Jim Rankin

By Emilie Bourque (BJ '09)

Jim Rankin (BJ ’92) didn’t come to photography through journalism. He came to journalism through photography. He got his first SLR film camera at the age of 12, and says a romance was born.

“It really is like falling in love with something,” he says. “There’s an infatuation phase. And it’s a real lasting kind of love, and a tremendous outlet.”

Although he’s involved in many facets of The Toronto Star, from feature writing to shooting video for online mini-documentaries, the award-winning journalist will never forget his first passion.

“The really nice thing about making photographs is that, unlike writing stories, at the end of the day, you’ve actually created something you can look at,” says Rankin, who has been working full-time with The Star for 14 years.

Things have changed a lot in journalism since Rankin graduated from the one-year Bachelor of Journalism Programme at King’s in 1992. Luckily, he’s well suited for those changes, equipped with an eagerness for new technologies and a keen eye for documenting the world through any medium.

As newspapers shrink and the public reaches for a mouse and keyboard to find news, organizations like The Toronto Star are turning their focus to the web, opening up endless reporting possibilities. Rankin now juggles his first love with a video-camera, audio-recorder and notepad.

“Aside from just still photography, we’re thinking about audio now,” he says. “Photographers are gathering audio clips that go along with the pictures. And, we’re also getting into a bit of video, which is kind of... it’s fun, it’s exciting. It’s a very different kind of discipline than still photography, but the goal at the end of the day is the same: you want to tell a story.”

He says a new web component TheStar.com is about to launch has gotten him more excited about photography: a photo column that can accommodate one image, a series of images or a photo essay, accompanied by some nice tight writing.

“You can do a lot online that you can’t do in the paper,” he says. “You have a lot of real estate, and there’s no limit.”

Some people think this change over to the web isn’t a good one, he says, and will water down the quality of work at The Star. But Rankin says that as long as the paper’s reporters keep trying to tell stories well—through any medium—they’ll be OK.

“The Internet: it isn’t TV, it’s not radio and it’s not print,” he says. “But it’s all of them, at the same time. And it’s also interactive.”

With so many different ways of conveying a story, Rankin doesn’t get to spend as much time with his camera as he’d like, and his photo editor Ken Faught wishes he worked with him more. But Faught says it’s no surprise Rankin translates well across so many mediums, because he’s a good documentarian, possessing an ability to notice and document aspects of the world, no matter what vehicle he uses. Faught says Rankin also has a knack for understanding what visual elements will push a story forward.

“You try to make the world make more sense to your audience, and Jim’s really good at that,” he says. “He has a visual energy towards what he does. Once he locks and loads on a topic, he’s just tenacious going after it, and it’s inspiring.”

His wife, Michelle Shephard, agrees. She’s also a reporter at The Toronto Star, and knows all about telling stories. But she thinks it takes a certain type of personality to be a photojournalist, one that Rankin exemplifies.

“The best photojournalists are not ones that become a part of the scene, but stand back and can often see things that other people don’t see,” she says. “He’s just a born observer, that’s always the way he’s been, and he’s got this beautiful eye for seeing a picture. And I’m not sure if you can learn that, I don’t think you can. I think it’s sort of a gift.”The respect for Rankin’s photography goes beyond his colleagues and family. In 2002, for example, the American-based National Press Photographers Association recognized him in its Best of Photojournalism Awards for his photo of a tattered American flag hanging beneath a window-framed woman, her head hanging heavy in her hand—a moment captured during the 9/11 tragedy in New York City in 2001.

Whether he’s reflecting the emotional aftermath at a location like Ground Zero, or shooting while driving into a hurricane like Gustav in New Orleans, Rankin says it’s a privilege to be a front-row member in the audience of people’s lives, and to witness both great and disheartening moments. And it’s this privilege, and the impact that comes with documenting these moments, that motivates this photojournalist.

“You get to see some stuff that most people will never have a chance to experience,” he says. “It’s a very powerful medium, where a single image can actually make a difference.”

Rankin feels photojournalism can make people think about how they, and the world in which they live, function, and can inspire people to contribute to their communities more. A rewarding part of the job for him is how this awareness can create potential change.

With the rest of an exciting and transforming career left to shape in journalism, Faught thinks it’s safe to expect more good things from Rankin in the future.

“I tend not to look backward with Jim, I tend to look forward,” he says. “He has so much potential that I think some of his best work is ahead of him.”