Lecture-Concert Series opens with Dirck Halstead, top photojournalist

Sept. 11, 2008 -- World-renowned TIME magazine photojournalist, educator, and media innovator Dirck Halstead is the featured speaker in the first event of Arkansas State University’s Lecture-Concert Series. Halstead will present “Moments in TIME: Photos and Stories from One of America’s Top Photojournalists,” a multi-media show and lecture on Monday, Sept. 22, at 7 p.m. in the ASU Student Union Auditorium, 101 N. Caraway Road, Jonesboro.

This event, like all events in the Lecture-Concert Series, is free and open to the public. The lecture is co-sponsored by the ASU Department of Journalism, the President’s Partnership Fund, and Canon U.S.A.’s Explorers of Light program. Halstead will be available to sign copies of his book, “Moments in Time: Photos and Stories from One of America's Top Photojournalists” after the lecture. The book is in stock at the ASU Bookstore.

With 54 TIME magazine covers to his credit, Halstead is one of the most gifted photojournalists of the era. “Moments in TIME” is an evocative and memorable event, recalling the triumphs, turmoil, tragedies, and joys of the closing decades of the twentieth century and the beginnings of the twenty-first century. One of Halstead’s most memorable photos is the famous picture of Bill Clinton hugging the beret-wearing Monica Lewinsky.

At the age of 17, Halstead became Life magazine's youngest combat photographer, covering the Guatemalan Civil War. After college, he worked for UPI for more than 15 years, covering stories around the world. In 1972, he accepted a contract from TIME magazine, and for the next 29 years covered the White House for them. In 1992, Halstead played an instrumental part in the formation of Video News International (VNI)allowing still photojournalists to cross the barrier between print and television.

After his retirement from TIME, Halstead founded The Digital Journalist (www.digitaljournalist.org), a monthly online magazine for visual journalists. The Digital Journalist is the most recognized and among the earliest multi-media journalism publications. The Digital Journalist is read by more than 15 million world-wide. Halstead also developed a reputation as a "special still photographer" in Hollywood. His photographs of such films as “Goodfellas,” “Shaft,” and “Memphis Belle” became the images used for posters and other advertising.

In 1975, Halstead won the Robert Capa Gold Medal awarded by the Overseas Press Club for his coverage of the fall of Saigon. He has won the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) Picture of the Year award twice, and he has won two Eisie Awards from the Columbia University School of Journalism. In 2002, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the White House News Photographers Association (WHNPA); and in 2004 he was honored with the Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award. The University of Missouri presented him with the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism in 2007.

Halstead is also famous for the Platypus workshops, described as “high-definition storytelling for journalists, photojournalists, editors, and producers.” He will present a two-day Platypus workshop on Monday and Tuesday, Sept. 22-23, in ASU's College of Communications, Room 218. The workshop is open to students and professionals, but seating is limited. For information on the workshop, call Dr. Jack Zibluk, associate professor of journalism, at (870) 972-3255, or click here.

Halstead is currently a senior fellow in photojournalism at the Center For American History at the University of Texas in Austin, and he teaches the new visual journalism in the School of Journalism there. He is also a consultant in digital imaging for Hewlett Packard and serves on the Board of Advisors at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Ca.

For more details, contact Dr. Gil Fowler, associate dean for the Honors College, at (870) 972-2308, or via e-mail at gfowler@astate.edu.The Lecture-Concert Series presents diverse programs to enrich the cultural life of the campus, community, and region.
           

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