Photojournalistic

Alison Wright is a tremendous inspiration as a photographer and a human being. In this always fantastic episode of National Geographic Live! we are shown just some of her adventures and a glimpse of her unrelenting fearlessness. After almost being killed in a bus crash in Laos in 2000, she persevered though a recovery process where she was told she would have trouble with mobility and never work as a photographer again. Two years later, she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Photojournalist, humanitarian and former marine Anthony Karen spent a decade documenting the lives of Ku Klux Klan members, gaining unprecedented access to a rarely-seen world. Karen’s interest in documenting this society required months of reaching out to Klan members before he was eventually allowed access to an event. First in rural Tennessee, Karen’s work eventually brought him to document groups across the United States. His resulting series, Ku Klux Klan, is fascinating and surprisingly intimate.

In this fantastic video from National Geographic Live!, documentary photography Chris Rainier talks about his adventures around the world, the myriad cultures he's encountered and the power of photography to translate an emotional response to the art that exists all around us. Rainer began his career as the last assistant to Ansel Adams - a position he doesn't take lightly and one that helpe define is way of seeing.

"All good things must come to an end." It's a common theme throughout this special by National Geographic in which we follow Steve McCurry on his quest of shooting the last roll of Kodak Kodachrome film ever made. It's a pretty daunting and heavy assignment to be sure - one McCurry is no stranger to. That fact is even more apparent when we learn that it was McCurry who asked for the final roll.

One does not often associate violent protests and the threat of sniper fire with portrait studios. However, photojournalist Anastasia Taylor-Lind’s recent portraits of protestors and fighters in Kiev, Ukraine make us question this apparent disconnect. Taylor-Lind's stunning and revealing portraits were taken with a medium-format film camera between outbursts of violence, documenting the men and women fighting for their freedom in Kiev.

Over the last two days, Kiev, Ukraine has seen its worst violence since the Soviet era, with the death toll now at 75. Fighting between police and protesters escalated when protesters used Molotov cocktails and lit several fires in the city square. This video - shot on a drone - shows the epic devastation from above, and I believe this may mark a very significant turning point in photojournalism. Has the public's desire for the theatrical become too large a part of journalism?

“When I first shot the Olympics, my contract allowed me 12 hours to go through the photos and get them back to the team. When I photographed the Summer Olympics in London, my deadline was shortened to 2 hours. . . Now, with the ever increasing immediacy of the Internet age, they want me posting images at each break.

According to Wikipedia lifestyle photography is "a style of portrait / people photography which aims to capture and document real-life events, situations, or milestones in an artistic manner and the art of the everyday." Photographers every day are advertising sessions as lifestyle photography, but in reality, are totally missing the mark.