EDITOR'S NOTE: As of March 2021, we are transitioning to a fully-digital News Photographer magazine after 75 glorious years of having a print magazine. I will be posting stories that would have appeared in print. Look forward to the regular features such as "The Image Deconstructed" by Ross Taylor, "Career & Life Balance" by Autumn Payne, Matt Pearl's "Doing it all, doing it well," and stories like the one below about a special place called "Boyd's Station." Thanks for your support! - Sue Morrow, editor, News Photographer
By Margaret Heltzel
May 2021- In the homey living room of an old, tin-roofed farmhouse, collected energy of excitement and camaraderie buzzes among a small group of emerging photojournalists. It’s midday in July 2019, and the curtains are drawn to keep the glare of the high sun from disrupting the images rolling across the television screen. Hours pass, pausing only when the oppressive midsummer Kentucky heat breaks at dusk. Then the group walks together to the white house on the hill for a better look at the pink- and orange-streaked sky. When the sun is good and set, the fireflies dance as we return to the quaint farmhouse for a shared meal and a few more hours of editing.
Most of us cram into the old church pew that sits against the wall by the kitchen table, while the lucky few take their individual seats with a little more elbow space. Someone usually ends up standing on a chair or leaning across the table to get a better look at the work being shown. No one ever minded the strange and daring lengths some took to see a screen. It was to help one another, after all.
That experience organized by Boyd’s Station 306.36 Visual Documentary & Writing Project seems fantastical, doesn’t it? Nearly two years ago, it feels like a faraway dream as we endured isolation amid social distancing guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic.
Boyd’s Station is a nonprofit founded out of a tragic arson in 2008 that burned a landmark barn and historic homes. Out of rebuilding, the project was born. Located in north-central Kentucky, it hosts “emerging artists and student journalists in a rural and serene environment.” The pandemic changed all of that, but Boyd’s Station adapted.
With the majority of internship programs canceled or postponed, freelance work slowing to a near stop and staff jobs few and far between, Boyd’s Station board members and friends of the program put their heads together and created an accessible program to support emerging photojournalists whose sapling careers were threatened.
“The most serious vacuum I see facing emerging photojournalists, and especially in the wake of this pandemic, is the loss of internships and hands-on fellowships which would allow them the natural process of learning on the job surrounded by seasoned pros,” says Molly Roberts, a former photo editor at National Geographic and The Smithsonian. “Boyd’s Station is filling that gap, albeit virtually, with very knowledgeable editors and photographers who have been in the workplace for many years.”
As a solution and in lieu of project 306.36, Boyd’s Station and American Reportage, a collective of photojournalists, joined to launch America Reimagined.
Stephen Crowley, a retired staff photographer for The New York Times Washington bureau, and Michael Keating, a retired staff photographer for The Cincinnati Enquirer and current executive director of the Clyde N. Day Foundation, pitched the idea to Jack Gruber. Gruber is the founder and executive director of Boyd’s Station and is also a staff photographer at USA Today.
The idea was to emphasize mentorship and visual documentation on a national scale while maintaining the mission of Boyd’s Station: “create a community of collaboration among diverse artists, journalists.”
Being tasked with organizing a national photo project was not all that daunting for Gruber.
“All of the pieces were there; it was just a matter of putting the call out to people,” Gruber said. Boyd’s Station is an archival project powered by PhotoShelter, a partner of the program. The pandemic-related cancellation of the 2020 documentary program allowed for the seamless transition to support America Reimagined. The only piece missing was a place to host the archive, which was quickly resolved by Pete Marovich, a founding member of American Reportage, and the members of the collective who offered their website as the home for the archival project.
Boyd's Station and American Reportage already had an established relationship. Marovich had been to Boyd's Station to collaborate with the students so giving a portal to the work seemed fairly easy.
"It's been fantastic seeing the work they have been producing, and it’s been inspiring to watch them improve over this time," Marovich said. “Mentoring and guiding emerging photographers is our way of giving back to the industry."
Seasoned photojournalists remember when photo edits were done over a light table where film negatives would be spread out as photographer and photo editor sat side by side evaluating a story. Now, platforms for photo archiving and sharing, such as PhotoShelter, allow photographers and editors to work remotely, but the critical social aspect of the editing experience is diminished. “We’re trying to create the light table experience because it used to be that everyone met around 4 p.m. in the darkroom to process film,” said Crowley. “Someone might have a germ of an idea that you tuck away to grow later.”
On a given Thursday of every month, editors, mentors and contributors gather via Zoom for a Light Table Chat inspired by those darkroom conversations of the past. Gruber offers opening remarks before inviting contributors to present work or tossing out ideas for group discussion. In the spirit of mentorship, nationally acclaimed editors offer critique and encouragement to those present.
“I wish as a young professional that I could have picked the brains of amazing people in the industry,” said Charles Borst, past director of photography and photo editor at major publications. “America reimagined has such a great diverse collection of people who have been in the industry for a while and are shepherds along the way for these folks.”
