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Interview: ROB FINCH We're starting a new INTERVIEW feature here at APhotoADay. Rob Finch graciously agreed to be the subject of the very first interview, allowing us to work out some kinks and figure out the format that best suits our needs. For those who don't know, Rob is a two time Newspaper Photographer of the Year - first in 2000 and again in 2003. He was runner-up in 2001. He exhibited photography in Perpignan, France at the Visa Pour L'Image festival and was a member of the World Press Masterclass in 2002. Photo District News named him one of 30 emerging photographers to watch.
Here's the Unofficial First-Person Bio: I started out with a few internships at the Daily Herald in the Chicago suburbs until I was hired by Copley Newspapers where I worked for about 3 years. Copley was like some kind of mad scientist photojournalism experiment. I lived in a house with 7 other photo people that would come and go at strange hours. When I got hired, my boss told me to go live there - I could tone photos in my underwear. We literally ate, slept, breathed photography. There I met Fran, who was nice enough to get married to me a few years later. Copley got bought out and lots of people fled, including me. I moved to Portland to take a job at the Oregonian where I still work. I am really lucky to have found a very caring environment here. I am now working here as a multimedia journalist. I have only had the job for a few weeks, so I don't know yet what it means, but it's fun. Life is good. Fran and I got ourselves a pair of dirty Labradors that are full of joy and shed a lot. We run and play in the woods. They track mud all over the house and do their best to interrupt every night's sleep. And, it's great.
Geez. Talk about some questions. Whatever happened to "what's your favorite F-stop?" These are all great and I will do my best to be as thoughtful and articulate as I can be. ---------------------------------- I'm wondering if you have any suggestions for making the most out of my second internship so that I can bring with me a more focused idea to grad school, and, if there are topics you think I should go out of my way to try and educate myself in while at school. And if you have any area specific tips I'd be open as well, since I'll be at the Aurora Beacon News...I know you did great work there, so that's an inspiration in and of itself. In terms of your internship my only advice is to quickly dive into as many stories as you can. Internships offer you the opportunity to experience so much diversity. They will help you focus what to do with grad school projects, career choices and countless other things. I would advise you to be humble and ready to soak up wisdom from the other staff members. They all have something to teach you, even if that lesson is about what you don't want to become. While at school I would focus on learning as much as you can about humanities, sociology, physics, business administration and painting. I don't mean to be sarcastic, but now is the time for you to learn the most you can about wherever your interests lie. That curiosity is what really makes a good journalist of any kind. Technical skills are important and you must master them, but to really tell stories you have to care about the world. Finally, Aurora is a magical place. Driving through you might not believe it, but once you get to know the town you will understand. If you can, live there, visit its bars and coffee shops, make sure you get to know the people. That will make your internship successful. Did winning NPOY at such a young age change the way you saw yourself in the industry? Did it change how you viewed your role as a photojournalist? Yes. It did change things for me. In many ways I would call it a mixed blessing. The good side of it was that it allowed me lots of opportunities that I would not have had. I got to meet people that changed my life for the better and have continued to be great friends. And, it made it easier for me to pitch ideas and have people trust me. But, there were many bad aspects as well. Really, I was just a kid trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. The award happened after the first year that i worked at the Beacon-News. All I wanted to do was meet people, make pictures and hang out with photojournalists-whom I had recently discovered were generally some of the most interesting human beings I had ever met. I did not really understand what this whole journalism thing was all about. I was learning as I went and making plenty of mistakes along the way. And, it felt natural. But then suddenly I was smacked in the face by the award. And, my youthfulness felt like it drained away on the spot. Right away I felt more concerned with everything I did and everything I said. People were asking my advice on stuff that I was certainly not qualified to answer. I did not know anything different than I did a few days earlier but now what I said was taken seriously. And, that made me very uncomfortable. It made me wary of talking to people and it made it harder for me to just have fun with what I was doing. I felt like I could not make mistakes anymore and I beat myself up for the ones I did make. I felt like every picture I shot had to be great. So, the effect was photojournalism had lost its fun and become a job-a really stressful one. I think that I am still recovering from it.
