Slice of life
The University of Kansas will be the site of the 1993 Photojournalism Conference.
David Burnett/ CONTACT PRESS IMAGES
Bv Ezra Wolfe
Kansan staff writer
ife. Death Hunger. War. These powerful subjects have been captured by some of the world's best photographers. Beginning this weekend, some of those images will be on display at the Spencer Museum of Art.
And if that weren't enough, the 1998 Photojournalism Conference will bring outstanding photo professionals to the University of Kansas.
The museum will exhibit "Contact: Photojournalism Since Vietnam" beginning Feb. 6 at the White Gallery. The conference begins Friday and will conclude Saturday.
The exhibition brings together many powerful images from the Contact Press Images photo agency. Included in the exhibition are photographs by David Burnett.
David Burnett / CONTACT PRESS IMAGES
Burnett is a well-respected photographer whose most well-known work may be his picture of runner Mary Decker after she was tripped during a race at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. The image reveals the intense frustration of a runner realizing she is out of the race.
Burnett has traveled throughout the world, at times spending as many as 200 to 300 days a year away from home. One of the most frightening of his assignments was covering the aftermath of the 1973 military coup in Chile.
"It was pretty hairy," he said of the time he spent in Chile. "They were rounding people up and journalists weren't excluded from the roundups. Every time you got a picture you thought was good you had to try and stash it because ten minutes later you could run into a soldier who would take your film."
On one occasion, a group of journalists and Burnett were arrested, taken to a military camp and interrogated because they were taking pictures in a
"We could hear stuff going on down the hall, people being tortured, and we were close enough to hear the screams and cries from down the hall," he said. "It makes you wonder if it's worth it. But after you get out you realize you're convinced. The story can't be told by the people being tortured."
cemetery.
Burnett said he was worried about the future and
direction of photojournalism. He said he was upset to see that many politicians and other public figures would not give photographers the freedom to photograph as they pleased.
"People by and large aren't of a mind to have their pictures taken without having control," he said. "Pictures of Kennedy and Johnson could be seen as intimate and inside, but quite honest and unmanipulated," he said.
But those kinds of pictures are getting rarer and rarer, Burnett said.
For Burnett, those photographs are what validate the importance of his work.
"I love mixing it up and going out into the chaos of reality," he said. "But what's left are the pictures, and the pictures are what really matter. No amount of talking will invalidate what your pictures say."
The photojournalism conference also will bring a curator-producer to Lawrence.
Aaron Schindler produced the exhibit to be shown at the art museum. He recently co-curated and produced a photographic exhibit of images of Somalia, which was mounted at the United Nations building in New York.
Obtaining space for the Somalia exhibit was difficult, Schindler said. He said that with the help of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali's nephew, whom Schindler had worked with before, the exhibit became a reality. The show includes 60 images taken by 25 photographers.
Schindler noted that television news programs used the images from the exhibit in their programs.
"TV news just didn't have good poignant images of Somalia," he said. "When you saw Marines landing, you just saw hovercraft, not what was happening in Mogadishu."
Ghali credited the exhibit for influencing U.N. voters to pass the resolution authorizing the use of force in Somalia, Schindler said.
Alon Reininger / CONTACT PRESS IMAGES
Elaurin K. Barbary / KAJ82AR
People and places at the University of Kansas.
calendar
Lectures and Seminars
University Placement Center Workshops
Resume Review Session
3:30-5 p.m., Tuesday
Beginning the Job Search
3:30-4:20 p.m., Wednesday
Preparing for the Interview
3:30-4:20 p.m., Thursday
Successful Interviewing
3:30-4:20 p.m., Friday
All workshops are in Room 149 at Burge
Union
Watkins Health Center
Watkins Health Center
Norplant Demonstration table
11 a.m., Thursday and 1:30 p.m., Monday
First floor, Conference Room
Student Assistance Center
Learning a Foreign Language
3:30-5:30 p.m., Tuesday, 4020 Wescoe
Preparing For Exams
7-9 p.m., Wednesday, 4020 Wescoe
Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center Black Women Taking Charge 7 to 9 p.m.at Jayhawk Room in Kansas Union
Exhibitions
Spencer Museum of Art "Contact: Photojournalism Since Vietnam," a display of more than 130 prize-win
ning photographs that chronicles more than 16 years of news events, issues and people that shaped recent history.
Premiering Saturday in the White Gallery through March 14
Museum Hours - 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday
Noon to 5 p.m. Sunday; Galleries closed Monday
Theater and Dance
Department of Music and Auditions for Dance
Scholarship
1 p.m., Saturday, 242 Robinson Center
Continued on Page 6.