Telling The Story

When I first started this blog, many newspaper photographers were staring into a future of cutbacks, layoffs, and competition with everyone's iPhones. Ben Garvin surveyed the landscape from his perch at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. In 2007 he was named Minnesota Photographer of the Year. In 2011 he was named Journalist of the Year by the Minnesota chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Despite the accolades, Garvin knew he was not immune from the large-scale changes occurring across the industry. But this past year, he found refuge by switching lanes. Garvin still works as a still photographer, but now he does it for a TV station: KARE-TV in Minneapolis/St. Paul. And he does it with an innovator's spirit. Last week I shouted out Garvin in my 3 Great Stories segment for a sweetly touching piece about a grandfather and grandson spending the day together at Vikings training camp. Technically Garvin produced a video, but it consisted strictly of still photos with audio weaved in from Garvin's intervie