Gary. In a photo journalism or course here at ut. Would you talk about a all that influenced your career . Its funny. I was actually a biology major. At university of texas. And also at the dorms. At chester dorm. Which i just visited today. 30 years later. Hasnt changed a bit. And one of my residents at chester sold me one of his older cameras. I guess he was convinced his parents to get him a new one. And i just became very interested in photography as hobby. And decided to take courses as an elective. And convince dentally signed up for first year journalism. Even though i wasnt even thinking about photo journalism. Or knew what it was. It was a first year photo class. I took the course and toward the end of the semester, the ta said lucian theres an opening on the Student Newspaper cactus yearbook. You should go apply. And i never even thought about photographing as a career. I went and applied. And got the job. And the very day i got the job i said oh my god this is what i want to do. So i started work lg on the cactus yearbook. Started shooting for the daily texas. And one of another person that was hired at the same time said you have to take this class by gary. Who teaches in the art department. I said sure, and i remember looking at garys work and not really understanding it. I said why do you like this class . Harly had taken it i think two times already. This is like his third time taking garys class. And he goes, its so fun to watch him because he will intimidate some students so much theyll run out crying. He goes, the dynamics are so fun to watch. Harly had this straight. So it i said okay, sure. Ill take the class with you. And the first day of class, i walk in and harly and i are sitting in the back. And gary walks in. Hes kind of this rough new yorker, character. And hes like okay whos got what to say in this class . Hes grumbling and the first day he starts showing works by walker evens. I remember him facing the screen flipping through the photographs. As he was look at god himself. You could tell he had really loved walker ef vans. After wards he turns around and says okay whos got what to say in this class about these photographs . Harly is next to me. I raised my hand and i said i liked a lot of photographs. I thought some were boring. And his eyes narrowed in on me. He says if theres anything boring its not in the photographs, its in you. And a 30 minute tirade. It was like two weeks later i realize it was my photographs that were crap. And not his. He totally turned me. Moved me ahead in a way that i dont think would have ever happened. He was just amazing. And my level of skill as a photographer over were very low at that point. I think he moved me ahead at least in terms of how to see. Visually. Years of where i would have been. Had i not taken his class. And working at the daily tex san was like working at a daily newspaper. The paper five day a week newspaper. We shot a assignments every day. And by the time that i got around to applying for summer internship and i applied to like 30 newspapers. One of them was the Washington Post. Which accepted. I got an internship. I stepped in working at the post as if i was working at the daily texen. They did everything we did was similar to what the post did. Very valuable experience here . Invaluable. I look at i consider myself very lucky. I didnt come to ut to be a photo journalist. I came here not knows what i wanted to do. But i consider myself a very fortunate person. In terms of not only finding what i wanted to do, but being at a place at the time had one of the best Student Newspapers in the country. And had one of the certainly in gary and one of the best art photographers. You find yourself at the Washington Post on an internship basis, what early assignments did you under take at the post . Well, as soon as i got to the post, actually before i got to the post. I was determined that i was going to get hired by the post. I remembered a thing i remember reading it was National Press photographers magazine. They had interviewed bob who at the time was the head of photograph ri at national geographic. He always said were up to our armpits in great photographers and to our ankles in great ideas. And so my idea was when i came to the post, i would start coming up with photo stories. My own stories outside of the ones they gave me every day. And the post when all the summer enterps they brought in they treated you as staff photographers or writers. There was no training period. They just started you. Doing assignments. And the very first week that i was there, they sent me to do a story on a sailboat race in annapolis. And on a boat taking photographs. And theres this woman next to me who was probably in her 60s o or 70s and find out im new to washington. She gives me the whole history of annapolis. For two hours. Watching the sailboats go by. And towards the end of it she goes you know they just started admitting the first women to the naval academy. They admitted the first women to the academy four years ago. And those women are now seniors and theyll be in charge of the summer boot camp. For incoming. Of course lightbulbs are off in my head. I go wow what great story. I contacted the naval academy. The office. And just started photographing that story through the summer. I didnt tell the post about it. I wanted to make sure i had the photographs that i needed before i presented it to them. And i would go back on my off days. Keep photographing. And i ended up following a woman named sandy. Who ended up on the front page of the post. In the photographs her yelling at these freshmen. Lined up against the wall with their chins tucked in. And that photograph ran everywhere in the world. And im convinced that that story helped me get a job at the post. What kind of impact do you think the story had had beyond your career . As far as the theme of women in the military . It was really interesting because 30 years later, i throughout the years i kept thinking back wondering what happened to sandy. I kept thinking i should find her and do another story. I finally got around to doing it 30 years later. For smithsonian magazine. We found her and we found one of the pleebs in the photograph. And i met them again at the academy. 