The Photo Feed 05.19.08

Photogs Mona Reeder And Mary F. Calvert Win RFK Awards (Editor & Publisher / Robert F. Kennedy Memorial / Dallas Morning News / Washington Times)
Dallas Morning News photographer Mona Reeder and Washington Times photographer Mary F. Calvert have won the photography categories in the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards. Reeder took the prize in the domestic photography category for her “Bottom Line” project, which documents what the Dallas Morning News calls “the frayed social safety net in Texas.” Calvert won the international photography category for her “Lost Daughters” project, a series of photos taken in India which expose the practice of selectively aborting female fetuses. Both photographers will receive their awards on May 27 at a ceremony held at the Newseum. You can see a complete list of winners here.

Thompson Reuters To Cut 140 Newsroom Positions (Guardian)
The newly merged Thompson Reuters is planning to cut 140 journalist jobs by the end of 2008. The cuts, which seek to eliminate overlap and duplicate coverage, will hit European staffers the hardest. Things aren’t all bad at Thompson Reuters, though, certainly not for the multimedia-minded. The company plans to add about 50 new jobs that, according to Reuters News editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, will be “in key areas”—including web video—“that are central to my strategy of making us the best news service for the 21st century.”

More Than 100 Accept Washington Post Buyouts (Editor & Publisher)
The Washington Post’s newsroom will soon look much emptier. More than 100 newsroom staffers have accepted buyouts, which were offered to employees who are at least 50 years old and have at least five years of service. There’s no word on whether anyone from the paper’s photo desk has accepted the offer.

MORE BELOW: What do Vogue images tell us about prospective First Ladies? ... Remembering Flip Schulke ... Fashion glossies facing ad page declines ... A photog's lessons from an earthquake ... Lifetouch plays musical heads with students' yearbook photos ... Photog sticks with shooting despite javelin injury ... Matthew McConaughey pimps his unborn baby ... How Margaret Morton documented New York's homeless ... Dove ad campaign spurs more photo retouching criticism ... Is Marc Jacobs the new Andy Warhol? ...

The Vogue-ing Of Prospective First Ladies (Washington Post)
Just as their husbands have worked to control their images in the media, so too have Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain tried to project particular personas in the pages of Vogue. Last fall, Annie Leibovitz photographed Michelle, who insisted on a formal look, one that Robin Givhan describes as “a cross between Jackie Kennedy and Vermeer’s ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring.’” And now Norman Jean Roy has photographed Cindy looking carefree with her hair hanging down. Although the images are hardly candid, they just might tell us a thing or two about how these First Lady hopefuls want to be seen.

Remembering Flip Schulke (Washington Post / PDNPulse)
Following his death last week, photographer Graeme Phelps “Flip” Schulke will likely be remembered for his work documenting the civil rights movement. But Washington Post staff writer Matt Schudel knows that Schulke’s image of Muhammad Ali standing underwater is the photo that invited the most questions and became a symbol of the boxer’s strength. Schudel, who coauthored Muhammad Ali: The Birth of a Legend, Miami, 1961-1964 with Schulke, remembers the photographer, his laugh and the inspiration he gave to other journalists.

Fashion Glossies Face Ad Page Declines (Women’s Wear Daily, 2nd item)
The recent economic downturn hasn’t been kind to fashion glossies. During the first six months of 2008, most fashion magazines reported significant declines in ad pages, according to the Media Industry Newsletter. Luxury fashion magazines like Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and W have fared better than mass market titles like Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and Glamour, with the luxury titles reporting increased or stable ad pages and the mass market titles reporting declines.

Lessons From An Earthquake (Reuters Photographers)
When Reuters photographer David Viggers covered an earthquake in Italy several years ago, he captured more people in his nightmares than he did in his photographs. Feeling like a failure at the time, he received some valuable training from veteran UPI-turn-Reuters photographer Luciano Mellace. “There is no way reporting the deaths of thousands of people can be made palatable and without a human dimension there can be no concept of scale,” Viggers recalls learning. “Pictures like these are ‘upsetting’ for everyone who sees them because the circumstances in which they were taken are ‘upsetting.’”

Musical Heads (Fox News via Sportsshooter)
Students at McKinney High School in Texas may not have recognized themselves when they saw their yearbook photos last week. That’s because Lifetouch National School Studios Inc., which took the photos, stretched some students necks and switched some of their heads and bodies. One girl’s arm was even missing, and another’s head was placed on what looked like a nude body with a blurred chest. The school had asked Lifetouch to make all students’ heads the same size and all eyes at the same level, but a Lifetouch spokeswoman says this is no excuse for what happened. Calling the manipulation “an unfortunate lapse in judgment,” the spokeswoman has apologized and says the company will pay for the yearbook to be reprinted before graduation.

Photographer Sticks With Shooting Despite Javelin Injury (Standard-Examiner)
Standard-Examiner photographer Ryan McGeeney gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “grin and bear it.” While he was shooting a high school track tournament on Saturday, a javelin struck McGeeney in the knee. Instead of panicking, the photog pulled out his camera and took pictures of his injury while EMTs cut off the javelin. “It just kind of seemed like the thing to do,” he said. “It’s one of those things where, if I didn't take pictures of it, I’d wish I had. Also, if I didn’t, it would probably be my editor's first question when I got back.”

Surfer Dude Dad Negotiates To Pimp His Baby (TMZ)
Apparently, playing opposite Jennifer Lopez in Wedding Planner is enough to earn your unborn child a million dollars. In preparation for the upcoming birth of his first child, Matthew McConaughey has been shopping his kid’s exclusive first photos to different magazines. So far, three have bitten, each reportedly offering more than a million dollars.

Documenting The Pathway Home (New York Times)
When Margaret Morton moved into an apartment near Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan in 1985, she stumbled upon a project that would inspire her next four books. Captivated by the homeless population and their makeshift homes in the park, Morton followed her subjects to other parts of the city when the mayor ordered the park cleared in 1991. But not everyone remained homeless. Many moved into apartments provided through Pathways to Housing, and Morton was there to document this turning point in their lives.

The Camera Never Lies? Yeah, Right (Independent / Jezebel)
Whenever big stories about excessive retouching break—a la last week’s story that Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign may or may not have been excessively retouched—the discussion inevitably returns to the same place: post-production touchups are as much a part of photography as taking the photos, post-production work is nothing new, and, oh yes, everybody’s doing it. Of course, as Jezebel points out, sometimes captions and descriptions of photos can be as deceiving as images themselves.

Is Marc Jacobs The New Andy Warhol? (Women’s Wear Daily)
Designer Marc Jacobs is getting his 15 minutes of fame on the cover of Interview’s June-July issue. After photographer Todd Eberle told Interview’s Glenn O’Brien, “Gee, Marc Jacobs is the new Andy Warhol,” the magazine decided to feature Jacobs to commemorate what would have been the 80th birthday of Interview founder Warhol. But the magazine isn’t the only place Jacobs’ image can be found. The cover image will also appear on t-shirts and tote bags lining the display of the Marc Jacobs Bleeker Street store in New York. Photographer Mikael Jansson snapped the photos, which apparently made Jacobs’ scalp and eyelids “completely sore.”