GETTY IMAGES AND LIAiSON AGENCY
Joe Williams and Malcolm Jamal Warner. Photo: Steve Allen / Liaison Agency
How photojournalism shaped my worldview
My tenure at Getty began at Liaison Agency which would become the cornerstone for Getty Images editorial division. It was a life-changing experience.
Under the leadership and mentorship of Michel Bernard and Jennifer Coley, with the most incredible colleagues, clients and photographers, I started off as Director of Photographer Relations and worked my way up to VP, Director of Photography, Liaison Agency.
After the Getty Images acquisition, I opened the first Getty Images Creative office in New York City with my team. As Director of Photography and later Director of Creative Development, we rebranded the collections Getty Images had acquired. We also recruited and directed top photographers to meet the increased demand of clients worldwide.
Under the leadership of Mark Getty, Jonathan Klein, Andrew Saunders, Stephen Mayes, Lewis Blackwell and Anthony Harris, I acquired new insights and expertise into the changing roles of technology, photography, branding and artist relations in the digital age.
On the Getty Images website, I found images from my early days at Liaison Agency with the Liaison logo. The photographers I worked with then, and their images, have shaped my vision of the world. I am forever grateful to them.
Some of their photographs appear below.
The Rwandan Genocide and Global Communications
In 1994, during the Rwandan Genocide, I was amazed that so little coverage of the feature stories of our Liaison Agency photographers was being published in the United States. All the major European magazines were covering them. Why was the American media not covering this atrocity as intensely as the international community?
I was angry. I wrote to Holly Stuart Hughes, the editor of Photo District News. She published an article addressing this which featured the work of our photographers, and others from the great editorial agencies of the day. This was when I realized that I could help empower social awareness by gaining more visibility for photographers via communication and networking.
Today, we continue to see an edited worldview, and even more so now with digital and social media. We need to keep communicating and checking that our communication is inclusive. We need to work toward greater visibility and opportunity for our photojournalists. In this expansive world of digital communication, we need to shine a light on storytellers who have previously been silenced or ignored.
Paula Bronstein photographed Rwandan refugees, below.
Rwandan refugees carry water containers. Rwandan refugees carry water containers through Benako refugee camp in Tanzania May 11, 1994. Over 300,000 mostly Hutu Rwandan refugees have crossed into neighboring Tanzania as the Tutsi-led rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front entered Rwanda to stop the genocide of Tutsis by the ruling Hutus. (Photo by Paula Bronstein / Liaison Agency)
Other editorial images from GETTY / Liaison
Refugees Flee Kosovo For Macedonia. Macedonian soldiers watch over a crowd of refugees April 1, 1999 in Macedonia. Thousands of Kosovar Albanians fled the violence in Serbia and arrived at Blace, a makeshift camp, before moving on to North Atlantic Treaty Organization camps. (Photo by Roger Lemoyne / Liaison Agency)
Portrait of Louise Nevelson. ***EXCLUSIVE*** American sculptor Louise Nevelson poses for portrait in her studio August 29, 1972 in New York City. (Photo by Arnold Newman Properties / Getty Images)
Millennium Celebrations at the Time Square in New York City. A man wearing a year 2000 glasses celebrates the Millennium in Time Square, New York City, December 31, 1999. (Photo by Evan Agostini / Liaison Agency / Newsmakers)
Millennium Celebration in Times Square. A New York City police officer patrols Times Square November 1999 in Manhattan. Some 500,000 people are expected to fill Times Square to watch the 92nd annual ball dropping ceremony on New Year's Eve. Another 300 million people will watch the Times Square millennium celebration on television. (Photo by Brent Stirton / Liaison Agency)
Mariel Hemingway, LA Confidential, August 1, 1999. (Photo by Deborah Jaffe / Contour by Getty Images)