ABOUT US

Facing Change: Documenting America (FCDA), is a non-profit collective of acclaimed photographers and writers producing and publishing under-reported aspects of America’s most urgent issues and distributing this work via an innovative online platform while highlighting the efforts of individuals and organizations working to affect positive change.

At a time when America faces enormous challenges, FCDA is sending photographer/writer teams in to communities across America to vividly illustrate the nation’s most pressing concerns-from health care to immigration to the cost of the war on terror. The results are an unparalleled collection of visual and textual narratives accessible through an innovative online platform–called the Public Sphere–enabling direct dialogue with America on stories and issues. FCDA images are distributed via PhotoShelter, an active and searchable archive to newspapers, and magazines worldwide.

As media outlets yield to corporate considerations, they have narrowed their coverage of vital issues, FCDA is filling that gap by humanize a wide spectrum of neglected and misunderstood issues. For example, one team will follow veterans as they reintegrate into civilian life. Another will explore the current economic crisis and the decades-long downturn in the Rust Belt. Others will focus on forgotten corners like Hereford, Texas; Fayette, Mississippi, and Allen, South Dakota-places that rarely draw the nation’s attention.

To highlight these issues, FCDA has created an online “Public Sphere”, an interactive platform that hosts stories, images and multi-media pieces created by the teams. These stories are searchable through a series of issue-related US maps linking the public to FCDA photographers and writers, community nonprofits and individuals via active blogs, and comments sections. Fostering dialogue, the Public Sphere will empower communities and individuals to suggest story ideas as well as connect, and initiate solutions. As the communications director at Detroit’s Gleaners Community Food Bank Anne Schenk recently stated:

“Many nonprofits lack the experience and resources to effectively communicate the value and impact of their work. I believe that Facing Change: Documenting America can provide an invaluable service to nonprofits.”

Drawing on the collective’s extensive network of media contacts, FCDA’s images, stories, and multimedia pieces are searchable online for use in both traditional and new media. In the future the Public Sphere will be expanded in the form of interactive installations traveling to towns and cities throughout the nation to reach audiences beyond the internet. The archive will reside at the Library of Congress.

Inspired by the Farm Security Administration photography project of the Great Depression FCDA is comprised of some of the country’s most accomplished photographers and writers. Facing Change: Documenting America is currently making a powerful contribution to the journalism landscape, giving a voice to new perspectives and influencing public discourse. Initially planned for four years, the project has the potential to be continued for years to come.

Founders:

Anthony Suau, President, acting Chief Operating Officer

Lucian Perkins, Vice President, acting Director of Photography

Technology:

Alan Chin, Secretary, Vice President of Technology

Mark Ovaska, Director of Technology

Writing Director:
Andrew Meier

Director of Development:
Bill Charles is the director of Bill Charles Represents, an agency that represents the world’s leading photographers and image makers.

Vice President of Strategy:
Beth Davies has over ten-years of experience in corporate philanthropy, marketing and public relations in the US and internationally. Previously Davies led the development of the Arthur Guinness Fund in her role as the global Vice President of Corporate Relations for the Guinness brand. This multi-million dollar program supports social entrepreneurs around the world. Prior to this she managed a one million Euro annual giving program as the Head of Corporate Social Responsibility for Diageo Ireland.

Advisory Board:
Leah Bendavid-Val is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Kennan Institute), Washington, DC where she is working on a project to bring Siberian photography to the United States. She is former Director of Photography Publishing for National Geographic Books, and the author of two books on National Geographic photography and three books on Russian photography; Song Without Words: The Photographs & Diaries of Countess Sophia Tolstoy (published in October 2007), Propaganda & Dreams (1999); and Changing Reality (1991).

Richard Cahan is a journalist who founded and directed the Chicago In The Year 2000 (CITY 2000) documentary project. Since the project, Cahan has written several books, mostly on photography, including the recently released book Who We Were: A Snapshot History of America. Cahan also served as the picture editor of the Chicago Sun-Times for sixteen years.

Rich Clarkson is the founder of Rich Clarkson and Associates which creates and manages unique projects based upon the uses of fine photography. He is the former director of photography and senior assistant editor of The National Geographic Society, assistant managing editor/graphics of The Denver Post, director of photography of The Topeka (Ks.) Capital-Journal and a contract/contributing photographer for Sports Illustrated magazine.

Alexa Dilworth has a B.A. and an M.A., both in English, from the University of Florida, and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. In 1995 she was hired by the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University to work for DoubleTake magazine, where she held the position of proofreader, managing editor, and then executive editor. She is the publishing director at CDS, and also runs the Awards program, which includes the Daylight/CDS Photo Awards and the CDS/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography.

MaryAnne Golon is the Consulting Director of Photography & Multimedia for AARP, and former photo editor in chief of Time magazine, where she worked for more than two decades.

William Snyder is a four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist who graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in 1981. He began working for The Miami News in 1981 and moved to the Dallas Morning News in 1983, where for 15 years he was employed as a staff photographer. He recently returned to RIT to teach and Chair the Photojournalism program.

Anne Tucker is the curator for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She established the museum’s photography department and has organized forty shows there since 1976.