Photo Breakdown #13 with Jamie Rose

Jamie Rose is co-Founder and COO of Momenta Group, LLC, which owns Momenta Workshops, Momenta Creative, and manages Wildfire Media, a nonprofit dedicated to documentary storytelling. Her early career was spent in the halls of power as a Press Corps photojournalist covering Capitol Hill and the White House, primarily as a long-term contract for The New York Times.  Her passion for working with nonprofits led her to documentary coverage of humanitarian and health crisis in Africa, North and South America, and the Middle East. Her clients included organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, The Calvert Foundation, The Global Fund, and Physicians for Human Rights among others.

In this episode, Jamie Rose shares what went into a photograph from one of her workshop clients, Sarah Jane Holden. Jamie was the photo editor for this piece, and this conversation approaches it from that angle.

• Find Jamie at Momenta Workshops
• See the photo from this episode here
• See Sarah’s other photos here

Transcription was done by Descript or Rev’s automated transcription services which means it’s an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain spelling, grammar, and other errors, and is not a substitute for listening to the episode.

Jamie Rose: I am Jamie Rose, and this is the photo breakdown.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Photo breakdown is a podcast where I talk with the photographer, sharing the story of a specific photograph technique or business when I’m your host, Scott Wyden Kivowitz and this is the photo breakdown. Let’s break it down. Hello, my name is Scott White giveaway, your host of photo breakdown.

And today I am sitting down with Jamie rose to talk about a photo that actually isn’t Jamie’s photo. So this is, this is a, this is going to be a fun one. I’m really excited to talk about this one. And it’s going to be a first for the podcast as well, which is going to be really interesting. Hi, Jamie, welcome to the photo breakdown.

Jamie Rose: Thank you so much for having

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: me. Yeah. So last time we talked, we actually spoke or talked, I should say, face-to-face we, we we actually talked for a different podcast. I was hosting called the WordPress photography podcast, which I’m no longer the host of. But this is, this is, this is my new show and I am happy to have you here.

So. We are going to start with two questions to kick things off, to let the listeners get to know you a little bit. And the first question is what are you not very good at?

Jamie Rose: Oh, so many things in like the photo world.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: It can be wherever, whatever you want to, wherever you want to go with this.

Jamie Rose: I’m not very good at adapting to. New social media.

I get so frustrated with every five minutes there being like a new thing. So it takes me a little while to adapt, but I’m trying really hard to get over that. And I did this year because I embraced club. And I jumped in early and I’ve, I’ve really enjoyed it. And it taught me that I shouldn’t be such a, like fuddy-duddy about, about new ways of communicating, given the fact that I’m a communications professional.

Right.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Right. Well, so has, has clubhouse been a fun thing for you to do or has it been something that actually has been a business generating activity now?

Jamie Rose: Both, but I have to say it has been life-changing and I wouldn’t have expected that because we started a club called documentary storytellers with our nonprofit wildfire media and.

Every Friday for 36 weeks. Now we have been hosting this show called what’s inspiring you this week. And I like, I still can’t get over. The fact it’s been 36 weeks so far straight and every single week, like a core group of people are always on and it’s become this just really bright spot in my week.

And it’s 8:00 AM. Pacific time. So I get to start my Friday with this really like inspirational group of people, photographers, communicators, digital experts, like it’s so great. And we just get to talk about what’s inspiring you this week. And then I met. Through that people at the curious society, which is a new nonprofit dedicated to photojournalism.

And so we’ve been able to partner up on different discussions and they have a Tuesday night group where it’s just a bunch of photographers sitting around talking about like, whatever is the news of the day. And I’ve met so many people that I never would have met before, like from Brazil and India and the Philippines.

And I mean, So entirely different from any other social networking tool that I’ve ever used. And I mean, it’s great because we’ve expanded our, our audience for momenta workshops and wildfire media, and it’s just been really great. So I have to say I was so pleasantly surprised by how it is, and it’s changing quite a bit in the last couple of months.

Definitely. I think that there’s I think there’s a place for it in the world. I don’t think it’s. Take the place of Instagram or Facebook or anything like that, but it’s a really nice community building tool. So

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: that’s so cool. It’s fantastic that you’ve been able to take advantage of something that’s still fairly new to the, to the social media world.

And if for nothing else just build great connections with people all around the world. That’s a, that’s a really cool thing. So before we dive in this episode is sponsored by my lead generation course for photographers called more leads more clients. Yes. If you would like to increase the leads you’re generating on your photography site, you can use the strategies I teach in my course, access it at Scott widen.com/leads.

So my next question to you You’re someone who has photographed a variety of different things over the years. Variety of different types of people over the years as well. And I’m wondering if you could only photograph one thing, one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Jamie Rose: I would, I would go back to doing humanitarian healthcare coverage again.

