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The Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar
2006 Speakers
Speakers subject to change
Don't forget to check out our optional Friday workshop
These are 2006 speakers.
2007 speakers should be announced late summer 2007.
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David Ahntholz- Naples Daily News
David is a staff photographer at the Naples (Fla.) Daily News.
He took a non-traditional path to photojournalism from Grand View College, a small liberal arts college in Des Moines, Iowa, where Ahntholz graduated with degrees in commercial art and mass communication. After working as a freelance sports photographer for the Daily Tribune in Ames, Iowa, and part time for The Des Moines (Iowa) Register, he worked for more than six years as art director and assistant photo editor at The State Journal-Register in Springfield, Illinois. Though he primarily focused on page design, graphics, and photo editing, he continued shooting for the newspaper in his free time. As art director in Springfield, Ahntholz redesigned the flag, front page, and editorial pages as part of a complete redesign of the newspaper.Wanting to focus full time on photojournalism, Ahntholz left The State Journal-Register and received his master's degree in visual communication from Ohio University, where he was the 2001-02 Knight Fellow for Newsroom Graphics Management.
For the past four years, he's been a staff photographer at the Naples Daily News. In the 2006 Best of Photojournalism Contest earlier this year, his community journalism won Ahntholz second place Photojournalist of the Year for Smaller Markets (under 115,000 circulation) and first place Best Published Picture Story for Smaller Markets.
Ahntholz has won photography awards from the National Press Photographers, Pictures of the Year International, Best of Scripps, Florida Press Club, Florida Society of News Editors, Copley Ring of Truth, SportsShooter.com, Iowa Press Photographers Association, Illinois Press Photographers Association, and design awards from the Society of News Design and Art Director's Association of Iowa.
Karen Pulfer Focht- Memphis Commercial Appeal
Karen Pulfer Focht (pronounced FOKE), has been a staff photographer at The Commercial Appeal since 1988. Karen has won numerous awards on a variety of topics during that time. (18 years) In 2006 her Infant Mortality series was awarded two national awards, one from the Society of Professional Journalists and also a Casey Medal awarded by the Casey Foundation. She has traveled to China, New Zealand, France and Peru while working for The Commercial Appeal however her main interest and time is spent on community journalism in Memphis.
For years she also did album cover art of many of the artists tied to the Memphis music scene. She was asked to participate in the America 24/7 coffee table book project and had pictures chosen for their national and state wide books.From 1984-1988 Karen worked at The Post Tribune, a Knight Ridder paper in Northwest Indiana. She was named Indiana Photographer of the Year, 1987, Indiana News Photographers Association. Prior to 1984, Karen freelanced in Chicago for the Chicago papers and The Associated Press.
Karen attended Columbia College in Chicago 1980-1984.
Karen is a native of Glenview, Ill. (a Chicago suburb).
She is married to John Focht and a mother of three children ages 5,11,13.
Todd Heisler- Rocky Mountain News
Todd Heisler started his photojournalism career working for community weeklies in the suburbs of Chicago, including the Copley Chicago Newspapers.He has been a staff photographer with the Rocky Mountain News in Denver since 2001. His work there has covered a wide variety of events and situations, including following US troops in Iraq and on the home front.
His project "Final Salute," which chronicled fallen US Marines, was awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Feature Photography, as well as awards in World Press, American Society of News Editors, National Headliners Club, NPPA's Best of Photojournalism and the Atlanta Photojournalism Contest. Heisler has also won numerous awards in the Pictures of the Year contest, including runner-up Photographer of the Year for 2006. In addition, he was a member of the photo team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for its coverage of Colorado's worst wildfire season.
He is a 1994 graduate of Illinois State University and resides in Denver with his wife, Kelly.
Thom McGuire- Hartford Courant
Thomas McGuire, Assistant Managing Editor/ Photography & Graphics at The Hartford Courant is a graduate of the University of Missouri. Under his leadership, The Courant has won numerous awards for photography, editing and design.McGuire was hired in 1989 as a picture editor, moved to Deputy Director of Photography, Director of Photography, AME/ Photography, and is presently AME Photography & Graphics.
