My photojournalism, aka pj, work for 2012 is primarily filled with jazz and Franciscan nuns. Perhaps a few random things here and there. There are a few reasons for that.
My capstone graduate school course during winter quarter at Ohio University was magazine. It involved 2-weeks of photographing, in my case also audio/video, and then returning to design a magazine from start-to-finish, including writing the articles. For this project, I went to Bapchule, Ariz., to document the lives of the Franciscan sisters and the school that they run, St. Peter Indian Mission, on the Gila River Indian Community reservation. Along with spending 10 days with a wonderful community, I also was able to escape the Ohio winter for a bit. I surely wasn’t complaining about being able to wear flip flops and bask in 80 degrees of sunshine.
For spring quarter, I did no pj work because I was a producer for Soul of Athens. Along with my friend and fellow pj grad, Heather, we led the team working on stories focused on Liberties, and pulled themes from the Bill of Rights. We nicknamed our group Team Panda and often fed our cubs, and many others, with Insomnia cookies at weekly team meetings. Along with the large team meeting, we had weekly sub-team meetings, producer meetings, and helped with storyboards and editing. I also had to drive down to SC twice that quarter to photograph bridal portraits and then a wedding, which totaled almost 40-hours of driving and a day or two of Southern comfort before heading back north. In fact, I still have no idea how I made it through that quarter, or the other 5 quarters of graduate school for that matter.
Since finishing up the coursework at OU and moving back to Charleston in late June, I’ve done mostly commercial photo and video work. In the fall, I was brought on board to photograph the convent in Yuma. Though I only had several days with the Sisters in Yuma, it was nice to return to pj and get to know more of the Franciscan nuns in this order. I’ve also returned to being a part of the photography team for Charleston Jazz Orchestra and Jazz Artists of Charleston.
Though in 2012 I haven’t done as much photojournalism work as I would like, I hope to be changing that in 2013. Whether that means going through traditional news routes or figuring out how to do it on my own. My heart and passion is in telling others’ stories and sharing that with the community in hopes to cultivate understanding, knowledge, and empathy. I believe it is through stories of those around us that can ignite change, preserve history, and help build stronger communities.
Below are some of my favorite photojournalism images I created in 2012.
