About page
- David Shea is a southern California-based freelance photographer and multimedia photojournalist.
- David Shea photographs editorial, sport, environmental portraits, annual reports and commercial enterprises.
- David Shea enjoys storytelling through still photography, motion photography and audio.
- David Shea believes that stories matter and make a difference.
- David Shea thinks characters make life interesting.
- David Shea is the type of person who hates when people talk about themselves in the third person.
I grew up with a camera. First one was an Imperial Insta-Cube 126 in kindergarten, then a Pentax K-1000 SE in sixth grade that cost me $159. I was patient and I saved for 8 months to get it. (FYI: Eight months in Kid Standard Time (KST) is around 12 adult years.)
In some ways, I’ve always been a photojournalist.
I started making pictures for fun but the very first photograph that I remember making was one of my father standing at my mother’s grave when I was six. My dad, Francis “George” Shea, encouraged me through unlimited patience (film and processing were not cheap for us.) When I was old enough to travel away from home, I brought back travelogues showing where I’d been, what I saw and things I thought would make him laugh. My dad hated that I chose to shoot chrome instead of print film but he did enjoy the big screen presentations.
Before taking the plunge into freelance photography, I served as Assistant Director of Photography, Picture Editor, Photographer and Lab Manager over the course of a decade at The Press-Enterprise newspaper in Riverside. I won some awards, among them: the California Press Photographers Association Gold Seal Award for Best News Photograph of 2000, and as Executive Producer on the NPPA Best of Photojournalism Honorable Mention winner No Easy Way Home in the Best Multimedia Package category in 2008.
- David Shea thinks life is funny…so enjoy the ride!
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