Guzy, Carol

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Carol Guzy

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Carol Guzy (born 1956) is one of the most renowned American photojournalists of all time. Guzy gets results because she focuses on shooting feelings rather than pictures. Through her lens, she has delved into the darkest corners of human existence, hoping to bring understanding between people in all parts of the world. Over the years, she has brought viewers face to face with Kosovo refugees, famine in Ethiopia, civil unrest in Haiti, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the tragedy of south Florida's Hurricane Andrew.

"A photograph can be a powerful witness and an eloquent voice for those who have none," Guzy wrote in a personal essay posted on the Poynter Institute Website. "Pictures inform, educate, enlighten, captivate, spur governments into action. They are historical documents and poignant reminders of our human frailties. Sometimes they touch our very souls."

Initially Studied Nursing

Guzy was born March 7, 1956, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Her father died when she was young, leaving her upbringing solely on the shoulders of her mother, who worked factory jobs to make ends meet. Speaking to News Photographer contributor Pete Souza, Guzy credited her mother with instilling in her the values that shine through in her photos. "I think I inherited her inner strength that keeps me going in life. She tried her best to teach me between right and wrong and moral values. She taught me to look into people's eyes and see their souls, not their surface. Wealth does not make a person more valuable and poverty can not erase grace and dignity."

As a young girl, Guzy spent a lot of time drawing. As she grew older, she considered becoming a commercial artist, but her mother tried to steer her into a more practical profession. Guzy's mother, who had struggled financially to raise her, wanted her daughter in a career that was less competitive and that provided a steady income. Heeding her mother's advice, Guzy chose nursing over art and began studying at Pennsylvania's Northampton County Area Community College.

Felt Calling in Photography

Guzy fell in love with the lens after a boyfriend gave her a 35mm camera. She enrolled in a photography course—and failed—because her nursing studies prevented her from dedicating enough time to the hobby. Guzy earned her associate's degree in registered nursing in 1978, but soon realized her mistake. Her artistic side kept calling, so she headed south and enrolled at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Speaking to Debra Gersh of Editor & Publisher, Guzy recalled her leap of faith in leaving nursing before she even got started. "I just wanted to take a chance. I always felt a little bit adventuresome. I wanted to see the world, and I thought, well, this was an opportunity. It had at least the potential for traveling."

Guzy never regretted the time she spent in nursing school and she believes it probably aided her photography career because it helped awaken her deep compassion and empathy for others. Also, having the nursing career to fall back on gave Guzy a sense of freedom to risk a career in photography, which she knew she might fail at. In 1980, she earned an associate's degree in applied science in photography. She then worked an internship at the Miami Herald and ultimately found employment there as a staff photographer.

In November of 1985 Colombia's Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupted, killing 23,000 people. The Miami Herald sent Guzy to the scene. In frame after frame, Guzy recorded the plight of the survivors and the stunning devastation, particularly following a mudslide that destroyed much of the city of Amero. The striking photos earned Guzy the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography, a prize she shared with fellow staff photographer Michel duCille. The award made Guzy the first woman to win a Pulitzer in the spot news category.

One day, while printing her pictures in the Miami Herald darkroom, Guzy met United Press International photographer Jonathan Utz. They eventually married and in 1988, when Utz accepted a post in Washington, D.C., Guzy followed, finding work at the Washington Post. Although the marriage did not work out—the couple was divorced by 1998—Guzy's job at the Post did. She had only been in Washington one year when she won the 1989 Photographer of the Year award from the National Press Photographers Association. A year later, in 1990, Guzy became the first woman to be named Photographer of the Year at the prestigious annual Pictures of the Year contest.

Poignant Pictures

During the early 1990s, Guzy covered some of the top news stories from around the world, among them the breakup of the Soviet Union. During a two-month stint abroad, she documented life in the fractured republics after the fall of communism. She also traveled to Somalia to document relief efforts following a tumultuous civil war. Guzy covered domestic stories as well, including the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, which hit south Florida in August of 1992, leaving 160,000 people homeless.

Guzy's portfolio of stories won her the top prize at the annual Pictures of the Year contest in 1993, which drew from entries submitted by more than 1,500 editors and photojournalists. Judges spent ten days reviewing the 25,000 photos and tear sheets submitted, and Guzy came out on top. "Carol's portfolio was outstanding because of its stories," contest judge Michele McDonald told a contributor to Petersen's Photographic. "Her stuff on Hurricane Andrew was really straightforward, and truly the best work we saw on the hurricane. And her stories from Russia were absolutely beautiful. Her portfolio made you care about the people in her pictures. You cared about the subject."

