Pete Muller (photographer)

Last updated
Pete Muller
Muller Pete Wiki.jpg
Muller in Melut, central Sudan 2010
Born
Peter Kelly Muller

(1982-02-17) February 17, 1982 (age 42)
Newton, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation(s)Photographer, producer, professor, researcher
Years active2005-present

Pete Muller is an American photographer, filmmaker, visual artist and professor based in New York City and Portland, Maine. His work focuses on masculinity, conflict and human ecology. He has won awards from World Press Photo, [1] Pictures of the Year International, [2] The Overseas Press Club [3] and others. He is a current storytelling fellow at the National Geographic Society.

Contents

Muller is a contributing photographer to The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic Magazine and other leading photographic outlets. He has provided media support for human rights and development organizations such as the International Criminal Court, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UNICEF, Norwegian People's Aid and others.

During 2020-21, Muller co-produced the critically acclaimed documentary film, The First Wave , with Director Matthew Heineman which chronicles the harrowing initial months of the COVID crisis in New York City. The film was acquired and distributed by National Geographic and shortlisted for the 94th Academy Awards. [4] The First Wave won three Emmy Awards in 2022, including Best Documentary. [5]

Life and work

Muller was born in Massachusetts and grew up between that state and New Jersey. His mother was a newspaper photographer working for the Lynn Daily Evening Item, the Lynn Sunday Post, the Beach Haven Times and other outlets. His father was the art conservator for the Princeton University Art Museum. His parents pursuits introduced him to a mix of documentary photography and conventional fine art which heavily influenced his photographic approach. His maternal grandfather, Leon Kelly, was one of the pioneers of Surrealist painting in the United States. [6]

Muller earned a bachelor's degree from the American University in Washington D.C. where he studied history and international peace and conflict resolution. [7] He focused on the historical origins of contemporary ethnic conflict with particular interest in Israeli-Palestinian affairs, former Yugoslavia and the Caucasus; and social constructions of masculinity.

Muller's professional career began in 2005 with the Maan News Agency in the Palestinian Territories where he worked as a reporter and editor covering events in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip including Israeli settlement construction, Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, and the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections and the subsequent international boycott of the Hamas-led government.

He has since covered political and social issues in northern Uganda, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo and other conflict-affected areas. From 2009-2012 he was based in Juba, South Sudan covering the country's transition to independence following decades of civil war. In addition to chronicling the political issues surrounding secession, he explored the tenuous national identity of the new South. [8] This work is born of Muller's long-standing interest in nation-states, identity and conflict in post-colonial environments. From 2012-2020, he was based in Nairobi, Kenya where he covered events throughout sub-Saharan Africa, including the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-2015. [9]

Social notions of masculinity and their impacts on male life is a consistent theme in Muller's work. For many years, this lens served as a component of his desire to understand interpersonal and collective forms of violence, much of which is committed by males. [10] But over time, his interest broadened beyond violence and focused more on masculinity as a powerful social framework that affects nearly all aspects of how boys and men construct their lives and relationships. [11] Today, he seeks to create work that explores the vast, complex and diverse landscape of male experiences. [12]

In 2017, Muller was named Photographer of the Year by Pictures of the Year International (PoYI) for his extensive body of work examining boyhood experiences across the world. [13] The acclaimed work included comparative photographic and reporting case studies from Kenya, Ukraine, El Salvador, and multiple locations in the United States and was published in a special issue of National Geographic Magazine devoted to issues of gender. The issue was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in the category of Explanatory Reporting. [14]

Muller also chronicles the relationship between people and their environments. From 2017-2020, he undertook a global survey of the concept of solastalgia for National Geographic Magazine. [15] This work aims to enhance social discourse on the emotional impacts of major forms of environmental degradation. [16]

In 2011 his work on mobile military tribunals that aim to reduce mass rape in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo was included in the Open Society Foundations Moving Walls 19 Documentary Photography Exhibit. [17] That same year he was recognized as the "Wire Photographer of the Year" by Time Magazine for his coverage of events in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other regions of sub-Saharan Africa. “In an intellectual sense, I hope that it [the coverage] underscores the challenges of national identity and nation-states that exists in countless countries across the world and has, for centuries, been the source of immense bloodshed,” Muller told Time Magazine. [18]

In 2014 Muller collaborated with the Nobel Women's Initiative to chronicle and elevate the work of Congolese women activists in the country's embattled east. This collaboration culminated in an expansive exhibition at the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict in London hosted by British Prime Minister William Hague and Angelina Jolie. [19]

In 2017 and 2018, he served as the Cyrus Vance Visiting Professor of International Relations at Mount Holyoke College in western Massachusetts. [20] His courses examine the subjectivity of narrative in conflict and the role of visual media as a fraught yet essential means of communication.


