More pondering and more self assessment and even some much needed affirmation of my recent past as a news photographer.
I have been looking at the paper more since leaving it than I ever did before (I actively did not read it when I worked there, preferring to do my best work in a vacuum of comparative self criticism). I just tried to keep my eye on the next job, not bask in the glow, or hide in the shadow of the last.
Maybe I should have paid more attention.
Again, these images as a sample, taken from a folder from mid-late last year after fruitlessly chasing an image for a friend.
One of the realities of being a small city news paper photography is you are often technically creatively limited*. Not complaining, because it is a good training ground, but when you come from a more creative space, you are always aware of what could have been.
Larger paper shooters often have an allocated car with gear, more time, often work alone without a journalist keen be done and gone and can sometimes even specialise.
For us, if it does not fit into your bag, you leave it behind.
If the job and the subject are only loosely connected, you need to think outside of the box.
One job, a candle light vigil preview needed a mood shot, but the only time the subject could be at the venue was midday and the sun was out bright and clear. I moved them to a shaded area, then under exposed the main image intending to add light for effect.
I had two light options.
A small LED, which proved to be too weak to make a dent in the forced gloom without pushing it into the frame.
A flash, with off camera capability, but it was harsh and hard to control. The answer was to bounce the flash off the journalist’s off-white shirt back (just out of frame left) with the flash held at arms length to reduce unwanted scatter. A little augmentation of the candle light in post and we have “twilight” at midday.
Telling a story is always important.
I underestimated this at first.
Aware of the benefits of connected images, I realised early on that the paper was only interested in “the one” image. The reality is though, if you are not trying to tell a story, you are not watching the subject deeply enough, trying to find an image outside of the most surface level treatment is hard. Later we started to need online galleries, which allowed us to tell that story and it was obvious that as the story unfolded, the better single images also emerged.
Getting the captain batting, a celebration after an important wicket and the pennant being awarded, are all good individually, but better together. Along with a little human touch, it is a full story.
*I remember a cadet at the paper fresh from a trip to the national office for their “ride along” time telling us how a photographer on the mainland (Canberra Times) used a bunch of props, including 50 soccer balls and a princess dress, to shoot a women’s soccer player (royal family of an Arabic country). She wondered why we did not until we asked her how long they had to get the shot, how much did it cost, how much support was there and did they have to get another shot that day? She quickly realised we are not playing on the same field.