Former Pictures of the Year director Bill Kuykendall echoed McDonald's sentiments. Guzy "packs a lot in a picture and she composes it in a very elegant, thoughtful and very appropriate way. Whether she was photographing horror or devastation, the images were well crafted, and they had a point to them that was not just a record of the scene."

Won Pulitzers

In 1995 Guzy won her second Pulitzer prize, this one for coverage of United States military intervention in Haiti as forces tried to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. In 2000, her coverage of Kosovo refugees earned her a third Pulitzer, which she shared with two fellow staff photographers. Despite such accolades, Guzy continued to keep her nose to the grindstone, believing that in her competitive field she must continually prove herself over and over. As she explained to Sherry Ricchiardi in the American Journalism Review, "To me, nothing I've ever shot is good enough. I have gained a little bit of self-confidence in some areas. That comes with age and experience, but I'm still basically shy and introverted. I'm always afraid I'm going to screw up the next story. You're only as good as your last picture."

Guzy has also admitted that she is not technically the best photographer around. "I know technically the negatives aren't usually the best because I'm not as careful as I should be," she told Gersh in Editor & Publisher. "But I think if you get the moment, it means more than anything. . . . I think photographers tend to many times overlight and overcontrol situations, and they miss the fact that what matters most is the moment. It's just a split second of time, and if you miss it, you don't have it. It's gone forever!"

Guzy has a knack for capturing that moment, most often in her long-term picture stories. These are her favorite assignments. She does not like pack photography, where she is one in a mob of photographers at the same scene all trying to get the same picture. Guzy finds her subjects off the beaten path. After Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992, she stumbled upon the remains of a trailer court and found a man crawling out of the rubble of the home he shared with his girlfriend and newborn child. Wary of looters, the man aimed his gun at Guzy. After Guzy befriended his girlfriend, he let her stay and shoot. Guzy followed them around for awhile, documenting their struggles as they worked to rebuild their lives.

One of the photographer's favorite assignments was the time she followed around a Washington, D.C., homeless couple who had been invited to former president George Bush's inauguration. She produced a 29-picture portfolio, which received a Special Recognition Award in the essay category of the 1990 Pictures of the Year contest. During the shooting, Guzy became friends with the couple.

Other assignments have not been as fulfilling. Guzy has stumbled upon mutilated bodies and seen people beaten to death by mobs. She has shot photos of refugees desperate for food and has taken pictures of refugee children clutching their dying parents along the road. She has sometimes returned from assignments depressed, but believes it is worth it. "As long as abuse and conflict and inequality remain, it is our responsibility to have a social conscience and bring these issues to light, for others to judge and make educated choices," she wrote in her essay on the Poynter Institute Website.

Just five-foot-four inches tall and admittedly shy, Guzy somehow manages to push herself into taxing situations. She believes these characteristics help, rather than hinder, her career. "I'm less intimidating in the beginning than maybe a 6-foot, 4-inch man with a lot of cameras," she told a contributor to the American Journalism Review. "I'm quiet, I'm small, I'm female, and I think that intimidates people a lot less."

Arrested While on Assignment

In April 2000, Guzy made headlines when she was arrested in Washington, D.C., while covering those protesting meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The charge: marching without a permit. "It's quite ironic to be arrested in your own backyard after covering the stories I've witnessed," Guzy wrote in the Media Studies Journal, recounting her experience. She was thrown on a bus with other detainees and was infuriated at her arrest. With her press credentials and cameras, it was obvious she was not a marcher. At the police station, officers confiscated her cameras, film, shoelaces, gas mask and makeup. In her essay, Guzy attacks what had been a slew of journalist arrests nationwide during the same period. "Arresting journalists without just cause is not a mere inconvenience. We are silenced. Our images can't be given back with our shoelaces when the charges are dropped. They will never be made. They are the most tangible documents of our time. They are history."

Looking toward the future and what she would like to accomplish, Guzy has said she desires to make books because they are more permanent than newspaper photos. "I think everyone wants to leave a little bit of immortality behind," she told Editor & Publisher contributor Gersh, noting that "pictures are my immortality. I hate to think that [if] I die and all of a sudden the negatives are thrown away and that's it, nobody ever sees them again."