Awards

Related Research Articles

The Bang-Bang Club was a group of four conflict photographers, Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich, Ken Oosterbroek, and João Silva, active within the townships of South Africa between 1990 and 1994 during the transition from the apartheid system to democracy. This period included much factional violence, particularly fighting between African National Congress and Inkatha Freedom Party supporters, after the lifting of the bans on both political parties. The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and other groups were also involved in the violence.

Marcus Terence Luke Bleasdale is a British photojournalist. His books include One Hundred Years of Darkness (2003), The Rape of a Nation (2009) and The Unravelling (2015). Bleasdale was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to international photojournalism and human rights.

Altaf Qadri is a Kashmiri photojournalist presently working with the Associated Press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Skerry</span> American film producer and photojournalist

Brian Skerry is an American photojournalist and film producer specializing in marine life and ocean environments. Since 1998 he has been a contributing photographer for National Geographic magazine with more than 30 stories to his credit, including seven covers. In 2021 Skerry won a Primetime Emmy Award for his role as producer in the miniseries, Secrets of the Whales.

Stephen Alvarez is an American photojournalist. He is founder and president of the Ancient Art Archive, a global initiative to record, preserve, and share high-resolution images of ancient artwork. Throughout his career, he has produced global stories about exploration and culture. He became a National Geographic photographer in 1995. His pictures have won awards in Pictures of the Year International and Communications Arts and have been exhibited at Visa Pour L’Image International Photojournalism Festival in Perpignan, France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pete Souza</span> American photographer (born 1954)

Peter Joseph Souza is an American photojournalist, the former chief official White House photographer for Presidents of the United States Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama and the former director of the White House Photography Office. He was a photographer with The Chicago Tribune, stationed at the Washington, D.C., bureau from 1998 to 2007; during this period, he also followed the rise of then-Senator Obama to the presidency.

Adam Ferguson is an Australian freelance photographer who lives in New York City. His commissioned work has appeared in New York, Time, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Wired, and National Geographic, among others. Ferguson's work focuses on conflict and on civilians caught amidst geopolitical forces. His portraits of various head's of state have appeared on numerous Time covers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynsey Addario</span> American photojournalist (born 1973)

Lynsey Addario is an American photojournalist. Her work often focuses on conflicts and human rights issues, especially the role of women in traditional societies. In 2022, she received a Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF).

Daniel Berehulak is an Australian photographer and photojournalist based in Mexico City. He is a staff photographer of The New York Times and has visited more than 60 countries covering contemporary issues.

Goran Tomašević, is a Serbian photographer. Working for The Globe and Mail since May 2022, he has spent more than 30 years travelling around the globe to cover the world's biggest stories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olivier Laban-Mattei</span>

Olivier Laban-Mattei is a French documentary photographer, photojournalist and film director. He won 3 World Press Photo awards.

Matt Black is an American documentary photographer whose work has focused on issues of poverty, migration, and the environment. He is a full member of Magnum Photos. Black's first book, American Geography, was published in 2021 and was exhibited at Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Probal Rashid</span> Bangladeshi journalist

Probal Rashid is a Bangladeshi documentary photographer and photojournalist based in Washington, D.C. He is a contributor photographer at Getty images. His work has appeared in several magazines and newspapers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pete Oxford</span> British photographer

Pete Oxford is a British-born conservation photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa, after living in Quito, Ecuador for several years. Originally trained as a marine biologist, he and his wife, South African-born Reneé Bish, now work as a professional photographic team focusing primarily on wildlife and indigenous cultures.

Moises Saman is a Spanish-Peruvian photographer, based in Tokyo. He is considered "one of the leading conflict photographers of his generation" and is a full member of Magnum Photos. Saman is best known for his photographs from Iraq. His book Discordia (2016) is about the revolution in Egypt and the broader Arab Spring. Glad Tidings of Benevolence (2023) is about the Iraq War.

Will Burrard-Lucas, is a British wildlife photographer and entrepreneur. He is known for developing devices, such as BeetleCam and camera traps, which enable him to capture close-up photographs of wildlife.

