The Case Against Kovach

I don’t know Daniel Kovach, but after surfing through his Flickr gallery, I feel like we should exchange Christmas cards or something. Either that or I’m gonna have to sue the guy for mimeographing my memory plates, photographing my flashbacks and disseminating my delusions. How else could Dude post photos so eerily similar to my very own? Be it a Jedi Mind trick or a simple mix-up at the lab, I’m seriously considering calling that attorney with the bouffant on the tee-vee. Hell, I’ve already done the legwork...

Exhibit A

Either they do early morning TV News live shots outside of the Greater Piedmont Googolplex, or this frame was brazenly purloined from the Lenslinger Winter of ’97. Back then I spent five out of seven sunrises rolling up cable and rethinking my career path as an attractive and combative reporter by the name of Jami Turner trained her third new guy in a row. Weeks earlier I’d been a burnout in a necktie on his way to middle management, having forsaken my newsman’s DNA for a charade of a promotions career. It was during this twelve month stretch of endless cable runs that I came to appreciate the prototypical photog and yet hate a damn live truck all at the same time. That condition continues to this day, as do my troubled dreams of steering top-heavy logo-mobiles through misty morning mountain hops. How this Kovach character got a copy, I do not know.

Exhibit B

Further evidence skulduggery is afoot, this stirring replica of a stroll I took through the flooded streets of Grifton, N.C. shortly after Hurricane Floyd triggered a flood of biblcal proportions. Yeah, it doesn't look exactly like me - but I'm telling you I've walked this walk (and God knows I've talked the talk). Most amazing to me here is Kovach's knack for capturing the spontaneous, for I rolled into the tiny Pitt County border town that day pissy and unprepared. What started as an impromptu walkabout quickly turned into an extended safari - one in which the tripod grew heavy, the camera grew damp and the chafing reigned unabated. Little did I know then I was in for weeks of uncomfortable coverage, including the floating over of schoolbuses, the stalking of one Jesse Jackson and a near case of red-headed reportercide. Thank God Kovach didn't get a shot of that.

Exhibit C

Okay so for the life of me I can't recall ever wearing that shirt, but I distinctly remember the evening. It was early Fall a dozen or so years back and I was a young man enamored with the lens. So too were the good ole boys that night, a local cabal of volunteer firefighters hopped up on smoke plumes and thoughts of arson. It was a controlled burn of course; the pre-planned pyre courtesy of some recently departed widow's wish. It burned in increments, until finally the eager brigade stopped manhandling their hoses and started to ignore the fact that the roof, the roof, the roof was on fire. still, it didn't really get weird until the groupies showed up; young women in tight jeans and clinging drawls who gathered areound the brush truck and cheered on their helmeted heroes. The resulting cacophony of siren yelps, housefire crackle and female shrieks was enough to tap the pyro in us all and I for one showered six times once I got home.

Maybe that's why I totally spaced on it. Now, if you'll excuse me Counselor, I've got some more witnesses to bully, Case dismissed!

No Tripe Left Behind

With the Hollywood Writers’ strike in full swing, I can barely find the strength to log on. After all, what will happen if all those TV shows I never watch run out of fresh pablum to foist on the American people? Could public libraries see a sudden spike in book checkouts? Not until everyone’s Tivo runs dry. That’s a shame too, since 98 percent of what passes for network programming is derivative spittle, anyway. But you certainly don’t need me to tell you that. Just look at shows like Prison Break. Successful, yes but the damn thing’s been on for a couple of seasons now -- amd it's still called Prison Break! Get a plan, fellas! The very second episode should’ve been called On The Run, followed closely by Shot In the Back, or Night In The Box. And don’t get me started on shows like Heroes or Lost! I knew drama students at ECU who could knock smother mushrooms in peanut butter and come up with more plausible storylines. Best yet, they’d only charge ‘friend prices‘. Focus, people!

