226 - Nicole Tung

A Small Voice: Conversations With Photographers

Nicole Tung is a freelance photojournalist. She graduated from New York University, double majoring in history and journalism, and freelances for international publications and NGOs, working primarily in the Middle East and Asia. After covering the conflicts in Libya and Syria extensively from 2011, focusing on the plight of civilians, she spent 2014 documenting the lives of Native American war veterans in the US, as well as former child soldiers in the DR Congo, the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and the refugee crisis in Europe. She is also a grantee of the IWMF Grant for Women’s Stories, and a fellow of the IWMF Great Lakes Reporting Initiative (D.R. Congo, Central African Republic).

She has received multiple awards for her work from the International Photo Awards, Society of Professional Journalists, PX3, and was named PDN's 30 Under 30 Emerging Photographers (2013), among others. Nicole was given the honorable mention for the IWMF 2017 Anja Niedringhaus Awards, and awarded the 2018 James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting from the Online News Association. Her work has been exhibited + screened at the Annenberg Space for Photography, Tropenmuseum Amsterdam, Visa Pour l'Image, and most recently at the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy award for war correspondents in France (2019), with Save the Children in Hong Kong (2019), and at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong (2020). Nicole has also given keynote speeches and contributed to panels on photojournalism and journalist safety, at events including the International Journalism Festival (Perugia, 2019), TEDx in Sweden, the Adobe Make It Conference in Sydney, and Creative Mornings at the National Geographic Auditorium in Washington D.C., among others. She served on the board of the Frontline Freelance Register (2015) and is has undergone HEFAT training with Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues (RISC) and Global Journalist Security. She is based in Istanbul, Turkey.

In episode 226, Nicole discusses, among other things:

• Notable differences between the war in Ukraine and previous conflicts she has covered
• The modern use of drones in warfare
• Stories she has covered in Ukraine
• The way she works with publications
• Managing and thinking about risk
• The question of whether journalists in conflict zones are more likely to be targeted now than in the past
• Reactions to her from ordinary people in conflicts
• The question of whether photojournalism is an ‘important’ job
• The impacts of social media both negative and positive
• Approaching photojournalistic stories in a different way
• Potential ways to earn a living other than from commissions

Referenced:

• Chris Hondros
• Tim Hetherington
• Marie Colvin
• Remi Ochlick
• James Foley

Website | Instagram

“If you don’t become trapped in this idea that what you do is so precious and be real about the impact and the degree to which images and photojournalism can go, especially if your intentions are good, you’re based in reality at least. Your grounded in a certain reality where you go “I know my images aren’t going to stop a war tomorrow but at least I can be a part of that documentation process.” And to me that is important. Why shouldn’t we be showing a reflection of our collective humanity that is both ugly and beautiful at the same time? There are so many grey areas. The world is not black and white.”

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