Thirty Years in Photojournalism

From the Cavalier Courier to the New York Times

*(L-R) Allison Rabinovitz, Courtney Butler, Sean Rayford, Hannah Cole, and Nora Koch, Cavalier Courier staff, spring of 1997, in Baltimore, Maryland.*

by Sean Rayford

Thirty years ago, Nora Koch and Jessie Moser recruited me as the photographer for the South Carroll High School Cavalier Courier student newspaper.

It was the fall of ’96 and our school paper was about to be axed for the first semester.

But Nora and Jessie weren’t having it and they joined forces with Mrs. McElroy, who used her planning period to advise and host our student staff of three.

As a high school senior, Nora was a journalism prodigy of sorts, interning that year with The Baltimore Sun as a teenager. I didn’t know much about journalism but I could make photos — and process film and make prints in the school darkroom.

Most of my high school photo assignments were things like Student of the Month and sports coverage. But come the spring semester, I did a story on the Bloodhound Gang.

I ended up on a tour bus, got my first real photo pass and got to step backstage and see the shenanigans.

And in this case, it was Jimmy Pop throwing slices of ham against a mirror and unraveling a stage banner with a hard-on-wielding McGruff the Crime Dog.

This led to a string of concerts that I photographed, a fake Rolling Stone press pass, The Gamecock Newspaper at the University of South Carolina, Prince, Elton John, Dave Grohl, Piebald and New Brookland Tavern.

After college I interned at the local daily newspaper, and eventually was freelancing for most newspapers in the state.

But that only lasted a few years before all those assignments disappeared as the industry collapsed. Fortunately, in 2015 I started shooting for Getty Images, The New York Times, The Associated Press and other national outlets.

But like every other photojournalist I know, the work in photojournalism can’t fund the career and we use commercial, event, portrait and other types of photography to pay many of our bills.

Even though I’ve been a photojournalist for three decades, I’ve always been something else. Student, record store clerk, bartender, commercial photographer, and most recently, educator.

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