Jon Goering: Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity

Photo © Jon Goering-All Rights Reserved

I am certainly glad Jon Goering chose me to review his multifaceted portfolio during the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Buenos Aires a few days ago, and so will you when you view his black & white images of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity.

I guarantee you'll find these beautiful images very compelling, and extremely well composed.

Jon is a photojournalist living near Birmingham, Alabama and is the staff photographer for Shelby County Newspapers. He was awarded third place by the Hearst Journalism Awards program for News/Sports in 2008/2009 and honored for his photography of Ethiopia. At CPOY64 he was awarded two honorable mentions awards, one for International Picture Story for a story on the children of the Chinandega, Nicaragua landfill, and one for Portrait. The project was later selected by the photojournalism collective LUCEO as one of ten finalists for their student project award. Jon garnered other awards, and I predict he will continue to impress us with his future projects.

In Buenos Aires, my review of Jon's images (viewed on his iPad) quickly evolved into a conversation about Ethiopia and the profound religiosity of its people. I can't recall for certain if I told Jon this, but when looking at his images, the sinking feeling in my stomach signalled I had missed much by photographing only in color when I was in Lalibela during Timket...but it was in 2004 and what did I know then?!

So I'm happy Jon is smarter than I was, and did realize that black & white photography enhanced his visualization of Ethiopia's beautiful Christian rituals.