Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Rick Loomis always remembers to put people first when telling his visual stories.

"I might die.”

That was the thought running through the head of Rick Loomis, photojournalist with The Los Angeles Times, while he was embedded with a company of U.S. Marines during the pivotal Battle of Fallujah in Iraq on April 26, 2004.

The day started out as a search for insurgents, but it quickly became a fight for their lives as scores of armed militiamen massed around them, nearly surrounding the house they were in. The insurgents used everything at their disposal to level the building and kill the Marines – machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Loomis had never been in a more dangerous situation.

The day started out as a search for insurgents, but it quickly became a fight for their lives as scores of armed militiamen massed around them, nearly surrounding the house they were in. The insurgents used everything at their disposal to level the building and kill the Marines – machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Loomis had never been in a more dangerous situation.

Thinking back on that day, he says, "Shooting pictures was on my mind, but thinking about what might happen was probably more on my mind. I pictured myself not making it out of that building.”

Toward the end of that fight, when the Marines and Loomis were evacuating the area, he had to make a decision. Was he only a photographer, or was he going to put down his cameras and help a young Marine, Lance Cpl. Aaron Austin, who had been shot several times through the chest during the battle? Loomis remembered the admonition of veteran photojournalist David LaBelle, who always said, "Be a human first,” and helped carry Austin out of danger.

Loomis survived that day to photograph again – and has been to Afghanistan and Iraq 10 times – but Austin wasn't as lucky. "I found out later that he died,” Loomis says. "That sort of sticks with you.”

The daily grind

Photojournalism is a demanding career, requiring proficiency in many areas and total commitment in time and energy. His career has taken him to many extremes – from violent hotspots in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Lebanon, Vietnam, Kuwait, Mexico, Haiti and Cuba, to free-spirited arts festivals, such as Burning Man in the Nevada desert.

"Photojournalism is the jack-of-all-trades in photography, demanding some level of expertise in every facet of the craft,” Loomis says. "You must know how to handle anything that is thrown at you, from lighting a movie star to covering a war and everything in between. It makes you very versatile and comfortable in any situation.”

Though a photojournalist can be expected to cover an industrial fire one minute and a food shot the next, there is always room for specialization. "That's the beauty of photojournalism,” Loomis says. "You can delve into a lot of different areas, but also specialize in one or two things.”

Working at The Los Angeles Times has  been good for Loomis. He pursues long-term projects and also handles daily assignments. Larger projects, he says, can offer a lot of satisfaction, such as with the five-part "Altered Oceans,” for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. But daily assignments continue to be an essential part of his job as a photojournalist.

Loomis explains the differences between the two: "The daily assignments usually require less personal attachment. I don't go home and think about them for days. But if I'm working on a project, it's going to be on my mind all the time until it's done and published in the paper. And even afterwards I still reflect on them."

Some of Loomis' best-known work also deals with the terrible echoes of war. His "War Victims” project, for example, is a series of intimate portraits of people – mostly indigenous civilians living in Afghanistan – who have been scarred, physically and emotionally, by warfare. The images frankly depict the ravages of the wounds and anguish on the faces of relatives while also letting the subjects' inner strength shine through. Mirroring his "War Victims” series is a companion project, "New Battle,” focusing on the stateside recovery of American soldiers who have also been grievously wounded in the ongoing Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The long-term projects are mostly challenging in their commitment of time. Loomis can be on assignment for more than a month at a time, working 15- to 19-hour days with no time off. Already this year, he's been traveling on assignment for five out of nine months, with three more major trips to come.

How does he handle such a grueling schedule? "I guess I just know that there's going to be time when I'm home and I'm going to be relaxed, eating the foods that I want, sleeping in my own bed, seeing my girlfriend, playing with my dog,” he explains. "I know that time is coming. But up to that point, you just work.” He also acknowledges, "There's a bit of that chaos that I enjoy – I won't say I don't. It's the thrill of the unknown.”

Photography on a whim

For some people, their careers are laid out in front of them like the yellow brick road from "The Wizard of Oz,” but not so for Loomis. The idea of being a photojournalist never really occurred to him until he was already firmly on the road to being one.

