Planning Your Photojournalist Profile
The photojournalist I have chosen today is Rena Effendi. Rena Effendi was born on April 26th, 1977. She is 46 years old. She was born in Baku, Azerbaijan. This is her own personal website showcasing her work and her recent publication. Her personal website, mentions that Rena Effendi's early work was focused on the oil industry's effects on people's lives, as a result, she followed a 1,700km oil pipeline through Azerbaijan her hometown to Georgia and Turkey. Her first book is called " Pipe Dreams A Chronicle Lives Along the Pipeline". This book is dedicated to the people of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, linked by the oil pipeline and their fading hopes for a better future. She collected evidence about the impact the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline had had on these places. Rena Effendi has received many awards including the Alexia 2018 Professional Grant, the Prince Claus Fund Award for Culture and Development, World Press Photo (for observed portraits in 2014), SONY World Photography Award (fine art category), Getty Images Editorial Grant, and was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet Award in Photography and Sustainability.
Rena Effendi is represented by the National Geographic Creative Agency and ILEX Gallery. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide including at the Saatchi Gallery, Miami Art Basel, Istanbul Modern, and the 52nd Venice Biennial. She has worked on editorial assignments for National Geographic, The New Yorkers, Newsweek, TIME, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Marie Clair, The Sunday Times, GEO, and others
In this interview article with Rena Effendi, she stated that her inspiration to become a photojournalist started when she had been studying painting for some time, but felt restless sitting in her studio. Her friend gave her a very bulky old-generation Nikon camera. As soon as she started taking pictures she couldn't put the camera down. She describes the feeling as excitement and magical form framing the shot and seeing what would come out of it, going into the dark room and processing them, and then printing it on paper. Rena Effendi also needed to go out into the street, interact with people, and learn about their stores. She said it was like painting except with real life and 'real' pictures. Rena Effendi also mentions that she is heavily influenced by Flemish Old Master - their use of light, and the styling of their portraits. Rena Effendi's motivation comes from her interest in human conditions the will to survive, and the awesome human power of adaptation and survival. This article also mentions how Rena Effendi noticed her neighborhood was changing, like how the traditional neighborhoods and homes were being demolished and replaced by high-rises. She spent years documenting that and then wrote her first book about it.
During her career using this article as a reference Rena Effendi uses Rolleiflex 2.8. Rena Effendi's works are usually corporations and digital, she is still a film photographer. Her camera of choice is Rolleiflex 2.8 that's older than her. She feels that being limited to only 12 exposures per roll forces her to give great thought to every image. She also developed her own black-and-white films in the early years of her career, but she always sent out her color images to various labs around the world. She mostly works in color now but tries to keep up with fellow photographers to try and avoid her work being cliched. Rena Effendi's strong photography style is finding real humanity and beauty in the most desperate of environments.
She has always loved documentary and street photography, while others are concerned about fashion or music trends, Rena Effendi is concerned about armed conflict and starving children. telling stories that needed to be told and adding social issues along the way was the wellspring of her photographic inspiration. The book of photographers that inspired her, now she is the source of that inspiration with her first book " Pipe Dreams A Chronicle Lives Along the Pipeline" tells the story of families living next to the oil pipeline in Georgia and Turkey. People struggle to survive in the shadow of the arteries of enormous wealth. This article mentions that Rena Effendi has two qualities that are shown in her work: a deep sense of empathy and a quiet celebration of the straight of the human spirit. By portraying individual dilemmas in forgotten communities around the world Rena Effendi spot light unconformable global issues such as social marginalization, post-war trauma, and environmental degradation
I came across her page by accident but I am glad that I clicked on her profile. After reading about her career and why she wanted to be a photojournalist I was really inspired to do things that others won't do, like covering controversies and topics that no one wants to talk about. One of the other things that I really love about learning about her is her choice of camera, limiting herself to only 12 films. I think that sometimes limiting yourself to certain things like how many colors you can use in a piece or not using an eraser while drawing makes you think a lot more about what you want to do because you are limited from certain things and I think that is going to help me in my art major or art career in the future. Having unlimited resources is not a bad thing but when you have so many things you can use you don't know what to pick when you limit yourself to a certain thing you think more about what you want with the resources you have.
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