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Shooting Back: Jim Hubbard's 35-mm Ministry
| Article
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10441 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1993 |
649 Words |
| Author
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Bob Cohen
Writer Bob Cohen and free-lance photographer Steve Barrett are
both based in the Washington, D.C., area. |
In a sense Hubbard, now fifty, has wound up in front of that childhood mirror, again, preaching in his own way to an audience whose interest level he can't quite make out. He is now using the power of images to convey a message he suspects many might otherwise prefer to ignore. And he has chosen as his messengers a group that strikes society at its most vulnerable point--children growing up in poverty.
Shooting Back is a nonprofit organization that provides economically disadvantaged young people with the opportunity to play, learn and express themselves through the medium of 35-mm photography. Between fifty and seventy children a week participate in Shooting Back programs, operated from centers in Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis. Along with a small paid staff and a group of volunteers, Hubbard works to give poor children a creative experience that might other wise be impossible.
But getting kids together with cameras is only part of what Shooting Back is all about. To see the full picture requires an understanding of Hubbard himself. After all, who quits a high-flying job as Washington based photojournalist to go take pictures with homeless children? Someone, perhaps, looking for a different kind of reward.
Having spent the 1970s covering news events like the Detroit riots, Wounded Knee, and Cambodian refugee camps, Hubbard was assigned to UPI's Washington bureau in early 1980. He quickly found his steady diet of staged photo opportunities a professional bore. In response, he decided on a radical career change in his mid-forties and enrolled at Washington's Trinity Theological Seminary.
Unfortunately, what he calls the "marrying and burying" routine of a parish minister didn't seem appealing either. Hubbard had picked up his Bible, but he wasn't quite ready to put down his camera.
"I left UPI to do my field internship, and I was doing this documentation of homeless people. The seminary liked that ...holding up images of the poor to the public--in biblical fashion, holding up images of the dispossessed to the people with resources. That experience ties to the practical application of taking pictures of the homeless. It's as much a ministry as anything else."
Preaching requires an audience, however, even when done through images. To build his audience, Hubbard launched a children's campaign: the Shooting Back program. Starting without a lot
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