Not everyone is able to work one-on-one with professional journalists and photographers. However, Senior Jack White, a photographer for both The Roundup and The Last Roundup, was one of the lucky few who got that opportunity. He was chosen to learn from the best at the Dallas Morning News over the past summer.
Jack found his passion for photography when he was at St. Marks. “I started taking pictures in the 7th and 8th grade by taking a few photography classes at school. My parents had a Nikon D50, which is the first camera I started using. I took a bunch of pictures and I realized that I really liked it,” he said. When Jack came to Jesuit as a freshman, he realized that Jesuit “did not have a photography program, and I really saw that there was a need for people like me.”
Many photos later, Jack was a leader in photography at Jesuit, and began interning at the Dallas Morning News. At first he thought it was tough being the only high-schooler in an environment populated primarily by college interns, but after the first two days of working with Morning News Photo Editor Erwin Thompson and mentor Louis DeLuca Jack quickly got the hang of it. “It was great working with the entire Morning News staff, some of who won Pulitzer Prizes for their fabulous photos of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.”
Jack spoke about his first excursion with his mentor during the first two days of his internship, saying, “In the first week, I had a specific mentor and I went on a couple assignments with him. The first assignment I did was that I got to go photograph the Cowboys Mini-Camp. I did two or three assignments with him until I finally got to do one on my own.”
Jack’s first solo assignment came when he started working on a project called “Lost Dallas.” “The project was based on a book called “Lost Dallas” by Mark Doty, in which he showed a bunch of buildings that had been torn down,” explained Jack. “My job was to actually go in and recreate the exact angle [at which] these 40-year old photographs were taken. We ended up superimposing (laying one thing over another) the photos. They made an iPad app and an interactive website online all about it. It was a book dedicated to the ‘Then and Now’ of Dallas.”
Emotions play a huge role when someone starts to take pictures. There are many external influences such as noises and scenes that may affect one’s success when taking important photographs. For instance, one of Jack’s first published photos was that of a sad-looking woman holding a leftover cover of a photo album. This photo album was all that was recovered after her house burned down when firefighters failed to assist in putting out the flames. “The firehouse could not have been more than 500 feet away from this poor woman’s house. It was an emotionally charged moment and I felt really bad for her, which made my job that much more difficult,” Jack said.
Jack also took pictures at the restaurant owned by an Ethiopian husband and wife who had been murdered, as well as the church that they had both attended. “When we went to their church, I noticed many people screaming and crying. I was contemplating whether or not to take a picture of the scene before my eyes. It was stressful for both the mourners and myself and was unfamiliar territory for me. I was unable to figure out how they would react if I were to take pictures of them. After taking a few pictures, they threw me and the other photographers out of the church.”
Aside from those stressful and emotional photography outings, Jack was able to attend many local events and activities in the Dallas area. He went to Rangers games, snapped photos at a “Tenacious D” concert, and even got to witness “The World’s Largest Pie Fight.” In order to take such high-quality pictures at such events Jack had to use the Dallas Morning News’ special photographic equipment. “Their equipment was incredible,” Jack commented. “[The camera] must have been worth about $7,000. They also let me borrow a 17-inch Mac Laptop to edit and compile photos at my pleasure, and some specialty camera lenses that individually cost between six and eleven thousand dollars each.”
Jack had to take a number of pictures at each of the places he went. However, the number of pictures needed depended on the type of assignment: whether it was based on something that was happening in the present or on something that had happened in the past. Like any school assignment or important project, Jack had to submit five of his best photos to the photo editors for them to be selected for publication the next day. The other photos would be used in the online archives and for other related articles.
If you want to see some of Jack’s great Jesuit photography, check out the many articles in The Roundup that showcase his talent. Also, be sure to take a look at some of his snapshots from the recent Global Ireland Football Tournament in Dublin!
