While perusing the pages of this newspaper on a daily basis, one cannot fail to notice Rob Fountain's credit line as staff photographer.

He started his photojournalist journey at age 22 when he purchased a 35mm Olympus OM-10 and walked into the Saranac Lake offices of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.

"I was friends with the sports editor there, Jim Stowell," Fountain said. "He said if I was interested, I could take high-school football photos for him, so he didn't have to. I started being their sports photographer on Saturdays. I did that for some time. Then their photographer quit, and they asked me to take over."

FINE-ARTS ASPECT

When Fountain first started, he knew little, formally, about photojournalism.

"The publisher, Cathy Moore, told me to fill up the frame and come up with a single photo that best tells the story of the whole situation. I had an idea of what photojournalism was by looking at the newspaper everyday. So a lot of what I did, I looked at other newspapers and saw what other photographers were doing."

Ansel Adams is an iconic influence. Fountain returned back to college at SUNY Potsdam, where he majored in art studio with concentrations in photography, printmaking and ceramics. He graduated cum laude in 2000.

At Potsdam, he studied under Jenny Layne.

"It helped me with composition and lighting. The big thing was she told me the difference between photojournalism and fine art."

Fountain's fine-arts aspect is revealed in "Northern Exposure," his first solo exhibition at Clinton Community College.

"What I have done over the years, and especially in this show, is combine the two, because I think it makes a more interesting photo."

CAPTURED MOMENTS

During his career thus far, Fountain has won 10 statewide and national awards for photography. The most recent was a 2006 Associated Press Award for a portrait of legendary bassist Gordon Edwards.

"It's a portrait of him from the journalistic side, thinking about a question that was asked. At the same time, because I used natural lighting, it creates all this texture in the photo that gives it a fine-arts feeling."

When he's not shooting for the Press-Republican, Fountain shoots for himself: Rob Fountain Photography, where he "creates unique images by combining photojournalism and fine-art photography for weddings, portraits, events, sports and landscapes."