#4 - Jym Wilson - March 19, 2017 - Washington, D.C.

I think I got my first photo assignment from Jym sometime around 1997. Jym was the senior photo editor for the Life section of USA Today for almost 18 years, prior to that he worked as a photojournalist for the Burlington Free Press in Vermont. He left Burlington in 1993 and came to D.C. to work for Gannett News Service as the staff photographer covering Capitol Hill, the White House and some international stories. He then moved over to USA Today in the fall of 1997.  When he worked for USA Today he probably knew the direct number to every Hollywood publicist, talent agent, and manager of the publishing, music and film industries. The Life section covered those areas and Jym often was responsible for assigning photographers to create images for that. There were also thousands of human interest stories that were covered by freelancers and staffers that were part of the Life section. Jym sent me to photograph dozens of people and stories over the years for USA Today.  I made portraits of B.B. King, Cal Ripken Jr., members of the Carter family, Nora Roberts, and other people famous, and not so famous.

As a result of the "digitization of things" and the huge effect that caused in the newspaper industry, USA Today downsized a huge portion of its staff during three rounds of buyouts and several rounds of layoffs over the past half dozen years. Ad sales were way down and the paper just wasn't selling like it was in the past due to a massive shift of readers consuming news online. Jym took a buyout in 2015  after being there for nearly 18 years.  A lot of senior editors and other staff members also took a buyout during this period. The newspaper now is a bit of a shadow of its former self.

One of the things I valued working with Jym is the feedback and guidance I'd often get on the photoshoots I was assigned by him. He would tell me if I could or needed to improve something. Hearing feedback from photo editors was often rare and I learned from him.

A discussion brought up during the photo shoot was how digital photography has changed the way photographers make photos. Jym quipped - "What's more dangerous than a photographer with a 16GB memory card in their camera?" What? I asked.. "A photographer with a 32GB card in their camera!"  One of the things that can really annoy photo editors is when a photographer doesn't pre-edit their shoot especially if the photographer has made a lot of images. Or a photographer shoots something, a portrait for example,  and shoots the same exact shot over and over again, doesn't change the pose, and does nothing different.  I like to remember some footage I saw years ago of British photographer Max Vadukul photographing Sting. Max got Sting to be completely animated and act a bit crazy - they both did a bit of a frenetic dance together to get images for The Dream of the Blue Turtles album. No two pictures were alike - guaranteed.  See here - and here. With digital - I'm guilty of shooting a lot of the same thing over and over - I did it with film too.  But only shooting ten frames of a subject is a world of difference from having a 32 GB card in a camera. Make every frame count!







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