The Fieldtrip Project: a public service initiative to make professional photography available to anyone, anywhere, on any budget.

Professional photography usually costs thousands of dollars, and I'm offering to do it for very cheap or even free.

Why? Now is a time in my life when I can travel a lot, but I don't want to be a tourist. I'd rather be shooting for people. I'm looking for a variety of experiences in new places. So I'm telling people that I'm willing to work for anything while out on the road.

Here's how it works. Tell everyone about the plan. Then anyone that could use a photographer gets in touch with me. As soon as I have a few projects in one location, I head out there and shoot for everyone, leaving CDs of photos before I leave. Then I head back to Philly to be available for my clients here. Then back out on a new adventure. I get an excuse to travel and meet new people; you get photos that you might not otherwise have been able to afford. It works out nicely for everyone. Scroll down or click the links on the right to see how it's worked in the past.

The whole idea of becoming a semi-nomadic photographer, bartering my way across the world, has been made possible thanks to digital photography. Back in the days of film, this plan would have been a logistical nightmare. Having to haul tons of film around, get it processed, mailing contact sheets back to people, sending them prints, etc... Now I can take thousands of photos anywhere, process them immediately and leave a disk of originals with anyone before I leave.

Your help is important. There are plenty of people out there that this plan could really help. Unfortunately, I haven't met them yet. If you leave this page saying "oh that's nice" and do nothing, then I'm not going to get very far. This is a word-of-mouth type thing; if you take a few minutes to email everyone that you know about this project, then I'll be able to help your friends. If you like the idea, there are a few ways that you can support the photo fieldtrip project. Click here to find out how.

 

This photographer needs places to go and things to photograph.

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Past Destinations:

Oaxaca, Mexico (all July, 2005)
Maine/Boson/Worcester (Aug 4-10)
Los Angeles (~Aug 21-27)
Connecticut / NY (Oct 1-6)
Washington, DC (Oct 7-13)
Florida to Kentucky (Feb 28 - Mar 12)
Louisville & Lexington, KY (Mar 12 - 15)
Portland, OR (Mar 16 - 23)
Dominican Republic (Mar 24 -31)
New Haven, CT (early May)
London (Nov 29 - Dec 14, 2004)
Pittsburgh, PA (Nov 11-13, 2004)
Boston/Cape Cod (july 6 - 24, 2004)
Europe (April 24 - June 4, 2004)
USA (Feb 01 - March 13, 2004)
Immokalee, FL (december 2003)
Seattle, WA (november 2003)
Worcester, MA (october 2003)
France/Spain (july 2003)
Cambridge, OH (june 2003)
Nashville, TN (june 2003)
Durham, NC (december 2002)
Landsdowne, VA (december 2002)
Mongolia (june 2002)
Italy (march 2002)
Jeffersonville, NY (october 2001)
Ft. Collins, CO (august 2000)
Armenia (june 2000)
Senegal (may 2000)

Past Travels:

update: July 2, 2005

I am currently in Oaxaca, Mexico, and didn't get a chance to complete the overhaul of this website during the spring, and things are pretty busy until mid september, so hopefully sometime in the fall, things will be slightly more organized. In the meanwhile you can browse down for photos from earlier trips.

update: Feb 20, 2005

I'll be travelling with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers again for two weeks, taking a sidetrip to Lexington, KY to visit a friend and do some laundry, then off to Portland, Or for the Society of Photographic Education's conference. I'm still looking for things to be shooting while in Portland, so if you know anyone out there, send 'em my way. After Portland, I'll be heading to the Dominican Republic for a week with Medical Students Making Impacts. After, that some calm time back home and hopefully new content for this site, which is now nearly a year out of date...

For photos of the Immokalee Workers' victory,
click here.

For photos from the medical mission to the Dominican Republic,
click here.

Europe (april 22 - early june)

This trip was great, but I haven't had a chance to deal with the photos. More work on this site will happen in October- check back then! Right now the ongoing project is the Philadelphia Live Arts and Fringe festivals; click here for coverage.

photos here
once my life calms down enough for me to work on this site

Travels in the US (february 01 -march 13 2004)

This was my first large scale photo fieldtrip. Six weeks on the road took me throughout the midwest and into southern California. The trip evolved on the fly, and I ended up working on all sorts of different types of projects. See some of the photos here.

