Welcome to Knight Talks, the University of Florida Colleg of Journalism and Communications talk show produced by students for student I'm Gracie Kurtz, a first-year s studying journalism.

And today our guest is Essdras M Suarez, a two-time Pulitzer Priz photojournalist who worked at the Rocky Mountain and The Boston Globe.

He now leads EMS Photo Adventure Hi, Essdras.

Thank you so much for being here Hi, Gracie.

So you were born and raised in P and earned your Bachelor of Science in Jour right here at the University of Did you always know that you wanted to be a journalist?

And what about your experience h as a Gator made you focus your c trajectory on photojournalism?

Heck no.

And no idea.

I came to college to be a journa I was getting a specialization in magazine writing.

I was getting a minor in zoology because I thought if I do all of I'll be working for National Geo because I wanted to see the worl But a fortuitous meeting with the Director of Pho for National Geographic that came to visit with students and my advisor at the time, Hele She forced me to go to dinner wi and 8 photo students.

And I was reluctant about it bec I didn't know anything about pho And I told him, I'm studying this, this, this.

Would I work for you guys?

Can I work for you guys?

And he's like, No, you're better as you become a photographer.

I'm like, Huh?

And I did.

As simple as that, I Thankfully, I had a professor John Freeman, who was so good at putting up with me and my con questions on how do you do this?

And I needed to get good really, really fast.

And he was always there for me when I needed it so and I still stayed in touch with all these years.

That's why I'm here today.

Wow.

That's amazing.

And it was while you we're at UF that you actually did have the opportunity to intern with National Geograph Tell us about that experience with such an iconic organization that was so important to your ch to come and be a journalist.

I met him in August and I turn in a portfolio in Dec Well, I didn't want to turn it i My advisor took it away from me and she turned it in because I thought it was ludicro to actually have done that and talk to this guy this way.

And I got a call back in January and he says, you know, Essdras, I need somebody who speaks Spani and English, knows a bit about a knows about the tropics.

Knows a bit about photography.

So he basically described me.

Says I need him to help two of my photographers, we're working on assignment in Central America.

And I was just I couldn't speak.

And that's hard because I can sp And then he says and it's kind of a last minute d so I can only pay you $50 a day.

I'm like, You're going to pay me on top of I would have done it for free.

So once I had that experience, I knew that photography will be my So there was just no doubt about That's incredible.

And then after you graduated from the University of Florida, you ended up working at the Rock News as a staff photographer for seven years.

Correct.

I actually went there as an intern for six month I figure, well, I had National G I had an internship with the Sun I must be good.

And I get there.

And after three months of being an intern of the Rocky Mountain News, my boss says foll And she pulls me into her boss's They sit me down and they say, What the hell?

I say, What do you mean?

It's like you're supposed to be We haven't seen that.

And it's like, if you don't become better at th after six months, you're out of And that put the fear of God in And I needed that.

You know, when I got out of ther I became a sponge.

I would ask questions all the time from the other phot Why did you decide to do this angle?

Why that lens?

So I became better.

But they extended my internship two more times.

For 18 months, I was an intern.

But after 18 months, they finall as a photographer, as a full sta photographer.

Wow, you had to kind of play the there.

Yeah, it's fine, though.

This is not a job for me.

This is my passion.

Give me a camera and I'm happy.

I might be starving, but give me a camera and I'm hap So while you were in Denver, wha range of stories that you covere One of the things that I'm the most grateful about, having worked in newspapers, is that you need to become a genera I am an expert covering events, covering news.

I can do portraits.

I can do food, I can do product, I can do studio work.

You name it, I have done it.

So because at the end of the eve if I didn't like a specific type of photograpy, like food.

I really didn't like doing food.

I got better at it because at the end of the day, your name goes by that photo and if the photo is not good, you don't look good.

So it's a standard that I needed to keep regardless And I'm very thankful for having all of that because it served me well now that I'm on my own.

Right now I have a contract, a book contract in Puerto Rico.

This company hire me for the 60th anniversary and they just let me loose.

They gave me directions, but they let me do what I do because they expect me to be abl to do anything and everything.

So never shy away from something you don't know.

You just got to learn it.

As a photojournalist, you often have a split second to find what you want point and When you enter a scene, how do you survey your surroundi to seek out the exact image it is that you want to capture?

So there is something that I tea A lot of my time nowadays is spent teaching.

