New York Times Photographer to Lecture, Show Work

Tyler Hicks, a photographer for the New York Times who has ventured into war-torn areas around the globe, will show his photographs and discuss his work in a lecture at Skidmore College on Wednesday, April 12. The talk, titled "Up Close in Conflict," will begin at 8 p.m. in Davis Auditorium of Palamountain Hall.

Hicks began working for the New York Times as a contract photographer in 1999, covering stories in Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sierra Leone and other African countries. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he traveled to Afghanistan for the Times and arrived in Kabul when the Northern Alliance took control of the city from the Taliban. In 2002 he revisited Afghanistan, and most recently has been working in Iraq.

Hicks graduated in 1992 with a B.A. in journalism from Boston University.

After graduation, he worked as a photographer's assistant at a commercial studio in Boston and then at the Troy Daily News, a small newspaper in Ohio where he spent a year as chief photographer.

Hicks moved on to North Carolina, where he was a staff photographer for three years at the Wilmington Star-News, part of the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group. During this time, he photographed in Haiti, Albania and Kosovo. Moved by the atrocities he saw in Kosovo, he left his job in North Carolina to pursue a career in international news.

As a freelancer, Hicks covered the Kosovo conflict while on assignment for the Associated Press, Life magazine, and the New York Times. He photographed the conflict in Chechnya before traveling to Africa to cover the escalating war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

In 2001, Hicks received the International Center of Photography's Infinity Award for Photojournalism for his coverage in Afghanistan.

Hicks was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1969 and now resides in New York City.