Anne-Marie Jackson has put together a Q&A to give some insight into the workings of photographers and visual journalists throughout Canada. This is an ongoing series and is posted every Monday. This weeks Q&A is with Edmonton Journal staff multimedia producer, Ryan Jackson.

Kevin Taks takes down a calf  at the Rainmaker Rodeo in St. Albert. All Photos By Ryan Jackson

Hello NPAC members,

I have put together a Q&A for the student forum to give some insight into the work of photographers and visual journalists throughout Canada. This will be an ongoing series.

If you would like to add a specific photographer to the list, please e-mail photo@amjackson.ca.

Cheers,
Anne-Marie Jackson
photo@amjackson.ca

Q&A – Ryan Jackson

www.ryanjackson.ca

What were your first steps in the industry?

I guess you could say my first steps were with the University of Saskatchewan student newspaper, The Sheaf. I had been running my own band photography website with over 400 live bands www.punkoryan.com since 2002.

I started volunteering with the paper to get access to more shows and get myself published.

The photo editor at the time, Liam Richards told me “you can’t just shoot bands” and gave me some student news and sports assignments as well.

I was hooked! Nothing beat the feeling of getting front page!

I was in fourth year Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and after hearing about Loyalist College’s fast track program for photojournalism, I made the biggest (and thankfully best) decision of my life to leave Engineering, move across the country and pursue photojournalism.

It was a huge risk, but I’ve learned that nothing good in life comes without taking a risk.

What was a pivotal point in your career?

In between the summer fast track course and second year, I got an 8-week internship with The Star Phoenix in Saskatoon, my home town. That internship was so crucial because it helped me develop a portfolio and experience to land other internships after school.

I was very fortunate to do the CP internship in Toronto in 2006, followed by an internship at the Ottawa Citizen and then finally the Edmonton Sun. I freelanced for the Sun for about six months then got the internship at The Edmonton Journal, which became staff.

I had many pivotal points, but it was the opportunity to work at a daily paper in-between Fast Track and 2nd year Loyalist that allowed me to develop a portfolio which helped me get the next internship, then the next, etc.

I can’t emphasize enough to students the importance of marketing yourself to as many newspapers as you can. If your hometown paper doesn’t know you…make sure they do….and more importantly make sure they don’t forget you!

When you were a student, what did you want to do after graduation and are you where you thought you would be now?

I wanted to be a staff photographer at a major daily. I didn’t know where I’d end up but I knew I wanted to shoot every day.

When I was done my internship at the Edmonton Sun, a staff job opened up at a smaller paper in a small city.

I decided to stay in Edmonton and freelance rather than taking the staff job in the small city. It was another risk because I didn’t have very much freelance to pay the bills. I had student loans to pay off and this job was guaranteed work.

I figured it was better to freelance for a big paper sometimes than a small paper all the time.

I got some work with the Edmonton Sun and also freelanced for the Edmonton Oilers team photographer Andy Devlin.

If it wasn’t for my wonderful girlfriend (now wife) Ashley paying the rent I couldn’t have done it.

The following spring, I went to Photojournalism 2007 in Vancouver. I remember I was very poor and the trip was probably going to cost me $1000 in the end. Two days before I left, a freelance job came up that was going to pay $1000.

I really needed the money and I couldn’t really afford to go to the conference, but at the same time I knew I couldn’t afford NOT to go because there would be portfolio reviews and possibly photo editors scouting.

I ended up meeting Ian Scott, the photo editor at the Edmonton Journal who was in-fact looking for a summer intern. I got the internship which turned into a contract which turned into a staff job.

After five internships I was starting to feel like I would always be an intern, never a staffer. But it all paid off. I feel very fortunate to be where I am and do what I love every day.

Patrick Roach a.k.a. Randy the Assistant Trailer Park Supervisor in the TV series Trailer Park Boys.

What or who are your biggest inspirations?

I always love (and try to take) photos that make you wonder “how did he do that?”. I especially love environmental portraits.

