Lucian Perkins, Journalist

Lucian Perkins shot all of the still photos and moving images that appear in this project. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in biology, later studying photography with Garry Winogrand and working on the student newspaper, The Daily Texan. In 1979 he received an internship at The Washington Post, after which he worked as a staff photographer for 27 years. He received the “Newspaper Photographer of the Year” by the National Press Photographers Association in 1994 for a portfolio that included projects in Russia. In 1995 with Post reporter Leon Dash he won a Pulitzer Prize for their four-year study on the effects of poverty on three generations of a Washington, D.C., family through the eyes of the family’s matriarch, Rosa Lee Cunningham. In 1996 he was awarded the World Press Photo of the Year for his photograph of a young boy in war-torn Chechnya. In 2000 Perkins won another Pulitzer Prize along with two colleagues at the Post for their coverage of the Kosovo conflict.

Perkins also co-founded InterFoto, a non-profit that mounted an annual international photography conference in Moscow (1995-2005), and organized exchange programs, exhibitions, workshops and a “Russian Photography of the Year” contest. In 1996 and 1997 Perkins curated an exhibition of Russian photography, “Russia: Chronicles of Change,” that traveled to museums in the United States.

In 2008 he co-founded “Facing Change: Documenting America,” a collective of 10 photographers documenting many of the issues facing the United States.

Currently, Perkins is an independent photographer and filmmaker concentrating on multimedia projects and video documentaries while still pursuing his love for the still image. His latest book, Hard Art, DC, was published by Akashic Books in June 2013.