I have now been the new Jerry (Jerry Sowden was the very much loved and respected photographer at The Derrick and News-Herald for 18 or so years---he is missed believe me by the people he has covered all these years!). I'm not new to the business of visual story-telling so the work for me has just been a different place, different folk. I have enjoyed the new area to explore and the people I work with. After one month I feel I have made new friends for life.
I thought about this today as I saw Keith Gushard who I had worked with for 17 years at the Meadville Tribune. Keith and Kevin Hart were the only two that had been there during my entire time there. I realized how much they are family to me and several of the other people I worked with over the years. In our common goal to make the best work we can, tell the best stories we can we form a bond. And after one month I see those bonds beginning to for at my new home.
I thought about this today as I saw Keith Gushard who I had worked with for 17 years at the Meadville Tribune. Keith and Kevin Hart were the only two that had been there during my entire time there. I realized how much they are family to me and several of the other people I worked with over the years. In our common goal to make the best work we can, tell the best stories we can we form a bond. And after one month I see those bonds beginning to for at my new home.
For me the work I do is always about trying to make the best picture I can. I used to make pictures when i was younger based on making a picture that i haven't made before and adding to my portfolio. Admittedly that doesn't even enter my mind anymore. Even when i applied for this job I really didn't even have a portfolio anymore. I look at my daily take as being the photographer that I am. If I honestly engage my subjects with my visual tools and convey something about them in how I capture them, I have done great things.
Not every photo I make gets published. There are many factors in place that determine what makes it to our reader's each and everyday. It could be a sensitivity to a charged subject or a particular issue that seems unlikely to be explained well enough in the space allotted. Communication is the key factor---how well do we communicate in order to inform our readers? If we ask ourselves that question each day while we're doing our jobs then we are doing well for our readers.
In one month I feel like I have been on auto-pilot almost. Nearly every assignment is a new location for me. How do I get there and what is the story--what is the history. When a historic business was being torn down, to me it was just a building, but to our reader's it was memories. The pictures i made for this story didn't show the memories really and I felt inadequate in covering this story. I did take this picture above, but forget it on a camera I don't usually use and only found it days later. Another mistake of being in a new situation with a lot of new things to learn. I was upset with myself on this because I felt this picture had an emotion to it that the others I took lacked. Lesson learned----I hope.
I know it will take a year or two before I find my true standing in the communities I cover. This is still Jerry's place, Jerry's people. When I started at the Tribune it was much the same. Jim Stefanucci was well loved and respected and I was just another guy who came in and did assignments on Jim's days off. But in time the community became my community and we were able to make some pretty special pictures as a result of our bond. I took this picture above on Thursday of a guy who had been photographed by Jerry. I joked and said it was my goal to find everyone Jerry photographed and photograph them again.
I am a huge fan of 'Street Photography" and one thing I'm finding is in my exploration of this new area is a love of making street photographs. No story(well thats not true really--no reportable news-hook story) just something captured in a moment in time at this place.
I really prefer assignments to feature hunting, but its nice to have the time to just dedicate to seeing. All my job consists of really is making pictures for the next day's paper and so if it takes me 4 hours or 4 minutes, the time is there for me. That is kinda nice!
There is unpleasantness, as with all jobs. I don't like getting up too early in order to do something i wished I didn't have to do. I wished this man had been arrested and charged with killing his girlfriend that resulted in my needing to be there to make pictures of him heading into the courthouse. I don't want to make this kind of picture because I don't want people killing each other! I really don't!
But sometimes the job lets me be a little visually poetic and gives me license to explore storytelling as opposed to just stating the obvious. I think as journalists it is our duty to not only give you the facts the best we can corral them, but to engage you in thought so that this information you are getting can have deeper meaning than "oh that was just them, that could never happen to me!" I think we need to grab your attention, and then inform you, but it can't stop at informing, it has to engage your thoughts. That is good journalism.
I won't lie though--it really is a cool job when at any given moment you can be thrust into a situation few people get to experience. This isn't always pleasant, but sometimes it is. I was able to be safely within inches of a 310 pound black bear simply because I work for the newspaper and we got a tip. Due to a great relationship between the PA. Conservation officers and a teacher at Cranberry High School, a trapped bear was able to be tagged and his stats taken in front of several students and could be a teachable moment about wildlife. And I learned too! Cool job!
One of the more stressful parts of the job is this--I never know each day if a good photograph willl come. I work very hard at it, but you just never know. Days that it takes longer than others brings with it feeling of self doubt. Maybe I took my last meaningful picture? But I go out with hope and some confidence that I'll find something. Some days i feel pretty good about it, others just mediocre. I work hard to avoid the days I'm embarrassed about what I captured.
And somedays you just have to give in to what is presenting itself to you and if nothing is working, find something visually 'different' in order to engage the reader. The goal is information, so if I can get you intrigued enough with my photo to read the caption, I have done my job to inform.
And believe me, not all assignments are glamorous or exciting, Some are extreme challenges to layer all the important information in one photo that will at least get the reader to stop and look a second time.
And it doesn't always happen that we grab the reader, but it is always my hope that a picture I make has an element that the reader can grasp onto and have a moment where they are engaged or given clarity. Both is exceptional.
And it is always about that 'moment!' That fraction of a second that we capture that speaks beyond that fraction, that speaks just a little about who we are at this moment in time. I think its always important to document our moments in time!
And that is who we are! The rolling photos are just a few more of the images I have captured in my second half of my first month at The Derrick and News-Herald. Early blog posts showed my first couple weeks. It really is a good gig!