A-HEM ... Rather than rage all night against the dark and silent flattie in the corner of my den, I’ve cracked open my laptop and performed a hard-target search of every string of broken prose, each deserted bromide and all the half-baked topic starters I wisely abandoned so many moons ago. Thus, the following random verbiage, apropos of, well - nothing…

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from almost twenty years of harvesting video, it’s not to get your foot caught in the hopper. Hey, accidents happen, but nobody wants to see your bloody stump lodged between the sports block and the 5 day forecast. Not anyone with a ratings diary, anyway.

My very first TV camera was struck down in a horrible industrial accident. That’s right, an intern by the name of Art pulled it off its tripod at a tractor warehouse. As a dusty particle cloud of plastic and glass wafted up from the concrete floor, he actually asked me if it was broken. It was and six months later, Art was named weekend anchor at the competition.

Because of the marked news unit that occasionally sits in my driveway, my neighbors automatically assume I harbor insights and opinions on local crime sprees, low pressure systems and city politics. Imagine their surprise when all I can speak intelligently on are fresh centenarians, scavenger hunts and dogs in funny hats.

Some adults remember their first bicycle, their childhood tree house or that really big game in little league. Not me. I recall pouring over my family’s World Book encyclopedia set, collecting garbage bags full of little green army men and watching ABC reporter Bill Stewart get shot in the head. Maybe that’s why I ain’t rightl…

Nothing will cause every bulb in your light kit to spontaneously shatter like the onset of Daylight Savings Time - when even 5 o clock live shots need extra illumination. Likewise, spot monsoons and advertised hurricanes will cause your camera’s rain-cover to slip into the very same vortex that contains mankind’s collection of mismatched athletic socks.

Everything I know about TV news I learned from Roy Hardee - the crotchety old News Director at my first TV station. Never one to speak of divas, diaries of demographics. Roy’s only interest was covering the news. Though a registered punk-ass at the time, I knew even then that chasing breakers for ole Roy was a privilege, the newsgathering equivalent of running moonshine for your Uncle Jesse.

Some of the smartest people I’ve ever worked with in TV News found a way to wrap this business around their particular strength, be it the photog who writes, the manager who shoots or the second string sports guy who fancied himself a political reporter. The really intelligent ones, however, ran away screaming, never to return.

On the other end of that spectrum, somewhere outside of Chocowinity, a vintage dentist chair sits rusting, an aging Piranha sulks from neglect and an unimportant man named Mike Weeks wonders where it all went wrong. Perhaps I'll fax him an itemized list.

Slingerpedia: Fancycam

It’s been brought to my attention I don’t always explain the dorky terms I use. Thus, the first of many entries from the Viewfinder BLUES User's Guide, in which I cover the fundamentals - without ever getting too technical...

Fancycam [fān'sē kām] (N.) Origin: Me

Be it a gleaming new Sony XD or a war-torn TK-76, the shoulder mounted, manually adjusted, high-end visual recording device of its day. Heavy of glass, festooned with logos (often layers) and smelling of the open road, this living instrument can capture grief, dispense inanity or kick-start a riot - depending on which buttons you push. While early models came with matching saddle bags filled with recording decks and life support equipment, the modern day fancycam is a highly-cradled single-piece unit, featuring tiny flip-out screens and burdened only by shiny decals and a faint odor of house fire. Lens throw and light requirement varies wildly between makes and models, but the potency of any TV lens is vastly extrapolated when coupled with its intrinsic and underrated mate, the tripod (see sticks, legs, the gimp). When properly connected with attended live truck, the fancycam can put entire regions to sleep with meandering noon talkbacks or hold the globe riveted - should Osama, Britney or Bigfoot show up.

Fancycam VS. Film camera

Unlike the film camera, the vastly different image acquirer requiring support personnel dressed in Goth clothing and some form of craft services, the TV news fancycam is operated by sole caretaker, while usually owned by faceless corporate entity. Formats differ; some models slather images on creaky videotape while others arrange data on optical disc. Regardless of recording platform, neither model will survive unplanned drops followed by sudden stops, news units in reverse or any and all salt-water immersions.

