Something Different

A few weeks ago I attended the first annual Roots Workshop in Cape Cod, MA.  It was a fantastic experience, and will have a lasting impact on my photographic career. The goal of the workshop is to teach the fundamentals of photojournalism to wedding photographers who do not have a working background in photojournalism. To that end, each student was given an assignment and asked to develop a photo story over three days, to be shown at the end as a slideshow and a mock newspaper layout. 

I’ll get to my assignment in a minute, but first I have to give huge thanks to Emilie Sommer, a fantastic photographer and one of the kindest people you’ll ever meet. She organized the workshop and made the whole experience possible. Aside from our assignments, which were great, just being surrounded by so many talented students and instructors made every minute a learning experience. I just tried to soak up as much knowledge as possible.

We arrived last Sunday anxious to hear our assignments. After learning what our strengths and weaknesses were, and where we hoped to improve, the instructors convened to dole out the assignments. It wasn’t until 1 am that we found out what we were going to be shooting the rest of the week. I looked at my sheet…

“You’re going out on a lobster boat.” Cool! 

“The boat leaves at 5:15am sharp.” Huh?!? 

“The pier is 30 minutes away from our house.” Wait a minute.

“You should try to get there early.” That’s just wrong.

No one has ever accused me of being a morning person, but I was going on pure adrenaline and made it to the pier at 5 am. I met my subjects, two brothers who go out on their boat every day and fish for lobster, like their father did before them. It takes a special work ethic to do what they do day after day. I don’t know if I could do it, and I definitely have a newfound respect for lobstermen. It was slightly embarrasing when I got seasick on the first day. Normally I’m fine on boats, but the choppy waters (thanks Bertha!) and the overwhelming stench of dead fish (the bait) got the best of me. I was just trying to survive the first day. The second day was a million times better, with calm waters and beautiful weather and I could actually focus on making images. I took some chances crawling around the boat for interesting angles. I thought to myself, “How often am I going to be photographing a lobster boat in Cape Cod?”

I’m proud of how my assignment turned out, and was awed by the work of my fellow students. Every single person did an amazing job with their stories. Here are some images from my lobster boat assignment.