Over the years, SCNPA has become one of the most valuable organizations that I’m a part of.

You’ve probably already heard a coach, professor or parent tell you “You’ll only get out what you put into it” and SCNPA is the same way. Our organization depends on each and every member to contribute their unique skills to help keep the it alive and running.

With all of the talk about what I call “newsdoom” it’s hard not to put things like our group on the back burner, but I’m making a plea that everyone takes a more active roll in our group and in their newsroomIt doesn’t matter if you’re a staff of one, or a staff of 12, there’s no reason why every photojournalist in S.C. isn’t a member of our organization. It’s times like these that we need each other more than ever.

The walls surrounding the newspaper industry might be crumbling (literally) but it’s time that we continue building and strengthening the walls of our organization. We need to continue to foster great documentary images and welcome newcomers from other papers and help them reach their full potential.

Do you remember when you were first starting out as a photojournalist at a newspaper? How great would it have been to have someone from a professional organization reach out and offer to help you out and get your feet wet?

When I first realized that I wanted to be a photographer, I was at a college that had a school of Art, but not a school of photography. I had to take classes and learn on my own, and at the time, I was the only person interested in learning digital photography, because I knew that it would be the future of our industry.

Not long after graduating, I was hired at the Lancaster News, a tri-weekly newspaper in the panhandle of S.C. One day, at work, there was a postcard on my desk from Tracy Glantz, asking me to join the SCNPA. I couldn’t believe that there was a professional organization and they wanted me to be a part of it. How cool was this?

SCNPA was the greatest thing that helped me advance professionally. Being the only shooter at a newspaper was tough because I had no one to bounce ideas off of and get feedback from, other than non photo folks, (and we all know how that turns out!)

So these are my pleas for you this year.

Help someone else out.

A lot of us have been in the game for years and some of us take our organization for granted. For us that don’t it shows. They’re winning awards and taking home huge ugly trophies. If you’re at a large daily paper, appoint someone who can be in your in house clip contest person that can collect entries and submit them for your whole paper.

If you know a photographer who’s a professional shooter and they’re not a part of our organization, call them up and ask them to join, then call five of your friends and tell them to call the same person and ask them to join.

Go out and be creative.

It’s times like these that we want to crawl in our protective shell and only come out for regular assignments. But if you go out and do some personal vision work and want to display it, let us know and we’ll post here and we can all discuss it.

Get techno-logical.

Do you have a website? Are you promoting yourself? Do you have a blog? If you don’t I’m sure that one of your friends can help you set one up. It’s simple and it’s free. We just installed this new Wordpress blog that you’re reading right now and while it’s hosted on Brett’s site, there are free options out there.

Go to blogger.com and sign up for a free account. All you need is a Google username and password which you can also sign up to get free Gmail! Use all of these free tools to help connect to other shooters. Are you on Facebook? We we are and you should be too. Look us up in the group section and be sure to join it. All of this technology is out there, but it’s up to you to take advantage of it.

Chip Oglesby

2008 SCNPA Webmaster