walking scenes

For the past few weeks, I've been moved off my regular sports night shift and have been working days as the Metro/A1 picture editor. The change in my routine has been great. It's given me a fresh perspective and provided me with a new challenge. It has also allowed for me to walk to work. I grew up in a pretty small town in central New York---we never locked our cars and only sometimes we would lock the house. While Seattle is relatively safe for a big city, I'm still a little nervous about walking the 8 blocks or so home from work late at night.

So, as the battery of my hybrid slowly drains from lack of use, I've been walking to and from work. It's been interesting. It's still pretty cold and crappy here in Seattle most days, but it's been good to explore the neighborhood a bit more. I live in an area of Seattle that is booming with construction and new businesses and shops go in all the time. In fact, Amazon.com is supposely moving into the neighborhood next year.

As a way to push myself, I've decided to photograph what I see along my walking to work journeys. Don't ask me what this is---some random shards of a picture that are implanted into the sidewalk. Very strange and very Seattle.

The Mountain

Even though I've lived in Seattle for almost 2 years now, it still impresses me when I see Mt. Rainier. We call it the mountain in Seattle ---and it really does deserve that name. It is truly amazing. I drive certain roads all the time and you'd never know that lurking behind the cloudy horizon is a huge volcano about 50 miles away. And when it's clear out, it's like BAM there it is and you wonder how it's possible that it is hidden the majority of the time.

Anyways, last weekend I was flying to Dallas and got stuck with a window seat. But I was pleasantly surprised to see the mountain so up-close and clear. The pilot must have been impressed too, because we practically did a circle around it. Luckily, I was able to take a few pictures.

making the gray, less gray.

I want to thank everyone for responding and reading my previous post. One of the reasons I posted the issue was for us all to have good conservations and discussions. And I'm glad that has happened. I think the more we talk about the big issues facing our profession the more chance we have at making those gray issues disappear.

I really don't expect non-editorial photographers to understand the issues and standards we as photojournalists hold so dear. For our community to believe in us and to have any faith in what we do we need to be honest with our words and our pictures. So, these standards and ethics are of the utmost importance.

It matters little to me what path this photographer has now taken. This picture was shot for a newspaper, and is owned by that newspaper. I see no logical, ethical reason for it to be altered. Not for a contest (either CPOY or PDN). The picture should always keep the integrity in which it was shot.

I am not saying that dodging and burning shouldn't be done. But I think this picture goes beyond "burning the edges down to take away from distracting features" that the photographer claims. Those "distractions" have been completely eliminated and brought to black by the burning---and that's what is in question.

Again, I'm not saying commercial photographers adhere to these guidelines. But this photograph is an editorial photograph. Photojournalists need to be more careful about what they are doing and how it affects the picture, the community, and their colleagues.

ethics and toning

There is a very fine line with toning pictures. Software programs that most photographers use on a daily basis allow them to do some pretty crazy things. I went to journalism school right at the start of the digital age and essentially the end of using film on a daily basis. We mostly shot film, used a minilab to develop the film, and then scanned them into the computer and used a program like photoshop to slightly adjust the pictures.

There is also a gray area about what is ethical and what isn't. There are the biggies that are fundamental--like cloning someone/something in or out of your frame. But to me the big part of ethics has to do with intention and misleading. Statements like "If I can do it in a darkroom, it's okay" or "This is what the scene looked like to me" aren't good enough reasons. I've seen what used to be done in a darkroom ---and you can do some pretty drastic things.

This is why for me it comes down to the intent of the photographer, and whether or not it misleads the reader.

These two pictures were shot by a former intern at my paper. It recently ran in a national photo magazine. And while talking to one of our younger photographers about the toning and light in the photograph we happened to do an archive search and discovered the former intern shot the picture during his internship for the paper. (The picture also didn't credit the Seattle Times, which is a violation of the copyright---but that's a different post. For the record, I did receive proper permission from the true copyright holder to use the pictures on my blog.)



Above is how the picture ran in PDN magazine. We scanned it in directly from the magazine and did nothing else to it. If you think it looks weird and drastic, well, that is because it does. But if you want to see it for yourself, it ran in March's PDN magazine as part of the top 30 photographers under 30. It won a CPOY award in 2005 and was part of a portfolio that also placed that same year.



Above is how the picture was shot. This is how it looks in our archive and how it was published in our paper.

