HINDA SCHUMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

My hairdresser, Michael, tells me I can now call myself an international award winning photographer. And so I will. Five images from “A True Story” were selected as first place winners in the open category. (http://www.pridephotoaward.org/the-contest/the-winners-of-the-2011-edition. The exhibit will be held at the Fotografie Museum Amsterdam in the fall of 2011.

I was a staff photographer at The Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty years. Since leaving the Inquirer, I have been teaching classes, individuals and conducting workshops in digital photography. At the Inquirer I covered local news, local sports, features and occasionally longer stories in a documentary style. I have always thought of myself as a storyteller /journalist/ documentary photographer. I am currently working on an autobiographical piece called “A True Story” and a documentary project – “New Directions for Women”. The Pennsylvania Project is an ongoing collaboration with collegaue Linda Johnson. Pennsylvania Project

I have also been doing freelance assignments for news media and local institutions.

I came to photography after an eight year career as a teacher specializing in reading for grades K-12. However, in 1978 I left teaching, which I loved and felt had the potential to change individual lives, to follow my true passion, photography, which I also believe has the power to enrich and enlighten people's lives. Now I get to link these two themes in my life, teaching and photography.

I am available for assignments near and far. I offer workshops, tutorials and online photo coaching. Please contact me if you are interested in any of these offerings or want to know more. hinda@hindaschuman.net

Please visit the site often as I am making changes more often than in the past.

PART II

A brief history of (my) photography ruminations.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, I was stunned and confused. The photographic and TV images never left me.

And then there followed the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy. This was a powerful time for many of us and there were many responses to these tragedies-food banks, marches, demonstrations, and free schools. But I could not get away from the images in print and on TV. They were burned into my mind. I was changed forever: I wanted to make pictures that would grab people.

A voice inside of me mocked, "only someone who knows how to photograph can really take photographs." Clearly, at that time of my life I did not know how to take pictures, nor was I able to imagine that I could possibly ever learn.

Still hoping to change the world, I became a teacher. I discovered an unused darkroom at the Bellows Falls Middle School, and found a teacher who could show me a bit about black and white processing. I had my students photograph their lives, and write about what they saw.

As important as teaching had been to me, as deeply involved with my students as I was, I could not resist the lure of the camera, and so I left teaching and set out to learn as much as I could about documentary photography. I took every photography class I could find, and supported myself, working in a bakery, a group home, and a dress shop.

I completed an MFA program, with the goal to teach, which is where I started. I taught at art centers and as an adjunct in Philadelphia colleges. Yet I found that I wanted to be taking pictures more than I wanted to be creating assignments for others.

In 1988, I was hired to work in the suburban bureau of The Philadelphia Inquirer. I thought I had landed in heaven. (beware believers-heaven is an ever changing concept)

For the Inquirer I photographed high school sports, murder scenes, fires, retired people who wrote their first novel, and 84 year old dance teachers and nine year old discus throwers. I documented people whose lives fit into various and sundry categories: women's history month, or African-American history month, or Valentine's day. I spent a year with a woman who was the epitome of the "sandwich generation," caring for her two teenage sons, and her mother who had Alzheimer's. I hiked the Appalachian Trail with an Outward Bound group--twelve 7th and 8th grade boys from an inner city school. (I am not a big fan of camping--never was--and after four days of hiking and camping in pouring rain and terrifying lightning, probably never will be). I spent several days at a summer camp for children with HIV and AIDS. There were funerals, and weddings, graduations and garden parties. During election seasons there was an endless stream of politicians. Some would go on to become president, and some would star in their own movie.

Back at the bureau, the photographers would meet in the dark room, and discuss work while we printed our images. At 4:00 PM the driver would show up, collect the slightly damp prints and drive them back to center city Philadelphia, where the images would magically appear in the next day's newspaper.

Color film followed, with processors for the film and the prints. COLOR FILM?? The world, as it was in the 60's and 70's, was black and white. Good and Evil. Life as we knew it was over. Computers showed up. The driver lost his job as images went through telephone lines to their destination.

I've heard it takes 7 years to call yourself anything, (a photographer, a financial planner, a carpenter, a teacher). I am now in my 20th year and I would say, I am starting to get the hang of photojournalism. I am learning to go further and dig deeper.

As I look at photographs I see there are so many outstanding, courageous, adventurous photographers making some amazing images. How does a photographer rise to the top, get noticed, and get work? Is it the passion they demonstrate, the unique-ness of their vision? Is it who they know and where they have been?

I am always amazed at the power of the camera to unleash in me feelings and insights about what IS, with all of its beauty and horror. Photographs have the power to bridge the many different worlds in which we live by speaking in the immediate and accessible language of the visual. I am now also amazed at the power of the world wide web to facilitate all forms of communications to anyone with access to a computer. It is this powerful tool that has inspired me to create a web site and I hope that viewers will enjoy looking at it, and checking back often.

photo: Rick Wright