If 2010 was a cookie being baked to the exact right moment, I might have already taken it out of the oven to simmer on its own just a little longer.
So… what happened?
This year, I became a photojournalist. Yeah, I have been doing this a while, but I was still in college… but now I graduated – 8 May. And I joined the ranks of the freelance world.
In a land where everyone has a camera and “I got an SLR for Christmas, I’m a photographer!” rings from too many houses, its entering at a bizarre time.
In Ethiopia, my little plastic Toshiba computer that I had bought 10 days prior to just handle the trip got smashed flat. I lost the original edited copy of the Lalibela Stick Woman…
…a photo which, in its second edited form, has sold a dozen signed 20×30 prints and two more on order.
At Midnight Oil, they allowed me to hang my prints as their “house artist” or whatever that means. Also where I was surprised that this print sold as many 20×30’s as the other.
Why? I almost didn’t post this one on the blog let alone print it that big.
Well, after its all said and done, I archived a few days ago duplicating 194,000 images. I think almost all of them were solely this year.
I bought a car.
I photographed the former President of the United States…
…one week after I had spoken as a distinguished member of my senior class one week prior. That’s not me, that’s the guy introducing me.
Then a whirlwind summer. It seemed to last only a few days. Turkey…
…and dozens of other countries.
The second half with my little sister tagging along… almost all by train.
I returned for just a few days, then back on the road. This time it was fewer miles away but just as striking as the rest of my travels: Haiti.
My friends and I lived with fishermen on an island off the coast of Haiti called Ile-a-Vache, documenting and photographing their world.
Mere days after I returned from Haiti, Harding University hired me as the University Photographer…
…then, only hours before the semester began, I was hired to teach photography as an adjunct professor.
Images after images, almost no two days the same…
…today I photograph the horribly impoverished lives of one person, tomorrow I might photograph a person who can see nothing more than the blessings in his or her life.
It would likely be impossible to know how many images of how many people have been drawn through even one of my camera lenses. How many hundreds… thousands… tens of thousands in this year 2010.
Portraits and sports, photojournalism and stock, still life and extremely alive…
Who was this person taking this photo on January 1, 2010?
Who will I be tomorrow…? Or next year at this time…
Stay tuned, my friends…
-Noah D.
