Word to the Herd

Some folks only see their competitors on a spreadsheet. I run into mine at train derailments, cop car conventions and, of course, ribbon cuttings. Not surprisingly, the more mundane the assignment, the happier the chit-chat. Let’s face it: no one’s gonna skunk the other guy when you’re all lined up to talk to the Tomato Queen. Or even a well-meaning executive, for that matter. Thus, you’ll see many of the above formations outside pseudo-news events. Some call it teamwork, others collusion. I however know it by its proper name, an inelegant appellation to be sure, but one that’s oh so fitting: It’s a Gang-Bang. And while that term may offend your sensibilities, too late: We’ve been calling them that since before Andy Rooney swung his first wool-encased elbow.

Me, I like ‘em. You would too, if you spent much of your day squinting into a tube, slaving over a hot dashboard, or merely trying to dig that tripod foot out of your lower intestinal tract. While I have little desire to carry any young reporters through their seminal assignments, I’m always up for a cross-town camera cluster. The other guys and gals seem to agree - especially in this time of One Man Bands, Multi-Media Journalists and other Kitchen Sink Carriers who have either volunteered or been outright deceived into working alone. Why it’s a time to compare opinions of protocol, transfer valuable camera acumen or just spread the kind of vile gossip we newsies tend to live for. Come to think of it, who wouldn’t dig a little midday huddle, a chance encounter we all knew would happen when we first read the press release...

Just don’t think it’s always a love-fest. Au Contraire. TV cameras are, after all, Asshole Magnets and a few of those orifices have infiltrated our own seething ranks. Think YOU despise the guy on the Tee-Vee with the shellacked head and aura of entitlement? Try scrunching up next to him outside a Meth-Lab. Or how about that sports reporter who sleeps in his car? That IS a pickle slice stuck to his cheek. And while we’re on the subject, how about that local news shooter who thinks he’s the official scribe for the Photog Nation? Dude speaks in couplets! And when he’s not yammering on about the psychological ramifications of High-Def lenses on aging News Queens, he’s slinking away to pop off yet another photo of some utterly dull camera cluster ---

Oh wait - that’s me.

Eyeing the Horizon

What other profession can you skulk about a playground at dusk and still feel pretty good about yourself? Loiter outside a homeless shelter with your eyes held high? Part a sea of overdressed strangers while wearing a fishing vest? Name another gig that requires the skills of an assassin, the reflexes of a pilot and the nobility of a pizza delivery guy? Hold that thought, I gotta put some eyes on a sinkhole across town. Seems it swallowed a Prius full of female weight-lifters road trippin' on a vitamin binge. That’s the kind of video the good people of the Upper Midland Heart Zone count on me for. Besides, I didn’t repeatedly volunteer to thread the filmstrip projector in middle school for nothing. See...

I’m on a mission from God.

Okay, maybe not the thunderbolt-hurling, pox-applying, sunset-understanding GOD, but hopefully some middle management deity is reviewing my file, watching the good news I produce and the bad news I dodge and marking it all down some sort of cosmic photog ledger of sorts. I’m really not expecting total consciousness or anything but if I’m gonna be judged, base it on the number of feel-good stories I cranked out as compared to the death-obsessed dreck I had a hand in. Hey, we ALL fall short of the Glory, but if I’m going down (or up) over the kind of tripe I spread across the earthbound airwaves, I feel pretty good - for I’ve profiled (slightly) more dogs in funny hats than I have freshly shackled madmen, no easy feat considering the first four hundred stories I put On-Air began and ended with some sap in handcuffs.

Hey, it was the early Nineties. Arsenio Hall still had a show. There was a lot to be angry about.

Yeah, not counting all those times I slow-mowed video of Revered Ernest Angley walking in and out of Federal Court, I’m pretty good in the Karma Department. There’s only one thing that worries me. The Blog. I’ve been at this this for more than half a decade, spotlighting the plight of TV News Shooters for a small but rabid readership and though it’s humbling to admit, I’ve received some glowing letters over the years. We’re talking personal notes filled with uplift, the kind of divine e-mailed intervention that’s more than once elevated my mood just when it really needed it. But I’d be less than lying if I didn’t admit it troubles me on occasion, More often than not, it’s the rookies who write, they tell me they enjoy reading my screeds then offer up their own adventures. This never fails to please me, but in my inner moments I wonder will I pay for encouraging youngsters to pursue what may be the most intriguing dead-end job on the planet. Can I live with that, let alone live up to it when called on the cosmic carpet?

