When I first (re)arrived in Groningen in the summer of 2011, I had just left my job as a staff photographer at a daily newspaper in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I was taking the plunge to become a freelancer, ambiguous and ambitious as it was. It was by choice, but also not: I loved being a staff photographer, but when I was finally able to legally immigrate to the Netherlands, I jumped without looking back.
Still, I loved the unpredictability of every new day at a paper as well as the certainty that there would be a steady stream of assignments for me to cover. Granted, there were usually at least five of them crammed into each day, and it was always a race against speed limits and dead lines to get it all done on time. But I really, really loved it.
I still love photography desperately, and I have been lucky to get to do some very meaningful work for NGOs in the past couple years, as well as to photograph the weddings of many international and Dutch couples throughout the Netherlands.
That is all still true, but early in 2012, I sent an email in my then very tentative Dutch to a publication called the Universiteitskrant, which, at the time, was a weekly independent paper that covered the massive community encompassed within the University of Groningen. Then, I emailed them again in May. Then again, in November. Then, I stopped trying - until, a year later, in December of 2013, I had built up the confidence to actually just walk in the damn door and ask the staff if they needed someone like me.
By that time, they had become an online publication with daily news and a print edition three times a year, and they needed more writers. It wasn't a photography job, but it was a job at a newspaper. I went in for an interview and found out that I had been hired to work for them as a freelancer via email while I was actually in a guest bedroom at my brother's house in North Carolina, visiting home for Christmas. It was a really great gift: a job!
So, I have been writing at least two articles a week since the beginning of January, and for the past two months I have also served as the International Editor for the paper. I translate and proofread the English-language articles written by the freelancers, as well as aiming to be the go-to person for the growing international student community in Groningen.
Even though it's by and large a writing gig, I have managed to take some photos I'm really proud of to go along with my written work - mostly in English, but a couple of times in Dutch. Since the paper follows the academic year's schedule, we're off for the summer, so I have the time to sit back, reflect on how incredibly lucky I feel to get to work so hard on something I love again, and share some of the work from my first six months of which I'm the most proud.
Still, I loved the unpredictability of every new day at a paper as well as the certainty that there would be a steady stream of assignments for me to cover. Granted, there were usually at least five of them crammed into each day, and it was always a race against speed limits and dead lines to get it all done on time. But I really, really loved it.
I still love photography desperately, and I have been lucky to get to do some very meaningful work for NGOs in the past couple years, as well as to photograph the weddings of many international and Dutch couples throughout the Netherlands.
That is all still true, but early in 2012, I sent an email in my then very tentative Dutch to a publication called the Universiteitskrant, which, at the time, was a weekly independent paper that covered the massive community encompassed within the University of Groningen. Then, I emailed them again in May. Then again, in November. Then, I stopped trying - until, a year later, in December of 2013, I had built up the confidence to actually just walk in the damn door and ask the staff if they needed someone like me.
By that time, they had become an online publication with daily news and a print edition three times a year, and they needed more writers. It wasn't a photography job, but it was a job at a newspaper. I went in for an interview and found out that I had been hired to work for them as a freelancer via email while I was actually in a guest bedroom at my brother's house in North Carolina, visiting home for Christmas. It was a really great gift: a job!
So, I have been writing at least two articles a week since the beginning of January, and for the past two months I have also served as the International Editor for the paper. I translate and proofread the English-language articles written by the freelancers, as well as aiming to be the go-to person for the growing international student community in Groningen.
Even though it's by and large a writing gig, I have managed to take some photos I'm really proud of to go along with my written work - mostly in English, but a couple of times in Dutch. Since the paper follows the academic year's schedule, we're off for the summer, so I have the time to sit back, reflect on how incredibly lucky I feel to get to work so hard on something I love again, and share some of the work from my first six months of which I'm the most proud.
Bram Reinders (right), founder of the Facebook page Groningers in Revolt, waits along with other protestors for the arrival of Dutch coalition member Diederik Samsom at Vita Nova in Middelstum. Residents of the province are fed up with a perceived lack of action by the national government to protect them from and compensate them for the damage from the man-made earthquakes resulting the extraction of natural gas.
Coalition member and Labor MP Diederik Samsom tries to address the concerns of frustrated Groningen residents while flanked by national media at a town hall meeting in Middelstum to address the ongoing earthquake crisis in the province. This is the article covering the event (in Dutch):
Samsom stapt hol van de leeuw binnen
Samsom stapt hol van de leeuw binnen
Love at first sight at welcoming ceremony
The rest are articles and interviews that I am proud of:
Sexy Science - the undefinable but infinitely fascinating field of sexology at the RUG
Louis is Opening Up - a Chinese exchange student is out, for the first time in his life.
We need internationals - on how the future of the university depends on incoming foreign students
A Lousy Annual Tradition - PhD students working based on financial aid are caught between the tax services and their not-exactly employers
Victims of Identity Theft Keep Coming - a scam to steal student's identities result in hundreds of thousands of Euros being wrongly claimed, and some internationals are only now realizing they're victims
The rest are articles and interviews that I am proud of:
Sexy Science - the undefinable but infinitely fascinating field of sexology at the RUG
Louis is Opening Up - a Chinese exchange student is out, for the first time in his life.
We need internationals - on how the future of the university depends on incoming foreign students
A Lousy Annual Tradition - PhD students working based on financial aid are caught between the tax services and their not-exactly employers
Victims of Identity Theft Keep Coming - a scam to steal student's identities result in hundreds of thousands of Euros being wrongly claimed, and some internationals are only now realizing they're victims