Janet Worne - Thoughtful Photography

Serial Killers

In 1999 Lexington had the dubious distinction of having two serial killers loose within the same area of town. Since 13-year-old Haley McHone was killed near the railroad tracks, it was assumed for awhile that the "Railway Killer" had murdered her. He had, after all, killed a college student not far from there in 1997 and was reportedly seen in the area more recently riding the rails. But it was eventually discovered that another serial killer was at large and had killed Haley. I took this emotional picture of Haley's mother and sister on Haley's 14th birthday as they released balloons in the park where she was killed.

This story hit a little too close to home for me. Skipping back to the earlier crime in 1997 when the "Railway Killer" struck. It was somewhere around 2 in the morning on the railroad tracks and the victims (a college student and his girlfriend) were walking home along the tracks when they were attacked. My daughter was a student at the same university, walking home at the same time two blocks away, alone. She didn't tell me about it until a month later, knowing it would scare me.

She never walked alone at night again.

History of Photography

Anyone who looks into their own family history can learn something about the history of photography. That was a subject I studied in college and genealogy is a topic I have obsessed over on my own in the past few years. Don't ask me why. There are many good books out there on the history of photography so I won't go into too much detail. Look it up yourself if you're interested. But many of you probably have old family albums lying around gathering dust and don't realize the wealth of information they contain, both about your family specifically, but also about the history of our country and the history of the medium. I wanted to show you a few examples here.

This is a tintype of my great, great grandfather that was mounted in a paper holder, dated as you can see, March 19, 1870. Tintypes were popular at that time. The stamp also mentions the Dorchester & Delaware RR. I did a little more digging and found that he did work for that railroad at that time.

This is known as a Cabinet Card, a photograph mounted on a heavy piece of cardboard. This man was also a great, great grandfather who fought in the civil war in the Battle of Sailor’s Creek and lost an arm. This photo was taken somewhere around 1870. He looks just like my grandfather and I even see a little of my brother in him.

I love this picture. My grandfather took this with a box camera. This was at a time when photography first became accessible to the average person. He probably set up the scene. I used this picture a few years ago for my Christmas cards. He was an avid amateur photographer and passed that love on to me. In fact, I think my first camera was an old one he used. My first enlarger was an old Leitz that belonged to my other grandfather. The only way to focus it was to loosen a screw and manually lift it up and down. Those were the days!

I think about those early photographers and the difficulties they faced in order to produce just one good photo. Even early in my career, when we went on the road for a basketball tournament, we had to set up a darkroom in the hotel and we were lucky to send a couple pictures back by leafax machine in time for deadline. Now, we can sit on the floor and send numerous pictures during a timeout. Imagine being a photographer during the Civil War!

Here are a few more....

What gems do you have hidden away?

Ernst Haas Quote

"Best wide-angle lens? Two steps backward. Look for the 'ah-ha'."
                --Ernst Haas

Just For Fun

I love these graphic architectural gems...

Inspirational Story

Who among us does not enjoy an "if they can do I can do it" story? Well I have one of those in my family. My mother was an archaeological photographer for the State of New Mexico Archaeology Lab and a documentary photographer for many years before she went blind about 7 or 8 years ago. Ouch. A photographer's worst nightmare. As far as she was concerned her life was over. She sold her cameras and darkroom equipment and settled down to a life of books on tape.

 But then a photographer friend of hers, Lucien Niemeyer, insisted otherwise. He looked through her stockpile of images from nearly twenty years of shooting and saw the potential of several books lying in wait. The first was published over a year ago: The Jicarilla Apache: A Portrait, by Nancy Hunter Warren.

This was a huge boost to her self-esteem. The book did well. People liked it and she was asked to speak at Sam Abell's book publishing class at the Santa Fe Workshops. This gave her the nudge she needed. What else could she accomplish? She found another collection of photographs hiding in her archives that were worthy of a book. She now has a writer/anthropologist and a publisher working with her on this. I can't talk about the topic yet but it may be published next spring.

So now when I indulge in that soggy low area called "feeling sorry for myself" and feel like I can't do something or I'm not "good enough", I only need to think about my blind photographer mother who published a photo book and has another on the way.

If she can do it I can do it.

That's Sam Abell on the left.

This is one of her pictures from the book.

Henri Cartier-Bresson Quote

"A photograph is neither taken nor seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos."
            ---Henri Cartier-Bresson

Coming Out

For the entirety of my career as a photojournalist I have never made my politics or religion publicly known. I have never slapped a bumper sticker on my car, never knocked on doors for a candidate, never put my name on a petition and certainly never put a yard sign in front of my house. It was my job to remain outwardly neutral. It was even in my official job description. That's not to say I didn't have opinions. I just had to keep them to myself in public. And for good reasons.

Now, however, for the first time in 26 years, I am not on staff at a newspaper and I am free to express myself. And that is just what I have been doing. I have a bumper sticker on my car now. (Once though, when USA Today called me to photograph the McCain campaign's ground game I had to cover it with duct tape.) I have spent weeks canvassing, knocking on doors and as a challenger in voting sites. If Barack Obama didn't win, I wanted to know that it wouldn't be because I didn't try.

Well he won big. And it sure feels good.

Creative Storytelling Tools

Here are a few storytelling suggestions for your photographs because as photojournalists that’s what we are—storytellers, right? But these are tools only. They are only valuable as a means to an end. The technique is not the point, the final result is the point. The viewer should notice the image and the message, not the technique.

1.    Vary the viewpoint—By using a worm’s eye or bird’s eye view you can emphasize different storytelling elements in your photo.
2.    Framing—Shooting through a window or branches on a tree will not only clean up a cluttered background, it will add visual interest and create a sense of isolation.
3.    Details—Zeroing in on small, poignant details can often say more about a subject than showing the whole scene. The detail above was taken in the Red River Gorge in a protected area. I thought it was ironic to find the word "Care" carved into the rock along with all the other graffiti.
4.    Symbolism—Try to find a detail or overall scene that evokes some powerful symbolism that can carry your message for you.
5.    Shadows—Shadows are a way of taking the subject and reducing it down to its basic black & white shape. No other extraneous details get in the way and we can concentrate on body language. Silhouettes fall into this category as well.
6.    Rule of Thirds Composition—You hear a lot about this and it sounds very Art School Stuffy. All it really means is don’t always put your subject in the very center of the frame and don’t always put the horizon line in the middle either. When you use that “Bull’s eye framing” it looks static and boring, so avoid it unless you are going for that look for effect. Putting the subject off-center tends to show a more dynamic personality.

These are just a few Photography 101 tips that can improve anybody’s pictures but what I’m really trying to emphasize here is that these are tools just like a fish-eye lens is a tool. You need to use them thoughtfully when the picture warrants it and not just because it would be “cool”. Remember, you are trying to say something with your image and you need to use the tools at your disposal much the way writers or anyone else uses their tools.

Happy Almost Halloween

Off The Beaten Track

One thing I always loved about working as a photojournalist is that my job took me off on the side roads and into the small towns of rural America. It was there that I was able to meet some of the most interesting people of my career, including this man who was taking a break from his job at a service station in Maryland.