John Boal Photography

Often at newspapers, you are asked as a photographer to show up at someone's house and make a picture for a centerpiece story about someone who deserves much more attention than the 30 minutes you have that day. This bugs me on multiple levels. One, it bugs me that we received a press release, and then responded with a hastily assembled story and published it 2 days later. And, two, it bugs me that when i do show up, there are 5 other people crowded around the family. It's almost always easier to photograph alone. In many cases, the solution is to reschedule or return at a better time. In this case, we were in the throws of player of the year portraits, graduations, and I was trying to find time to wrap up a personal project that had been going on for months. Joseph Briseno joined the Army Reserves and left for Iraq on his 20th birthday. "Jay" was supposed to help on civilian projects, until a civilian shot him in the back of the head. Somehow he survived, but he rema...

Generally the newspaper photographer calendar breaks down into different phases. During these parts of the year, the schedule gets pretty well filled up with assignments, and sometimes travel. Each sports season (fall, winter, spring) has an end, and with it, at least one local team with state title aspirations. Along with the high school sports calendar is the high school academic calendar. This usually means coverage of the first day of school, and finally, high school graduation. The challenge is always to find something different. That doesn't always mean finding something that's never been shot before. Just something you, as a photographer, haven't shot before. And sometimes the light is so good, you have to shoot it, knowing it looks good, even if you've seen it before. Here are some photographs of Osbourn Park's graduation, and Battlefield High School's unsuccesful attempt to win a state title in softball: Osbourn Park seniors enter the stadium... she was...

Here are some pictures from the most recent Powwow in Elon, VA. Still working on putting together the audio and video for a quick multimedia piece. And of course we're still waiting to see if legislation is able to pass to federally recognize the VA tribes . Yes, the same Native American tribes that were essentially the first tribes to interact with Europeans on this continent. In fact the VA tribes still honor the Treaty of Middle Plantation (1677) offering tribute to the VA Governor annually in November. This year was much more casual than last. I didn't set up a tent and do portraits all day for two days. This year my wife and I tried to just enjoy the event and watch. I shot a little video, recorded some audio, and tried to keep it simple for myself. Hopefully I can post something later this week.