It was the most inspiring and covering, you know, humanitarian healthcare workers from a documentary perspective was what I consider to be like the greatest honor, especially when the clients and the doctors would allow me into their lives. And I could photograph people, you know, at some of their darkest days and then some of their most jubilant.

And that was, that was really, it was. It was truly an honor of my life. And if I could only, if I have had to go back to photographing on the daily and and I could only do one thing, it would definitely be that,

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: you know, that John rhe of what you could photograph for the past two years would probably make for something extremely interesting.

Seeing, seeing, seeing the ups and downs from like the ERs and the, you know, ICU’s and, you know, as far as. W, you know, even how the doctors are looking during these times, you know, how they, how they go from minimal PPE to full PPE backed in, you know, a little bit less. And then, you know, like seeing, you could almost like being able to track the, the, the, the trend lines of hospitals throughout this you know, in, in photograph it’s.

That would probably have been really interesting.

Jamie Rose: I think so. And not, not to diminish the massive global effect of this pandemic and disease. I think one of the things that it’s done from my perspective, cause I, you know, I haven’t covered, I covered humanitarian work for like almost 20 years. So the, and, and from a healthcare perspective, especially I did a lot of, you know, medical.

Focused coverage. I think the thing that it really taught the rest of the world who is outside of that industry and that, that sort of perspective is this is what doctors do all the time. It just. It just happens to be more intense, but you know, when, when you’re working in a field hospital in the middle of a civil war or at a refugee camp with, you know, a infectious disease outbreak like Colorado or something like that, I mean, this is, this is normal for so many parts of the world that we aren’t exposed to living in a comfortable Western.

Right. The society that I think, you know, we finally opened up the window to say, like, this is an intense job that, you know, you’re holding people’s lives in their hands, but you’re also the, you know, the first person they see at a point of trauma, you could be the last person they see before they die.

Like these people are so vital to our world and they’re so overlooked that in a way, this has been a benefit. If you can say that to understanding what, what those people have to go through. So I think it’s, I think it’s, so I hope it cha I hope that is one of the changes that comes out of this for the perspective of how vital these primary and, you know, daily care medical workers are to, to the health and wellbeing and just, you know, general flow of our society.

Right, right, right. Yeah. They’re always essential worker.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. Yep. That’s for sure. So we’re going to talk about what’s going on in, in the photo work that we’re going to be looking at today in a second and. I, I don’t, I, so I didn’t read up fully on, on this photo yet. So when I, when I hear from using me the first time I hear about this so I’m, I’m, I’m going to be really interested in hearing the story behind this.

And so with that, Let’s break down this photo. We are looking at a photo that my guess is that it was natural light. And it’s sort of got this dark, very natural feel to it. And, but it’s a, it’s a family. You can tell it’s a family of some sort and. I can’t tell where it is, where, where it was photographed.

I mean, I, I can look at the description, but I’m not. I can, I can, you know, I can tell that there’s, there’s a lot of love going on in this photo. So, but this is not your photo. This is a student of yours. This is a student of yours photo. So we’re going to be looking at this or talking about this from.

Your perspective as the photo editor and the mentor of the photographer? Yes. Okay. So what is going on here?

Jamie Rose: Okay. So I, first of all, I’m just, I’m really honored that you. What have you on the show and I’m even more excited that you would allow me to deconstruct a photo from the editor’s perspective, because I think in so many cases, you know, we all fall in love with our own individual photos, but.

Editors fall in love with individual photos as well. And with my work with women to workshops you know, momentous been in operation for 13, almost 14 years in February, and we have. You know, focused our workshop programs are dedicated to documentary storytelling, either through humanitarian storytelling with nonprofits or, you know, we do travel documentary as well.

And. One of the greatest parts of my job is that I get to work with so many different photographers on every workshop. You know, they’re small workshops. We have a maximum of 15 people that come on them and. This particular photo came from one of our project series, which is documenting non-profits. And this photographer’s name is Sarah Jane Holden.

She is a photographer based in Washington, DC, and she focuses her work now predominantly on women and maternal health women’s health and maternal health. And she was working with this organization called ma’am, which is a nonprofit that. Works with midwives in Puerto Rico. And Sarah is one of those amazing photographers that came from a completely different background.

And I know that she would not be upset if I say this, she brings that baggage of imposter syndrome. With her, not because she doesn’t feel like she’s worthy, but because there’s so many people in our industry that, you know, will say like, oh, well, you didn’t go to this school or you didn’t have this training.

Or so when she first came on the workshop, you know, she would say, Well, I’ve just started out being a photographer. You know, I had this other career and she would always, you know, try to blow off the career. But one of the things that that was so important was she was a trained speech pathologist.

