|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
Airlines are a curious thing. A large group of strangers gather together, herd themselves like cattle into undersized zones where each is to remain for hours. Passengers are served watered-down and iced-up beverages and processed food in several layers of plastic packaging. In my flight on on February 7th from Chicago's O'Hare airport, I felt like a celebrity. One of the last groups of passengers on the plane was a hurried family, who had to sit apart on the full flight. The mother sat next to me, her son in the row in front of us, and her husband in front of him. We chit-chatted: family, my school, where we were from, et cetera. Eventually we arrived on the subject of why I was in Racine, and I explained the concept behind "Behind the Viewfinder" to her. We talked some about newspapers, media coverage of the Whitehouse happenings, and of course photojournalism. TO my surprise, she said her 13-year-old son has been begging for a Canon EOS A2, and wants to shoot for National Geographic someday. WOW. She tapped him on the shoulder, and introduced us, explaining that I was a photojournalist. To my total delight, his eyes lit up like mine when I was 13 and met a NBA player. I was very flattered. He immediately asked what kind of cameras I use, a question I get all the time from 'wannabes.' I said I had the very camera he wanted, the A2, in my backpack right now. "Be careful, Cole!" his mom insisted when I handed it over to him to look at. Cole looked through the viewfinder at everything, and showed it off to his father. He took my picture (which unfortunately turned out very underexposed) and with care handed the camera back to me. His mother and I exchanged e-mail addresses, promising to be in touch. I could tell Cole has the self-confidence and savvy to be a photojournalist if he really wanted to. Whether or not he really wants to, only time will tell. Good luck Cole.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joseph
Jaszewski
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Contributor
since 1998
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Behind
the Viewfinder - A Year in the Life of Photojournalism |
