Interview with John McConnico, Pulitzer prize winning photographer

Recently I’ve discovered the amazing Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog. After reading this article please visit them — http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/ — you won’t regret. The World Animal Day collection attracted me in the first place since I am a birdwatcher. From the 40 pictures shown there, the one with the zebra attracted me most. I can’t tell exactly why, but I’ve watched it a little bit, then went down to reading the caption and the zebra was from Chişinău, capital of Moldova, where I actually live. First surprise.

And the picture wasn’t taken by a Moldovan, of course, but by a guy called John McConnico. Who’s this guy? Google answered. Pulitzer prize winner, worked mainly for AP in 70+ countries, covered conflicts in Haiti, Afghanistan, Kenia, Balkans… Why would a guy like this take a picture of a Zebra in Chişinău?

His home page — http://johnmcconnico.com/ — answered. Because he stays there right now. There was a Moldovan phone number there, I called, introduced myself and asked for an interview. “Sure“, said John, “I have two free hours tomorrow, write down the address.“ I did. Through the window I could see his house. It was 100 meters from the place I’m staying the last 15 years.

The interview was published this week in Romanian by Punkt magazine. Don’t hurry to click, their website is not often updated. I place here 90% of the original interview in English in PDF format.

John McConnico Interview http://d.scribd.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=12731945&access_key=key-r7038aczr20bitnv182&page=1&version=1&viewMode=list