TCF Ep. 488 - Allison Zaucha

The Candid Frame: Conversations on Photography

Ibarionex R. Perello

Cameras, Art, Photoshop, Visual Arts, Career, Interviews, Photographers, Arts, Photography, Photo, Digital

4.8 • 749 Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2019

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Allison Zaucha (b.1991) is an independent award-winning photojournalist based in Los Angeles, California. She is passionate about working on social issues with a variety of news publications and nonprofit organizations. In addition, Allison enjoys developing meaningful storytelling campaigns with brands and commercial clients. She uses the camera as a means of connection, empowerment and understanding. Allison is a member of Women Photograph and NPPA. Her work has been published in Vanity Fair, WIRED, Forbes, Esquire, US News and Report, CNN, ABC News, The Lily, Vox, Baltimore Sun and the historical book Together We Rise: The Official Oral History of the Women’s March by the Organizers. Photographer Links: Education Resources: Candid Frame Resources Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort. You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Transcript

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0:00.0	Becoming a photojournalist today requires more than just a passion for telling stories. With fewer staff
0:23.1	positions available, you have to lead the life of a freelancer, which demands that
0:28.3	you be proficient, both as a storyteller and a business person. Each self-initiated story
0:35.4	has to be considered for its potential audience, its demands on your time, and its ability to earn you an income.
0:43.4	You're keeping a lot of balls in the air.
0:46.4	Alison Zuka does that while telling stories that mean something to her.
0:51.5	By considering the needs of both her nonprofit and editorial clients, she creates opportunities for herself to her. By considering the needs of both her nonprofit and editorial clients,
0:55.5	she creates opportunities for herself that she might never receive if she were
1:00.9	waiting by the phone, waiting for it to ring. She creates her own luck, her own
1:06.9	opportunities. So how I have been working with pitches has been I photograph it first and then
1:13.7	I form a package and then I send it. Largely I started doing that because some stories would
1:19.3	come about and I was like I can't wait for someone to approve it, you know, or if I'm working
1:23.8	with a new editor for the first time, they might not know my work or they might not know me. So just getting out there and making photos first and then talking with
1:32.0	editors, it was how I worked with this project. Managing time is a challenge for anyone with a freelance
1:38.4	career, but especially so for a photographer who has to be present and in the moment to make the photographs.
1:46.2	One has to make sure that the images being produced are making the most of the time allowed.
1:52.1	For Allison, it's about having structure, even though she is working in a documentary tradition,
1:58.8	where the moments can be unexpected and unpredictable.
2:02.8	Well, for me, long form or like a short amount of time, either way I make a shot list before I go in.
2:09.4	That's really helpful for me. I had some help from Mary Vinolis, who's a freelance photo editor.
2:15.1	And she was looking at some of my work years ago.
2:18.8	And she was like, your strongest work
	...

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