Flexing the Plex

You’ll find two types of people at your average fitness club. Those who WANT to be on TV and those who DO NOT. Both are fun to mess with...

Take the dude walking in circles by the medicine balls. The one in the unitard. He’s been waiting to flex on-cue every since you struck up the fancycam. At the very least act like you’re rolling. Dude’s got bolts comin’ out of his neck.

Me, I prefer the la-dees. Like Granny over there. Sure as I’m shootin’, she’s here on doctor’s orders. Probably blew out a hip. She’s can’t even see your lens what with her bifocals all fogged up, but ya gotta dig her moxie. Who knew a woman of that age could squat like that?

Over there, by the juice bar. That’s Melton. He’s the janitor. Usually he mops up, but sometimes he just stops and stares like that. His bosses told him the news was coming and now he wants to give you an official tour of the mens locker room.

Check out the cat lady. The one wiping down that torture bench with a dishrag she fished out of her junk drawer. She’s…glistening. And oblivious to the social scene going on around her. You know, you don’t see many orange felt pajamas like that in the naked city.

That dude grunting like a pig over by the free weights is gonna bust a blood vessel. Either he’s showing off for us or his steroids prescription just ran out. Either way he’s good TV so get him before he passes out. Besdies, I haven’t seen wrestler pants like that since the Fall of ’87. Hey, is that a fanny-pack?

The Moms on the treadmills are on to us. Actually they been clocking our every move for the better part of The View. You can travel the galaxy and not find a creature less willing to be televised. And here you and your camera invade their only sanctuary. Quick, get the wide-angle lens!

Don’t look now, but that lady with the face is looking over here again. Her - on the elliptical. Yes, the one touching up her mascara . I don’t know how she stays up there either, but one thing’s for sure: She spent a half hour getting dressed for her work-out. Point the damn camera her way or she’ll follow us to lunch. Remember, we’re in a marked car!

Ooh, a clipboard. New member. Yep, anytime you see some track-suited no-neck totin’ a clipboard, you can bet there’s a ninety pound weakling following closely b-e-h-i-n-d … there! That Lord of the Rings t-shirt, those oddly knobby knees -- he’s clearly mortified to even be here. Let’s see if he’ll talk!

News Goobs Ahead

Bright lime-green ain’t exactly my color, but I’ll gladly work it into my next ensemble if it’ll help me get home at night. While not everyone’s convinced it will, I’m err on the side of safety and embrace the use of reflective yellow and shiny piping on the evening news. See, a new Federal Highway Administration regulation goes into effect in November (November?) requiring all ‘workers on or near public highways to wear high-visibility safety clothes’. ‘Workers’ now includes media crews -ya know, those poor saps dispatched to the edge of some screaming interstate so they can set up lights and camera and warn everyone watching at home about distracted driving? It’s a thoroughly asinine practice, but long ago image consultants convinced station owners that LIVE(!) meant good. Over-coiffed news readers have been manning crumbling road shoulders and pitch black holes every since. Until the very last live truck is replaced by a shiny, floating laptop, this ill-advised tactic will no doubt continue.

A-HEM. Sorry if I sound bitter, but I simply cannot count the number of times I’ve been assigned a some perilous remote by some twenty-something who bitches when the break room drink machine runs out of Fresca. Was a time I’d park a live truck in the middle of an off-ramp if you let me - but that was back when I was young, immortal and rockin’ the mullet. These days my hair’s thinner and my perspective longer. I’m still dedicated to state of the art newsgathering but sorry - I’m not risking my life so you can open your show with live pictures of semi’s whizzing by a guy who’d stab his old driver’s-ed teacher in the throat if only that would score him the coveted weekend anchor gig. So take that quad-box and shove it up your ass, for I’ll play your game and feign urgency, but only in a reasonable manner. If that means suiting up like a Chernobyl janitor, bring it on. I’ll try and make it work with wrinkled tourist look - if it will make a single housecat consider the risk of some useless roadside live shot. Besides, as I told Whitey just the other day…

“If I perish in the line of duty, I’m haunting every one of you bastards.”

Farkas the Remarkable

Anyone who’s ever framed up another human should lower their lens tonight, for a master of the craft has passed. Ray Farkas, known far and wide for his generous nature and languid storytelling style, succumbed to colon cancer late Friday. His death marks the end of a brilliant career, one spent adding to the palette of TV news and inspiring everyone around him in the process. He produced an abundance of coverage on matters large and small; he seemed able to create gripping television out of thin air. A pioneer user of the wireless microphone, he redefined the sit-down interview with obscure camera placement, abundant cutaways and a fly on the wall feel. His very name denotes the approach, making him one of the few producers to expand the lexicon of TV News. But the Ray Farkas school of thought transcended the soundbite. When he contracted a sever form of Parkinson’s Disease, he documented much of his treatment, including one session in which he narrated his own brain surgery … live! Enthusiastic, innovative and affable, Farkas was a favorite among his many brethren at NPPA. Those of us lucky enough to rub shoulders with him in at the Norman workshop were among the legion of shooters who sought and received his tutelage. Ray Farkas the man may no longer be with us, but Farkas - the broadcast term will be used and revered for as long as TV cameras roam the Earth. His legacy will only grow - every time a television photojournalist pulls w-a-y back from the subject at hand and dares to stare at it differently.

