your article is wonderful & i'll pass it along for sure

while i am currently on a couple years long hiatus from my photojournalism commitments, i have 2 elaborations inspired by your words. please situate this in the frame of: if i was teaching a photoj class, after passing your article to the students, these are the 2 elaborations ive got:

1. on shadows & background that can be used to estimate height, gait, or gear.

~ be aware that the time & time of year can almost always be estimated if you are working outside. it can be helped in small ways like using flash but the tradeoff there is drawing attention because of it. simply be aware a photograph made outside is also a clock in most cases.

2. on "Situational Awareness While Recording

.. You need to split your brain:

One part captures.

One part scans for threats.

Keep your back to a wall if possible. Avoid tunnel vision"

~ tunnel vision. tunnel vision is a very big phenomenon & it is something like undertow in the ocean

tunnel vision has to be in front of mind as a constant force acting upon you the moment a camera is pressed up against your face or you've fallen into follow-focusing your subject on film

not only is it a dragging compelling force that needs to be leaned out of, part of the seductive pull is the dissociation it provides in a noisy crowd

when you hyperfocus yourself & your effort thru an eyepiece & into a lens

you are somewhere else down thru that hole

focus enough to make that picture & the entire rest of the world will go quiet

this is very dangerous at a protest

without yea, a buddy to pull you out of it if you are not well experienced in extricating yourself. aka: "dropping the bone"

tunnel vision is even more seductive if you happen to be photographing highly kinetic, fast, chaotic, loud, overstimulating, possibly violent events

down the lens hole offers the feeling of distance & safety emotionally while leaving your vulnerable body too close & unsafe

add witnessing great injustice, great import, & or great ambition to 'make a picture that matters' on top of all that?

a pretty extreme cocktail

it's why i think the mind needs not splitting in two, but a triangle

thrice

the top of that triangle mind needs to be constellated well. like meditate or exercise before the event as part of preparation. you gotta have such a sense of self & ruthless self preservation. do not go into the streets centering anything other than your survival & general not-give-a-fuck about the assignment from your editors. decide in advance you are a coward. decide in advance dipping out early is wise. decide in advance you would turn down a pulitzer & nothing, certainly not this event, certainly not a photo, is worth dying over.

These decisions made in advance are brave because they are paying costs upfront. they make you a predictably sane functional mammal which helps ensure the safety & wellbeing of everyone in the environment.

Then simply use those decisions to: Stay in Your Lane. If you want to be a hero, join EMS to go on shift. Photojournalists are never on shift. Photojournalist lane is jackal-being: an opportunist swift survivalist hunter that will eat anything. raccoon spirit. rat instincts.

anyway, like to be a war photographer is to be an anti-war photographer (james nachtwey)

being a photojournalism professor is to be an anti photojournalism professor. the safety of my students from first to last.

Fingerprint was a stretch, was it not?

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