It’s never too late to go back and carefully re-examine your work and do a re-edit, if you will. Good images & good stories will stand the test of time.This brief multi-media story is a piece I’d shot on my own dime back in the Spring of 2006 in South America. I’d already spent a week or so for a non-profit client in Paraguay’s capitol, Asuncion, when a few young NGO workers told me about this shelter primarily for street children, essentially run by a doctor out of her own pocket. When I finally made contact and began spending time in and around the shelter, I knew it was a story I’d want to commit as much time as I could to. It operates out of a former auto repair garage, donated to the organization by the landlord. Long story short – I ended up staying in the country for another three or four days to work on the piece, and that alone meant changing my return flight itinerary, additional fees at a brand name hotel across town, meals, transport, etc. Fortunately, I’d made a few new friends in the NGO world and a few even served as reliable “fixers.” The digital recording voice over narrative with the doctor as she viewed most of my take on the Mac, was made just an hour or so before hustling off to the airport. It was just this past weekend that I’ve thought about shortening up the original slideshow, which meant moving images around again, and diligently editing out her pauses, “umms” and “errs” for the piece. Needless to say, some of the images of these children have haunted me since the trip… ~cg.
This entry was posted on Sunday, April 17th, 2011 at 10:27 PM. It is filed under Uncategorized and tagged with paraguay, soundslides, south america.
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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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