John White

Photographer, Chicago Sun-Times

RCCongress 2010 Workshop topic:

White joined the staff of the Chicago Sun-Times in 1978 and still works there today. He also teaches photojournalism at Columbia College Chicago, and formerly taught at Northwestern University. In 1973 and 1974 White worked for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project photographing Chicago and its African American community. White's photographs show the difficulties facing residents as well as their spirit and pride.

White was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Photojournalism in 1982 for his "consistently excellent work on a variety of subjects." He was selected as a photographer for the 1990 project Songs of My People. White has also won three National Headliner Awards, was the first photographer inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame, was awarded the Chicago Press Photographer Association's Photographer of the Year award five times, and, in 1999, received the Chicago Medal of Merit.

Hal Buell, the former head of the Associated Press Photography Service, noted that White is one of the best photographers at capturing the everyday vignette. White has said that he lives by three words: faith, focus, flight. "I'm faithful to my purpose, my mission, my assignment, my work, my dreams. I stay focused on what I'm doing and what's important. And I keep in flight – I spread my wings and do it."

The Soul of Photojournalism

Legendary photographer John White will just share his journey from his first 50 cent camera to the Pulitzer Prize to covering President Obama. He will show us moments from everyday life, sharing glimpses from birth to death and everything in between and a few visual moments of how and where he sees God through pictures.