Still Photography
Susan Biddle was a Washington Post staff photographer for thirteen years and is now an independent photographer for various publications and organizations. She began her career photographing for the Peace Corps and later worked as a staff photographer for the Topeka Capital-Journal and the Denver Post. After five years at the Denver Post she left to become a White House photographer documenting the Presidency for the last year of the Reagan administration and all four years of the George H.W. Bush administration.
She began working for The Washington Post in 1996. Prior to that she freelanced and her work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, Life, National Geographic and other publications worldwide. She has participated in various book projects including Day in the Life of America, Day in the Life of Thailand, Hong Kong – Here Be Dragons, Day in the Life of the American Woman and America at Home.
She has won awards with White House News Photographers Association and National Press Photographers Association. She has been a judge for various contests as well as having taught on various workshops and study abroad programs.
David Burnett has been an internationally acclaimed photojournalist for seven decades. He has worked on contract with LIFE, Time and PEOPLE, and continues to work for a variety of magazines in the US and Europe. He is the recipient of the Press Photo of the Year award from World Press Photo (Holland), Magazine Photographer of the Year from the Pictures of the Year (USA), the Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club of America (USA), the latter of which has also awarded him two Olivier Rebbot awards for work done around the world.
He’s photographed every American President since John F Kennedy, covered every Summer Olympic Games since 1984 in Los Angeles. He has twice chaired the Jury of World Press Photo. In 2018 he was awarded the Sprague Award from the National Press Photographers Association for Lifetime Service in Photojournalism.
In the past few years, he has authored two large-format photography books: “Soul Rebel – An Intimate Portrait of Bob Marley,” – the world-renowned Reggae musician and songwriter, and “44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World” – a photo memoir of the Iranian Revolution. In 2016 he published (with Hachette in France) “Man Without Gravity,” a collection of his sports photography. He is a Sony Artisan of Imagery, splits his time between New York, Florida, and a lot of airport departure gates.
Ruth Fremson, a native New Yorker, never expected to go into photojournalism until her senior year of college. After studying graphic design at Syracuse University for most of her undergraduate career, expecting to pursue a career in the visual arts, she serendipitously took a photography course taught by legendary former Director of Photography for National Geographic, Robert Gilka. In less than three weeks she was convinced that she had found a new path in life. After Syracuse, Ruth attended the graduate program at Ohio University, landing an internship at The Washington Times during the summer of 1988. This led to her first staff position at The Washington Times where she worked from 1989 until September 1994 when she joined the staff of The Associated Press.
Ruth was first based in Charlotte, N.C., photographing a lot of sports but also covered the reinstatement of President Aristide in Haiti by the American armed forces and the end of the civil war in Bosnia. In 1996 she was transferred back to Washington, to cover the White House and spent the next two and a half years documenting the Clinton administration with short stints in London for Princess Diana’s funeral, the Pope’s historic visit to Cuba and the Atlanta. Ruth was part of the AP’s team to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for their coverage of the Clinton impeachment. In 1998 she was posted overseas in the AP’s Jerusalem bureau where she covered the Mideast conflict, stories in Egypt, Jordan and the war in Kosovo.
She worked there until The New York Times hired her in 2000 and brought her back to the U.S. to work at her ‘hometown’ newspaper. Since then, her assignments have ranged from the presidential campaigns of John McCain, Al Gore, and Howard Dean, the terrorist attacks on September 11, and its aftermath in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Salt Lake City Olympics, the war in Iraq, the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti and more trips to the middle east where she continued to cover the Palestinian-Israeli conflict until 2007. From 2005 through 2011 she made repeated trips to India, recording this changing and developing nation. In 2012 she worked on the groundbreaking ‘Snowfall’ project which earned writer John Branch a Pulitzer Prize. She spent a year documenting the life of a homeless child, Dasani, in 2013, which helped change New York City’s policy towards homeless children. Besides being part of both teams to win the spot news and feature photography Pulitzer Prizes for The New York Times in 2001, she has earned awards from the WHNPA, the NPPA and the New York Press Photographers Association. Her work has been exhibited in several shows and can be found in numerous galleries.
In 2015 Ruth transferred to Seattle, and now covers the Pacific Northwest along with assignments throughout the U.S. More recently she has begun to occasionally write stories that she pitched to her editors.
