New photog takes to the streets

A Hi-Line native has returned to take over as the photographer for the Havre Daily News.

Amber D'Hooge, a 1999 Chinook High School graduate, started at the Daily News this morning.

"I'm just happy to be back and eager to get out into the community and start telling the stories of the people who live here," said D'Hooge, daughter of Rita and Kevin Campbell of Chinook.

She is working on completing a senior project for the honors program at the University of Montana-Missoula. She expects to graduate next spring with a bachelor's degree in journalism with an emphasis on photography .

She said she probably will finish some photo essays to submit as her senior project while working in Havre.

"I'm hoping tocontinue some projects I'm working on on the Hi-Line," D'Hooge said. "I'm anxious to get back into those."

D'Hooge has already worked for several publications. She worked at the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison, Wis., as a Lee Enterprises news scholar in the summer of 2002. She worked for the Missoula Independent, a weekly publication, while attending classes at UM.

Her credits also include the UM annual publication the Native News Project, published alternately in the Missoulian and the Great Falls Tribune.

D'Hooge completed working on PointSouth, an online publication by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., in July. The publication is an annual production by students in a Poynter Institute summer fellowship.

The Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism teaching and research institution, was created by St. Petersburg Times publisher Nelson Poynter in 1975.

She then traveled to New York City and studied at the International Center of Photography before going to Charlotte, N.C., to help work at the Women in Photojournalism conference. She came back to the Hi-Line after she finished working there last week.

D'Hooge will continue her professional development in October, when she attends the Eddie Adams workshop Barnstorm. The workshop, created by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Eddie Adams, brings 100 hand-picked photojournalists to Jeffersonville, N.Y., for four days of training starting Oct. 13. Students and photojournalists with three years or less of professional experience can apply for the program, now in its 16th year.

D'Hooge said she had opportunities to work for several papers, but she wanted to give something back to the area where her roots are.

"Giving back to my community is something that's always been important to me," she said. "I saw this as a unique opportunity to do that."

D'Hooge and her mother, Rita, moved to Havre from Hogeland when she was two, after the death of her father, Emiel D'Hooge. They moved to Chinook when her mother married Kevin Campbell.