About Our Website

The Photo Journals was borne out of an idea that came to me while setting up another website that I created a couple of years ago, namely nikongear.com. Part of what I had hoped to achieve with nikongear.com was the creation of a repository of information related to my favourite brand of camera, but it morphed into a forum that focusses mostly on the images that people take with their Nikons.

During 2006 I asked the members of the Nikongear forum if they had any contributions they would like to make to a new section of the site that I was planning to develop specifically for photojournalism. One guy sent me a short article on a trip he had made earlier that year to (of all places) the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. I was figuratively blown away by the images Mark Resnicoff sent me of the area where 20 years ago, the world witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history.

I had initially asked Mark to keep the article to around a thousand words, but after reading his email about how he came to visit Chernobyl, I was enthralled and told him he could make the story as long as he liked. We came to an agreement on sharing whatever advertising revenue the article might earn while it was published on the ever-growing nikongear.com and since then his 4000-odd word article entitled "Chernobyl: 20 years later" has been read by tens of thousands of visitors to nikongear.com.

The plan with this site is to promote photojournalism as a pliable trade by creating a (hopefully) financially viable platform on which to showcase material from PJ's all over the world. Once published these articles become assets to both the site and the author who originally wrote them because they continue to draw a new audience every day, which in turn means they have the potential to generate revenue from advertisers whose material we feature on each page. This translates into royalty payments to the author for as long as the articles remain published here.

Why "photojournalism"? I don't know what it is about the photo essay that appeals to me most, but it's like you are being transported into a new world through the eyes of someone else. I suppose its a form of travel where all you have to do is open your mind and let yourself be carried away to wherever the author takes you.

I really hope that you enjoy this site and if you are a photojournalist interested in submitting work to us, just read our contribution guidelines page on how to go about it.

Enjoy.

Dallas Dahms
Founding Editor