I met John Stanmeyer at his beautiful home and studio in Bali where he was conducting a photojournalism workshop. He is the co-founding member of VII and a contract photographer with Time Magazine since 1998. He has spent over 7 years focusing on Asian issues and has been working on a book about AIDS throughout Asia, as well as continuing his photographic documentation for a book on the radical changes in Indonesia since 1997.
For this workshop, he sponsored two Indonesian photographers who would not have been able to attend otherwise. In an interview, he said “They were taking brilliant pictures with busted equipment but they never photographed enough. At the end of the day, they only showed us a few photos. Finally, I discovered they couldn’t afford flash cards and were using only one 256 mg card. How do you support these talented people who try to communicate in difficult situations under difficult economic conditions? Their homes are in the places that we can afford to fly into and then can leave while they must stay and try to keep communicating.” The last sentence is also applicable to us, as travel photographers...don't you think?
A remarkable photographer, a wizard at photo editing and a genuinely nice guy, here’s John on Apple’s Aperture. I chose this multimedia feature because it shows him at work in his Bali home studio. He was working on that particular photograph when I was there as well!
John Stanmeyer on Apple Aperture