Broadcast Video Photography
Bill Gorman began his career in 1979 at the American Forces Korea Network working the twice-daily half hour newscasts as a ENG cameraperson. After leaving the service he started working in Washington in 1982 for the custom news service Docuvid as a sound technician/tape editor. He joined DK Associates as a contract employee for the US Army School of Engineers as writer director of recruiting and training videos. At the end of 1984 he joined the Storer Washington News Bureau as a news cameraman/tape editor where he covered Congressional delegations and general national news with a local perspective. At the end of 1989 he started the Hearst Washington News bureau working as the Chief Photographer. In that unit, he photographed and edited daily Washington news and multi part investigative series for the Hearst owned television stations.
In October of 1994 he was hired by The Associated Press to become the senior news cameraman for the newly formed television news agency APTV. In that role he handled multiple domestic and international assignments. Ranging from the 1995 Oklahoma Bombing to peace talks at the River Wye. From New Delhi to Beijing to Pyongyang with Madeline Albright. The Haitian earthquakes, Kosovo and the Hong Kong Handover. Presidential campaigns, black bloc protests, numerous storms, and hurricanes, 911 at the Pentagon and then Guantanamo for the trials of the perpetrators of that infamous attack. Additionally, he was regularly assigned as part of the TV news agency pool to the White House. Awards include the Associated Press Managing Editors Award for a self-produced natural sound piece on the Oso Mudslide. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prizeas part of the team that produced the “Seafood Slaves” story. Was part of the APTN teams that were awarded Murrow Prizes for outstanding coverage of both the 911 attacks and 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Although retired, Bill continues to work to hone his skills as a still/portrait photographer. Most recently by photographing the campaign of Arkansas Democratic candidate for Governor Chris Jones.
Phil Kawasoe is a retired supervisor for field operations at CBC News (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). He currently is an independent lighting cameraman.
He started his career in 1972 with EIAJ type 1 B&W, 1″ videotape and worked shooting in multiple areas including documentaries, news, sports, the film industry-EPK, and international and national events.
A as freelancer his clients included Canadian, American, British, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Al Jazeera and Italian networks, over 34 years of news coverage. He traveled around the world for assignments in places such as Moscow, Beijing, London, Berlin, Geneva, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Vienna.
In 2010 he accepted a staff position at CBC News supervising and supporting national and local staff and freelance videographers, video producers and video journalists on domestic and foreign assignment. He retired from CBC in 2017.
Scott Plante has over 35 years’ experience working in the broadcast industry, encompassing documentaries, large multi camera events, network series, films and most recently National News.
He started his career by establishing Visualeyes Productions Ltd.
As a camera operator and DOP, he has travelled the world working on everything from a ballet series (Footnotes) for BRAVO to a children’s series (Wild Kratts) for PBS. As a freelancer, he has worked for all the major networks. He has received many awards over the years, in 2015 he received an EMMY for his work with FOX on their FIFA coverage.
Regardless of the size or type of production, Scott brings a focus and dedication to creating impactful and memorable images.
When COVID-19 hit, all television production came to a crashing halt. Fortunately, Scott was able to turn his freelance work at CTV (Canada) into a full-time position and is now working in Ottawa at their National bureau as a Senior ENG Tech.
Broadcast Video Editing
Dorry Gundy has had a long and successful career working as an editor and producer for television news programs. She is currently a multimedia producer at the Voice of America’s (VOA) Learning English division, where she produces and edits original digital and broadcast video content for English teachers and learners worldwide.
Dorry has been involved in television news gathering, editing, and production for over four decades. She began her career in Cleveland, Ohio, working at two major stations there, WEWS and WKYC, as a film processor and editor. As one of few women film processors and news editors working in the newsroom of a Cleveland television station, she was involved in the industry’s historic transition from film to videotape in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Dorry moved to Washington, in the early 1980’s and worked at ABC News as a video editor for multiple flagship news shows, including This Week with David Brinkley, World News Tonight, and Nightline.
