A DAY IN THE LIFE: SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
Name: Mark Tatem Company: The Royal Gazette Job title: Senior photographer
Working hours: 9 to 5 or 12 to 8 (also weekend overtime and on-call in evenings)
Senior photographer What attracted you to photojournalism?
I was looking for a challenge. I worked in freelance photography for a little while—I had just returned home from school—and it came up. I wanted to work in a fast-paced environment, and I liked the fact that you are able to go out and shoot all sorts of different things and meet all different types of people in a day.
What professional and/or academic qualifi cations or experience did you need to start your career?
I didn’t have any real qualifi cations in journalism. Journalism is all about asking the right questions at the right time and being able to record it properly. I do have a Bachelor of Arts in visual arts from Brock University, Canada.
How did you start in photojournalism?
I started when I was 17. I was in high school at the time, thinking of going away to art school, at university level. While I was working at the Kodak lab, doing photo processing, I met a man who took me on as an apprentice. He taught me how to do wedding photography and more of the commercial side of photography. I did my schooling, and when I came back, I worked on a freelance basis in the professional market. Then I saw an advert in the newspaper for a photo journalist and I thought, why not?
What further qualifi cations might you need for future career progression? There are four different levels of seniority in photojournalism. There
50 FAST TRACK / Careers module / 2010-2011
is the junior or staff photographer; the senior photographer; the deputy chief photographer, and then there’s the chief photographer. Advancement comes from work experience and the natural progression of the job. I started at 24 and it took just under two years to get to a senior level.
What is the typical starting pay for a job like yours and what earning potential does it have? Junior photographers start on around $52,000 a year.
Describe a typical working day.
There really is no typical day. I come to the offi ce in the morning or in the afternoon, depending on which shift I’m on. I check the bookings, because we do have appointments that we have to cover. We also have spot news—this is stuff that happens on the spot, such as a fi re, a shooting or a road fatality, which we have to get to right away. I have to be very mobile, so I get a camera, a wide-angle lens, a telephoto lens and a fl ash. We don’t have the luxury of studio stuff. We also do something called ‘fi shing’. This is where we go out to fi nd soft news, usually things like human interest stories, such as a kid playing on a beach with his or her parents. Of course, in the morning, I sit down and read the newspaper to see what’s going on in the world and on the Island. I try to plan my day around that.
What is the best thing about your job?
The variety is good because I don’t have to stay behind a desk for a lot of the time. I’m meeting people, I’m talking to people and I’m all over the Island every day. That’s the best part.
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