The "It Helps To Know The Photographer" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Looking at the Lancaster, Pennsylvania "Local" section of the SUNDAY LNP (Lancaster News Paper).  Every Sunday morning there is always a photograph that is featured that has been taken by one of the newspaper's top-notch photographers.  Always is on page B2 and carries the title of "THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER."  It is one of my favorite columns of the Sunday newspaper, since I have had many of the newspaper's photographers as a guest speaker in my 12th grade photograph class.  I taught photography for close to 25 years of my teaching career.  And, since I usually had 4 or 5 different photography classes every year, it helped to know most of the photographers at the newspaper so I wouldn't have to invite any one photographer more than once a year.  They usually talked about how they got involved in photography and what type of asignments are their favorite.  Over the years my oldest son had his photo taken in the spring while smelling the fresh spring flowers.  He was probably 4 or 5 years old at the time.   My middle child had her photo taken when she turned 4 years old on the 4th of July.  My youngest son had his photo taken when he was a senior in high school while seated in my Graphic Arts classroom at Manheim Township after having the largest amount of photographs accepted for the annual Scholastic Art & Photography contest.  My youngest eventually went to school at Antonelli's School of Photography near Philadelphia and worked for a professional photographer, a former student of mine, before changing careers and running an offset press for Intelligencer Printing Co. who now prints my newspaper.  Most of the newspaper photographers that I invited over the years always spoke about their profession as both a photographer as well as an advocate for the newspaper.  Over my teaching career I had invited about two dozen different newspaper photographers, both male and female, who spoke to my classes.  The first one was Richard Hertzler, Jr. who was a real professional and well respected by just about everyone who heard him speak.  The newspaper had several female photographers whom I tried to schedule for classes that had mostly girls in them.  I ended up developing a few good friendships with a couple of the photographers with Suzette Wenger, Barry Zercher and Dan Marscha becoming friends.  You may remember a photo Dan took of me about two years ago for a story for my blog when I had a few hundred Russian visitors to my blog every day for a few months.  The photographer whose photo was featured in today's "THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER" was Blaine T. Shahan who told how he was able to take a photo of a snowy owl while in flight.  

He happened to arrive at just the right time to get his photograph he had been trying to get for some time.  Each week features a different photographer until they have worked their way through all their professional photographers, at which time they begin all over again.  Most people don't realize how hard it is to be a professional newspaper photographer.  Only when you give it a try or listen to many of their stories, do you realize how tough a job it can be.  But, without a photograph to help tell a story, it could be just a boring story.  If you ever find a photograph that you find amazing, call the newspaper and tell them.  They will pass it on to the photographer who in turn will appreciate your phone call.  Always makes you work a bit harder!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.