05/24/2008

AP Press Release

AP to sponsor photo exhibit in Havana and workshop for Cuban photographers

The Associated Press will open an exhibit of news photography in Havana on May 24, to be followed by a three-day workshop for promising Cuban photographers. The aim is to foster quality, ethical news photography on the communist-governed island.

The exhibition will run for three months at the San Francisco Convent in Old Havana, steps from the AP's Cuba bureau. The workshop will be held at the same location.

"We look forward to showing some of the AP's best photojournalism to the Cuban public and professionals, as well as working with Cuban photographers to demonstrate and explain best practices and techniques for effective visual communication," said Santiago Lyon, the AP's director of photography.

The exhibit will consist of dozens of historic images from AP's vast photo archive, with a special focus on conflict coverage from locations such as Iraq, Vietnam and the Middle East. Highlights include Pulitzer Prize-winning images, such as Joe Rosenthal's iconic photo of U.S. Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima in 1945; Nick Ut's 1972 photo of a 9-year-old girl running down a Vietnamese road after being hit in an off-target napalm strike; and Oded Balilty's gripping 2006 shot of a Jewish settler on the West Bank struggling to resist Israeli security officers.

Also on display will be standout images from AP's Latin America photo report over the past decade, including views not only of conflict and disaster, but also of culture and celebration.

The exhibit was edited by Enric Marti, the AP's regional photo editor for Latin America and the Caribbean, and Dario Lopez, the AP's chief photographer for Mexico and Central America.

Lyon will inaugurate the exhibition on May 24, at a reception that will bring together diplomats, journalists, officials and artists. Also attending from the AP will be Latin America Photo Editor Enric Marti, Latin America Editor Niko Price and Havana Bureau Chief Anita Snow.

The workshop will run from May 26-28 for 16 Cuban photographers selected from a pool of applicants. Many are working for Cuban news media, while others are students. The workshop has been organized and planned by Ricardo Mazalan, AP's chief photographer in Bogota, and will be conducted by Mazalan, Marti and Lopez. It will combine theoretical and practical teaching of photojournalism; an approach to the use of new technologies; and a focus on the ethics of photojournalism.

The AP has operated a bureau in Havana since 1998, when the news cooperative received permission to reopen a bureau that had been closed in 1969.

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