www.davidylee.com featured alum// DAVID Y.LEE
After graduating from Salt's photography program in the spring of 2000, David Y. Lee pursued his master's degree at Ohio University School of Visual Communication. During this time, he interned at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (spring 2001), Louisville Courier Journal (summer 2001), and Valley News (winter and spring 2002); upon completing his coursework, David secured the photo internship at US News & World Report in Washington DC (summer and fall 2003). The following year was the 2004 presidential campaign which David covered for the Time, Newsweek and US News & World Report. David continues to freelance in Washington DC; his two primary clients are Time and Newsweek, on assignment covering the White House, Capitol Hill and other national news. In October 2007, David was contracted by the US Department of State as Secretary Condoleezza Rice's official photographer, documenting her legacy in her final year in office.

In 2006 with two colleagues, David produced the multimedia project Yearbook 2006 (see b+w images below), which documented the interrupted senior year of the class of 2006 at Benjamin Franklin High School in a post-Katrina New Orleans. Yearbook 2006 was a featured presentation at the 2006 Department of Health and Human Services SAMSA Conference in New Orleans.
In his free time, David continues to pursue his own documentary work.

the project//
David, and two of his colleagues, collaborated on a multimedia project called Yearbook 2006 (see his photographs below), which document the abbreviated senior year for the 2006 graduating class from Benjamin Franklin High School in post-Katrina New Orleans. See the entire project online at www.y06.org.

photographs by David Y. Lee
Q&A//
Salt: What are you up to?
DYL: I am working on the Waiting List, a project that uses the stories of those on the organ translplant waiting list with the ultimate goal to insprire people to sign up and become an organ donor. Check out the teaser here! [.mov]

I also working with my friend, multimedia producer and photograher Jody Sugrue on a project called 10:15AM that invites people around the world to share a photograph taken at 10:15am their local time everyday.

Salt: Who are you listening to/looking at/reading right now, in the documentary world?
DYL: The NPR program "This I Believe" inspires me — it's based on such a simple concept, and I'm always reminded that everyone has an amazing story to tell.

Salt: What is your most enduring and striking experience from your time at Salt?
DYL: I collaborated on a project with 24 year-old Adam Murphy of Wells, Maine, a former fine arts student from California. He had overdosed on cocaine, which left him paralyzed and unable to speak. I remember visiting with Adam at the Sanford nursing home he resided in. I remember him pointing down to a drawer in his dresser — inside was a video-cassette. I remember putting it into his VCR next to his bed. On the television was Adam — before his stroke — hanging out with his friends, laughing, talking, doing these amazing stunt tricks on his bike. As I watched, Adam paced up and down the hallway in his electric wheelchair, every now and then passing by the door. He was sharing with me.

Salt: What's your 5-year plan looking like these days?
DYL: Honestly, I have no idea because new opportunities or ideas seem to present themselves to me every day.

Salt: Do you have any advice to offer fellow documentarians?
DYL: Find your sugar mama (or sugar daddy). Or win the lottery.

In the meantime, find the project that inspires you, that keeps you up at night because you believe in it. If you believe in your work, if you truly believe in your vision as a storyteller, someone else will too.

[ And you don't have to go to Africa to document hunger or poverty. There are stories right in your own backyard that need to be told. ]

more work// below, clockwise from the top left >>
President Bush, Secretary Rice, comedian Jay Larson backstage, right before going on stage, and Todd Schmaus with his girlfriend Kelli Walker, from the Waiting List project.