NEW – In the picture with John D McHugh – War in Multimedia

In 2007, John D McHugh won the Frontline Club Award for his work in Afghanistan.

In 2008, The Guardian commissioned him to produce an online project called “Six months in Afghanistan.” The project was to include photography, short films, audio slideshows, and blogging.

“I wanted to use the full range of multimedia options open to me to tell the story of the war in Afghanistan,” says McHugh, “and The Guardian gave me the opportunity to do this, and the platform to present the results to a worldwide audience.”

McHugh will present a selection of this multimedia work at The Frontline Club, and will talk with Roger Tooth, The Guardian’s head of photography, about the reasons why he has moved from working solely in traditional photojournalism into other fields.

“I still believe the power of a well composed still photograph is unsurpassable” McHugh says. “But, as the internet gathers pace, and a hungry news audience demands ever more information, while at the same time it becomes more difficult and more dangerous for journalists to travel and work on the modern battlefield, it is a logical step for some of us to blur the long-established separate roles.”

McHugh goes on to say, “I have heard it described as ‘convergence journalism’ by some, and others have called me a ‘multimedia practitioner,’ but really, the label is unimportant. The simple fact is that by learning and adopting these new skills, I have been able to produce a much stronger body of work, and have brought the reality of the situation in Afghanistan to far more people than through purely still photography, and as a journalist, that is my job.”

John D McHugh’s Diary for The Guardian

John D McHugh’s Afghanistan portfolio