A Photographer's Life

CHAPTER 2Mike Rotunno—Press Photographer

Working at a high school newspaper involved taking pictures, but I really did not know or think much about journalism. I didn’t grasp the fact that images could really communicate. But I did learn the intimacies of film processing, making prints, and learning the fine points of various camera systems. I worked nights at a railroad freight house where my cultural horizons expanded as one of four white kids from suburbia in a sea of black co-workers. I poured the savings I’d earned from unloading heavy rolls of carpet from freight cars into purchasing my first Nikon camera and the rolls of film to load into it.

After graduating from high school, and with college not in my original plan, I managed a couple ...