Randy Fiedler: News Photographer

Randy tells stories in pictures and words as a news photographer. Some are easy, others hard, some emotionally wrenching and some tremendously rewarding for both himself and the community. Randy's career began with the Mount Royal College two-year journalism program in Calgary. He enrolled after becoming dissatisfied with previous career choices in professional cooking and commercial and industrial construction. News photography fascinated Randy ever since he saw photographers at work at the 1985 provincial Conservative leadership convention. The intense competition of scrums, the pressure to meet deadlines, the big lenses all grabbed him. Randy devoted his second year of school to making himself a photographer. Encouraged by professors, he shot thousands of pictures, many for the student paper and even for the college itself as a freelancer. Photo and reporting internships, the first once weekly at the Calgary Herald over four months, the latter for a month at the Red Deer Advocate, proved invaluable. He honed his skills at two weekly newspapers before the Advocate hired him in 1986. He reported first, covering the education and general assignment beats for eight months before moving into the photo department in 1987. Almost two years passed before Randy was a truly confident and comfortable professional news photographer. Making pictures on holiday or with family is one thing, producing compelling, story-telling photos day in day out quite another. Over the years, Randy's covered every major Central Alberta news story for the Advocate: royal and prime ministerial visits, the Pine Lake tornado, the Red Deer Rebels Memorial Cup win. Though these events were memorable, the brunt of his work is community coverage: feature photos that describe day-to-day life and the unfortunate tragedies of car accidents, fires and accidental - or intentional - death. Randy does some freelance work as well, selling his services to editorial and commercial clients and even the odd bride and groom. His favourite and longest-standing client is the Western Producer, the Saskatoon-based weekly that is Canada's oldest farm and rural life publication. The stories he shoots and writes for the WP are tremendously rewarding and the money's pretty good, too.