I recently met up with club member Bill Blackstone to talk about his photo-volunteering for Sandy Hill community newspaper “Image”.
Image is published five times a year and 7500 copies are distributed to all Sandy Hill residents as well as the community centre, library and various commercial outlets. For the past few years Bill, a Sandy Hill resident, has been the primary photographer for the paper covering a wide variety of assignments in his neighbourhood.
Most assignments come from the editor although if Bill sees news happening he will get a shot himself – the Ayoub’s convenience store fire being an example since it was just down the street from his home!
Bill says the rewards of volunteering for the paper include getting to know more about your neighbourhood and meeting some of the leading lights of the community. As well there is the opportunity to practice your photographic skills, particularly available light people photography.
A few of Bill’s memorable subjects have been cook Ruth Mohammed, a pair of “ladies who lunch” at Signatures restaurant…
…as well the “big dig” in Sandy Hill park to install a flood control system.
On the technical side Bill uses a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera and his most used lenses are fast 24-70mm & 70-200mm zooms. Newspaper reproduction standards are not high so those big Canon files allow for plenty of cropping if required. Bill mentioned that he never uses flash if he can avoid it.
“Image” makes a point of covering community events and Bill is there to get the pictures whether it’s big legs…
Or big names…
Bill has been a member of the RA Photo Club for about four years and has organised RAPC photographers to cover Chamber Music Society events including the annual Chamberfest festival.
Bill also does occasional work for the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.
Although in the middle of a move to Nepean Bill plans to continue helping Image and has recently started shooting in a new field by covering University of Ottawa volleyball & basketball games.
If you have a volunteer run organisation such as a community newspaper in your area that uses photography why not consider doing some photo-volunteering yourself?
I’d like to thank Bill for taking the time to meet with for this post and to wish him good light for his future photographic assignments!
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