A Black Lives Matter protest more accessible to those in the disabled community is being organized for next Friday in Portsmouth.
On this week’s episode of The Granite Beat we welcome Ann Hermes, who worked for the Christian Science Monitor for 12 years before becoming an independent photographer. Ann produces images that look like postcards from a rapidly changing world, providing images from the Arab Spring, NYC ‘dining sheds’, and one of the few remaining drive-in theaters. Most recently, she has been working on a meta-project to chronicle local newsrooms – those that remain at least – around the United States.
A good photographer is someone who operates their equipment with technical skill, but a great photographer is one who balances that skill with empathy for the scene and people they are photographing. On this week’s episode of The Granite Beat, we speak with Valley News photojournalist Alex Driehaus, who has a portfolio of projects rich with empathy. She has spent time photographing people recovering from addiction in Ohio, marginalized young adults in San Francisco, and most recently, a former Special Forces soldier from Afghanistan now living as a refugee in New Hampshire's Upper Valley.
A picture is only worth a thousand words if the photographer did their job right. To do that, they need to see a scene as more than just a jumble of shadows and light. A good photojournalist knows they must try to accurately tell the story of a human being’s experience in that moment in time. Whether those experiences are triumphant or tragic, the photojournalist must capture the context and humanity with each quick click of a button in order to provide information that a written article alone may just not be able to on its own. It’s not easy and the camera is not a shield. The job can take a toll.
In this week’s episode, The Granite Beat’s hosts Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart chat with seasoned photographer Gary Geoffroy, whose 40+ year career includes 12 years of freelancing in photography and videography for news outlets, most recently in the Lakes Region. Drapcho and Hart discuss with him what it’s like covering breaking, often traumatic news from behind the lens, how it compares to his decades as a firefighter, and who’s best suited for this line of work.