Starting out I spent a lot of time on Neil Turner’s website to learn lighting. That was before Strobist was around. I spent hours in my basement playing with flashes and learning as much as I could about lighting.

Robert Seale’s website also inspired me to learn lighting.

I remember the first time I watched the War Photographer documentary on Names Nachtwey my world was changed.

Donald Miralle has always inspired me because he doesn’t just try to get a different photo, he builds up a whole new way of mounting a camera to capture an angle no one has even thought of before.

Damon Winter with the New York Times [formally LAT] inspires me because he can be artsy and technical at the same time. He has built/modified several of his own cameras and flashes to make different images. His portraits are very inspiring to me.

I got to watch a seminar put on by Chip Litherland at a Sports Shooter conference in 2005. No one photoshops images like Chip. He spends at least 45 minutes on every image he edits. His trick is to shoot for highlights and then underexpose one-stop….pretty crazy I know…. but then using the lasso tool and levels, he manually brings back the highlights himself to preserve their color. The results are amazing.

Colin Mulvany – His story is so inspiring. He is certainly one of the pioneers of newspaper video and multimedia. His newspaper’s Video Journal blog shows how any paper can produce amazing multimedia from simple stories.

Casy Templeton – I don’t have words to describe his work. Check out his series on Pigeons and on the Circus it will blow your mind!

Zack Wise with the New York Times, formally Las Vegas Sun is my hero and who I want to be. Photographer, Videographer, Producer, Editor, Animator, Programmer, Designer…. ridiculous! If you missed him at the PJ2007 conference, listen to him at last summer’s Knight Digital Media seminar.

Salt-Lake Tribute photojournalist Trent Nelson was VERY inspiring to me when I was just starting out because I was into shooting bands and he’s being doing it since I was two-years-old!

Peter Power was also very inspiring because he had done Electrical Engineering just like me before pursuing photojournalism.

Finally, but certainly not least, Darryl Dyck and Jason Franson and Tim Smith all gave me a ton of inspiration when I worked at the Sun, and they still do. Darryl is just the best damn photographer in the west PERIOD! Jason sees light like no other and Tim is the best feature hunter in Canada, producing more photos at a small paper than some photo departments at big papers combined. I’m serious, he’s a photo machine!

Did you have a mentor? How important are mentors?

Tom Braid, Photo Editor at The Edmonton Sun was definitely my mentor during school and after. He put me in touch with a lot of people and guided me a lot throughout my development.

I would say that he encouraged me when I was down and discouraged me when I needed it.

Now I try to pay-it-forward as much as possible. I have spoken at our local MacEwan college a few times and this semester I’m teaching half a photography course with another Journal photographer, Greg Southam.

Having a mentor is very important. Though I will say that there is now more information on the web than anyone could ever absorb and it is getting larger every day. There are tons of podcasts, YouTube channels and blogs that teach anything and everything you could ever want to learn…for free! With all that being said though… nothing beats a real human being explaining something to you. More than a source of information, a mentor is someone to look up to and get feedback from.

You will never learn anything from a compliment.

A woman is reflected in the window of an office building in down town Toronto while walking in the rain.

How important is multimedia to you?

If it wasn’t for multimedia I wouldn’t have a staff job right now. Period!

I remember the first online multimedia piece I ever saw was called Los Dominoes. I thought to myself “Wow. That is what I want to do! Have people tell their own stories”. It was over a year though before I actually took the time to figure out how to do it. I regret not starting much sooner.

One thing Tom Braid pushed very hard was the importance of multimedia. He basically told all the freelancers that if we wanted shifts we would have to learn multimedia or starve. That was back in 2006!

The first Soundslide I ever did was for a King of the Cage fighting championship.

Tom was so happy with me and I started getting more shifts. It wasn’t long before the majority of my (few) shifts at the Sun were because I could do multimedia. Having multimedia in my portfolio helped me get the internship at the Edmonton Journal too.

I knew that strong multimedia was the key to getting a staff job some day so that summer I went crazy. I produced 20 Soundslides and 30 videos in 20 weeks. At the end of the summer I was offered a contract and then at the end of the contract I got a staff position.