The Courant was named as one of the best-designed newspapers in the world in 2001 and again in 2005 in the Society for News Design contest. In 2002, The Courant again was honored in both the Pictures of the Year International Contest, and the Society of News Design contest.
In February 2003, The Courant was among the top winners In the Society for News Design's "Best of Newspaper Design" competition. The Courant had 35 total awards, including a silver medal in the Special Coverage/Sections category.
In March 2003, The Courant took home one of the top awards in the Pictures of the Year International Competition-the Angus McDougall Overall Excellence in Editing Award. It was the third straight year in a row The Courant has won the McDougall Award. No other newspaper has ever done that. Judges cited The Courant staff for their "continued creative vision and the fact that they take non-visual stories and give them visual interest." The Courant won a total of 14 awards in the POYi competition, including three first place awards.
For McGuire winning the Angus McDougall award for three consecutive years is particularly meaningful: Both McGuire and John Scanlan, Director of Photography, had McDougall as their professor. "There isn't a day that goes by that we don't bring up something that "Mac" used to tell us. He was, and continues to be, our inspiration.
In April, the National Press Photographers Association honored The Courant with ten awards for picture editing in their "Best of Photojournalism" competition. The Courant won first place for best use of photography by a newspaper with 75,000+ circulation, and second place for "newspaper picture editing team of the year." In addition, The Courant's Bruce Moyer was named "newspaper picture editor of the year." The Courant's Assistant Managing Editor for Photography and Graphics, Thomas McGuire was honored with the "Editor of the Year" award from the National Press Photographer's Association.
Also in April, The Hartford Courant was a finalist for a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Journalism in the Feature Photography category. The Courant was nominated for photographer Brad Clift's work on the series "Heroin Town."
Jonathan Newton-Washington Post
Washington Post staff photographer Jonathan Newton is entering his 20th year in newspapers. He joined The Washington Post as a sports photographer in 2000 after stints with The St. Petersburg Times (Fla.), The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, and The Nashville Banner.Newton takes a journalistic approach to his sports photography, always looking for the decisive moment that swings the emotion and the outcome of the event and brings a distinctive style to his sports feature photography.
Newton has earned numerous awards, including 2006 Sports Photographer of the Year judged at the Northern Short course, First Place sports feature in the 2006 & 2003 White House News Photographers association contest, 2006 second place sports feature in the Best of Photojournalism contest, 1999 Florida Society of News Editors First Place Sports, Three time Georgia Photographer of the Year, NPPA Morris Berman Award for the advancement of photojournalism for his work as the Director of the Atlanta Seminar on Photojournalism. He is also a two-time winner of the National Baseball Hall of Fame photo contest.
"I love the pageantry of sports," he says. "I love all the emotion." Newton started working the Atlanta Seminar as a student volunteer while at Western Kentucky University in 1984 and worked every seminar for 16 consecutive years in some capacity.
Brian Storm- MediaStorm
Brian Storm is president of MediaStorm (http://mediastorm.org), a multimedia production studio whose principal aim is to usher in the next generation of multimedia storytelling by publishing social documentary projects incorporating photojournalism and audio reporting across multiple media.A passionate and innovative leader in the fields of photojournalism and new media, Storm has served the profession as a photojournalist, a picture editor, a technological pioneer, and a champion of fair and emerging business practices. Storm's professional experience includes two years as vice president of News, Multimedia and Assignment Services for Corbis, where he developed a global strategy for production, packaging and distribution. He also built Corbis' model for editorial representation and assignment services emphasizing in-depth multimedia reporting.
From 1995 to 2002 Storm was director of multimedia at MSNBC.com, a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC News, where he was responsible for the audio, photography and video elements of the site. Storm created destinations such as The Week in Pictures and Picture Stories to showcase visual journalism in new media.
Storm received his master's degree in photojournalism in 1995 from the University of Missouri where he ran the School of Journalism's New Media Lab, taught Electronic Photojournalism and produced CD-ROMs for the Pictures of the Year competition and the Missouri Photo Workshop.
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