International Photography Festival in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates this

is the Hall of Fame of photographers from around the world world class guys

who are exhibiting and sharing their knowledge at this astonishing event and

I particularly would like you to meet this guy's Essdras Juarez he is a

multiple Pulitzer award-winning photojournalist what he doesn't know

about decisive moments and capturing breathtaking images in some of the most

demanding and difficult situations is pretty much second to none he's also a

big bundle of fun and a great big-kid we have trouble staying on track this you

know what I'm like Iona nip over to the hotel see if we can catch him because I

love you guys to meet him why photography what excited you about

photography first of all guys let me tell you I'm supposed to be a serious

good looking at this guy's face he just makes me smile so this is not gonna be a

serious interview right after that any cute come on so why photography so I was

actually studying to be a writer a journalist and I grew up reading

National Geographic and so I thought if I study journalism specialize in

magazine writing and get a minor in zoo-ology coz I happen to like animals

that would be the way to do it so my there my first semester of

journalism classes I was taking intro to journalism writing and my advisor was

the same professor and I was struggling came from Panama I learned English from

a very young age but the spoken language and the written language are two

different things and this professor was so harsh that if you made a mistake it

was fifty points Wow so sometimes I would start my test and she'd be like

you owe me 50 points from the previous tests so she know I was struggling so

why is it that you want to be a journalist again and I told her she said

so she called me one day and she said you know Tom Kennedy the director

photographer for National Geographic back then

sallowness of the college he's coming to talk to photographers you should talk to

him I'm like no I know nothing of Photography she said, you're going so she

made me go and I you know it was like eight photo students and I the only

known photographer there and so but it turns out because I had read so many

Geographics I hit it off really well with him so I finally said so doing what

I'm doing studying journalism magazine writing zoology do I have any chance of

working for you guys he's like no like okay that's gonna be good for the ego oh

yeah so he goes you know better chances you

become a photographer I'm like okay what do I do

he said what do you mean he's like how do I become a photographer it's like I

don't know you could apply for the internship and I'm like Wednesday

deadline said December is September I can do that he's like right so I can

draw a bit so I went into the restaurant manager's office of hours on paper I

draw a caricature of him it was him sitting on top of the world says as

Rodin's thinker and said Tom Kennedy National Geographic the world is our

backyard I signed it dated it gave him the original kept a copy and I said then

next time you see that my portfolio is gonna be attached to it he said right

you thought I was a crazy guy and the other students were just kind of shaking

their heads so time goes I get real I dove deep into photography and never

picked up a camera we're talking now I am a junior in college so it's my I

might be 21 21 22 years old and first time I pick up a camera so I started

learning all these things I put a portfolio together I do it on a while

wildlife around the Gainesville northern Florida area and December comes about

the same adviser sees me walk by her office she said come here I heard you've

been working really hard on this portfolio is it ready and he's like yeah

it's ready it's like let me see it so I bring it to you oh this is really good

so when are you gonna send it I'm like you know what the more I started

learning about who this guy was and what the geographic photography is I realized

I should have never talked to him this way that it was ludicrous

so I don't think I want to send it so she said stop it so she took it away and

that was the last I saw of that portfolio in January she calls me back

into her office and she says I guess someone in the phone that wants to talk

to you so I pick up the phone and say hey Essdras this is Tom Kennedy from the

National Geographic photo director Mike hold on a second

what did you do talk to the man what you know I so I get he's a guest on he's

like look you have a long way to go but you have potential I see potential on

you so I need someone who speaks Spanish I need someone who knows about jungles

on tropic I need someone who knows a bit about photography and a bit about

animals so he basically described me at that stage in my life it says and I can

only pay you $50 a day something you're gonna pay me on top of this so I spent

two and a half months working in the jungles of Panama Costa Rica and

Colombia being an assistant to a couple of photographers once I had that

experience I was hooked it's like this is it this is what I'm doing the rest of

my life certainly get it but the thing is that what you did there is you kind

of by doing the cartoon and the caricature and going the next time you

see this you stood out and this is what you got to do yeah yeah we're doing this

with whippet English quickly we're not drinking tea we're drinking fau tea mmm

delightful old boy we're thinking of running a workshop together I think you

should come because it's prepare your absolute last so prepare your ads man

okay come on get on with it Pulitzer Prizes it's about your Pulitzer Prize

because so big time so I had so I'm part of two Pulitzers and that first one was

Columbine there Columbine shooting which explained to famous it was the first big

