Ever since I became interested in becoming a photographer I've known that photojournalism is what I wanted to do. I took my first photography class in the spring of 2008, since then I have worked at a camera shop, shot 3 weddings, won 1st place in photography at my schools art show and a student purchase by my school, Asheville Buncombe Tech. I'm very grateful that all this has happened to me but at the same time I feel as though I have strayed from the path of the photojournalist. When I first began shooting I was actually making photographs that were reminiscent, in certain ways, to some of my favorite photographers' shots. That was back when I shot black and white film, when I had absolutely no idea how to operate a camera and I was just flying by the seat of my pants, so to speak. I'm not sure how it happened but since that time I feel I have regressed in a sense. Although now I'm far more knowledgeable about my art and have acquired a decent set of equipment, I seem to be lacking the certain spirit or enthusiasm to shoot in a photo-journalistic way. It's not that I don't like photojournalism anymore, just that I feel so far away from it at the moment. When I invested into my digital camera I loved it! I still love it, but I feel like I betrayed my true passion after I began to shoot with a digital camera. I think it is time to relearn my craft...
Recently I have been researching photojournalism, specifically war-photojournalism. As I think more and more about it I wonder to myself why I want to do a job which involves so much violence. I can't say that I have an answer to give you regarding that... All I can say is that I feel like it's an important part of dealing with war in a positive way, someone has to photograph those areas which others don't dare to cover. Currently in Northern Africa there's a great deal of turmoil over political leaders. Both the governments of Egypt and Tunisia have already gave way to popular protests by the people in which their leaders stepped down with little violence. Libya is dealing with a great deal of violence, Gaddafi, the past revolutionary turned leader of Libya refuses to relinquish rule leading to a great deal of fighting. I find irony in the fact that he was once a revolutionary and now his people revolt.. haha. The whole situation makes me feel like I want to be over there where I could hopefully make a difference. So many people talk about the huge difference photographs from Vietnam played and I want to be part of the driving force that enforces that change. I think that the media is so full of bullshit right now and I'm not inferring that once I become a journalist that there wont be all the bullshit but maybe I could start my own new agency, something private run off of a blog or something similar. If anyone's interested one of my inspirations is a guy named Dan Eldon, he was a photojournalist and a very interesting person who seemed to enjoy life. The phrase "Dance like no one is watching" seems to be how he lived his life. It's extremely unfortunate but he was killed by a very angry mob in Africa as he and a few other journalists arrived on the scene of a US ordered bombing. All but one of the journalists were stoned to death... the other escaped. I have many photojournalists I admire but Dan Eldon was a person who's life philosophy is extremely admirable. If anyone is interested in learning more about him, his family published two books, "The Journey is the Destination" and "Dan Eldon: The Art of Life".
I started to feel like I was reporting for PBS or something as I got further into this blog entry haha.
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