Use the form on the right to contact us.
You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right.
PPAGLA member Christina House was awarded the 2023 Pulitzer for Feature Photography for her photo story documenting the life of a 22-year-old pregnant woman living on the streets of Los Angeles, California. Congratulations, Christina!
Excerpts from a Fox 11 News broadcast, reprinted here with permission:
Longtime FOX 11 reporter Tony Valdez passed away at the age of 78. His son Steve said that his father had been battling end-stage kidney failure and passed away at his home. Valdez was a proud Angeleno, growing up in downtown LA. He said at the time, he didn't see any Latinos or people who looked like him on TV and credits himself for breaking the color barrier for Latinos.
He worked for KTTV for 35 years. He began in 1981 and retired in 2016. He was the longtime host of Midday Sunday and co-anchored weekends with Christine Devine in the 1990s. He was also the host of the crime series LA’s Most Wanted, in the era of the show America’s Most Wanted.
Prior to joining KTTV, he worked at KCET, KTLA and La Opiñion. He covered everything from the Watts Riots to the Hillside Strangler, Night Stalker, O.J. Simpson and several political elections.
“Whether itls murder, mayhem, death or disaster, those are the things that I feel a sense of responsibility to report,” Valdez said when he announced his retirement.
Valdez was the union shop steward at FOX 11 and chaired the 8 Ball Emergency Fund for JNournalists foundation, helping local journalists in need and granting scholarships. He was also an avid photographer and documented Los Angeles in black and white and was an honorary member of the Press Photographers Association of Greater Los Angeles (PPAGLA). His second love was music and played the saxophone.
“Anyone who worked with Tony can tell you of his complete dedication to the truth in journalism. He knew this city inside and out,” said FOX 11 anchor Christine Devine.
She said Tony would work every Thanksgiving, insisting he wanted to spend it with his FOX 11 family. For Christmas, he would treat the newsroom to tamales first made by his aunt, and then when she retired from his favorite shop in East LA, La Indiana. He would deliver the tamales with his sweet grandson. FOX 11 has carried on the tamale tradition ever since!
“Tony Valdez was a trailblazing reporter, advocate, and mentor. He was one of the first Latino journalists to break the color barrier in Los Angeles. And with pride, Tony said he spent 35 years, 5 months, and 4 days covering the stories of this city on KTTV. We are better journalists, and a better community, because of the coverage and compassion of Tony Valdez,” FOX 11 Acting News Director Pete Wilgoren said.
He spent many years as a docent at the LA Conservancy and would lead tours of downtown Los Angeles.
He was a Veteran of the US Army and served during the Vietnam War. Valdez was loved by many in the newsroom and throughout the city. He made an impact in the industry that many will remember.
He received numerous Emmy, Golden Mike and Los Angeles Press Club awards. He attended Los Angeles City College.
Tony is survived by his son, Steve Valdez, and three beloved grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the LA Conservancy or 8 Ball Emergency Fund for Journalists foundation .
Thanks to Sanders Law Group for hosting PPAGLA’s April Copyright Seminar. Attorney Craig Sanders gave a presentation on common copyright issues with photographers followed by a Q and A with members. A recording is posted here. Be sure sign up for the newsletter to be informed when the next copyright seminar and other special events are happening.
Reposted with permission from the L.A. Times - https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-04-11/rosemary-kaul-groundbreaking-l-a-times-photojournalist-dies
STAFF WRITER
APRIL 11, 2023
Los Angeles Times staff photographer Rosemary Kaul walks in front of police officers guarding Parker Center during the 1992 riots.
(Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times)
Inspired by a trip to Guatemala, Rosemary Kaul moved to a pocket of Los Angeles where Central Americans found refuge from the civil unrest and violence that ravaged their home countries.
Kaul rented a studio on 12th Street in Pico-Union where she’d live for nearly two years. A single bed and a leafy schefflera — the only thing passing for green space in a concrete-dense neighborhood — took up most of her living space.
Struck by the poverty in the area, the Los Angeles Times photojournalist wanted to capture how hard it could be to begin a new life. She wondered if life in L.A. was truly better for them, but later realized the story was the people themselves.
