John Boal Photography

This past weekend was my last at The News & Messenger, a paper I’d been a full-time staffer since November 2008. When I first started to write this, I wrote too much. Then I realized I could write this very simply: With the arrival of my first child in December, it became readily apparent that staying with the paper was no longer viable. My wife and I decided that it made the most sense for me to stay at home with the new baby and freelance. First, I don’t have to sign over my paycheck every month to a childcare center. Childcare really is that expensive…or that’s an indication of how little I got paid. Additionally, it allows me to focus on freelancing, which is where I was headed anyway (especially with the disappearance of staff jobs from the larger, more prestigious papers). I like to think I did my best while working at The News & Messenger. I know I’ve become a much better photographer, and much of that is due to daily assignment work. Here are pictures from every ...

The other day I had an assignment to get a photograph of a sophomore who would be participating in the upcoming dunk contest at Hoopsfest, a basketball skills competition/fundraiser our paper throws every year. The idea was to get a "clean" shot of him dunking the ball so we could use it in a variety of ways for the cover of the program and maybe a t-shirt or something. I had an idea of what I wanted him to do, where I wanted the lights...etc. In these situations (without assistants, naturally), I need the subject to stand in so I can prefocus, then we can go through the 20 or so shots of him leaping into the frame. If I move my position, we do another "prefocus" and then repeat the shots until we get what we like. Usually these shots are throwaways, however, when I looked at the computer back at the office, there was a small collection of cool, wide portraits. I have no idea if he was posing (well, one of them he was, obviously) or not, but I love these shots. The ...

Yes, this is a year-in-review post. Yes, there are words and not just pictures. Scroll down to see the pictures and skip the words. This year was quite a year for me. A year of firsts. A year of much growth, professionally and personally, although on this blog, I generally post my thoughts as they pertain to my professional life. However this year brought such profound personal change, it'd be silly not to mention it. This was the year I learned (and co ntinue to learn about) multimedia storytelling. In December of 2010, I purchased a Canon 7D with the understanding of its importance, but not yet understanding how powerful it would be. At that point I had already started shooting my project about Ricky ( Live Fast, Ride Faster ). I've already blogged about that experience, here . However I was pleasantly pleased to see that my first true multimedia venture was recognized in a couple contests. 2nd place in the March Multimedia Contest of the National Press Photographers Associat...