‘I’ve had a handful of favourites but I’m still waiting to get my best shot,’ the Western Suburbs Weekly snapper said.
‘I’m my own worst critic.’
Ritchie started at CNG in mid-1993, taking black and white photos on film rolls that were developed in a darkroom.
Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE
Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.
READ NOWThe change to colour photos meant shots were developed in a laboratory, printed and scanned for the papers.
Even the move to digital required photos to be handled in a laboratory.
‘We went to digital cameras in the early 2000s and those cameras were D30s with two-three megapixels,’ Ritchie said.
The two-time Community Newspaper of Australia photography award winner, who has also won two Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers’ Association prizes, was the inaugural photographer for the Western Suburbs Weekly when it was launched in February 2002.
‘They wanted to push the photo side and the whole front page was a photo,’ Ritchie said.
‘It’s great because we have a lot of freedom and our photos are used well, and we have a lot of creative licence.’
These days, Ritchie has boosted his skill set by filming and editing videos for the CNG website inmycommunity and the paper’s Facebook page.