Beyond the Print

Extra Credit- Annie O'Neill

     Annie O'Neill is a photojournalist in Pittsburgh. About 15 years ago, Annie started a project called 50 years of service. By way of connections and chance, O'Neill has met over 30 individuals that have been working the same job for 50 or more years. It all started with a local Pittsburgh man who was a cobbler. O'Neill heard such great stories about him and the project took off from there. The people Annie photographs are met by chance by way of seeing a story about them in the paper, hearing about the person through locals, or they are someone famous like a singer or NFL coach. Annie has all kinds of stories to go with each person she has photographed and plans to record some of those stories through video. Annie plans to keep going with this project for as long as she can. She uses a Hasselblad with black and white medium format film for the quality of film. Annie believes the film fits with the personalities of the individuals she photographs. She doesn't plan the shots, she is pretty spontaneous with it.
     Annie also just started a new project called Uniformity. She is capturing groups of people in uniforms. These are on color film and scanned. She really wants people to respect people in uniform better. She did not talk about this project as much. All the photographs were really interesting and she really does capture peoples personalities and has a very creative mind for shooting on the spot. She is very passionate about her work and such an encouraging person.