C.S. Muncy on Capturing Campus Protests and the UN General Assembly with Film

Established journalist and photographer C.S. Muncy is a veteran Lomographer, having his first appearance in our magazine back in 2013. Over the past decade C.S. has continued his phenomenal work covering current and worldly events while retaining analogue photography as a part of his professional practice. Fast forward to today, he has kindly sat down to catch our community up on his recent assignments, share his LomoChrome Color '92 shots featured in his Fstoppers review, as well as to talk a bit about his time studying human rights at Columbia University in relation to his documentary work.

Hi C.S., welcome back to Lomography Magazine! It's been a few years since we last chatted with you, could you fill us in on what you've been up to since then?

Quite a bit! I went back to school and graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Human Rights. My last months were during all of the campus protests, and I spent my time waxing back and forth between cramming for finals and being on assignment to cover them. I worked with a small crew of about four folks — all students or former students — who still had access to campus while it was otherwise locked down, which gave us a unique perspective on the whole thing.

Prior to heading back to school I was working down in Washington D.C. as a photographer working out of the White House Press Briefing Room, before COVID hit and most of us were kicked out. Other than that I’ve started moving towards television news in addition to my still work.

Can you tell us a bit about the images that you shared?

Most of these images come from my time in Washington. The Press Briefing Room is an odd little place, particularly during this era. There was a lot of boredom broken by moments of panic. Your day would start early, showing up and setting up your ladder to secure a spot followed by hours of just sort of hanging around until the scheduled event happened. Sometimes this was an arrival or departure on the South Lawn, sometimes it was a state visit or an impromptu press conference.

Whenever possible, I like to shoot panoramas using either my Hasselblad XPan bodies or a Widelux. The multiple exposure image during a Trump departure was an accident, really — if you don’t set the camera to “Advance” it will keep exposing to the same spot on the roll — but I believe the shot was the kind of happy accident that really shows the chaos of that sort of a moment.

How does incorporating film photography into your documentary practice complement your creative visions?

Shooting film gives me a little extra time and room to breathe, creatively speaking. Unlike my digital images, which I was expected to file almost as soon as they were shot, I can spend my time creating a body of work with my analogue material. Moreover, you can’t really replicate panoramas using digital cameras, you can only sort of emulate the look by cropping. Even medium format cameras like the Fuji GFX line aren’t really the same, as the sensor size is still smaller than what you get with the XPan or Widelux.

Has your background in journalism contributed to your decision to study Human Rights at Columbia University?

I feel the two really compliment each other. I wanted to enter a program that would help me stand apart from more traditional journalism student pipelines, and Human Rights seemed like the perfect approach to that.

In that same breath, have your studies changed your perspective on your approach to shooting at all?

In a way. I try to keep in mind the kind of power dynamics that can be at play when taking a photo, and my courses at school helped highlight areas of that which I might have otherwise missed or ignored.

Can you tell us a bit about what it's like shooting events such as the UN General Assembly?

Covering UNGA reminded me a bit of covering the White House. You still had to navigate the heavy security, find your area and lay claim to a spot, but there was also a lot of sitting around waiting for things to happen. The UN Press Office was extremely helpful when I was having access issues with the UN security folks.

So I show up, staked out a spot and spent the next few hours covering folks coming and going — but I was there specifically to capture imagery of Biden, so I couldn’t stray too far from the waiting area. When he arrived, we were escorted into the media booth surrounding the General Assembly, a kind of horse-shoe pattern of cubby holes surrounding the room. We were able to move more or less freely for the duration, though we had to do so in circulating groups of ten. You also had to be extremely quiet, and make sure all of your gear was secured to your person — I imagine it would have been fairly embarrassing (and possibly an international incident) if I dropped a heavy camera onto a diplomat or head of state.

Why is it important for you to pursue such historical documentations?

It’s important to have visual traces and records from a diverse variety of perspectives and viewpoints. There are some stories where, twenty years later, we're still trying to assemble the pieces and put together a coherent and truthful perspective that’s not just an exercise in public affairs.

If you could go back in time and offer your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?

I’m not sure I’d change much. I’d probably give some advice about taking better physical care of myself — the list of body parts that don’t hurt these days is probably shorter than the list of things that do hurt — but I don’t think I’d change much otherwise. I’m happy with the way things have turned out. I like the path my life and work has taken, and I don’t think I’d want to change much of it.

Do you have any upcoming work that our community can keep an eye out for?

Nothing I can share just yet, but there are several projects percolating and in the process of completion.

If you're interested in keeping up with C.S. and his work make sure to check out his website and Instagram.

written by eloffreno on 2024-12-13 #culture #news #people #lomographer #news #journalism #coverage #lomoamigo #journalist #photojournalist