Off the Page is an exclusive new series produced by the NMAF that reaches out to former National Magazine Award winners to find out what their awards have meant to them and what they’re up to now. Off the Page will appear regularly on the NMA blog during the winter and spring of 2012. This week we catch up with National Magazine Award-winning photographer Roger LeMoyne.

NMAF: In 2008 Maisonneuve published your photo essay, “Serbia, the Sad South,” which ultimately won you your first Gold National Magazine Award. You’d spent time in the Balkans early in your career and for this assignment you went back to document your experiences in Serbia a decade or more after the Balkan wars. How did you make that return journey happen, and how did it get the attention of Maisonneuve?

"Serbia, the Sad South" by Roger LeMoyne (Maisonneuve, no. 30, Winter 2008)

NMAF: You’ve now been nominated for thirteen National Magazine Awards and won two since 1992 for your photojournalism in Maclean’s, Destinations, Saturday Night, Chatelaine, Report on Business, Canadian Geographic, Border Crossings and others, and no doubt we’ll see more of your work recognized in the future. What is the significance for a well-travelled freelance photographer to win a NMA and be recognized for all that hard work?

Roger: Personally, the significance of awards is that they’ve helped me overcome self doubt. When I began working I had no idea if I could survive, make a living, be any good as a photographer. Whenever I felt that I was hopelessly inept and dark voices inside were telling me to give up, I would defer to other people’s opinions (such as those giving out awards) and carry on. Of course the prize money is helpful in funding the next project, and it is good fun to go to the awards evenings. I don’t think anyone will deny that recognition from your peers is especially gratifying.

Tahrir Square, Cairo (Feb 2011) by Roger LeMoyne

NMAF: A year ago at this time you were in Tahrir Square in Cairo, documenting the popular revolt unfolding in Egypt, and you’ve also worked in Kurdistan, Palestine and the Amazon, among others. As a veteran photographer what motivates you to document events and people in times of upheaval or transition? 

Roger: The transition/upheaval question is an interesting one. With so many photographs being made around the world—and flying around the internet—there is a kind of existential dilemma of what to photograph and why.

I am constantly watching for the right subject, weighing the pros and the cons of investing myself in a story. I am looking for photos that will have some lasting value, that I can get financing for; photos I really want to make and ones that I can make well, which are not always the same thing.

Periods of transition meet the criteria in several ways: these are moments of change that won’t be repeated, ever, in the same way. They have news value at first, but then become part of a historical record. The moment may pass, but the changes have long-lasting repercussions that keep the photographs relevant.

On another level, these situations also reveal the fragility of society and the human enterprise. I see many of our social constructs as illusory and therefore the potential for chaos as ever present, be it physical, financial or in other forms that we are seeing even now.

Conversely, in times of upheaval, the individual regains some of his self-reliance (or perishes). There is something quite liberating about working in these zones of chaos, where your own actions determine your fate.

NMAF: What else have you been working on recently?

Roger: I have just been to Port-au-Prince again, looking at how the city is putting itself back together two years after the earthquake. Very few people who go to Haiti only go once. It is a fascinating place. I have also been working on a story for The Walrus here in Montreal about circus arts. They paid me to go to the Circus. Fun. In the last few years I have been shooting regularly for Maclean’s, which I usually enjoy, because they have to do all the thinking. Sometimes it is a relief to be told what to photograph and what the point is.

Roger LeMoyne is a Canadian photographer whose images have garnered more than 50 national and international awards. His website is rogerlemoyne.com. Find out more about Roger’s National Magazine Awards at our Awards Archive. Photograph of Tahrir Square courtesy Roger LeMoyne.

Off the Page is an exclusive new series produced by the NMAF that reaches out to former National Magazine Award winners to find out what their awards have meant to them and what they’re up to now. Off the Page will appear regularly on the NMA blog during the winter and spring of 2012. This week we catch up with National Magazine Award-winning writer Joshua Knelman.

NMAF: Your new book – Hot Art: Chasing Thieves and Detectives through the Secret World of Stolen Art – is getting great reviews. You mentioned in an interview with The Walrus how this book came to life after you won a National Magazine Award for a story on art theft (“Artful Crimes,” The Walrus, November 2005; Arts & Entertainment category). Can you tell us a little more about how you were able to turn your NMA success into a book? 

Joshua: The National Magazine Award was crucial into shifting The Walrus feature into a book project. Awards have a lot to do with luck. That being said, they also attract attention and provide some leverage.

After the magazine award, I received a few phone calls from literary agents, inquiring about the possibility of a book. I thought there was enough material for one, although I didn’t know exactly how the book would work, or where the research would lead me. I just knew I’d need my passport.

The NMA was also a source of confidence, to pursue the larger, broader story. It’s funny how an award can have that effect. The right agent  (Samantha Haywood) found me, and I am sure the NMA helped her in the all-important pitch to book editors and marketing departments; to be able to say the idea had already garnered a Gold Award from the community of magazine journalists.

It also gave my reputation as a writer some edge, and in the publishing business, any edge helps — especially for a first book. The Walrus feature, combined with the NMA and a dedicated agent who believed in the story, were a perfect storm of support to get a first non-fiction investigation off the ground and into the publishing bloodstream.

