| Re: Great Idea
Bulldog, you are unique, especially for a major metro newspaper journalist. I see your colleague, R.D. Swets, here in central Palm Beach County from time to time. I hope you and I meet some day.
Simultaneous reporting and shooting can be difficult, especially at football games and such where accurate note taking and constant shooting is necessary. I can't quite figure out how to hang the DSLR, monopod and bag on one side of my body while holding a pad and taking notes with the other. The 1D's audio recording feature has saved me a few times.
I have a decent camera setup - 1D, Elan, 70-200 2.8L, 28-105, 300 F/4L, 50 1.8, 550EX and the like. I helped run a local group of family-owned newspapers until below-cost/antitrust law-violating advertising sales by papers now owned by your current employer and others forced us to sell out.
I did a two-year stint as an assistant metro editor at a Treasure Coast group of dailies (60 miles north of here), then got the bright idea to cut the commute and find something closer to home. That was a week or two before 9-1-1, and the bottom fell out of an already bleak South Florida journalism market.
Since then, I have covered prep and community sports, city government, water control districts, spot news and features, while also making dozens of images per week, for a former competing weekly. I'm trying to do something in real estate, while continuing to find a "real" job in newspapers or communications.
It's a struggle, especially with my limited finances and lack of insurance, but I've got to hope there is light at the end of the tunnel. It is very frustrating, however, to see the dailies hiring young, out-of-town reporters (and presumably editors) who don't know as much as I have forgotten about my communities. I guess, at 42, I'm too old for the biz?
I still enjoy working a meaty story, or even something light that makes a difference in my suburban communities. I did a lot of Hurricane Andrew coverage that sticks in (haunts?) my mind.
On the other hand, it was neat to shoot Prince Charles, Di and lots of big-shots, and a couple of presidents who visited these parts. Working for the Treasure Coast papers and Scripps Howard News Service, I got to "camp" out with the media hordes, filing stories and photos from the 2000 presidential election crisis in Palm Beach County. I got some great images there, especially of the marches and near GOP-Democrat riots.
Thinking back to that post-election mess, what a hassle it was to have to run film shot with my EOS 3 outfit to the local Kmart to "soup," then race back to my Minolta neg scanner - finally e-mailing the images to the news desk. Man, I wish we had affordable digital imaging then!
But photography is my passion and I am happy to be able to do it to generate a little money as well as satisfaction.
Sorry this is long...
Bulldog, you are unique, especially for a major metro newspaper journalist. I see your colleague, R.D. Swets, here in central Palm Beach County from time to time. I hope you and I meet some day.
Simultaneous reporting and shooting can be difficult, especially at football games and such where accurate note taking and constant shooting is necessary. I can't quite figure out how to hang the DSLR, monopod and bag on one side of my body while holding a pad and taking notes with the other. The 1D's audio recording feature has saved me a few times.
I have a decent camera setup - 1D, Elan, 70-200 2.8L, 28-105, 300 F/4L, 50 1.8, 550EX and the like. I helped run a local group of family-owned newspapers until below-cost/antitrust law-violating advertising sales by papers now owned by your current employer and others forced us to sell out.
I did a two-year stint as an assistant metro editor at a Treasure Coast group of dailies (60 miles north of here), then got the bright idea to cut the commute and find something closer to home. That was a week or two before 9-1-1, and the bottom fell out of an already bleak South Florida journalism market.
Since then, I have covered prep and community sports, city government, water control districts, spot news and features, while also making dozens of images per week, for a former competing weekly. I'm trying to do something in real estate, while continuing to find a "real" job in newspapers or communications.
It's a struggle, especially with my limited finances and lack of insurance, but I've got to hope there is light at the end of the tunnel. It is very frustrating, however, to see the dailies hiring young, out-of-town reporters (and presumably editors) who don't know as much as I have forgotten about my communities. I guess, at 42, I'm too old for the biz?
I still enjoy working a meaty story, or even something light that makes a difference in my suburban communities. I did a lot of Hurricane Andrew coverage that sticks in (haunts?) my mind.
On the other hand, it was neat to shoot Prince Charles, Di and lots of big-shots, and a couple of presidents who visited these parts. Working for the Treasure Coast papers and Scripps Howard News Service, I got to "camp" out with the media hordes, filing stories and photos from the 2000 presidential election crisis in Palm Beach County. I got some great images there, especially of the marches and near GOP-Democrat riots.
Thinking back to that post-election mess, what a hassle it was to have to run film shot with my EOS 3 outfit to the local Kmart to "soup," then race back to my Minolta neg scanner - finally e-mailing the images to the news desk. Man, I wish we had affordable digital imaging then!
But photography is my passion and I am happy to be able to do it to generate money as well as satisfaction.
Sorry this is long...  |
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