What is your current position and who is your employer?

Since January of 2021, I am happily retired after a 42-year career as a staff photographer at the Associated Press. I began in 1972 at the L.A. Times, first as a CSUN student intern, then as a temp employee, about three years total. I freelanced for a few years for entertainment and news clients including the AP. I was hired on as a full-time staffer in 1978.

When did you become a PPAGLA member?

Around 1973 during my Times gig. I was on the board in the 1980s, chairing a lot of committees and was president in 1987.

How long have you been a photojournalist and how did you get started?

Doing the math with the dates above, around 50 years. But I really got my start at Eagle Rock High School with the usual newspaper and yearbook experience. Then on to Valley College and then Cal State Northridge, from which I finally graduated in 2020! (‘Nother whole story there).

Please share some career highlights:

Wow, pick a few! The top of the list would be winning a Pulitzer Prize as part of an AP crew that won for Feature Photography with coverage of all candidates running for president in 1992. My contribution was that memorable, I think, shot of then-candidate Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show. Another was meeting Queen Elizabeth II on the fantail of the Britannia as she toured Mexico. Totally off the record, no photos, notes, nada, dang it!

And, courtesy of the AP, I traveled a big chunk of the Western Hemisphere, covering stories all over Latin America. Pope trips to Chile, Argentina, Mexico. The 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which was mostly meeting logistical challenges as much as photojournalism. Any road trip in the film era involved dragging along a portable darkroom for processing film and a breakdown enlarger, and a picture transmitter. The whole assemblage in several cases probably weighed 100 pounds. The transmitters finally got smaller, and later we could leave out the enlarger and send directly from the negative, but the film processing continued into the early 1990s, at the dawn of the Digital Age.

Hawaii photography was under the control of the L.A. buro, and I got a lot of that duty. Volcanoes, Hurricane Iniki, Hula Bowl football, and some dozen trips courtesy of Ferdinand Marcos getting kicked out ofthe Philippines to Hawaii, then dying, then dealing with Imelda drama. Priceless time, although our deadlines were always a very un-fun noonish each day to accommodate East Coast deadlines.

What advice do you have for students and those hoping to become photojournalists?

When I started, I knew how to shoot a photo. I soon learned how to get it sent and learned how to write very well, albeit five sentences max for a coherent photo caption.

Today, one need to bring a huge portfolio of talents. Dip-and-dunk photography is gone, thank God. But now one must come out of school with a range of talents, including: executing imagery in still and video; understanding when verité is best or to create more formal lighting as needed, and have that talent; being able to conceptualize a story and write from start to finish (and you might have no idea where that story is going at the start.)

What is something you know now that you wish someone had told you when you were starting out?

You need to keep learning, aggressively. In retrospect, I think I was a lazy student, learning what came along as needed but not pushing myself to learn more, sooner.

What is your favorite part of being a PPAGLA member?

Back in the day, when I was in the field and killing time with my colleagues, we’d share the wisdom of the ages. (Bullshitting – we spent a lot of hours waiting around.) I treasured that. I was happy to give back when I was on the board. Today, being retired, my membership keeps me connected, even vicariously, with those still doing the most important work in visual information, and those who have already done that.