Lemme get back to you on that.

(Special Thanks to Jonathan Warren, whose above photo got my head spinnin'...)

Hell on the Telly

It’s not every day you find your doppelganger ‘cross the pond, but that's precisely the case with one Paul Martin. Seems the UK freelancer is a self-made cameraman, a nosy bloke who bought his own TV gear long before he knew how to use it. That was fourteen years ago and since then Paul’s documented more trauma, froth and spectacle than one Englishman should be allowed to talk about. Lately, he’s been been doing just that and the results have been the most buoyant cameramanifesto since that guy who used to chase around Benny Hill with a Panaflex let loose with the mammaries - er, memories. But I digress, something you’d probably expect from an unschooled American like myself. Not Paul Martin. He’s erudite, traveled and snarky beyond compare. But take note: He ain’t the Paparazzi. In fact, he was nowhere near that Paris Underpass the night Diana died...

Listen up people. I was at home in bed with the Missus that night in Hampshire. And she can vouch for me. Although as she is fond of reminding me, nothing earth shattering happened that night that she can remember. Although I have learned to live with what some members of the public think of us, it still rankles with me that while hurling abuse in my general direction, they are often carrying a newspaper, or following said abuse, will walk home, switch on the telly and watch the news.

Sounds like some reactions are universal.

Tents of Resentment

Soooo, you've got a big corporate announcement coming up - a groundbreaking of such earth-shattering importance even those stoners from the local free weekly will show up on time. Trouble is, your CEO has all the charm of a bus stop urinal. One he starts thanking his cronies, plants wilt, the punch goes flat and well-rested photogs fall asleep on their feet... OOH! I know! Why not rent a big-ass tent, shove everyone underneath and let the camcorders roll! That way, no matter what metaphor the Big Guy mangles, no one will be wiser - since he'll look one of those Dateline interviews with the dude who sold out The Mob! FUHGEDDABOUDIT!!!!

Okay, so I'm being a wee facetious. But it's hard not to be when you see the same lame set-ups again and again. Have the PR folks who orchestrate these mistakes ever seen a television? Are they secretly trying to sabotage their superior's need to be on the news? Do they all cite chapter and verse of that best-selling book "13 Ways to Eff Up Your Presser"? I truly do not know. But of this one thing I'm sure: Press conferences should be direct, pithy, clear - NOT opaque mistatements riddled with visual enigmas. That and some cat in a power suit is making w-a-y too much coin to produce this kind of off-broadway satire.

To be fair though, we TV geeks aren't gonna put too much of the highly-scripted tripe on the tube anyway. In fact, I'd say 96 percent of what comes after the speaker clears his throat ends up on the cutting room floor. Maybe that's why the Public Relations schlubs seem to go out of their way to blot out the sun with their keynote speaker. Throw in a mult-box with a built-in hum and you have the top two reasons those photogs back there keep rolling their eyes. That and their casing the refreshment table for any signs of surplus muffins. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go put the finishing touches on my latest pamphlet "The Lenslinger Institute's Guide to Eye-Bleeding TeeVee".

Next time: "Hey, this spot in the factory features demonic screeches, brackish backlight and fresh green ooze every sixty seconds. Let's put the podium HERE!"

The Cos and I

Bill Cosby's career is so diverse, so storied, so divine -- there's something for everyone. Some still thrill to his pioneering turn on I, Spy. Others tout the cosmic significance of Leonard, Part Six. Many more fell for the treacly plot lines of that 80's powerhouse The Cosby Show. Me - I'm a straight-up Fat Albert Fan. What can I say - something about the Saturday morning cartoon spoke to my seven year old self. The junkyard jams, the urban verve, the way MushMouth always sounded like he'd just ingested Heroin ... I never missed an episode and since I wasn't careful, I very often learned something. So you can imagine how stoked I was to share some air with 'The Cos' himself. He was in town today, speaking to students at Bennett College. I was but another glass-handler, hanging on his every utterance. Surely we'd get a chance to talk over old times...

