colonel. He served in key roles such as the Director of Public Affairs for the US Air Forces in Europe and the U.S. Central Command, Commander of Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, and a Plans officer within the U.S. European Command. 

He served in various roles in his civilian career, including as a non-profit executive director (American Red Cross), corporate communicator, and project manager for crisis management and business continuity planning within three Fortune 500 companies.  

He also served in the government Senior Executive Service as the Director of Defense Media Activity, a worldwide communications organization providing a broad range of multimedia products and services to inform, educate, and entertain the global Department of Defense audience. 

Michael McGehee is a veteran news editor and multimedia journalist who currently teaches news reporting, writing, blogging and editing for UCLA's Student Media program. 

Much of his journalism career was spent at the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, where he led inter-departmental teams creating award-winning editorial projects, and oversaw multimedia coverage of live events, including the Los Angeles Film Festival and Academy Awards.

Randa Cardwell is the executive director of the Photojournalism Archive Project.  She has worked as an archivist for the last decade focusing on photography and photojournalism. Most recently she has taken on the independent project of organizing and preserving Carol Guzy’s archive. 

Previously she spent eight years as the archivist and project manager for David and Rebecca Kennerly, helping them successfully place his archive with the University of Arizona in Tucson where his images from 50 years of covering the biggest stories of the day can be studied and preserved. 

The Photojournalism Archive Project is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation incorporated in Washington D.C. Contributions for charitable purposes of the project may be made payable to the “Photojournalism Archive Project” and are tax-deductible.

For questions about 

The Photojournalism Archive Project please contact: 

Randa Cardwell 

Executive Director and Archivist

photojournalismarchive@gmail.com

(310) 936-5960