Marcus Yam (Fire) is a roving Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent and photojournalist. Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, he left a career in aerospace engineering to become a photographer. His goal: to take viewers to the frontlines of human conflict, struggle, and intimacy. His approach is deeply rooted in curiosity and persistence. In 2019, Yam was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Award for his unflinching body of work documenting the everyday plight of Gazans during deadly clashes in the Gaza Strip. He was also part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning breaking news teams that covered the San Bernardino, California terrorist attacks in 2015 for the Los Angeles Times, and the deadly landslide in Oso, Washington in 2014 for the Seattle Times.
His previous work has earned an Emmy Award for News and Documentary, a World Press Photo Award, a DART Award for Trauma Coverage, a Scripps Howard Visual Journalism Award, a Picture of the Year International’s Newspaper Photographer of the Year Award, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award, a National Headliner Award, and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award. When he’s not working, Yam likes minimizing and organizing his life for efficiency and for emergencies.
The Four Elements from the Visual Thinking Collective showcases four bodies of work—the elements visually interpreted by: Nadia Aly (Water), selected by Lauren Steel; Oded Balilty (Earth), selected by Sarah Leen; realities:united (Air), selected by Shannon Simon; and Marcus Yam (Fire), selected by Elizabeth Krist.
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