Black & White Photography - September 2015 UK

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friends at middle school,’ she says. ‘I didn’t

think about it as a profession until I got a job

in an office sending out graduation photos –

the ones taken at Commencement, when the

graduate shakes the principal’s hand as they

receive their diploma. The photographers

in that office were travelling around

Florida, staying in hotels by the beach and

photographing graduations during the day.

That sounded much better to me than sitting

in an office. So I applied for that job but had to

buy a Nikon FM2 (fully manual film camera)

to enable me to do it. The company paid for

some of it and the rest came out of my wages

gradually,’ she says.

At the time Krantz was also studying

psychology at Florida State University, and

now, with a fully manual film camera in her

hands, she needed instruction on using it.

‘I took the only two photography classes

at FSU – both in the fine art programme

• and had the classic falling in love with
  the darkroom experience. About halfway
  through my junior year I nervously told my
  father that I wanted to pursue a career in
  photography. I knew I loved taking pictures,
  I just had no idea how to make a living doing
  it. So I finished my psychology degree and
  applied to Syracuse University’s graduate
  programme in photojournalism, knowing
  that educational counselling would always be
  my back-up.’
  During her first day at Syracuse, Krantz
  struck up a conversation with a student
  who’d had a long career working on
  newspapers. ‘I was in awe that newspaper
  photographers got paid to do the very thing
  I loved doing, so I set forth with the goal of
  becoming a photojournalist – and I’ve never
  diverged from that path.’

S

tories are everywhere, explains

Krantz, and those living on the

fringes of society often lead the

most extraordinary lives. It’s the

unassuming stories that frequently have the

greatest impact, she says. ‘Often I meet people

while on assignment, hear their story and

decide I want to tell it on a deeper level. I’m

not sure exactly what it is, sometimes I just

connect with a person, and other times I want

to help raise awareness of a particular issue.’

Early on in her career, Krantz worked hard

at keeping an emotional distance from her

‘Hector believed that by

telling his story he could help

people, especially children,

change their lives and

not follow his path.’

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