Sam Dean is a photojournalist in The Roanoke (Va.) Times newsroom.

THE CELL PHONE RANG around 11 p.m., April 16. "If you want your pictures to be considered, you better get them here soon," said Natalee Waters, photo editor at The Roanoke (Va.) Times.

All day I had been photographing the Virginia Tech shootings, one of the most difficult and important stories of my career, and I couldn't get a good Internet connection. The print edition was waiting for the photos, and perhaps more important, our Web site. Internet news providers around the world were waiting for something, anything showing the reaction from the devastated campus.

I am well aware that I photograph a world no longer content to see photos on tomorrow's front page alone. I had the photos, but if I couldn't get them out it wouldn't do anyone any good.

Finally, while gobbling some much-needed dinner, I convinced a sandwich shop employee to let me use his Virginia Tech network login, and the photos moved.

Over the course of the following days the pattern repeated itself, and it became increasingly difficult to find a quiet corner of the story as media descended on the campus from around the globe. The community began to weary of the media pressure, and it was clear that if we were going to do justice to this coverage, we were going to have to do more than just produce great images, we were going to have to tell stories in new ways. The visual journalists at The Roanoke Times turned to tools that many others did not have: local contacts and a depth of experience in multimedia storytelling.

As thousands of Virginia Tech students and staff, as well as members of the greater Tech community, filled the campus drill field the evening of April 17, four Times photographers captured the scene in photographs and one recorded audio. The resulting slideshow displayed both the raw emotion and resilience of the Tech community to viewers around the globe. We had something that not many others were offering. Audio slideshow

Recording audio for slideshows is nothing new to us. We've been producing audio slideshows for years. Because of this experience we were able to produce compelling slide shows and videos the week of the shootings and beyond. The online staff back at the office did a wonderful job of getting the work on the Web just as soon as we could get it too them.

By Wednesday, I too was tired of the small army of journalists hovering around Tech's drill field. We had to do more. We had to get beneath the surface.

The opportunity lay a half hour to the west of Blacksburg, in the small community of Narrows, Va., where reporter Beth Macy and I traveled to see how this town was coping with the loss of favorite son Jarrett Lane. Macy had a contact that provided access to Lane's high school.

We produced a story and multimedia piece that day that set the tone for further stories on his family - stories that, it has turned out, are among the most personal the Times has produced on a Tech victim. Article and audio slideshow

The work was hard on both of us. How do you do your job when you feel as if you're part of the story and you feel your emotions welling? I made pictures and recorded an interview with Lane's basketball coach; Macy mustered the courage to ask a few questions.

As we were preparing to leave, a girl asked if she could pin ribbons to our chests. Each was maroon and orange, for Virginia Tech, and green and yellow, for Narrows High School. "Jarrett" was written in silver on a slip of black ribbon at the center.

"You're one of us," she said. *