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Sun-Times Photographer Details Life After Layoffs, With an iPhone

Chris Gampat
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06/05/2013
3 Mins read

Last Updated on 06/05/2013 by Chris Gampat

One of the 28 members of the Chicago Sun-Times photography staff now without a job, Rob Hart is cataloguing his experience via Tumblr. Hart used his iPhone to capture this screenshot of a photo of he and his wife taken by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist John J. Kim for the Chicago Tribune.

The name of Rob Hart’s Tumblr site says it all. “Laid off from the Sun-Times” is the former Chicago Sun-Times staff photographer’s platform for sharing his experience since the newspaper cut its entire 28-person photography staff. The blog’s description also gets right to the point: “Rob Hart was replaced with a reporter with an iPhone, so he is documenting his new life with an iPhone, but with the eye of a photojournalist trained in storytelling.”

Hart has been posting images that document his life since the layoffs were announced, from the beer he drank at a tavern nearby the newspaper offices an hour afterward to the makeshift home office he’s now set up next to the dryer. Hart’s hammering home the point that each image he’s sharing has been snapped with an iPhone, the very tool that the Sun-Times is reportedly relying on reporters to use to in place of professional photographers.

“I thought it was a great way to both mock my situation and celebrate it,” Hart said when we spoke to him by phone this morning. Either way, the blog has become his storytelling outlet: “that’s what we were trained to do as photojournalists,” he said.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on DPReview Connect. We have syndicated it with permission.

Hart documents the first day after being laid off from his job as a photographer with the Chicago Sun-Times: “unemployment paperwork and cold pizza.”

Hart had worked for the Chicago Sun-Times media organization for 12 years before being laid off. He said he’d dreamed of being a photojournalist since the eighth grade. One of his photojournalism teachers was John H. White, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist who was also amongst those cut by the Sun-Times last week.

“To see the thing you love disappear from your life — it’s sad,” he described. “But there’s so many other outlets for us.”

Hart sees a trend toward self-funded, independent photojournalism in the future. He’s continuing to pursue freelance projects, and also teaches photojournalism at the Medill School of Journalism.

“I’m going to shoot the kind of photos I want to shoot,” Hart said of his future plans. And whether he’s using his Nikon D3 or his iPhone, Hart will continue to focus on storytelling.

In the first hour after the layoffs were announced, Hart joined colleagues for a beer at the Billy Goat Tavern nearby the newspaper offices.
Hart watched himself on television at the Billy Goat Tavern as the Chicago Sun-Times layoffs made the news.
A space behind the dryer now serves as Hart’s home office.
On Day 4 Hart posted: “Facing my Medill Students for the first time as their unemployed teacher. They were so supportive.”
Hart captioned this image of his baby daughter: “You know who doesn’t care I’m a big deal on the Internet? She just wants melon.”
iphone layoff photographer Sun-Times
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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