About this episode

Carol Guzy discusses her self-funded journalism that led to winning the World Press Photo of the Year.

Carol Guzy is one the most decorated photojournalist in the world. She has won four Pulitzer Prizes, nine World Press Photo awards, and was named World Press Photo of the Year 2025 for a single image made in a courthouse hallway in New York. A picture of two girls holding onto their father's shirt as ICE agents took him away. This conversation took place in Amsterdam, the morning before the award ceremony. Carol had barely slept. She was still thinking about the families she couldn't reach. In this episode, we talk about what it actually takes to do this kind of work: going to the same courthouse every day for six months, couch surfing through the boroughs of New York, funding the whole thing out of your own savings, and staying emotionally present with people whose lives are falling apart in front of your lens. What you'll take away from this episode How Carol spent six months at a New York courthouse without a single assignment, documenting ICE detentions on her own time and money Why she sees empathy as both the foundation of her work and the heaviest thing she carries How she thinks about physical and emotional distance in the field, and why those are two very different…

People in this episode

Host: Kaat Celis

Guest: Carol Guzy

Topics covered

• photojournalism
• empathy
• ICE detentions
• self-funded journalism
• mental health
• World Press Photo

Keywords

• photojournalism
• Pulitzer Prizes
• World Press Photo
• ICE
• empathy
• mental health
• New York courthouse

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: World Press Photo

Places: New York, Washington D.C.

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