2009 Begins with a Roar
>> Wednesday, January 28, 2009
By Dave Adornato
(note: newspages can be enlarged by double clicking on them)
The first month of 2009 has been pretty exciting!
*The NJ National Guard continued their deployment in Iraq.
*The Giants choked in their playoff game against the Eagles.
*A plane crash landed in the Hudson River…and not a single human life was lost.
*America watched as the first African American president was sworn in to office.
The Record & Herald News photo department covered it all.
Tyson Trish returned from Iraq in late December, its worth noting in this writing. His efforts produced some first rate photojournalism and Robert Townsend did his work justice with some beautiful pages.
*The NJ National Guard continued their deployment in Iraq.
*The Giants choked in their playoff game against the Eagles.
*A plane crash landed in the Hudson River…and not a single human life was lost.
*America watched as the first African American president was sworn in to office.
The Record & Herald News photo department covered it all.
Tyson Trish returned from Iraq in late December, its worth noting in this writing. His efforts produced some first rate photojournalism and Robert Townsend did his work justice with some beautiful pages. 
Tom Franklin , Chris Pedota, and Tyson were all on hand at Giants stadium to witness the Giants melt down in front of loyal fans and their lenses. All the work produced from that game was note worthy, but the image that stood out was Tom’s photo of McNabb from the ROOF of the stadium. He was able to make this photograph, in part, because he had Tyson and Chris watching the field. Having three staff photographers at the game allows for the shooters to take some chances. Tom certainly didn’t know when he made the trek to the roof what he would get, but a great play of the game was seen from a vantage point NO ONE ELSE HAD; reinforcing that our photo staff is a significant force covering pro sports as well as our daily local coverage.
The day’s game plan for the paper was all set when someone yelled out in the newsroom that a plane had just made an emergency landing in the Hudson River. I made a bee line for the photo department to see who could lug a 400/2.8 to the Weehawken cliffs to make a photo of what was likey going to be a grizzly accident scene. When I arrived in the office I saw Liz. She told me, after the fact, that I looked like a bull charging her and she felt like a red sheet. Anyway, she and six other photographers – Amy Newman, Tariq Zehawi, Kevin Wexler, and Carmine Galasso, Leslie Barbaro, and multi-media editor Tom Franklin moved immediately to the river. Amy was in Cliffside Park already so she headed down to Port Imperial where she was on of the first news photographers on hand to make photos of survivors coming off ferries. Her quick reaction enabled her to make a few frames before the police realized who she was and kicked her out. Her quick instincts, news judgment, and a little bit of serendipity (being minutes from the port) put her in a position to make some of the best images of the lucky survivors.
The odds were stacked against our photo staff. Money was tight. Credentials were scarce. And housing was non-existent in the DC area. But our staff had will and desire. Tariq Zehawi, Kevin Wexler, Chris Pedota and Tom Franklin were tapped to go to DC. Our staff was going to cover everything we could get access to cover. We got credentials for everything except Obama actually being sworn in. This was not a deterrent though. A game plan was created that would put us with local people traveling to DC to witness history as well as fulfilling another mission of the photo department which was to feed the web with timely local content. Chris and Kevin got up in the middle night to board buses from Hackensack and Paterson. They followed locals down and along the way made stills photographs and video interviews. Chris was evan able to post a video on northjersey.com by the he arrived in D.C. 
In North Jersey a team was formed to cover the local reaction to the inauguration. Amy Newman, Liz Lara, Leslie Barbaro, Carmine Galasso, Tyson Trish and Don Smith all fed video and stills to Dave Bergeland who created a video that grabbed at the heartstrings stirring the emotions of the viewer. Dave also was in the field earlier shooting for the video too.http://www.northjersey.com/multimedia/video/37940539.html
Meanwhile, Tom & Chris worked late into the night producing a video from feeds by all four of the staff photographers in DC and Tariq and Kevin stayed up late covering the balls. Tariq’s final image of President Obama and the First lady made it back in time to run in 110,000 newspapers. That’s hustle at Midnight from a guy that started his day at 5AM!http://www.northjersey.com/multimedia/video/37980259.html
The odds were against our guys in DC, but they were a success by any standard. We had compelling staff photography and video. The layouts were outstanding in both the Herald and The Record. Our special section featured a beautifully displayed double truck (again designed by Robert Townsend). Kudos to HN editor Scott Muller. His page design played Tom Franklin’s image of an interracial couple watching the inauguration a full SIX columns.