She’s multiple degrees in this. She, she worked with children. Her whole life. And then she’s turned her camera towards the experience of maternal health and women’s health. And, and so she brings this excellent perspective that photographers really need to understanding their subjects because she is a mother.

And she also worked with children for so much that she has this natural ease around her subjects, but this particular photo and the reason why I chose. Is there are so many things that I love about it. Yes, it is natural light. One of the things that I think a lot of photographers get very frustrated with is, you know, having to work, especially when you’re doing humanitarian.

You know, a lot of organizations are pretty much only open nine to five. So we don’t get that like gorgeous golden hour. They operate indoors under terrible fluorescent lighting or, you know, bad, bad light, as you say. And then there’s a lot of, you know, there can be a lot of process and protocols and things like that, that go into this work.

So it can be really frustrating, but. At the same time when your subjects are so enthusiastic about you being there and are really excited to work with you, you know, you get these like beautiful, happy moments that can come from this type of work. And this photo is just one of them. I, I, we had during our workshops every night, you know, people, people go out during the day, they’re documenting their non-profits and then they come back and you’d have a one hour editing session with your.

And I was editing Sarah this day. And so, you know, we pull up her whole take in photo mechanic. We look at everything soup to nuts, even the bad stuff. And typically what I do as an editor is I’ll pull up the, the whole contact sheet. And then I’ll just like really quickly scroll through in a slideshow just to see, like, what did you do today?

Let me get a feel for it. And when. Looking at this take, this photo popped up and usually I’m scrolling through like pretty fast, like, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay, cool. Good. Just get a feel for it. This company popped up and I still remember pausing and going, whoa, this, this first of all, is this photo came out of the camera.

Almost exactly like this. There’s very little post-production on this image at all, but I mean, I instantly thought. Th this is, this is a butter cellie. This is a, this is the perfect Fibonacci spiral in a photo. First of all. And second of all, I was like, this moment is just stunning. The light is beautiful.

It’s it has Madonna and child with Joseph, which I think is really important. Because we, we tend to focus a little, we see a lot of, especially in maternal health, a lot of mother and child. But this one had the whole family and it’s just, it’s a perfect portrait. And, and the thing that I just loved about it is when I said, oh, this is so amazing.

Sara’s instant reaction was what? No, it’s not that great. I was like, what? She was like, no, it’s no, I mean, it’s whatever, it’s fine. And I said, Sarah, first of all, I’m the coach. Second of all, you know, by this point, I feel like I know really good photography at this point. This is really good. You need to believe in yourself to believe that this is, you need to believe me.

Just trust me, even if you don’t believe it right now. And. And I just, I, I love the image for the simplicity. I love the light. I love the color. I mean, we have like such a gorgeous color palette and it’s completely, unstaged, it’s completely unposed. She was actually trying to get a different image and the baby just would not cooperate, but that’s the perfection of it.

And and I think that’s, that’s one of the joys of being an editor. You know, we, we say on our workshop, We basically, if you’re, you know, if you want to come and instruct for us, like people will say like, I want to be an instructor and I want to go to like India or whatever. And I’m like, you must understand that the majority of your time is spent in a hotel meeting room.

We don’t get to go out and shoot a lot, but the photographers bring the world to us and. It’s such a special experience to be able to see a photographer like Sarah just grow and flourish in her photography and get more comfortable so that she can make such lovely images like this.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: The photo definitely.

Basically defines what a documentary style photo is. Right? So a hundred percent natural from, from nobody looking at the camera. They’re there. They’re trying to engage with their daughter to get the daughter to cooperate, which obviously is never going to happen. That’s not what happens with combined with natural light or whatever light was available.

Right. It’s if she. Lights into the, into the scene, it’s going to change the entire dynamic of the scene. And I might even argue that the most beautiful light is the available light without you making a mess of it, right. Or like trying to, to control it. Which of course could have its own problems.

Like you said, Combine a combine, a window with, with, with fluorescent lighting it and you just got a whole new can of worms you gotta deal with. But as you said, the colors from. The mother shirt, the daughter shirt, the daughters shorts and, and even their skin tones are just so good. It just, it’s just, it really is a beautiful photo and I’m actually, it’s great to hear.

It makes me feel good to hear that not much editing was done to it because I’m, I’m personally a fan of less is more in many cases, especially when it comes to this style photography. Less is definitely more

Jamie Rose: so. Yeah, we definitely, we, you know, when we’re teaching documentary workshops and when it comes to post-production, you know, our, our philosophy is we follow the ethical journalistic standards of the documentary work because.

People need to be able to trust the nonprofits that use this work. And, you know, the idea is to train photographers, how to work with nonprofit organizations as they go forward. And it is an entirely different ball of wax. You know, some people say like, I don’t understand why you have to take a class on how to shoot for nonprofits.

