Beat
I cover New York City. I shoot pictures of breaking news, the stock exchange and the courthouse on a regular basis.
One Shot
“This is one of the first nice pictures I shot after coming back to work for Reuters in New York City, after I had been working for another agency for a little while.”
Profile
I got my first assignment for Reuters when I was just 17 years old. I was in Buffalo, New York, and the Reuters photographer based there at the time got called away at the last minute, so he couldn’t cover an NHL hockey game. I covered the game and the assignment went well: I got my pictures and transmitted them at 3:00 a.m. I don’t think that Reuters realised how young I was though!
I didn’t do any formal journalism training, but I was mentored by a lot of Reuters staffers. When you do your first Reuters assignment in high school, you get guidance from some great photographers.
I think the assignments that left the biggest mark on me happened when I was an intern for Reuters, working in Washington and covering the White House and Capitol Hill. I was surrounded by highly talented and competitive photographers who could make interesting images out of relatively uninteresting events.
There’s not one kind of assignment that excites me the most; I enjoy photographing anything. I enjoy shooting the stock exchange as much as I like a good breaking news assignment, or a hurricane, or even the red carpet.
I’ve learnt that images can really make an impact on people’s lives. During Hurricane Sandy I shot images of a man, his family and their house, which had been destroyed by the storm. Afterwards, I got a call from a banker who had seen the pictures and he asked if I had the contact details of the man in my photo, because he wanted to help him out. He ended up helping that whole neighbourhood, by sending food, clothes and aid.
I respect photographers who just go to work everyday and manage to take great photos, whether they’re for Reuters, AP, Bloomberg, or even the Niagara Gazette.