Do It For The Kids

I was picking the chopper-wash out of my teeth the other day when I got the uneasy feeling I was being watched. Looking up, I spotted them. Two middle school kids, pointing their A/V club's handycam not at the the sleek helicopter that had just landed in front of their school, but at the aging lenslinger licking his wounds underneath a shade tree. For a moment I was transported back to the Summer of '78, when a visiting hippie photog held my attention throughout the better part of four termite league baseball innings. Not wanting to leave the same kind of impression on these innocent lasses that that dude did on me, I shot them a most indifferent look before languidly snapping their picture. I'd like to think I did the right thing...

The Case of the Faded Mermaid

Don't look now, but the fish-lady is giving me bedroom eyes. In fact, this watery tart's been eyeballin' me for nearly a decade. Every time I steer my news vessel down Lee Street - there she is, all pearl necklaces and come hither stare. I'm a married man, mind you, but no ex-Sailor could shirk the allure of this Enchantress of the Sea. At least that's what I tell myself whenever the driver behind me lays on the horn and flips me off for sitting still at a green light. So you can imagine my lust when blogfather Ed Cone dropped the dime on my slippery nymph's upcoming move. A business on the precipice? A landmark in peril? A photogenic victim of urban renewal? This looks like a job for Lenslinger, otherwise known as the Grim Reaper of Retail...

Okay, so technically, Tri-City Seafood ain't closing. But they are vacating their home of more than forty years and they're taking their unique signage with them. That's more than enough reason to point my lenses their way, even if it did mean braving the sweltering conditions of a dripping wet Carolina summer. Swamp-ass aside, it was a wholly pleasurable day. From fending off mid-morning winos outside the store to schlepping my gear up Ed Cone's office staircase to hanging out with Tri-City's affable owner Maze Dames, it beat the heck out of chasing fender-benders, babysitting hair-do's or zooming in on golden shovels. Besides, in this heat, any inside assignment is a winning gig, let alone one that involves street-level art, imminent domain and a great deal on some good lookin' Red Snapper. Better still, the resulting piece turned out just past halfway decent - which is the very least I can do for such a fetching, two-finned vixen.

The wife would understand, don't you think?

Wayback Machine

While I do not endorse the modern day live truck, the early models never fail to raise my mast. Take this WXYZ news van from back in the day. Between the thoughtful umbrella and the placid Action slacks, I can't tell if they're going live or channeling Mary Poppins. But neither this bucolic scene nor the frenzied live shot I did in front of that abandoned alleyway the other day would have been possible without the genius of the late, great Edward H. "Hack" Hewson Jr. Credited with assembling the first fleet of mobile newscasting units, Hack changed TV news forever by giving field crews the technology needed to provide on-the-scene reports. A trillion pointless live shots were born...

From there, broadcasters never looked back - eventually going live from every conceivable locale: smoldering crash site, charity bake sale, roped-off TV station parking lot. No area was safe from these roving newsrooms. Just ask the legion of absentminded photogs who pioneered new ways to shear high dollar masts and dishes from these heroic truck-tops. Low bridges, parking garages, drive thru windows - no low clearance sign could obscure the brilliance of Hack's Hewson's insistent tinkering. So the next time you watch a pretty young thing stand in front of a black hole at 11 pm and refer to day-old events in the present tense, tip your glass toward Seattle, home of the Hewson global empire.

Meanwhile, head on over to Photog's Lounge for an old school collage of vintage TV vehicles and Sir Edward Hewson's own modest obituary. And remember trucks ops, Look Up and Live. It worked for Hack.

Coffee Tables from Beyond

It's not a late night movie, but rather the future of computer interface. It's called multi-touch technology - a new digital manipulation platform best illustrated in this jaw-dropping clip. Hey, who need an old fashioned plasma flattie hanging on the wall when every household surface is brimming with fingerstroke gadgetry straight out of a bootleg Jetsons episode? Right now, Microsoft is peddling the technology to corporate partners, but the possibilities for this new realm of tactile computing are truly staggering. In video circles alone, editors like myself are salivating at the prospects of abandoning the world of point and click for a chance to bend, spindle and twist our media clips into a timeline both space-age and old school. Even Microsoft acknowledges their emerging technology works best with photo sharing, maps and menus. That, my friends, is editing - a now rather sterile discipline accomplished with the help of a clunky keyboard and mouse. Soon, however, multi-touch technology could invade the edit bay, making the art and science of video assemblage feel like happy hour at the fingerpaint cafe. Sign me up...

Go Long...

Whereas I threaten to take a hostage each time the interstate slows to a crawl, NBC cameraman Jim Long hops continents with a kick-ass rig and a transcendental grin. This guy gets around. At last check, he was shaking the dust of Afghanistan from his many lenses, bound for Normandy on a round the world trip with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The schedule is tight, the accomodations spotty, but the access - that potent photog intoxicator - is unparalleled. Why else would someone as smart as Jim Long schlep heavy gear across the globe? After all, there are easier ways to see the world. But few travels itineraries offer the chance to peek over history's shoulder - even if you do have to constantly watch your back while doing so. But don't take my word for it - check out Jim's own site and see how the real pros still do it...

