About

James “Patch” McLaughlin

I was born and raised in Baltimore, M.D. (GO RAVENS!) and picked up my first camera when I was 16 years old after reading “The Bang Bang Club.” I enlisted in the Marines after high school as a Combat Photographer where I attended the Defense Information School for Photojournalism. While in the Marines I worked closely with a team of photographers, videographers, graphic designers, the LCTV-10 Camp Lejeune News Crew, and The Globe newspaper reporters, to cover combat training operations for various infantry units, Marine Special Operations Command, Commanding General of Marine Corps Installations East, and the Canadian Marine Forces. As a non-commissioned officer I over saw a team of photographers who covered news and events for all of Camp Lejeune, N.C.. After being discharged I worked on board tugboats on the east coast where I saved up money to by a camera and a plane ticket to Nepal. In Nepal I was an intern for Nepal Photo Online where I covered local news and events to include several protests, local personalities, and the ratification of the Nepali constitution in the wake of a civil war. After my internship I stayed in Kathmandu where myself and two other photographers documented life in a Kathmandu slum for families of migrant workers from India. In 2010 I went back to school where I took journalism classes at the local Community College.  I wrote for the school paper and in the summer of 2013 I was an intern at the Prince George’s Gazette in M.D. where I worked as a beat reporter covering news and events in Upper Marlboro. I am currently attending the School of Communications at American University in Washington D.C. where I am majoring in print journalism.