And it's called your bubble of perspective.

Your bubble of perspective is how you see the world at any giv From the moment you wake up in the morning, you're seeing the world at eye l at about 50 millimeters, which is what is known as a norm without counting peripheral visi So when you get to a place and you see everything like that if you just click your camera, y boring the bejesus out of your a because you're just repeating what the eye can see.

However, if you're aware of that of perspective, you can walk int and you can take the bubble and you can throw it in places.

So when I walk into a room, I can already tell you if I were to put my camera behin that cameraman, use him as a for I know how the four would look.

If I were to put my camera up th So I am playing the possibilitie I walk into a room because I need to minimize the amount of t that I spend making decisions.

You do that continuously and you don't think about it.

So the moment I walk into a scen I already know within seconds where do I need to be.

Wow.

So it kind of altered how you perceive the world in ge I actually at some point, mathematics messes in my head.

There's something called dyscalc It's like dyslexia, but it's wit And I was no good in numbers when I was in school.

The written numbers just throw m In my mind, I can do them.

So I talked to a psychologist once about it and he said, Well, your brain just perceives the world differently.

And I think that's part of what makes me such a good pho I just see things weirdly and that's a good thing.

Wow.

And that, you know, that perspec that you have actually led you to receiving a Pulitzer Prize aw your first Pulitzer Prize award for your coverage of the Columbine school shooting which was a brand new type of horror in the USA.

Was it challenging to photograph that trauma both ethically and logistically?

I had covered news.

You know, I had covered accident the minor things, aftermath of a that kind of stuff.

Columbine was a brand new beast because of the level of trauma that the whole thing cost.

And the day that Columbine happe I was working out.

I looked at the TV and it said, shooting at Columbine.

I'm like, Huh?

And then within minutes it is co shooter, active shooter at Colum So I took off.

I went straight away, picked up my gear and went and it took about 25 minutes to I was the first journalist not allowed in the perimeter.

They had just closed the perimet I spent the rest of the day doin trying to get and trying to get So I got people reacting and stu but I covered that scene for sev And my coworkers, after three da a lot of them were calling the o and say, You've got to get me ou And then I understand why.

On the seventh day that I have p a lot of people crying and I, you know, I walked in and yeah, I'm not going to photograp crying today unless its extraor because I have so many of this.

And I remember seeing a kid wearing a letter jacket, varsity football player, the quintessential high school p Thick neck, thick brow, big shou And I'm watching this kid.

I'm in the parking lot.

The parking lot where all the students had left their cars, the ones that died, they have become impromptu memor And I'm in front of the pickup of one of the kids have died and I'm seeing this get across f y reason.

I zoom in on him and I train my And as he got closer, I thought he was looking at me.

No, he was looking at the pickup in front of me.

And as he got closer, you know, just became this mask of pain and his shoulders started shakin And by the time he touched the t it was just a grimace of pure pa And at that moment, had my camer not been on my shoulders, I would have fallen to the groun because apparently I dropped the and I have tears running down my And I didn't understand why.

I called the office and I say, I think you got to take me out o I guess I need a break.

Later on, understood the people that wanted to be taken out earl because they had kids.

So to them it impacted them more I have no kids.

So it took me longer.

But the emotional scars in your they remain.

I'm just very good at compartmentalizing everything in And I don't think of those thing unless you ask me about them.

Right.

And you know, even though it doe take a toll on you, why do you t important for photojournalists to capture moments of such grief You know, I heard a term recentl somebody said that human beings are storytelling animals.

We live by the storytelling.

Its the reason why, I was just explaining this to a previous cl back in the day when we lived in when the hunters came back from and they sat around the fire to tell the story of how one of got stung by the wooly mammoth, the other once paid attention.

We paid attention to the things that are bad so it doesn't happe It's a survival thing.

It is very, very important that we tell the story of what h Somebody has to.

People need to react to it.

People need to be aware of it.

The photographers and journalist we have an unspoken contract with our audience that we're there to document because you cannot be there and you have to trust us that we will do it in the most a and honest possible way.

So continuing your path with storytelling in 2 you went and you worked for the Globe as a staff photographer.

Was it an easy transition to a new news organization and c The Rocky Mountains was a fantas They had amazing staff, extremely talented photographers They're the ones who taught me a lot of what I know.

But they only went so- that news because it was only so big when it went so far.

