Although you’ve probably seen plenty of street memorials, whether it be ghost bikes, murals, or Jesus candles, how many road side ones have you come across? Photographer Christopher Paquette has been shooting the eerie tributes for a few years now. A true professional, he describes how he doesn’t treat the remembrances like props: “As I find these memorials, I attempt to create the best photograph I can make with what is presented to me. I am always mindful that this is the place where someone, or in many cases several people, have died. I never touch or alter the memorials in any way, and I always treat the entire scene as a sacred place.” You know, as opposed to pulling them out of the ground, rearranging them and desecrating the memorial for the sake of the shot like other photographers do. |JPG|
If you put your mind to it, you too could takes pictures like this. Photo journalist Brian Ach briefly goes through some of the highs and mostly lows of becoming a wire service photographer. As you might have expected, it’s not that glamorous of a job and usually entails lots of waiting around, strange hours, and not promptly getting paid. Writes Ach, “It typically takes at least 3-6 months after you start stringing to see any money at all from the agency. Being a newbie among veteran staffers and stringers means typically you will not be getting the A- list gigs. You might not even make the C-list, which means your pictures will not be in demand. That means even less money.” But the rigors of the job also include isolation and taunts from older hacks, after all you’re just a “stringer”:
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