Dirck Halstead, INC.

Dirck Halstead is the Editor and Publisher of The Digital Journalist, the monthly online magazine for photojournalism. He is also a freelance magazine and advertising photographer and documentary videomaker, based in Austin, Texas. Dirck is the Director of the Platypus Workshops which has trained more than 250 photojournalists in the language of television news in order become more competitive in today's rich multimedia environment.

Starting his career as a photographer with United Press International, he has worked in Dallas, Philadelphia, New York, Washington, and became UPI's first photo bureau chief in Saigon covering the Vietnam war in 1965.

Returning to the United States in 1966, he was appointed as UPI's first roving staff photographer, and covered stories on a world-wide basis, culminating with being selected as one of six US photographers to be allowed to accompany President Nixon on his historic trip to China in 1972.

Several months later, he accepted a contract with TIME MAGAZINE, and eventually became their Senior White House Photographer, covering the Nixon,Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administration. He has contributed a record 51 covers to Time over a period of 29 years.

In 1975, he won the Robert Capa Gold Medal awarded by the Overseas Press Club for his coverage of the fall of Saigon.

Other major awards include eight time winner of the White House News Photographers Association contest, NPPA pictures of the year first place in documentary and the Front Page Award of the American Newspaper Guild.

Dirck also developed a reputation as a "special still photographer" in Hollywood. His photographs of such films as GOODFELLAS, MEMPHIS BELLE, DRAGON, BLACK RAIN, STREET SMART FIRESTARTER, CITY OF JOY and CLIFFHANGER, and SHAFT became the advertising images used for posters.

In 1994, he helped to found VIDEO NEWS INTERNATIONAL which was recently acquired by the NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY, and which was predicated on the concept of training photo journalists in the new High 8 and digital technologies to revolutionize television news gathering.

Out of this experience, he created the Platypus Workshops.

In 1997, with the help of Hewlett Packard he created The Digital Journalist. Since then, the monthly online publication has grown to an audience of more than 15,000,000 world-wide, and has won top awards in online journalism.

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

Dirck Halstead at dhalstead@dvnetwork.net. The Atlantic Advisory group at www.atlanticadvisory.com
 
 See Dirck Halstead's Portfolio online at the AmericanPhotojournalist.com web site.