wfn.org | Award-Winning Photojournalist John White to Lead RCC 2000 Workshop

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@wfn.org>]

Contact: Kelly C. Martini
RCC 2000 Promotions Co-Chairperson
kmartini@gbgm-umc.org
(212) 870-2985

Award-Winning Photojournalist to Lead RCC Workshop

An award-winning Chicago Sun-Times photojournalist will offer RCC 2000 
workshop participants a community-oriented and faith-based "take" on his 
art and witness.

John H. White, a staff photographer for the Chicago Sun-Times, shares the 
insights from a 30-year career that has garnered him more than 300 awards, 
including a Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in 1982, the National 
Press Photographers Association Award of Excellence in General News 
Photography, and three National Headliner Awards, the most recent in 1998 
for a photo of apartment building residents fleeing the 15-story fireball 
of a natural gas explosion.

At age 13, White bought his first camera in Lexington, NC, for 50 cents and 
ten bubble gum wrappers. Nearly 40 years later, he has amassed a body of 
work and a worldwide reputation as a skilled chronicler of the best in 
people in their most revealing moments.

He worked at the Chicago Daily News from 1969 until the paper closed in 
1978, then joined the Chicago Sun-Times. His work has taken him throughout 
the world, often to photograph people known in religious communities, 
including Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson, Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II.

His work was featured in two books about the late Joseph Cardinal 
Bernardin, The Final Journey of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin and This Man 
Bernardin, a best-seller. But he also sees and documents the less-famous 
among the faithful. His 1990 National Headliner Award was given for a 
feature photograph of a young Muslim boy at a religious ceremony.
As a volunteer photographer at La Rabida Children's Hospital in Chicago, 
White works with hospitalized children to help them create their own images 
of the world. He is also the head of the photojournalism department at 
Chicago's Columbia College and has been a frequent contributor to the 
Photojournalism Conference at Southwestern Baptist Seminary.

Calling photography "a universal language understood by all," White has 
traveled to 13 countries in Asia and Europe as a featured journalist for 
"Sharing Vision Through Photojournalism," a series of Seminars sponsored by 
the Freedom Forum.

His "Use of Photography by Photojournalists" workshop at RCC 2000 will show 
how photography communicates faith stories and how photojournalists can 
contribute stories in other media.

RCC 2000 is the once-a-decade event for religion communicators. It will be 
held in Chicago, Ill., on March 29 - April  1, 2000

Registration is limited. Participants can save $50 if they register before 
January 10, 2000. For more information or to register, go to 
www.RCC2000.org or call 212-870-2985.

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