Making the Most Of A Press Conference

We photojournalist don't like our assignments to be set up. And nothing is more set up than press conferences. While the press conference provides a good occasion to gather reporters from varying news agencies together in one place, it doesn't give way to much interesting art. Public relations do their best to jazz up the scene. But all the glitter in the world doesn't break away from the fact that the scene is scripted. I always try to look for something more than the normal "person behind the microphone" shot. I take time to search out the real story of the event.

This is what I did when I went to a press conference announcing the new women's basketball coach for Chico State. Brian Fogel was the interim coach for the team the last couple of years, and the press conference announced his removal of "interim" from his title. I noticed some of the key players on the women's basketball team had shown up to congratulate their former, newly announced head coach. I stuck around after the press conference had ended to snap a nice emotional shot to convey the mood of the decision. I felt it was much better than a shot of Fogel talking to reporters.

Newly introduced women's basketball coach Brian Fogel (center) hugged players Natasha Smith (left) and Taylor Lydon (right) after taking questions from media during a press conference at CSUC Acker Gym Thursday, August 5, 2010 in Chico, Calif. (Jason Halley/Chico Enterprise-Record)

The new women's basketball coach Brian Fogel was introduced during a press conference at CSUC Acker Gym Thursday, August 5, 2010 in Chico, Calif. (Jason Halley/Chico Enterprise-Record)

When I had arrived back at the office with the photos I came to find out one of our sports reporters, Nick Wilson, who was laying out the sports page that night wanted to search for a file photo of Fogel coaching from last season. I help his search out the image in our archives and he ended up putting a nice package together for the story.

Screenshots of the Sports page C1 and C3 show the layout for the Chico Enterprise-Record story by Travis Souders on Chico State's newly announced women's basketball coach.