“They have a spirit that really comes through in their faces,” she told KCET in 1991.
Sensing her genuine sincerity, Pico-Union accepted her as one of their own. Neighborhood children kept an eye out for her company vehicle. Locals chatted with her as they washed clothes in the laundromat. Other tenants in her building invited her over for dinner, offering their best home-cooked meal.
Peers and loyal readers lauded her Pico-Union photo essay. “Having grown up in this area, it is refreshing to see a sincere humanistic portrayal of this community by The Times,” Arturo Vargas, then-director of outreach and policy for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Los Angeles, wrote in 1991.
In an era when institutions, including The Times, overlooked marginalized communities, Kaul used her lens to chronicle their lives and help capture their humanity in a manner others could understand. She was part of a cadre of journalists who shifted their approach to the job, questioning the significance of what an event said about greater Los Angeles. Throughout her career, Kaul’s hard-charging and vibrant personality helped inspire the next budding photojournalists in the industry.
Kaul led the charge in her approach to photojournalism, showing empathy and care for sources, said Iris Schneider, a former L.A. Times photographer and longtime friend
She “didn’t really want to just go in and out in some sort of voyeuristic way,” Schneider said. “But she really wanted to know what it was like on a gut level to live there and experience that neighborhood and feel what the people were feeling in terms of how hard it was to start over and start a new life.”
Always a free spirit, Kaul died of health issues on March 31, said her daughter, Marjo Garrison. She was 80.
Kaul grew up in a tiny town in southern Indiana, but had an itch to see the world. Riding her pinto horse, Beauty, bareback provided her a temporary sense of escape. She was the first in her family to go to college despite pushback from her parents.
Freelancing for Chicago’s Star Publications, a small group of newspapers, was Kaul’s first big break. She commuted on a crowded expressway from her home in Arlington Heights to Chicago Heights until she was hired full-time.
John Murphy, Kaul’s mentor who worked as darkroom process manager, was in awe of her passion and commitment to her job all while raising three children as a single mother.
“If you have to ask Rosemary how she did it, you’ll never do it,” he said. “Because you have to be born with it, struck with it, bitten by a muse. She was just really interested in everything about photojournalism and she could not get enough.”
By 1982, the L.A. Times poached Kaul.
There, she flourished. Kaul was among the first photographers in the streets when the Rodney King verdict was announced. She captured images showing the rage of those congregated near the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters in Downtown L.A. Her colleague Mel Melcon helped her return to the office just in time for him to get photos of the crowd smashing the windows of The Times’ first-floor offices.
A dead, oil-soaked bird is pulled from the water off Knight Island in April 1989.
(Rosemary Kaul / Los Angeles Times)
Her photograph of the first oil-coated bird found in Prince William Sound in Alaska, illustrating the disaster caused by oil tanker Exxon Valdez, earned her a World Press Photo award.
Following the riots, The Times created the City Times, a weekly publication to cover L.A.’s inner cities. Kaul volunteered to serve as photo editor and became a mentor to the new generation of photojournalists.
Family, friends and colleagues were quick to highlight Kaul’s natural ability to connect with her sources.
Bob Chamberlin, a Times colleague, said he sometimes got the sense she suffered whenever she told a story because she cared that deeply about her sources and carried their feelings, too.
In one instance, Kaul interviewed a mother who was baby-sitting six children so their moms could go to work. The woman, Chamberlin recalled, described feeling the happiest in her life.
“To us white guys, this woman looked like she was disadvantaged,” Chamberlain said. “She’s a migrant, she’s probably illegal. She’s living in freakin’ L.A. and she’s stuck all day inside a tenant slum apartment with a bunch of kids. And that looked like it was rigorous, set-upon, dangerous living. And Rosemary put a human face on that made it approachable and understandable.”
Readers felt similarly. Some wrote to The Times, imploring them to dedicate more space to stories from the inner cities, an area often viewed with a negative lens.