NMAF: Describe the feeling of a young writer winning his first National Magazine Award, especially after the long process of researching and writing the piece that became “Artful Crimes.”

Joshua: I remember the feeling, because it was the only year since I’d been working in magazines that I was not present at the actual ceremony. In fact, I was halfway across the world, in Russia, teaching at the Summer Literary Seminars, which had a partnership with The Walrus.

I completely forgot about the NMAs that night, because, let’s face it, I was wandering around a stunning, sprawling Russian city with a bunch of writers and editors.

There was this dingy internet café, called “Players,” where we’d go and check our email at odd hours. St. Petersburg, in June, does not experience full darkness. Often, I could be checking email at Players at 3:30 or 4:30 in the morning, and it seemed normal.

I went to check my email at a very late hour. I remember scanning the screen: it was full of new emails, probably 50 or 60, and they all had the same subject line: GOLD.

It was a beautiful moment. Shaughnessy-Bishop Stall had agreed to say a few words on my behalf [at the NMA gala] in case I won. I still don’t know what he said, but I’m thankful he did. I remember walking out of Players into St. Petersburg and feeling proud.

What I did not think: I will now write a book about international art theft. That happened later.

NMAF: What are you working on next?

Joshua: Hot Art took four and half years of research and writing, and if you include the arc of time from when I first stepped into a local art gallery to write a short article about a burglary, we’re looking at 2003-2011. I’d like to trim that time span down, just slightly, on the next book. I am, though, hoping there will be a next book. There are a few non-fiction stories that interest me. I’m exploring. As I learned with this book: you never know. Follow the thread, and see where it leads you.

Joshua Knelman is an award-winning writer and a founding member of the editorial staff of The Walrus. He has also been a volunteer judge for the National Magazine Awards. His new book, Hot Art, published by Douglas & McIntyre, is in bookstores now. See what other NMAs Joshua has been nominated for at our Awards Archive.

Off the Page is an exclusive new series produced by the NMAF that reaches out to former National Magazine Award winners to find out what their awards have meant to them and what they’re up to now. Off the Page will appear regularly on the NMA blog during the winter and spring of 2012. This week we catch up with National Magazine Award-winning writer Carol Shaben.

NMAF: Your debut magazine article, “Fly at Your Own Risk” published in The Walrus, about the state of safety regulation in Canada’s airline industry, was a big hit at the 2009 National Magazine Awards, winning Gold in Investigative Reporting, Silver in Politics & Public Interest, and Honourable Mention in Best New Magazine Writer. How did you develop that story and find a home for it in The Walrus?

Carol Shaben: The issue of aviation safety came to my attention several years ago when I met the pilot involved in a 1984 small plane crash that killed six people. My father was one of four survivors.

The pilot told me that he hadn’t wanted to fly that stormy night, but as a twenty-four-year-old rookie struggling to work his way up in a competitive industry, he’d felt he had little choice. The crash ended his career and in the decade that followed he tried without success to improve airline safety.

I began investigating his story and discovered two staggering realities: 1) the situation hadn’t changed in a quarter century, and 2) the Canadian government was now trying to offload responsibility for aviation safety to airlines themselves. My research also unearthed tragic personal stories of loss resulting from small plane crashes that could have been prevented. In short, the Canadian government was failing to protect the travelling public when it came to airline safety.

The Walrus immediately came to mind as one of the few magazines where this story could be told in the depth and detail it required. The magazine has a reputation as one of the smartest and most rigorous investigative reporting venues in the country and has a crackerjack editorial team.

NMAF: How did it feel to win a National Magazine Award? What has it meant for you professionally and personally?

"Fly At Your Own Risk" by Carol Shaben (The Walrus, November 2009)

Carol: The impact of this award was stunning. Here I was, writing from an isolated basement office in Vancouver, and all of a sudden my work is being recognized nationally. Personally, it was an unbelievable affirmation that the sacrifices I’d made to leave a twenty-year corporate consulting career had been worth it. Professionally, it was a game changer. The NMA nominations provided me with an entrée into one of the country’s top literary agencies. I met with and acquired Jackie Kaiser of Westwood Creative Artists as my agent the day of the awards ceremony. In short, I believe that the recognition of the National Magazine Awards catapulted me from the ground floor of my writing profession to the penthouse suite.

NMAF: Where has your career in magazines/journalism taken you since then? 

Carol: The article that won the awards had been part of a larger story—one that I’d hoped to publish one day. However, both literary agents and publishers had rejected my previous attempts to “sell” that story. Days before the announcement of the 2009 National Magazine Awards nominations, I’d decided to give up on the book.

The NMA resurrected it. Three months after the awards, rights to publish my book sold to Random House Canada. Less than two weeks later Macmillan (UK) and Grand Central (US) also acquired publishing rights. I’ve spent the past year writing the book, titled Into the Abyss, which will be published in the fall of 2012.

Also exciting is the fact that major magazine editors have approached me to write articles. The opportunity to take advantage of the doors that have opened as a result of the National Magazine Awards is something I will gratefully look forward to in the future.

For more on Carol Shaben’s new book, watch this video of Random House Canada vice-president Anne Collins talking about Into the Abyss. Read Carol’s author bio at Westwood Creative Artists.