Photographic slump. Let’s look at editing.

I haven’t shot much worth posting lately, so I thought that I would switch gears and show some of my favorite editing work.

Back when I was the assignment editor here at The Free Lance-Star, a photo request was submitted asking for a portrait to be shot of a University of Mary Washington student. Shin Fujiyama had organized a group called Students Helping Honduras. The portrait was meant for a story previewing the group’s upcoming trip down to Honduras.

My initial thought as an assignment editor was that a portrait was a bullshit way to go. By the way, “bullshit way to go” is a technical term they teach you in photojournalism school.

The story to be told was happening down in Honduras. I knew it was a longshot, but I presented to the newsroom leadership the idea of sending a photographer/reporter team to Honduras to document the group’s efforts on location.

To my complete surprise the proposal was accepted. However, I was also surprised by the fact that I had to fight to be the photo editor for the project. Being the assignment editor, I was low man on the editing totem pole.  I stood my ground by taking ownership of it. After all, it was my idea in the first place.

This idea, which I considered to be a no-brainer (but I wasn’t really management at the time, so what did I know), was my first taste of success in my career at The Free Lance-Star. Reporter Rusty Dennen and photojournalist Scott Neville knocked the story out of the park. Editing Scott’s work was concrete evidence that the portrait was the bullshit way to go.

In the recent days of DMWL (Doing More With Less), I long to taste that kind of success again.

The pages presented here are from the first day of the four-day series.