So, do I have a problem with this? I sure do. To me, it is misleading. The newly toned picture looks flashed or looks like it was shot outside during a night football game. Not inside a well-lit dome it was shot in. The background is blackened out. And frankly, this new dramatic lighting changes the entire mood of the picture. The reader walks away with a different feeling.

As I mentioned, we discovered the toning/copyright issue when talking to a younger photographer who was curious about limits and what is allowed and what isn't. If one of our photographers turned a photo like this in while shooting for us, there would be severe consequences. But yet photojournalists are doing it all over the world and being rewarded for their work. This photographer received national attention---both by placing in CPOY and then in PDN with this photograph. What message does this send to photographers that are doing good work that is honest and straight-up? And how do we help photographers think about what they are trying to say with a picture IN the camera and not afterwards using a computer?

I don't have all the answers. But newspapers are facing a difficult time and I feel it is important to have pictures that are honest and tell important stories---correctly. We owe the readers that much and frankly they should expect that level of integrity from us.

Part II - Happy Day

Congrats to my friend, Pulitzer Prize winner Preston Gannaway!

This prestigious award couldn't have gone to a more deserving person! A hard-working, super talented, and overall fun person!

I'm also psyched for the Concord Monitor. The classic small town newspaper that has a strong commitment to great documentary journalism.

You can check out the amazing story by Preston at http://www.pulitzer.org/ or more of her work at www.prestongannaway.com

Part I - sad day.

Sad news always comes first.

Today we got the news that there needs to be a "reduction of force" through-out our paper. 200 jobs total.

That breaks down to 45 newsroom jobs. - 15 of which are already frozen.

The breakdown is complicated, and I don't want to get into it---but it could impact photography. Two of our photographers could be laid-off. Both are great people and amazing photographers!

We don't really know yet.

Sad, scary times.

working dayside...

So, I'm working the dayshift for the month of April. This essentially means that I'm off the sports gig and doing local and a1 instead. There are a few reasons behind my switch, but I don't think I need to get into all of them. But they are all good.

I've been having a lot of fun my first week. It's been a good change and I like being able to work with photographers more. Well, at least it seems that way.

Here is how some of the pages have turned out!

animals in cages

So, here is the story, if you have been reading my blog at all, we did a story on this a few months back. The local county animal shelters have real problems. A study (a few months ago) reported that the animals aren't being cared for properly. So, this was running the day before the new study was going to come out reporting on the conditions. And the projection was looking up for the shelters.

First of all, I have a general issue with running pictures of animals in cages. Because I believe you are playing on people's emotions. For the most part, people love animals. If you ever check out MSNBC pictures of the week. The winners? if there is a cute animal picture part of the mix, it almost always wins.

So, running a cute animal looking all sad in a cage, through bars is playing on people's emotions. So, when I was doing the a1 handoff---this picture that ran lead---get's the "awwww" from different people.

Is that wrong? No, but I think it proves the point that you feel bad and sorry for the thing. I don't see how that helps tell the story at all.

So, I voice my opinion and felt like I was well-heard, but over-ruled. So, little sad doggy runs on the cover. We get swamped with phone calls from the public all wanting to save Fido from the evil animal shelter.

selection sunday

A few weeks before Selection Sunday, we were trying to conceptualize how we were going to illustrate the story and process that takes place. We knew we would have two teams that we cover regularly in the tournament, Washington State (WSU) and Gonzaga.

Our plan was to head over to eastern Washington to photograph WSU. This was the first time that WSU went to back to back NCAA tournaments, so it was a big deal. They have a young head coach, Tony Bennett, who has really has given the program a jolt. So, we had planned on photographing the coach with the 3 seniors. So, we lined up the shoot and hired a freelancer.

Well, the day of the shoot, the coach refused to be a part of the shoot. (we had a few hours notice) but it pretty much ruined our idea. So we did 180 and went with this illustration.

riders of the storm

Ironically, I'm listening to the Doors right now. So maybe that is the inspiration behind the title. One of our photographers went riding in a storm plane. The plane and crew had flown into the heart of countless hurricanes.

I know, hurricanes and the pacific NW really don't mix. But the plane was here on the "off-season" to fly into a couple of our spring storms.

I think the flight was about 8 hours total. And on a nice, stormless day. --- This is how the story ran....

prep pages....

Just a couple prep pages from the High School Tournament last month.....