| Ohio News Photographer |
| January 1999 |
ONPA begins the new year with a new Television Vice President and Still Clip Contest Chairman.
Vince Shivers, with WFMJ-TV in Youngstown has been nominated and approved by the Board to serve as Television Vice President.
Shivers will fill the remainder of the term of Ron Strah who resigned last fall after becoming operations manager at WKYC-TV. Shivers was the runner-up Television Photographer of the Year for ONPA for 1997. He will oversee all aspects concerning television members including the year end contest and new monthly clip contest.
Chris Parker with ThisWeek Newspapers in Columbus will take over the reigns of the still monthly news clip contest in 1999.
Parker replaces Scott Shaw of The Plain Dealer who along with his wife Brynne have have served as chairs since 1995. A tip of the hat to both of them who picked up the pieces and got the contest back on track at a time when clips were being lost and results not being received in a timely matter. Their work made it possible for first place winners to be published in the newsletter.
Parker's duties will begin with clips being entered from the month of January which must be postmarked by February 7th. Clips should be sent to Parker at ThisWeek Newspapers, 670 Lakeview Plaza Blvd., Suite F, Columbus, Ohio 43085. If the need arises he can be reached at work at (614) 841-1781.
Several dates to keep in mind in the coming weeks. The open judging for the still photographers annual contest will be held February 13th at the Fawcett Center Hotel & Conference Center located at 2400 Olentangy River Road in Columbus.
On March 5-6 the open judging for the annual Television Newstape Contest will be held at WCMH-TV in Columbus. The station is located at 3165 Olentangy River Road. Those wishing more details can contact contest chairman Joshua White by phone at (614) 263-5555 or by e-mail at Joshua,White@nbc.com.
The annual convention and educational seminar will be held April 9-10 at the Fairborn Holiday Inn. Convention chairs, Bill Garlow and Marshall Gorby are putting the final touches on this years program. The riverboat used in Cincinnati last year is not available but these guys have a few tricks up their sleeves. Details will be in the next issue.
Treasurer Kimberly Barth reports that membership renewal notices have been mailed. If you did not receive one please contact her immediately. To keep our records current please fill out the renewal form in its entirety. We must verify zip codes annually to maintain our bulk mailing permit for the newsletter. Ma Bell has been changing area codes faster than Bill Clinton changes his story. It will make it much easier for all if we have your current phone numbers as well. If you have e-mail, please share your address with us. This is only for us to contact you. It will not be published or shared for any reason without your consent.
The first in a series of rotating free advertisements graced the back cover of the last newsletter. The ads are our way of saying thank you to a core group of companies who have supported ONPA over the years. Companies to be included in the rotation are Cabbage Cases, Canon, Nikon, Photo Systems Inc. and Wilsonıs Professional Services.
Television members will no longer need to wait for the year end contest to see how their best work stacks up against the competition. The first Quarterly ONPA Television Clip Contest begins this year. The contest will be chaired by Dave Colabine from WKRC-TV in Cincinnati.
As with any new program there may be a few bumps in the road but every effort has been made to make things as easy as possible for the members. With the exception of categories the rules for the contest are nearly identical to the NPPA sponsored quarterly contest. Although the rules resemble the NPPA contest the ONPA Quarterly Television Contest is in no way affiliated with the NPPA competition.
Unlike the NPPA contest, participants will ship their entries to the contest chairman who will then compile them and forward to the judges. Winners will be notified by the contest chairman with the results being posted on the ONPA web site as well as the newsletter.
Participants must be members in good standing of ONPA to enter the contest. Good standing means that the current years dues must be paid to enter. The first entries are due for judging April 15, 1999. Complete rules follow.
Members who have suggestions or comments concerning the contest as the year progresses should pass them on to Television Vice President, Vince Shivers or Contest Chairman, Dave Colabine. Your input will dictate any changes that may need to take place down the road. The ONPA Board and contest chairman will review the contest at years end and determine if any changes are needed.
If we donıt know its broke, we canıt fix it, so your input is very important to make the contest a success.
1st place 11 pts 2nd place 8 pts 3rd place 5 pts Honorable mention 1 pt
Former Cleveland Indian Albert Belle and photographer Tony Tomsic have come to terms in a suit filed by Tomsic who said that he was deliberately hit with a ball thrown by Belle.
