If there is one question I receive on a regular basis it's something like the following:

Dear Micah, I want to become a photojournalist, where do I start?

I figured that rather than trying to field everyone's emails one by one, I should write up my thoughts on the topic in a blog post. This is partly me being lazy, but I'll turn that laziness right around and call this post a "service to my community."

Before I begin I need to make a small disclaimer. I don't consider myself a professional photojournalist. I guess I used to call myself that, but I have since re-branded myself as just myself. Notice that my website just says "Micah Walter" and no longer has the "photojournalist" tag-line.

This has to do with a number of things that have happened to me over the past few years, but mostly because I am doing quite a few other things besides photojournalism.

I am still very impressed with the LX3. It has become my "main" camera over the last couple of weeks. I take it everywhere and I have been having fun seeing what it can do. It has a few little intricacies that took me some time to learn, but I am getting pretty proficient with it now and very happy about the results.

The picture above was shot in Standard Color mode and converted to B+W in Photoshop beginning with the RAW file. I used the Silver Efex plugin for P-Shop for this one ( and most of my other B+W images ) as I have been having some great success with it and find it very easy to use.

One advantage to using the Silver Efex plugin in P-Shop vs. Aperture is that I can save the file as a Smart Object, which allows me to go back into the Silver Efex filter and make changes. I really wish I could do this in Aperture.

At school I actually made TWO whole prints. I haven't really printed anything in years, so it was a great bunch-o-fun for me. I was REALLY impressed with the quality, and I went and ordered a whole roll of Ilford Gallery Gold Fibre Silk from B+H. I've also been working with the Grad Lab to get the Epson 4800 printer calibrated for this paper.