30 years later. And we had the most wonderful reunion. We hadnt spoken to each other in 30 years. As a matter of fact i never spoke to her after that photograph ran in the post. And i found out that after that when that photograph ran, he received a lot of marriage proposals. She received a lot of death threats. And she received a lot of hate mail. From veterans who really upset that she had joined. She received a lot of mail from women that were in nurses like in vietnam. And even in world war ii. Who were so supportive of what she was doing. And in many ways it obviously had a huge impact on her. But i think it had a huge impact on a will the of people. On a lot of people. Those were the early days and beginnings of women stepping forward. In the military. Interestingly enough it was a couple weeks ago that obama approved of women serving in combat. Theres a tremendous history thats been occurring since that photograph. So it obviously had an impact on a loft different people in different ways. It did. It did. Thats i think thats one of the wonderful things about photography. And me being a photographer. Hoping that your photographer photographs make a different to somebody. And impact somebody. Just by them looking at it. Well pursue that theme here. You were at the post for the next 27 years. Yeah. Tell me some of the assignments you covered during the years. You were active in the united states. Also in the foreign locations covering stories like palestinian uprising. Afghanistan. Yugoslavia. All sorts of stories abroad as well as those you were covering in the united states. Tell us about those assignments. I was really lucky working at the post. I covered every spread of life. In america and over seas. And of course its a real learning experience. You meet people that obviously you would never meet. Youre in situations you read about. And you become a lot more sympathetic to things that you would never even think about. Or even consider. I think a lot of my memories kind of go back more not so much the photographs but the events of people i meet in the places. I mean i think some of the things that really stand out in my mind of course is the follow the soviet union. The fall of the soviet union. I covered in russia on and off since 1988. The first time that i had been to moscow was the reagan summit in 1988. And moscow at that time was a dreary, soviet city. You saw very few people in the street. And over the course of the years today moscow is like new york city. A vibrant, exciting metropolis. Obviously russia still has a lot of problems. But its really amazing to be able to watch a country under go a transition. Like that. And all countries have. You think about america going through the civil rights movement. And the vietnam and i was a kid during that. I remember but as a kid i remember those photographs. And how much they impacted me. Did you sort of develop a tas nation with russians. Russian life and the change under going . Did it hold a special particular appeal for you . A number of reasons. For i think to most of the kids today that dont even remember the iron curtain. The soviet union for so long was the enemy. And to be honest with you i never really ever imagined that the cold war would ever stop. It seemed loik a permanent part of our life. That would never end. And so for me when the berlin wall fell, when the soviet union fell when this iron curtain fell, it was something that i just didnt consider would happen in my lifetime. And then to be able to go over there to former soviet union. And see it firsthand. And see it wasnt necessarily the evil empire that we were told it was. These were just amazing people. As a matter of fact, my connection began with working with russian photographers. Who turned out to be some of the most amazing photographers i have ever met. That is what you call an interphoto. Is that a thing you and several people what happened was, i actually it was in washington dc. There was an exhibition called changing reality. Which was the best of soviet photography. The curator invited ten russian photographers to america. So that was what i first started talking to russian photographers. And admiring their work. It was very different. It was much more artistic than journalism that you would see in america. Theres a bit about it that i like. Then when i moved when i started covering russia, i made contact with a lot of photographers. Went into their homes and of course drank vodka all night. And eat food. And look at photographs. And i kept thinking to myself, these are great photographers. No one knows who these people are. And so myself and another photographer who was based in moscow we started inner photo. An annual International PhotoJournalism Conference in moscow. And the first year we held it, i remember one of the photographers we had dinner at his house. He was missing one of his cameras. That he had to sell. Because he had no money for food. And two weeks later, inner photo happens, and kathy ryan. We invited people like kamy ryan who was photo editor at the sunday New York Times. Chrissen who was a famous agency. In europe. They looked at these peoples works hired them. Immediately. A year later wins the smith grant. A 20,000 grant. All these people through inner photo started making connections with the west very quickly. The way i look at it it was like people before inner photo assignment editors and u. S. Would assign americans to go photograph russia. But theyre already are all the great photographers there. They started assigning them more and more. It hurt people like me. But it was a wonderful thing to see. And it was interesting inner photo ran for ten years. To see the transition of the crowds when we first started inner photo, it was almost like 3 300 older white men like me there. I was younger then. And ten years later the crowds we had i think 1,000 people attend. They were mostly kids in the 20s. And half of them were women. So it was really amazing to watch this transition. Take place. Not only in russia but in russian photographer. That was very exciting. Lets talk about some of the other areas abroad. That you also covered. I know some of your Award Winning work has to do with the wars in koes voe. And former