Photo-Journalism 101

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but back in my college days, I spent a little time shooting for the school newspaper, the Duke University Chronicle. I started in the summer of ’81, as a favor to the editor, who happened to be my girlfriend’s roommate. My main goal at the time was to have access to a “real” darkroom, rather than using the bathroom in my apartment (which tended to offend my roommate). I primarily did the Thursday “Arts” supplement, and only for 6 months or so. I recently dug out some long yellowed copies, and decided to scan the images. A retrospective, from 25 years ago:

“R&R” refers to rest & relaxation, of course, as in the impending weekend. The Chronicle was ½ size, about 12x15”. So the cover shot was just under 7x10”. The cover story for this issue (Vol,1, Number 6, 10/15/1981) was the university radio station at nearby UNC (since Duke’s radio station sucked). As it turned out, as a music geek (who actually listened to the station) I did most of the interview, the “reporter” mainly took notes. Oh yeah, I did do 5 photos of various shapes and sizes.
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This is the shot I wanted to use for the cover, I think it’s a LOT better. But, you know how editors are. That was one of the main reasons my photojournalism career didn’t take off. I wasn’t very good at taking direction... For all you young’uns out there, those black round things are called records, sort of prehistoric CDs.
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