2015 Value Your Work Grant Winners

2015 Value Your Work Grant Winners

Last month, we reported on a new $10,000 grant program started by photojournalist Yunghi Kim with earnings she made from copyright infringement of her photographs. Kim and Contact Press Images Executive Director Jeffrey Smith combed through the applicant pool and selected the following ten photographers to receive $1,000 “to start, further or finish a project, or to help alleviate a financial hardship.”

A hearty congratulations and Happy Holidays to all the winners.

***

Jason Houge

© Jason Houge

© Jason Houge

“I am currently working on a 3-part personal project with 3 separate working titles to guide it along. Personal Poverty, Home and Mary are the 3 titles or, perhaps better, chapters of this project. Personal Poverty looks at the private lives of my girlfriend, Kayla, and myself. This work explores how we function within our relationships with friends, family and each other while we struggle through a financial situation we both desperately wish to be free of. Home acts as an extension by asking “what is a home and where is my home?” Mary looks ahead and explores questions I have about my own spirituality.

Kenneth Jarecke

© 2015 Kenneth Jarecke

© 2015 Kenneth Jarecke

“I look forward to using this grant money for a project on Montana”

Andrew Lichtenstein

© Andrew Lichtenstein

© Andrew Lichtenstein

Leonie Marinovich

IPLM0134 , South Africa, Excelsior. October 2003. Two little Afrikaans girls on the school bus on their way home after a day at the CVO school, a school focused on delivering schooling based on Afrikaner culture and Christian values. AFR001; Afrikaner; youth; rural; transport; Bus; Girls; School; Afrikaans. Leonie Marinovich

© Leonie Marinovich

“My plan is to follow a Syrian refugee family in the USA for at least a year. Following them as they try and navigate immersion into a country, where 32 out of 50 states have said that they are unwelcome. Using my craft as a tool to raise awareness, change perceptions and to document an event that was birthed in the Middle East, but is evolving on my doorstep.”

Michelle McLoughlin

© Michelle McLoughlin

© Michelle McLoughlin

“I am incredibly grateful to Yunghi and Jeffrey to have been chosen to receive one of the Value Your Work grants. The money will certainly help to alleviate the pressure of self-funding an almost three month long trip to Nepal to produce stories I feel are underreported in the media. I cannot express how grateful I am to have the opportunity to work on projects I am passionate about and knowing the financial burden has been lessened makes it even better.”

Matt Mendelsohn

© Matt Mendelsohn

© Matt Mendelsohn

Lindsay Ess, a 22-year-old fashion merchandising graduate at VCU, went into a hospital in 2007 for routine surgery for her Crohn’s Disease. She came out with no arms and no legs. Septic shock.
Since then, and since I began following her in the spring of ‘08, her life has defied expectation. A quadruple amputee teaching fashion at her alma mater with a new perspective on body image.

And then, not long after the new publisher of the Washington Post personally killed my cover story in the Sunday Magazine for fear Lindsay’s story would “depress advertisers,” a plot twist no one could have foreseen: Lindsay became the first quadruple amputee in history to receive a double hand transplant at the U. of Penn. Depressing? Not on your life.

I’ve been there every step of the way. When the surgery was successful as well as when it almost ended in rejection. And now, eight years of coverage later, it gets more amazing yet. Lindsay is competing in CrossFit competitions. Go figure.

This grant would enable me to continue my sporadic trips down to Richmond to cover a story that no one ever assigned, but one that I knew needed to be told from the get-go.

William Plowman

© William B. Plowman

© William B. Plowman

“I have covered stories around the world. But Gary, Indiana keeps drawing me back. However funding for this project has always been a struggle. Regardless, I believe, my reportage in Gary is some of the most important work in my 15 years as a photojournalist. A grant from Value Your Work allows me to continue entry into this hidden and ignored America. It’s something we now know, in this year so acknowledged by the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement that we need to see and understand.”

Rikki Reich

© Rikki Reich

© Rikki Reich

“In 2013 I filed a Copyright Infringement complaint in New York’s Southern District Court so
I know first hand the importance of registering and defending one’s copyright and stand with Yunghi Kim in this fight for all Photographer’s Rights.

“I am currently working on a project with the working title Dividing Line which expands on the pivotal themes of The Voice of the Silence series which is a visual exploration of the duel themes of Pre/Post 9/11 America and the Pre/Post Digital Era of photography.  This generous grant will be used to further this goal. Thank you to Yunghi Kim And Jeffrey Smith for your outstanding gift and the superior allies of Photographer’s Cooperative. A special thank you to Eric Jeffreys of Griffin Editions without whom none of this would be possible. ”

Ray Whitehouse

© Ray Whitehouse

© Ray Whitehouse

“I’m truly grateful to Yunghi for supporting my short documentary film about presidential campaign volunteers in Iowa. In a country where half of eligible voters don’t vote, sharing the stories of people who are willing, without pay, to put their lives on hold in support of a candidate is important to me. Her grant will help me defray the costs associated with producing this film. ”

Angel Zayas

© Angel Zayas

© Angel Zayas

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This article was written by

Allen Murabayashi is the co-founder of PhotoShelter.

There are 4 comments for this article
  1. Angel Zayas at 11:00 pm

    Thank you Yunghi! Cant wait to push forward and bring my vision into the new year. Congratulations to all the other recipient’s. Happy Holidays and merry Christmas.
    Best,
    Angel Zayas

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