Matt Mendelsohn
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I’ve been a photographer for 21 years, though my passion for photography started long before even then. Back in Mattlin Junior High School, in Plainview, New York, I vividly remember seeing an image come up on a piece of paper floating in a tray of liquid. The rest, as they say, is history.
Taking far too many pictures and accumulating far too few academic credits, I shot my way through my college years at the State University of New York in Binghamton, in the early Eighties. Though I received a B.A. in English Literature, I was known around school as the guy with the camera (and also known for setting a SUNY-B record for failing Chaucer four consecutive times.)
I began my career at the Binghamton Press and Sun Bulletin, and quickly moved on to USA Today, the nation’s newspaper, for what was supposed to be a five-month stint. But I stuck around Washington, D.C., becoming a photo editor and photographer at United Press International.
During my time at UPI, I covered the White House, the Gulf War, the invasion of Panama, and countless professional sporting events. In 1990, I moved to California to take over the Los Angeles bureau. While in Los Angeles, I covered the Rodney King beating trial, the Academy Awards and far too many USC football games. In fact, I sometimes hear the school’s march in my nightmares.
After moving back to the East Coast, I became the photo editor of the news section of USA Today and eventually the director of photography at USA Weekend, a Sunday magazine with a circulation of 27 million weekly.
Outside of the news business, I’m hard at work shooting weddings, portraits and commercial projects. Photo District News included my work in its “15 hottest wedding portfolios in America” issue and Washingtonian Magazine described my portraits as “a breed apart.”
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