Well...No. As a card-carrying member of the Photog Nation, I can't very well interrupt the press conference to tell the man how much I dug that Bet Your Life debacle, can't insist he riff on A Different World, can't ask him to sign the collection of Jell-O shots I just happened to have with me. Okay, I suppose I could, but such a move would prove me to be an absolute tool. We 'slingers gotta keep it all in focus. If we lose our cool in the presence of greatness, we won't be asked to cover anyone more famous than that sanitation worker who croons while he manhandles your cans. Thus, I kept my head in check as the lovable curmudgeon held court. Sure, I wanted to ask him what that thing on Dumb Donald's head was, but I didn't dare. See, I learned a thing or three about celebrity watching Simon Cowell jones for another smoke on the set of American Idol - namely don't get in between a snarky Brit and his next pack of Kools.

What that has to do with the good Dr. Cosby I can't really say - other than I know when to give a famous guy his space. In today's case, it was about three and a half feet. That's how close we media vermin got to the podium after Brother Bill warned the Bennett Belles about the inherent perils of Hoochie-dom. Yeah, he worded it differently, but his essential message was this: Have respect for yourself and others will too. As the father of girls, that's a sermon I can get behind, though I'd probably rephrase it as "Act like you got some sense". In fact, I found myself nodding in agreement as Cosby chastised the all-female student body for allowing themselves to be ogled by lesser lifeforms. Make no mistake: Bill Cosby has no use for the dudes drinking 40 ounces on the corner. In rather frank language, he warned the gifted young women of Bennett not to cheapen themselves by association, let alone get knocked up by some cat with his slacks hanging off his crack. And he did it all while keeping the room in stitches. How cool is THAT?

Okay, not as cool as an autographed Jell-O Shot - but still, pretty cool.

Reach for the Beach

A deep dip of the lens to WRAL's Richard Adkins, who last week reminded me just how boss the view is atop Jockey's Ridge at dusk. Was it. My family's scamper up the East Coast's tallest sand dune was the perfect way to top off a long weekend on the Outer Banks. The visit was long overdue. Fact is, the last time I stayed in Dare County without a hurricane, my wife couldn't get in the hot tub 'cause she was pregnant with our first child. That child is now learning to drive and it was with special pleasure that I let her test out her new skills on famed Highway 12 - the road to Hatteras. Once there, we trekked to the top of a certain striped beacon, before scrambling down to do all sorts of touristy things. An early morning raid on the Wright Brothers Memorial, a lunchtime stroll through the North Carolina Aquarium, Dinner in Duck -- we crammed a lot into just a few days.

Still, for my lack of money the highlight came on the very last night, when we all ascended Jockey's Ridge and attempted to fly one high-dollar kite. Along the way, we encountered more tranquil Yankees than can be found in a New Jersey Hookah Lounge. See, we locals usually frequent different beaches, leaving the Outer Banks to a flood of Northerners with bulging wallets and clipped accents. There on the Ridge, a rather rude lady from Massa-CHOO-setts awoke from her seafood coma long enough to guffaw at my use of the word "Y'all". I let her laugh, before gently reminding her that, considering our current coordinates, SHE was the one talkin' funny.

"Y'all come back now, ya hear?"

When The Man Comes Around...

My first real memory of Danny Spillane centers around a lack of podiatry. It was early in my El Ocho stint and I found myself far from home with soggy feet. "Who comes to cover a hurricane without enough socks?" asked the sat truck guy, as he jammed a tightly-rolled pair of his own in my hands. It was an act that would be repeated during the long friendship that followed: Danny giving me grief while coming to my rescue. Now it seems my knight in logo'd armor is leaving the kingdom, ending a twenty-five year career in broadcasting for an elusive new gig in the corporate sector. It is their gain and local television's loss, as this good natured stickler has been part of the Piedmont Newscape since the glory days of PM Magazine. Yes, back when I was still a clueless truant, Danny was already packing glass and taking names. As a journeyman shooter and Sat Truck Captain, he's attended more crashes, galas and cataclysms than most souls even read about. Hurricanes, Superbowls, Mass Murders, Presidential Visits, Floods, Special Olympics, forest fires and a million collisions in between: "Satellite Dan" was there, rolling tape, pulling cable and dragging debutantes across finish lines long before I ever started twisting cynicism into sentences.

