As a young photojournalist at my new dream job, I wanted only to learn and do well. My art background made me adept at visuals, but I was shy. I could barely talk to people, and because people are essential to good photojournalism, my timidity held me back.
Along with daily assignments, long-form, intimate stories were a requirement of my job at the Concord Monitor, the daily in New Hampshire’s capital. It was a small paper, but this ambitious focus on photojournalism won it a big reputation among photographers across the country.
Although I could convey a moment and capture peak action and even humor in my pictures, I didn’t know how to wade into situations of emotional intimacy. After discussing the problem with Dan Habib, the paper’s photo editor, I knew I had to try something different. I had heard about approaching an assignment as a fly on the wall, and this appealed to the introvert in me, but I made a conscious decision to break out of that mold. For my next long-form project, I resolved to invest in a close relationship with my subject. Once I had tried it, I decided, I would assess the outcome and move forward.
A couple weeks later, by the luck of the draw, I was assigned an enterprise feature story on a young couple dealing with a case of terminal cancer in the midst of raising three children. The St. Pierres lived just two miles from the Monitor office. The story’s timeline was uncertain, but publication was probably a few months away.
Carolynne watches EJ play in a window.
So I made myself talk. My presence was insignificant in the flow of all that the St. Pierres were coping with, but I tried to open up at the smallest hint of their curiosity. It was Carolynne, the mother who was dying, I became closest to. When the kids were in school and Rich was at work, I hung out with her. In the afternoons, she liked to watch Judge Judy, so I would watch with her. It came to me only later — and I still have to remind myself of this in the frequent rush to get things done — how crucial this time was. Time not making pictures is just as important as time making them. One depends on the other.
That was one of many ways this project became about time. The more time I spent, the closer we grew. I came to realize that Carolynne and her family saw my time as a gift, a sign that I valued them and their story. While I was working, Rich and Carolynne were racing the clock and fighting through treatments, trying to hold back the inevitable and earn more time with the kids.
The experience also taught me how to be in someone else’s space — to act comfortable in uncomfortable situations.
Working closely with reporter Chelsea Conaboy and our editors, we published that first story after a couple months and kept going. We published four more in the span of almost two years. During my time with the St. Pierres, I often felt closer to them than I did to members of my own family. I’ve never worked on a more intimate story.
It was not a subtle sign to me when this piece won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. My approach to my work — and to relationships — was forever changed.
Rich and EJ St. Pierre plant trees in their yard to commemorate Carolynne.
Intimate storytelling, once an idea that frightened me, had turned out to be my strong suit. Subsequent projects have been different, of course, and presented their own challenges. Intimacy and openness are not automatic. But the skills I started developing with the St. Pierres are ones I’ve honed and used again and again in the years since.
But I’ve also stayed in touch with the family and have now known them for more than a decade. EJ was four years old when Carolynne died. In 2013, when he was 11, he and Rich packed up to make a new home in the nearby town of Chichester. What had become a family of two morphed into four when Rich and Kim, his new girlfriend, decided it was time to live together. EJ quickly became close to his new family and now seems to have few memories of his earlier life. His world is in Chichester. My project now explores memory, time and manhood.
Rich St. Pierre throws a line to his son EJ.
Our relationship has become truly familial. Like a distant aunt, I drop into town a few days a year. But our history and connection are deep. I’ve known EJ longer than his current mother. And it’s messy. My yearly visits are a vivid reminder to Rich’s new partner of his other love.
The project is evolving, our relationship is evolving. For a photographer, time is such a gift. As the images I create and the framework of the story change, I sense myself changing with them.