Staff Q&As: Meet photographer Paul Kuehnel
To help you get to know our newsroom staff a bit better, a series of question-and-answer posts with each journalist will run on Mondays. This morning, meet photographer Paul Kuehnel. He shoots and edits photos and video in all parts of York County, and also runs a technology blog, Green Mesh.
Name: Paul Kuehnel
Lives in: Emigsville, Pa.
Hometown: Lindenhurst, N.Y.
Position at the YDR: Photographer, multiplatform journalist
Years with the YDR: 28
Graduated from: Gettysburg College
With a degree in: Sociology/psychology
Twitter: @paulkuehnel
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/paul.kuehnel
Email: pkuehnel@ydr.com
Google+: Search for Paul Kuehnel
1. What made you want to become a journalist? My roomate became bored with shooting pictures for the college newspaper and handed me his camera one day. I thought it was magical that images came out on negatives and paper after dipping in chemistry. It was January of senior year, I wasn’t too excited about anything else I was concentrating on, so I thought shooting pictures might be interesting. I walked into the local paper asked them if they wanted free labor and got a job as a photographer. The staff photographer quit a few weeks later and they gave me her job. I spent the last semester of college working 60 hour weeks at the Gettysburg Times and tanking my grades, but I had started a career. I never had a goal of becoming a journalist. I didn’t even know what that was. I liked documenting life when given the chance and (troubleshooting) figuring out how to make equipment work better.
2. How do you see journalism changing? It’s been changing since the day I only had b/w negative film. Self-taught, I never had any training as a journalist or a photographer, so I didn’t know what was changing. Life is about evolving. I always hated chemisty, so anything digital was embraced. Change couldn’t come fast enough.
3. What do you like most about your job? The people and their stories. Mastering technology before the masses. The least? The eight-year pay freeze.
4. It’s 9:30 a.m. on a day off. What are you doing? Probably finishing up work that didn’t get done on a work day, updating my yorkblog.org tech blog, greenmesh.com
5. What’s been your favorite project or story recently? Every day is a new day. I am more interested in a three-picture package with a video that takes 30 minutes to create than I am shooting a long-term project. I like well-done quick hits and to move on to the next thing.
6. The drink that’s on your desk right now is: Water
7. Your favorite journalism-related blog you read or Twitter feed you follow: I rarely read about journalism. I like news aggregates via Google News, and topical Twitter feeds with several sources combined. I don’t have one source for any topic. I read mostly tech blogs about mobile platforms, the cellphone industry, then science, then politics.
8. What’s your favorite movie? I only watch a movie once and usually forget the name. I don’t own a TV. Book? Haven’t had time to read a book in years. I save one in an unused Kindle for the day I might have two broken legs.
9. What’s your favorite place in York County? Emigsville
10. What’s one piece of newsroom jargon that had to be explained to you? Can’t think of any.
Last week, we ran a Q&A with multiplatform journalist Abby Rhoad. To read all of the staff Q&A interviews we’ve done so far, click on the “Staff Q&As” under “About us” at the top of the homepage.