When September 11 happened, I was in Panama on vacation.

I won't forget.

I got on the treadmill.

I look up, I see the first plane the building.

Im like, What a horrible accide Then I saw the second one.

I'm l no accident.

So I run back.

I call the States and I say, I'm trying to get bac It took me 11 days to be able to get back in the St I go from the airport to my boss say I'm ready to go.

I go to New York, I go to Pakist wherever you want me to go.

And they tell me we haven't been go ahead to cover the story.

So I went all the way to the editor of the paper.

I just walked into his room.

I'm Are you out of your mind?

You're not going to cover the st I might be young in the professi but I kind of know this is going to change our live And he said, Essdras, you know w we just don't cover the kind of you want to do.

Im like, okay, I walked off, opened my little f I called the Boston Globe, who had offered me a job, and I So I was always looking at bigge So when I got to the new place, the hardest part is that Boston is really hard to navigat It's a bunch of cow trails that were paved.

It's extremely hard, but no, I asked for it.

So all the big assignments, the the disasters, I wanted to do it So no, it was just the logical sequence of events.

And then around the same time you actually started EMS Photo A What inspired you to found EMS and what services do you provide Okay, so EMS Photo Adventures, the definition of what it is has been evolved.

Basically I teach people how to become better photographe Anybody can learn the techniques I teach you how to see different It is how you see the world that will make you a better stor So when I take people on locatio I teach them how to get better p how to best document.

I designed the programs for me.

I don't want to be bored.

So the people that come along wi they're just basically seeing what I'm doing and I'm teaching them how to do the exact same way.

So it's fun.

It's just fun.

So if I'm an aspiring photograph I talk to EMS and you take us so Well, give me 8 people and I can take you anywhere.

What are some places you've been I've taken people to Ecuador, to Ireland, to Cuba, to Panama, in the States, New York, L.A., San Diego.

I've done them in the Emirates.

So I've taught workshops all over the place.

Wow.

And it's fun because I do get this vicarious of seeing people getting it.

You know, when you explain somet and they show it to me.

I feel like a like a proud papa.

That's really admirable.

A lot of photographers operating your high level don't take the path to educate o but you share your wisdom.

I have had great teachers in my starting with Mr. Freeman and then the people that with at the Denver Rocky Mountai They were never selfish for their knowledge.

And I will never forget because I started to understand.

So I'm all about sharing my know helping people become better photographers.

Regardless of the situation, when people notice a camera pointed at them, they tend to react in some way o How do you walk the line between inconspicuous for the sake of th while also being open and honest with your subjects?

One of the reasons it's good to is because you become wiser.

You need to walk the world with heart, open mind and open spirit And to this day, I apply that to photography.

When I walk out there, I cannot hide what I am.

I have a waist bag.

I have two cameras on my shoulde I might have a hat on me.

It's obvious what I'm doing.

So I always assume that people want to be photographed by me.

And when I find somebody interes enough to be worthy of a photo, I make the photo, then I usually engage the person I live in a world where it's easier to ask for for than it is to ask for permission And I would say 98% of the time that always work The tools of a photographer are the following.

The most important tool is the six-eight inches behind t your brain, how you see the worl The second tool is your eyes.

The third tool, this or this, wh photographic device you have in And the fourth one, it's a big o because this thing actually makes people react.

And it's gotten me out of very bad situations.

But when I photograph someone, i because I truly find them fascin So when I show them, the photos usually theyre like, Oh, that's can I have that?

And I give it to them because, y what else am I going to do?

I use it for teaching purposes, I just tell people I'm like, Loo I find you worthy of a photo.

Who says no to that?

Most people say yes.

Right?

So you don't really play the role of the fly on the wall.

If I am doing a documentary essa where I'm documenting specific t topic story, I try to, but just by being there, you're of affecting the scene of sorts.

So it depends.

It depends.

But nowadays I walk around with a big old smi And as a matter of fact, if you EMS Photo Adventures in Instagra learn.

Young people have taught me that you got to do Reels.

And the Reel that I posted today engaging a random stranger in Ha And you can see how I go about i And I'm always laughing and joking with them.

And I show him the photo.

I think that guy I told him, You're born to be a movie star.

You're a movie star.

And the guy was laughing, of cou because I found him interesting in that moment for me, he was the star of my little mov So yeah, that's how I go about i So earlier you said you consider to be a generalist rather than a specialist.