But even that benefited from this veteran's presence. Some of my favorite posts - Hell, some of my favorite memories feature this seasoned 'slinger behind the wheel of a satellite truck. There's simply no one else I'd rather huddle in the scrum with, for when Danny and the Death Star roll in, back-up has truly arrived. Countless are the times he's kept me safe and kept me in stitches, be it at the tip-top of Grandfather Mountain or down by some storm-ravaged shore. For a guy who never served in uniform, Danny exudes a certain military bearing. Part Quartermaster, part Drill Sergeant, this fully licensed Irishman always acted like he's been there before - and not just because he had. I remember many occasions when Old Man Danny was truly the only adult in the (mobile news) room. It's a form of real world leadership those far behind the lines didn't always get, but ask any crew member who's taken shelter, received counsel or slammed together an epic in the presence of the elder and they'll tell you news went down smoother when The Man came around.

Of course not every day is full of far-flung plunder. Most days are kinda mundane and those are the shifts with Spillane that I'll probably remember the most. We've shared hundreds of meals, analyzed endless edits and traded more war stories than Osama Bin Laden and his cave dwelling cronies. I may pretend to have seen it all, but Danny truly has. He can match my every tall tale with a more believable version he'd all but forgotten. He can tap dance through manuals I refuse to read, polish things I'd rather see rust and still not piss me off when he hounds me about logging off my computer before wandering away from it. If you can't tell, I'm gonna miss the dude. While he's far too much of an adult to partake in the like of Facebook and such, he's got a wide breadth of friends who do. If YOU have a memory of Spillane you'd like to share, I for one want to hear it. Maybe then, he'll realize what an impact he's made around these parts. I, for one, won't be able to think of anyone else, should I ever get the chance to toss some rookie an extra pair of socks.

SOT in the Dark

I don't know who John Hanley is, but I want him to follow me around with a camera. Maybe then I'd have such a striking workplace portrait as young Jeremy Cohn, Ontario photog and friend of the blog. I mean, LOOK at it: the red and blue strobes, the jaunty thrust of the microphone, the silent knowledge that whatever Toronto Police Sergeant Glen George is sharing with our young friend is totally devoid of emotion, detail or color. You can't get that kind of detail with an iPhone! Or can you? I'm still using chapstick and a 20 year old Etch-A-Sketch to capture all my images and that's NOT just because I'm on vacation - which I am. Now if you'll excuse me, the Bourbon is kicking in and I really have no business operating such heavy machinery as this antique laptop... After all, I could spill my drink.

(Oh yeah, Photo by John Hanley)

Some Discomfort May Occur

Okay so not EVERY day is a blast of Raid to the face, but the average news shift is brimming with contusions, feuds and delusions - not to mention ample opportunity for prolonged social scarring. I’d tell you all that I‘m legally allowed to share, but first, lemme axe you…

Ever stalk a Pepsi Man across campus because it was still Summer and the closest you were going to get to good footage for your Sodas in Schools story later that day was some chucklehead in knee socks wheeling a case of Throwback Dew into the cafegymnatorium?

Ya ever make a fat lady squirm, glare and lose all sense of rhythm, just by wandering into her Zumba class with a Sony on your shoulder? Pop on your top-light and she may very well soil that Danskin.

Ever stumbled mumbling and dumbfounded into a VIP Tent at a Golf Tournament, so overcome with the smoldering stick and glacial pace of a PGA Event that you can’t help but sweat all over a table full of moneyed housewives as you demand to know who schedules such a brutal slog in August anyway? Better have your credentials…

Ya ever silently congratulate yourself on the gazelle like grace it took to clear that park bench seconds before you land wrong on your left ankle and crumple into a broken pile of cameraman parts? Better hope your buddy from the other station wasn’t rolling…

Ever broken off the grab-ass and chit-chat long enough to watch weeping parents walk by clad in black? Days after the attack on the USS Cole I joined family members of the fallen Sailors along with President Bill Clinton for a somber dockside memorial service. I’ll never forget that slow parade of anguish.

