John Boal Photography

So the year has finally drawn to a close. Happy belated New Year! Many things have happened since January. I think every piece of equipment I own needed replacing or fixing in 2010. So I can't exactly say I'm sad to see the new year arrive. As for the pictures, I've seen and done many things this year, attempting to take pictures the entire way. Here are some of my favorites...and what I learned... an SUV is your friend during Snowzilla... and keep looking for something different, you might find it... Sometimes when you go to an event, you have to decide to do things differently. I decided I would actually talk to the Iwo Jima Vets, and take good pictures of them, not pictures of them sitting and watching a podium: http://media.gatewayva.com/isn/slideshow/IWO_JIMA_022610/publish_to_web/indepix.htm Strobist.com is your friend...and on the 20th try, the idea might work... I can't get too upset when pictures like this don't run, and instead they run a submitted snap...

This has been a long time coming. I finally have a refurbished website. And with the new galleries I can show off some of the stuff I've been working on over the past year. I haven't had the opportunity to share many of it until now. Please check it out: http://www.johnboalphotography.com Much of it has been shown in various posts regarding athletes of the year, fairs...etc. On the other hand, one of my favorite "assignments" I did this year was back in May. I went down to the Monacan Nation Powwow, near Lynchburg, VA. I have a little Native American heritage ( Nez Perce´ ) in my blood, and it's always something that interested me. I read about Chief Joseph , and ever since I saw my first Ed Curtis prints, I've been fascinated by the idea of documenting indigenous people, and learning more about who they are. Kenneth Branham, Chief, Monacan Nation Robert Narcomey, Navajo/Seminole descent I think it's important to distinguish what I mean by saying "...

Today I had the “opportunity” to photograph a picketing by the Westboro Baptist Church at my alma mater, Woodbridge Senior High School. If you don’t know who they are, they are perhaps the most controversial example of free speech in this country at the moment. The Westboro Baptist Church has embarked on a crusade to let everyone know that “God Hates Fags”. In fact, they believe that all the deaths from AIDS, 9/11 and the wars that followed are because of our implicit acceptance of homosexuality. God is apparently punishing us. They’ve become quite infamous for their strategy of picketing funerals of AIDS victims, soldiers and Marines. I won’t go into the logic of their argument, but suffice it to say, they certainly get a reaction out of many people. So about a half dozen church members picketed across from the high school and about 200 people responded to protest their presence, or message. As a photographer, I would have liked for them all to be within 5 feet of each other, but of c...

Yesterday was a long-ass day. Not only because of election day, just partly. I started off in Richmond at about 430am. This was completely unrelated to editorial content. Sometimes freelancing gives you interesting opportunities to shoot other things (translation: there is often good money in it). Like I said, I started off in Richmond at 430am. Actually, it's more like I started off driving to Richmond Monday night at about 530pm, got to my friend's house near richmond by 8, watched a little football (my fantasy football team is still undefeated, thank you), hit the rack and was up bright and early the next morning. I shot some coffee tasting (a guerilla marketing set-up on the sidewalks of Richmond) run by a marketing group, done for a large company that happens to sell coffee, among other things, and by 930am was back on the road to NoVA. I fiddled with the pictures minimally at home, and was off to Manassas for some election day photos. Filed those for the next day's pa...

About 18 months ago, I had an idea to alleviate some of the awfulness of covering high school football for a small daily in Metro DC. What we were used to as photographers was going to 2, 3, and sometimes (if you’re REALLY lucky) 4 games, in order to come back with photos from the night’s action. Needless to say, getting good images is next to impossible when the only thing you’re worried about is getting a sharp picture as fast as possible of each team, and then leaving. And to boot, if you are shooting the “Game of the Week”, that might change on Sunday (yes, you read correctly, all these games will be published 2 days later, b/c our deadlines are at 730pm). The “game of the week” is basically an ad hoc reference to the game that turned out the best. You may even see a 3 column-inch photo in the paper! So I thought this year, to battle this insanity, we could focus on one game. We can’t put it in the next day’s paper anyway, so why not cover it top to bottom? Get really good art from...