Life without a photo editor

Pic of the day 3/365
Life without a photo editor can be one full of frustration. Just like being stuck in traffic (and without your GPS, that little voice that can help you out). You can fight and complain, but in the end you only get so far and you're still a long way from where you wanna be.

I am forced to be my own photo editor, only I don't have much say in how the photos are used. I cull the heard of images that I amass and submit one or more for print to complement a story or as a standalone image.
An issue that arrises daily is that the layout of the copy is made and then the photos are squeezed in. This is opposite of how it should be done. I attribute this to the lack of understanding of what a photograph can do for a story.

"A journalist tells stories. A photographer takes pictures of nouns (people, places and things). A photojournalist takes the best of both and locks it into the most powerful medium available - a single frozen image." - Mark M. Hancock

Today's thoughts have been brewing for awhile. Being stuck in traffic your mind wanders and digs out somethings. While waiting motionless today I recalled an article I read recently about similar issues. Photo Editing 101

When I pick up each day's print I am rarely happy with the paginator's decisions(paginators are the people who layout the pages) . The paginators have a bit too much power in our newsroom. I put the images on the server and then I loose all control after that point (I find it hard to give up control of your images). At times the editor will step in make suggestions about the layout, but never with regard for an image.

Below are examples of some images of mine that have run in recent times. Many of the crops and placements are more arbitrary than the examples below. The images are the full image I submitted for print. The red boxed section is the crop that ran in print.

This image was one to depict the two inches of rain received in one night after many months of drought.






This image was to accompany a story I wrote about Campbell's Soup and an elementary school donating food to a community center for the holidays. When the food was delivered a long line of volunteers formed and the sang carols as they hand the items to each other. This image was crammed below the "center piece" image for the same story that was children standing in front of canned food items (which I also took). It was placed as the center piece because of the children, not because of the story it told or the quality of the image.

These are just a few of many things I am getting familiar with as I venture deeper into the world of photojournalism as well traveling the roads each day. Making light of a situation is something I am more able to do each day. Stuck in traffic, I have NPR and a camera, fighting for my entire image to show in print ... well the new website will be up in ten days (then I will have my control back).

Image making is my life, and I don't want to lose control.