I've worked on staff for Florida and California newspapers and I now freelance from San Diego, currently as a contract photographer for ZUMA Press and working anywhere editorial assignments take me. I also teach photography courses for a local non-profit adult education organization.

So... why photojournalism?

I'd originally planned to become some vague incarnation of a "commercial photographer." In my research about how to achieve that, I found that many photographers started by working for newspapers. That sounded like a good idea so I somehow latched onto a job for a tiny newspaper in San Diego. I found I loved telling visual stories about people, and any real desire to do any other kind of photography quickly vanished. (I should have known my destiny early on - the first roll of film I shot with my very first camera, a Kodak Instamatic, had photos of the aftermath of a multi-car fire.)

You can see more of my work at my personal website, davidbarak.com.

Before beginning my photography career I served in the US Navy, flying as a sensor operator in S-3A Vikings from USS Carl Vinson.