Still Photography
Elizabeth D. Herman is a photojournalist based in New York City and a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work focuses on the politics of history, conflict, and group belonging; her dissertation research examines the ways in which trauma impacts intergroup relations and political participation. A regular contributor to The New York Times, she was previously a Fulbright Fellow to Bangladesh and has had her photography and research published in national and international outlets. Last year, she pitched and co-photographed “The Women of the 116th Congress,” a special project for The New York Times, which featured portraits of 130 women of the 116th Congress, photographed in the style of historical portrait paintings. The project was recently published as a book with ABRAMS Books, with a foreword by Roxane Gay.
Andrew Johnston joined the Chicago Tribune staff in 2005 as its national and foreign photo editor. After newsroom shrinkage – and elimination of most of the Tribune’s bureaus – he became the Metro photo editor. Today, he’s the principal editor of Page 1 photography and many of the Tribune’s projects and is a key advocate for cameras in the courtrooms in Chicagoland. A graduate of Ball State University’s journalism school, he has also worked as a photo editor at the Detroit Free Press, a freelance photographer in Detroit and a staff photographer at the Fort Wayne (Indiana) Journal Gazette and Outdoor Indiana magazine. When not thinking about photography, he loves canoeing and fishing. He met his wife of 22 years in a newspaper darkroom. They have two teen daughters who really hate being photographed.
Marcus Yam is a Los Angeles Times staff photographer. Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, he left a career in aerospace engineering to become a photographer. His goal: to take viewers to the frontlines of conflict, struggle and intimacy. In 2019, Yam was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Award for his body of work documenting the everyday plight of Gazans during deadly clashes in the Gaza Strip. Yam was part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning breaking news teams that covered the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist attacks in 2015 for the Los Angeles Times and the deadly landslide in Oso, Wash., for the Seattle Times in 2014. His other work has also earned the Scripps Howard Visual Journalism Award, Picture of the Year International’s Newspaper Photographer of the Year Award, Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award.
Video Photography
Nyier Abdou is a freelance video journalist, filmmaker, and multimedia producer. A longtime newspaper reporter, she was based in Egypt for more than six years before moving back to her home state of New Jersey to join The Star-Ledger newspaper, where she worked for nine years as a general assignment reporter. She was among the first reporters in the Ledger newsroom to be trained in video and later moved from print to video full time, going on to produce award-winning documentaries and news features with the paper. Her work has earned her six New York Emmy awards, including best documentary and writing for her film “Being George.” She teaches video storytelling at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.
Roberto Daza is an award-winning producer and cinematographer for Vice News. He’s covered cartels and gang violence in Latin America, trafficking and extremism in Europe and the Middle East, peace negotiations and child abductions in Africa. You can see his work on HBO, Viceland, Univision and Netflix.
Video Editing
Angel Canales is a CBS Evening News Producer and shooter based in New York City. Originally from Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, Angel’s interest in social justice led to a journalistic career covering issues like immigration, hate crimes, the clergy sex abuse and veterans. He saw the need to become a storyteller after serving in active duty for the US NAVY on board the aircraft carrier USS George Washington. Prior to CBS News, he worked at ABC News and HBO producing long form features and short documentaries. Angel graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Writing and Politics. He also holds a Master of Science Degree in Journalism from Columbia University. He is fluent in Spanish and Italian.
Channon Hodge is a writer, videographer, editor and licensed drone pilot for CNN. She is also the lead producer and content manager for the CNN Travel premium vertical. Channon has produced features and series on a variety of subjects from advances in Neurocriminology, to the establishment of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Alabama, dedicated to the thousands of lynching victims in America. Previously, she spent four years as a video producer at The New York Times and eight years in programming for BET, Oxygen and Lifetime Television. She holds a master’s degree from the Graduate School for Journalism at CUNY.
Eric Maierson is a writer and two-time Emmy-winning video editor and producer. His work has appeared on The New Times, The New Yorker, and Time. Most recently he edited the first hour of a 4-part series on veterans in America for PBS. Previously, he was the senior producer at MediaStorm, a documentary production company in Brooklyn, New York. There, he edited close to 100 films, including the feature film The Distance Between Us. Eric’s short films have played at film festivals across the country, and his prose has appeared in The New Yorker, Playboy, and Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney’s Book of Lists. He is also the writer and director of the critically acclaimed theatrical play Reprise.
Digital Storytelling
Haimy Assefa is an Emmy-nominated video journalist and documentary filmmaker. She produces, shoots, and edits cinematic stories in the U.S. and abroad. Haimy has been an integral part of digital video start-ups at places like CNN’s Great Big Story and NBC News’ Left Field.
Jamie Coughlin is a journalist and a film producer. She is an Emmy nominee, the recipient of a White House News Photographers Award for Best Documentary and is an IFP Documentary Lab Fellow and a RIAS fellow. TransMilitary, which Coughlin produced and wrote, premiered at SXSW 2018, where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary and received critical acclaim, including a GLAAD Media Award. Coughlin was named to the 10 Filmmakers to Watch list by The Independent. Her work has been supported by the International Documentary Association, Catapult Film Fund, Miller Packan Film Fund, GLAAD Media Institute, and Frameline Completion Fund. Coughlin and her partner Gabriel Silverman left their newsroom jobs in 2015 to start their production company, SideXSide Studios, based in Takoma Park, MD. Previously, Coughlin was the supervising producer for USA Today.
Francesca Trianni is an Emmy-nominated senior producer at TIME, where she has worked since 2013. She has contributed to many of TIME’s most important stories, including features for Person of the Year and Time 100, and her work has been recognized with a World Press Photo award, Pictures of the Year International, and the National Murrow Awards. Francesca’s debut feature documentary, Paradise Without People, premiered in 2019. In 2018, Francesca produced, filmed and reported Finding Home: a year-long multimedia project on the Syrian refugee crisis told through the lives of three babies: Rahaf, Heln, and Faraj. Finding Home won the top prize at the 2018 World Press Photo contest for Innovative Storytelling, an ASME and an SPD award, among others. A native Italian speaker, Francesca graduated with honors from the Columbia Journalism School in New York.
Student Still
The judges for the 2020 Eyes of History Student Still Photography Contest will be announced shortly!
Student Video
The judges for the 2020 Eyes of History Student Video Photography Contest will be announced shortly!
2020 Eyes of History Judging Weekend
The 2020 Eyes of History Judging will be held February 22-23 at National Geographic Headquarters in Washington, DC.
Judging is open to the public. For more information, please click here.