It’s been a week since I was laid-off unceremoniously with the three other staff photographers from our paper, the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, NY. Here’s what it looked like the next day, on Saturday afternoon, when we had to return to the office to remove our personal items, as there would be less people in the newsroom and we “wouldn’t cause a disruption”, or so we were told by management. The story has stirred up quite a buzz this week on the web in the trade sites like the NPPA, Romemesko, Times Herald-Record, etc. The support, encouragement, and just plain concern from friends & colleagues in the industry has been nothing short of amazing all week. And I’m quite pleased that there have been generous offers of freelance work, coming almost immediately from longtime colleagues / editors in the business. All this has helped to lessen some of the sting of loosing one’s job so abruptly… ~cg.
(L – R): Photographers Dominick Fiorelli, Tom Bushey, and Chet Gordon pause together for a photograph together as they leave the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, NY on Saturday afternoon, November 2, 2013. Fiorelli worked at the newspaper for 28 years, Bushey 32 years and Gordon for 7 years, and were three of the four staff photographers along with three longtime newsroom editors laid off on November 1st. at the Gatehouse Media owned paper.
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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