Commence Laughter, Shame. Sort Of.

Tonight I found my first portfolio, as far as I can tell. It was compiled in March of 2002. I was a junior in high school. It's a bit late, but I'm piggy-backing Melissa Lyttle's post when she called out people to show their first portfolios. So here is mine. Prior to college.

I'd say I'm embarrassed, but at one point in my life I was proud of this. I think I need to just own it and hope I've progressed since this point...although I doubt it.

It was interesting to look at this because in a lot of ways I think it shows that some people have raw talent and others don't. I most certainly do not. At the time I was shooting this, I was taken under the wing of several staffers at the one-time Potomac News in Woodbridge, Virginia. That was freshman year of high school. After that first visit, I was invited back and kept going back. I remember sitting outside the darkroom when my good friend Dave Ellis, DOP at the time and now DOP at the Free Lance-Star, was introducing me to F-stop and shutter speed. I remember nodding like I understood, but really I had glazed-over eyes and no idea what he was talking about. He was a huge reason I got into photojournalism, if not THE reason.

Because I couldn't drive, a staffer, usually Dave, would pick me up at my house when I got home from school if there was an assignment I could go on, and we'd head out. My first one of these treks was with Peter Cihelka on his last day at the Potomac News. We photographed a building mug and then hit a nature preserve. A lot of the times these assignments were on Friday nights and I would shoot football or a basketball game. We'd go back to the paper and develop the film, dry it, then scan our selects into photoshop. I shot film for probably the first 2 years while hanging out at the paper. My first camera, my mom's Pentax. Then a Nikon N90. Then the paper went digital and I got my driver's license, and with the license, freelance.

I remember riding my bike to a townhouse fire near where we lived at the time. I shot 11 rolls of 36 exp. film. I still get shit for it today but it was my first published photo in the paper. Eating was a big thing too. The staff always went somewhere for lunch just about every day. I'd say the camaraderie had me sticking around as much as taking photos did. Admittedly, I wouldn't make the connection about intimacy, moments, and really what photojournalism was about until almost the end of college I was only understanding photography. Today I am still trying to figure it out but I feel I've come a long way.

I gave up playing varsity lacrosse to work more at the paper. Much like probably most of you reading this, when my friends were hitting the beach and hanging out during the summers, I was explaining to them that I had to do an internship and wouldn't see them much and then I'd be going back to school. I don't regret any of it because it taught me work ethic but also that work is not everything. As much as work has been a huge part of my life, work is not life and there needs to be a balance so you recognize the joys of life when you're out photographing. I'm also still finding what that means.

I could go on and on, as we all can, remembering back. So I won't. I just wanted to share this because it's good to look back every so often and not forget people who helped you out. For me, I can't thank the group of people who started me out in this enough. I'm sure it kept me out of trouble. In the early days and even today for a few of them it was Dave Ellis, Peter Cihelka, Dylan Moore, Cindy Davis, David Holloway, and Amy Rossetti.











Um, yeah...photo illustration? First time using photoshop? FML.