You ever zoom in on a dude who looks like he’d just as soon slice your throat, then looked away and whistled, knowing that nine out of ten people still think a cameraman has have his eye glued to the viewfinder for the damn thing to be rolling? Keep it to yourself.

Ever stood on your tiptoes for thirteen solid minutes while your partner of the day fumbles his way through every mistakes listed in Interviewing 101? AGAIN?

Ya ever feel your stomach turn to slush as the pilot beside you decides to throw the Go-Kart with Wings you’re riding into some sort of inverted arcing slow-motion pass over the stadium you’re supposed to rolling on? And you thought that bean burrito would HELP.

How DO YOU clean flecks of Taco Bell out of windscreen, anyway?

Schmuck Alert: Just Spray It!

Just when the Schmuck Alert was growing passé, some tool in Connecticut breaks out the bug spray. Meet Sean P. Quail, loving husband, t-shirt enthusiast, irrational dill-weed. How else do you describe a guy who grabs a can of insecticide out of his handy-dandy dashboard insecticide-holder and aims straight for the Fourth Estate? Oh, I know - SCHMUCK! NOt to mention Defendant, as this sensible gent now faces reckless endangerment, third-degree assault, and a few other charges. It all started when Quail and his beloved exited an Enfield Courthouse after she faced charges of receiving stolen beer. A waiting scrum gave chase; what happened next would be hard to believe, were it not captured on videotape.

(But that's the funny thing about camera crews: they tend to record stuff. Bear that in mind the next time you reach for the RAID, America.)

Reporter George Colli and photographer Alan Chaniewski caught the worst of the wasp and hornet spray. While they rushed next door for first aid, police pursued the would-be Exterminator, arresting him a short time later. It's unclear whether Quail will be rewarded with his own reality show, but we here at the Lenslinger Institute wouldn't be all that surprised. We're just glad members of the media escaped serious injury, for no matter how annoying that logo'd lens might be. no one deserves a face full of distilled bug-death, except maybe Sean P. Quail - who remains a danger to his community and a most repugnant schmuck.


Schmuck!

Float Like a Bee...

Suspended without pay after accusing his department of racism, Greensboro Police Officer A. J. Blake finds himself the talk of the town. Me - I'd never heard of him. Then again, I don't watch a lot of news. Never have, really. Oh, there was a time in the Nineties when I'd flip back and forth, but these days I'm more apt to blast some Lonnie Mack than sample an actual newscast. I get enough of that at work. Even there, I dodge top stories like a deadbeat Dad. (You might too, once you've quizzed more victims than you can remember.) Long ago I swore to use what little power my lenses packed for Good, not Evil. I didn't go out and buy any Lycra, mind you but over the years I did learn to leap the assignment desk in a single bound. Even today, you'll find me at the back of the broadcast, where froth trumps atrocity and live truck keys rust on the hook.

But that's not what I logged in to talk about.

No, I merely wanted to explain how a seasoned photojournalist can find him (or her) self backpedaling across a parking lot, not entirely sure which gentleman he (or she) should sic his (or her) lens on. That's exactly what's happening in the above fuzzy frame. That's me screen-right: lips pursed, feet a flutter, miniature lens pointed at Officer Blake...Well, his attorney, anyway. Truth is, at the time I didn't know A. J. Blake from A. J. Foyt. Seconds earlier, I'd been lounging on the lawn outside the Police Department, joking with a certain still photographer about the low energy level of the half dozen protestors when a clamor erupted behind us. Actually it was just the scuffle of a competing news crew, but since photogs don't move like that without a damn good reason, I scrambled to my feet and joined the chase...

