 Coughlin landed his first staff photographer job with the "Asbury Park Press" in Neptune, New Jersey in late 1991.Two years later, he accepted a staff photographer position with New Jersey's largest newspaper, "The Star-Ledger" of Newark.In August 1994 while covering the Woodstock '94 Music and Arts Festival in Saugerties, New York, he was informed by telephone that he no longer had a job.