Tyler Hicks is a staff photographer for The New York Times.  Mr. Hicks began working for the Times as a freelance photographer covering the war in Kosovo in 1997.  He earned a contract with the Times in 1999, based in Nairobi, Kenya and photographed conflicts in Congo, Somalia and Sudan.

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, Hicks traveled to Afghanistan for the Times and arrived in Kabul when the Northern Alliance liberated the city from Taliban control.  His award winning photographs of the execution of a Taliban fighter earned international attention.  He has returned to Afghanistan every year since and continues to document the conflict there.

Mr. Hicks graduated in 1992 with a B.A. in journalism from Boston University. After graduation, he worked as a photographer’s assistant at a commercial studio in Boston and then at The Troy Daily News, a small newspaper in Ohio where he spent a year as chief photographer.

He then moved on to North Carolina as a staff photographer for three years at The Wilmington Star-News in North Carolina. During this time, he photographed personal projects in Haiti, Albania and Kosovo.  Moved by the atrocities he saw in Kosovo, Mr. Hicks left his job to pursue a career in international news.

As a freelancer for the Times, Mr. Hicks lived with a Kosovar family while covering the escalating conflict in the Balkans.  Two years later, with the arrival of peacekeepers and an end to the conflict, he left to Africa to cover the escalating war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

In 2009 Hicks’ photographs were part of a team Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting shared by the New York Times for its coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He received the Newspaper Photographer of the Year award from Pictures of the Year International (POYI) for his work in 2006.  In 2001, Mr. Hicks was the recipient of the 2001 ICP Infinity Award for Photojournalism for his coverage in Afghanistan, as well as other awards, including World Press, Pictures of the Year and the Visa Pour L’image in Perpignan, France.

Mr. Hicks was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on July 9, 1969.  He lives in Istanbul, Turkey.

Jared Moossy is a Texan born documentary photographer based in Dallas, Texas. He graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York City in May of 2008 and is currently represented by Redux Pictures in New York City. His interest in photography goes hand in hand with his interest in current events and social issues. His professional career has mostly been focused on changing country of Afghanistan and the heightened tension of Mexico’s Internal war on Drugs.

“For me photography at its most fundamental level still remains an exploratory tool as much as it is an art and it is increasingly how I understand the world.”

Jared attended the Eddie Adams Workshop in 2008 and won the PDN Photo Annual and Marty Forcher fellowship fund in 2008. Jared was also awarded the PDN 30 in 2009. He has worked with and been published in Newsweek, Time, The Wall Street Journal, Stern, Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, Die Ziet and several others.

More of David Bathgate’s work can be seen at: http://www.davidbathgate.com, as well as at the site of his online teaching: http://www.thecompellingimage.com.

Photo Credit: John Livzey

Jon Vidar is a freelance photographer based out of Los Angeles, CA. He works regularly for the Associated Press and his photos have been published by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, USA Today and NEED Magazine – among many others. In 2009 he was one of eight fellows for the  Academy for Alternative Journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and his work has received honors from Getty Images, the National Press Photographers Association, FotoweekDC, and Microsoft.  Jon has developed self-assigned projects spanning six continents, including work in Iraqi Kurdistan, Southeast Turkey, Rwanda, and Brazil.

Jon also serves as the Interim Executive Director and the Director of Near East Operations for the Tiziano Project. The Tiziano Project is a not-for-profit that empowers communities through self-sustaining journalism. In 2007, Jon helped this project establish their first base of operations in Kigali, Rwanda and in the Summer of 2008, he piloted a two-week long multimedia workshop in Northern Iraq. Jon recently helped the project secure a grant from Chase Trust to conduct a three-month program in Iraqi Kurdistan during the summer of 2010.

He holds a Master of Arts in Communication Management from USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Web site |  Twitter |  Facebook

She will be assisting Ron Haviv’s class.

www.anastasiataylorlind.com

Effendi has won several international photography awards including the “Fifty Crows” Documentary Photography award, Mario Giacomelli Memorial Fund award, and Getty Images Editorial grant. In 2005 she participated in the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass. In 2007, she was chosen by the Photo District News magazine as one of 30 emerging photographers to watch. In 2008 Rena Effendi won the National Geographic “All Roads” photography award. Her work was exhibited world wide including at the “Visa Pour l’Image” Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan, France, at the 52nd Venice Biennale in Italy and at the Istanbul Biennial.

Rena Effendi’s work has been widely published in Newsweek, Time, The Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, Marie Claire, L’Uomo Vogue, Courrier International, Le Monde, National Geographic and others. She is represented by the Institute for Artist Management worldwide and Agency.Photographer.RU in Russia.

Photo by Clay Enos

Award-winning photojournalist Ron Haviv has produced some of the most important images of conflict and other humanitarian crises that have made headlines from around the world since the end of the Cold War.

A co-founder of VII, whose work is published by top magazines worldwide, including: Fortune, The NY Times Magazine, Time, Vanity Fair, Paris Match and Stern. He has published two critically acclaimed collections of his photography — Blood and Honey: A Balkan War Journal, and Afghanistan: On the Road to Kabul – and has contributed his wide-ranging body of work to several other books.

With a special focus on exposing human rights violations, he has covered conflict and humanitarian crises in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Russia and the Balkans. Most recently, he has documented wars in Darfur and the DR Congo.

His often-searing photographs have earned Haviv some of the highest accolades in photography, including awards from World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year, Overseas Press Club, and the Leica Medal of Excellence. He regularly lectures at universities and seminars, and numerous museums and galleries have featured his work, including the United Nations, The Louvre and The Council on Foreign Relations.

Haviv has been the central character in three films. National Geographic Explorer’s Freelance in a World of Risk explores the hazards inherent in combat photography. The Serbian-made documentary Vivisect explores Serbian reaction to the Blood and Honey exhibit. Eyes of the World, which has featured in film festival worldwide, examines Haviv as a witness to war. In addition, Haviv has spoken about his work on The Charlie Rose Show, NPR, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, CNN, MSNBC and The Best Damn Sports Show Ever.

Ron Haviv @ VII

Ron Haviv’s Blood and Honey

Through documentary photography, Andrea Bruce brings attention to people living in the aftermath of war.

For the past eight years she has chronicled the world’s most troubled areas as a staff photographer for The Washington Post. Five of those years have taken her to the Middle East, where she is now based. She writes a weekly column for The Post called “Unseen Iraq.”

Her awards include top honors from the White House News Photographers Association (where she has been named Photographer of the Year four times), the International Pictures of the Year contest, and the prestigious John Faber award from the Overseas Press Club in New York.

She has also been a finalist for The Aftermath Project grant as well as the Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship.