Affordable Light

"Rev. Joan Wharton poses for a portrait at Evergreen AME Church on August 13, 2013, in Baltimore, Maryland. Wharton, 63, earns a stipend, but no health insurance, as pastor at her church and is looking forward to getting insurance through the Affordable Care Act."

Photojournalists may have different visions on how they approach subjects and the world - it is after all a telling art. But one thing we all have in common is being problem solvers.

Sometimes assignments are smooth sailing - you get what exactly what was assigned. Other times you're left to do some heavy rowing.

I ask a lot of questions; however, there is a fine line with editors. They're busy men and women, and the last thing they need is to be continually bothered that you can't find where you're going, your credential wasn't at the stadium or things are polar opposite of what everyone originally thought.

While I didn't need to worry about the aforementioned during this assignment, I did need to improvise.

My assignment was straight forward: make calming images of Rev. Joan Wharton. She earns a stipend, but no health insurance, as pastor of her church. But she thrilled to be getting insurance through the Affordable Care Act and I needed to show that in the images.

The kicker was that my assignment called for natural light. The problem with that was that Baltimore was hit with a nasty storm all morning - dark and dreary. Not a problem, I could easily make images inside with soft window light.

Alas the church had no windows.

Being prepared for anything, I artificially lit my subject in a few different areas of the small church.

In the end, it strayed from the original idea, but conveyed the same mood, story. This is a prime example of problem solving being a necessary tool in every photographer's bag.