Tears for Fears

I...cried at work today. No, I didn’t break down behind the wheel, didn’t bawl my eyes out over a tricky edit, didn’t sob uncontrollably at the thought of another unjust deadline. But my eyes did emit liquid while squinting through the lens at the intimacies of others. It happened quick, and early. Before the sun even rose, I prowled the floor of the local airport, grumbling under my breath at the very idea of a pre-dawn shoot as I scanned the cavernous room for something significant to document. It wasn’t difficult. Square-jawed men in crisp desert cammos, weepy spouses clutching crumpled tissues and fidgety three year olds, teenage boys wiping their eyes when they thought no one was looking - the straggling formation of stoic soldiers and their red-eyed families made for a target-rich environment. So I went to work, setting my camera atop its tripod at the far end of the hall and using every bit of my glass to eavesdrop. Hey, it’s what I do.

Nor was I the only one doing it. A burly news shooter from another station sized up the room for himself before joining me at my isolated perch. There, beside the oversized pot of artificial plants, we chatted about new cameras and old light kits, occasionally breaking off in mid-sentence to zoom in on shots that deserved it. They were everywhere. A large mother in a wrinkled track suit sat and sobbed as her son tightened the straps on his duffel bag. A small brown woman in too-tight jeans babbled into a cell phone, her words blurting out between hitching, painful breaths. A red headed couple held each other tightly, their carrot topped infant swaddled between them. The child stared at the flashing lights of the departure grid, unable to comprehend a place called Iraq.

“Man, this’ll break your heart,” said the big bear of a man beside me. “It’s heavy shit,” I answered, never taking my eyes off my viewfinder. On screen, a Hispanic man in starched camouflage drew his family close. Glancing at my red tally light, I made sure I was indeed recording as the young soldier wrapped his uniformed arms around his wife and two small daughters. For a few long moments, they all huddled together, heads down, silent. Then, with an incredibly tender touch, the soldier kissed each of his girls on the forehead before releasing them from his final grip. That’s when he stepped back and hoisted a green bag the size of a dormitory fridge onto his back. Backing up slowly, he flashed his ladies a carefree grin and winked at them before turning and walking down the tunnel toward the waiting aircraft. By the time he schlepped out of sight, there wasn’t a dry eye on the concourse.

Mine included.

Top Pay, Exotic Locales!

As a TV News Photojournalist, you never know where you'll find yourself: hanging out of a chopper above a toxic floodzone, peering out of an unmarked van on a dangerous stakeout or hunched under a towel in a co-worker's shower(?) But before you call the police on my friend Kevin Wrenn, relax. I'm pretty sure he's just shooting a showerhead gadget for an upcoming consumer piece. That, or he's doing freelance work for a most unsavory website. Either way, this veteran of NFL sidelines, hurricane encampements and about a million ribbon cuttings will give it his all, knowing no trick-shot goes down without a little bit of back pain. Now pass me the soap, would ya?

Schmuck Alert: Men in Tights

Via the aptly-named Turd Polisher...

25 seconds of why I don't shoot football (that, and men in tights bore me senseless). Derron Dequano does, though. He was on sideline patrol at last Sunday's Saints/Packers game when a freight train by the name of Deuce McAllister jumped the tracks and flattened the freelance photog. Hey, is that a shoulder-pad in your face or did you just decide to eat your lens? Either way Dequano was sent sprawling, his camera losing a few vital gizmos in the process. O-u-c-h. I can only hope the NFL did something nice for him, but chances are they only berated him for helping to televise their global commodity. Schmucks!

Scenes from the Scrum

When it comes to digital cameras, I'm an amateur. For ample proof, graze the acre of frames I've uploaded for free to the internets. There, you'll find the visual underpinning of this very site, some of which are actually in focus! Or, check out the efforts of my 'Flickr Peeps' - a random scrum of like-eyed shooters who juggle their lenses far better than I. We start somewhere in Ontario, where a photog known as Canuckcam brings us this walkdown shot, proving that, North of the border or South of the Mason Dixon line, handcuffs and man-nipples go great together!

But enough fashion - let's talk logistics. This frigid still from Cadencefilm is of undetermined origin, but the snowy tundra contained within reminds me of my own adventures behind the wheel of an half-frozen live truck. See, I hail from the coastal plains of the Old North State. When I moved inland nearly a decade ago, I had to learn to drive in icier climes - and fast! What better way to do so than in a top heavy transmitter truck under tight deadline? More than once a big-stick maxivan like this nearly left me ditchbound, but when a region full of Southerners are freakin' out over a half-inch freeze, somebody has to go live from the bread and milk aisle.

But then again, getting there is always half the fun - especially when a desk full of warm and cozy colleagues are trying to map out your every move. Funny how folk who never leave their cubicle are the first to bark out drive-times like cross-country truckers. Help like that is enough to make your average lenslinger long for the open road. I can only guess it's that kind of driver seat delusion is what led HamCam to bag this deliciously surreal shot. I just hope he squeegee'd his glass before he shot any of that evening's footage. Otherwise, there's a ten o clock producer with a roadmap, a bottle of Windex and a raging case of lens-envy. Watch your bacon, Hambone...

Because as we both know, all roads lead to the next press conference. Whether it's a tense clutch of squinty-eyed law enforcement types or a giddy gathering of the Friends of the Aardvarks local chapter, these impromptu assemblies are the bane of news crews everywhere - who know every time that schlub behind the podium clears his throat, a thousand housewives lunge for the remote control. In this case, Gadflypro stepped behind the microphones to capture all that televised tedium. Of course, we still shoot the damn things, just in case Mr. SpokesDork coughs up a detail we'd otherwise miss. Besides, occasionally they serve refreshments afterwards. Have you had a doughnut dipped in parking lot fumes and political rhetoric? Simply the best...

