How many flights? Two or three dozen?
How many times have I filled out this card?
How many times has my passport crossed that customs officer’s desk? Good thing its about to expire, there’s only one more blank page.
How many countries has that iPod been to? How long until I can’t see the screen anymore on account of the scratches. The back is already almost completely rubbed off.
How many Skymiles with how many different airlines? Which one had those hot towels that time even in coach…?
In almost every photo on Facebook that I happen to rarely be in, I have a camera in my hand. It wasn’t that way back in the beginning days of Facebook when I first got my account. Yes, some of the photos in which I’m tagged were actually taken with a film camera. Six years is a long way in technology world. If you start at the end coming forward in time… the cameras get fancier and bigger with more heavy-duty lenses…
But that’s what I do. And, contrary to the way most jobs work – accountants or car salesmen or lawyers or the principal of a school can leave everything at the office and disappear into obscurity at 5pm – I cannot, do not, and will not.
I’m not trying to be dramatic when I say this is a lifestyle. Being a “photographer” is one thing. Have your studio, do your weddings, cash the check on the way home.
Being a photojournalist – the Fledgling Photojournalist that I am – requires more than that. Tens of thousands of images… per month. More assignments than there are days in the year and extreme times on the road or the plane or the train.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of portrait/wedding/whatever photographers I greatly respect and admire. They actually do quite well at their craft and I have nothing but respect for them and the work that they do. That is a true art form in and of itself.
But there’s been a huge amount of talk about the “death of true photojournalism” these days. Now, as for a market? I can’t say. But with guys like Matt Slaby, Matt Eich, Mustafah Abdulaziz, Brandon Thibodeaux, Kendrick Brinson and the whole host of others at MJR or Luceo – young photographers and photojournalists that truly are the best in the world and I hope to someday be half as good as – I can’t see it slowing down a bit. They make images – raw images from normal cameras – that defy the 1000 word rule. The image in itself has a life of its own, dynamic and evocative.
Anyways, its a unique life, I assure you. Even at the onset, you know that you’re outside the real world while living within it and documenting life for those who can’t possibly be there themselves. I’ve set myself up as a professional sojourner. I just happen to make a lot of photos as I go.
Settling down? Yeah, someday. Once I become more geographically available and stop living on air mattresses or out of my truck, that’ll be a whole new adventure to document.
But, for now, stay tuned…
-Noah D.
