Doug Menuez is an award-winning documentary photographer based in New York City. His more than 25 years in the business has varied from photojournalism to commissioned work and personal fine art book projects. He’s fascinated with finding the balance between art and commerce, evidenced in a post about a commercial campaign for Emirates Airline that allowed him to “get paid to shoot what [he] love[s] and would be shooting anyway”. He also shares his sources of inspiration and people who’ve influenced his career, but it was his post on the Zen of Film vs. Digital Gratification that really got me hooked.

Mulling it over, I couldn’t articulate it fully but definitely, I knew I had become lazy, really lazy. A spectacular sloth by the standards of shooting film. Film is hard. Film is a stone cold unforgiving killing bastard. Film is once in a lifetime, no excuses. F8 and really, really be there: ready, steady, in focus, correct exposure, and pressing the shutter in sync with life.

If you’re trying to make money and do what you love (shoot photos, tell stories, whatever you call it), Doug Menuez 2.0 is definitely a resource for inspiration. Check out the latest posts (updated automatically):

• La Lettre Features “Fearless Genius” Project

Pat Davison has held staff positions at major U.S. newspapers and freelanced for dozens of magazines over the two decades he’s been a photojournalist. Davison is now a professor at the University of North Carolina where he combines teaching with photography and multimedia projects. Being a prof doesn’t keep him from shooting though, as he still takes assignments and sells prints of his work. He has a slew of awards under his belt, but most noteworthy is that Davison shared the Pulitzer Prize in News Photography in 2000 with the Rocky Mountain News photo staff for coverage of the Columbine High School tragedy.

Davison’s blog, Carolina Photojournalism, is not so much about his personal work (which you can find on his website) as it is a place to show off the work of his students, from beginning to advanced. It’s also a place to find out about the latest amazing multimedia project the students have done, like covering the Special Olympics live, documenting life in southern Thailand after the 2004 Asian tsunami, or documentary storytelling in the Galapagos. The multimedia projects are a truly amazing time of learning for students. I know firsthand from the 2005 project in Santiago de Compostela, Spain that I was a part of while at Carolina where I got to photograph the ancient tradition of caring for wild horses called “a Rapa Das Bestas”.

If you’re in the Chapel Hill, North Carolina area it’s definitely worth checking out a photonight on the first Tuesday of every month where you can hear from photographers like Antonin Kratochvil, Kristen Ashburn, Chris Rainier and many other known and unknown photographers (photonight is where I was first exposed to the work of Vincent Laforet).  Finally, if you can’t tell already, I studied under Davison from 2005-2006 and found him to be a truly inspirational teacher, mentor and friend.

View the latest posts (updated automatically):

• Miles Away
• American Beauty
• Goodnight Moon
• Here, After
• A Hip Hop Promise

Also, Pat asked me to make sure that Chris Carmichael gets credit for being the one who updates the Carolina Photojournalism blog.

Currently based in Baghdad, Bruce writes a weekly column for The Washington Post called Unseen Iraq. Her column, which is displayed in blog format on the Washington Post website, shows some very different aspects of life in Iraq which are truly “unseen”. After viewing the images alone I got a more complete picture of life in Iraq–you won’t find the usual gloom and doom. The writing is very creative and easy to read, as one commenter notes:

Many of these posts are like poems. I have, for a few years now, read the blogs of Iraqis and researched the country for a film about Iraqi refugees, and Andrea Bruce’s articles and photographs are the most insightful and touching I have found anywhere about everyday life in Iraq.

We don’t know how long she’ll be based in the Middle East, but while she is we can all enjoy a fresh and inspiring perspective on life in Iraq. Check our her latest contributions (updated automatically):

Vincent Laforet is perhaps best known for his aerial photography, which got a lot of attention after he published striking aerial images of hurricane Katrina’s devastation in New Orleans in the New York Times. I was privileged enough to hear him speak at The University of Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication about his time in New Orleans, and I even scored a portfolio review with him (later that night I got into a wreck on my bike, so I think I forgot most of his advice). I remember being blown away by the beautiful graphic nature of his images and wanting very badly to be in a helicopter photographing myself.

On his blog, http://blog.vincentlaforet.com, he shares highlights and previews from current projects he’s working on as well as stuff that inspires him. He is obviously a lover of gadgets and shares a lot about his equipment, software and general work flow. In fact, he’s a member of Apple’s “Aperture Advisory Committee” and a Canon “Explorer of Light” and “Printmaster”. I’m not really sure what all of that means, but I think it means he gets access to lots of free goodies, and gear that hasn’t yet been released. Before the Canon 5D Mark II was released, he got to test it out and give feedback, and posted HD video samples shot with it. His posts on that actually helped me decided to upgrade to the 5D Mark II because my original 5D had been stolen, along with my HD camcorder, so naturally the Mk II was a viable option.  He’s got some great tutorials and tips on using the 5D Mk II, like this one and this one.  He often shares behind the scenes video from his projects that are extremely helpful for photojournalists and generally interesting for anyone else.

Check out the latest posts from Vincent Laforet’s Blog (updated automatically):

• Push/Pull Moves with Kessler Gear
• In case you missed it: Vimeo Announces New Design
• Video: “How Technology is Influencing Storytelling & Film”
• Adobe Post Workflow on Mobius
• NEW GEAR: Litepanels Sola 4 and Croma