During the weekend’s visit, my host, Peat, told me about another photographer who has had a major impact on the Tasmanian landscape, Peter Dombrovskis. I want to tell you the story that Peat told to me.

And how, as a photographer, can you help a nonprofit use your images? Is it enough just to donate photographs, or do you have a responsibility to help an organization actually communicate?

Once again, there are a lot of different answers to these questions, and they depend a lot on the specifics of the organization in question. Sometimes foundations are responsible for supporting organizations effectively. A grant will make a bigger impact if it isn’t just for a set of photographs, but also for the other elements of an effective advertising or awareness campaign. Sometimes it’s up to the organization to solicit pro bono contributions from professionals with the relevant skill sets. And sometimes it might be up to an individual–perhaps the photographer!–to put in place the other elements of a successful project so that their personal contribution is meaningful.

This morning, I caught up with James Chance, who has just won the Emerging Vision prize sponsored by Pictures of the Year International. He receives a $10,000 grant plus exhibition at the Annenberg Space for photography in Los Angeles, and the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. You can [...]

I recently decided to put a Creative Commons license on my website. And here’s why.

Fazal Sheikh is an artist and activist based in Zurich, Switzerland. His work has been widely exhibited, in institutions ranging from the Tate Modern to the Princeton University Art Museum to small huts in rural India. He has collaborated with numerous foundations and non-governmental-organizations, and he has won, among many other awards, a MacArthur Prize.

I asked him to do an interview with the PhotoPhilanthropy blog because he approaches collaboration, strategic partnerships and accessibility in a way that I find very inspiring.

I bet that doesn’t seem strange to you. I bet you think, as I have in the past, “Oh, well, science and health—those things really matter. They really help people. Art is just for fun.”

But I no longer agree. I think we over-invest in science, and we under-invest in art.

“In a war, the normal codes of civilized behavior are suspended. It would be unthinkable in so called normal life, to go into someone’s home, where the family is grieving over the death of a loved one, and spend long moments photographing them. It simply wouldn’t be done.”

Kathleen Hennessy is the Director of Photography at the San Francisco Chronicle and has just joined PhotoPhilanthropy as the Activist Award Director for 2010.

I asked her everything that came rushing into my head. What is your editing process like? And how do you think photography creates social change? And what advice do you have for people submitting photo essays to PhotoPhilanthropy? Here’s what she said.