Loomis' fascination with photography got a jump-start when his dad bought him a Canon AE-1 Program  35mm SLR during the summer before his junior year in high school. Soon after, Loomis took a two-week boat trip from his home in Florida all the way to Michigan. He took pictures along the way and developed them in one-hour labs whenever they stopped. This kicked his love of cameras and photography into high gear.

Like most people in high school, Loomis didn't know what he wanted to be when he grew up. He had narrowed it down to architecture, marine biology or photography, and was leaning toward architecture. As a senior, though, Loomis had the opportunity to choose a career internship. On a whim, he picked photography. It was a fortuitous decision. "It was The Palm Beach Post and, at that time, pound for pound, they probably had one of the best photo staffs in the country,” he says.

That internship led to a part-time job after high school, working in the lab developing film. It was exciting work at times, Loomis says. "They had me flying in the back of a Cessna Piper Cub with hot chemistry developing the other photographers' film from the Space Shuttle when it launched,” Loomis recalls. "I'd pick up film off the tarmac and develop it in-flight back to West Palm and drop off the film. It was exciting and definitely a good training ground.”

After a couple of years and the encouragement of his bosses, he decided to pursue photojournalism as a career. He enrolled at Western Kentucky University (WKU), where he was awarded internships around the country and twice won the William Randolph Hearst Journalism Award. It was at WKU that he studied under David LaBelle, a photojournalist and instructor at the university.

His internships crisscrossed the United States, from Indiana to Colorado and from Seattle to New York. "I used the internships as a way to see what was out there,” he says. "I went back and forth across the country. I still have that thirst, that wanderlust, to see everything there is to see.” After he graduated, Loomis got a job working at The Los Angeles Times in 1994.

He's been there ever since.

A natural style

Loomis is a stickler for authenticity. Whether it's manipulating images or posing subjects, he has firm limits. "It's a line that's hard to come back from," he says.

The key to getting good and true shots is patience and hard work, Loomis says. "I like things to be very natural,” he says. "I've always found that if you invest the time, you can come away with photographs that are pure and natural. I'll sit there for hours – literally for an entire day – sit in the same spot and won't move, and make my pictures when I can. I think that's compelling when people are in their own element. It's sometimes hard to achieve that, but there's a purity in that that I desire."

Loomis is also aware of his obligations to his subjects. "If a family allows you into their home and opens up to you, that is a privilege you should not take for granted,” he says. "You need to give of yourself before you can expect anything from anybody else. If you're not invested and involved, you don't deserve much. You're just looking at things from an outsider's perspective. You want to be empathetic and sympathetic to your subjects.”

The balance of lifeMaintaining a relationship with such an intense work schedule can be tricky, especially if your girlfriend is also a photojournalist who travels as much as you do. Such is the case with Loomis' girlfriend, Liz O. Baylen, who he says is "as gung-ho as I am.”

Case in point: "I was in Afghanistan and China, and I came home hoping she'd be here,” Loomis says. "But she got an assignment in Africa and had to bail out on a vacation we were supposed to have together for a week back east with my family. Balance is very important and very hard to achieve, but this is a job where sometimes you just have to go.”

For Loomis and Baylen, their work, as crazy as it can sometimes be, is also a bond they share. "A lot of our relationship is talking about each other's projects – what we're working on and what we want to work on,” he says. "You could call that good or bad, but I think that's why we're together. We enjoy what we do. We enjoy talking about it.”

Life after a Pulitzer

"Altered Oceans” is a five-part series on the growing crisis in the global marine ecosystem, examining everything from pollution to rising sea temperatures. Working with two writers, Kenneth R. Weiss and Usha Lee McFarling, Loomis spent a whole year traveling around the world, documenting the biological decline of the world's oceans with still and video cameras. The three of them won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism.

The entire series became required reading for members of Congress during a special caucus on the state of our oceans and was produced as a DVD. Teachers all over the country now use the series as a teaching tool. "It went offline during our redesign,” Loomis says, "and I got e-mails immediately from teachers [saying], I use this to teach my class. Where is it? I need to be able to find this now.' That makes me feel like we did something good.”