In the late 1980’s, she started a freelance career as a video editor with international news organizations including France’s TFI, Danish TV and the BBC. At the BBC, she participated in and supported another major industry transition from videotape to digital news gathering, production and editing. She became a full-time video editor at the BBC in Washington covering major news events in North America for over 20 years. In 2009, while at the BBC, Dorry won two WHNPA ‘Eyes of History®’ awards for News Feature Editing and Inaugural Editing.
Greg Hotsenpiller is an Emmy, duPont-Columbia, Peabody and Scripps Howard award winning journalist, with over 25 years of experience working in the broadcast news industry in Washington. Currently, he is the principal features editor for CBS Mornings in the Washington DC bureau of CBS News. Previously Greg worked for WNET’s Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly as a producer, online editor and segment editor, where he shot, edited, and produced stories on location in Turkey, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, and Brazil, including covering the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Prior to that, Greg was a freelance editor, working with NBC News, Thomson Reuters, Canal 9, Global TV Canada, Kuwait TV, and SABC among others. Greg studied Film Production at The Pennsylvania State University. Greg and his wife Oonagh spend their free time traveling, cooking and taking care of their many animals.
Marley Parker is a seasoned professional in the industry with over 20 years of experience spanning film, video, photo, and web media. He owned a company making documentaries and music projects on the east coast of Canada before starting in news with CBC in Whitehorse, Yukon and then Toronto, Canada. Currently, he is a senior news photographer/editor at CTV National News in Ottawa, covering political events in Canada’s capital city.
He also spent five years in Washington, capturing historic moments during the end of the Obama era and the presidency of Donald Trump, including the reopening of travel to Cuba and the North Korea-US peace talks. Marley’s self-taught skills, unique perspective, and passion for his work are evident in every shot and edit. When he isn’t working, he is listening to or playing music and has recorded on an ECMA-winning album.
Digital Storytelling
Yara Bishara is currently a Senior Producer at NBC News where she helps oversee a team of award-winning video journalists producing short documentaries that air across NBC News Digital, NBC News NOW, Peacock, Today, NBC Nightly News, and MSNBC. Her team most recently produced, “Dear Noah: Pages from a Family Diary,” a documentary that sheds light on the experience of a transgender teenager and his family as they make the hard decision to leave their home in Texas after his own gender-affirming care was temporarily paused. The documentary had its world premiere at the DOC NYC film festival as part of the Meet the Press Film Festival in November and the documentary is now streaming on Peacock.
Prior to joining NBC News, Yara was supervising producer at The New Yorker where she helped oversee the magazine’s award-winning documentary and scripted programming, development, and acquisitions which earned their fictional short film showcase, “The Screening Room,” two Academy Award nominations (note: the nominations were for two films that were acquired by the magazine — they were not originally produced or developed). Yara started her career on the breaking news video desk at The New York Times where her interactive piece, Anatomy of an Airstrike, was a Livingston Award finalist for international reporting.
Yara is a graduate of The George Washington University and is currently an MBA candidate at NYU Stern. She was recently named Forbes 30 Under 30 in the media category among others in her field that are revolutionizing the industry. Born in Haifa, Israel, she is Palestinian and immigrated to Brooklyn when she was 10 years old with her parents and younger brother.
Jon Bougher is a documentary filmmaker and co-owner of Eastward Films, a video production company headquartered in Washington. He has worked in over fifteen countries on video projects, including three years living and working in Haiti. His film work has been featured on CNN International, NPR and The Today Show, screened at festivals across the United States and twice received special screenings on Capitol Hill.
Through his company, he has directed branded content for advocacy organizations including Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence, United Nations Foundation, Disney Conservation Fund, and many others. He earned his MFA in Documentary Film from Wake Forest University.
Lauren Frohne is a visual journalist and digital leader who works collaboratively across departments and produces award-winning, innovative video stories, documentary films, and interactive digital projects. She currently leads the video team at The Seattle Times – NPPA Multimedia Team of the year in 2020 and 2021 and winner of the 2019 Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence.
Before joining The Seattle Times in 2014, Lauren was the multimedia producer for the Open Society Foundations and a video journalist for The Boston Globe. As a Roy H. Park Fellow, she earned a master’s degree in journalism with a focus on visual communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2010. Lauren has been a featured speaker and teacher at visual storytelling workshops and conferences, including WKU’s Mountain Workshops, Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, NPPA Women in Visual Journalism, Story Arc cinematic journalism workshop, and has been a faculty member of the NPPA Multimedia Immersion workshop since 2013.
