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Fall 2001 Issue 4 |
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New
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New Member: ROBERT SEALE I originally got started in photography while working on the yearbook staff at Anahuac High School, just east of Houston. I worked part time at a one-hour lab and a camera store in Baytown. I took loads of sunset, wading-bird, and alligator pictures on Trinity Bay. I always liked to draw, and I was planning on going to college to study architecture. That lasted about one semester. Remember John Cusack in "Better off Dead", where he's dumbfounded in his Geometry class, as all the other students around him are excitedly turning in 6-inch thick stacks of computer printouts of their 100+ page homework assignments? That was me in my ÎPhysics for Engineering Majors' class. I also realized that all the buildings I really liked were being designed by Philip Johnson and I.M. Pei. I had a feeling most architects were deciding which way the bathroom stall doors would swing at the local Target store. Suddenly a life behind the drafting table didn't sound very appetizing. I worked for three summers in the oilfield for Brown & Root, and I really liked corporate photography. I loved Ernst Haas, Pete Turner and Jay Maisel. I loved looking at Corporate Showcase and I thought shooting silhouettes of oil rigs from helicopters sounded pretty cool. A temporary bout with idealism later convinced me that I had to be a photojournalist. I worked for my college yearbook and newspaper for four years, and although Stephen F. Austin had no formal photojournalism program, I found a great photo teacher in the art department, Dr. Michael Roach, and stayed for the duration. Dr. Roach was great - not your stereotypical flaky art professor, he taught great photography and lighting courses, and he also covered all the practical stuff: How to safety a lightstand, how to roll a cord properly, how to be a professional at all times. I really can't say enough about him. I worked as an intern at the Houston Chronicle after I graduated in 1992. I had a pretty good summer there and was fortunate enough to get hired at the paper in Augusta, GA. before coming back to Texas to work at The Houston Post in 1993. At the Post I got to shoot a lot of sports, fashion, business portraits, and food. I loved the variety and the chaos of working at a daily newspaper. The Post was closed down in April of 1995. At that time, the newspaper market was dead. I worked part time at the paper in Austin for a while and then went to work at The Sporting News, a St. Louis based, 117-year-old weekly national sports magazine. Although not as large as Sports Illustrated, (TSN's circ. Is 600,000) we only have 3 staff photographers in the country, so there are plenty of great assignments to go around. Traveling gets old, but there is great camaraderie among sports photogs from other magazines,newspapers, and the leagues- we all pretty much know each other. When you finish a game in a strange city, there is always a group of guys to go to dinner with, trade stories with, call for assistant names in different cities. It's a pretty small and tight-knit group. Everyone thinks the allure of this job is shooting big events like the Super Bowl, World Series, Final Four, NBA Finals, etc. The leagues and TV networks control shooting positions, access, etc. so most of these big events aren't very much fun to cover. I really enjoy doing portraits. Even though most of them are done in under 15 minutes, (athletes, agents, and team PR people are getting to be almost as uptight as their Hollywood counterparts), there is at least some measure of creativity and control. I moved back to Houston in 97 with my wife, Houston Chronicle photographer Karen Warren. I now work out of my home as a staff photographer for The Sporting News, traveling around the country doing about a 50/50 mix of game action and portraiture of pro and college athletes.
For
more photos, see my website: www.robertseale.net --
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