Alixandra Fazzina (@alixandrafazzinanoor) tells us about her series A Million Shillings – Escape from Somalia for a new series on @vice & @vicevideo. In it she recalls the harrowing details of the stories behind her photographs; from meeting the smugglers, witnessing executions, and capturing the many lives lost. She titled her work A Million Shillings because a million Somali shillings, about the equivalent of $50, is the price paid by emigrants, or tahrib, risking their lives to embark with smugglers on a perilous voyage across the Gulf of Aden in the search of a better life.
Andrea Bruce | Featured in National Geographic
Andrea Bruce looked into four countries where women have gained political power, and the obstacles they still face for National Geographic.
© Andrea Bruce / NOOR for National Geographic
Heba Khamis joins NOOR
We are proud to announce that Heba Khamis joins NOOR
From her series “Banned Beauty”
Egyptian visual researcher Heba Khamis' work concentrates on the sensitive, tabooed, social issues related to the body. In 2018 and 2019, her projects were awarded at the World Press Photo prize. Her work has been recognised as well with other international awards including the PHMuseum grant and the Ian Parry Scholarship award.
After graduating with a bachelor in painting, Heba Khamis had a career shift and worked as a photojournalist, covering the two revolutions in Egypt and it's aftermath. Currently, she is working on the topics of breast ironing in Cameroon, and transgenders in Egypt. Her latest series "Black Bird" uncovers stories of gay prostitution among straight refugees in Germany.
Through developing her storytelling visual language, she considers herself as a visual researcher after having working as a photojournalist, documentary photographer, and now as a storyteller. She carries the ethics of traditional documentary form with her, but believes the need to care further about the subjects while telling their stories. Beyond her usual photographic approach, she adds different elements and mediums belonging to the subjects to her stories.
Recently, she has been interested in art therapy, where she would like to involve the protagonists more, giving them the chance to express themselves and interact in telling their own story, by adding their drawings alongside her photographs.
Heba Khamis is based between Alexandria, Egypt and Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
From her series “Black Birds”
On joining the collective, Heba Khamis shares: "After many years of walking in this world and industry independently, today I am glad to part of a team of 18 individuals from all over the globe (14 photographers and 4 office staff) with different perspectives on life, to walk in hand with. We follow the same passion for storytelling and ethics . By joining the NOOR family, I believe we will inspire and feed from each other, deepening our understanding in telling meaningful stories. We will help each other to reach out and tell people’s stories that need to be told, and to share them with all those waiting to hear."
"It is a great pride that Heba joins NOOR. Her work, in addition to being visually fascinating, fills us with deep compassion for others. Her respectful approach is important and necessary. With Heba joining our collective supports further our mission and our will to tell, witness, and document issues of our time," shares NOOR Managing Director Clement Saccomani.
NOOR Author Tanya Habjouqa shares: "I had been following the work of Heba Khamis for years, with a curiosity for who this photographer was who seamlessly blended poetics and some of the more darker aspects of socio-politics and humanity. The work was brilliant, no doubt, but what took me even more aback was listening to her speech when she received her first World Press Photo award for Banned Beauty.
"She, of course, referenced to girls and women who let her into their lives so intimately, but mentioned her recently deceased father, reflecting how to make quality work , it can come at a personal cost. She had not made it back in time from on assignment to say a proper good by to her father before he passed. There was not a dry eye in the place, and Heba has that affect. In person, and in her work. A kindness and soulful quiet. That rare breed of humble. And then she did it again, a consecutive World Press Photo…from diverse locations that are not close to her home or reality, but again…so intimately and respectfully she captures it.
"She is not a one trick pony—but will continue to surprise and evolve and question our medium. And elevate the bar for all of us. An honor to have Heba in our NOOR Family."
NOOR dedicates September to our Environment
For more than a decade, NOOR Authors have documented our growing climate crisis caused by fossil fuel production and material consumption along with the political forces enabling this planetary catastrophe. Through our work we have also pointed to solutions to help ensure sustainable human presence on this planet. The need for action is urgent.
