Getty Images awards $130,000 worth of photography grants

Long-term photojournalism projects should be respected as a gift – an entry point to the depths of human existence. They take years of personal sacrifice to produce and are consumed in a matter of moments, but the message they carry can last for all time.

To help support those working to bring us closer to the source, Getty Images has awarded $130,000 worth of photography grants for editorial and portrait projects that carry a journalistic significance as part of the Visa Pour l’Image Festival in Perpignan, France.

Among those to receive a $10,000 grant for their work in photojournalism is Ohio-born photographer Krisanne Johnson, who’s long-term project on South Africa’s Post-Apartheid youth looks set to deepen over the coming year to cover life at every level of society.

Krisanne’s South African work, The Born Frees, is a natural follow-up to the time she spent in Swaziland producing I Love You Real Fast. Featured in Huck 46 – The Documentary Photography Speciall II – alongside a personal essay in which Krisanne reveals the questions that drive her work – it’s a coming-of-age portrait of the lives of teenage girls who are dealing with, but not defined by their battle with HIV.

So how did the two projects connect? Says Krisanne: “I’d been to South Africa in the late ’90s. It had been a meaningful experience to see a changing post-apartheid generation take shape. I had done a study abroad there and an internship. My plan was to return to visit friends and to chase love. But during an African language fellowship course in grad school, an assignment led me to research Swaziland – a country almost surrounded entirely by South Africa. The more I read, the more I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

Other photographers to receive a Getty grant include Giulio di Sturco, for his work on the Ganges, William Daniels, who’s been documenting a year of conflict in the Central African Republic, Laura Boushnak for her work on women in the Middle East, Jordi Busqué for his project on The Mennonites of Bolivia, and Juan Arredondo, who’s been documenting the child soldiers of Colombia.

Read Krisanne Johnson’s essay in Huck 46 – The Documentary Photography Special II, out September 8.

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