Today on WYNC, Alice Rhee filled in for Leonard Lopate and spoke with Magnum photographers Jonas Bendiksen and Alec Soth, as well as Mark Lubell (the director of Magnum Photos) about Magnum’s 60th, among other things.

If you weren’t around to catch the program, I’ll offer you a scattered rundown of some of the conversation.

Jonas and Alec began by discussing their initial interest in joining a photo collective and what drew them to Magnum. There was brief discussion of the challenges of covering major world conflicts where Jonas elaborated on what it’s like to be on assignment and Alec attempted to define where their work might fall on the journalism vs. fine art spectrum. Rhee asked such questions as “How has technology changed the way you do your work?” — furthering the question by asking about the ways in which the onset of image-manipulating technology has effected the believability of images as reportage.

On the border between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, Uzbek guards survey the entrance to Sokh, one of the valley’s seven territorial enclaves
© Jonas Bendiksen

Alec was asked what makes him, as a photographer, different than the everyday person taking photographs. After noting his choice of the large format camera and use of film (an “oddball” at the agency, he says) he explained:

Since it’s our craft, we’re focused in on it. It’s really about going out in the world and being attentive.

Newspaper, 2005
© Alec Soth

Lubell discussed exactly what it takes to become a member of Magnum Photos. Magnum, quite possibly one of the hardest photo agencies to join has a selection process that consists of a remarkably large amount of submissions in cities worldwide being narrowed down to generally one photographer annually — and only when a selected photographer’s following two-year project is complete and approved do they achieve the title of “associate photographer” (the status of both Jonas and Alec right now). Yet again, however, they must make another project and be approved a second time to achieve full member status at Magnum.

Most interesting was the short discussion pressed on by Rhee about the disproportionate number of men and women that make it into the Magnum agency. Hesitantly, Lubell admits that Magnum may be more than 90% male dominant. They strive, he says, to accept only photographers making great work, looking only at the portfolios, and not to run an organization that puts having an equal number of male and female photographers as a priority over having only the best work represented. This is not to say that women are not making fantastic work, he point out, but that in a collective that was started by men and often was known for conflict-based images (generally not a chosen subject of women photographers at the time) the agency had a tendency to grow from that foundation. It was pointed out that women, because of this, may even still be intimidated to submit to Magnum and, as a result, most of the submissions are from male photographers and most of the accepted applicants are male. Only some ten years ago has Magnum altered their philosophy to begin to embrace work that is less journalistic and also less conflict oriented, incorporated a grant specifically for women photographers, and from here on he hopes the agency will see more and more of the world’s great women photographers.

Listen to the whole Leonard Lopate show on the embedded player above or on the WNYC wesbite here.