“All we ever read about predominantly African-American neighborhoods are shootings at liquor stores, quarrels with Koreans, drug abuse and police brutality,” wrote Jan Kovaleski in 1991. “I’m aware that all this is real and exists and needs to be told, but for the well-being of young black kids growing up in poor neighborhoods, there needs to be another story told also — the story of mothers and families and neighbors that care about doing something good and positive.”
Angry crowds demonstrate near LAPD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots in 1992.
(Rosemary Kaul / Los Angeles Times)
An LAPD officer stands guard on Florence Avenue the morning after the L.A. riots.
(Rosemary Kaul / Los Angeles Times)
As photo editor for City Times, Kaul gave Francine Orr her big break.
Orr’s first assignment was to photograph a woman in front of her razed home. Standing in front of the rubble, the woman broke into tears and asked Orr to refrain from taking her picture until she could compose herself. The green photojournalist obliged.
Kaul, a veteran journalist, was livid with Orr’s work and told her to document the truth before her.
“She was a tough editor, and she was the right editor for me and her words were the right words for me in that moment,” said Orr, now an award-winning photojournalist with The Times. “And every single day since that day, I have Rosemary’s voice in my head, reminding me that even if I’m confronted with really difficult things, to do my job — and my job is to document the truth, document what’s right in front of me, even though it can be a very difficult as a photojournalist to do your job.”
Kaul later sought out a trusted colleague to mentor Orr because she didn’t have the time to do it herself.
In 1994, Kaul ended her career with The Times. She took a buyout once her migraines were too difficult to manage with her workload.
Always looking for her next creative outlet, Kaul pivoted to homebuilding. She researched Earthships and straw bale construction.
Kaul found her ideal place to build a home miles away from the closest town in New Mexico. Solar architects helped execute a blueprint for her eco-friendly home, and she built a straw bale house with solar electricity and passive solar heat.
“My mom jumped into everything with both feet. There was no halfway of doing anything,” Garrison said.
While living in New Mexico, she helped establish a community garden and briefly worked for the Albuquerque Tribune before health problems forced her to leave.
Later, she lived in a tent in Yosemite for a season until she moved in with Garrison in San Gabriel.
As her health continued to decline, Kaul took up oil painting and mixed natural elements such as pieces of wood into her artwork. Colleagues and friends stayed in touch with her over the years, sharing their latest photo work or treating her to lunch.
“Nothing stood in her way,” said Al Seib, a colleague who first worked with Kaul in Chicago and later L.A. “Rosemary is a tour de force story, a history that’s [not often found] in our lifetime.”
Now a mother herself, Garrison is hoping to lead in her mother’s example and follow her heart.
“Follow your passion and it’ll all figure itself out,” Garrison said. “She just really wanted you to do it. To not waste your life or wait for something.”
In addition to Garrison, Kaul is survived by two other children, Greg and David; and her brother, Bill Messenger.
Jim Ober, a longtime member of PPAGLA who served on the board for many years, passed away peacefully overnight at his home in Simi Valley, according to his wife Jeanette. Jim’s service on the board began around 1972 and continued intermittently until 2022. He served as President in 1984, and as Treasurer for many years. More information will be posted when available.
Exciting News from PPAGLA! Get ready for a thrilling lineup of events throughout the year.
First up, we have the much-awaited 2023 Annual Awards Presentation on March 19, 2023, where we will celebrate the best of the best in the photography world.
We have more in store for you. Are you a student eager to showcase your work to experienced photojournalists? Then our Student Portfolio Review event is perfect for you! Get valuable feedback and critique from seasoned professionals.
We know legal issues can be daunting, especially for photographers. That's why we're bringing in a legal firm that specializes in copyright law to help you navigate these murky waters. Join us for our Legal Seminar and get all your burning questions answered.
And what better way to welcome the spring season than with a delightful picnic? Mingle with fellow members, and get your hands on the latest Just One More book showcasing the remarkable work seen in the 2023 Awards and beyond.
Stay tuned for more details on these events and more exciting happenings from PPAGLA. We can't wait to see you there! Sign up below for an email alert as these events come together.