Cult of the Blowhard

Since I’m responsible for copious posts ridiculing certain new media evangelists, let me now mock the findings of one old school tight-ass. His name is Andrew Keen and according to this article, he’s written a book entitled The Cult of the Amateur. In it, the lecturer/internet entrepreneur decries the demise of vetted media, laying the blame squarely on the pajama-top of the citizen communicator. Trotting out the hackneyed adage of monkeys, typewriters and masterpieces, (he must have been out of farmer’s daughter jokes), Keen concludes that a media landscape without borders will cast professional journalists to the four corners of the new age terrain, scrambling their native tongues so that they may never unite again. Think I’m kidding? Read for yourself:

In a world without newspapers, publishing houses, film studios, radio and TV stations there’ll be nobody to discover and – no less important – to nurture talent. The result could be no less catastrophic than Pol Pot’s decision to eliminate talent and expertise in Cambodia by mass execution. “Once dismantled, I fear that this professional media – with its rich ecosystem of writers, editors, agents, talent scouts, journalists, publishers, musicians, reporters and actors – can never again be put back together. We destroy it at our peril,” says Keen.

What’s at peril is the credibility of any media critic who interjects Pol Pot into a discussion about podcasts and websites - but that’s hardly the point right now. No - what’s at issue is Keen’s contention that without the loving guidance of corporate gatekeepers, all those insatiable communicators will cease to ensue the voodoo that they do. Hardly. With new distribution platforms emerging every fortnight, lensmiths, scribes and fiddlers will produce more noise that ever - some of which will actually contain a discernible signal. Will it all suck? Depends on your perspective. If you’re an esteemed member of the Fourth Estate, the rabble of the masses will no doubt fill you with dread. If you’re a twenty-something with a pierced eyelid and a laptop, you’re probably too busy surfing YouTube to care what some old fossil thinks.

As for this quickly calcifying relic, I find myself wedged between the grinding plates of the tectonic schism. With once sacred and scarce tools now down-sized and dumb-downed for the masses, any old ape can consider themselves a self-publishing primate. That evolution is already underway - as evidenced by the plummeting TV ratings scribbled on the nearest cave wall. Now we can sit by the fire all night and worry about where that leaves a camera-slinging tree-swinger like myself, but it won’t stop this survival of the fittest. That will be decided out there - where a new breed of media-maker is petrifying my kind even as we speak. Will it forever change the way we process the world? You betcha. Will it force the current species to walk the Earth - forever searching for the guidance of a benevolent master? Hell no. Content - good and bad - will flourish and they’ll be a thousand new ways to access the best and the worst of it. Podcasts will lay down with broadcasts, on-line video will couple with the Datelines of the world and a new generation of news consumers will be more, informed, overwhelmed and fractured than before. To paraphrase our new American Idol, this is our Now.

(Oh yeah, as for TV stations being ’nurturing’, come walk a mile with my tripod. We'll nurture you up a good hernia...)

Welcome to the Scrum

For a loner with a lens, I do so dig a camera cluster. From the snaking cables underfoot, to the preening, leaning broadcast masts high above - there’s something about a media circus that makes me feel oddly at home. I blame the midway. For where else can you see the Incredibly Sweaty Gadget Freak, the Aging Anchor with Purple Hair, or the Lifer with No Name? You won’t find these characters at your local shopping mall. Unless it burns down, is invaded by zombies or visited by a sitting Pope. Then, these electronic vets will show up en masse, erect their tents and trucks just outside the calamity in question and crank up the sideshow before His Holiness ever hits the Food Court. It’s an competitive, funny, scathing world behind that wall of lenses - and all you need to enter is a pissy attitude and a press pass or two.

Now that you're in, say hello to some of my buddies. The one on the left - the one who looks like he's about to go fly-fishing - is young Joe McCloskey. A fine photog in his own right, Joe acts as Sat Truck Captain whenever Satellite Dan is absent, sleeping or off on a Hamsicle bender. If that last one made no sense to you, you've never raided the rapidly thawing freezer of a hurricane-lashed island's only open gas station. Joe has - and he's got the soggy receipts to prove it. As for his friend there, that's none other than Colonel Ken Corn, ex photog-blogger, Mission Specialist and all around nice guy. When he ain't knocking back bottle water he swiped from a group of passing orphans, the Colonel can be found cruising the Queen City for news nuggets, trawling the deep end of the blogosphere or just being way too kind to your somewhat humble lenslinger.

Of course you know Whitey. He's the one with the sunny outlook, the upscale neckwear and the cell phone that launches unmanned spacecraft. Eric White (E-Whizzle to his many hip-hop followers) and I have worked together semi-regularly over the years. We've chased seeing eye ponies, endured marathon school board meetings and taken in a fatality or three. Through it all, Whitey's maintained his great attitude - no easy feat when your photog partner is constantly threatening to drive headfirst into the nearest bridge abutment. But enough about me - let's meet The Big Guy! That's him in the hat. His name's Jameson Forst and chances are he's got more kids than you. He's also got mad camera skills, an affinity for wide-angle lenses and as of yet no trace of a southern accent. Though new to El Ocho, Jameson's not new to the gig - something he proved about twenty minutes after he arrived here. Eager to no longer be the new guy, he even feigns interest when I mention this very blog. That'll change...

Dear Lord, you've given me so much. A career, a family, a writing compulsion ... could you not have made me a little more photogenic? You know, a little thicker hair on top, strapping muscles and not quite so red a complexion when trapped outside. C'mon - I dress like Magnum P.I. Couldn't just maybe I have looked a bit like Tom Selleck? That way all these pictures I post of myself could be one steamy collage in unbridled beefcake instead of some visual testament to my inherent dorkitude. Would that have been too much to ask? Hmm? Iraq? Global Warming? The Sopranos Finale? Yeah - I guess you are pretty busy. Tell you what, forget the whole handsome rap and remember this: Billy Graham may have saved thousands of souls but I sweated like an escaped convict at a license checkpoint the day they dedicated his new library. If that won't win me any celestial favors, how 'bout my ongoing attempts to explain my surly breed to the eight a half loyal readers of Viewfinder BLUES? Hmm? No? Okay.

I'll be in the sat truck if you need me.