If you think we take good pics, you should check out Liz Frantz’s

By Tim Goodwin - Jul 28, 2015 | 0 comments

With multiple cameras and a bag full of equipment, ‘Monitor’ photographer Liz Frantz is ready for whatever situation pops up when she’s out on assignment.

Frantz hard at work, trying to freeze a moment in time that will live on forever. (Photo by Tim Goodwin because even thought Frantz is good at what she does this would be a difficult shot even for her to take.)

Take a look at just about any photo in the Insider and it usually looks pretty good. And more often than not the photos we previously mentioned have our names underneath them identifying that we, in fact, can take a photo.

But we aren’t exactly ready to classify ourselves as photographers. We consider ourselves more as people who take pictures that appear in a newspaper. Although, we have to say, we do a pretty good job at it.

But someone like Liz Frantz, for instance, is a photographer. You might be wracking your brain trying to figure out why that name sounds so familiar, so we’ll help you. She’s the one who takes a lot of the great pics you see in the Monitor on a daily basis, and she actually went to school to do this sort of stuff.

So we decided to find out a little bit more of what Frantz does. Sure, we see her pictures every morning when we open the paper, but there has to be another layer to the story. The life of a newspaper photographer seems so mysterious and glamorous that we needed more.

“It’s always something different or some place new,” she said. “It’s never boring.”

On any given day, Frantz will have anywhere from two to four assignments. No day is ever the same, although recently and for the foreseeable future she can be found at just about every presidential event – no matter where it’s taking place in the state.

“This is why I wanted to be a newspaper photographer,” Frantz said. “You get more variety than a wedding photographer or even a wire photographer.”

Lets take her Tuesday last week. She got an email from Geoff Forester, the Monitor’s photo editor who we like to consider the puppet master of the photo department, containing her assignments for the day. 

“I usually start my day running,” Frantz said. “And that was a busy day.”

This sunny July day included a Your Life shoot at Concord Sports Center and some artistic shots of the inside and outside of the Dwelling House at Canterbury Shaker Village for A & E before traveling to Nashua for the N.H. kickoff of John Kasich’s presidential campaign.

“I like being a community photographer,” Frantz said. “I get a little bit of everything here.”

In between the final two stops, she processed the first two photo shoots and then came back to the office to whittle down the over 300 photos she took at the Kasich event. It was a 10 and a half hour day, although most of it was spent outside of the office, which is where a good portion of you would probably like to work.

Some assignments are more exciting than others, but no matter what she’s shooting, it’s important to deliver the best photos possible.

“We try to be storytellers,” she said. “I find interesting ways to visualize what others might consider boring. I love taking an ordinary thing and showing people something they haven’t seen before.”

Usually she gets a crash course in what the reporters are writing about, other times she goes with what she sees.

“Sometimes I’m just taking the photos that tell the story as I see it,” Frantz said. 

Other days she’s just told to go find something to shoot.

“I prefer to have a plan, but sometimes you just drive around and try to find something,” she said.

So if you’re at a Concord High football game, checking out the latest presidential candidate to hit the Granite State or playing in the park with your kids, you might just see Frantz hard at work – and if you’re lucky, she might just take your picture.