6Mois published 26 pages of Janet Jarman's 16-year 'Marisol' story and is proud of it. During the process of editing the photos, achieving the layout and writing the captions and accompanying text we exchanged dozens of emails and spent hours on Skype. I was always astonished by Janet's professionalism, her commitment, her deepness. Her job is her life, no doubt about that.
An expert in photojournalism once told me: ”There are two kinds of photojournalists, the ones who just do their job and the ones who care for the people in their pictures. Good ones are in the second category." Janet Jarman cares for the people she photographs. One feels it. That's what makes the difference.
— Marie-Pierre Subtil, Editor in Chief, 6MOIS, France
As I finish my 36th year as an educator, one of my great pleasures is when I am given the opportunity to write about one of my former students, especially one I have known for more than 25 of those years. Janet Jarman labels herself as a photojournalist and multimedia producer based in Mexico, but that is about as descriptive as calling the sun a bright light in the sky. Janet is a passionate and compassionate storyteller, a change agent, a scholar, a teacher, mentor and coach and a dedicated journalist who is committed to telling stories that matter, and we are all better off because of it.
Journalists and teachers are both agents of change and Janet excels at both. Her work speaks for itself, but I am always happy to say a few words about her.
—
Rich Beckman , Professor and Knight Chair, University of Miami
Barely an hour after meeting Janet, we found ourselves sitting in a grotty bar with Mexico City's low life and drinking a vile and viscous alcoholic concoction dating from pre-Hispanic times. Later that day, though not necessarily in this order, we hung out with mariachi musicians in the city centre, went to an upscale hospital and chewed the fat with transexual cabaret artists at the seedy and truly bizarre Bizarro nightclub.
It was a full day. But it more or less marked the pace of what would become my long and exciting friendship with the most talented photographer I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Because when it comes to work, Janet is intense. She doesn't do things by half measures. The days are long and there is no down time until you have all the material you need and she has the shoot in the bag. As a reporter on assignment, I find that immensely reassuring.
She is also brave. I remember being with her at one of those "wrong time, wrong place" moments - on this occasion stumbling into an all-night drinking session of a band of small-time gangsters at the Jardines del Humaya cemetery, a shrine to fallen drug lords in Mexico's most notorious drug-trafficking region.
It could have been very awkward. But Janet knew how to ease tensions with the minor-league capos. And she got her shots of the cemetery and of them - in spite of eventual warnings that if we knew what was good for us, we should leave town sooner rather than later.
That ability to read different and sometimes difficult situations, and her ability to handle them, makes her photography what it is: sensitive and intimate but also startling and dazzling. As a reporter used to doing my own thing, I have only rarely met professionals with whom work becomes such fun and so rewarding. Janet is certainly one of them.
— Adam Thomson, correspondent, Financial Times