Old News Hacks Never Fade Away

Thirty-five years as a photo journalist has had its ups and downs. High points and low points like nothing I have ever witnessed. This last week has me, for the first time in 5 years, seriously putting a reel together for new clients and to remind old clients I am still a player. It has been fun hiding out for a few years in Idaho but the old demons are knocking at the door once more and it's time to get back in the arena.

When the planets align and a story unfolds in perfect order showing it's soft underbelly as though everything was planned. This happens every so often for those in the news business. Story telling is a combination of intuition and perception. Trying to catch the main events in the right light, position, time, angle and all the time, hoping your presence doesn't skew the story.

One story really struck home, it is one that I would not use on my reel unless I wanted to show some one what happens when it all comes together, that is in my opinion and not necessarily the facts, it's news after all.

Two diverse groups and I mean universes apart, forced together on the Texas State Capital for a couple of hours. Capturing the moment with pictures and sound is not as easy as one might think. I knew I had hit the bull's eye when both groups complained about the coverage including those with no opinion who simply didn't like the emotion, resulting in body language and words that offended.

Talk about multitasking, trying to build the story in your head as you go for two different mindsets. Working to get the spoken word to say what is going on then proving it with pictures and, with a few shots, or doing both in a single picture. A picture of diverse individuals shot from a low angle with a replica of the Statue of Liberty looking down on them, a shot of some one saluting with the wrong arm. These are happening in the corner of your eye at an event like this as your subconscious is firing off commands to the body as your mind tries to concentrate on the mechanics of story telling, exposure, focus, composition, keeping a very complicated electronic camera working, etcetera.

All the time I was pretty amazed that we live in a country that allowed both of these groups to show their emotion. I don't know if that is possible in these times.

Here is a link to story and a two hour slice of time as I saw it on a sunny Martin Luther King Day in Texas during the 1990's. All of the whirring pieces stayed in sync long enough for me to tell this story and cast it in stone as electronic bits on a piece of tape. It is a very emotional story and not one that broadcast station owners like to see on their news casts, but its is at it's core, very real. Yes it resulted in a call from an irate station manager and news director. Would I do it again, most assuredly yes.

link to story