Life After Newspapers

It has been a while, and much has happened since my last post. For starters, after 16 years in newspapers, I am no longer a photojournalist. Since late September of 2015 I have been happily employed as the web specialist for a marketing department at a local healthcare organization.

So Long, Photojournalism

It was an easy decision to leave my old career behind, and I don’t miss it. But instead of dredging up all of the reasons that ultimately soured my experience and caused me to look elsewhere, I’ll try to keep things more constructive and take a “bigger picture” perspective, so to speak.

There is this quote that I cut out and pasted into a scrapbook years ago:

“The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.” — James Baldwin, American author

Dreams

After falling flat in pursuit of a film career in Los Angeles in the late 90’s, I came back to Indiana hoping to find a new profession - something I could do anywhere. News photography fit that description for me. I started out at a small newspaper, and they were patient with me as I learned the craft. A former staff photographer who had moved on to another position at the paper was instrumental in helping me hone my skills, which, in the beginning, were dreadful.

During an assignment one Sunday at a skydiving facility, I met an interesting fellow who turned out to be the photo director at The Indianapolis Star. He gave me some helpful advice and invited me to visit the paper’s photo department. I did, and what I saw ignited a fire in me. I knew I had much to learn, and I needed to be around other photojournalists. Secretly, I made a pact with myself that one day I would work for a major metro, possibly even at The Star.

Go West

I soon joined the ranks at a newspaper in Oklahoma, working with two other photographers. We had one digital camera, a Nikon D1, to share between us. Otherwise, we shot film. It was a great learning experience, but after a year the paper decided to cut their photo staff to two, and I drew the short straw. The September 11th attacks happened a week later, and the job market fell apart.

I refused to call myself “unemployed.” I had a camera, so I figured as long as I was still using it to get paid I would remain “self-employed.” For 13 months I was self-employed. I covered stories for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the Dallas Morning News, to name a few. My main life-saver, however, was working for the Associated Press, which drew the ire of many freelancers due to its new contract, which claimed all copyright. I was ashamed, but being still so young in my career, I felt it was either sign the contract or go broke and sell my camera gear.

I shot a lot for AP. And I was still broke.

An alternative weekly paper in Oklahoma City came calling. They had never had a staff photographer. It was an experiment hiring me, for sure. Ultimately, our ideas did not mesh well. They didn’t seem to understand photojournalism or its ethics, and I was at constant battle with editors and designers about what, as journalists, we were allowed to do and what we were not allowed to do. It was a bad fit for both of us, and we eventually parted ways.

Go North

I moved to Wisconsin, hung out my shingle and soon landed a position at a small newspaper there, commuting an hour each way. Again, I found myself as the only photographer, although an editor there handled most of the evening sporting events.

After less than a year, I was exhausted and frustrated. An opportunity came just in time. A family-owned newspaper in Indiana requested that I send them a portfolio and come down for an interview. I landed the job, and I became one of five photographers there. I promised myself then that I would never again work at a newspaper as the only photographer.

Go Home

It wasn’t a major metro, but I knew this was a place where I could stay and develop. I grew as a visual story teller. We began doing video. I earned numerous awards.

We dropped down to four photographers a year later. Three years later we became a staff of three. A couple more years and we were two, but the workload wasn’t getting any less.

The Indianapolis Star cleaned house. Once a huge photo staff, it was now down to five or six. It had long been clear to me that I was a dying breed, and my dreams of ever working for a major metro were extremely likely never to materialize. And yet I couldn’t bring myself to move on. The job had become part of me. It ran in my blood.

But I figured that perhaps I had better begin diversifying my skills. I didn’t like the way my career was looking. Three of the newspapers I had worked at no longer had staff photojournalists. It seemed to me that, even if I had landed a position at a large city newspaper, I would just be prolonging the inevitable. Staff photographers were becoming extinct. Newspapers were tanking.

New Direction

One way I began to diversify was by learning how to create 360-degree virtual tours. Alas, I found it hard to explain why anyone would need something such as this, and it proved difficult to even give the stuff away, cool as it was. However, there was one small detail of this venture that added the career diversity I was looking for. In order to properly explain to a potential client how to deploy a virtual tour to their web site, I took a web class at the local community college. This was one of those “aha moments” in my life. I didn’t know it then, but learning new skills such as HTML, CSS and Javascript would be my way out.

Not just a way out - I truly enjoyed web design. It was fascinating to me how it worked. But still I stayed in newspapers. I didn’t know what to do with my new-found fledgling skills.

I was promoted to photo editor. I oversaw one other staff photographer and managed a pool of freelancers.

Then it happened. My lone subordinate moved away, and the decision was made not to replace him. “We’ll just use freelancers,” I was told.

Back Where I Started, But Not For Long

And there I was again - the only staff photographer. Over the course of 11 years, we had dropped from a department of five to one. There was no room for promotion, so I was limited by that invisible ceiling. The loss of the staff felt like rising waters, and the lack of job openings throughout the industry acted as walls that prevented moving laterally. I was boxed in — caged in a career I’d thought early on would be the answer. It was time go.

Within a couple months I was in my current position in marketing. I still take pictures, and I still produce video. But now I’m equally focused on the web. The pay is better, the hours are normal, my co-workers are amazing (which include two former journalists from my last job) and my stress has melted away.

I am happy. What’s more, I’m excited about my career and its future. Every day is a new challenge with new problems to solve, and I absolutely love it. It’s going to take me a while to get to the level I want to attain, but thankfully I’m in another patient atmosphere, much like that patience I found at my first newspaper job.

I don’t even own a decent digital camera these days.