February, 1998

 

Being a native of the north, I am constantly amazed by some of the things that I see in small town southern life and Tuscaloosa, Alabama is no exception to this. And since it is the typical small southern town, it has a grace and charm all its own and a lifestyle that's as slow and easy as the Black Warrior River that lumbers through the center of the town.

Ministering can be an emotional time and this particular woman fainted a few moments after this image was made.

 



At 98 and still ministering. Note that he's also reading 3 books at once... 		I'm not a newspaper photographer now, but I still have a few images from assignments that I consider memorable. These are the ones that, in my opinion, are what photojournalism is really all about. It's not chasing princesses or women involved with the President. Photojournalism is about the average person who, for one reason or another is in  extraordinary circumstances. This is why I've embraced shooting at small town newspapers for most of my career..

 

When I worked at the Tuscaloosa News our then lifestyle editor, Denise Gee, asked me to work on a special assignment with her about a 98 year old minister and his church. Denise has gone on to bigger and better things now, working for Southern Living magazine the last I heard.  I still have some of the prints that I made from the assignment and thought that as an opening to this site I'd share them with you. One of the reasons why I chose these images is that I was pretty disappointed in the "play" that they got in the paper. In particular was a portrait that I shot of the minister that has a very heavy "burn" (meaning that part of the image was intentionally darkened when printing). Some photographers call this the "Hand of God" type printing. I call it an artistic choice and when appropriate, I use it (admittedly, not that often...) and beyond that, I don't feel that I need to defend my choice. After speaking and spending time with this gentleman, I saw him as angelic- almost spiritual. I think that this is reflected in this portrait of him and is how I visualized the final image when shooting them.  The chief photographer had decided that I had printed the image wrong and reprinted it without telling me. The resulting print was flat and ugly. So, imagine my surprise when it ran in the paper...So, for the first time ever, here is the image as I saw it.

During a moment of prayer, a young mind wanders.

 

 

I had been raised in an Irish Catholic family and up until this time, had never been in a black, Southern Baptist church. What I saw had astounded me visually. As a Catholic, I had always gone to mass and it had always been a fairly docile event, so you can imagine my surprise to see people getting so excited that they were literally fainting because they become so overwhelmed by their emotions. It's something that I'll never forget as long as I live.

As luck would have it, on the same day that we were shooting in the church they had a baptism. Being from a Catholic background, I'd never seen anyone get fully immersed into water and was amazed by this scene.

 


I remember this minister saying that "hard work is God's work", so he still tills his 1 acre garden without assistance.
 I found that the members of this small church were as gracious and accommodating and as I see it, set an example of what religion should be about. It also taught me to be more passionate about my beliefs, and I guess that's why I like these images. 

 

One thing that I noticed in this church was that the minister had a special connection with the youth of the church. Put plainly, they Love him- and it shows. I could have shown you ten images of children and almost all of them are hugging the minister.

 
Angelic and spiritual is how I saw this unassuming, friendly man.

 

 

Hope that you enjoy them.

Mark.

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tom burton lara hartley mark hertzberg james keivom
dick kraus mark lent susan markisz james zeng-huang

 

 
Mark Lent
< mlent@dbtech.net >
former photojournalist
Tuscaloosa, AL
Other journals by Mark Lent
329 Is Photojournalism Dead? Mark Lent Yes, traditional photojournalism is quickly dying.
224 February 12, 1999 I was watching the Budweiser 25 lap shoot-out at Daytona last weekend and I sighed a little, knowing that this year, I won't be at any of the Talladega races as a photographer.
223 February 12, 1999 How to Shoot NASCAR
210 January 30, 1999 A real assignment from a real newspaper.
185 December 10, 1998 You see, this is what we as photojournalists will be doing in the not so distant future. We will work not only as photographers, but visual storytellers collecting information and then packaging it into presentable form for our viewers
143 September 5, 1998 Give 'em hell Jerry Pope
142 September 4, 1998 I got out of the newspaper business and had opened a studio. I started out shooting weddings, portraits and a bit of commercial work  in between. One thing that I learned while shooting all of this is that first, I'm really not much of a portrait photographer and next, I hate shooting weddings...
141 September 3, 1998 Let's Go Bar-B-Quein'
132 August 11, 1998 My first all-digital journal entry
125 July 30, 1998 I'll never forget the first time that I saw a photo on a computer screen
97 June 17, 1998 This journal entry is different from my others. No photos, no talk about the "shot that got away" nothing like that. In fact, I'm not even going to talk to you about anything that remotely resembles newspaper work
74 May 19, 1998 Sports photography...To me, it's always been the essence of photojournalism
72 May 11, 1998 ...every once in a while, you run across someone while covering a story that changes your whole life.
65 April 21, 1998 After working for newspapers in Alabama for 8 years, I've come to take tornado warnings very seriously
51 March 31, 1998 101 Ways to Photograph a Welder (part two)
44 March 24, 1998 101 Ways to Photograph a Welder
35 March 10, 1998 In theatre, what you don't see is just as important as what you do see...
25 February 22, 1998 Admittedly, there are many things that the press does that irritate, enrage and awe me.
18 February 17, 1998 I knew that it was ridiculous for me to have to take my wife  to a murder scene just to spend "quality time"
9 February, 1998 Life in a southern town
 
Contributor since 1998
  
   


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