John Boal Photography

Maintaining a foot in the photojournalism world has been difficult lately, because often assignments come with very little notice, whereas the corporate and event planning worlds generally schedule jobs weeks in advance.  It's tough to keep the calendar open for occasional photojournalism jobs to get through.  I wanted to be proactive and change that in 2017. I've always enjoyed the unpredictability of photojournalism.  The feeling that you're "in the middle of it".  January 3rd is that date that the new Congress convenes and newly elected representatives are sworn in.  There are lots of opportunities for pictures.  Open houses, lots of back slapping, friends and families are all around.  I circled the date on the calendar and found a couple freshman congressman whom I thought would be interesting and were from parts of the country where I had connections to the newspapers or magazines.  My first idea didn't pan out, so I contacted The (NJ) Rec...

I recently received an email request from New York Magazine regarding a portrait I took of Dan Backer.  It was a little surprising, if only because the picture they were thinking of was one I did of Dan 4 years ago.  He and his wife are personal friends of ours.  In 2011, I was a staff photographer at the News & Messenger and working on getting better at portraits and specifically business-style portraits.  So we agreed to meet up.  He needed professional portraits, I needed to practice, so we met up and spent a little time doing some portraits.  He's still using those portraits.  Which is how NYMag found me. Shot in Dan's apartment, 2011.  NYMag eventually selected this one for their article. 2011 I contacted Dan and we met up quickly on a Saturday morning before one of his meetings and we did a little refresher session.  NYMag ended up going with the one I did 4 years ago, but that's ok.  I have more portraits.  An...