massacre in the u.s. gun violence sadly no it's every weekend news now in the US

but it was the first one of its kind and out of that there was 20 photos over

entered to appeal it Sarah and I have a photo that I'm sure he'll show you that

it's a funeral is the funeral of one of the boys is a one african-american kid

who will kill and there were 3,000 people that came to view the body in a

casket and I was we were in a high platform up above it was a big mega

church and I was looking down and out of the 3,000 people at first when you get

to a scene like that you start photographing photographing because you

don't know when they're gonna kick you out but we have plenty of time so I kind

of calmed down and after a bit started watching the program for some odd reason

I just focus on this one I don't know why young woman and when

she finally made it in front of the casket I have the whole sequence of hair

with flowers in her hand and she's overwhelmed with emotion and she walks

and she so I have her where you can see their faith of the body and then where

the body is being blocked when they and walking away so it turns out she had

columbines flowers in her hand and in the background you could see that

diploma that he was gonna get if you would have graduated so the editors

picked that photo so it's a powerful photo once you see it you're more you're

really likely not to forget it so that photo means a lot to me however the

second pillar says just work having covered that Boston Marathon bombing and

mine was just one of many photos that were interned we just did a great job

covering the whole thing so but it's it's a great honor again but to me the

first one means more I actually feel a little bit more gratify about something

else called a Robert F Kennedy mmm international photography award by the

way I said that because I knew if he tried to say that he was gonna mess it

up he come in 23rd every practice they

award what was the award so it's not as the RFK and on that one I follow the

body of a witch as a story that's repeating itself again and again this

was like 20 years ago young boy 14 year old was being smuggled into the u.s.

once they cross the border they get to a certain point in the US and then they

sweat out go west go east when they were going through Colorado they were lonely

road middle of the night the guy I've been driving 17 hours all of a sudden

this split of a long road it's a sharp turn and he just kept going straight so

the van overturned 13 people inside two of them died so I was assigned by my

editors to follow the body of a 14 year old back to where he came from in the

mountain of Guatemala so right in the border of Mexico so I followed the body

for three days you know it was a vigilant in the capital city of

Guatemala City and then a whole day of they put the casket in the back of a

pickup truck we get finally get to this little village but the village was like

an hour away so we get to the last place we can drink they tell that the locals

what's going on the locals put a casket and on their shoulders and they start

hiking an hour and I have this great photo in the essay

where you see this big valley you see the village on top and you see a pathway

and you see the line of the villagers and on the foreground you see the big

white box and with their carrying it when people tell me my god you're so

smart you stayed behind to get that shot no I was exhausted

I've been going on for three days straight and I was literally leaning

against the tree sick my body was convulsing and I could barely breathe

because I'm trying to keep up with them and I just thought saw it in-between

heaving I basically took the shot and then I run and I caught up with him but

that photo of the essay is the one that you're gonna see which is of the of the

inside they opened the box and the box their casket with silver so there's

natural light coming in and the whole village is inside this little Hut and

the light is just bouncing off their faces and the mothers there the father's

there it's a very powerful image so I have gotten lucky to have been in the

right spot at the right place many many times that plays a part but also mm-hmm

we've been hanging out for a couple of days shooting stuff and we'll come to

that in a minute but in those few days I kind of know you're quite an emotional

character you care there's there's the popular idea of you know the hard-nosed

photojournalist who dives into someone's funeral but you care your you care about

the people about where you are how do you deal with those emotions and maybe

those conflicts solve within you I'm a true believer that the moment you stop

caring is the moment you'll be good start becoming inefficient at doing your

job so I will say you were born a human being and you will die human being when

you do in the middle that's your work as a fashion matters but at the end you got

to remember you are dealing with human beings therefore you should always walk

and people choose so I try to always approach the situation as if it were my

scenario what if that was my family's funeral my relatives and I have a

perfect stranger coming in what I wanted to stick a camera in my face Oh would I

would I be okay with him being respectful about it so I was trying to

be respectful about it so I try to straddle that line I have a duty to take

this photo to document the story but I also have a duty to these people as a

respect as a human being not to overstep my boundaries and make make us a bad

situation for them even worse so that's just me

we'll have other approaches mm-hmm and I mean just on the subject to the

hard-nosed photojournalist guys he's also a yoga teacher reconcile that I

never seen a photographer work with shades on

never mind gold ones talk to us about shades okay so let's start with the

shades Bart I just wanted you to see this I think they're really cool and my

wife is the one who got me into this mirror thing so but I'll take him up

just out of respect um so you're nice so the thing is the thing is you know I

actually didn't know this but I a lot of my career has been spent working in the

equatorial belt of the world so about I'm almost under the Sun and every

photographer can tell that it's a pain to work under the Sun as a

photojournalist you don't have the luxury own up on the lightest right you

got to work with what you got so at some point I picked up sunglasses

and I noticed that the sunglasses they were cheap they're no good

so I actually has a poor photographer when I bought a pair of ray-bans with

glass with polarized filter in them and expensive and was really bummed I'm like

oh my god this expensive glasses turns out that you can actually deduct the

Meseta it's a tax deduction in the u.s. because your eyes my eyes the way I make

money therefore they are a tool for my job just like my cameras are and I just

got used to it and the whole the fact that they're reflective it just happens

to be in vogue right now but it's very good because it allows me to survey a

seen something there might be a photo over there that I want to take a photo

of and I might be able to just turn my eyes see it if I'm wearing my glasses

and come back and you've seen me do this what I do is if I want to take a photo

of something on it over there and the light is even I'm actually pick

up my camera do the reading so the metering do that set the focal point