I have been at the Derrick now for about a month and a half. Friends who have been seeing my photographs at my new newspaper often comment that it looks like I'm 'Rich again".
I will admit everything seems fresh again. I am exploring neighborhoods and looking for what they feel like.
I will admit everything seems fresh again. I am exploring neighborhoods and looking for what they feel like.
And i think that might be the difference in my work--that and a technical thing I'll try to talk about a little later. How a place feels......that's what has been interesting me in the last year or so. A lot of my Tribune work this winter that wasn't sports was exploring this place, but as a part - timer it didn't have a lot of consistency and I photographed more sports than anything else. So now every day I seem to be exploring this place and walking up to strangers to introduce myself and engage in conversations eventually leading to maybe making a picture. Some so no.
Some say yes.
I think about projects like Robert Franks "The Americans" and think--that's what I want to do with my work. And I look at the work of the Turnley's as they explore whatever communities they are in and I try to learn from the approach and try to apply it to my situation. And Bryan Moss and what he does in his Life in Corydon website where he documents the lives of people in his community. Some days I feel I miss the boat completely, but overall I feel like I'm doing good things and really getting involved in learning a community.
The technical thing I was referring to earlier is that I am shooting with a Canon camera with a fixed focal length 20mm lens which forces me to get close. My feet are again my zoom lens. I use this for about 90% of my news and feature photography. I really only use my long lens when i want to compress information or for sports which is now only about 20% of my work. I basically photograph one sporting event a day and not everyday.
I think about projects like Robert Franks "The Americans" and think--that's what I want to do with my work. And I look at the work of the Turnley's as they explore whatever communities they are in and I try to learn from the approach and try to apply it to my situation. And Bryan Moss and what he does in his Life in Corydon website where he documents the lives of people in his community. Some days I feel I miss the boat completely, but overall I feel like I'm doing good things and really getting involved in learning a community.
The technical thing I was referring to earlier is that I am shooting with a Canon camera with a fixed focal length 20mm lens which forces me to get close. My feet are again my zoom lens. I use this for about 90% of my news and feature photography. I really only use my long lens when i want to compress information or for sports which is now only about 20% of my work. I basically photograph one sporting event a day and not everyday.
I love to photograph sports played by young people for fun. I'm much less interested in photographing college and not at all interested in photographing the pros. I feel photographing youth sports allows me to find a tie into the community and get to know families. In Meadville I literally watched kids grow up.
and on occasion I get to photograph one of the old teams from Crawford County as they play a team from my new coverage area. I guess when I think about my level of excitement for what I do I feel I'm not really anymore excited than I was before, but I am exploring new and working more consistently every day. I am looked upon as member of the team who contributes my work to be used and that is exciting. Too often newsrooms these day have their people do their work and then it is taken by someone else to make it into a presentation for the paper. This paper seems to really value our individual vision and encourages it more by allowing it to have its own unique voice.
When a story tellers voice is allowed to grow it will and I'm appreciated this and in return I really want to grow. Each assignment I look at it as an opportunity to really delve into visual story telling and find the story within the story. Again some days i feel I'm really getting and some days I miss. I felt good about my work at the Tribune for 17 years and I am feeling good about my work here so far, and I'm pushing myself way outside my comfort zone by forcing myself to engage with people in conversation in hopes to find a story within a story. Even though I have always done that to some extent, now it seems a necessity again because I don't know the community and the community doesn't know me.
And I think if I can maintain this idea of everything still being fresh, I will be able to do some pretty special things here. The photographer that covered Venango County for the last 17 years certainly did and I hope to just carry on what he started. Strong photography in small town newspapers is what I think is needed most again in this world. Each place should have a vision and should have people with vision documenting it!
The last two photos were pictures I made to go with story by Curt Hanna. You have to subscribe to read them, but if you are a subscriber check out this wonderful story about a girl managing her childhood arthritis. http://www.thederrick.com/news/front_page/cranberry-girl-is-honoree-for-pittsburgh-arthritis-walk/article_81b30fcb-a69c-5dba-847c-98ef11f13aba.html
The last two photos were pictures I made to go with story by Curt Hanna. You have to subscribe to read them, but if you are a subscriber check out this wonderful story about a girl managing her childhood arthritis. http://www.thederrick.com/news/front_page/cranberry-girl-is-honoree-for-pittsburgh-arthritis-walk/article_81b30fcb-a69c-5dba-847c-98ef11f13aba.html