What's your focus?

My first coverage of a major car crash, and I find myself asking, "what's your focus?" There is the obvious carnage of the mangled wreck. There is the obvious traffic of a long line of cars standing still (which I will find myself in soon). But what detail am I looking for?

The sheriff and a few cops stand around, trying to assess the damage. I notice their work. A few notes here, a few measurements there. I focus on the those left behind to process the carnage, those that have to deal with this massive wreck left on the highway. I do not know if this the human element of photograph, but I do know this is of those left behind.

Armed with Shaving Cream, Silly String and Adolescence

Looking down at my photo request, I read, "A little bit of mischief-- Halloween event for kids at the ice rink, snap 3 to 4 shots of kids in costumes." No problem. Pictures of kids in costumes is like shooting fish in a barrel. You just know that parents picking up the paper will love seeing their kids dressed up as a Disney character.

This is not particularly an assignment that appeals to my own sense of storytelling, but I can appreciate putting that photo in. You cannot devalue that appreciation, even if it is just of a kid dressed as Peter Pan.

But this assignment was all wrong. All wrong. I arrived and there were no costumes. I looked over the ice rink and witnessed a scene of chaos. There wasn't even any ice. 250 kids armed with shaving cream, silly string and adolescence ran without inhibition or restraint. They slapped, shot and creamed anything in their way, utterly destroying their surroundings.

Fuck.

I began trying to get some photos outside the rink, but no angles seemed to work. I knew I had to get in there for a photo. With a bit of foresight I might have brought some plastic to wrap my camera in, or maybe worn some old sweatpants. But I decided to none the less try and braved the pre-pubescent elements and try to get the shot.

Five minutes out amongst these lords of the flies, and they attack. One boy smacks my back with a handful of shaving cream, someone else slaps the side of head. One girl in particular thinks it is funny to demoralize a low paid intern, and takes two hands piled with shaving cream and hits my camera as hard as she can. White, foamy cream smears across my lens, my dials, my poor Canon. All my gear smells like Old Spice from the 1940s.



I'm irate. So I leave. Kids continue to smear shaving cream all over me. Even some parents spray silly string over me as I try to find place to exit.

I ask myself, "Is this why want to be a photojournalist?"

Volleyball Legacies

I come into work and look through my photo requests for the day. And there it is... again. Another photo request for high school girl's volleyball. It seems like every day I get a request for more volleyball. After covering each team for past few weeks, in dark, cavernous gyms, the championships are finally taking place at New Jersey City University. And I am not just excited by the fact that I might be able to push my shutter speed over 1/200 of sec. I'm invested.

After watching these teams compete for the season, I have come to know the characters. Who the underdog is, who the favorites are. They all seem to know me as "that photographer guy". Their mothers cut out my photos and scrapbook them into their daughter's legacies.

I always root for the underdog, but this year they didn't win. I still got a photo published of them, knowing where those photos go.

More photos can be found at these galleries at the lovely Jersey Journal website: McNair v. Holy Family Memorial vs. Bayonne

Breaking News to Break In

Driving through Jersey City is the most challenging part of the job. I race through potholed streets like a toy car in the circus, like a clown, honking and swerving over other clowns. People crowd, fight and run together in in this race of 600,000 people packed into an area of 60 square miles. That figures to be about 10,000 people per square mile in Hudson County. Such a number doesn’t make one a pessimist-- it makes them an angry realist. My third day at the Jersey Journal starts with the normal assignments-- a few shots at a local school, a story about a local bar, a volleyball game. Slowly making my way down to Bayonne from Jersey City, traffic is at a snails pace. I’m grinding my teeth and counting the inches between my bumper and the next, when the distant sounds of sirens begins to catch my attention. I roll down the window to stick my head out and look, and BAM!-- a BMW comes screaming through the safety lane inches from face, two bike cops racing after him. Now I have a dilemma. I don’t consider myself an siren chaser, but I know we are suppose to follow any spot news while we are in the city. I decide to tear off the traffic and follow behind the cops. Only 50 yards further and the BMW swerves into oncoming traffic and barrels back over a divider, ruining the $100k car. Two men jump out of the car and run towards some railway tracks. I’m trying to get over and park when I look up and see one of the men pull out a gun. He looks all over, not really pointing the gun, but not really giving it up. The two bike cops get over to the tracks and jump off. The man flings the gun into a bush and runs. Now I’m just dumbstruck. I realize I have been staring at all this through my windshield and forgot to get a hand on my damn camera. I pull over and run out. The man is already in handcuffs as an endless stream of police cars come swerving in. I snap two frames and he is put into the put into the back of the car. Beads of sweat are running down my back.

My phone rings my editor. “I just got some photos of a high speed chase on 440!” “What? Listen-- some woman drove her car over into Newark Bay and firefighters are in the water trying to get her out. They think she might be DOA.” I run back into my car and tear off South. Of course I have little idea of where I am going, but I have a street name and compass. As I come up to the street, ten minutes later, four ambulances nearly hit me, coming out from the scene. I missed them. Thankfully the woman was rescued by several firefighters that broke through her window and got her out. Those ambulances were carrying the woman and the men who suffered from exposure. (The firemen’s voices who participated in the rescue can be heard here). I wait at the scene as the woman’s car is recovered from the water and than head out to cover girl’s volleyball.