Jackals and Has-Beens

I have chased defendants down stairways, quizzed new widows as they clutched Kleenex and bum-rushed a dumpster or two - ALL in the name of news. But nothing I’ve done with a TV news camera on my shoulder has made me feel as sleazy as watching the paparazzi cling to the back of Britney Spears’ ambulance. For those of you with the good sense to ignore this tripe, I’ll try and be brief: Last night the Mouseketeer turned nut bag reportedly wigged out inside her Los Angeles home. When an ambulance came to take her to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for observation, it had to weave through a human debris field of photogs, reporters and assorted whack-jobs with lenses. By the time the paramedics pulled out with the wash-up pop star in the back, the unthinkable scrum clung to the exiting ambulance like hyenas on a bleeding cheetah. If you missed the video, don’t sweat it. I hear it's currently playing it on a loop in the Seventh Circle of Hell.

Now, I’m no paparazzi. Yeah, there’s usually a viewfinder in my face, but any celebrity I’ve pointed it at generally welcomed the attention. Well, there was that time I loitered in a underground parking garage, waiting for Nikki Sixx to report to court. Serena Williams didn’t seem to happy to see me when I stumbled upon her at Furniture Market one year. And there was that time when Rusty Wallace yelled at me for shining a light on him, but that hardly counts, since everyone knows what an insufferable prick Rusty Wallace is. My point is this: Past transgressions aside, what I do is very different from sleeping in my car outside some embattled ingénue’s mansion, in hopes she’ll stick her head out long enough to regurgitate in High Def. But to too many folks, I am but a cousin to this lecherous breed, just another yak with a deadline and a lens. Maybe that’s why the sight of Lenslingers Gone Wild irks me so. I ain’t asking you to feel sorry for pampered celebrities, but as Garlon Pittman often begged of me and my brothers in the 80’s...

"Ya'll act like ya got some sense..."

Plunder the Tundra

I post this story not because it’s all that good, but because it’s so typical of what I do. Every day that I can, I work alone - and not just because I’m anti-social. Rather, I enjoy the challenge of shooting, writing and editing my own stories. It’s rarely easy. On days I shoot well, I might not edit worth a flip. On days my editing sings, I find I kan’t write real good. Occasionally, all three disciplines will fall into place and I’ll walk away at the end of the day beaming like a new Dad. Yesterday, wasn’t one of those days. My video was pretty humdrum, I wrote the script while eavesdropping on a co-worker and I edited the damn thing in about 45 minutes. If anything, the dude with the walrus moustache saved me.

I read lots of blogs. One of my favorites is News Videographer: a comprehensive sight that deconstructs on-line video. Helmed by the talented Angela Grant, the contributors wrangle daily with the techniques and issues surrounding this emerging media. TV News, it ain’t. But the many points raised by Grant and others relate directly to the kind of lens-centered photojournalism I’ve attempted for so many moons now. However, newspaper people and TV geeks rarely get along. Silly, I know - but the fact of the matter is the news breed of on-line video folk have little use for an old media dinosaur like myself. While I don’t expect to fully free myself of this primordial news, I’d like the chance to at least explain how we do it on my side of the tar pits. Thus, this linked feature, with an arithmetic lesson to boot.

320 mile round trip: Who cares? It’s on Rupert.
Backyard Burger combo: $6.25, on me.
Being left alone ALL DAY: Priceless

The January Man

So, you’ve whipped your viewers into a frenzy with talk of winter weather and now it looks like the snow’s not even gonna come your way. What do you do? Simple, you call in a guy like me: some grumpy cuss you know will bring back the goods - lest anyone claim he can’t. Like a grizzled hit-man, I said little when the call came late Tuesday. The voice on the other end spoke sparingly too, for we both knew what was expected of me. Hanging up the phone, I ran down a mental checklist of gear, gas and trajectory. After that, I put it out of my mind, knowing only that executives were hedging their bets by launching me into the void. Eh, it’s a living.

And a damn fine one too, for not once today did I rearrange any staplers or fondle my TPS reports. Instead I saddled up shortly after dawn and headed West. My orders: Find some freakin’ snow. Trouble was, the only accumulation was up in the Blue Ridge Mountains - a hundred miles or so from my humble suburban home. 'Not a problem', I thought, a covert sortie into the hills is a splendid way to spend a Wednesday. For the first sixty miles it was; I cranked some Jane's and followed a ribbon of asphalt over undulating terrain. Knowing it might be the last time I drove Unit Four into the breech, I savored every mile - when I wasn't daydreaming about a desk job, that is. But that ended an hour into my voyage, when the wind picked up, the snow fell down and the landscape took an ever steepening pitch.

