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CHIC2K3: One Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
By Craig Pinley
KNOXVILLE, TN (August 7, 2003) - If one picture is worth a thousand words, then
Warren Dillaway has produced a million visual words providing visitors to
the Evangelical Covenant Church website an exciting pictorial view of
CHIC2K3 that concluded this week on the campus of the University of
Tennessee.
Dillaway, a member of First Covenant Church in As
htabula, Ohio, was
responsible for producing almost all of the pictures displayed in the
CHIC2K3 section of the Covenant website at www.covchurch.org this past
week. He also was responsible for many of the photos during the CHIC2K
event in Knoxville in 2000 as well as CHIC 1994 in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Dillaway has served for 16 years as photojournalist at the Ashtabula
Star-Beacon, a daily newspaper with a circulation of 23,000 in
northeast Ohio. He also has coached high school track and cross-country in
his town and works with a local Fellowship of Athletes huddle group.
"One of the things that has kept me going at a small paper for 16 years was
the sense of God's calling to the profession," said Dillaway, who is on his
local church council with his wife, Holly, a local banker. "A sermon by Os
Guiness back in 1980 talked about the fact that a Christian should know the
cost of a call and be willing to pay it.
"It gets to be a grind at a smaller newspaper, constantly dealing with new
staff members," he continued. "Just when you get close with a young
reporter, they're moving on. But the church and the Covenant itself is a
strong reason for staying in Ashtabula. We just really love the Covenant,
the combination of commitment to evangelism and church planting and a
thoughtful, scholarly approach to the scriptures. And I'm committed to the
church."
Dillaway grew up in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and became interested in
photography during junior high. He went into it full bore, setting up a
dark room in his closet at home. Soon Dillaway was using his photographic
talents for his high school newspaper and writing sports stories and taking
pictures for a local weekly publication. He also ran cross-country and
track in high school, eventually becoming a walk-on runner at Kent State
University in Ohio.
Following his arrival at Kent State, Dillaway worked for the school
newspaper and became photo editor during his senior year. He also became
convinced that he could be a Christian and a journalist in the secular
media market.
"We had 17 people on our staff and sent people all over the country," said
Dillaway, who graduated from college in 1982. "I always wanted to be a
journalist but wasn't sure how that would work. I was fortunate to come
across a professor who taught experimental classes in Christian worldview.
He helped me understand that being a Christian didn't just mean sharing
your testimony.
"We would ask, 'Can a Christian cover the Rolling Stones?' My professor
would argue that you could, that as a photographer you would try to look at
the angle that told the story in a bigger way - not just the photo of Mick
Jagger singing, but something that told the larger story of the event."
Warren and Holly Dillaway left college and worked for four years at the
Coalition for Christian Outreach based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before
heading to the Ashtabula area. Warren was the head men's and women's
cross-country and the head women's track and field coach at Duquesne
University. He was able to start a Fellowship of Christian Athletes huddle
at the Catholic institution in Pittsburgh.
Dillaway loves working with students and that work has given him a
sensitivity that he believes most photographers do not possess. However,
that sensitivity can be a difficult thing at times, especially when
covering such occurrences as murders, fires and car wrecks.
"I was on assignment to cover a police physical training test and then
attend the Model United Nations at a high school," said Dillaway in
describing the worst working day in his life. "As I went to a conference, I
came upon a wrecked car being towed onto a flatbed truck. I stopped to ask
the tow truck driver whether it was a bad accident and he said the victim
was in bad shape. When I got to the high school, the delegation of
administrators was told that three high school students had been injured.
"I left that assignment later that day (at the high school) and covered a
funeral of a baby who had been abandoned and found dead," Dillaway
continued. "Upon returning from that funeral, my editor came into the
darkroom at the newspaper and told me the girl from the car accident had
died - it was one of the girls on my track team. I had to call the athletic
director of my high school and I had to work on the story as a fact
gatherer. I ended up writing a column about her that we ran on the sports
page."
Of all of the assignments he gets at the Star-Beacon, Dillaway says
he enjoys sports photography the most. He has covered U.S. Olympic Trials
track and field for U.S. Track and Field Magazine and also covers
college and professional sports in his state, along with his usual
workload. He said his most memorable photo was taken in the spring of 2002
at a regional softball game. A girl scoring the winning run in the game
crossed home base in mid air while the catcher was twisted underneath her
in an attempt the catch the ball. The photo received honors from the
state's news photography association.
But photography is not usually about the glamorous picture, he said. It's
about taking the most effective picture for the situation. Last week is a
case in point. There are many striking pictures in the CHI2K3 segment of
the Covenant website, but the photos may be most profound because they
capture the emotion of the event, as well as the breadth of activity.
"It's a temptation to look for the award-winning picture, which is usually
the very odd or the very strange," said Dillaway. "Sometimes the less
intense photo may serve the community and the individual better. But it is
a struggle. You don't want to become so cynical and hard that you'll take
any picture."
Editor's note: Dillaway was one of many members of the CHIC2K3 "I" team,
which has provided information for the news section of the main Covenant
website, the CHIC2K3 segment of that website and for various on-site
communications pieces used on the Tennessee campus during the week. Steve
Luce, creative director for the Covenant's Department of Communication, is
the CHIC2K3 Council member representing the communications "I" team. Other
full-time team members included: Matt and Vicky Watson, Corey and Gretchen
Johnsrud, Scott and Cheri Peterson, Scott and Patty Shepherd, Beth Wenell,
David Frisk, Matt Nalywaiko, Craig Pinley, Jim Young, Jan Gray and Scott
Miller. Ana Retamal assisted in Spanish translations of articles for the
team.
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