Photojournalism gave Natalie Keyssar an outlet for her twin passions: art and social justice. While covering Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City early in her career, Keyssar heard about massive protests in Venezuela. Intrigued, she traveled there for a month of photography and fell in love with the experience, the people, and the situations she found herself in. After returning to New York, she found her pictures disappointing. Though editors praised her artful protest coverage, she saw that she hadn't gone beyond the tear gas and Molotov cocktails to explore the complicated dynamics driving the conflict in Venezuela that followed the death of its iconic leader, Hugo Chavez. So she went back, and four years later, continues to photograph the consequences of unrest and economic turbulence in the country.

Venezuela is not Keyssar’s only subject—her portfolio also includes depictions of the Black Lives Matter movement in multiple locations around the U.S., which is informed by her time covering protests internationally.

Since 1985, the International Center of Photography has recognized outstanding achievements in photography with its prestigious Infinity Awards. The awards ceremony is also ICP’s primary fundraising benefit, with its revenues assisting the center's various programs.

This year MediaStorm produced films for the following winners: Lifetime Achievement: Bruce Davidson; Applied: Alexandra Bell; Art: Samuel Fosso; Artist's Book: Dayanita Singh, Museum Bhavan; Critical Writing and Research: Maurice Berger, Race Stories column for the Lens section of the New York Times; Documentary and Photojournalism: Amber Bracken; and Emerging Photographer: Natalie Keyssar; and for Online Platform and New Media: Women Photograph.

Photojournalism gave Natalie Keyssar an outlet for her twin passions: art and social justice. While covering Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City early in her career, Keyssar heard about massive protests in Venezuela. Intrigued, she traveled there for a month of photography and fell in love with the experience, the people, and the situations she found herself in. After returning to New York, she found her pictures disappointing. Though editors praised her artful protest coverage, she saw that she hadn't gone beyond the tear gas and Molotov cocktails to explore the complicated dynamics driving the conflict in Venezuela that followed the death of its iconic leader, Hugo Chavez. So she went back, and four years later, continues to photograph the consequences of unrest and economic turbulence in the country.

We taped a wide-ranging 90-minute interview with Natalie. All of it was interesting—she discussed choosing photojournalism as a career, Venezuela, Ferguson, sexism in the photojournalism industry, the role of a journalist's feelings in documentary work. She gave us such an abundance of content that the problem became how to distill a short film from it.

We built the film around Natalie's images. That approach guided us to the parts of her interview that gave context to her pictures. From there, we added just those sections of narrative that we needed to connect and unify the story.

The film premiered on April 9, 2018 at the ICP Infinity Awards Gala in New York City. The film was a special feature of the evening, and a critical fundraising tool.

Since 1985, the International Center of Photography has recognized outstanding achievements in photography with its prestigious Infinity Awards. The awards ceremony is also ICP’s primary fundraising benefit, with its revenues assisting the center's various programs.

Harbers Studios commissioned MediaStorm, on behalf of ICP, to create a short film about each of the recipients to screen at the awards ceremony and to display online. The films pay tribute to the contributions of each artist to the craft and field of photography and demonstrate ICP's commitment to them.

As a privately funded nonprofit arts and education organization, ICP depends in large part on friends such as you for support. Your generosity is vital to ICP as it continues to grow and succeed in its mission: to present photography's extraordinary power to the public.

There are many ways to give to ICP: Donate to the Annual Fund, create a scholarship, sponsor exhibitions and education programs, contribute to the Collection, or make a planned gift.

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