I have been a Television News Photographer for 16 years. Unlike many of my peers, I have only worked in 2 markets in that time. I spent almost 6 years at WCIA in Champaign and the last ten at WFLD in Chicago. You can call me Crew, Cameraman, Photog, Photojournalist, or Shooter, but that doesn’t change what I do: tell people’s stories in the visual and aural medium of Television News.
After I graduated from Illinois State University, I got a job at WCIA. One of my professors had given my name to the Chief Photographer, Tom Exton, who annually mined the broadcast programs at ISU, EIU, and SIU for eager TV production graduates. I was soon chest deep in covering local news . . . and I loved it. Balloon festivals, city council meetings, and house fires were just some of the many different stories I covered every day. I tried my best to synthesize all those details and to shoot and edit them to show the viewer at home what it was like to be there. Both the News Director, Dave Shaul, and Tom gave me a lot of leeway in the style of how I shot and edited. Most everyone I worked with was the same age or younger; we enjoyed working together and we all had a mutual hunger to tell great stories about great people in our community.
After awhile, I felt like it was time to move on and to be closer to my original home, so I got a job at WFLD. While not always a place of the camaraderie I had felt at WCIA, I learned new skills from long-time, award-winning journalists. I had shot and edited all my pieces before, but in a big market, those jobs were separate. Many of the editors elevated what I shot in the finished piece. Many of the photographers showed me how to get around and deal with city traffic, police, and over-sized egos. And many of the reporters taught me how to work quickly and stay calm under pressure.
All of that leads me to where I am now. I was laid off from WFLD in October and continue to look for opportunites to be a visual storyteller, wherever that leads. I look forward to meeting regular people, getting to know them, and photographing them–sometimes at their best, sometimes at their worst–so that I can help to tell their story. Thanks for watching.