yugoslavia. Tell us about what you learned in covering those episodes. Well, the war in yugoslavia and many ways the i covered the first in palestine. I think the great tragedy of that also the former yugoslavia is watching not only the case of yugoslavia the break up of the country. But the break up in ethnic, ethnicity. And the blaming. Of different ethnic groups to gain power. It was being a photo journalist i was able to go to croatia to yugoslavia. To bosnia. To sto see the stress that buil up between the groups in a matter of three or four years. Whipped up by politicians. That almost didnt exist beforehand. They had coexisted under for decade. I was talking to a bo and somehow escaped. He was in prison. And talked about a serb prison. And talked about how the horror of what went on the in the prison and people getting killed and beaten. He was just terrorized. And one day he looked up and one of the guards was somebody he went to high school with. He so relieved that this former classmate was there. And he went up to him, he says do you remember me . He said the guy turned around and just beat him to a pulp. It just it was when he described it it was so frightening. To see how people can so quickly turn against each other. And thats what exactly what happened there. One of your Pulitzer Prizes. You have won two. In the year 2000. For feature photography. The plight of refugees. Talk about winning that prize and what it meant to you. Kos voe was i spent a lot of time in koes voe. I spent two months in macedonia. When the war started. And basically nato was bombing the serbs. And they were pushing the al bane y albaniaens out. Into macedonia. And albania. Which is where i photographed these people coming out. Which was another tragedy in itself. As a matter of fact the first day i was there, we went to a place which is where i think there were 50,000 refugees. All the people were middle class families that lived in pristine. A the capitol of cosolve. No food and no clothing. They were oud for five days. And nights. In this little no mans land. And thats when i arrived there. And i walked in there and photographed a very desperate situation. As a matter of fact a woman came up to me and she said, i have all our savings. I have 1,000. Ill give it to you. If you can get my mother out of here. I think shes going to die. Theres nothing i can do but direct them to some of the red cross places that were temporarily set up. And they were already over filled with people. Where were your photographs seen after that . The photographs. This was in the early days of the internet. So my photographs were in the Washington Post. But it was also one of the first stories where the photographs were running daily on the internet. On the Washington Post. And i was amazed at how many people saw the photographs on the ente net. Opposed to the Washington Post. People especially in kosovo saw them on the internet. I realized how important the internet would be to the future. Was that a contributing factor to winning a Pulitzer Prize for the project . I dont think so. That was different because that was based more on the photograph ri and how we entered it into the contest. I think what was a factor for me. That understanding that the internet was a future. And as a matter of fact it was a couple years after that, that a writer bob kizer who also worked in the former soviet union in the 70s. We came up with this idea to do the siberian diaries in which we traveled tli siberia. And every day post stories on the internet. It was one of the first sort of blogs. Certainly the first blogs the post did. I think one of the very early blogs period. But it was what was interesting to me is how effective it was. All of a sudden we had sthous of people not only in russia but in the u. S. Following us and writing us. People telling us if youre here, please go to visit this. Or visit that. And this amazing dialogue. That developed. Was an eye opener. Not only for the post but for us as a new way to use this media that was starting to develop. One of the other assignments that you did, called assignment. A project. You did a four year investigation of the washington dc family. Three generations of them. Just investigating the poverty, disease, crime. Illiteracy. All the factors they were dealing with. That also won a Pulitzer Prize. Your first in 1995. Looking at both of these prize sz that you won, what kind of effect did that have on your career . Obviously high accolade among your fellow professionals. What impact did it have on your career . I think because i was working at the Washington Post, it didnt really that people recognized you for winning the pulitzer. But in terms of my career i was already doing what i wanted to do at the Washington Post. My assignments with the post didnt never really change. It didnt effect me in the sense of my career. I mean, i think it did but it wasnt obvious to me because i just kept doing what i always did. But that was a very important story for me because as you mentioned we spent four years with the family, with four generations of a family. And it was an highopening experience in terms of the issues that poverty, the drug abuse, in not only a family but in a neighborhood or in their and why its so difficult for people to break out of these cycles that occur. Rosa lee whose the mate yark of the family had eight children. And two of those children did break out of the cycle and become had normal lives and their own families. In both cases it was because of teachers who who they looked up to and who motivated them to do Something Better with their lives. And rosa lee, as it turned out, she was a drug addict, a prosecute, illiterate. Yet as i got to know her over the years she was a very very smart woman who, i think part of the reason she allowed us in her life is she too wanted to figure out why he life turned out the way it did. And toward the end with the story did run, she was speaking to Church Groups and to mothers and families about hiv and why how her life drug her down in trying to help other people. Sadly, she died six months later from hiv. I remember another poignant detail in that family, one of the younger boys who you met earlier in the project grew up and the