I think too many photographers jump right to video without first developing their skills in simple audio slideshows.

Why run before you can walk? (or even crawl).

I believe that the most important thing is the story and the subject. It is up to you as a visual journalist to pick the best way to tell the story (stills, video, flash) or as I like to say, help the subject tell their own story.

How do you ensure that you are progressing as a visual journalist?

The most important thing, and sometimes one of the hardest things to do, is to actually read your own newspaper!

It’s very easy to be so busy creating that you don’t have time to consume and you can lose inspiration.

It’s important to have a list of photographers that inspire you and regularly check up on their work. One thing that I kind of miss about school was the friendly competition. Our paper, just like the Citizen and other papers have lost their photo editors in the last few years. I think that causes the photo department to lose direction and enthusiasm in a way as there isn’t anyone to really “pound the table and demand results”.

Clip contests, annual photo contents and memberships with great organizations like NPAC and Sports Shooter ensure that you are part of a community which is important.

If you are a student, it is vert important to be “known” in the business. No one hires a stranger. Get yourself out there!

I use an RSS Reader to follow several blogs and websites to stay on top of news and changes in journalism. Again, there is SO MUCH information out there now. The hard part isn’t finding the knowledge, it’s handling all of it.

Conferences like Photojournalism 2009, ONA, CAJ and CUP are really good for recharging your batteries and inspiring you.

They usually give students and photographers a good annual kick the ass to challenge themselves.

Finally as I’ve mentioned again and again, free online training. Seriously, when is the last time you couldn’t find out something you wanted to know on the internet?

What are some of the must-see websites you visit?

I have hundreds. But I know if I give too many you won’t go to any of them. Why more is less.

http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/ – Training resources for everything from video editing, to twitter, web programing, flash, interactive maps, blogging, podcasting, photoshop, final cut pro, and anything and everything else you would ever want and need to learn to be on top of this new digital age…. for free! Click on Webcasts and watch them all. Very very inspiring.

http://www.journerdism.com – a link blog that keeps track of journalism news. Every journalist should follow this site. It’s the best way to stay on top of the biz.

http://advancingthestory.wordpress.com/ – News and inspiration on multimedia. Examples, storytelling techniques.

http://newsvideographer.com/ – Great place to learn multimedia. People send in videos for critique and she breaks them down and explains how they can be improved. Learn from other’s mistakes

http://blogs.nppa.org/editfoundry/ – a training blog run by a TV video editor. He breaks news videos down step by step and explains why and how he edits the way he does. Very good way to learn.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/ – Learn better lighting. Has a very large community and TONS of resources.

http://www.lynda.com/ - Best $25/month you or your paper or your mom will ever spend. If you want to learn Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Flash or whatever, go here. It’s all step-by-step video tutorials showing you how to use software. Amazing way to learn. There are a lot of video tutorials on YouTube for software, but Lynda.com is definitely higher quality and worth paying for.

http://www.mediastorm.org/ – THE BEST produced multimedia. Bar none. You HAVE TO watch The Marlboro Marine and Common Ground

What is your favorite way to unwind?

I’ll be honest. Back in school we called it “nerding out”. A few friends come over with laptops and we just share cool websites and videos. A good friend saying “dude you have to check this out” is more valuable than any link on a website. Just add beer and I’m in heaven.

What’s the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you about being a photographer?

I can’t really narrow it down to one thing but here are some of the most important ones that stuck with me.

When Andy Clark was asked at PJ2005 for the top five pieces of advice he would give a student it was “shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot and shoot”. That is the best advice ever. It doesn’t matter how much learning and school you take. You actually have to get out there and apply it regularly to make it stick.

Never work for free! This rule is very hard when you are starting out and need to gain experience. Once you get established and have regular freelance clients though, you’ll be very proud of that rule. Anyone can “take a picture”. What sets you apart is that you can take a picture worth paying for.

Take the time and train yourself because no one else is going to do it.

Finally… from Dave Chidley … You make your own luck.