September 25, 2010 – National Press Theatre – Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
$100.00

Barbara has been a staff photographer for the LA Times since 2007. Prior to LA, she worked at The Dallas Morning News, The Washington Times, and The Kitchener-Waterloo Record in Ontario, Canada.

She has covered conflicts and in-depth, issue-driven stories at home around the globe and remains committed to telling intimate stories. Barbara has documented humanitarian crisis brought on by war in Iraq, Afghanistan, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Israel, Gaza, and Bosnia. She documented the Tsunami disaster, Hurricane Katrina, and The China Earthquake.  Her news feature assignments have also brought her to Yemen, Nigeria, and Rwanda.

Barbara won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography with seven fellow staff members for their body of work depicting the pain and chaos after Hurricane Katrina swallowed up New Orleans and Mississippi. Also in 2006, she was named Newspaper Photographer of The Year by the Pictures of The Year International Competition. In 2009 she was awarded the Visa d’Or Daily Press award for her coverage of the earthquake in China and was exhibited at the Visa Pour l’image festival in France as well. She was this years the 2010 recipient of The National Press Photographers Associations Cliff Edom’s “New America Award” and received Judges Recognition for her essay on the Navajo Nation in Arizona entitled “ Frozen Land, Forgotten People.”

Barbara was born and raised in Montreal, Canada and graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography and Film Studies.

Jim started working as a part-time darkroom technician and weekend photographer at the Halifax Chronicle-Herald just days after graduating with an Accounting degree from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In October 1994, he moved to Ottawa to start freelancing for the Ottawa Sun and The Canadian Press. In October 1997, Jim moved over to Reuters to cover everything from politics, general and international news and sports.

Days after finishing a Canadian election campaign in July 2004, and still unpacked from being on the road, Jim got a call to fly to Pittsburgh to join up on my first U.S. campaign with Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry, and over the next four months, he was back and fourth every couple of weeks to cover the campaign. In October 2005, Jim was hired for a posting in Washington, D. C. to cover the White House for Reuters.

With hundreds of thousands of miles of travel, visiting 50 countries over the last 18 years covering politics and is now on his third passport in 5 years. He has covered all kind of campaigns and news all over the world. Jim has had a front row seat to political history – from the silliness of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, to the tremendous story of a junior Senator from Chicago rise to become the first African American President in U.S. history.

Jim will compare and contrast the life of covering Canadian versus U.S. politics and show images from our daily files from in-town and international travels and the inner workings of speed and physical demands of being a White House travel pool photographer. From flying on Air Force One to the Oval Office and secret Presidential trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, Jim will give an inside look into world’s largest political machine.

Steve has been passionate about documenting the beauty and drama of the human condition his entire photographic life. The author of four critically acclaimed photography books with works in major museum collections around the world, he has had solo shows in New York, Buenos Aires, Toronto and Montreal and his work has been featured three times at the Visa Pour L’Image Photojournalism Festival in Perpignan, France.

Steve  is on the faculty of ICP and SVA in New York and is a contributing photographer for The Digital Journalist. His international awards include: Art Director’s Club of New York, The Canadian Newspaper Photographer of The Year, Global Health Council Photography Award for his work on AIDS in Africa, Alfred Eisenstaedt Magazine Photography Award Nomination, PX3 2008.

Steve leads workshops all over the world, from New York to Slovakia and Gulf Photo Plus in Dubai and for four years was a professor/coordinator for the Loyalist College photojournalism program.

The Tom Hanson Photojournalism Award offers a six-week paid internship at The Canadian Press head office in Toronto for a photojournalist in the early stages of his or her career. The annual internship is designed to give a photographer trying to break into the business the chance to perform on the national stage.

Photos by Tom Hanson / The Canadian Press