New York and Yakima - the issues are the same

OK - I admit it. The Yakima Herald-Republic is not the New York Times. For instance, our A-1 photos often run bigger than those on the front page of the Times. And last time I checked our company directory, we don’t have any overseas bureaus or correspondents (though some people might say that Yakima is a whole different world).

But we the H-R and the New York Times do have common ground when it comes to issues of photography, technology and the changing role of photojournalism.

Michelle McNally, an assistant managing editor and former Director of Photography at the Times, answered readers’ questions last week. It’s a fascinating read and I’d recommend that anyone interested in photojournalism read the Q and A article.

–Gordon King

Good news from tragedy

Back in March I blogged about covering a fatal house in which one person was killed and another badly burned. Now there’s news that the badly burned person, Jordan Everhart, is doing much better.

According to the story in today’s Yakima Herald-Republic, Jordan is now talking, eating and walking a few steps.

It’s great to see that Jordan is recovering from the fire and I wish him and his family well. It’s nice to have some good news come out of a tragic situation.

For more information on Jordan’s recovery, go here.

–Gordon King

One reason

Last week, I discovered yet another reason I’m a photographer: because I’m not cut out to be a ball player.

I’m starting on a story about the players of the Yakima Bears and the life of a minor-league ball player. During the team’s second practice, the hitting coach was warming up his players and evaluating their hitting skills by having them hit ground balls. When everyone had had a turn he pointed to me and told me I was up. I set my gear down and picked up a bat.

Sad to say, I hit one of maybe six tries. Enlightening, yes. A surprise? Nope. Just another confirmation that my hand-eye coordination is best used in the service of photography! And gave me even more appreciation of the skills of the young men I’ll be documenting this summer as they play baseball and reach for the major leagues.

Seeing two sides

I just finished - and had published online and in print - a photo project documenting the first season of the Yakima Valley Community College women’s wrestling team. To see the audio slideshows (nine of ‘em!) go here.

As with any long-term project I was really (a) glad it was done (b) sad it was done (c) tired of looking at the same images over and over as I edited the thousands of images (d) disappointed at some of the gaps in the images (e) happy that my employer still sees the value of such projects and allows us to pursue long-term projects and (d) feeling privileged to have met such a hard-working, dedicated group of women.

There were lots of memorable times and images for me as I followed the team from September, 2008 through Mar, 2009 but one image stands out, an image that wasn’t even published (until now). It’s an image that didn’t contribute to the storytelling of this team’s first season and really a pretty ordinary photograph. But the contrast presented by the image is, to me, amazing.

Throughout the season, this is how I saw the team:

But at an end-of-the-season get-together, the team showed me a side I hadn’t seen before.

The contrast was amazing and I was glad I could see ‘em all dressed up.

By the way, this was the first year for the team, the first-ever women’s intercollegiate wrestling team in Washington state. The team started with three wrestlers and picked up a few more wrestlers (and lost a few) throughout the season and went on to win the national women’s collegiate wrestling title.

–Gordon King

* Getting your photo fix *

For all you photo junkies out there, I’ve found another great photo Web site to spend time at each day. Go here:

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/good-morning/

This is the New York Times photo department Web site titled Lens. It’s a great site.

When you want to get right down to business, scroll down just a little ways to the
to the underlined link which says “let’s start looking at pictures.” That link takes
you to the pictures of the day and photo editors’ comments about those
photos. There’s tons more stuff on the site. Take a look. A long look.

–Gordon King

Flower arranging

I got an assignment last week to come up with a cover for our upcoming Summer Music Guide edition of ON magazine. It a challenge that comes up every year, and one that gets a little harder every year, as we don’t want to repeat ideas and there have been some good ones in past years. I’ve done a sunset landscape through the hole in a guitar and another staffer did a sandy beach scene with a bikinied guitar. After sleeping on the idea (one of the better ways I’ve found to come up with illustration ideas) I decided to construct a guitar out of flowers. Originally I wanted to make the guitar entirely out of dandelions, since they are ubiquitous and I didn’t think any one would mind if I “harvested” their little gold blooms from the side of the road or along a sidewalk. They also say “summer” to me in a way no other flower does.

I ran into a couple of snags with this idea, mainly it was hot the day I worked on my illustration, and the dandelions I picked mid-day were shriveled and dead when I had time to work on my illustration later in the afternoon. I went out to harvest more, but my prime picking location (beside The Seasons) had been mowed in the three hour window I had been out shooting something else. I picked as many as I could and headed to my back yard. I decided to work in my garden, because the dandelions are kind of cone shaped on the bottom where I’d plucked them off their stems and wobbled around when I put them on cardboard. With dirt, I could poke little holes in the ground and set them in there. I gathered some other plant materials, flattened a nice empty part of the garden (luckily, I haven’t gotten around to planting the beans) and drew my guitar.

