Behind the Scenes: The Photo Editor

Sep 192015

archive : 2015

Behind the Scenes: The Photo Editor

For photographers, photo editors are gateways to getting their stories before a larger audience. This panel will look at the process from the photo editor’s perspective – we’ll dissect what it takes for a story to go from idea to print.

Presenters: Meaghan Looram Paul Moakley Amy Pereira Vaughn Wallace

Moderators: Nina Berman

Location: Brooklyn Bridge Park – Emily Warren Roebling Plaza

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For photographers, photo editors are gateways to getting their stories before a larger audience. This panel will look at the process from the photo editor’s perspective – we’ll dissect what it takes for a story to go from idea to print. Once they have story concept, how does an editor champion this all the way to publication? How have they been successful in navigating this system and what are their challenges?

Presenter Bios

Meaghan Looram

Meaghan Looram is the deputy photo editor at The New York Times. She is a front-page editor and oversees the newspaper’s staff of 45 photo editors as well as many of its most ambitious photography projects, including “A Year at War”, “One in 8 Million” and the annual Year in Pictures.
Paul Moakley

Paul Moakley is a documentary photographer and filmmaker raised on the South Shore of Staten Island, New York. He has worked professionally as a journalist and filmmaker for over two decades. His earlier work centered on long-term documentary projects focused on his family and a private school, exploring themes of subjectivity, identity, and the politics of one’s lived experience. Rooted in close observation, long durations, and accumulation, his practice reflects a sustained interest in how environments shape individual and collective narratives. In recent projects, Moakley has expanded this approach into public spaces, continuing to examine connection and community through collaborative and participatory processes.
Amy Pereira

Amy Pereira has been the Director of Photography at MSNBC since 2013 when she launched the photography department and visual direction of the new msnbc.com. Her focus is on documentary photography and visual storytelling with an emphasis on issues surrounding social justice. Prior to her current position she was the Senior Photo Editor at Newsweek International for 10 years and the editor of multiple books of photography. Most recently she has been working on a feature with photographer Matt Black called Geography of Poverty.
Vaughn Wallace

Vaughn Wallace has been the Deputy Photo Editor at Al Jazeera America since early 2014, overseeing long-term features, projects and international commissions on the web. He was previously the staff producer of LightBox and an associate photo editor at TIME. He is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied journalism and the rhetoric of historic and contemporary photography.

Moderator Bios

Nina Berman

Nina Berman is an American photographer who has covered the conflict in Bosnia and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. She now focuses attention on the aftermath of war and contemporary political, and social landscapes in the U.S. Her photographs and videos have been exhibited at over one hundred venues worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Poland, and Dublin Contemporary (IMMA).

She has received awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Open Society Foundations, World Press Photo, and Hasselblad, among others. She is an associate professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and she is a member of NOOR photo agency.