For more photos and a travel log,
click here

Immokalee, FL (december 2003)

I hitched a ride south with members of the Prometheus Radio Project to document their radio barnraising in which they helped the members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers start up a low power FM community radio station. I learned a lot about issues facing agricultural workers and some of the conditions that they are forced to put up with are a real embarrassment to this country. Check out the CIW website and give them some support!

 

Seattle, WA (november 2003)

My first trip to the west coast took me to Seattle, Mt. Vernon, and Bellingham. This was the first adventure officially organized under the banner of this 'Fieldtrip Project.' Michito and Margo were kind enough to host me in Seattle, and I met a bunch of wonderful folks while there. in Mt. Vernon I shot a record release party/concert for Paradyme, and also did some photos for Racetrack in Bellingham. For a completely disorganized trip, it worked out quite well.

 

Worcester, MA (october 2003)

I intercepted a class full of students from Clark University that were studying Urban Ecology in NYC and rode north to check out Worcester and visit Zach.

 

France/Spain (july 2003)

The TBG trip to Europe was taken under the pretext of doing some work for La Porte Rouge, but was mostly just a nice, lazy vacation. The effects of the much needed relaxation were immediately undone by more adventures in wedding photography and then the 4 weeks of non-stop shooting at the Fringe Festival.

 

Cambridge, OH (june 2003

Paige & Daniel ran into a little bind when their photographer had to go in for last minute surgery, so I flew out to fill in. Did I mention that I'm turning into a traveling wedding photographer? It's ridiculous. I have a lot of fun shooting weddings but please find me other things to shoot too!

 

Nashville, TN (june 2003)

My first trip to Nashville hitched a ride home with Zach after TBG moved out of Dunton Street. Took many snapshots of the trees on the drive down...

 

Durham, NC (december 2002)

Painter extraordinaire and all around superstar Thérèse Murdza flew me in to help her take slides of her work and start up theresemurdza.com.

 

Landsdowne, VA (december 2002)

Another TBG trip, this one was to document a conference for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Met many really interesting people and was a little bit weirded out by the crazy concrete fortress that is the conference center.

 

Mongolia (june 2002)

After finishing school, I had the opportunity to spend a month traveling and photographing in Mongolia. It was the first time in my life that I had a solid chunk of time to devote to photography without any other commitments in the way. That time was very productive in helping me improve my skills, but the language barrier was immensely frustrating; I don't like photographing when I can't talk to people, and I didn't pick up enough language to be really useful. I hope to return there someday with more preparation and more time to do a project on the roads there, which I find absolutely fascinating.

 

Italy (march 2002)

In my last semester of my undergraduate career, I stumbled into a great art history class with professor Stephen Campbell. An unexpected bonus to an already great course was a spring break field trip to northern italy. Being able to see the works that we were studying as something more than a thumbnail in a book was great, but even more inspiring was spending time in so many old buildings that made beautiful use of natural light. I spent most of the time photographing my fellow students as they explored these places.

 

Jeffersonville, NY (october 2001)

I traveled to upstate NY to participate in the Eddie Adams Workshop, where I joined a group of 100 students and young professionals in a very intense weekend of learning supported by some of the biggest names in the business. My team's theme was "religion" and they sent me to a wedding, so I guess this was the start of my adventures as a traveling wedding photographer.

 

Ft. Collins, CO (august 2000)

The Daily Pennsylvanian sent me to spend a week in Colorado, developing my skills at the Great Colorado Shootout workshop.

 

Armenia (june 2000)

My aunt and uncle spent three years in Yerevan, Armenia, while working for the US government- so I had to go visit, as it seemed like a pretty good excuse to explore a new place.

 

Senegal (may 2000)

French colonialism did a lot of bad things in west Africa, but since Senegal is a french speaking place it provided the opportunity for me to travel while working as an interpreter and research assistant for professor Philip Nichols. Of course I took my cameras along too...

 

Don't forget that this project needs your support: please take a moment and email all of your friends about the idea. Even those that don't need a photographer themselves- because odds are, they'll know someone else that does.

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thanks! -jj

If you'd like to donate to the fieldtrip fund, the best way is by sending a check, payable to JJ Tiziou Photography, to PO Box 42127, Philadelphia, PA 19101.

To make things easier, you can donate right now with any credit card or a Paypal account.