Being a Photojournalist: “The Resiliency of the Human Spirit”
Back by popular demand, Essdras Suarez will speak to the Silver Spring Camera Club on May 2 on “Being a Photojournalist, ‘The Resiliency of the Human Spirit’ ”. Essdras is a two-time Pulitzer prizewinner photojournalist. His images have been published in National Geographic, Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others. He was a staff photographer for the Boston Globe for 12 years. While there, he received national and international accolades for his coverage of the Columbine Shooting, the Boston Marathon Bombing, the Newtown Massacre, the Indonesia Tsunami aftermath, and coverage of the war in Iraq. He has also received awards for portrait, food, product, and travel photography.
Suarez, who was born in Panama, was raised by his grandparents and an uncle. As a child he would sit for hours in his uncle’s drugstore poring over magazines. National Geographic was his favorite, and this planted the seed for what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
He started studying journalism at the University of Florida, specializing in writing for magazines with a minor in zoology. But words were not his form of expression – he needed to find another way.
A chance meeting with the photo director of National Geographic ignited his passion for photography. He switched his major and ended up getting an internship with National Geographic out of that meeting. He spent time in the jungles of Panama, Costa Rica, and Colombia. He was hooked.
Essdras claims not to be a specialist, but rather a generalist in his vocation, but his favorite genres are street and travel photography. He loves documenting “normalcy” – making the normal look extraordinary. He has taken photographs in about 60 countries. His mantra is, “Look at the world through others’ eyes, and you’ll understand where they are coming from.”