Photography & Resistance: John Filo

On May 4, 1970, John Filo was a student photographer at Kent State University where, like at college campuses across the country, students were protesting against the Viet Nam war. On this day, when the National Guard turned and fired on the student protestors, killing four of them, John captured an image that went around the world, defined a country in turmoil, and eventually won a Pulitzer Prize.

In this talk, John will talk about covering what became a tragic event, his images, and the aftermath. What does it take to keep your head about you in extraordinary circumstances to capture an image that tells the story, and speaks to a generation? What does it mean when one of your images becomes iconic? And how does a photographer who makes such an era-defining image, keep that image from defining them?

A Q&A will follow.

This free, in-person event will be held at SVA. Seating is limited. Registration is required.

***This is part of the speaker series, Picturing Resistance: Giving Voice and Visibility Through Photography, presented by the DEVELOP Photography Newsletter.

Speaker Bio: John Filo:

John began his professional career in 1966 after graduating high school by working for the THE VALLEY DAILY NEWS and DISPATCH as a Summer replacement photographer.His atrocious math and organic chemistry scores during his first years in college got him out of his life science majors and transferred after a photo portfolio review to the fine and professional arts school of journalism at Kent State University. He became a photo lab assistant as he changed his major to photo-illustration. Through his college career he worked assignments for the Akron Newspaper and continued staffing for his home newspaper during school breaks and vacations. He was one of several student photographers whose work captured the shootings at Kent State in May of 1970.

John Filo joined the Associated Press in Chicago August 1, 1971. His AP career intensity years posted him in Chicago, Springfield, IL., and Kansas City. During that time he was able to re connect to his mentor Eddie Adams who also started at the same area newspaper. The 1970s experienced a sports photo explosion as film and long lenses became faster to handle the coverage. Filo was a big proponent of that change in sports and news coverage.

After ten years with the AP, John was recruited and joined new up-staffing of the Philadelphia Inquirer. His emphasis was to improve the visuals on the sports and business pages. Also he found in shooting for the color Sunday magazine a great experience to improve on lighting and color photo work.

In 1987 he joined the Baltimore Evening Sun as the graphics director. Working there forged a strong relationship with the color printing operational problems. For newspapers at the time, impagination( computer controlled layout with color content) was the upcoming goal. Communications with photographers and the backshop on how to improve color reproduction received great attention.in the

Sports Illustrated in the early 1990s recruited John to be a liaison between the photographers and the photo editors.That job never really panned out. He returned to newspapers, New Jersey’s Courier Post, with the goal of beating the Philadelphia Newspapers to full color production. That was

achieved in the first six months and four months ahead of the Philly papers. It was during this time he joined the Eddie Adams Workshop as a board member for its first ten years.

John Filo joined NEWSWEEK Magazine in 1993 where he worked as the National photo editor. A dispute with the managing editor ended that stint after about a year and a half.

In 1995 he joined the CBS Corporation where he worked for 25 years. During that time he monetized the CBS PHOTO ARCHIVE, and led the way to digitalization of all photo coverage. At CBS he began shooting again. Working publicity photos for East Coast shows. He worked mostly for The LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN and CBS NEWS. He also started working for the show BLUE BLOODS in 2010. That show asked him to continue to shoot a season or two after his CBS PARAMOUNT retirement in 2020.

He is proud to have and known many photographers in his career. Former stringers like Pete Souza, John Spink and Ed Hille went on to do great work. It is always understated the influence that Eddie Adams, Bill Eppridge, Rich Clarkson, Ken Paik, Heinz Kluetmeier had on John Filo’s development. He, in turn, hoped that he too helped other photographers to improve.

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