...Where I found three distinguished individuals doing their best to get from one building to the next. I fell in before them, matching their pace stride for backward stride, all the while zooming out wide enough to claim the person at the center of my lens was in fact the dude I was meaning to shoot. 'Perhaps I should have watched the news last night' I did not think. I did, however, ponder the context of the protest I'd been sent to, searched my limited memory banks for all related data and triangulated the gait of the photog beside me - who assumedly knew the appearance of his quarry. I'd like to say my mental acuity led me to center in with certainty, but to be honest a crosstown colleague noticed my vexed expression and rather mercifully said...

"Brown shirt."

That's all it took. I zoomed in on the younger man like I knew who he was all along, hoping to keep him in focus long enough to fill the opening moments of the very next newscast. Hey, just because I specialize in fluff doesn't mean I've forgotten how Hard News works. What ever Z-block fodder I'd foist upon viewers later in the day wouldn't mean diddly if the opening moments of the show didn't feature the man who was only a few yards away vanishing behind a heavy metal door. So I stepped up my game, hopped over a cement planter and wedged myself between the dude and his destination. As he passed by me, Blake and my camera made direct eye-contact. No telling what he was thinking as he peered into my lens, but had he been able to se into my head he would have found nothing but love for the unnamed accomplice who tipped me off to his identity. Next time I see the guy I'll be sure to thank him myself...

Provided I recognize him.

Men at Werk

As blunders go, it was pretty mundane: a misplaced stencil, a hurried work crew, a distracted applicator... but no matter how pedestrian the elements of this error were, the resulting hubbub has been nothing short of galactic. And I missed it. That's right, when a local road crew effed up the S Word, I was off covering something totally dull. By the time I returned to El Ocho, evidence of the spray-painted typo adorned the bulletin board. I caught sight of it and promptly harrumphed, but then I moved on quickly, unaware that the foolish SHCOOL sign was not just the latest web flotsam to wash ashore, but was actually laying in the middle of the road just a few miles away. But while I lounged in an edit bay, others pounced.

Citizens, news crews, still photographers and a stoner or two. All rushed to the spot where the consonants flip-flopped. A great gawking began. But as with everything these days, the rubberneckers aren't the only ones to enjoy the view. For every smart-ass that showed up to gloat, a camera or smart phone came along for the ride. Soon both pros and amateurs alike were foisting their lenses at the sun-baked flub and squeezing 'til their fingers tingled. You probably know the rest. The pixelated image of this lowly spot bounced across the heavens, as newspapers, websites and more than few TV stations clamored to capitalize on one road crew's orthographic error. Little could they know when they laid down the paint, they'd provide fodder for the (inter)national consciousness.

Not bad for a handful of guys who can't spell.

There Will Be Mud

Just as America was trying to push those gnarly tar balls out of its collective consciousness, yet another tragedy has struck the Gulf Coast, Okay so maybe it's not a tragedy, but it IS disturbing. I'm talking about the great Lens Schism of Twenty Ten. Sure, details are sketchier than an intern with genital warts, but as this recently unearthed snapshot proves, something is happening along our mottled shore. Theories abound as to exactly why, but it's clear from this photo (and a sharp drop in area fast food sales) that certain members of the media are turning on each other. Perhaps predictably, it's breaking down along long-held grudge lines. Example:

In coastal Alabama, a vacationing family reported watching two newspaper employees chase a TV news cameraman through a Waffle House parking lot. Witnesses aren't sure what started it, but they say the two ink stained wretches were trying to garrote the news shooter with the lanyard from his own press-pass. Actual bloodshed was avoided when the portly trio became overly winded and retreated to neutral sides of the breakfast bar .

Up the road in Thibodaux, a pair of hapless newlyweds left a still photog and a videographer arguing in a fancy reception hall. Party-goers reported hearing girlish screams and the clang of foreign made metal. When the young couple returned, all they found was a steaming pile of entrails, cargo pants and dirt-weed.

A postal carrier in Mississippi was slightly injured when she tried to break up a scuffle between a local print photographer and a network sound-man. No one's sure what started it, but eyewitnesses say the out of towner got the better of his older foe by wrapping his boom pole around the man's throat. It may have ended there had a group of passing fireman notpummelled the two men into submission with their wet, musty turn-out gear.

