William Caldera: Career

Hobbies

Volunteer Work

Career

My passion for photography and video editing began my senior year in high school when I put together a video montage using two vhs players, a vhs camcorder, and a stereo to lay down the music bed. While working on the video montage, I began to notice that photos cropped a certain way look much better. Little did I know, I was actually recognizing the rule of thirds before I had ever heard of the term.

     Instead of going to college to become an automotive mechanic as I had planned all of my high school career, I chose to pursue a career in photography and enrolled at Texas State Technical College in Waco. In August of 2000, I completed an Associates of Applied Science degree in Media Communications and Information Technology. While a full time student at TSTC, I also worked 34 hours per week, and for a quarter, held an internship at Joe Griffin Photography. During my internship, I shadowed Joe Griffin and his assistants during photo shoots, in the darkrooms, and editing the amazing images Joe created. I especially enjoyed assisting Joe with lighting in the studio.

     During my last quarter at TSTC, I accepted a position in "Master Control" at KWTX-TV in Waco. My duties included pushing a button to play commercials and writing down the exact hour, minute, and second that each commercial played on the FCC Log. After all the commercials played, I had to push another button to go back to programming. I was also responsible for playing syndicated programming at the exact times. I call it the George Jetson job. After a two year tour of duty in master control, I was given a chance to become a photojournalist. It was in that position that I learned a great deal from the chief photojournalist, Jim Peeler.

     A year later, a coworker spotted a classified add in the Waco Tribune Herald advertising an opening for a photojournalist at a station in San Antonio and passed it along to me. Much to my surprise I received a call back from the News Operations Manager about a week after mailing my resume. Soon after, I loaded all my stuff into a small U-haul and headed south on I-35.

I have worked with some truly creative and incredibly talented people at KSAT-12 TV. I arrived just in time to cover the 2003 Spurs Championship victory. Since then, I have covered a wide spectrum of news stories, and have seen the best and worst of man kind. I have covered death, destruction, disasters, tragedies, celebrations and everything in between. While many of my colleagues dislike covering it, Fiesta is my favorite annual event to cover.

In 2005, I covered the largest national story since 9/11; Hurricane Katrina. Although I never made it into the flood waters of New Orleans, I stood on I-10 in Metairie where patients were being unloaded from helicopters and transported in Ambulances and military style vehicles. We spoke with parents who didn't know where their kids had been taken, and children who were separated from their families living with thousands of strangers at the shelters.

A few weeks later, I was covering Hurricane Rita in Houston and Galveston. The most memorable part was the eerie drive into downtown Houston. A major US city, notorious for its traffic congestion, was a ghost town during what should have been a busy Friday afternoon rush hour.

In early 2006, I traveled to the Chicago Auto Show where Toyota unveiled the new Tundra model that would later roll off the production lines at the new plant in San Antonio. The best part of the show was seeing the Camaro Prototype years before it would become available.

I have also covered numerous stories throughout the state including immigration issues along the Texas and Arizona boarders, Spring Break in South Padre Island, the Fort Hood shootings, and sporting events across the country.

In 2007 I traveled to Cleveland with five of my colleagues to cover the NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the Cleveland Cavaliers. When the Spurs swept the Cavs in game 4 we carried live coverage until 3 am. After our coverage concluded, we checked out of our hotel and caught a flight back to San Antonio just in time for the river parade and celebration.