Late last month, right around Thanksgiving, a writer for French newspaper Le Monde's weekend magazine, M, reached out to me about running an edit from my project The Magic City. We had a short interview, and the following weekend they published a ten page spread of the work.
Please click here to see how it ran online.
In early August, Mark Murrman from Mother Jones reached out to see if I was available for a 3-7 day project in the city where I live, Columbus, Ohio, at the end of August and early September. I was, so we proceeded to outline a story on Ohio's Senate Bill 5 and it's effects on the economic and political climate in Ohio, namely it's war on the middle class. It's a story I've been covering on and off for various publications since February of 2011, shortly after Republican governor John Kasich took office. There were a few key points we had to hit (portraits of those mentioned in the story as well as reportage of their family life,) but most of it was very open ended. There was a lot of room to create moody images to help drive the story forward. I ended up sending Mother Jones a lot of images from my archives, and they were able to license some of those as well. I spent a good bit of time wandering around neighborhoods I hadn't had an excuse to explore prior to this and overall feel in much better touch with the place that I live than I have previously.
It was also nice to get out on foot as a journalist. For example, I got in touch with a director at We Are Ohio, a bipartisan anti-SB5 group, to see if I could photograph their canvassing that day. I secured permission and while talking to him, was told of a fundraiser about a half hour south of here for a town called Mount Sterling who's police force disbanded due to lack of funds in the community. I was able to make it down to the small town in time for a "Dunk the Police" tank, which ended up being used in the spread. Due to the general direction of the story, and the time available, I had the opportunity to allow one thing to lead to another and unfold into a more well-rounded essay.
Here are some outtakes, both produced for the magazine and others from time spent in the area and around the state while covering this story, which can be read here.
I've been photographing some up and down one of the major streets in Columbus. A friend of mine happens to tend bar north of here a little bit, so I stopped in and made a portrait of him a few weeks ago.
It's been about a year since I've been to a zoo, and probably 6 or 7 years (at least) since going to the Columbus Zoo. Lots of people seem to really like the Polar Bear exhibit, which is fair because it's really cool. The bears can swim over your head while you're standing in a giant softbox underwater.
The day before I left for Look3, I was commissioned by British magazine Grazia UK to photograph Natalie Taylor, a young author in Detroit. Her first book was a memoir compiled from diary entries over the course of losing her husband in a car accident while five months pregnant.
My assistant, Josh Landis, and I spent a little over 2 hours with Natalie and her son. We had a lot of fun on the shoot- I'm excited to see her continue to grow as an author.
Last Monday I had an opportunity to work with George Vecsey, a New York Times writer, on a story about the Single A baseball club, the Dayton Dragons, who are quickly approaching the record of consecutive sold out games- 815 -since opening twelve years ago. I met George, who had been at the park for a few hours already, shortly after getting there. We had briefly discussed photo ideas via e-mail, and everything sounded pretty open ended. Right off the bat, George said, "I've worked with a lot of photographers over the years. I trust your eye." It was a great way to start a shoot, especially because I don't have a chance to work with writers very often. I haven't been to a baseball game in going on four years now, so it was a really nice change of scenery. I was excited to pick up The Sunday Times and see 6 images on the front page of the sports section, and another two inside. Take a look at the slideshow here.
Towards the end of March I received a call from a very supportive editor named Whitney Tressel at Esquire Magazine, asking if I was available for a portrait shoot in Cleveland. Although I'd never met her in person, we quickly connected on the same creative wavelength. We discussed the story and various ideas, and shortly after she forwarded me images that fit the mood we wanted to drive the images forward on, mostly pulling images out of my personal essays (The Kittie Luau , There is a Place.)
The story was about (and written by) a man named John Hyduk who lives alone in Fairview Park, Ohio, just west of Cleveland. I was very familiar with the area, as I once dated a girl who lived off the same road John does- funny coincidence. Anyways, John is in his late 50s and has been a writer and poet for most of his life, but he's never been above working whatever jobs he could find in order to support himself. He's currently a night shift dock worker at a bottling plant in the area.
I was fortunate enough to be able to bring my good friend James Roh along as an assistant. James, who just took a job at the Provo Daily Herald in Provo, Utah, only had two weeks before he moved across the country, and it was really awesome to be able to kick it with him for a full day (and he was a huge, huge help with the lights.)
We started out at John's home while it was still light out, and eventually made our way to a shipping yard in Brookpark, Ohio, right near the airport in Cleveland.
Thanks so much to Whitney, John, and James for helping bring this all together! I'm really glad at how it all turned out.
Early November, I was running around New York after a busy day of meetings. I got off the train at Grand Central, and had just come above ground. I was on my way to meet my Uncle Chuck at his ad agency so we could grab some dinner and drinks. My phone rang, a 212 number, so I figured it was somebody I had set a meeting up with that week.
"Hi! This is Jeanne with Men's Health!"
(I hadn't set up a meeting with them, and it had been probably a year since I initially e-mailed them.)
We talked for a moment about my availability, and I told her that I happened to be in New York for the AP26 party at the Annenberg Space for Photography. As it turns out, she was going to be at the party as well, so it was really great to have a chance to meet her. Happy coincidence, no doubt.
The story ended up being one I was very interested in- prescription painkiller abuse in Southern Ohio. The two victims the story focused on were males around my age who had passed away as a result of drug use and the circumstances surrounding it. I spent three days working with two families and photographing prescription pain clinics in Portsmouth, Ohio. Pain clinics pass themselves off as "doctor's offices," but with the sole purpose of providing prescriptions and painkillers to nearly anyone who has pain. Many of the local pharmacies won't fill scrips from these places, so some of them have in house pharmacies. It's a problem that took root in Florida, and has slowly worked it's way up to Ohio. Jeanne was excited to have me onboard due to my work in Glouster, Ohio, and I was very happy to shed light on the issues I've pursued over the years.
15 minutes away from the first clinic, I got a call from my editor that the one we were en route to had been raided by the DEA the day before. The problem lies in that they're not federally legal, but the states don't have the laws in place to prevent doctors from selling prescription drugs in-house.
I really couldn't have done it without my two assistants, friend and housemate Stephen Pence and the talented Maddie McGarvey. In some instances, they acted as get away drivers while photographing in less-than-ideal circumstances. Namely, while waiting for patients to come in out and out of the clinics and the ensuing situations resulting from employees coming outside to yell at me for photographing their establishments. The first day on the shoot, Stephen and I noticed that some of the clinics kept lookouts- a man casually sitting in a car in the parking lot taking notes and watching us, etc. It was important, too, that we photographed symbols of the medical presence in town. Not in a negative manner, but just to show the balance of real medicine vs. pain clincs.
Here are some images from the story that can be read here.
Thanks so much to Jo Anna Krohn of Portsmouth and Rick Dickerson of Bellville. I am truly sorry for their losses, and do hope this article sheds light on the issues at hand. With more press of this nature, I do hope that the state laws that allow these establishments change.