Mark your calendars! The PPAGLA Annual Awards Banquet will be LIVE and IN PERSON this year at the Zimmerman Automobile Driving Museum on Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 11 a.m.!
Details:
March 19th, 2023
Social hour 11 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Awards Ceremony 12 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Raffle drawings throughout!
We'll be sending out digital invitations in the following weeks with a link to register for the ceremony and to buy raffle tickets. You won't want to miss out on our prizes and silent auction items!
Click here to purchase tickets - https://www.ppagla.org/banquet
Our 2022 Q3 contest for professional members is open for submissions! Be sure to check out our updated rules regarding editing, found on page 7 of our rules PDF.
Also remember that to enter in our POY portfolio contest at the end of the year, you need to have submitted work to at least TWO of our quarterly contests.
Can't wait to see your work! All entries are due by SATURDAY, APRIL 30TH.
View rules and enter the Q1 contest at this link: https://www.ppagla.org/quarterly-stills-contest
Contact contests@ppagla.org with any questions.
Our 2022 Q1 contest for professional members is open for submissions! Be sure to check out our updated rules regarding editing, found on page 7 of our rules PDF.
Also remember that to enter in our POY portfolio contest at the end of the year, you need to have submitted work to at least TWO of our quarterly contests.
Can't wait to see your work! All entries are due by SATURDAY, APRIL 30TH.
View rules and enter the Q1 contest at this link: https://www.ppagla.org/quarterly-stills-contest
Contact contests@ppagla.org with any questions.
DEADLINE APPROACHING! APRIL 17th
RTNA Broadcast Journalism Scholarships up to $1500
The Radio and Television News Association of Southern California for more than 4 decades has worked to support the next generation of broadcast journalists through its annual scholarship. Since the late 1970s, the RTNA has awarded more than $180,000 in Scholarships to hundreds of college students.
Any student whose career objective is broadcast journalism and who currently is studying at sophomore level or above at an accredited Southern California college or university is eligible. Scholarship winners will be announced in early May and will be presented with their scholarships at our annual Golden Mike Awards® ceremony on Saturday, May 21st at the Hilton Universal.
APPLY TODAY!
Deadline is April 17, 2022
For more information
Visit the RTNA website www.rtnasocal.org
Contact: Ernie Castelo - Scholarship Chair
(949) 278-8349
scholarship@rtna.org
RTNA Office
(562) 987-4545
info@rtna.org
Members are now welcome to submit to the annual stills and video contest. Entries are due at 11:59pm Sunday, Jan 23, 2022.
Those entering the Photographer of the Year contest must have participated in the quarterly contests. For this year you can still enter at least one frame in the Q4 contest to qualify. You can submit to the Q4 contest by 11:59pm Sunday, Jan 23, 2022. Details are in the next section below. Our intent is to have members share their work year round, build our photographic community, and help educate the next generation through our web galleries and publications.
View rules and enter the professional and student contests at this link - https://www.ppagla.org/annual-contest-rules
Contact contests@ppagla.org with any questions.
Thanks to Canon for sponsoring the Videographer of the Year Award
Thanks to Nikon for sponsoring the Photographer of the Year Award
Entries for the Q4 clip contest are being accepted until 11:59pm Sunday, Jan 23, 2022.
View rules and enter the Q4 contest at this link -
https://www.ppagla.org/quarterly-stills-contest
Contact contests@ppagla.org with any questions.
Hello PPAGLA family!
Thanks to all who attended our first Holiday Picnic Party last Saturday! Over 60 PPAGLA members, guests, friends, families, and dogs celebrated our new yearbook, and dined together on a festive picnic lunch wearing antlers and Santa hats. We even had some new members join our wonderful group!
Happy Holidays!
Your PPAGLA Leadership Team
PPAGLA member Chester Brown of Burbank, passed away on September 22, 2021, just 4 days shy of his 71th birthday. He was born September 26, 1950. According to the Burbank Fire Department, Brown was found dead at his home following surgery the day before.