Some might call it natural selection. Others say it's survival of the fittest. Fans of the original Highlander flick can only think of it as The Quickening. Whatever you name it, one question remains: WHY? Did the recent oil spill upset the natural order of things? Was the brief uptick in freelance opportunities enough to push these fragile egos into apoplexy? Or is the widespread bouts of rage between newspaper photogepahers and their moving picture counterparts somehow connected to all that Kool-Aid that BP was pushin'? Hard to say, but until the matter is resolved no crime tape is safe. Experts worry it could lead to widespread discord, should the unadulterated rage spread to people the public actually cares about. At this printing, the U.S. Government is denying any involvement, but reports of black helicopters and and a roving band of mysterious census workes are causing worry all along the Gulf Coast...

Personally, I blame Anderson Cooper.

Artful Lodgers

I'm not sure what I was expecting the other night when I arrived at a house to shoot a story on body-painters, but Madelyn Greco wasn't it. A plume of shocking pink hair, cleavage 'til Tuesday and enough effervescence to fuel a Girl Scout troop, you could say the lady packed a visual drop-kick. With little more than a giggle she beckoned me inside the rambling home and my gear and I followed. By then it was damn near sundown and I'd already shot, written and edited my way through a full workday. In short, I was tapped. But stepping inside that house felt like taking a mild stimulant (if not a hallucinogen), so I trudged inside and waited for my eyes to adjust. When they did, my fatigued orbs feasted on the kind of eye candy that gives prescription lenses cavities. Paintings, sculptures and enough photography of decorated body parts to make even a seasoned lenslinger eyeball his tripod.

But I wasn't there to get off on the decor. I was there to work. So Madelyn - who I wasn't surprised to learn enjoyed a local following as a burlesque dancer - ushered me to an inner room. There, a mysterious figure stood hunched over a slender blonde woman and slathered paint on her far from repulsive stomach. Actually, 'slather' is the wrong word. Rather, Scott Fray applied deliberate dabs of color like the incredibly talented artist he is. About that time, Madelyn squeezed in the room, said something I didn't hear and joined her fiance in turning an attractive young woman into the kind of creature you might see spinning in circles outside Burning Man. Slowly I looked around at my three new friends and smiled. Clearly, these people needed a cameraman in their lives...

So, I did what I always do: I made small talk while convincing the trio to ignore me. Once I'd set up a single light (it was late and I was feeling lazy), I shouldered my miniaturized axe and moved in. As Fray and Greco worked on their art, I worked on mine - though fatigue, distraction and one tiny ass workspace prevented me from obtaining the kind of wide shots I'd yearn for later in an edit bay. Oh well, if I didn't match the creative duo's advanced technique with my own, I more than made up for it in the interview. Actually, that was on them too, for Scott and Madelyn displayed a trait not often found in unbridled artistic types. They were ... lucid, tangent-free, cerebral. Best of all was Scott, who - when not deferring to his more telegenic partner - let loose with a treatise so reasoned, so focused, so cogent, it was the kind of verbiage you'd expect from a court-appointed attorney, not some dude who paints otherworldly splendor on ingenues' private parts. As for slathering anything on ME, there's only one problem...

Too furry.

Pretty Fly (for a Camera Guy)

Say what you will about gatherers of the past, but they sure were some dapper broadcasters.What else do you call a guy who - with half a dishwasher strapped to hsi back - STILL cares enough to rock a woolen suit, shiny wristwatch and six hardened ounces of Bryl-Creme?And don't tell me it's just an ad. Amanda Emily has unearthed stacks of actual photos showing cameramen (always men) dressed to impress with one eye open. Did they stay that way all dy? Did the razor sharp edges of all that technology snag their pleated trousers? Did that pre-space age antenna tousle their high and tight? Did they ever 'pit-out' like a modern day news warrior decked out in cargo shorts and a greasy T? Don't answer, just know any surviving shots of yours truly and friends won't age quite so gracefully. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to glean my least-wrinkled flowery shirt from the bottom of the closet... Tomorrow's picture day.

