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The start of something bigor just another first tryBy Lee Ezzell

I began my life in photography purely by accident. I was working in a position I loathed and when an opportunity came along to change positions I jumped on it with both feet.

At the time I could have cared less what the position was as long as it wasn’t writing mindless instructions to do things no one was going to do anyways, and power point, lots and lots of power point.

When the e-mail came in asking for volunteers to work as a photojournalist, I immediately replied with something like. I’ll do it where do I sign up. Then I googled photojournalist.

What I found was that there are as many ideas of what photojournalist are and do as there are photojournalists but the best answer I found was simply a journalist will tell stories, a photographer will take pictures, a photojournalist will tell stories with pictures. At the time that sounded somewhat hokey and lame. Like something a college professor with a pony-tail would say.

But, as I learned the basics of photography and the basics of journalism I realized the ground truth of that statement. I made it my focus that when on a shoot I looked to capture the action

instead of just taking a picture of what is going on. I avoided staging shots and tried to predict what would happen next to try and get to the action before the action happened. There is an indescribable rush in knowing you got the shot and the shot is a fantastic summery of an entire event.

Now as that chapter in my life appears to be closing I realized I am going to miss the photojournalism pursuit but I hope that I can make photography part of what I do.

Andrew Brown, then a senior at James Madison High school, during his senior pictures photoshoot. after 2 hours of stock poses infront of a back drop with multiple clothing changes I dragged Andrew and his twin brother Anthony out to the Quadrangle at Fort Sam Houston. The light was fading but the outdoors put a breath of life into the shoot. This was my favorite shot of the day.

SA PHOTOGRAPHYSe

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