I woke up on the morning of August 19, 2020, to a series of text messages from a good friend who let me know that I need to get to town as soon as possible because there was a huge fire burning into Vacaville. From there it was a flurry of activity, some of which I don’t remember. I spent the entire day driving around the city and the rural areas making images and witnessing firsthand the devastation. As evening hit, the scanner went nuts again with calls that the fire had made a run toward the next town over, Fairfield, and was jumping the freeway. Fighting my way through traffic backed up and made it to the area and spent the next several hours photographing fire crews battling the blaze to keep it from burning into another town, including setting a backfire operation to slow the progress. Vacaville Fire Department firefighter Luke Ott performs a backfiring operation in a field along Nelson Road in Lagoon Valley after it jumped Interstate 80. Photo by Joel Rosenbaum, The Reporter
NEWS PHOTOGRAPHER | SMALL MARKET PHOTOGRAPHERS | JUNE 2021

Small market photographers often face a big list of duties

This feature highlights visual journalists in small markets who often do it all on their own with little support. Nominate someone (or yourself) by sending an email to [email protected] with the subject line: Small market nomination.

Name: Joel Rosenbaum, NPPA member since 1986
Publication: The Reporter, Vacaville, California
Social media: @jbrosenbaum on Twitter and Instagram, Facebook 
How long in the business: 30 years
Size of photo staff? One (Me)
Photo editor on staff? I guess since I am the only photographer, that makes me the photo editor as well.

Success can look different in most situations. What was a big success for you in this position and why?
When I first started at The Reporter 30 years ago, we had five full-time photographers, and we covered all of Solano County, from Vallejo to Dixon, and even made trips to the Bay Area to cover professional sports and news.

Over the years those numbers have diminished (either through retirements, layoffs or death), and I am now a “one-man band.” So our coverage area has shrunk, and my job responsibilities have grown. In addition to providing images for the paper, I am now responsible for setting the daily news budget, editing copy and writing the occasional story.

The fact that I have been able to change with the tide of journalism through all the layoffs, cutbacks and obstacles placed in our way and still feel proud of my work and the newspaper we publish is a big win in my book.

Why do you love photojournalism?
I fell in love with photography shortly after my dad gave me his old Nikkormat camera for my 13th birthday. He taught me how to take pictures, develop film and make prints, all in the darkroom that he had built in our home.

That love of photography grew into a love of photojournalism with my first assignment as a student at a community college. As I covered a general election night party, I found myself on the floor of a hotel ballroom, shoulder to shoulder with photojournalists whose work I admired. I felt a rush of emotion I couldn’t describe — it was in my blood from that point on. 

To this day, I still feel that rush. Even on those days where I am searching for that elusive stand-alone feature image, I think back to that night and remember why I love photojournalism.

Contact info and website:
[email protected]
thereporter.com

More pictures below

In addition to COVID-19 and the wildfires (in my coverage area), 2020 was known for civil unrest that began due to the murder of George Floyd in May a year ago. Organized by young adults and local church leaders, peaceful rallies started in Vacaville and Solano County shortly after they began around the rest of the Bay Area. I had already covered a demonstration a couple of days earlier in Vacaville, so I was looking for a different way to photograph the protesters for the rally in Fairfield. When I saw the two Black gentlemen kneel down, I laid on the ground in front of them and was able to set them against the backdrop of blue June sky. FROM LEFT: Cedrick Bernard and Richard Livingston Jr., both of Fairfield, kneel at the steps of the Old Solano Courthouse building at the conclusion of a peaceful protest march in Fairfield to honor the memory of George Floyd. Livingston said that he lost a brother to police violence several years ago and was deeply affected by the killing of Floyd. Photo by Joel Rosenbaum, The Reporter
As the final minutes of the high school basketball section championship game began to wind down, the coach began removing his star players because they had the game in hand, so I knew the celebration would be coming from the bench and positioned myself across the floor to make images as the realization began to sink in on the players and then waited for the final buzzer; they did the rest. FROM LEFT, Vanden’s Agjanti Miller, I'saac Montgomery, Teiano Hardee and Takai Emerson-Hardy leap off the bench as the buzzer sounds in their 57-41 victory over Central Catholic High School in the championship game of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III playoffs Friday at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. Photo by Joel Rosenbaum, The Reporter
As the coronavirus was starting to hit the United States, a quarantine zone was set up at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California. After spending days off the coast of San Francisco when passengers and crew from the Golden Princess cruise ship tested positive for COVID, it was decided that the rest of the passengers would be sent to Travis and quarantined for 14 days. I was given an estimated time of arrival at the base of a convoy of buses and that they would be entering the base; from there it was just a waiting game. Luckily the light was in the correct place to illuminate the driver in full hazmat suit and passengers in the front of the bus. The California Highway Patrol vehicle just adds to the drama as they escort chartered buses carrying the cruise ship passengers to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California in March 2020. Once on base, the passengers had a 14-day quarantine. The cruise ship docked in the Port of Oakland’s Outer Harbor after being in a holding pattern off the coast of San Francisco for several days after 19 crew members and two passengers on board tested positive COVID-19 and officials decided where to bring the passengers ashore. Photo by Joel Rosenbaum, The Reporter
Kendall Richard, of Vacaville, sifts through ash and debris in what was the master bedroom in her Pleasants Valley Road home. The LNU Lightning Complex fires were a large complex of wildfires that burned during the 2020 California wildfire season across much of the Wine Country area of Northern California – Lake, Napa, Sonoma, Solano, and Yolo Counties, from August 17 to October 2, 2020. Richard and her husband, Mark, lost their home and iris farm. Photo by Joel Rosenbaum, The Reporter
A group of women poses for a picture in rural Dixon. The Solano County Sheriff's Office is reminding residents that entering privately-owned land without consent can be deemed trespassing and that walking among the rows of flowers can permanently damage valuable crops. This image was made with a telephoto lens from a public road. Photo by Joel Rosenbaum, The Reporter
Vanden High School graduating senior, Samantha Nita, 18, reacts to the cheers of teachers and staff as she drives her riding lawnmower through the parking lot to pick up her diploma at the Fairfield campus. Due to the ban on large gatherings during the global Coronavirus pandemic, school officials and parents devised a mobile graduation ceremony that was held over two days. Photo by Joel Rosenbaum, The Reporter
Using a colorful umbrella to shield herself from the hot afternoon sun, Jennifer Wood, of Vacaville, continues her daily workout around the reservoir at Lagoon Valley Park. Wood said that she walks the same loop and it takes her about an hour. With temperatures reaching triple digits for several days, both the National Weather Service and Solano County are warning residents about the extreme heat. Photo by Joel Rosenbaum, The Reporter
The comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) streaks through the night sky above Lake Berryessa. According to Scientific American, the comet was spotted by astronomers on March 27, 2020. NEOWISE is one of the brightest comets in the northern hemisphere since Comet Hale–Bopp in 1997. Having reached its closest approach to Earth last night, it continued its journey through the solar system and will return in 6,800 years. Photo by Joel Rosenbaum, The Reporter
Under blue skies and cumulonimbus clouds, Yosemite Valley is baked in the sunlight of a crisp fall morning. First protected in 1864 by President Abraham Lincoln and designated as a national park in 1890, it features sweeping views of granite cliffs, waterfalls, and sequoias and is home to hundreds of different species of wildlife and over 1,000 different types of plants. Describing the park, environmentalist, John Muir wrote, “It is by far the grandest of all the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter.” Photo by Joel Rosenbaum, The Reporter

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