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Intro | American photographer | |
Places | United States of America | |
is | Photographer Journalist | |
Work field | Arts Journalism | |
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Profiles | ||
Birth | 4 June 1957, Wichita Falls | |
Age | 67 years |
Biography
Edward Oppenheimer (born June 4, 1957, Wichita Falls, Texas) is an award-winning photojournalist based in Moscow, Russia. He currently works as Director of Photography for the Russian media group Kommersant in Moscow.
Biography
Edward Oppenheimer grew up in Klamath Falls, a small town in southern Oregon. At age 13 he lived a year with his Uncle and family in Yokohama, Japan. There he was given his first camera and became a member of the school’s photography club. His last two years in high school he worked as a photographer/laboratory assistant at the local newspaper, The Herald and News. After that time Edward Oppenheimer would return to photography only after his move to Moscow, Russia in 1992.
In 1980 he graduated from Lewis and Clark College with honors in Economics and a second degree in French. The last few years in college he began studying classical guitar and after graduation went to Paris to study with Michel Sadanowski at «L’Universite Musicale Internationale de Paris». In 1983 a hand injury forced him to abandon musical studies. He moved to New York City and began working as a marketing analyst at Nabisco, during that time he took acting lessons at HB Studio in Greenwich Village. In 1985 he began studying programming and in 1987, following a visit to a friend in Sweden, took a job in Stockholm with a small startup company, Dynasoft, developing security software.
After a short tour of the Soviet Union in 1989 Oppenheimer soon returned to Leningrad to study Russian for a year at the University of Leningrad. Impressed by the events unfolding in the Soviet Union in 1991, he moved to Moscow in 1992 and found work as a photographer for Kommersant, one of the new generation of newspapers to appear on the wave of Perestroika. In Moscow he studied photography with Alexander Lapin. During the 1990s he also worked freelance for several leading western publications and photo agencies, such as Time magazine, The New York Times, Washington Post, Fortune, Stern, Sunday Times, The Independent, Black Star, and Sipa Press.
Oppenheimer (Opp) photographed a wide variety of social themes in Russia –village life, orphans, medical institutions, prostitution. Oppenheimer made several trips to the North Caucasus region during the First Chechen War and covered the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis in 1995 and Pervomayskoye crisis in 1996 for Time magazine. He was an accredited photographer at the Russian State Duma and the Kremlin during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin.
Edward Opp’s photographic style has been described by some as documentary and “impassive…, frightful…, cold…, hypersensitive to the moment”. He is currently Director of photography at the Kommersant Publishing House in Moscow which publishes a national daily newspaper, several news weekly and monthly periodicals, and is well known for its distinctive photographic approach. Oppenheimer (Opp) is a frequent guest of Russian cultural and political television discussion programs.
Awards
- 1993, World Press Photo. Second Place, Spot News Stories – “Yeltsin storms the White House”
- 1996, All Russian Photo Contest Intеrfoto
- Grand Prize Stories - “Hostages to Chechens in Buddonovsk”
- First Place, People in the News - Boris Yeltsin and body guard Alexander Korzhakov
- 2003, Golden Eye of Russia, Russian Guild of Journalists
- [[:ru:Пресс Росси�%|Press photo of Russia (Interfoto) – Laureates]] (Russian)
Photo exhibitions and projects
- 2002 – Front Page Photos, Kommersant Photo exhibition, Moscow, Russia
- 2004 – Front Page Photos, Kommersant Photo exhibition, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia
- 2007 – Front Page Photos, Kommersant Photo exhibition, Moscow International Film Festival, Moscow, Russia
- 2008 – Edward Oppenheimer (Edward Opp) - View from Afar, personal photo exhibition, Moscow House of Photography, Moscow, Russia
