I was saddened a few weeks back to hear that Algonquin College was dropping it’s Creative Photography program along with a number of other programs including it’s radio broadcasting program.

The programs that are being cut are a sign of the times, I guess. Anyone who owns a Smart phone these days fancies themselves a “photographer” and since there are very few radio broadcasting jobs left anymore, the program has become redundant.

The Creative Photography program is the last vestige of what was once the Photography Technician program, of which I am a proud alum, having graduated in 1982.

My decision to go to Algonquin College after high school was a rather controversial one, in so much as my father’s expectations were concerned. You see, the plan was to go to the University of Waterloo to study economics and international finance, but that never happened due to one faithful day while I was on a job shadowing program in Grade 12.

Throughout high school I had a keen interest in photography and would often take pictures at school events. In fact, the 1980 school yearbook has a number of my pictures in it.

One of the courses I took in Grade 12 allowed each student to spend a week job shadowing in an industry they had a particular interest in. Most of my classmates chose office type work with an accounting firm, or a law office, while others chose a veterinarian’s office. I chose the Canadian Press bureau on Wellington Street.

The chief photographer at the time was Fred Chartrand who was, and still is, a bit of a legend in Canadian photojournalism.

During the first four days I was there, I basically followed Fred and the other CP staffers around from one assignment to another. It wasn’t until the final day that I was allowed to actually shoot something. Pierre Trudeau was holding a press conference at the National Press Theatre next door and Fred told me to grab my camera and take a few pictures.

I excitedly did what he said and shot a bunch of pictures of Trudeau answering questions from members of the Press Gallery.

At first, after I returned to the bureau, Fred didn’t say anything. Shortly after I got back, Trudeau’s personal photographer, Peter Bregg. came in behind me.

“Who’s the kid?,” he asked Fred.

“Ah, he’s just here on a work experience program. He’s been here all week,” Fred answered.

“Well, whoever he is, he has good timing. I was standing behind him. You should check out his film,” Peter told him. To which Fred told me to go process the two rolls I shot.

After I processed the film and it had sufficient time to dry, Fred edited what I had shot, notched two frames and told me to make a couple of prints which he then proceeded to put on the wire. The “wire” is the term used to describe sending a picture out to every publication that is a member of the Canadian Press agency.

I remember being over the moon that he had chosen to put two of my pictures on the wire. But I was not prepared for what followed. The next day I went to the local Mac’s Milk store to buy a chocolate bar and a Coke and happened to glance at the newsstand where I saw the picture I had taken of Trudeau the day before, gracing the front pages of the Toronto Star, the Montreal Gazette and the Globe & Mail.

I was so excited I ended up buying five copies of each paper and right then and there I decided I wanted to be a news photographer, but I didn’t dare tell my father. It wasn’t until the following year – we had a fifth year of high school back then called Grade 13 which was for people who intended to go to university – after I had already applied to the photography program at Algonquin College that I told him.

He was not amused. In fact, we barely spoke to each other for the next 10 years until I photographed Leonard Cohen while working for the Montreal Daily News in 1988 and presented him with an autographed 11x17 photo of Cohen that he accepted my career choice. Even then, my path to photojournalist wasn’t a smooth one.

After I arrived at Algonquin College, I developed a love of studio photography under the tutelage of my professors, Gunther Leonhardt and Werner Reitboeck, who are legends in their own right.

After graduating from Algonquin in 1982, I pursued a career in studio photography in Toronto. I must have knocked on a dozen doors that summer but no one was hiring, except for fashion photographer Straun Campbell-Smith, who offered me a part-time apprenticeship job. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to pay the bills so I returned to Ottawa and started working as a freelance news photographer for the Ottawa Citizen, which started me down the path to becoming a writer and eventually the owner of the Orléans Star – all thanks to the time I spent at Algonquin College.

(If you wish to comment on this or any other View Point column please write to Fred Sherwin at fsherwin@orleansstar.ca)