- Jim Lavrakas/Anchorage Daily News
THANKS, DAD
A few months ago I left my job of nearly three decades as a photographer at Alaska’s largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News. In my time at the paper, I took pictures of Eskimos and sled dogs, New Year’s babies, and the homeless. I saw my medium evolve from celluloid film to digitized pixels, from black and white to Technicolor.
Behind the lens I have made a strong connection to the people, places, and events that have shaped my community and my state.
I credit my father with helping me make this journey of 5,500 miles and 27-and-a-half years. My career was spurred by my dad’s love of learning and teaching. A Massachusetts State College graduate of 1940, my father went on to become a professor of chemistry at what is now UMass Lowell, where his tenure spanned 32 years.
When I was 12, he coaxed me downstairs to his darkroom in the cellar. He tried to pique my interest in his pastime, saying “It’s applied chemistry!” “How boring,” I thought. But when that first image began to appear in the developer tray I changed my tune. “That’s not chemistry,” I thought. “That’s magic.” He had me hooked.
From there I realized that this new and expensive hobby would have to pay for itself; perhaps I was the first 14-year-old to sell freelance photos to the Lowell Sun. At a very early age I knew what I wanted to be; if you look at my high school yearbook, under “ambition,” it says “photojournalist.”
UMass Amherst prepared me for journalism by offering me the freedom to explore my curiosity. It gave me the opportunity to learn in a way that included providing me a wide background in liberal arts. It was the kind of education that helped me to easily connect to new people and new challenges when it came time to begin my professional journey in a far-off place.
I moved to Alaska in 1975, a year after graduation, with no real newspaper experience and only a few pieces of equipment. It was a hard sell to get the two newspapers in Anchorage to take me seriously.
After a stint as a ski bum at the local resort, and a couple of years “gandy dancing,” performing track labor on the Alaska Railroad, I opened a freelance business specializing in performing arts photography—something I did a lot of at the Daily Collegian.
I didn’t exactly strike gold, but the newspapers saw my work. The Anchorage Times offered me a summer job. And when the smaller Daily News was purchased by the California-based McClatchy Newspapers chain, I hired on in 1981.
Almost three decades later, with a team Pulitzer Prize and numerous other awards to my credit, I am ready to find out what I will do with the odd skill set I developed as a community photojournalist. Whatever fills my next frame will be met with a curious mind and a love of learning.
View a slideshow of Jim's work here.