Access and Acquisition

As noted earlier, most fancycams are owned by broadcast outlets - yet loved, cared for and coveted by lower level employees of said affiliates. This symbiotic arrangement - unique to TV stations - results in these expensive devices being left in the sole care of staffers whose annual salaries seem paltry by comparison. Admirably, very few fancycams are ever lost or maligned, as those who cradle them from one unlikely locale to the next do so because of the unthinkable access provided to them in the process. In short, a logo’d lens on the shoulder can open most any door, deter fugitives and erase the occasional bar tab.

Long Term Exposure

There is a downside. Long term exposure to the working end of a fancycam can throw more than your back out of whack. A one inch screen pressed to your face can also skew your perspective, especially when walking backwards for extensive periods of time. Unprotected encounters with logo’d lenses can imbue the operator with a false sense of bravado, leaving them with the mistaken impression they’ve seen it all - when in fact they’ve simply mastered the groundbreaking, ride-along and hall of justice scrum. An additional danger: because of personality types found around such lenses (felons, politicians, weekend anchors) camera personnel often assumes everyone is crazy. See also Asshole Magnet.

Separated at Birth?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Rick Portier and I live parallel lives. He's a crusty TV news vet down in Baton Rouge. I'm a journeyman photog from the finer of the Carolinas. He's a father of two in his forties. I'm on the verge of a mid-life crisis and a Dad of a duo to boot. He writes every night under a made up moniker. I'm equally obsessed with an on-line alter-ego. Now I find out Rick spent the early nineties the same way I did: soaking up the latest in TV news technology while sporting one seriously outdated haircut. I knew I liked this guy!

The Murder of Josh Sweitzer

Before yesterday morning I’d never even heard of Josh Sweitzer. But 24 hours after stepping over puddles of his blood, I’m still trying to figure out why he had to die. It happened less than a mile from El Ocho itself; a burly young man working the counter of his uncle’s convenience store. When a group of rowdy young men crowded the tiny store, he insisted they step outside, with only two at a time remaining inside to buy their items. That obviously didn’t sit well with the young men, for minutes later one of them came back to the store, waited until Josh was alone behind the counter, then stepped inside and executed the 21 year old with a bullet to the brain. Family members say Josh Sweitzer didn’t stop breathing until hours later, but as his blood spread across the floor of the Lucky Mart convenience store, his dreams of becoming a cop - along with every other aspiration the young college graduate ever had - ceased to be...

I, of course, was blissfully unaware of the murder - until I walked into work yesterday morning and found two homicide detectives sitting at my desk. I didn’t know who they were, but their shoulder holsters and sour expressions told me I wouldn’t be turning a story on leftover Halloween candy after all. Instead, I’d spend the day retracing the steps of a most inexplicable act. It started with surveillance photos. The two detectives had them on a disk and together with reporter Caron Myers, were eager to see them disseminated. Still not sure what the suspects were wanted for, I digitized several ATM photos of a young man chuckling as he swiped a stolen bank card. Only after that did Caron interview the cops, and that’s when I learned about the neighborhood slaying that would consume the rest of my day. But even then it didn’t hit home. I’ve covered more murders than I can possibly remember. Rarely do they register as anything but more senseless fodder for the machine. This one, however, did.

Perhaps that’s because I used to frequent the store Josh died in. Or maybe it was because I had the misfortune of stepping inside that very establishment before the crime scene cleaners had arrived. Most probably, my emotional connection was formed when Josh’s uncle stepped before the cameras and told of his young nephew’s thwarted dreams. A big burly guy himself, the uncle’s voiced hitched as tears streamed down his face. A few minutes into the interview, I was breathing heavy myself - even as I reached up to zoom in closer. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t shake the scenario from my mind. Josh’s killers didn’t take anything; they just stepped inside the store and assassinated a young man who was scheduled to meet with an Air Force recruiter a few hours later. If you think it makes no sense on the evening news - ya oughta check it out in 3-D sometime. The only solace is in those surveillance photos. Spreading those across the land won't raise the dead, but hopefully they’ll assist whoever his killers are on their way to the lethal injection lab. I’d kinda like to be there, too.