President's Message
By Alan Capper

April 2007

Photojournalist Tim Fadek Shows the face of War on 'First Wednesday.'

Our most successful 'First Wednesday' at the Players Club was held on March 7th with over 50 members attending. For the first time at these events we had a speaker, and one that held the attention of the audience throughout his 45 minute presentation, and through the lively question and answer session that followed.

Timothy Fadek is an award-winning photojournalist whose work has been featured in leading news magazines around the world. He is also a photojournalist who has deliberately sought out the trouble spots of the world, and showed us some of his work from those assignments.

He began with 9/11, and even though we have all seen many pictures of that event his pictures of exhausted and dust covered FDNY officers looking like soldiers after a battle reminded us that this was an act of war.

We then went to his pictures from Iraq, covering the early military victory, and then the wounded soldiers, and the agonized Iraqi people. Some of these pictures were truly shocking, and a reminder that much of what we see is sanitized, His picture, not always clear and in focus, capture a moment of horror or fear or happiness which has demanded an immediate response from the camera.

Timothy's next set of pictures covered Lebanon after the Israeli bombing attacks, and somehow the black and white pictures of the devastated areas were more shocking than the pictures that we had seen on television.

His photographs of the West Bank showing stone throwing youths and bereaved families, underline the misery of this situation for both sides. When taken to task by a Jewish member of the audience for being anti-Israeli. He replied that he had not taken pictures of the Israeli side of the conflict, and he wanted to have a full discussion of the pictures, including criticism where members wished to make it.

His final photographic essay was a complete black and white study of Juarez, Mexico, and the appalling fate which hs befallen a number of women dancers in some of the seedy clubs there. Many of them have gone missing and subsequently found to have been murdered. These crimes remain unsolved, and the pictures gave us a sense of a twilight world of danger and exploitation.

The lively and good humored question and answer session that followed showed that although the subjects of Timothy's pictures were not designed to be a joyous viewing experience, they, and the techniques involver were certainly of interest to his fellow journalists in the audience on that Wednesday evening.

Alan Capper