Shawn Rocco is a staff photojournalist and multimedia producer at the News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, he has been honored by both the National Press Photographer’s Association and the North Carolina Press Photographer’s Association. Since 2007 he has pursued a style and produced a body of award winning personal documentary work, he also coined ‘Cellular Obscura,’ which is done with the camera on a Motorola E815 cellphone. Rocco’s work with cell phone photography has been profiled in The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Academy A: I first became acquainted with your work in one of my journalism classes this semester when we had to view a number of features on photojournalists. I felt your work stuck out the most; it’s so innovative and inspired. Why did you decide to explore this new avenue of cell phone photography?
Shawn Rocco: It’s more a ‘how’ question than ‘why’. And the answer is serendipity. It all started quite by accident, not really on purpose. But when I realized the possibilities, then it took on a deeper sense of purpose.
We’re asked to use more than just a camera these days. Video recorders and audio recorders are now found in our camera bags as well. A few years ago on one particular assignment, I was tangled up in chords and technology trying to do a little of everything and I felt I was missing key moments and it was just so damn frustrating. So I took a breather to collect myself, maybe think of a different game plan and check my voicemail. I was in a light red room with a cheap lamp on a cheap table in the corner. The light was really soft though and it seemed to make for a nice still life photo. I snapped a few with my Nikon D2 but they just didn’t feel right. The photos didn’t capture the mood of the room. So just for kicks I busted out the cell phone. I don’t know why. It was there in my hand, it had a camera, and at the moment I didn’t want to be near any of my conventional equipment. So I took the photo, thought nothing of it at first because it was hard to see on the small screen but checked it later on the computer. And I was surprised. It had more feeling, mood, atmosphere than my other photo. It captured how the room felt to me. Granted, it’s not an award winner at all, but it was a success where the other failed. So I was curious. What else could be photographed with this little camera phone?
So I started exploring with it and found that the technical limitations, the parameters you have to work in, are very freeing, creatively speaking. The 8×10 aspect ratio was a nice change of composition to work with again (I have a 4×5 view camera which hasn’t seen film in a while). And the results reminded me of Polaroid where there’s a certain grittiness and imperfection that gives them a certain personality.
And once again, as a newspaper photojournalist in today’s environment there were, initially, many days I got aggravated with myself dealing with the growing pains of evolving into a multi-media journalist. So I had to take a step back and find that place once again where practicing photography, in an unobtrusive way, was a means of nurturing personal growth and an expression of ideas. I guess it was a subconscious calling to get back to basics of which I was unaware of until I came across this little tool by accident. And as I keep exploring, certain themes become clearer, which is an added plus really… to have my photography, at minimum, teach me something about myself which at some point I had forgotten or quite possibly really never knew.
But there’s a difference though, morale (and motive) wise, to be running towards something rather than running from something. So, building upon this positive experience, the journey now is to explore further the traditional art of documenting society via the minimalism of –what is so far considered– untraditional popular technology.
Academy A: So, let’s start at the beginning, why did you choose a career in photojournalism? What was your path?
SR: Well, it wasn’t the most direct path. Initially I gravitated towards studying political science in college, but I soon realized I probably wouldn’t have the patience for that field of work once I was done. I wanted to effect change and I wanted to do it now. Funny enough I ended up majoring in environmental science, but I minored in photography. I was halfway through college when I started to realize what I wanted to do. There was an intimacy and immediacy associated with taking and developing photos (this was still the darkroom days). Of course I couldn’t explain that then. But it felt more right than anything else I had studied or done up to that point.
At the same time I admired the idea of journalism as a watchdog… as the fourth estate. Information is empowering. And to be associated with that idea, as a photographer, I thought it was the best way to fight the apathy I saw around me. Of course my college (Plattsburgh State) didn’t offer a journalism major at the time. But I stayed an extra semester so I could intern at the local paper, The Press-Republican, and student-teach a few more photography classes. At the same time I was also the photo editor for Cardinal Points, the college newspaper.
At the end I thought I had a decent portfolio and had shown strong interest in the profession to get me hired at a paper. Boy, was I naive and wrong.
A good friend moved to Raleigh, NC the year before and said I should check it out. I knew about the Charlotte Observer, and the Virginian-Pilot, and Atlanta wasn’t too far. I thought it’d be a good base of operations with Raleigh having two papers; and Winston-Salem and Greensboro and Fayetteville pretty close as well.