- 2010 – Front Page Photos, Kommersant Newspaper Photo exhibition, Mikhaylovsky Theatre, Saint Petersburg
- 2012 – Liberty Camera, Kommersant Photo exhibition, Moscow House of Photography, Moscow, Russia
- Flash-Photo, Multimedia project, www.kommersant.ru
- Kommersant.ru. Kommersant Photo exhibition – Front Page Photos 2002 (Russian)
- Kommersant.ru. Kommersant Photo exhibition – Front Page Photos 2004 (Russian)
- www.museum.ru - Front Page Photos. Photo exhibition in honor of the 15 year anniversary of the Kommersant Publishing House
- Lenta.ru – Kommersant’s Front Page Photos photo exhibition opened in Moscow, 14.10.2004 (Russian)
- www.Film.ru. MMIF – Day Two, Jun 22, 2007, Olesya Volkova (Russian)
- Kommersant.ru. Photo exhibition View from Afar
- The Moscow House of Photography – Edward Oppenheimer (Edward Opp): View from Aside (Russian)
- View from Aside. Photo exhibition opened at the Moscow House of Photography, Itogi, Jun 24, 2003 (Russian)
- Kommersant.ru. Kommersant.ru. Kommersant Photo exhibition – Front Page Photos 2010 (Russian)
- Mikhailovsky Theatre - Kommersant Newspaper Photo exhibition
- Kommersant.ru. Kommersant Photo exhibition – Liberty Camera 2012 (Russian)
- The Moscow House of Photography – Kommersant, Liberty Camera (Russian)
- Kommersant.ru. Коммерсантъ Flash- (Russian)
Other activities
- Guest Lecturer, «Freedom of the Press in Russia”, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA., 2001
- Jury member, “All Russian Contest for Best Newspaper Design”, The Society for News Design, Association of Independent Russian Regional Publishers, 2005
- Jury member, “Silver Camera” photography Competition, Moscow House of Photography, Moscow Ministry of Culture, 2002-2012
- Jury member, “The Best Photographs of Russia” photography Competition, Winzavod Center of Modern Art, Russian Ministry of Culture, 2008 – 2011
- Regular guest lecturer, School of Journalism, Moscow State University
- Photojournalism Master classes, Moscow and regional cities
- Guest Consultant, Personnel motivation and management, The National Guild of Professional Consultants of Russia, 2004-200
- Harvard University – Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
- www.kak.ru – Newspaper Design: Conference and competition (Russian)
- www.bestnewspaper.ru - All Russian Competition – Best regional newspaper design – Judges Committee (Russian)
- Documental newspaper photography, Seminar by Edward Opp (Russian)
- The Multi Media Art Museum – The Silver Camera Competition for the best photo reporting on Moscow (Russian)
- The Moscow House of Photography – The Silver Camera jury members (Russian)
- www.photographer.ru - The awards ceremony for the Silver Camera 2009-2010 (Russian)
- Winzavod Centre for Contemporary Art
- RiaNovosit – Cultural Events for October 27, 2008: The Silver Photo Competition (Russian)
- Faculty of Journalism Lomonosov Moscow State University
- Master class by Edward Opp, Kazan, Russia (Russian)
- Master class by Edward Opp, Ufa, Russia (Russian)
- Master class by Edward Opp, Yekaterinburg, Russia (Russian)
- Master class by Edward Opp, Yekaterinburg, Russia (video) (Russian)
- The National Guild of Professional Consultants of Russia
Interviews
- “A Foreign Career in Russia”, Ogonyok Magazine, August 1998
- “A separate opinion”, Echo of Moscow Radio, Jun 18, 2003
- “Russian Golden Eye”, Persona Magazine, № 58, 2006
- “A Hard View”, Foto and Video Magazine, Mar 22, 2007
- “America gave Russia the Gift of Opp”, Igor Svinarenko, Medved’, November, 2007
- Natakya Udartseva. (1998-08-01). "A Foreign Career in Russia" (in Russian). // Огонек. Retrieved 2013-01-15.
- A separate opinion, Ekho Moskvy Radio, Jun 18, 2003 (Russian)
- Russian Golden Eye, Persona Magazine, Natalya Simoranova, № 4-5, 2006 (Russian)
- A Hard View, Foto and Video Magazine, Aniciya Broznova, Mar 22, 2007 (Russian)
- http://www.medved-magazine.ru/ (Russian)
- Igor Svinarenko (2010). "American gave Russia the Gift of Opp". Беседы с Vеликими (in Russian). ACT Москва. ISBN 978-5-17-056635-8.
Other links
- Edward Opp on Facebook
- Edward Opp at LiveJournal