Chester Brown joined the PPAGLA in 2015 as an independent still and video photographer. Brown was described as a gifted fire action photographer. He regularly contributed photos to the Los Angeles Fire Department and would frequently photograph airplanes at the Burbank airport, according to PPAGLA member Mike Meadows.
Brian Humphrey, Firefighter/Specialist - Public Service Officerwith the Los Angeles Fire Department, had the following comments: "To describe Chester as gifted and beloved would be an understatement. Like many in the fire service, we came to know Chester as both an amateur radio operator and an action photographer, two passions that he effectively intertwined for the good of our community. Though Chester had a great ear, a welcomed voice, and an eagle eye, he will always be remembered by first responders for his deeply caring heart. Indeed, there remains no greater affirmation of our effectiveness at the scene of an emergency, than to have heard the click of a shutter and have Chester quietly say ‘Got It’. While saddened by his untimely passing, we are grateful to know that Chester's photographs and mentorship will continue to inspire emergency action photographers for generations to come."
Brown had worked as an Emergency Management Specialist at the U.S. Government Veterans Affairs Medical Center. After his retirement, he volunteered there frequently. Of course, he was a proud veteran.
Brown was also an amateur radio operator with the call sign K6CRB, which included his initials, akin to a vanity plate for amateur radio operators. He was active in Burbank BEARS (Burbank Emergency Amateur Radio Service) and was a long-time member of another radio group, the Southern California Monitoring Association.
Chester Brown is survived by three sons - Jeffery Brown, Kevin Brown, Christopher Brown - and two daughters - Beverly Brown and Jennifer Brown.
The holidays are here and so are the yearbooks.
Come celebrate at the PPAGLA holiday picnic party! We’ll have food and you’re welcome to bring your favorite holiday dish.
When: Saturday, Dec 18 from 11:00am - 1:30pm
Where: Kenneth Hahn State Recreational Area (we’ll pinpoint the exact spot & let you know via RSVP for updates).
4100 S. La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90008
Bring your friends, family, and even the dog! Wear your holiday garb.
Vaccinations required to attend.
Bill Beebe died October 24th at his home in Los Angeles. He was 94.
Bill was a member of the Press Photographers Association of Greater Los Angeles for more than 60 years. Bill served as president in 1963 and served on the Board of Directors for an additional ten years.
Bill was one of the dinosaurs that ruled the news business. His peers included Ben Olender, Larry Sharkey and Art Rogers, all of the Los Angeles Times. Bill was the last man standing. All are gone now.
Bill’s most famous photo was shot in 1962, when he worked for the Los Angeles Times. It showed President John F. Kennedy as he stood in the surf surrounded by admirers at Santa Monica beach. The photo was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Bill used a Rolleiflex and strobe with a 510-volt battery, and remember, he was standing in the surf to shoot the photo.
In 2002, Bill was honored by the PPAGLA with a Lifetime Achievement Award. At the time Bill said, “My job was my hobby. Didn’t make much money, but I made a lot of friends and had a lot of fun.”
Bill was born in Los Angeles and moved to Santa Monica as a young kid. He enlisted in the US Navy while still in high school. In 1946, he was one of the first students to major in photography at what then was Santa Monica City College.
Following his graduation, he started his career at Emerson Gaze’s Pacific Press Photos, a group of photographers who provided images to local news organizations.
Later, Bill spent ten years working at the Los Angeles Mirror, which merged with the Los Angeles Times. He stayed at the Times as a staff photographer until 1963.
Bill moved to the Santa Monica Evening Outlook in the 1960s. He spent the next three decades covering assignments in the bay cities.
Bill retained the rights to the images he produced while working for the Evening Outlook, and, upon the newspaper’s closure in 1998, generously donated his collection of over 100,000 negatives to the Santa Monica History Museum. When PPAGLA membership director, Rick Meyer, searched the Museum’s photo archive, he found in minutes Bill’s photos of gangster Mickey Cohen, baseball great Babe Ruth, and President John F Kennedy, not all in the same frame.
Bill was an environmentalist before the term was invented, devoting countless time to documenting and protecting the Ballona Wetlands.