As world leaders meet in New York City next month and climate actions are planned world wide, we will dedicate the month of September to sharing stories on the environment from our archive and works in progress. Please follow these stories on our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
We encourage our media partners, researchers, and our community to do the same.
Nikon-NOOR Academy | Applications open for the 2019 Masterclasses in Austria and Spain
Nikon Europe and the NOOR Foundation are delighted to announce that applications for the 2019 series of Nikon-NOOR Academy Masterclass in Spain and Austria are now open!
The Nikon-NOOR Academy Masterclass in Vienna, Austria, will take place from October 14 to October 17, and the Nikon-NOOR Academy in Barcelona, Spain from November 11 to November 14.
During each of the four-day trainings, 15 selected participants will work together with three NOOR authors as their tutors, to share experiences, work on portfolios, improve editing skills and learn how to create more impactful visual stories.
NOOR and the NOOR Foundation are committed to encouraging aspiring photojournalists and documentary photographers. Masterclasses are provided free of charge for all participants, made possible with the continued support of Nikon Europe.
Nikon-NOOR Academy Masterclass in Zurich © Jon Lowenstein / NOOR
All masterclasses are open to young and emerging visual storytellers from all nationalities and locations within Europe. We highly encourage visual storytellers from Austria and Spain to apply to their local country’s masterclass. There are no age restrictions, however the masterclass is more suited for emerging photographers at a early/mid career stage. Applicants are required a basic knowledge of English as the masterclass will take place in English. To apply to the Nikon-NOOR Academy, please apply through our Picter Call For Applications page (links below).
Please contact us at education@noorimages.com for any questions regarding the masterclass or to promote the Nikon-NOOR Academy.
Location: Vienna, Austria
Fee: Free of Charge
Tutors: Sanne De Wilde, Pep Bonet, and Andrea Bruce
Dates: 14 - 17 October 2019
Deadline to apply: Sunday, September 8th 2019, 23:59 CET
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Fee: Free of Charge
Tutors: Tanya Habjouqa, Sebastian Liste and Jon Lowenstein
Dates: 11 - 14 November 2019
Deadline to apply: Sunday, September 8th 2019, 23:59 CET
To power the Nikon-NOOR Academy Masterclass applications, we teamed up with our partner Picter, an online platform hosting contests, call for applications as well as tools for professional image-makers simply their workflow. Find out more about their platform here.
Our July monthly newsletter is out!
Our July Monthly Newsletter is out now, so make sure to check out the latest activities and opportunities to engage with us here!
Alixandra Fazzina | Yemen Contraflow in April's issue of Mare Magazine
Following on from her work A Million Shillings, over the past year Alixandra Fazzina has been documenting new patterns of mixed migration to and from Yemen and the Horn of Africa, working closely with refugees and within the clandestine world of people smugglers. The first part of the project will be published in the upcoming April issue of Mare magazine.
NOOR and its partners awarded funding by Google Digital News Innovation Fund
With its partners World Crunch and Internazionale, we are proud to share that NOOR was awarded funding by the Google Digital News Innovation Fund to develop a new collaborate project "Pix.T: The Blockchain-Driven Marketplace For Photojournalism, Digital Publishing & Exclusive Art Photo Prints".
Pix.T aims to create a vast new marketplace at the service of both photojournalism and online news operations. Turning the digital-print dichotomy on its head, we will build an innovative e-commerce platform powered by blockchain technology to manage the licensing rights of digital images and scale the selling of limited edition prints to the mass market of digital news readership.
Our March Monthly Newsletter is out!
Our March Monthly Newsletter is out now, so make sure to check out the latest activities and opportunities to engage with us here!
Link to the newsletter here: https://mailchi.mp/noorimages/march-2019-monthly-newsletter-v2
Kadir van Lohuizen tests the Nikon Z6 Mirrorless camera in the Norwegian Arctic
Kadir Van Lohuizen recently tested the performance of the latest Nikon Z6 mirrorless camera, in the Norwegian Arctic!
Testing the Nikon Z6 in the Norwegian Arctic, performed in pretty extreme temperatures really well and battery lasted much longer then expected. I am a Nikon ambassador, but not writing this to advertise, but because I was impressed