Despite being well versed in so many different cate what subject brings you the most fulfillment to capt I love doing street photography because if you can find the aesthetic balance in the chaos of daily life, you can do anything.

One of my my shooting mantra is Keep shooting, keep mo keep adjusting, keep shooting, keep moving, keep adjusting.

You take those three verbs and they can pretty much get you of trouble 95, 97% of the time.

Anything in front of you, if you keep shooting, if you keep moving and keep adju you will get the shot.

Being able to see chaos and bein to put the people in the right p being able to capture the decisi being able to see the light, how it affects everything and pu all together in a split of a sec That makes you really good.

If you can pull that off, you can pretty much do anything.

So people, short answer.

I love Being at your level of photojour is there any sort of gear or equ that you gravitate towards most?

Okay.

At this level, when you spend this kind of mone it doesn't really matter what br you have because they all compet pretty- They're usually pretty c to each other.

I'm a Nikon guy.

I started in Ni They forced me for five years at the Boston Globe to use Canon And eventually I stepped away fr and I came back to Nikon.

Its to the point that I bought my own gear, I bought my big lenses just so I wouldn't have to use C just because I'm so familiar.

This is an extension of what I a I don't have to think about it.

I am the camera.

I know where the buttons are.

One of my editors early in my ca gave me the advice about it becoming an extension of who I a He says, Put it by your bed at n and in the darkness play with th try to set up a specific setting and then check.

And that's how I become familiar with my cameras.

I can do stuff without having to look at it.

You know, a lot of photographers you know, really like invest in really high quality cameras.

Do you think that having like su high pixels and all of these, yo details are crucial.

Content is what matters.

I don't care how beautiful your pixels are.

If their content is not interest enough, why would somebody want to look at your photos?

People get really hung up on, Oh I can see the pixelation.

Who cares?

Is there a great stor Do you react to that image?

Can you picture yourself in that situation?

That's all that matters.

Storytelling is king.

So then you were the recipient of the Robert F Kennedy International Photojournalism Aw for your piece titled Osvelis Jo Can you tell us about your exper following that story?

The story was about a migrant bo with 17 others in a van overturned in a lonely in Colorado, rural highway.

Two of them died.

One 14, one 17 Instead of putting the bodies in graves, the community felt bad.

So they actually embalmed the bo and the community, the migrant c gather enough funds to send the bodies back to Guate Our writers of the Rocky Mountai actually helped find us the town where they came from, a lot of great investigative rep So I follow the bodies back, one of the bodies back from Denv all the way to the border of Guatemala, Mexico.

And the last part of the story was t of traveling and planes then one full night of vigil.

Then the next morning they put t in the back of a pickup truck.

It's like 8 hours.

The roads kept getting from bad to is this really a road kind of Finally, we end up coming in thi tiny town near the border with M The word had come out that we we The local villagers from where he was were waiting.

They put the big box on their sh and they hike up the mountain.

A normal person like us, the hike would take 2 hours.

This guy's with a 500 pound box on their sh they went about 45 minutes and I'm trying to keep up with h I'm exhausted.

I haven't slept.

I'm not eating And there's a shot in the essay where there's a valley and you can see this little path and you can see a lineup of peop in the foreground.

There's a big white casket and on the top is the village and the people looking down.

And it's a great shot.

And when people see that shot, it's like, wow, you were amazing because you thought in those ter Not really.

I was leaning against a tree, th because I was so sick like I had gone beyond the point of exhaustion.

So I saw that I made a couple of breath in, breath out, and I run to the last part.

And then when I got there, they already had opened the box and the body and they ha in the middle of the hut, and that's the main photo of the So but when I did the story, I was never thinking of awards.

I just wanted to tell this story Even though I photographed that in the year 1989, it's still relevant today to the point that the next when I went back to the village, they were getting ready to bury You know, I have a photo of one of the kid I helped dig the grave and the kid is leaning on a shov And in the background you can see the mountains.

And in the background is actuall right where they crossover.

I asked this 11 year old kid, so what are you going to do when yo I want to go to El Norte.

Cycle repeats and to this day pe are risking their lives to get h So it's a great story.

And, you know, not only are you capturing these you're immersed and part of the And something else I'm getting i you care about your subjects.

I do.

You care about what you ph I think you do need to care.

If you don't care, why would the looking at your work would care?

