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SEJournal: Is most of the work you do now for the Geo-


graphic, or do you have a mix of other clients you work with as well?


Kendrick: Eighteen months ago, I kind of put things on hold. I’ve done a few assignments, but I’ve basically pulled back from doing photography, not just at the Geographic, but with everybody. Over 28 years, I’ve invested in a lot of real estate and some other things that provide a level of income. I was always interested in hav- ing diversity. Photography was always financially good, but the last three years, it’s definitely gone down. It’s been a little odd, to tell you the truth. You build up a business for almost 30 years, and it treats you really well and gives you a lot of opportunities you could never dream of having. So it was hard the first few months to just kind of let it wither away a bit.


The good thing is I’ve had a lot of time to focus on my kids and my wife, a luxury that I haven’t had in the past. The last 12 months I’ve been so happy not dealing with day rates and rights. I still love photography and I still want to do it, but I have been so happy to be away from the white noise of the whole photojournal- ism world, and what it’s become with all these different ways of communicating. SEJournal: Can you elaborate on some of the changes you’ve seen in photojournalism? Kendrick: Magazines are in a tough environment these days. There are a lot of unrealistic expectations placed on photographers. Shoot stills, shoot video, gather audio, post to Instagram, Tweet, and do it all with no additional time or pay so they can run the con- tent on all the different platforms. At some point you have to decide whether you’re a photographer or a multi-platform story content provider. Some say you have to accept these as conditions of the evolved work place. If you enjoy them, great! But if you feel you have to accept them, you’ll eventually be unhappy and your work will suffer. There’s never been a bigger need or appetite for photography


than today, and it just grows every day. But it’s a big belly needing to be filled, and it’s like fast food, just something to fill the void and not necessarily quality. There’s not a lot of photojournalism going on these days. Mainly photo illustra- tion, even at National Geographic. I don’t even look at that much pho- tography, because there’s so much of it out there that just looks the same.


Kendrick self-portrait utilizing the tintype process.


SEJournal: What would be your advice to someone trying to go the same route you went, especially if they’re interested in doing envi- ronmental photojournalism? Kendrick: Follow your own heart and your own passion and do things on your terms. If you work really hard and you have some tal- ent, and you’re a person who really cares about things, you’ll be fine. Whether it’s economically viable anymore is another question. I don’t know about that. For a number of


At a coal terminal in China’s Shanxi Province, workers pick rocks from low-priced coal as it moves past on a conveyor belt. Kendrick had to sneak into such places to get pictures, and was repeatedly thrown out.


Photo: © Robb Kendrick


years I taught workshops, and I quit doing that because it’s hard to look at a kid coming out of school and say, ‘You know, if you work hard, have integrity, and you’ve got some talent, and you’ve got common sense about what you do with your finances, you’ll be able to afford a home, raise a family, save for retirement and maybe even help your kids with college.’ It’s a little hard to say that these days.


SEJournal: Do you anticipate that you’ll be doing any more


work for the Geographic? Kendrick: I don’t know, it’s really up to them whether I have value as an image maker or not. I’ve sought to work on projects that aren’t saddled with poor upfront planning or expectations, be- cause once you accept an assignment, it’s all up to you. Instagram, tweeting and video are now required to get a magazine assignment, but since I don’t do social media, I’ve declined those assignments. I don’t judge anybody else, but for me it’s just a total waste of time. You have to realize if you are spending time doing these things, you are not taking photos.


I’ve now got a sculpture studio. I’m going to keep doing my


photography, but I’m going to start doing welding and painting and other non-photographic creative things. I’ve basically decided this is the time I need to try the painting and the sculpture and see where it goes. What photography I do will just be more project-based. SEJournal: What do you think is going to happen at the Geo-


graphic with all the recent changes there? Kendrick: It’ll be interesting over the next two or three years to see how much it changes. It’s now owned by a for-profit enter- tainment company, and that’s a big difference from how it was founded. When you strip away so many of the people who took the [buy-out] package, who had this tremendous amount of experience and a high sense of integrity, what you replace them with will de- termine the future. I’m hopeful they won’t hire people with little ex- perience for lower pay who just don’t know what journalism ethics are, and end up producing stories that look great but aren’t held to the highest standards that have been the backbone of National Ge- ographic. Hopefully they’ll continue to meet all the readers’ high expectations from over the decades. It’s a great publication with so much good standing, but trust is hard to earn and easy to lose.


16 SEJournal Spring 2016


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