Brent Stirton

November 26, 2006

"Etnic group in Sosa" by Brent Stirton. World Press Photo Award, 2nd, Portraits.

“Photography does a lot to transcend boundaries. A great picture transcends literary boundaries, language boundaries, and cultural boundaries. There are certain things that are common to the human experience: we love our children, we hope for a good life, we understand that life is a struggle. A great picture sums those things up absolutely”

“We live in an age where there is a certain celebrity cult with regards to photojournalism and journalists working in war zones. It’s romanticised. There are a lot of people running around war zones because it’s a rush, because it’s the quickest way of making a name for themselves. The fact is that there are a lot of people out there doing good work who aren’t making a big noise about it; they’re just getting on with the job. Those are the people that I admire.”- Brent Stirton

UK based photographer, Brent Stirton, is a senior staff photographer for the Assignments Division for Getty Images. Specializing in documentary work, Brent also works in the fields of advertising, fashion, portraiture and sport. He is a master of artificial lighting and often uses it even for his reportage work. His website has a nice collection of his work. Don't miss the projects gallery.

Besides his award winning work in photojournalism documenting war and humanitarian causes, he was the photographer that captured the multimillion dollar pictures of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's newborn daughter, published in People magazine in September 2006. I wonder if there is a connection between the humanitarian interest of Angelina and Brad and the selection of Brent as the photographer to photograph their new born (Ok, there is a connection here ... see the following post at PND or my post in the blog)

Brent is a multiple award-winning photographer, receiving 4 awards from the World Press Photo Foundation and 3 awards from the UN for his humanitarian work, including Awards from the Global fund for his work in the field of HIV. He has finished runner up in the UNICEF/GEO photographer of the year contest.

Brent is obsessively preoccupied with getting to the heart of what he is shooting. His tight shooting schedule means that he seeks rapport with his subject immediately, moving towards the essence of the phenomenon he is seeking to reveal as quickly as possible. In this pursuit he often lights his documentary portraiture.

“In the cycle of human drama that is constantly presented to a working photo-journalist I think we have to find new ways to tell an old story. If we don’t, we risk that story slipping into oblivion and falling off the radar of collective social responsibility. All I am trying to do is tell that story in the most powerful way I can under the limited circumstance that time brings to any story.”- Brent Stirton

Miguel Garcia-Guzman

Posted in Photographers