I understand you've been doing a lot of work with converging media, specifically video, for the Oregonian. I'd like to hear you talk about that a little... in a general sense, why are you doing this, how has it been going and where do you think this is headed? In a more specific sense, how do you view your individual role in the sea change within our industry (I'm thinking specifically of photojournalism)? I think this question is the reason it has taken me so long to finish this interview. It seems like such a touchy subject right now, and I wanted to make sure my head was clear before I wrote anything. For the last six months I shot nothing but video. I was the first person at my newspaper to do it. So, much of my time was spent reading manuals and cussing at Final Cut. But, I felt like I had to make a clean break from still photography for awhile in order to really learn. Otherwise I would always fall back on my still cameras. It has been a humbling experience. I am used to feeling at least competent with my tools and ability to tell stories. Suddenly I knew nothing. So, it was hard to put my efforts out there because I knew I could have done better. But, I would call the 6 months successful. The most important decision that my boss and I made was that we were not doing this just to do good work, but more importantly, to learn. So, he pushed me to try a new form each time I left the building. So, although I really don't have much work to show from the experiment, I learned tons. Now, to the harder part of the question. Where is it headed? My advice is that we all must embrace change. Don't push video/audio/whatever away. Celebrate what it can do. There are two specific camps of people in our still picture world. There are people who love photography and there are people who love to tell stories. People who love photography only for the act of photography might have some trouble in the future assuming they want to work at a media outlet. Those who want to tell stories have a bright future. So, I am not saying that still pictures are dying. They are not dying. How we make them is changing though. The "frame grab" is a part of our future-although not our only future. I know people hate to hear that, but it is. And, we would be stupid to push it away. Because, someone else is going to do it if you don't. Part of the reason that I wanted to start down this path is because I don't want someone else making these decisions for me. I want to have a hand in where we are going. There is an epic change coming to newspapers. That is another conversation and debate. But, one thing I want to say is that we need to rethink the entire industry. We need to change what newspapers are, what they look like, and what their goals are. These cannot be minor tweaks. Newspaper companies cannot think of themselves as just a newspaper. They have to hire a whole new breed of journalist. I don't think we can think of ourselves of photographers anymore. If that is what you believe your job is, I don't think you will have a job for very long. We need to put content first and then come up with the best way to tell that story, in multiple forms. Okay, I will stop now, before I get totally off track. I understand you had a very difficult experience with your assignment to document the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami back in 2004. Do you think, perhaps, it was some sort of PTSD experience, in much the same way conflict photographers can have a difficult time dealing with their lives post assignment? Further, do you feel like the experience changed you in some way, both professionally and personally? Did it, perhaps, have any correlation with your desire to dive into converging media? Is that just a coincidence? I did have problems with my tsunami experience, but i don't think of it was of the nature you are referring to. Actually, the time in Asia was somewhat uplifting in light of the circumstances. I saw people really come together and help one another. To me it was an example of unbelievable tragedy bringing out the best in people. At least, that is how it felt in the tiny area that I was covering. New Orleans was a different story. That was a harder assignment and much more troubling. There was so much anger between people there. But, neither of these assignments affected my decision to pursue other ways of telling stories. You seem to take so much to heart. I wonder how you reconcile that gentle caring soul with the work you do. You take on such heavy subjects and subject matter that can weigh on you. How do you deal with that? I think we always take things home with us from work - no matter what the job is, and this one probably even more so. One thing I try to do is find the good in every story and hopefully weave it in. I think that people looking at our work tend to tune out if the story is just sadness. And, although I think there is value in that as well, not all of us can identify with it. You have to give people something to hold on to. So, that strategy actually helps me as well. But, I guess the key is believing in what you are doing. The times that I really struggle with what I bring home from work is when I am working against my instincts.
Does PJ have a more indirect relationship to society than being a doctor, lawyer, activist, etc... How do you reconcile that? I think that we all play our roles and I hesitate to start to qualify them. Certainly if i was hit by a bus I would rather a doctor was there than a photojournalist. But, maybe that photojournalist communicates something to rest of the town about a street corner that buses cannot make a safe turn without going up on the sidewalk. The city repairs it and no one else gets malled by a bus there. Who played a more important role, the doctor or the journalist? I think it depends on your point of view. As photojournalists, what is our relationship with and effect on society? This is deep question and I really don't have any answer. My opinion is that our role is to reflect society from our point of view. Show people what is interesting, outrageous, important, whatever to us. I don't think that our role is supposed to be some kind of authority. It is just to show people what we are seeing. In terms of our effect, who knows? Certainly stories affect lots of people. And, I doubt that you will ever really know. Certainly there are the occasional instances when there is a direct effect, but most often it's your picture cut out on a refrigerator that will mean the most to someone. Can you share your views on the debate between content and composition? I am not sure that I see them as mutually exclusive. I personally think that composition is part of the content. Getting a person's eye to move around the frame or see multiple things in a photo is content. What you include and and what you exclude is content. The most important thing that photojournalists must do is communicate with people. If they are just making pictures for their own personal expression they are missing the point. How do you approach an assignment? Any tips for working through a long-term project/story? One of the most valuable things I have ever learned is to let subjects guide you to the story. You don't always know what the story is when you go in. I realize this is difficult. Most of the time at newspapers people give you assignments that tell you what the story is supposed to be. Or, we have these big meetings dictating the kind of story we want. Decisions are made in some downtown office about real events that are happening around the globe. Sometimes we put blinders on in an effort to "get the story." Well, sometimes that story really isn't the story. So, my advice is this. Engage people about what they are interested and passionate in. If you are doing a story about children living in poverty, and they want to take you fishing...go with them. You might not see a connection, but keep an open mind. I bring up that example because it is an experience I had. I remember thinking, geez, I don't want to waste a day fishing, i have to finish the real story. I caved in and went. After I got there I realized that a whole bunch of kids were fishing instead of being in school. Why? Because they needed to make money from the catch and provide food for their families. So, they missed the first 3 weeks of school in order to fish. What's next for Rob Finch? Ha! I wish I knew. Anyone have any ideas? I plan to work in this new iteration of my job at the Oregonian for awhile - multimedia journalist. Like I said earlier, I shot video for 6 months. That was great and I learned a ton. Now, I am supposes to figure out how I can weave the print product and the online product together. So, I am trying to figure that problem out. Again, I believe very much in the still image and the power it holds. The key now is figuring out when to use that power and when to do something else. thanks
[Special thanks to APhotoADay members Peter Hoffman, G.J. McCarthy and Nicole Fruge for contributing questions to this interview.] 
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