America Reimagined has built a virtual bridge from New York to Hawaii, connecting emerging photojournalists with big names in the industry and like-minded peers. Additionally, the collective makes it a mission to give voice to the contributors and their communities, emphasizing the importance of narratives from otherwise undocumented areas of the country.
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Shafkat Anowar felt stranded in paradise, a feeling he never imagined. A senior at the University of Hawaii, he struggled with the ball-and-chain effect of COVID-19, the monotony of online classes, sparse human interaction and the most bitter of his personal conflicts: the near halt of opportunities for professional development. Nearing the end of his junior year, Anowar submitted nearly 30 internship applications to various publications, but his chances of securing an internship were struck down by the pandemic. Happily, that changed as the world began to open up. In February, Anowar started a six-month internship with the Associated Press in Chicago.
“I was supposed to be the AP intern for Summer 2020, but due to COVID-19, it got canceled,’ Anowar wrote in an email. “So, I was kind of in touch with them [AP] before the collaboration [with Boyd’s Station and American Reimagined] and started. However, I think the collaboration helped me prove my ability to work during the pandemic to my editors which I was able to show them later. It showed them my drive of doing something that is important to my community.”
Being “stranded” in Hawaii may not seem like an issue to mainland residents. But the isolated island chain offers limited opportunities for photojournalists, and COVID-19 travel restrictions prohibited Anowar from seeking available stateside work. “Hawaii is beautiful — it is called a paradise,” Anowar said. “But if you want to be a photojournalist, you have to go out of there to the mainland.”
The project spurred Anowar to tell stories from paradise. Since the archive kicked off, he submitted multiple photo essays showing mainlanders that the vacation destination is not immune to the virus. His project, “Pandemic in Paradise,” includes a jarring image of a 6-year-old girl held by her father and nurses who is resisting the swab for a COVID-19 test. “America Reimagined gave me a purpose,” Anowar said. “This is where my work has the potential to get published.”
As her family holds her, Samantha, 6, struggles during a COVID-19 test at the Kakaʻako Waterfront Park testing and screening program March 29, 2020. It was Hawaii’s first drive-thru COVID-19 test, and more than 2,200 people turned out to get tested. Photograph by Shafkat Anowar
Nearly 5,000 miles east, Margo Reed is settling back into her childhood home in Oley, Pennsylvania. “I didn’t expect to stay here,” Reed said. “But I got a breath of fresh air and a change of scenery.” Reed has been working as a freelance photographer in Philadelphia since graduating from Temple University in 2018 with a BA in journalism. Reed’s editorial work has taken a back seat to commercial photography, and personal projects have nearly vanished in the wake of both.
Yet she found her stride at home despite operating under the shadow of the pandemic. “A lot of times, art is born out of trauma or negative experiences,” Reed said. “Without the sense of security and safety at home, I find myself stunted, and it’s really difficult to make new work.”
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Reed’s COVID-19 project, “Cling Wrap,” embraces the restrictive nature of a global pandemic. Being in the same house with the same people day in and day out, Reed had to get crafty to keep her eyes alive. The answer: wrapping her camera lens in cling wrap. Her experiment gained meaning as she continued to explore its visual effects. Reed says, “It became a metaphor for this strangulation that we’re all feeling due to being stuck inside, covered with plastic gloves at the grocery store and wearing masks.”
America Reimagined found Anowar and Reed at different points in their careers, yet their shared passion and common needs unite them in a community born from the tribulations of a global pandemic.
“Being around a community of people who have knowledge, ideas and creativity about something that I care about and can push me to think beyond what I see in my backyard,” Reed said. “That is really the best thing that America Reimagined has given me.”
Margaret Heltzel is a writer based in Pittsburgh, PA. In 2019, she had the honor of participating in Boyd’s Station’s Project 306.36 as the Mary Withers Rural Writing Fellow. She can be reached at [email protected].
More photographs by Margo Reed below
Boyd's Station updates below
Sign up to contribute to America Reimagined
Join select student and emerging photographers in documenting communities across the country in the age of COVID-19 and political and social change. To be clear, this is more than a photo essay about face masks and virus testing and protests. This is an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the historic record, sharpen your skills, and advance your career.
Sign up here.
America Reimagined Exhibit
Michael E. Keating, one of the America Reimagined project organizers and mentors, has arranged an exhibit of the America Reimagined project set for Sept-Oct 2021 at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. This exhibit is being produced in a manner that is easily transportable with the ability to be exhibited across the country in 2021 and 2022. Please contact Boyd’s Station for information regarding the project’s availability.
June 1 relaunch of The Boyd’s Station Project 306.36
The Boyd’s Station Project 306.36 annual archive project documenting Harrison County, which was postponed in 2020 due to COVID-19, will officially relaunch on June 1, 2021, with Reinke Grant for Visual Storytelling recipients James Year, from Ohio University, and Lily Thompson, from Western Kentucky. The Mary Withers Rural Writing Fellow recipient is Melina Walling of Stanford University.
Boyd’s Station Gallery in Cynthiana, Kentucky, will officially launch with an exhibit in June through August 2021 with an exhibit from the 2019 Western Kentucky Mountain Workshops that took place in Cynthiana-Harrison County.
