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|| SportsShooter.com: News Item: Posted 2003-08-12
Breaking-In Revisited: Redwoods vs. Sprouts
By Jim McNay, Brooks Institute of Photography
Note: The idea for this column came at the suggestion of a Sport Shooter reader. Others who have suggestions can follow the directions at the end of this article.
While breaking into photojournalism is daunting enough for younger photographers ("Sprouts"), the challenge can look forbidding for older photographers ("Redwoods") who want to attempt a photojournalism career in their 30s and 40s or later.
Facing the issues
Redwoods face a variety of problems those in the Sprout category may not encounter. One of those is the energy to work long hours. Breaking in often requires extra effort. That might include time spent in a day job with photography done after hours. Or, photographers in what they see as a dead end photography jobs may work well beyond the eight-hour day to make pictures that will take them to the next level in their career. All this often is easier to do earlier in one's life than later.
Along the course of life, Redwoods may have accumulated some responsibilities that lie ahead for Sprouts. Among these are spouses, children, mortgages, college tuitions or tuition saving plans. Leaving a career that pays for these to start a photojournalism career from scratch may cause a significant negative impact on one's income, an income to which the potential photographer and family may have become accustomed.
Along with this is the simple issue of starting a new career square one. Often Redwoods who aspire to photojournalism already have paid their dues in one field. They may have worked in a small town, a branch office or some other form of the low rung of one career ladder. Redwoods face the question of returning to the hinterlands in some way where entry-level photojournalism opportunities are often most prominent. Not everyone wants to make such a move.
Traditional Steps-or Not
While Sprouts may feel they have time to engage in some photojournalism's traditional training steps such as four-year college degrees, internships, graduate school, jobs in smaller towns and media companies, Redwoods may feel a certain urgency to get moving as far and as fast as possible. They may feel they cannot do some of the traditional beginner's steps. They hope their willingness to engage in intensive work and study will enable them to leapfrog some of the traditional steps on the path. Editors and experienced photographers who talk to Redwoods about wanting to "go pro" in a hurry understand the urgency here.
What Redwoods need to understand however, (and it is a very large "however,") is the steps the Sprouts take to break in help address key issues. Class assignments, work on college newspapers, internships and working with professional mentors show how much entry-level photographers are ready to work at a professional level. This is how entry-level photographers prove themselves to editors who give assignments and hire staffers.
The point is, if Redwoods can show they are "ready" to work professionally by skipping some of the traditional steps to breaking in, then fine. But if the steps are skipped, Redwoods may find they have a hard time understanding when editors find a photographer's preparation incomplete.
Getting to Work, Covering the Bases
The key to handling all of this, for Redwoods and Sprouts both, is to get to work. It means doing the kind of photography you want to excel at during the time available, even if that means nights and weekends.
Since photojournalism is the focus of this conversation, photographers can start with news, sports and feature photography, then get feedback on this work. This might be from local working professionals or those in the nearest town where more accomplished photographers can be found.
Some photojournalists start their careers at newspapers. Working newspaper photographers are often a good source of feedback for anyone seeking to understand photojournalism or editorial photography and ultimately break into the business.
Other photographers can be approached for the opportunity to assist or to be shadowed as a way to understand the field. The key here is to avoid being a pest while the mentor is on the assignment. Let the photographer take care of their client. Save the questions for down time when the photographer has time to concentrate on them.
Getting in the Building
It is always wise to look for ways to get on the inside, even if it involves non-shooting jobs initially. Does a local photographer need someone to scan or clean up his or her pictures on the computer? Do they need someone to help edit and organize their photo files? Do they need help posting pictures to their website to keep it current? Does the local mini lab need a night or weekend person? Does the local newspaper need a night or weekend person in the photo department on the imaging desk?
How about the nearest wire service? When major candidates come to town or to the region, do they need someone with local knowledge of the area to be a courier for cards or film? What about when major news breaks out in the area, perhaps due to a natural disaster? Contacting news organizations like this in advance and having them know who you are BEFORE they have a need might put a budding photographer on their radar screen. That aspiring photographer might get a call when news hits the fan.
Local non-profit organizations often have limited funds, but want and need publicity through pictures, video and web work. In the beginning they should at least cover a photographer's expenses. As photographers get more experience and perhaps work for better funded non-profits (some do have publicity budgets!) then photographers can seek more compensation. All this is part of the learning and portfolio building process.
Another path is to find a story, a cause, an issue that is important to the photographer and to tell that story. The project may be a local one or in another state or country. Whoever the people involved in that story may be, they are potential stories back in their hometowns, their home states, their home countries.
Some photographers have had success going straight to website creation around an issue. Once a website exists, this can serve as a promotional element leading to telling stories for print or other outlets.
A Last Resort
A traditional "career maker" for potential photographers at any point in their career, whether they are Redwoods, Sprouts or stuck-in-mid career-nothing-is-happening-here-Hell is to cover conflict. Photographing wars and revolutions has been a foot in the door to photographers since the beginning of photojournalism. It works just as well today. At any moment there are more conflicts around the world than one can count. Photographers can pick their region: Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, South Asia and on and on.
Finding the location is the easy part. The greater challenge is to find a way to tell the stories of these regions and the people impacted by these conflicts in a way that makes us care.
Reconsidering
All this said, photographers have to realize covering conflict is not for everyone, even those who are the most enthusiastic about it before they actually go cover it. Once in a conflict zone, with real bullets coming in, one discovers this is a dangerous, life threatening, limb threatening undertaking. It can be frightening and off-putting in a way that makes photographers realize this is not the path to greatness for them.
To avoid making this discovery in a conflict zone, one can devise some methods to test one's serious interest in covering conflict by looking at such issues right here at home.
Instead of going off to a shooting war in another country, explore covering some of the stories and issues in bad neighborhoods right here at home. For the photographer who wants to cover how prostitutes live in developing nations, see if it's possible to know people in this business here at home, and if a successful story can be done locally.
All this will show photographers if this kind of storytelling is for them. It will also show them if they are ready to attempt such projects overseas, or if they need more experience before they go to the trouble and expense of attempting such projects in foreign lands with different languages and customs.
The Secret
The key to all these efforts to break in, for everyone, but especially for Redwoods, is to be patient. Overnight success is rare. (When asked how long it took him to write, "Lullaby of Birdland," the great jazz pianist George Shearing said, "About 15 minutes-and 30 years in the music business.") While Redwoods can often cut to the chase and just start working in some way somewhere, for most successful photographers there is a period of dues paying, of showing you "have the stuff"-over time-to be an excellent journalist and storyteller.
One suggestion: Remember Salgado. He completed his Ph.D. in economics, started a family and went to work for the United Nations before discovering instead of writing reports about the people of the world he would rather photograph them. It took a while, but he persevered, and has our admiration as a result.
Bottom line: While Redwoods (i.e. older photographers seeking to break in) may want to get right to work in their new chosen career, they may still have to pay the dues expected of the young generation Sprouts who have time for the traditional steps photographers use to prove themselves.
Photographers, particularly those in school or seeking to break into the photojournalism, are welcome to send ideas for future columns to Jim McNay at jim.mcnay@brooks.edu. Questions about getting started in photojournalism that might be answered in future columns are also welcome.
Visit the Brooks NPPA student chapter website at: www.brooksnppa.org
Related Links:
Jim McNay's Member Page
Brooks NPPA Student Chapter
Brooks Institute of Photography
Related Email Addresses:
Jim McNay: jmcnay@brooks.edu
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