Inagurals

This isn't the first time I've ever posted something on the Internet. I used to vent about personal problems or reflect other happenings on another site. Years of writing about angst-ridden and not-so-angst-ridden situations were probably good for me, but I'd like to think much of my angst is resolved.

Now, I want to write with a different sort of purpose. Typically, I save my fingers and limit my typing to messages on Facebook, e-mails, and from time to time, a news story. The captions for my photos are quite minimalist, and I need to keep my skills sharp. Not only do I want to keep from getting rusty, but I'd like to chronicle my work and how I feel about it.

Tonight, I thought about some of my time as an editor for The Horizon, my student newspaper at IU Southeast. I went back through some of my old columns, especially the last few I wrote about my frustrations with Student Government. They were really my proudest, and it made me think a little about how much I loved writing them. Columns were a challenge, and it felt good to take them on.

Well, in retrospect, anyway.

Coming up with column ideas was rough sometimes. I often worried I'd write about nothing, or at least nothing of any importance. I always charged myself to write something dealing with some sort of effect on students. I pined over word choice. I dug through stylebooks, dictionaries and thesauri to make sure I was correct, concise and insightful.

Of course, most of this happened on Friday nights when the other editors and I would work on page design, and my columns really should have been completed the night before. That was compounded by the fact I had to design the front and the jump, so I usually had twice the workload of everyone else. Then there was the proofing of each page on less-than-tabloid-sized paper. Headaches were pretty common between that and staring at computer screens for hours.

Even if the process was laborious and often thankless, the product was more than worth it. One of my last columns addressed Student Government going into executive session when they should have left the doors open to students and everyone else. The two members I mentioned, who had always worked to keep SGA from going into unnecessary closed meetings, approached me afterward and said they agreed with me. They said they regretted contributing to the unanimous vote to boot non-members from the room. The minutes from that closed meeting were promptly posted outside their office. Most likely, there weren't a lot of students who stopped to read them, but something I wrote still caused someone with some kind of authority to make a positive change. That always felt good.

Writing doesn't feel primary anymore. It barely feels secondary, for that matter. Most of my work happens while I'm looking through a viewfinder and composing an image, waiting for the right moment to push the button. Making good, candid photography happen requires empathy and patience. Maybe I can reveal a bit about that experience here. I can not only release some about my work, but also keep my writing skills honed.

But what's the point of talking about visual storytelling without doing a bit of it here? Keep checking back for favorite images, pictures that didn't make the cut, and other images I produce. Here's to starting something new.