Camera Obscura: A Smalltown Photographer’s Guide to Covering International Politics

I am a photojournalist for a smallish daily newspaper in the Baltimore/DC area. NO, NOT that one.

To apply for credentials to cover the Annapolis Peace Conference, hereby known as the APC, because I’m so tired of typing the word ‘conference,’ required filling out an application with the standard personal info and numbers over a secure email program you had to download.

You also had to send in a photograph of yourself, sized at the odd 1- and-3/8th inches. After asking around the newsroom, I had to call my wife who figured out that meant 1.377 in computer talk.

All was diligently completed before the holiday and a confirmation email was received. Things were looking good. Let me add, I was really looking forward to this. The eyes of the world on my town; my coverage area. I don’t care what it is, if it happens in my town, I shoot it. So it’s especially great when something actually happens. Continue reading Camera Obscura: A Smalltown Photographer’s Guide to Covering International Politics

Press 1 for Intolerance

One of the greatest moments of my career as a local newspaper reporter came a few days after Maryland District 7 Delegates Pat McDonough and Rick Impallaria got into a scuffle with a pro-immigration activist in an Annapolis hallway.

I was sitting at a Board of Education meeting and in a break between presentations, listening in on a hushed recounting of the incident. The board’s liaison to the state legislature was filling the school system’s second in command (a congenial guy named Ray Brown, who’s since taken another job) on details too grisly for print.

I leaned over and said, “You know the best part – when the guy pushed Pat McDonough…” and I held my hands up to show how a toupee might have been slipped halfway off (when we said we’d publish rumors, this is what we meant…Pat could very well be working with just a weird head of hair). Continue reading Press 1 for Intolerance

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