Lance Cheung

Deputy Director of Operations

Lance Cheung is the Deputy Director of Operations for Shoot Off Visual Media Workshops and a veteran of the United States Air Force, who served for 24 years. He has been the Senior Photojournalist for the Department of Agriculture for over a decade and specializes in covering rural America. His military career began with pumping aviation fuel, but he later pursued the Military Photojournalism Program at Rochester Institute Technology, N.Y., and was assigned to both Air Force Combat Camera Squadrons.

Eventually, he became the Director of Photojournalism for the U.S. Air Force's flagship publication, AIRMAN magazine, and H.Q. Air Force News Agency. He has flown in 34 aircraft types as aircrew for hundreds of hours that included aerial combat.  Currently, Lance Cheung documents all things agriculture, including under the waters of West Virginia rivers, in farm rows of California, biobased energy research laboratories, the nation's zoos, Central American business incubator sites, residential cesspools, the familiar meat packing facilities, and more.

When not creating USDA success stories, he also serves as a personal photographer for the USDA Secretary and other top leaders. Through his award-winning photography, he has documented everything from babies in neonatal wards to crimes against humanity, and his footage and photos appear in feature-length movies, documentaries, news, print, and social media. 

San Antonio, TX, is now his home office, where he creates multimedia products and supports multimedia operations for the USDA's Rural Development agency. His USDA imagery constitutes more than 33,000 of the 95,000 images on the Flickr photo site and a growing number of video productions that show what the department is doing for the nation and the world. 

For more about Lance Cheung, go to https://thecounter.org/usda-photographer-lance-cheung-dorothea-lange-fsa-flickr/