Comments
My background is what really has shaped my ideas about photojournalism and what it means to be a photojournalist. This can be said about anyone's ideas of their profession or passion. It feels like with photojournalism and photography, though, a little more of your person, a little more of your heart, is expressed in your work and therefore who you are and where you come from really makes an impact on your work.

I grew up on (what I would consider) a unique, albeit incredibly generic sounding, Main Street in Portland, Oregon. The people of this street are what make it so. Each year for the past 33 years the street has held a Christmas Party, among many other events and informal gatherings.

Each year Santa Claus come to the designated “party house” about a week before Christmas to deliver a Christmas tree ornament to each child on the block. Each child has the chance to sit on Santa's lap and tell Santa what he or she would like for Christmas. The year that our Santa of the past eight years was stricken with cancer and bed-ridden, the party was held at his house. We sang around his bed. We sang Christmas carols and some of his favorite songs. We all cried openly with him. This moment was about him, his life and the way he lived his life-always caring for others, doing what he could to benefit his community. It was also about the rest of our block coming together for yet another year.

My life has been forever changed by this and the other experiences I have had with the people on this street. I realized at a young age that it is our community that matters and putting back into that community is of the utmost importance in my life. This is what it means for me to be a photojournalist.

By using photography to share with others what they can not see or refuse to see with their own eyes, I am able to give something to my community. Photojournalism is about people-their ordinary, day-to-day “stuff” and the out-of-this-world stories that also make their way into our lives. It is our duty, as photojournalists, to share all of this, in an objective, yet passionate way.

My life has been shaped by my small street in Portland because of my neighbors' willingness to give so freely to me what they can. As a photojournalist I want to be able to say that I am that neighbor that gave back to my street, my city, my world.

October 2004