Retrieved 20100516 May 16, 2010
Monica Lopossay
Daughter of a truck driver and a mill worker, Monica
Lopossay grew up in rural North
Carolina. At 16, she raised enough money to buy her
first camera by dressing in a 20-pound chicken suit and dancing on the side of
a highway. She was the first person in her family to attend college, working
her way through as a grill cook, a tutor at a Buddhist temple and a car
mechanic. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in international studies and
cultural anthropology from Guilford College in Greensboro,
N.C., and an associate's degree in
photojournalism from Randolph
Community College. In her
last eight years working for The Baltimore Sun, she covered a wide range of
events, including two trips to Iraq
and one to Haiti.
She was honored in 2008 with her third Pulitzer nomination for spot news, as
well as awards from the White House News Photographers Association and National
Press Photographers Association, Best of Photojournalism. She is currently
teaching photojournalism part time at Towson University
and also works for ASTT, a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving the
needs of refugees who are victims of torture and trauma. Other than seeking
full-time employment, she takes care of her two tail-less feral cats, Mokey and
Wembley, in Hampden.
She contributed a sampling of stories from thousands of
amazing moments
in the life of a photographer.
~~~~~~~
I love sharing stories, but I’m not a writer. I usually tell
stories with my photographs or orally. Nonetheless, here are a few stories
dealing with things that happened behind my camera. It was hard to choose just
a few when I can think of thousands of amazing moments I have shared with my
Sun family. (Trying to write this has helped me understand the importance
of a good word editor.)
I fell out of a Black Hawk helicopter in the middle of a
grain field in Iraq. I was trying to get images of our military picking up an
Iraqi boy who had been shot by our guys for setting off an Improvised Explosive
Device. I was not familiar with flying in an aircraft like this one and was
warned immediately to stay in between the painted red cross on the side door when
entering and exiting, or else I’d get my head chopped off by the rotor blades.
I let that sink in.
Once we had taken off, a different soldier told me I would
be jumping out a small side window, one that was clearly outside the painted
red cross zone. I thought this guy was messing with me. In my time working with
the military, I learned quickly that they like to play practical jokes. One
lesson I learned: Never leave your camera lying around a base or you might find
a photo of a soldier’s derriere amid your images of war — about which, later
on, you can decide not to forewarn your photo editor and watch his face display
shock and horror as the image pops up on his computer (priceless).
Once we landed, it wasn’t so much me falling 5 feet out of
this window wearing some 35 pounds of gear, or me tripping another couple of
times running through this field of grasses so high I could barely see the tops
of the medics’ helmets, or praying no sniper bullets were awaiting us
— none of that was so bad as me trying pathetically to get myself back IN
through that tiny window. The helo took off as part of my ass and leg were
still stuck out the window. But I had the photos and I had my head ... kinda.
After a couple weeks in New Orleans covering Hurricane
Katrina and living in my rented Pontiac Aztek (literally the biggest joke in
the sport utility vehicle world, and it was white), I had not bathed, had no
bathroom, and had only eaten Clif Bars (which to this day I cannot go near) and
MREs (the military meals ready to eat; the burritos were actually pretty good).
Being in N.O. was like living in a post-apocalyptic world. But we are
conditioned to keep going — looking for the stories, the people, never
stopping. It’s too important to stop, and you love it. As well for fear that
you’ll miss something big and your boss will yell at you with such force you’ll
get third-degree burns.
*****