Then I started filling in my outline with flowers. Turns out I didn’t have enough dandelions to fill out the whole guitar (a disappointment) so I ended up using these little seeds that the neighbor’s tree drops all over my yard instead. I used big flat leaves beside the dandelions to provide a good contrast so the shape of the guitar really popped out, then tried to make the background colorful.

Lastly, I stood on the edge of the raised bed and photographed my creation straight down. If I had to do it again, I’d figure out some way to keep the flowers fresher and work on it earlier in the day. Here’s the final image:

Mixed emotions

Like it or not, tragedies are a part of life. Because we photograph  life in central Washington then we must cover the bad as well as the good.

I always have mixed emotions when covering tragic events. I love to make photos that convey the emotion of the situation to our readers and viewers, great story telling photos. At the same time, I don’t want to intrude on a person’s grief and make a bad situation worse with my presence. In these situations, I simply do my best to respect the subjects while making the best photos possible. This may mean standing as far away as possible while take photos.

Or it may mean taking only one or two frames to minimize camera noise rather than motoring off 10 or 20 frames.

Or, it may mean not taking any photos at all.

That respect extends to the photo editing process. I try to pick those photos which tell the best story while taking into account the feelings of the subject and what possible damage I could do to them by publishing a particular photo.

Regardless, I always feel badly for the subject and hope they will eventually learn to cope with the tragedy and its attendant sadness.

A couple of days ago reporter Melissa Sanchez was invited by the family of an apparent drowning victim to visit and talk. I met Melissa and the family on the bank of the Yakima River where the family and friends had gathered to conduct their own search for a young man who had disappeared in the river several days before when his raft capsized. Local search and rescue personnel hadn’t yet found Jesse Morån Castro and the family was frustrated with the official search and so launched their own.

And they wanted to talk about their son and their frustrations. Though the conversation with Melissa was all in Spanish (and my Spanish is poor) the language didn’t matter. The sadness was in the mother’s voice and in the father’s eyes and quiet demeanor.

To get the family used to my presence I first made photos from a distance with a 70-200 mm lens.

I shot only a few frames and began to walk around the area looking for more opportunities.

A scene setter:

A makeshift memorial to Jesse and a rafting companion who had drowned and whose body had been found had been set up on the trunk of a car and I figured that memorial could help tell their tragic story. I began to hang around the memorial, hoping for a photo. The wind blew out the candle so Mr. Moran re-lit the candle.

No one seemed to mind my being there and making photos and I did my best to be quiet and respectful, taking only a few photos.

The mother and other relatives and friends began to gather around the memorial as other people arrived at the river side. Melissa and myself simply became a part of that gathering, standing quietly.  Soon, one of the survivors of the rafting accident came into the circle.

I shot just a few frames with a Canon 5D equipped with a 17-35 mm lens. I knew this was going to be the best photo so I left soon after, not wanting to wear out my welcome.  This was the photo that led A1 the next day. The rest were in a photo gallery on our Web site.

Before leaving I thanked the mother and father for their kindness towards us and wished them the best. Castro’s body has not yet been found. I still feel sorry for the family and hope they will somehow achieve closure in this tragedy.

Morelia Project

For the past few months I have been helping coordinate a great group of young photographers as they document Yakima and our valley. The project, organized by Allied Arts of Yakima, had students from the Yakima valley and students from Yakima’s sister-city Morelia, Michoacan document their lives, cities and cultures. We held several brain-storming and editing sessions, with students and advisers (Rob Prout and Carolyn Nelson also served as advisers) critiquing student work and offering suggestions. After looking at hundreds of photos, we edited down our selection to 30 images, which were printed and also sent to Morelia. Students in Morelia did the same, editing a group of photos and sending them to Yakima to be printed and hung alongside the work of our local photographers. The result is an exhibit that will be shown in both cities that offers a unique glance into two cities, two cultures, and a myriad of experiences.

The project is on exhibit at Allied Arts of Yakima until June 12.

It takes just one

Just one person can transform an average assignment and a really fun assignment that generates good photographs. I was reminded of that yesterday.

I groaned silently when I got the e-mail from the managing editor. We were to cover the a local school district’s annual educators’ excellence award press conference . This was to be the 22nd such presser and it seems like I covered half of them. Probably not that many, but it seems like it.

Unaware they’d gotten the award, recipients are lured to the press conference under false pretenses and once they arrive, they are told of the award. There are hugs, perhaps big smiles, a lot of handshakes but not much else.