And, you know, my response is like, trust me. It is like no other client you’ve ever had before, because. You’re playing, you know, part editorial, photojournalism, and also you have to look at it from a PR donor perspective. So you, you have to weigh both of those options of, of how you’re going to approach the scene.

And we teach everyone, you know, there has to be hope and there has to be needed. All pictures of need and it looks like it’s the most depressing, horrible situation you’ve ever seen. Donors are going to look at that and say, what, like, why are we donating you guys? Obviously aren’t making any kind of a difference, but if you don’t show that hope of like, Hey, look at what happens like this photo.

For example, when we have a maternal health organization that is teaching. Family healthcare, not just mother and child, but involving the fathers, involving the parents, involving the mothers in their own birth plans. Like these will create family dynamics that create moments like this. And that’s why these pictures are so important.

So when it comes to the post, you know, yeah. The idea of. Doing hyper manipulation and filters and, you know, adding backgrounds and everything like that. Like, no one’s going to trust a nonprofit. They’re just going to be like, oh, that stock photography. We have no idea what it really looks like in that facility.

And then this way, you know, it’s connecting people. To that nonprofit and taking photographers like Sarah and training them on how to get, how to get the access that you need to programs like this and how to make people in a, in a medical situation comfortable. I mean, she’s photographing women in, you know, exams, pelvic exams, and, you know, places that are live birth is where.

Babies, literally coming out of people. So like, you know, how do you make people feel comfortable with a camera right up in there? Right. And then how do you, how do you become that fly on the wall? Like what we see in this image, which I think is a Testament to the photographer itself.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: You know, I I’m I’m, so I’m looking at Sarah’s website right now and I’m looking at her with woman.

And, and so that’s this whole series. Yeah. Right, right. So, I think there’s what, like maybe eight photos from that series on, in her portfolio on our website from this. So I do recommend everybody. Who’s listening. After you check out the photo, we’re talking about click over to Sarah’s website and also check out this series as well.

And our other photos, her photos are amazing. I love that she’s keeping the. Hi ISO noise in there. You know, she’s office, obviously, she’s still going with whatever lights available and in some of these photos, you can even see the curtains are closed. So there’s not much light option. So there’s, I love that the high ISO noise is still in there.

It really gives you that sense of look, I literally am, like you said, a fly on the wall. Staying out of your way, just documenting what’s going on right now in your life type of, you know, type of stories going on. And She’s got really cool framing. There’s a photo of, I’m assuming it’s like two nurses going to two separate rooms and there’s a scale in B in the middle.

It’s just perfect framing. So, you mentioned that she has imposter syndrome

Jamie Rose: had. Momenta workshop. She was like, oh, well, I’m just not a professional yet. And we’re like, you are totally a professional. You got this girl, this, you just need to, you need to stretch those stretch, those creative legs. And I would hope that that isn’t there.

I mean, come on, we all struggle with imposter syndrome. I think that’s pretty accurate, but I don’t, I, I would hope that she doesn’t have that anymore. And, and one of the things that I say in, in the, you know, in the behind the frame analysis that we did of this particular picture is. Photo editors, you know, when, when they believe in you, I listened to them.

I think it’s so important that, you know, when, when we do struggle with that imposter syndrome and we do struggle with being ultra critical of our own work, you know, when someone else says like, I love this picture you to take a tip from, from mama rose, which was when somebody gives you a compliment, say thank you and believe it.

And I think that’s really important is. You know, believe it when the editors say like, this is awesome, well done, you know, and embrace it and enjoy it. Cause as, as we have on our very last slide of orientation, photography is supposed to be fun. So embrace it. When it, when you, when you really hit all of those targets, like this image, I think is the big lesson

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: well said.

Well, Jamie, thank you so much for breaking down this photo with me. I got another question for you. What should I have asked?

Jamie Rose: Well, I would say how do people sign up for a Momenta workshop? Probably.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Nice. Well, so, so that’s kind of going into my next question, which is where can listeners connect with you online? So

Jamie Rose: I would say, well, I went to workshops.com. If you go to the workshop section, you’ll see all of the different programs that we have. Our 2022 lineup is coming out slowly, but we are going back to in-person next year. We’re very excited. We’ve got some really incredible programs coming up. Our, our new Orleans workshop is perhaps my favorite, but Puerto Rico is a very close second.

I absolutely love the workshop where this, this photo came from. And please check us out on Instagram as well. Facebook Twitter, LinkedIn, all those good places. And you can find us at at momenta workshops and almost everywhere.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Perfect. Thank you for listening to photo breakdown for the show notes and to see the photo share today.

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