Loomis has done some teaching on his own, as well. In 2003, he was a team leader at the Eddie Adams Workshop in upstate New York, and an instructor at the Mountain Workshops in Kentucky from 2003 to 2006. He has also lectured at various photographic events, such as the World Press Photo exhibition and the Julia Dean Photo Workshops.

Winning a Pulitzer has changed Loomis' life, both personally and professionally. "Since we met success with ["Altered Oceans"], it gave me confidence as well as trust  from my editors that I can handle long-term, large-scale projects,” he says.

The acclaim also showed him that his efforts could have a direct impact on the world. "That's what this job is about,” he adds. "Shining light in places that need illumination and making a difference when you can.”

All about people

Bob Greene, an author and syndicated columnist, recently wrote a memoir about his experiences as a first-time reporter at the Citizen Journal in Columbus, Ohio. On one pivotal day, he complained to his boss that he had nothing to write about. Greene's boss looked at him and said, "There are people out there. Nothing to write? There are people out there.”

A year after the Battle of Fallujah, Loomis was working on a story about the repercussions of the death of Aaron Austin, the wounded soldier he had helped carry off the battlefield. Following the story around the country, Loomis found himself in New Mexico, interviewing a woman named Deon Miller. As he showed her footage of the moment when he had carried Austin from the battlefield, she exclaimed, "Oh my God! That's Aaron. That's my son.” Without intending to, Loomis had shown Austin's mother footage of her own son wounded and dying. "My heart just sank right there,” Loomis says.

But at the same time, his decision to put down his camera and help a young man – to "be a human first” – was validated, and a connection between Loomis and Austin's mom was forged in their shared pain and memories. "Now, every April 26, I call her and I let her know that I am thinking about her and her son Aaron,” he says.

And that's what journalism, be it via words or images, is ultimately about, Loomis says. It isn't really the events, places, landscapes or architecture that capture our imagination and emotions; it's the people who are a part of those stories. It's their stories that touch us and stay with us. Without the people, there are no stories. That's the lesson that Rick Loomis has learned.

Loomis continues to go on assignment, traveling around the world, following the stories, shooting photographs and sending them in – and then repeating it all again. For a photojournalist, he says, sometimes it's like shining a flashlight into the darkness. You never know what your work will reveal or what effect it will have; you just keep on working.

He hesitates and adds, "I love what I do. Photojournalism is a big part of my life and one of the best jobs out there. It's afforded me the opportunity to see many things that I never would have otherwise seen – some good, some bad." But above all, Loomis continues to place humanity first and tries to make a difference.

IN THE LOUPE: Rick Loomis

Home:  Long Beach, Calif., following what he calls a “three-year stint of homelessness.”

Interests: When he’s not shooting, Loomis says he also enjoys snowboarding, camping, scuba diving, rock climbing, mountain biking and “the company of wonderdog Tikka.”

Awards: Loomis’ accolades are too numerous to count, but some recent awards include the Newspaper Photographer of the Year, Award of Excellence, Pictures of the Year International (2008); Los Angeles Press Club Photojournalist of the Year (2008 and 2004); 1st Place, News Audio Slideshow, “A life-changing vote,” Best of Photojournalism (2008); Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting (2007); Reader’s Prize, Days Japan International Photojournalism Awards (2007); and the Mark Twain Award for Excellence in News Photography (2007).

Preferred Equipment: Canon DSLRs (1D Mark III) and Canon lenses (EF 28mm, f/1.8); Sony HVE-VU1 HDV camcorder; Edirol R-09 MP3/WAVE digital audio recorder.

Pet Peeve: Sometimes people talk about photography instead of doing it. “Don’t talk about it, just do it,” Loomis says. “Go out and do it.”

Main Influences: Dave LaBelle, photo instructor at Western Kentucky University; Michael Williamson of The Washington Post; Gail Fisher, former photo editor at The Los Angeles Times, now at National Geographic; and Alex Webb. Also Sebastião Salgado: “I walked through an exhibit of his when I was in college and I cried before I got to the end,” Loomis says.

Advice to aspiring photojournalists:  “Don’t forget the basics,” he says. “Learn the craft of photography. Don’t settle for mediocrity. Work harder than everybody else.”

Website: loomisphotography.com