Student Still
Judges information coming soon!
Student Video
Alice Li is an award-winning video journalist for The Washington Post. From covering breaking news to filming and producing mini-documentaries, Alice has had the privilege to cover some of the nation’s most pressing and compelling stories. Throughout her six-year career at The Post, Alice has reported extensively on systemic racism, climate change, the opioid epidemic, national politics, amongst other issues. She is passionate about exploring the distinctions between natural and man-made disasters, internal displacement and migration, and resiliency in the wake of trauma. Her work has been recognized by the Peabody Awards, Edward R. Murrow’s Awards, Emmy Awards, Webby Awards, and others.
Beth Brown got her start in news business right out of high school through an internship that turned into a full-time job at WVEC-TV in the Hampton Roads area. She was hired first as a tape operator then became an editor and then transitioned into a photojournalist within 3 years. In 2011 she made her move to DC where she worked for the Hearst DC Bureau covering Capitol Hill and the White House. Some memorable career moments include going to Cuba to cover the death of Fidel Castro to covering the historic flooding in Houston, Texas during hurricane season to covering the social justice protests after the death of George Floyd. Beth currently works for NBC4 in Washington DC as a general assignment photographer: Beth enjoys speaking to young people trying to break into the business. She has also served as treasurer for the non-profit group Women Photojournalists of Washington. She is grateful for the opportunity to document history every day.
Brian Hopkins began his television career in 1983, volunteering while in high school, with FCAC Ch. 10 in Northern Virginia and WNVC/WNVT Public Tv. Over several years, he completely immersed himself in public access television, including producing and production work. One show he produced, lasted for 30 years. Soon, he began interning with Media General Cable Ch. 8, in Fairfax, Va., quickly learning his way around a real (non-public access ) television studio. In 1987, WNVC/WNVT became Brian’s first full time television home, shooting news on Capitol Hill, as well as doing studio production work. From 1989-1991, Media General Cable Ch. 8, in Fairfax, Va., took Brian in fulltime, where he thrived doing studio production, while spending periodic weekends shooting local spot news. This is where he first was bitten by the spot news bug. In 1991, Newchannel 8, which took over the Ch. 8 frequency, hired Brian as a production assistant. There he slowly made the transition to electronic news gathering and, by the time he left in 1996, was a full time photojournalist. CONUS Communications hired Brian to shoot news, covering Congress from 1996-1998. And finally, in December of 1998, starting as a freelance videographer, Brian was hired as a fulltime shooter/editor, just 5 months later, for WJLA-ABC 7, where he has been, ever since. Brian has won 5 local Emmys, plus received a number of additional nominations. With his reporter, he has won a Murrow award, an AP award, and has secured numerous first, second, third and honorable mention awards with the White House News Photographer Association. First place winnings earned Brian 5 trips to the Oval Office. When he gets the chance, Brian enjoys teaching and answering questions from youth who are interested in a career in television. Several times he’s volunteered for a program called, ”Facetime with the Pros”, a day for interested youth to attend lectures, get hands-on experiences with real broadcast equipment, and have face-to-face time with broadcast professionals, such as he, from around the DC area. Brian has also received numerous thank you cards from WJLA interns, whom he had taken under his wing, during their stay. Brian says he has the “very best career”. Even when off the clock, he “sees life thru a camera lens”. Always picturing the best camera angle, where ever he goes. Even when Brian’s traveling on vacation, or as he begins the weekend, he looks forward to what the next work day will bring and to what adventures he will find.
Nate Luna’s camera has taken him across the country and around the world over the past twelve years, from local news in small-town California to international news at one of America’s largest networks. He currently covers transportation out of ABC’s Washington DC Bureau. When he isn’t shooting or editing, he enjoys breaking (and fixing) his old car, barbecuing, brewing beer, playing with Legos, and being outside.
2023 Eyes of History Judging Weekend
The 2023 Eyes of History Judging will be held in person at Union Market February 18-19. For more information, visit our events page.
The 2023 WHNPA General Election will also be held during the speaker event the evening of February 17.