Brian Vu - "David Griffin on how photography connects us"

I watched the TED talk titled “David Griffin on how photography connects us.” The speaker is the director of photography for National Geographic magazine. He talks about how photographs have the unique ability to portray information and emotions and to move people in positive ways, all without saying a single word. First, he shows iconic masterpieces taken by professionals at the peak of their career, but explains that not only professionals take mesmerizing photos. Amateurs, too, can take great photos, as witnessed by the picture of the comet. Griffin reveals that being a photojournalist demands that the photographer take photos that poetically tell stories all the time. He proceeds to describe how a photographer set up camera traps to capture various animals in their natural behavior as they passed along the automatic cameras. The pictures included exotic animals in secluded locales. Such animals included elephants, the pride of Africa herself. A photojournalist along with a doctor followed a herd of elephants, normally protected within park grounds. But when the elephants left the confines of the sanctuary to other feeding grounds, they would fall victim to poachers. The matriarch of the herd, named Annie, along with 20 other members, was found killed and stripped of their tusks. A series of disturbing images of deceased elephants and park rangers displaying captured tusks would invoke a sense of interspecific empathy from an audience. Another National Geographic photojournalist traveled to rural India to narrate the intricate cycles of life and death and to depict the enduring human spirit in the rural community itself solely through pictures. A series of moving photos documents the journey a wounded soldier from the front lines in Iraq to recuperation in German hospital, and finally to the reincorporation into their previously active lives. Photojournalists not only show the bittersweet beauty of the world, but they also portray the various environmental and social issues that currently plague the planet.

David Griffin is the Director of Photography of National Geographic magazine headquartered in Washington, DC. He is responsible for the overall photographic direction of the magazine, working with a staff of photo editors and photographers from around the globe. Previously he was the Creative Director of U.S.News & World Report, Design Director of National Geographic Books, Associate Director of Layout & Design at National Geographic magazine. David has been honored by the National Press Photographer Assoc., University of Missouri’s Pictures of the Year competition, Assoc. of Magazine Publishers, Ohio Newspaper Photographer Assoc., the Hearst Collegiate Photojournalism Awards, the Washington Art Directors Club, the Society of Newspaper Design, Print, and Communications Art.

Photographs emulate the way that our mind freezes a significant moment. Being that we process this information in different perspectives, resulting in different interpretations, photos also depend on the right timing to portray the intended information. Photos have always fascinated me, and one of the most important reasons why is that they are of something definite and objective, yet they are still subjective to the viewer. I am attending UC Davis this coming fall, majoring in wildlife, fish, and conservation biology. I desire to learn more about the intricate complexities of life on this planet and their struggles at adapting to a constantly competitive biosphere. I would also like to involve myself in photojournalism, for my dream is to work for National Geographic as a biologist and a photographer. Much of this epitomizes my reasons for wanting to become a photojournalist. I do not desire to change the world drastically. I intend to be a simple messenger that delivers a complex message imbibed with the fantasy of emotions and the starkness of reality to an audience, and my medium is a complex union between science and art.