John Moore is a senior staff photographer for Getty Images, based in New York City. He received a citation for this year’s Robert Capa Gold Medal Award, and won the OPC’s 2007 Robert Capa Gold Medal for his work in Pakistan and the 1997 John Faber Award for coverage of refugee camps in Zaire. He is also a four-time winner of World Press Photo awards and was named photographer of the year by two organizations, Pictures of the Year International and National Press Photographers Association. He was part of an Associated Press team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Iraq War. Moore started working for Getty Images in 2005 while based in Islamabad, Pakistan. He has lived in the United States for the last seven years.
Current Job: Senior Staff Photographer/Special Correspondent for Getty Images.
Hometown: Irving, Texas.
Education: Bachelors Degree from the University of Texas at Austin, 1990.
Languages: English, Spanish and small amounts of Arabic, Urdu and Hindi.
First Job in Journalism: Photo stringer – Associated Press, Managua,
Nicaragua, 1991 (although I worked for numerous publications while in college).
Countries where you have reported from: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Belize, Haiti, Panama, Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Canada, United Kingdom, Bosnia, Croatia, Ukraine, Israel, Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, South Korea, Thailand, Egypt, Somalia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Libya, Kenya, Congo, Rwanda, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Lesotho, Swaziland, Liberia. United States.
When did you join the OPC: 2013.
What stories are hardest to photograph: Anything involving children in extreme pain.
You volunteered to cover the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and were one of the first photojournalists to document conditions there. What drew you to this story? When I read that Doctors Without Borders was saying that the spread of the disease in the Liberian capital of Monrovia was potentially catastrophic, that got my attention. Ebola is usually fatal and the cramped and unsanitary conditions in that highly urban environment had horrible potential for catastrophe. I remembered the last major Ebola outbreak in Congo in the mid 1990’s, which caused great alarm, so I knew international interest in this would be high.
What surprised you most about what you witnessed there? People were generous and kind to me and open to me telling their stories through photos, even during a
time of great distress, and I will always be grateful for that.
What has been your most difficult assignment? The Newtown massacre was awful, with the Tucson shooting as a close second. The murder of children is devastating for me to
cover.
How do you minimize risk when reporting in hostile areas? I do a lot of legwork ahead of time to both understand the story and find the right people to work with. I don’t pursue every photo at any cost. I’d say I probably miss more photos than I make, for safety concerns. I try to stay alert and make eye contact or greet everyone I can, so that even those who might otherwise do me harm know that I am aware of them and won’t be surprised. I wear seatbelts, and protective clothing, when needed.
Advice for photojournalists who want to work overseas: Do your homework before every trip. With such quick Internet research options and social networking, we should almost always have a good idea what we’re getting into before we get on the plane. Whenever possible, arrange a local fixer/driver ahead of time – someone who knows the story and the terrain – someone who can get to where you need to be and, just as importantly, get you out of harm’s way if things go wrong. Hostile environment training beforehand is good, with the first aid training element the most important.
My photojournalism heroes are: I know a lot of brave and talented people I
respect.
Where you most want to return: I’m afraid there are so many places I’ve had important life experiences in, that’s a hard one to answer. Most countries I
would return to if the story was right, and there are so many places I’ve yet to see.
Twitter handle: @jbmoore6400
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