Soon after the weather got dirty, my destination changed. "Don't go to Boone, try West Jefferson instead", said the cell phone. I nodded in agreement and plotted a more Northern course. I should have kept going straight, as while there was snow in West Jefferson, the only beings I could find to comment were of the bovine variety. Cows make for lousy TV (unless you're floating over them), so I kept trudging up what was now a snow-covered mountain pass. As always, Unit Four performed heroically - compensatng for my lead foot and poor vision with its superior handling. Only once did we almost steer ourselves off a cliff, but hey - when the music's over you gotta find another CD, right? Don't answer that; just know that I traversed perilous ridgelines with one eye on my stash of tunes and the other on all those 'Falling Rock' signs. Let's see, what's some good music to be crushed to death by?

I never could decide. By the time I'd navigated countless switchbacks, dipped into Tennessee and found my way back to Boone, tunnel vision had set in. With only a couple of snowy vistas committed to disc, I was in dire need of soundbites, characters and 'moments'. Minutes after arriving in one of my favorite mountain towns, I found all three. Locals, tourists and other yankees shivered along the frigid streets. Seeing my camera, most cavorted on-cue. 'Boo-YA!' I thought but kept it to myself. Not wanting to scare off any civilians, I found a shopkeeper with a moustache that screamed to be on tee-vee. I was halfway through my first dumb question when I felt it: the presence of another lenslinger. Looking around, I spotted a distant red speck talking to a tripod. I moved in, to see if I could help. Shooting your own stand-up can be a real bitch, especially when it's only eight degrees. But to his credit, dude had it covered.

He must be a January Man, too.

Love for a Bucket

Could it, could it be? Could the sun really be setting on Unit 4? Could the SUV that’s offered me shelter, transport and solitude soon be kicked to the proverbial curb? Could my trusty steed really be put out to pasture? Or could some other shooter soon call it home? Could I soon be spotted zipping about the Piedmont in a station wagon on steroids? Could I spend three paragraphs lamenting the loss of a banged-up Ford Explorer that I didn’t even pay for? You bet I could!

Stocking the Batmobile

When I first took possession of Unit 4, a few photogs snickered. “Two wheel drive? Two doors? What kind of battle-wagon is that?” I just smiled and invited them all to get the hell out of my new car - for what they saw as weakness, I saw as strength. Two doors and a bony backseat? Less room for some pimply intern to climb aboard. Only two wheel drive? I would have to sling a few donuts just to get out of the parking lot next time it snowed, but what‘s - oh, eight days of terror a year? Not really knowing, I shoved every CD my wife hated in its spacious center console and dropped the backseat. In time, I would methodically pack the back with every piece of gear I had, rearranging my tools a half dozen times before reaching an acceptable level of photog feng shui. For the moment though she was free of cargo and I flew her empty up an on-ramp, practicing barrel rolls along the interstate…

A Few Contusions

To my delight, I discovered she had a tight turning circumference - an important feature when you pull as many last minute u-turns as I do. Sporting the latest in plastic underpinning, its pimped up paneling looks so turn of the century now. I dinged up one of those panels on a snow bank once. It’s hung loose ever since. Years later I badly damaged the driver’s side door when none other than Hurricane Ophelia ripped it from my grip and dam near tried to rip it off completely. I got the door shut, but the sill never did heal and to this day an annoying sound of rushing wind accompanies any high speed travel. I also plumbed the depths of the fuel tank, riding for miles with the needle on E and the LOW FUEL light on. I theorized that light would blink should it really get low, but it never did. Though it never ran out of gas on me, Timmy Hawks swore it died on him one night in front of the only gas pump within ten miles. He blames me for not mentioning it was low when I handed him the keys, but I know a show-off when I see one.

Run to the Hills

When I wasn’t pushing my luck with the LOW FUEL light, I was standing on the accelerator, for most everywhere I went, I did so in a hurry. That’s how it is when you’re supplying news factories with fresh footage. But for every high speed pursuit, there were hundreds of more languid journeys - though in truth my driving could never be called ’languid’. More often than not though, I was all alone - with no one around to describe the ride. There was the foggy trek up the Blue Ridge Parkway, hours after heavy rains had washed out parts of the winding mountain road away. There was that rain-lashed stretch of blacktop at Carolina Beach. Class 2 winds sent sheet metal skittering in my path as stop signs threatened to take flight. Inside Unit 4, I sunk back in the seat as ‘Texas Flood’ rang out. Back and forth I drove on that tiny island until the truck commercial in my head finally faded to black...

And here I sit, with a couple of brand new ‘crossovers’ sitting in the parking lot. Not sure what that means exactly, but the photojournalists are circling around them and I’m told one is meant for me. First however, I must complete one last journey in my beloved Explorer, a pre-dawn jaunt into the mountains in search of the closest snow. Did I mention this hoopty’s only got two wheel drive?