Sri Lankan-American Jennifer Samuel has been a member of the photo community since college. A graduate of NYU and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, Samuel brings an informed sense of social awareness to her role at National Geographic and as the founder of Fine Grain Film, through which she tells personal stories that connect to larger themes of migration and identity. Get to know more about her here.
Photo © Conrad Louis Charles
PDNedu: Is there a particular segment of stories that you work on at National Geographic? Are there certain stories that you’re drawn to?
Jennifer Samuel: I was very involved with the series about race and diversity this year. We kicked that series off with the single-topic April issue, and there have been several stories in follow-up issues as well.
I focus on people and culture stories at National Geographic. As a child of immigrants, issues of race, identity and culture are part of how you experience the world even before you can articulate it, so working on stories that relate to these issues both domestically and globally are the ones I’m most drawn to.
PDNedu: Can you describe a recent project that you were involved with?
JS: The single-topic issue on race was timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. Knowing that most publications would be reflecting on this date, we thought a lot about what we could add to the conversation. We decided to research and photograph visually and historically significant streets around the world named after Martin Luther King as a way of visualizing his global impact and legacy. Then we commissioned five photographers regionally: Elias Williams photographed U.S. locations, including Harlem and Memphis; Ian Teh photographed Kolkata, India; Philomène Joseph photographed her own city, Port au Prince, Haiti; Martin Roemers photographed Germany; and Andrew Esiebo photographed South Africa. It’s unusual for us to send multiple photographers to shoot one assignment but in this case it worked really well. It was all their first assignments for the magazine.
I’m currently wrapping up a story on South Asian Americans that will be published in the September issue. This story is very close to my heart because it is the story of my generation, the children of South Asian immigrants, who were born or raised in the United States. The photographer, writer and our editorial team reflected the diversity of South Asians in America, so there was no shortage of ideas of what to photograph since we were all already connected to various communities around the country. Ismail Ferdous was the photographer; it was his first assignment for our magazine.
Banujah Balasubramaniam and her daughter attend a Christmas celebration organized by the Sri Lankan community in Staten Island, New York. Dressed as Santa Claus is Sri Lankan American Dianna Sriskanda. The Tamil carol service has taken place for more than 30 years, bringing together Christians, Hindus and others. Photo © Ismail Ferdous / from the September 2018 issue of National Geographic.
PDNedu: Can you give us a sense of how you select photographers for projects?
JS: We think about how we envision the story and then narrow it down to a few photographers whose style, strengths and knowledge base will play well to the subject matter. Typically, we look at photographers who have already been working for several years and have shot assignments at other major publications already.
I’ve worked with ten new photographers on their first magazine assignments since I joined the magazine two years ago. We ask and expect a lot from the photographers we hire for assignments. We want you to be curious, great researchers, figure out creative ways to tell a story visually over multiple images, be great journalists who write extensive, thorough captions and, of course, take powerful, sensitive images. We expect the same level of integrity and quality from new photographers as we do of established photographers who presumably have more experience and infrastructure.
We also have a section of the magazine called “Proof” where we often publish a photographer’s personal project. While we have a variety of projects that have been published in “Proof,” many are more fine art in their concept or visual approach.
This interview is excerpted from “Ask a Photo Editor” (PDNedu, Fall 2018). Read the full interview for free here.
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