They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so it’s safe to say that after 40 years of photojournalism, Ian MaCalpine has had a lot to say.
His career in Kingston, Ont., started in the early 1980s at the British Whig building downtown.
“I walked in these doors as a 24-year-old who thought he knew everything about photojournalism but soon learned that I didn’t,” said MacAlpine.
Then, the newspaper game was a far different animal than it is today.
“I was a photojournalist from 1983 until about, I don’t know, mid-1990s,” he added, “and then I started writing a few stories along with my photos and then by the year 2000 I was basically called a multimedia journalist. I got to write stories and do the photos all myself.”
His camera hasn’t stopped clicking the whole time.
“For that picture I was trained on that man on the crane for a good 15 minutes. My fingers were getting cold because it was quite a cold day,” he said of a photo he took of a man being rescued via helicopter from the top of a crane.
Along with patience and determination, observation and intuition play a role — like capturing the horse that wouldn’t jump.
“While that horse was in its routine, I noticed it being a little bit nervous a little bit off, so I just said I’m going to keep my eye on that horse and see what happens, and then of course the horse did that stop and again I had my camera ready and let the motor drive go and got that image,” he said.
Some photos have a story that doesn’t make it to print.
MacAlpine said he was up with an aerobatics pilot at a Kingston airshow when he snapped a selfie after a few barrel roles.
“I was getting sick, I… to be honest I was almost ready to go and when I did that selfie, that’s how I was and I remember right after I took that picture she said, ‘You want to go again?’ and I said, ‘No thanks, let’s go back to the airport,” he said.
From the pope to icy water rescues, MacAlpine has shot it all.
And after 40 years of capturing history, he says he’s still not ready to put the lens cap on his career.
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