Grief on Demand

As one who craves indelible images, I can tell you yesterday slaked my thirst in a most unsettling way. It began with a smoldering home; a modest trailer soaked in cinders and warped by lethal heat. It caught us by surprise. Sure, Sheeka and I knew we were headed to a fatal fire, but between the GPS and the dashboard chatter, we almost forgot why we were racing to Boonville. That changed the moment we arrived, for the family members pouring out of the gutted mobile home were inebriated with grief. I can't blame them. Nor can we as news-gatherers really help them; the most we can do is spotlight their plight and hope some benevolent spectator soothes their wounds with generosity. Try telling that to a couple of teenage boys as they bury the dog that died by their Mother's side the night before. Or better yet, don't. They'll notice you and your lens in time.

Approaching a loved one as they mourn is indelicate, at best. Handled wrong, it can be horrific - but with enough empathy and tact this grim business can be settled quickly, with neither survivor or spy losing too much of their soul. I know it sounds harsh, but the gentle inquisition of a victim's friends and family is as much a part of newscasts as the heavily edited press conference. I didn't exactly blaze a path up the widow's porch; that ground was covered long before I took up the lens. But in twenty years of television, I've had to knock on more mournful doors than I try to remember. But when you've zoomed in on as many tears as I have, those memories stick with you whether you want them too or not. So I follow my own prime directive: Do No Harm. It's a rule we followed far more often then the enemies of the Fourth Estate would have you believe, but since when do self-appointed experts really know much anyway?

Not very often, I've found - which is why I ignore convention avoid bad karma. You want me to bum-rush a funeral and demand some answers? Not gonna happen. You need to me to appear on the edge of some stranger's heartbreak, maybe ask for a picture or two? Yeah, I can do that. I've done it reluctantly a hundred times and while it's never easy, it's possible to pull off without causing too much collateral damage. Take yesterday. When Sheeka and I got out of the car, the sorrow was as thick as the humidity. Youngsters wept as they pulled what they could out of the trailer's remains. One boy in particular stalked back and forth with a pistol jammed in his waistband. Sheeka and I exchanged looks but little more. Instead, she approached the first adult she could find and quietly introduced herself. I meanwhile hung back and shot video from the safety of my sticks.

That seemed to be all the space the family needed, for they went about their grim tasks without demanding I ground my lens. Had they done so, I would have complied, for though it may irk some of my perceived superiors, I'm not going to do anything with a camera that'll make me stare at the ceiling all night. My less than heroic moments tend to play there on a loop. So I keep my karma clean, knowing no TV news story is worth me enhancing someone's misery. Besides, more often than not, the people WANT to talk. I can't explain it, I don't know what it says about our society. All I can tell you is that most folk want to brag on their beloved, effect whatever message might be brewing and maybe even set the record straight. I can help them do that and more times than not that tearful interview is followed by a thank you and even the occasional hug.

Too bad we don't put THAT on the air.

Eyes Without a Face

Even though I can't see Sean Browning's lips, his latest self-portrait speaks to me. Maybe that's because it encompasses all that I loathe and adore about our lowly craft. The coiled adrenaline, the assured discomfort, the press-pass that grants admission to the next twenty misadventures. It's the very same verve that caught my eye so long ago, when I looked up from a ballgame I hated to see a version of my future I'd one day learn to love. He was a newspaper photographer slumming his way through another assignment. I was a boy thunderstruck by the notion that you didn't have to join some stupid club just to belong. Not when you could arm yourself with lenses and push your way past the pack. I knew then that photojournalism was for me; I just wasn't sure the discipline. Years later, I conned my way into a job that offered far more than shitty pay and unreasonable hours. It afforded me unending access to pabulum, gasbags and tragedy. It promised me years of indelible images seared into my frontal lobe - all for the price of a little lower back pain. It gave me a backstage pass to more passion plays and crash scenes than I could ever to learn to stomach. Most of all, it taught me no heavily-edited retrospect could replace the sensation of being there, boots on the ground, lens in thick of it. Thus, when I run across a shot like the one above, I don't need a lot of background to know that behind that mask, our heavily weathered subject is grinning, if only a little.

Just don't ask him why. Some things are hard to explain...