Exhaling Images; A Conversation with Ángel Franco

For over 30 years Ángel Franco, a Bronx native and Puerto Rican national, served on the staff of the New York Times as a photographer, covering events from the Pulse Nightclub Shooting, the Oklahoma City Bombing, and 9/11, and winning a Pulitzer Prize for the final.

Now, a few years into retirement, Franco reflects on his career with the news outlet. Franco grew up with a learning disability, making it almost impossible for him to read until college. With the help of a teacher, he applied to the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and was accepted with a full scholarship, allowing him to obtain higher education in photography, ultimately using the skills he learned there to obtain a staff position with the Times where he worked until he retired in November 2019. Aside from his passion for photography, Franco finds joy in mentoring young students looking to get into journalism, helping them to make connections and find their joy inside the art form he loves so much.

I spoke to Franco about his historic career, and how he feels photography works in tandem with journalism to create meaningful stories. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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I remember very distinctly from our time together that you never referred to taking photos simply as taking photos. It was always "capturing images". And I think that wording really struck me in the sense that it made me realize the power of photos as art within storytelling. So, I was just wondering if you could speak a little bit on kind of your wording within that?

Well, you know, the one thing is, I didn't study journalism at all. I went to art school. I grew up in New York, right to New York, from Puerto Rico. I mean, I was in the tourism hub of the world. If I couldn't learn journalism from working with people who went to college with it, which I ended up working with some of the most famous journalists and writers. You know, I learned a lot from them. But what I wanted to learn was how to have my own vision in the world of words. I don't even call myself a photojournalist. People call me that. I don't call myself an artist. I call myself a photographer. And I learned how to tell stories.

One thing that you continued to teach us was finding those unique perspectives and experiencing the world outside of the camera, looking through the viewfinder as another eye as opposed to solely just looking through the camera and seeing these perspectives from a unique vantage point.

I don’t remember if we got into the whole rule of thirds, but I sort of skimmed it and said now go make it yours. Because, if you follow the bars, you will walk as stiff as those bars, and if the frame is what controls you then don’t do it. That viewfinder should be a continuation of you. I remember working the corners and edges and bringing that image in, right? You're automatically doing the rules of thirds when you're doing it as a huge canvas in front of you.

I found that within photojournalism, it's a very interesting blend of kind of fine art as well as storytelling. So, I was just kind of wondering what your thoughts are on why photos are so important to storytelling within journalism, because I feel they play a very important role within a narrative, and they hold a lot of power.

Well, the New York Times once had a big meeting, and they pulled all the photographers in. They hire an advisor. And they bring this person up, and I'm sure they paid them over a hundred thousand dollars to do this survey. And the lady I remember the lady found that when people look at a newspaper, they first look at the photos, and then the caption, and then the photo again, and then decide to read the story. That’s when the pictures started to get bigger. So, I raised my hand and said, “you know we all in this room need a raise.” The company could have come to us and asked questions, and we would have provided the mail that we receive from people.

So, your question. Why does it enhance a story? Well, most of the time they don’t. But, if you look at a lot of photographers, they either care or they don’t. There is a way of looking at the world and that’s with your soul, with compassion.

Throughout your career you have covered a wide variety of events, from neighborhood gatherings to international tragedies. What was it like to cover all of these different events in such a short period of time?

It was like meeting new people. It was like going to a dance and knowing that I have I have no date to dance with. How am I going to dance this place, you know? I never went for magnitude. When you start creating magnitude in your head, you start getting busy, and then you get into a panic and start to develop tunnel vision. You know what I like to say. Take a step back, take a deep breath, and exhale your images. And I've done that everywhere I went, whether they're shooting at me or wanting to shake my hand and welcome me. It's take a step back, take a deep breath.