Michael S. Zajakowski
Picture Editor, Chicago Tribune

Michael Zajakowski has been a photojournalist, director of photography and photo editor for 30 years. He began his career in photojournalism in Chicago after studying with Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist John H. White at Columbia College. At The Times in suburban Chicago, he was the newspaper’s first foreign correspondent, reporting from Poland as the country emerged from Communism in 1989. An early advocate of digital photojournalism, Michael was invited to present at South Africa’s first photojournalism conference in 1996.
 
Michael was a contributing editor and photographer for CITY2000, a major project to document Chicago at the turn of the century. Since 1998 he has been a photo editor at the Chicago Tribune, and currently is the features picture editor, editing the Chicago Tribune Magazine and other feature sections. He also contributes photography book reviews and feature stories. Michael is a regular portfolio reviewer at workshops and colleges, and teaches visual communication in the graduate journalism program at DePaul University in Chicago. He currently is curating two exhibits at the Gage Gallery in Chicago, and has edited a book of Chicago Tribune portraits due in September.

www.chicagotribune.com