My professional digital camera bodies and lenses stored in the trunk of the company vehicle in Greenwood Lake, NY on Friday, November 1, 2013. Layoffs came to four staff photographers (including myself) and three longtime newsroom editors today at the Times Herald-Record, a Gatehouse Media owned paper in Middletown, NY. © www.chetgordon.com
Today was one of those days that you don’t ever want to face in one’s career. But you do. And you keep your head up. Approximately 14 1/2 hours ago, three of our four staff photographers were present as we were all laid off from the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, NY. (The fourth was en route to an airport to make a morning flight out west, and was actually called on his mobile phone and participated by conference call.) Precisely at 9AM, the executive editor and the HR director walked into the modest executive conference room and did their dirty little deed. I sort of knew we were a rudderless, dead target in the water when our photo editor couldn’t even to look us in the eye in the newsroom, minutes before the “bloodletting” , if you will. Another bad omen was that he wasn’t going to be joining us in this “mandatory meeting” called the afternoon before. As I was quoted later today in a phone interview and subsequently in the online version of News Photographer Magazine, “The whole thing took 15 minutes…”
Ironically, tonight at nearly midnight, I’m writing on this blog – which incidentally began when I started the staff job up here back in early 2007. Stay tuned. ~cg.
Chet Gordon resides in the lower Hudson Valley region of New York. A photojournalist for more than 25 years, he recently worked as Westchester Magazine's first photo editor, and previously was a staff photographer at four NYC metro area newspapers. He was also a photo editor at the NY Daily News for 5 years. His work has appeared in The New York Times, International Herald-Tribune, USA Today, MailOnline (UK), Army Times, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Popular Photography magazines, among others. He is a career member of the National Press Photographer’s Association (NPPA), and a former board member of the NY Press Photographer’s Association (NYPPA). He served honorably as a U.S. Marine in the mid-1980's, including 2+ years stationed on Okinawa, Japan, and throughout Southeast Asia. A longtime volunteer and travel enthusiast, he accompanies several humanitarian aid clients on their international disaster relief and medical missions. Since 1997, he's worked in several African countries, the Middle East, Central and South America, Eastern Europe, as well as Afghanistan, Haiti, the Russian Federation, and Thailand. He routinely mentors young photographers looking to break into the industry and vacations in Bermuda and Kenya.
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