Wednesday night Aperture held an event for RISC (Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues), which trains and equips freelance journalists in all media to treat life-threatening injuries in conflict zones. RISC was founded in 2012, by Sebastian Junger the critically acclaimed journalist and best-selling author widely known for his book The Perfect Storm.
While reporters at major venues are often provided training by their employers, freelancers have to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket to participate in traditional hostile environment courses. Freelancers comprise both the vast majority of those who cover wars and the vast majority of deaths and injuries from those zones. It is the organizations mission to properly equip and train reporters so that unnecessary death can be avoided such as the death of Junger’s friend Tim Hetherington.
To help fund the initiative, RISC held an online auction featuring 46 photographers whose chosen works varied from beach photography to cityscapes.
The event opened with a talk between Junger and Susan Meiselas a Magnum photographer and the Magnum Foundations president. Junger talked of his friendship with photographer Tim Hetherington the man whose death inspired RISC and his profound respect for Hetherington’s works, passion, and bravery.
Susan Meiselas and Sebastian Junger during the party at Aperture.
Meiselas added to this discussion and spoke of her experiences as a journalist covering war and stressing the importance of photojournalists and their community. The auctions curator Anna Van Lenten chose powerful images provoking emotion which punctuated the evening and RISC’s mission.
See some of the images below:
© Susan Meiselas, Muchachos await at the counterattack by the National Guard. Matagalpa, Nicaragua
© Roger Ballen, Crying Boy, 2012
© Thomas Dworzak, Lips.
© Ramin Talaie, Water Dancehires
All event images by Paula Rey Jiménez