Terms of the settlement are confidential. At the time of the incident in 1996, Belle was order to undergo counseling.
Tom Hubbard found out recently how hard it is to do someone a favor.
Hubbard had a contest print of former Pittsburgh Steelers all-pro Lynn Swann from 1976. Swann is jumping over a band outside the end zone in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals in the photo. Swann was to be in Columbus as part of ABCıs coverage of the Ohio State-Michigan game so Hubbard decided he would give the print to him then.
Red tape, runaround and indifference at this point had Hubbard chasing his tail. ABC Sports and Ohio Stateıs Sports Information Office were no help at all. Hubbard finally drove to the local ABC station and showed the print to the receptionist and asked for help. It was then that he met sports reporter Anthony Rothman who kept pointing Hubbard in the right direction until the print was finally delivered.
Swann thanked Hubbard and even reminisced about the play. Hubbard noted that, "it's interesting that Swann remembered every detail of a play that happened 20 years ago."
WJW-TV in Cleveland has a new face on the staff. Chris Reece started at the station October 5th. Reece came to Cleveland from WPGH-TV in Pittsburgh. Reece placed 3rd in Region 3 in the NPPA Quarterly TV Clip Contest during 1997. He is also a former
Ohio Television Sports Photographer of the year. Reece won that title in 1995 while working at WXIX-TV in Cincinnati.
At The News Journal in Mansfield Dan Melagrano joined the staff full time in January. Melagrano was an intern at the paper last summer.
Andrea Dixon, a junior at Ohio University has joined the staff filling a winter internship.
Richard Sitler, made his second stay in Ohio very brief. Sitler had joined the staff at The Marion Star last year. He had previously worked at The Piqua Call prior to a stop in Columbus, IN. Sitler is now the photo editor of The Citizen in Laconia, NH. His position in Marion was left unfilled.
With John Glenn journeying back into space 36 years after his first traverse into space, Ohio photojournalists were out in full force. The space shuttle Discovery rocketed into orbit on Oct. 29 at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The week was filled with waiting. For credentials, to get into the base, for buses at locations with photo ops. Hurry up and wait. We would lineup for the bus at a certain time and it would come an hour later. Police dogs would sniff the camera equipment for bombs, drugs and weapons. Finally we would board the bus. Sometimes they would have everyone get back off the bus and sniff the equipment again. Back on the bus and 30 minutes to an hour later it would leave. Thatıs the reality of a big-time assignment.
Ohio Photographers in attendance were Lew Stamp from the Akron Beacon-Journal, Michael Keating from the Cincinnati Enquirer, Fred Squillante from the Columbus Dispatch, Bill Reinke and Ty Greenlees from the Dayton Daily News, Scott Shaw from the Plain Dealer and Dave Zapotosky from the Toledo Blade.
The majority of photographers set up remote cameras from a choice of four locations. As a backup, everyone took photos from the media area a few miles away, or a location they scouted off base. Scott Andrews from Nikon conducted a class to help the photographers that had never done a remote setup.
The cameras needed to be in place 24 hours before the launch because of the elements that central Florida can bring. Veterans of previous launches employ a wide variety of housings and timers to keep their cameras dry and firing for the launch.
Garbage bags and Dixie cups were the modest form of protection employed by Stamp, Zapotosky and myself. We three needed to work together sharing remote timers provided by Nikon. Timers were tripped by sound and had a delay programmed into them as it takes about six seconds before the shuttle leaves the launch pad.
Bungee cords held the tripods down to guard against the wind and, as the legend goes, from metal hungry alligators.
We decided to take photos from two locations. One location called for a short vertical telephoto shot. The other was better for a wider horizontal photo.
Stamp and Zapotosky used frame 35 from the vertical telephoto position and I decided upon a horizontal from the other location that included a scared bird.
During the launch most of the photographers were shooting from the media area about two miles from the launch site. There were hundreds of photographers shooting from this location. For those who set up remotes, these pictures were used mostly as back up. After the shuttle was out of sight, everyone rushed to the Kodak trailer to get their film developed and transmitted in time for deadline.
After a hard dayıs work, Stamp, Zapotosky and myself went for dinner at Bernardıs Surfz in Cocoa Beach to celebrate the end of a long week with some of the local seafood. That's one of the perks that made all of the red tape during the week seem just a little better.