The Siena International Photo Awards (SIPAContest) is a photography competition for professional, amateur and student photographers from around the world. It is judged by an international panel of experts that includes renowned photographers, editors and photography collectors. First presented in 2015, by their second year the awards and the associated Siena Awards Festival in Siena, Italy, were considered prestigious.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photography in Sudan</span>

Photography in Sudan refers to both historical as well as to contemporary photographs taken in the cultural history of today's Republic of the Sudan. This includes the former territory of present-day South Sudan, as well as what was once Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and some of the oldest photographs from the 1860s, taken during the Turkish-Egyptian rule (Turkiyya). As in other countries, the growing importance of photography for mass media like newspapers, as well as for amateur photographers has led to a wider photographic documentation and use of photographs in Sudan during the 20th century and beyond. In the 21st century, photography in Sudan has undergone important changes, mainly due to digital photography and distribution through social media and the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">K M Asad</span> Bangladeshi photojournalist

Khandaker Muhammad Asad, known as K M Asad, is a Bangladeshi documentary photographer and photojournalist. He is currently a photojournalist at Zuma Press news agency and contributor photographer for Getty images.

Ala Kheir is a Sudanese photographer, cinematographer and mechanical engineer. He became known as one of the founders of the Sudanese Photographers Group in Khartoum in 2009 and through international exhibitions of his photographs, as well as for networking and training for photographers in Africa.

References

  1. ↑ "2015 Pete Muller GNS1-AJ | World Press Photo". Worldpressphoto.org. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  2. ↑ "First Place | Photographer of the Year". Poy.org. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  3. ↑ "The John Faber Award 2011". Opcofamerica.org. 25 April 2012. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  4. ↑ Laffly, Tomris (8 October 2021). "'The First Wave' Review: A Courageous Cinematic Time Capsule That Captures How New York City Dealt With the Early Horrors of the COVID-19 Crisis". Variety.com. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  5. ↑ "The First Wave (2021) - Awards - IMDb". IMDb .
  6. ↑ "Leon Kelly - Biography, Shows, Articles & More".
  7. ↑ "History - Pete Muller". American.edu. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  8. ↑ Pete Muller (7 July 2011). "Into Existence: Southern Sudan on the Eve of Independence". Time.com. Archived from the original on July 9, 2011. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  9. ↑ "Photographer Returns From Ebola Zone With Searing Images, Memories". Nationalgeographic.com. 5 February 2015. Archived from the original on June 25, 2021. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  10. ↑ Pete Muller. "A Tale of Two Wolves: Men, Masculinity and Violence - Photographs and text by Pete Muller". LensCulture.com. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  11. ↑ "How Rites of Passage Shape Masculinity". Nationalgeographic.com. 19 December 2016. Archived from the original on April 18, 2021. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  12. ↑ "Photographer Pete Muller: Encouraging Men 'To Be Better than We've Been'". Ochre.is. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  13. ↑ "First Place | Photographer of the Year".
  14. ↑ www.pulitzer.org https://web.archive.org/web/20221208054619/https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/%7B%7Bglobal.pageCanocialUrl%7D%7D. Archived from the original on 2022-12-08. Retrieved 2024-03-02.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  15. ↑ "As climate change alters beloved landscapes, we feel the loss". Nationalgeorgraphic.com. 25 March 2020. Archived from the original on April 14, 2021. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  16. ↑ "Defining Reality And Giving Hope | Explorers Festival 2019". 27 June 2019. Retrieved 6 April 2022– via YouTube.
  17. ↑ "Open Society Foundations". Soros.org. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  18. ↑ "Pete Muller: TIME Picks the Best Photographer on the Wires". TIME. December 13, 2011.
  19. ↑ "Great public events in London at Global Summit 10-12 June". 30 May 2014.
  20. ↑ "Cyrus Vance Visiting Professor". Mount Holyoke College. 2017-01-11. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  21. ↑ Archived September 27, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  22. ↑ "26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards #glaadawards". Glaad.org. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  23. ↑ Archived March 6, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  24. ↑ "Pete Muller: TIME Picks the Best Photographer on the Wires". Time.com. 13 December 2011. Archived from the original on December 15, 2011. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  25. ↑ "Rape Trial". Chipp.cn. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  26. ↑ "Overseas Press Club Award Winners Announced". Time.com. 25 April 2012. Archived from the original on April 25, 2012. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  27. ↑ "OPENPhoto 2013 winner - Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA)". Osisa.org. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  28. ↑ "People". World Photography Organisation . Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  29. ↑ "Contemporary Issues". World Photography Organisation. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  30. ↑ Phil Bicker (22 January 2015). "TIME Exclusive: Magnum Emergency Fund Announces 2015 Grantees". Time.com. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  31. ↑ "2015, General News , 1st prize stories , Pete Muller". World Press Photo . Retrieved 15 February 2015.
  32. ↑ "First Place: Pete Muller: National Geographic". Pictures of the Year International . Retrieved 1 March 2015.
  33. ↑ "Photographer of the Year, First Place: Pete Muller". Pictures of the Year International . Retrieved 25 February 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.