So I moved down there in 1995 after graduation figuring a change of scenery and pace would do me good creatively as well. I started calling around and all the photo editors I spoke with said to mail over the usual resume and portfolio. Well there was problem #1, I had one portfolio and it was 11×14 black and white prints (with a couple of color ones) in a nice faux-leather portfolio case. I couldn’t send that off to everyone to have on file. Plus many photo editors asked for slides of which I didn’t have any.
The Press-Republican in Plattsburgh was a 35,000 circulation paper with two fulltime photographers and one part timer. I can’t thank Dave Paczak–who was the chief photographer at the time–enough for giving me an opportunity to intern there. The whole newsroom was in one large room; though it was a smallish paper, it was always buzzing, and that was intoxicating. But what they considered print-worthy wasn’t necessarily portfolio worthy. I soon found that out.
After speaking with a few local photojournalists and seeing their portfolios, I realized very quickly that I needed to start again. I either needed to go back to school or find a way to start getting freelance assignments and/or a fulltime job to help pay for my own documentary work.
School was out of the question financially at the time. Plus I didn’t want to be sitting in classrooms again; I wanted to be actively participating in the world. So I started to freelance and assist while working fulltime as a manager for a catering company in order to help pay for film and equipment. Freelancing was going okay. I did a lot of work for some local weekly magazines and in 1996 after Hurricane Fran hit North Carolina, I started picking up regular assignments for the Raleigh News & Observer based on the work I had done covering the storm’s aftermath.
The portfolio was improving and I was able to get a few interviews, but still nothing. In 1998, I applied and was hired as the commercial photographer for ASW, a national arts supply company headquartered here in Raleigh. It was basically a lot of product and studio work with some advertising, the total opposite of photojournalism, but they were using some high end digital cameras (whereas I was still shooting film) and I saw this as an opportunity to learn some new lighting, software and technical skills while getting paid for it.
I still continued to freelance for the News & Observer and send my resume out. But it wasn’t until 2002, seven years after college, that I was hired for my first newspaper job. My main responsibility was chief photographer for the Chapel Hill News, a twice-a-week community newspaper owned by the News & Observer, but it was a back door in to being a staff photojournalist for the main paper.
And so few years at that position I moved over to where I am now. So I was either stubborn or stupid, or both. But through it all I was undeterred. Yes, it was the long way around, but I don’t regret the life experience that came with that journey. I think in the long run it made me a better journalist for the community I live in. It’s been seven years now since I was hired and I still appreciate the position I’m in. Yes, there’s been a lot of upheaval in the industry of late and it’s not over yet, but you still have those days when you realize what an honor and privilege it is to be entrusted with telling the community’s stories, ethically and truthfully, with your personal vision and voice. It’s not something I take for granted.
Academy A: Talk to me about why most of your photos are taken in black and white, I was surprised to find that they have a rather timeless quality for being captured on a cell phone.
SR: “Timeless quality”…you answered your own question. There are a few other reasons though. The practical reason is that the files hold up better as black and white rather than color depending on the lighting circumstances. The other is that color can sometimes distract from the composition or the essence of the photo.
Academy A: I remember seeing a photograph not too long ago of a group of tourists in NYC all documenting a crime scene with their cell phones, it was almost overwhelming to see that not one person didn’t have a phone to capture the moment. How do you feel about the idea of citizen journalism with the use of modern technology?
SR: Citizen journalism…love it. The constant barrage of images via Flickr and Facebook, etc. is another topic. But citizen journalism, you can’t stop that evolution from happening because it’s been going on since cameras like the Kodak Brownie made photography accessible to everyone.
Sometimes it does get annoying when you’re on a news assignment and your access is limited because you are the “press” and people in charge of the scene keep you back behind the lines, and yet up front there’s all these cameras. In instances like that I don’t like the inconsistency in treatment.
But look at what citizen journalism has done recently, especially in Iran. Once again, information is empowering and I’m all about disseminating as much info as possible because at least we have a choice of whether or not to look at it. I’d rather be deluged and have to make a choice than not having one at all.
As for the effect on our profession? It’s still being determined. I think where citizen journalism is strongest and at its most effective is spot news. The London underground bombings, the passenger jet landing in the Hudson, Iran. These photos work because…well for the obvious reason…1. Those photographers were there first, but 2. The photos can be easily corroborated due to the quantity of visuals coming from different sources of the same scene.