O Brother Where Art Thou?

Funny thing about a blog. You put your thoughts on-line and people read them. Not just strangers either, but folks who knew you l-o-n-g before Al Gore twisted a series of tubes into what we now know as the internet. I was reminded of this very fact today when my buzzing cell phone flashed Richard Pittman on the screen. Seems my older brother had just finished reading the previous post and wanted to give me a little grief about all my belly-achin‘. Nothing unusual there, I guess. But considering our tumultuous past, the phone call was anything but insignificant. See, Richard and I haven’t always gotten along. In fact there was a time when the two us couldn’t share the same room full of oxygen without trading blows. Looking back I think I understand why.

He's the Alpha Male to my Omega Dork. He was an undersized punk trying to find his place in the world and I was his smart-ass little brother. Is it any wonder we tried to kill each other so often? Though I didn’t appreciate it then, I now credit my bellicose older brother for toughening me up a bit. Who knows how I would have turned out if he hadn’t regularly ripped the encyclopedias out of my and hands to enact his own lesson plan: Sucker-Punch 101. To this day, if a buddy sneaks up behind me I drop into a pseudo-Ninja crouch, instantly prepared to grapple to the death - or at least until Mom yells at us from the other room to knock it off. That’s real world man training you can’t find in a book.

As he grew older, Richard’s fondness for contusions served him well. Falling under the influence of the volunteer fire department we grew up near, he embraced his genetics and emerged as a natural born first responder. Today he’s a highly-skilled paramedic and a seasoned firefighter. He drives ambulances, whereas I just chase them. But the differences don’t stop there... I blow off steam on a mud-encrusted mountain bike. He tools around town on a shiny, tricked-out Harley. I stick my lens in the faces of the oppressed. He scrapes them up amid broken glass and administers IV‘s. He keeps his cool when others are bleeding to death around him. I lose my shit when one of the live truck gadgets fails to work as advertised. I suppose I should end this post by telling my big brother that I love him. No need. He knows. I just wanted to clue the rest of you in.

Focused on the Prose

Not to get too existential, but the above photo really illustrates where my head is at these days. Quite simply, I'm fried. Sixteen years into this goofy career, I find myself highly skilled, gainfully employed and woefully underwhelmed. How did this happen? I used to be the guy who'd tackle any gig with unbridled enthusiasm, but lately ... it's all I can do to pretend to give a flip. Is it due to the fact that I'm a scant few months from the big 4-0? Is it because the industry I toil in has devolved into nothing more than pixelated gimmickry? Could it be that my tiny taste of writing renown has whet my appetite for more, more, more? My guess is YES. But whatever the reason, I find myself in the same state of mind that's driven generations of gifted broadcasters out of the biz.

So, am I quitting? Nope. My offsprings' insistence on eating every four hours precludes such a rash tactic, though I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about it pretty damn often. It's not my station's fault. The people I work for and with produce a fine product and I'll happily crank out my share for as long as they'll have me. That said, I think I need a lobotomy, a sabbatical or a swift kick in the tripod to re-ignite my passion. Maybe then, I'll once again be as enthused and effective as this guy. Until then, allow me the occasional foray into self-absorption, would ya? See, this blog is my therapy - an outlet to express myself, to spotlight a few unsung heroes and to inch toward a lifelong dream.

But therein lies the rub. I spent the first thirty five years of my life thinking about writing. When I finally got around to developing the required discipline, I chose the one subject I have a love/hate relationship with: TV news. What was I thinking? Why didn't I choose something lofty and less tangible to hold forth on? How come I picked the one thing that infuriates me like no other as my topic of choice? Couldn't I have honed my skills with shrill political screeds and pet photo commentary like every other blogger? Why did I scribble myself into such an unsavory corner?

More importantly, why am I pelting you with rhetorical claptrap? You've been nothing but kind to me, checking in regularly to sample my tripe and lauding me with more praise than I ever deserved. I really should thank you - once I finish feeling sorry for myself, that is. I'm reminded of what best-seller Jerry Bledsoe told me last week. Actually, I don't remember his exact quote, but the delightfully cantankerous author took me into his lair and basically said, "Keep up the writing, Stewart - it's sure to bring you years of frustration." With that in mind I'll wrap up this little whining session - knowing that, by Jerry's logic, I'm right where I'm supposed to be. Join me next time for less navel-gazing and alot more snark. Until then, thanks for reading...

The Reek of Sweatband Journalism

Laugh if you will but I know some cats who would buy this rig if it really existed. And in time it just might. We already have cameras the size of finger-sandwiches, laptops that out-slice yesterday's fanciest edit suites before they're fully powered-up and cell phones that double as jukeboxes. Can it be too long before some knob straps a series of pullies and levers to his head and bills himself as the world's first Sweatband Journalist? I can see it now: a 24 hour feed of far-flung, fish-eyed forehead footage - squiggly images culled from the bouncing glass of the global vloggeratti.

Is that the inevitable evolution of broadcast news? Naah, we'll always have some hottie with good diction and even better gams spoonfeeding us the news. What will change are the field correspondents, the look of their reports and the staid way we insist on filtering the daily spew. That ain't all bad I guess - but as one who savors the languid pace of CBS Sunday Morning AND the latest slam-dancing dorks of YouTube lore - I sure hope both documentary disciplines are available on my cable dial, or wristwatch iPod, or whatever pocket-oculater we're crashing our flying cars over in the coming years.

I just hope I'm through squeezing life through a tube by then. Maybe move up to the hills and spend the rest of the Information Renaissance locked away in some unplugged cabin, wrestling with the written word. The wife says she's up for it too - as long as there's a Starbuck's, Panera Bread and TJ Maxx within ten easy miles...