Time Warp

I've just agreed for an additional six months at my internship at the Dubois County Herald in Jasper, Indiana, a paper that doesn't yet have a website but has a devoted subscriber base. I will have been in Indiana for 13 months by the time the internship is over, a tenure I had no idea would be so long. On the downside, it's in a tiny town. On the plus side, the majority of the photographers' time is spent working on long stories that are published in what they call the Saturday Feature. I'm living in a time warp where photos run huge and help determine the content of the paper every single day. I have no clue what I'll do after this. I'm worried that I'll be ill-prepared for reality.



Before getting on the plane yesterday, I captioned two stories that will run while I'm away. I shot a five-part series of stories that dealt with election issues- the Iraq war, healthcare, the economy, energy, and the last will be immigration. Everything is in the can but the immigration story, about a family with a father and provider, Marco, who was jailed for false papers and is about to be deported. His two kids, both U.S. citizens, and his wife are waiting for him to be deported so they can follow him to Mexico-- but it's a hard time for everyone. Perhaps that goes without saying. It feels unreal to have all this time to work on stories. I'm scared about the future. Until then, I'll keep shooting.


Jesse tries on his father's hat. His father, Marco, is in jail awaiting deportation. His mother Norma says that ever since visiting his dad in jail on Saturday, Jesse has hardly eaten anything. "It was harder this Saturday," said Norma, "because now they say he won't be out until January."