Posted By Greg Beran
Every year there is a breaking news story that shakes the nation. Last year it was the Boston marathon bombing and the years before that was the war in the middle east. This year, the story revolves around Michael Brown and Ferguson, Missouri. The story broke on August 9th, when officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown after a confrontation. A day later, the Ferguson rioting began and the press took over. Ferguson became a household name and everyday there was a new twist in the story. In the beginning, news sources were using clips from social media until they could get their own photographers to Missouri. This was not the case for photojournalist Christian Lee from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Lee was there, with camera in hand, on the first night of full scale rioting in Ferguson and captured the action first hand.
This is a photo from Lee’s blog, where he posted 12 captioned photos from the protesting. He was able to get pictures from the first night of rioting all the way up to Reverend Al Sharpton’s visit to Ferguson.
Lee was getting ready for bed on August 10th, the first night of rioting, when a friend told him what was going on just 40 minutes away in Ferguson. Then, Lee’s journalistic integrity took over.
“Once I heard about people looting and running into stores and stuff like that, I thought, You know what, this could be big. I stopped what I was doing, grabbed my camera gear and ran down there,” said Lee in an interview with USA Today.
When documenting, Lee had a difficult time deciding how to approach the situation. He saw what was taking place and did not want to photograph faces of people looting and stealing things for obvious reasons, and did not want the photos to seem one sided. Lee just wanted to tell the whole story, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
On Lee’s blog there is a series of 12 photos called Ferguson Unrest. The photos are accompanied by short captions describing the situations, without bias. In all photos Lee is right in the center of the action. Lee told USA Today that his main goal was to make the audience feel like they were there, much like Jim MacMillon told our class earlier in the semester.
This picture shows a QuickTrip gas station burned down by looters. The gas station had people outside protesting the protesters, if that makes sense. People stood outside the gas station to try and prevent the violent protest. This picture describes the situation as well as one could.
Lee was a college student, just like my classmates and I, who saw an opportunity and took advantage of it through his camera. He went from a student studying journalism to a photojournalist in a few days through his captivating pictures. Lee shared some tips he learned to prospective photojournalists in his USA Today interview,
“When you’re in that situation, there are two things that keep you from shooting. One, you’re too scared to approach the danger. Two, you think you won’t have the access. I would say to any student photographer: Once you have a camera in your hand, you do have the access. You have just as much access as anyone else, including the professionals.”
Lee encompasses what journalism is all about, the desire to share the news with the world whenever the opportunity presents itself. On August 10th, he was preparing for bed and instead got in his car and drove right into the face of danger to capture riveting photos that depicted Ferguson like no other. The photos were used in Belleville News Democrat and The Alestle, the SIEU paper. Christian Lee’s photojournalism is a worthy candidate for the Pulitzer for breaking news photography because of the content and the scale of the story. The criteria for the award is a distinguished photograph or photographs that covers breaking news through photography. Last year, Tyler Hicks of the New York Times won for his coverage of terrorist attacks in Kenya. Other finalists were Goran Tomasevic for his photos of the Syrian civil war and Tlumacki and David L. Ryan of The Boston Globe for their pictures of the Boston Marathon Bombing. I believe Christian Lee could be next in line.