Deanne Fitzmaurice, 10/6/10

Last week I, along with a number of other journalism majors and photography enthusiasts had the opportunity to watch Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Deanne Fitzmaurice lecture at Rowan University. The event was hosted in Wilson Hall, which happens to be where I worked, so while I was lucky enough to see most of the lecture, there were a few points where I had to attend to other matters.

Fitzmaurice was very calm and handled herself well on-stage. Unfortunately, the lighting in the auditorium in which the lecture took place (as well as the projector) did not do proper justice to some of the photographs she showed the audience. She had an extensive portfolio - most of which we did not see.

She talked about some of the multimedia projects she worked on - such as the story of Frank and Joe, a gay couple about to be married in San Francisco or Family Kocktail. She reinforced many of the ideas some of my professors have drilled in my head for the past couple of years: Learn as much technology as you can.

Fitzmaurice waited until the end of the lecture to showcase the story of Saleh, which won her the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, which gave her time to show some of her other stories, such as the behind-the-scenes profiles of Barry Bonds, a former MLB baseball player for the San Francisco Giants.

She also discussed some of the benefits and pros of being a backpack journalist, such as having the ability to keep copyright of your photos. The audience came prepared with many questions, and some even stayed behind to ask for more information.

Furthermore, Fitzmaurice came to my photojournalism class the following day to allow us the opportunity to ask more questions and get more advice.