Some years, we’ve skipped the press conference and relied on mug shots of the winners provided by the school district. But when the ME says do it, well, we do it.

Of course, all photojournalists should approach each assignment with enthusiasm and the idea that each assignment is a chance to make a fresh photograph, one that is better than the last photograph from that same assignment. This is theory - very good theory - but it’s sometimes hard to put that theory into practice.

So, with somewhat-equal parts of enthusiasm and lack of enthusiasm off I went to the press conference.

The first recipient:

A nice hug from his wife. Nice emotion, but not great.

The second recipient:

The greeters have nice expressions and show emotion but Sanchez gives us only a smile (but at least a big smile).

The third recipient:

An image of the first two recipients, Sanchez and Flores, would work but I wanted more. Something with more emotion, more feeling.

Then came Christina Carlson. Her subdued entrance didn’t bode well for me.

But things get better - in a big hurry.

This photo would work. But she just kept giving me more, better images.

Still more emotion:

And finally, the money photo. This is the photo which led our local section this morning.

It’s always great to people get excited about something and especially great to photograph that excitement.

My lesson for the day was a reminder; that we, as photographers, should always approach every assignment, even the seemingly routine ones, with enthusiasm and a commitment to produce the best photos possible. And who knows? Maybe there will be a Christina Carlson there to help you out.

–Gordon King

Evan Mettie

I met the Metties the day they brought their son, Evan, to Yakima’s Garden Village. He’d been injured in Iraq on New Year’s day of 2006, and 22 months later, had finally been able to come back to Yakima. The assignment was a press conference — which is pretty limited visually. I made a portrait of Evan then listened in as his parents, Denise and Dave were interviewed by a YH-R writer and television reporters. Although the story of Evan’s injury and journey through treatment was compelling, it was all in the past, unable to be photographed. What caught my attention was when Dave mentioned that as excited and thankful the family was at having Evan back, there would be the new challenge of getting to know their son again, their new son. It was this idea that Evan’s homecoming would be the beginning of a new journey for this family that captured my interest and I was excited that the family was willing to let me document their life as they adjusted to having Evan home.

Although we do many kinds of assignments and projects at the paper, my favorite stories tend to be long-term projects of several months or more. Working with a subject for several months allows me to understand and tell a story with far more understanding and intimacy than the usual hour-long assignments we shoot on a daily basis.

There are both challenges and rewards to shooting a longer project. On the one hand, doing a longer project is impossible if the subject doesn’t believe in having their story told and your ability to tell it. Fortunately, Evan’s parents have seen the positive effects that media attention can have in changing policy and getting help for wounded soldiers. They know that if a problem — such as the VA not funding private rehab for injured soldiers — isn’t seen, then lawmakers and the public aren’t going to work to correct it. They also know that the effects Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI, which has been called the signature wound of the Iraq war) isn’t widely reported in the mainstream press, although thousands of soldiers are returning from war and suffering from its effects. Their story would help give voice to others. The flip side to this is that subjects of photo stories have to be willing to open their lives — the good moments and the tough moments — to the photographer, and, by extension, the public. Without the real moments, the ups and downs of whatever journey the subject is on, the story loses its power. The photographer has to balance the privacy of the subject with the need to make pictures of real moments, the difficult along with the easy. The photographer also has to be there. Whereas assignments are scheduled to fit into a photographer’s normal work shift, projects demand that the photographer be available to the subject as their story happens.

For me, entering into a long-term project is a commitment I don’t take lightly. I am open about what I need from the subject — to be informed about when things are likely to happen so I can plan to be there, communication about when unexpected and important things happen so I can get there, and access to private situations and intimate moments so I can tell the story with depth and meaning. In return, I commit to tell the story as honestly and as best as I am able. I commit to being there for the important parts, even when those moments don’t happen during work hours, and doing whatever I can to be there when the subject calls.

The return on this investment, I’ve found, has always been worth the work. It is my favorite part of this profession. I think that thoughtful, in-depth stories have the power to change lives. For the community, these projects really let us get to know what’s going on in the lives of one of our own. For the subjects, the story is a witness to the triumphs and tribulations of his or her life. Sometimes a story can affect change on a myriad of levels, from provoking the rest of the community into helpful action to changing laws. Lastly, I have never walked away from a long-term story that hasn’t challenged and changed me personally.

Throughout the year, I watched Denise Mettie work tirelessly for her son — the son that doctors, the Veteran’s Administration bureaucracy and many others — had written off. I watched her tackle challenges over and over and over, all the while holding firm to hope and optimism. I witnessed the grace with which she met the unpredictable challenges that cropped up day in and day out. All of these are reminders to me about the power of hope and will and love. The opportunity to witness Denise and Evan is their gift to me, and you, the reader.

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