Ohio University student Bruce Bennett has won the the 1997-1998 school year edition of the NPPA Student Quarterly Clip Contest.
Bennett won the contest with 410 points besting his closest competitor John Gress, from Portland State University, who finished with 260 points. Jeff Swinger, also a student at Ohio University placed 6th in the contest finishing with 80 points.
Bennett is a graduate student at Ohio University and expects to finish his work for his degree in 1999. He is currently finishing an internship with The Palm Beach Post where he previously worked as an digital imaging technician in 1996-97.
Bennett is a graduate of the University of North Carolina where he attained a Bachelor of Arts (Phi Beta Kappa) in French Literature and Language. He later did graduate level study in photography with Tony Shipp and Adam Straus at The Penland School of Crafts.
A project undertaken for a documentary class taught by Terry Eiler at Ohio University taken by Bennett placed first in the multiple picture category in the third quarter. Bennett travelled to Washington, DC to photograph clients at an outpatient AIDS clinic. He spent two full days there, making over 20 portraits.
The resulting series also recently won an honorable mention in the feature picture story category of the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar. A single portrait from the package ³Alan Laughing² also placed second in the portrait/personality category there. Fellow Ohio University student Jeff Swinger, who placed sixth in the quarterly clip contest has recently finished an internship at The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Before going to Ohio University Swinger received an associates degree at Cecil Community College in North East, Maryland. After graduation Swinger worked for a couple of years on a very small staff at the Cecil Whig in Elkton, Maryland.
While at Ohio University, Swinger worked for The Athens Messenger and freelanced for The AP and various publications. He also worked as an intern at The Post Herald in Birmingham Alabama in 1996.
Swinger is currently pursuing a full time staff position at a newspaper.
Block News Alliance photographer Allan Detrich dominated the 26th annual Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar winning six awards including Best-in-Show and Best Portfolio.
The competition is one of photojournalism's largest and oldest professional seminars. 380 photographers from the U.S. and Canada entered more than 7,600 photographs. Contestants entered their best photographs taken for newspapers, magazines, wire services and other news organizations during the past year.
Entries were submitted as digital files, making the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar the first major Photojournalism competition to accept only digital entries. The popularity of digital entry created a 75% increase in entrants over last year's competition.
Judges selected a picture story by Block News Alliance photographer Allan Detrich as the Best in Show. The story, "Forced to Flee" which also placed first in the feature picture story category, chronicles the journey of a young girl as she flees from her father and is hidden by an underground network.
Detrich also won the Best Portfolio competition. That award recognizes a series of photographs taken or published in the last year that demonstrate the photographer's ability to make pictures of a variety of subjects.
In the portrait/personality category Detrich placed first, third and captured an honorable mention.
Ohio University student Bruce Bennett placed second in the portrait/personality category, and won honorable mention in the feature picture story category.
Bennett also won honorable mention in the Rich Mahan Student Portfolio competition. The award is named for the respected photographer teacher, and Seminar Board member who passed away in 1997.
Stuart Thurlkill, a student at the University of Montana, won the Rich Mahan Student Portfolio competition.
For the third time in two years, photographers from the Ohio University School of Visual Communication undertook a "Dawn to Dusk" photo project.
The first project, in May of 1997, focused on the city of Nelsonville; the second project, in November of 1997, focused on the city of Athens; and the third project focused on the city of Pomeroy.
Over 55 photographers from OU's VisCom program spent the day, from sunrise to sunset, capturing the people, places and things that make Pomeroy unique. The photographers shot 266 rolls of film during the "Dawn to Dusk" project.
The first wave of photographers started shooting just after 5:30 a.m. and the last photo was taken around 6:00 p.m.
Besides a 220 page plus web site, the completed project is showcased in a 15-page section in the Monday, November 10, 1998 issue of The Athens News.
The newspaper special section and the Web site were completely edited and designed by VisCom students under the direction of the school's faculty.
This is the third in a series of such projects designed to document the diverse communities in the Athens area. The program plans to continue working with The Athens News on similar projects in the future.
The home page for Ohio Universityıs School of Visual Communications Dusk to Dawn project of Pomeroy, Ohio can be found at: http://www.viscom.ohiou.edu/pomeroy/home.html. The cover photo was taken by Marcy Nighswander
January 22, 1999