Ashley Gilbertson

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Gilbertson started his career at thirteen taking pictures of skateboarders.{{cite news|url=http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/cameraman-with-a-conscience/2008/02/16/1202760669133.html|title=Eyes on cameraman with a conscience|publisher=The Age|date=17 February 2008|last=Harrison|first=Dan|accessdate=23 February 2010}} After graduating secondary school, he was mentored by Filipino photographer Emmanuel Santos, and later Masao Endo in the Japanese highlands.

While based in Australia, Gilbertson worked on socially driven photo essays including on drug addiction in Melbourne and war zones in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. In 1999 he photographed Kosovar refugees in Australia. For the next three years Gilbertson's work focused on refugee issues around the world.{{cite news|url=http://www.independent.com/news/2007/nov/21/photographer-ashley-gilbertson-gets-personal-iraq/|title=Photographer Ashley Gilbertson Gets Personal in Iraq|work=Santa Barbara Independent|date=21 November 2007|last=Leigh Dicks|first=brett|accessdate=23 February 2010}}

In 2002, Gilbertson travelled to the Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq. Shortly thereafter, President George W. Bush made a case for war in Iraq, and Gilbertson travelled back to cover the story at the beginning of 2003. His work was published widely. In 2004, The New York Times offered Gilberston and their senior writer, Dexter Filkins, an embed with the 1/8 Marines.{{Cite web|last=McCauley|first=Adam|date=2012-12-20|title=Overexposed: A Photographer's War With PTSD|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/overexposed-a-photographers-war-with-ptsd/266468/|access-date=2020-07-28|website=The Atlantic|language=en-US}} Gilbertson continued to cover Iraq on contract for The New York Times until 2008. A photographic memoir of his time there entitled Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War was published in 2007.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/arts/18gilb.html|title=In Frying Pan and Fire |work=The New York Times|date=18 November 2007|last=Filkins|first=Dexter|accessdate=23 February 2010}}

In March 2009, he became a member of the VII Photo Agency's VII Network, and in 2011 he became a full member.

Gilbertson's book Bedrooms of the Fallen (2014) consists of panoramic black and white photographs of the bedrooms left behind by 40 U.S., Canadian, and European soldiers—the number of soldiers in a platoon.{{cite web|last1=Teicher|first1=Jordan G.|title=Heartbreaking Photos of the Bedrooms of Fallen Soldiers|url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2014/07/03/ashley_gilbertson_bedrooms_of_the_fallen_bedrooms_of_soldiers_killed_in.html|website=Slate|date=3 July 2014 |accessdate=13 August 2014}}

• 21 Days to Baghdad: Photos and Dispatches from the Battlefield. Time, 2003. {{ISBN|1-932273-12-3}}.
• Witness Iraq: A War Journal. PowerHouse, 2003.
• Beautiful Suffering: Photography and the Traffic in Pain. University of Chicago Press, 2006.
• Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War. University of Chicago Press, 2007. {{ISBN|0-226-29325-4}}.
• Bedrooms of the Fallen. University of Chicago Press, 2014. {{ISBN|978-0-226-13511-3}}. With a foreword by Philip Gourevitch.

{{BLP sources section|date=October 2015}}

• 2001 – Leica/CCP Documentary Award (Melbourne){{Cite web |url=http://www.ccp.org.au/exhibitions.php?f=20010908_Gallery_1 |title=CCP Exhibition Preview |access-date=14 February 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110221043457/http://www.ccp.org.au/exhibitions.php?f=20010908_Gallery_1 |archive-date=21 February 2011 |url-status=dead }}
• One of his images from the invasion of Iraq was included in Time magazine's 'Pictures of the Year'.
• 2004 – Included in Photo District News '30 under 30'
• 2004 – Publisher's Award, The New York Times
• 2004 – Robert Capa Gold Medal, Overseas Press Club (New York) (winner){{cite web|url=http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2005/04/gilbertson.html |title=Ashley Gilbertson Wins The Robert Capa Gold Medal Award For Coverage of Fallujah |publisher=National Press Photographers Association |accessdate=23 February 2010 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091008033229/http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2005/04/gilbertson.html |archivedate=8 October 2009}}
• 2004 – Photographer of the Year, National Photo Awards (Minnesota) (winner)
• 2005 – Joop Swart Masterclass, World Press Photo (Amsterdam) (participant)
• 2008 – The Staige D. Blackford Prize for Nonfiction
• 2009 – Photo District News, Photo Annual
• 2010 – Aaron Siskind Foundation, grant recipient
• 2011 – National Magazine Award, Photography, for his series Bedrooms of the Fallen, published as a work in progress in The New York Times Magazine.{{cite news|url=http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/a-conversation-with-photographer-ashley-gilbertson/|title=Gilbertson receives National Magazine Award|work=The New York Times|date=17 May 2011}}
• 2014 – Photo District News, Photo Annual

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• {{Official website|www.ashleygilbertson.com}}
• [https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/NYT997wxftfspEgo Ashley Gilbertson collection] at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History (Photographic History collection)
• [http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/gilbertson/ Website for the book Whiskey Tango Foxtrot] including a video interview with Gilbertson
• [http://www.pdngallery.com/cobrand/nikonnet/ontheroad/iraq/index.html On The Road article]
• [http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2007/summer/gilbertson-last-photographs/ Last Photographs] with Joanna Gilbertson

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Category:1978 births

Category:Living people

Category:Australian photojournalists

Category:War photographers

Category:Photographers from Melbourne

Category:American photojournalists

Category:Photography in Iraq

Category:VII Photo Agency photographers