Q & A with Jamie Francis

Jamie Francis is the Director of Photography at Blue Chalk Media, a media company founded by those who believe in non-fiction storytelling, and is formerly a staff photographer at The Oregonian from 2005 – 2014. Francis has been a photojournalist since graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1985.

Having been a professional photojournalist for over two decades, Francis has insight into the world of non-fiction storytelling. Francis sat down with me to discuss his career as a photojournalist and how he’s making the transition from a photojournalist, to a multimedia journalist.

How did you get started in journalism?

I went to school at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and I wanted to be a sports writer. I was from a really small town, and when I got to college, I realized that I could write sports, but it took me a while. I was pretty slow at it.

So, I ended up at the school newspaper and soon found that I could compete in the visual world. I was much better at it, and much faster at it. And then I got a job working at a newspaper in Durham on the weekends. It paid my way through college.

I realized that I enjoy photography and decided to pursue it as a career after college. It was just one of those things that stuck with me. One of my favorite things about working at The Oregonian was being abel to go overseas and document refugees in Syria. I found a lot of reward in that.

Syrian refugees: Ninth grade girls escape death, search for life from Jamie Francis on Vimeo.

Given your new job at Blue Chalk Media, how are you working toward making transition from a still photojournalist, to a multimedia journalist?

You know, that transition came about when I left The Oregonian. And it’s completely new to me. As I said before, I’m doing things now that I never thought I would be doing. Sometimes I serve as the audio guy; sometimes I serve as the producer, and other times I serve as the director of photography. It’s a hard change. I have to learn something new every time out, which is really fun and exciting. The transition is the fun part, and the challenging part.

We do a lot of commercial work, and it’s very much less journalistic by nature. But, the roots that we’ve drawn, and the roots I think make us special as a group are journalism roots, and I like that.

Now that you work with Blue Chalk Media, do you think your creativity is more open than it was at The Oregonian with respect to the kinds of stories you get to tell?

That’s interesting that you bring that up. I guess I would counter by saying newspapers are always a beast with an insatiable appetite, and I think that’s very important.

In any environment, you’re responsible for creating. That’s how you see yourself. If you’re going to create, you’re going to create, or you shouldn’t be trying. So, were newspapers restrained in some way? Yeah, in what they published. But, the great thing about newspapers is that you had a benefactor to go do the work you wanted to do because anything with an insatiable appetite has to be fed.

You can sit back and wait for somebody to tell you how to feed the beast, or you can feed the beast with content you want to have your name on.

I feel like I was mostly, along with many other great people at The Oregonian, in the category to be able to choose how to feed the beast.

So does it feel more creative? In some way yes because there are more tools, but no more creative than feeding the beast with what you want to. It’s important to establish a direction and an approach. And within each piece, it’s understanding how to crack the question, “What is creativity for this piece?”

Where do you see photojournalism going?

I think the people who were going to do top end photojournalism, like Magnum, I think they’re going to continue moving forward. I think for people like me who love daily journalism, daily journalism is not a place where I want to be. I don’t mean that as a slam. There are just so many things you’re expected to do, I think it’s difficult to take a breath in today’s journalism world.

Unless you can carve out your own identity where editors say,” We know Alan. We trust Alan. He can go off for five days and come back with 7 killer pictures,” it’s a very tough industry to be in. If you can put yourself into that situation, it’s a great situation to be in.

But, I think there are fewer and fewer people who are able to do that. The bar is higher for people like me. I worked my way up. I wasn’t great. And not that I was ever great, but I wasn’t the personality who got a job one year out of college, where people said of all the people in this pool, we’ll take him. It was harder for me, and it took me longer.

So, if you can carve out that identify for yourself, I think you can make a great career. So, I think the great places to be are at places like Blue Chalk Media, who value great work and understand great work.

I want to shift away from the industry, and more toward your individual work. You’re an expert at using time lapses. One of my favorite pieces of multimedia is your piece for The Oregonian called Lost Lake: Heart of the Mountain, which opens with a time lapse. How do you incorporate time lapses into your pieces?

Lost Lake: Heart of The Mountians from Jamie Francis on Vimeo.

One of the biggest things about that is you have to be willing to do things over again, and just say well… it’s not going to work tonight because there’s no movement in the sky, or the conditions just aren’t right.

I think with the Lost Lake piece, there were two trips there. The first time, there was just nothing. During the second trip, there was sweet sky and the sun came out.

I think when it’s done right, it’s timeless. It’s super useful, I think, for short pieces like that. Especially those that involve landscape. The thing that makes still pictures great is they’re all open to interpretation. It might mean something to you, that it doesn’t to me. Or I might see something that you don’t. Hopefully, we both see something in it.

And I think a time lapse works in a very similar way. It’s evocative in the sense that it might not mean the same to both of us, but hopefully it means something to each of us.

If you could give one tip to an aspiring visual journalist like myself, what would it be?

Well, you’re not going to get rich in this field I think that’s important to note first. If you’re lucky enough, you can have a spouse that understands the time that goes into this industry, and that’s great.

That being said, it’s a field where you have to practice. And I really mean practice. You have to constantly find stories, and prove that you can constantly find stories, and execute them properly.

I think that’s the most important thing to understand is that this is not a field where you can work a 9-5 job. It’s a field where if you want to be great, you have to work at it. Personally, I find it very self-rewarding.

Despite the money, it’s the best job you could ever do. There’s nothing more rewarding than this profession because you get to meet so many amazing people. I couldn’t imagine having another career.