'Worth A Thousand Words' Panel Discussion

Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University presents Worth a Thousand Words, with Nicholas Dynan, Lou Jones and Nichole Sobecki;  moderated by Helen Rees.

Photographs are among the most compelling media for true stories across the globe, allowing viewers to feel as if we are right there in the action. Photojournalists must not only find shots and visually translate the emotions, but also address reporting ethics and their own biases behind the lens. On top of it all, they grapple with their effect on the subject itself while capturing the moment. Nicholas Dynan, senior website coordinator for GlobalPost.com, Lou Jones, legendary photographer and board member of the Photographic Resource Center, and Nichole Sobecki, Nairobi-based photojournalist and former director of The Tufts University Institute for Global Leadership's EXPOSURE program, join Ford Hall Forum Vice President Helen Rees to focus on the fascinating finer points of photojournalism.

Further background information on the participants:

Nicholas Dynan is the senior web coordinator for GlobalPost. The online international news site, which draws more than 2 million unique readers a month, hired Dynan to develop, design and plan the future of the site. His redesigned homepage for GlobalPost launched in March of 2012. In 2009, Dynan worked as a photographer and web producer for Hürriyet Daily News in Istanbul, developing multimedia and new media strategies. In 2010, at NPR's local Bostonaffiliate WBUR.org, he produced original web content for national shows, including Here and Now and On Point. A graduate of the Program for Narrative and Documentary Practice at Tufts University, Dynan worked under the guidance of VII Photo Agency Founder Gary Knight. In the summer of 2010, he received grant funding to work with Sara Terry of The Aftermath Foundation in Houston's Historic Third Ward, where they developed a project on race and inequality. At Tufts, he led the Institute for Global Leadership EXPOSURE program.

Lou Jones is one of Boston's most diverse and inspiring commercial and fine art photographers. His career has consisted of taking pictures of headhunters in Borneo and guerrillas in Central America, flying upside down with aerobatic pilots, skulking around opium dens in Singapore, and shooting 12 successive Olympic Games. Jones' images have been exhibited in galleries throughout the world, including the Smithsonian & Corcoran Galleries inWashington, DC, Polaroid Gallery, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the DeCordova Museum inMassachusetts. During the 1980s, his time was spent on Congressional Delegations documenting government, military and rebel leaders. The end of the decade had him witnessing Perestroika and the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1990, the Museum of Afro-American History commissioned Jones to honor women with "Sojourner's Daughters," an exhibition highly recognized by the community. In 1997, Jones published his first book, Final Exposure: Portraits from Death Row, for which he received the Ehrmann Award from the Massachusetts Citizens against the Death Penalty. Jones has also won awards from the International Photographic Council (United Nations) and the Boston Photography Collaborative. Jones is past president of the New England chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers and was a long time member of the ASMP National Board of Directors. He is one of the charter members of the Advertising Photographers of America. Jones is on the board of directors of the PhotographicResource Center in Boston and the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts. Recently he was made co-director of photography at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts in Waltham, Massachusetts. Jones graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with degrees in Physics.

Nichole Sobecki is a freelance photographer and writer based in Nairobi, Kenya. In 2005, she interned with photojournalist James Nachtwey. Sobecki shot and edited "The Luckiest Man: Gun Violence in Urban America," a documentary, and "Shooting for Peace," an initiative of the Jacob Burns Film Center which explores people affected by AIDS, unsanitary water conditions, and civil war in Uganda. In 2007, Sobecki worked as a correspondent for the Daily Star, Lebanon’s English language newspaper based in Beirut. From 2008-2011, she was the Turkey Correspondent for Global Post, based in Istanbul, Turkey. During that time she also covered the early days of the Libyan uprising, the ongoing war in Afghanistan, developmental challenges facing Nepal, and the aftermath of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Sobecki studied political science at Tufts University and photography at the International Center of Photography and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She participated in Exposure/VII journalism workshops through the Institute for Global Leadership in Kosovo and Cambodia. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Guardian, Le Monde, M Magazine, and GlobalPost.

Admission is free and open to all. Wheelchair accessible and conveniently located near the Park St. MBTA Station. For more information, contact Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University at 6175572007 or www.fordhallforum.org.

Article, info, and text provided by the organizers and Mary Curtin Productions.