But outside of that… news, features and sports stories need specific visuals of a certain quality, professional standard, and the promise of authenticity which news organizations hold their staff and contract workers accountable for. Not to say that citizen journalism is untrustworthy (and we all know mistakes, on purpose or by accident, still occur in the professional publishing world), but professionals are accountable for working within a set of standards and if you deviate wrongly from those there are consequences. I don’t think that can be said of citizen journalists. Not yet, not fully, anyway.
Academy A: You’re getting a lot of attention for your work and for finding a new medium as a photojournalist. What’s your ultimate goal and where do you hope this takes you in the future?
SR: If I had my wish, I would love to feel secure knowing that I have the opportunity to retire from whatever newspaper/news organization I was at. That was my original goal and it was going pretty good for awhile. And though it still may come true, there’s been such an upheaval in the last few years (I’ve seen many co-workers and friends lose their jobs) that this assurance diminishes on a daily basis.
So it’s funny about the timing of all this. As one door seems to slowly creak shut, another is opening.
The current media (r)evolution has been hard on many if not all of us photographers. Evolution is not easy and it’s damn sure messy. Yet if you have the capacity to be diverse it’s easier to weather the changes. So I see this as another way to be diverse. I think its 180 degrees from my daily work at the newspaper and is more in tune with fine-art documentary photography than photojournalism as many of us think of it when we hear that word. The definition of fine-art documentary vs. photojournalism is another conversation altogether, but there’s always been crossover.
Generally speaking photojournalism tells a story in an immediate fashion. Photos on the section fronts of my paper usually get straight to the point of the stories we’re illustrating. Because we have less space which means less photos and photo stories, we tend not to run those photos that leave our readers guessing what’s going on. Whereas I think some of my cell phone work is a little more ambiguous. My photo tells a story, but what story is that? So now the audience has the opportunity to imagine that answer, not be fed a replica of the reality. So there can be hundreds of stories, not just one, for each photo and each viewer can take a bit of personal ownership in that photo. The imagination is a wonderful and powerful tool, and sometimes photography (really any art) is at its best when the piece doesn’t give it all away.
Within the past year I’ve been fortunate that it’s taken on a life of its own–gallery shows (two going on now) and print sales–and so now one of my goals is to nurture it and see what grows because I think these photos work best not on a printed page or computer screen, but on a wall (or in a book), whether it be at home, a gallery, or museum.
Academy A: What has been the most rewarding experience of your career, thus far?
SR: The last few years or so really. I started this project for myself (project being a loose word). And within that regard it’s been and will continue to be nothing but a success as I feel I’m a better photographer and person for the experience. I’d like to believe I’m always learning something new, maybe pushing the boundaries a little, and not getting too comfortable to the point of stagnating. I’d like to believe that, but sometimes it’s a hard thing to measure. So I’m happy the last few years have been a period of marked tangible growth and learning. And that the photographic outcome has resonated with a lot of people for whatever the reason: what it is, how it was done, or what it represents. That was something I wasn’t quite expecting, but definitely appreciate and don’t take for granted.
Academy A: Lastly, what advice do you have for beginners in photojournalism that no school can teach?
SR: A friend said the other day that we (photojournalists) are a bunch of “bruised idealists.” I think that’s the truest label I’ve heard yet. Nothing worth having is going to come easy.
So stick with it. Don’t let all the negative news about the industry get to you. The demand for content is greater than ever. It’s the delivery system that’s broken down. But a solution and a better working business model will be found or developed. Like I said, evolution is messy.
On a side note…the canvas of the printed page has changed. The internet is awesome, but computers, though smaller, are still clunky, impersonal, and lack the ability to deliver the very important psychological response to tangibleness. The ability to hold and form and transform a tangible page is a very human behavior. Take that away, and something feels “missing.”
But technology is almost to the point where the tactile beauty and aesthetics of good page design can be replicated on a wafer-thin, rollable, bendable touch screen. When that day of convergence is mass marketable–which hopefully isn’t too far away–news organizations may find a rebirth. So if you know being a photojournalist is who you are and you have the eye or at least a strong work ethic as you find your style, you’re going to be fine. If you get into this because you think it looks easy or “cool” then it may not be the right path.
As for schooling; take a business course, minor in it in fact. Personally I think all photojournalism schools should make it mandatory.
Know, and appreciate, the value of your skills and your product.
All images © Shawn Rocco
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