Hundreds of square miles of Appalachian ridges, like this one in Madison, W.V., have been dismantled by mountaintop removal mining to reach the coal below. Mining companies are averse to overhead observation, and Kendrick had to go out of state to find a helicopter operator willing to take him there.
Photo: © Robb Kendrick
graphic] called up and asked me if I would go down to Antarctica. ‘We’re not asking you,’ [the editors] said, ‘we’re telling you we need you to go.’ So I ended up doing that for six weeks. And then they called me six weeks later and asked me to go to Labrador up in Canada, and I just said, ‘I don’t live in Texas because I love the cold weather!’ I didn’t want to become pigeonholed, and the Geo- graphic does start pigeonholing you. So I told them ‘no’ to Labrador, and then I got asked to do a story on rice, which was cul- tural, and commodity-based, and very complicated. It was twelve different countries around the world, and I just loved figuring out all the logistics. SEJournal: Your travels to cover the coal story took you to a
number of different countries and cultures. When you seek to get photographs of subjects like the Chinese coal workers, what’s your approach?
Kendrick: In China, I did not go in with a journalism visa, be-
cause I didn’t want a Chinese minder. I just went in as a tourist. Traveling outside the U.S., you try to check your own perspectives, on what’s right and what’s wrong, at the door. A lot of times I’ve got my game plan of where I’m going and what I’m trying to ac- complish, but I’m also always looking for interesting diversions along the way that might be more interesting. I’m always following
my intuition.
The Chinese officials, of course, would not allow us anywhere near their coal production. The way I had to do it was basically go around locked gates. I ended up getting kicked out of their coal depot three or four times, but that’s the only way I could get any glimpse of anything there. [The coal story overall] was by far the hardest story I’ve ever done, because just about everywhere I went anywhere in the world I wasn’t welcome. And the first three weeks I was out there were just miserable. Every day it was just so hard to get a picture. SEJournal: Your web site states, “I do NOT Facebook. I do
NOT Linkedin. I do NOT blog. NO Flickr. NO Tumblr. What is Twitter?” Do you utilize any sort of social media? Kendrick: Not at all. I’ve never tweeted or seen a tweet. I know what Instagram is supposed to do, but I’ve really never seen it. For me, I always just explain it like tools. We all have tools in our toolbox. It probably is a great tool for a lot of people. It’s just not for me. My life is not so interesting that I need to let you know what I’m doing every day, or send you a picture every day. But when I do send an e-mail or make a call, then I’m doing it because I feel like I have something important to say. I just choose not to use those other tools.
14 SEJournal Spring 2016
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