Day 3

"It's fine to screw up, but own it" - Jack Van Antwerp

We started off today with a visit to the Wall Street Journal. I really enjoyed the smaller, more intimate feeling that this journal provided. Director of Photography, Jack Van Antwerp talked to our group about the original Wall Street Journal without photography, as compared to the remodeled journal. He talked a lot about things we hear frequently from other professionals, such as importance of excellent captions, maintaining a great reputation, ability to problem solve, etc. One of the things I found the most interesting about the Wall Street Journal is that it has no staff photographers and works purely off of freelancers.

Secondly, we visited AP. Somewhat similar to Getty Images, AP was a large company that dealt with a mass number of images and photographers, worldwide. Santiago Lyon, the DOP at AP compared the company to a photo airport. "It is our job to make sure images land and get shipped out successfully", he said. 

Our visit to Human Rights Watch was the last organized association vist of the day. Emma Daly explained the business to us, which was actually quite intriguing. Many of the photographs shot for Human Rights Watch actually played a significant role in changing global policy in the category of human rights, which was really inspiring to see that photojournalism can indeed inspire change, in  the right circumstances. It made the cliche of "changing the world with our photography" appear as more of a realistic possibility.

To finish off the day, the group went to Clay Patrick McBride's studio, in Brooklyn. With his individual spin on photojournalism and somewhat rebellious attitude, he gained most of our attention during the entire presentation. He talked about dealing with what people expect from your work, as opposed to our own personal goals for your work, and how he balanced the two. 

Due to my severe dog allergy, I wound up missing a big portion of the presentation. That was certainly less than ideal, but nevertheless, an informative and fun day.