You need to be empathic.

You're born a human being and you're going to die a human This, what we're doing is great, but if it comes to saving a life or taking a photo, I probably wi taking a photo as I'm saving a l Be like, Come here and I'll take the phot But I also am very much aware that the moment I affect that from that moment on, I cannot document that life if I affected it because it's no what was going to happen.

Its what I made happen.

I cannot do that anymore.

One of the more recent events that you covered here in the U.S was during the Capitol Insurrection on January 6th, 202 Did you know what you were walking into Sort of, not to the extent that what I saw, but sort of.

I had been exposed to the Oath K and the Proud Boys.

And I realized, aha, to these pe I'm an enemy.

I need to be very, very careful.

I had clashes with them.

So I kind of knew there were an extremist group within the extreme groups of the supporters of this guy.

And so when that day came, I sort of kn that I needed to be out there.

I waited until they started heading to th because I wasn't sure if I was going to do it.

I wasn't an assignment.

I put myself on assignment.

I had my bulletproof vest on, I had my tear gas mask strapped to my leg, my cameras.

I had my Kevlar helmet.

And I was one of the few people in that crowd wearing a mask in the middle of COVID, people d And I have photos of people scre And you can see the spittle back in the middle of COVID.

Knuckleheads.

And in order to get to the doors where all the chaos is I was going to have to push my w all of them, which it's not wort So I looked around on the scaffo for Biden's inauguration was alr so I just went up on the side and had a big lens and I got eve with a big lens.

And then eventually the Capitol were able to subdue the crowd.

They used tear gas.

I just put on my tear gas mask and I kept covering and I did it But yeah, I was confronted a bunch of time and when I get confronted, I usually just turn right up to square off., and I'm like, Yes.

And they're like, What are you d I'm like, I'm covering history.

And then it is up to them how they interpret it.

A lot of the people that I said that were like, Yeah, is this hi And I'm thinking to myself, You this is history.

Not the kind of history youre thinking But it is histor So I know I need to be there.

You don't lie when you're a jour You don't misrepresent yourself.

I told them I was working for Zu because I have a relationship wi an international agencies, so I knew my photos would be moved through so I would tell them work for an agency, international.

And they kind of leave me alone.

But if you cowered, they see blo I had a friend who got beat up t So when you're covering events that involve conflict, you show gear and you are prepared, but are you ever scared for your own Whoever tells you they're not se they're lying.

The difference between being brave, quote unquote, and being scared is whether you' to let fear freeze you.

You got to think of fear sharpen all your instincts.

You hear better, you see better, you're hyper aware of your surro Movement is life.

You stay still, you're going to get beat up prob Or you're going to get crushed or something.

So you keep shooting, you keep m you keep adjusting, and you just go through it.

That's it.

And profession such as photojour it can take a toll on your mind And fitness is a very important of your life.

In fact, you've worked out how m consecutive days, 1527 days in a Nonstop.

That's insane.

Over fou How does investing in your body and mind translate to your succe as a photographer?

I have to be physically prepared to do anything and everything.

I will do anything for a photo.

I will climb.

I will drag myself.

I will jump.

If the photo is worth it, I will I do not understand how you can be in this world and not take care of your body.

You take care of the body.

The body takes care of yourself.

I'm a big proponent of being functionally fit.

Aesthetics, they don't matter.

If you look good, if you look sy I could care less.

It's a matter of with longevity are you going to be able to pull You need to be able to take care of yourself and take care of your loved ones Taking care of your body will help you So to kind of wrap up our conver that we've had, what advice would you share to aspiring photojournalists?

Don't wait for someone to give you an assig Give yourself the assignment you want someone else to give yo A lot of publications, a lot of sites nowadays they'd r you show up with a already start and say, Look, this is the poten And if they see the potential, t probably they're going to back y So the other thing is try to see anew.

You say you are from Jacksonvill I am.

So going back home to Jacksonvil and I tell you, okay, this is yo You cannot move away, but five blocks away from your h and I want you to give me great out of that.

That is extremely hard because t extremely familiar for you.

So what you need to do is you ne train yourself to always see eve anew.

It doesn't matter how many times you've seen it, it is your responsibility as a s to find a new way of telling tha Same with photos, same with word Wow.

Thank you so much for your Essdras, on the world of photojo and your journey as a storytelle And a big thank you to our viewers for joi Until next time, goodnight.