Bill was also an avid hunter and fisherman. So, here is a fish tale. Bill, covering for Western Outdoor News, was sent on a fishing assignment to Baja Mexico. A photographer from Sports Illustrated was along as well for the trip. The Sports Illustrated photog was so drunk during the trip, that Sports Illustrated used Bill’s art instead of that of their staffer. Bill said that was the crowning achievement in his career.
PPAGLA member Richard Mackson described Bill as “My mentor who taught me the Journalism business.” He went on to say that “When I was just 18-years-old, Bill was editor of the weekend tabloid, Outlook West. Bill did a story about me and the USC vs. UCLA football game. He gave me the cover and six pages inside on how an 18-year-old covered the big game. Bill insisted that I use the coverage in my portfolio when I applied to Sports Illustrated. His advice and mentoring helped me land a contract position with Sports Illustrated.”
PPAGLA member Robert E. Clark also fondly remembers Bill: “Bill Beebe was The Outlook's outdoor sports' men (hunting, fishing, sailing, all things outdoors) columnist. I worked with Bill for thirteen years as the photo editor. Bill had free reign as a traditional 'combo' man. (He wrote and photographed the story). He was also known for the variety and quality of his personal photographic gear which outpaced The Outlook's equipment by a mile.”
“Bill was affable, engaging, and prone to offering up random observations on the day-to-day look of The Outlook. He was a spot news junkie. One October day, a small plane crashed into a house on the street he resided on. When I arrived at the scene, several minutes after the crash, fire trucks were still rolling in to control the flames; Bill handed me five rolls of exposed Tri-x film and said, "Here! It's covered!” I cleared the scene. He was first on the scene, and that was excellent for our readers and me. He was a good guy.”
Mackson sums up Bill’s career in this way: “He was probably one of the best news photographers around. He had a nose for news and the skills to produce pictures in all conditions.”
In the 1970s, Bill Beebe hosted the Association’s “fish fry” held at Paradise Cove in Malibu. Bill caught the fish, the Association provided the beer. Many PPAGLA members hoped that the CHP or Sheriff’s Department would not set up a DUI checkpoint on PCH.
Roger Vargo, PPAGLA Past President, shared darkroom facilities with Bill at the Evening Outlook in the late 1970s. He recalled how Bill had a wealth of stories as well as anecdotes about the people he interviewed and those in whose social circles he traveled. He remembers Bill as being involved in many “manly” activities such as hunting, sport shooting, and deep-sea fishing. Bill’s shaved head was always well tanned from being out in the sun.
“Bill was an asset to his profession and community, and I’m a better person for having known and worked with him,” said Vargo.
Bill is survived by his wife of 71 years, Sonya, and daughter Suzann Peterson, son Bill (Wm.) Beebe and also grandson Brett Beebe, granddaughter Krista Beebe and niece Denise Silfies.
Congratulations to long-time Press Photographers Association of Greater Los Angeles (PPAGLA) member Ringo Chiu whose photos are part of the Associated Press Team that has won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. Ringo’s photos were part of a collection of photographs from multiple U.S. cities that cohesively captured the country’s response to the death of George Floyd.
Ringo has been a dedicated member of our photojournalism community for many years and has also served as an esteemed member of our PPAGLA Board of Directors. Throughout his career, Ringo has worked tirelessly documenting historical moments in greater Los Angeles as well as around the world, and the PPAGLA celebrates our colleague and friend in this wonderful achievement.
Associated Press photographer Ringo H.W. Chiu, left, celebrates with his wife, Suki, after watching the announcement of the Pulitzer Prizes via video conferencing from Los Angeles Friday, June 11, 2021. Chiu is one of ten AP photographers who won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
PPAGLA Members: take back your weekends! Speed up your workflow and shave minutes or even hours from your process time with Photo Mechanic. Learn best practices for ingesting, culling, and organizing your photos with this hour long working session, including live Q&A with Mick O. from Camera Bits. Learn the interface and features of the program used around the world by photographers to hit deadlines every time. At the end of the session, PPAGLA members will be given a discount code for this incredible program.
