One of the things I love most about being a photojournalist is that every day brings new challenges. No two days are ever alike.
On Thursday, I got to the office with two assignments in my box-fairly typical. One was in our studio, head shots of two people for a story, and the other, a feature for the sports department. After checking my e-mail, I headed out to get one of my other chores for the day done-getting my press pass for the upcoming Central Washington State Fair. Because the fair office had had problems with its camera, the line was pretty long when I got to the SunDome. But, I was simply in the same boat as all the other folks-delivery people and fair workers-who were waiting, and no doubt the people making the pictures were having a much longer day than mine. Ten minutes into the wait, I get a call from my editor-there’s a city council meeting that needs to be covered. My pass will have to wait. I pop into the office to pick up my new assignment, so I’ll know what the story is going in and head over.
The problem with photographing meetings is that, although the issues discussed may be important, visually, there is usually just a lot of talking
and listening.
I sat on the floor for almost an hour, waiting for the people in the neighborhood surrounding the site where a Seattle developer wants to build apartments for seniors to show, through expression or gesture, just how frustrated they were. I could tell the man sitting near me, Earl Pratt, had something to say-he’d been taking notes and nodding as the people before him made their presentations. When he stood up to address the session, I knew I had my photo.
Back at the office, I downloaded my images, thinking to get them ready for publication before the women I was photographing in the studio showed up. Before the files were even finished copying, a message came over the police scanner, and a news editor came running towards the photo department: someone had been shot on South Naches Avenue. Lots of police were heading over. The suspects were still at large. Grabbing our cameras, fellow photographer Kris Holland and I headed out.
Spot news-fires, accidents, crimes-aren’t an every day occurance, but they are part of our job. They are usually part of the job I like least – photographing people on what is likely the worst day they have had in a long time. When I showed up to the scene, police cars were already blocking the road, and emergency workers were loading the victim into the ambulance. I shot a a few frames, knowing we likely wouldn’t publish them. Kris and I stayed back, taking some shots of the overall scene while we tried to get the lay of the land.
A police officer went running by me, and suddenly, a nearby police car took off down Naches Avenue. Kris headed for his car and I jumped in and off we went. Two blocks later, police, with guns drawn, were running down a back alley and around several houses. Kris took the alley, and I headed around front.
I jumped, but kept photographing as police drew their guns and started shouting at someone I couldn’t see.
At any emergency scene, my job is to come back with storytelling images, but to stay out of the way of emergency workers who are trying to do their jobs too. I remembered a story I once saw of a photographer chasing a suspect with police only to realize later how much danger he’d put himself in because the suspect was armed. It ran through my head that if shots started flying, I definitely didn’t want to be in the way. Luckily, for all, that wasn’t the case.
The suspect had hidden under a house and they pulled him out and handcuffed him.
Shortly thereafter, I was at the office, downloading the photos and running to get the lights set up for the headshots.
That done, time to grab a quick lunch and head to my afternoon assignment, the sports feature.
I love shooting sports, especially the dedicated athletes in high schools. I admire the dedication these young athletes bring to their sports, and the excitement and joy when they compete. My afternoon feature was of a Eisenhower High School runner, Ivan Alfaro who has Usher’s syndrome. He’s been deaf since birth and only has about 20 percent vision.
In order to show how Ivan was different from his teammates, to show his unique challenges, I couldn’t just shoot him running. Visually, he’s no different from any other runner. With some help from the writer and my editor, we decided to shoot the pre-preactice pep talk from the coach, which Ivan hears through an intepreter who signs the coach’s words. I had a good situation, but needed to figure out how to get both elements into the frame. I decided to shoot the intepreter’s hands, to show the signing, then Ivan’s face, watching. After a couple of wider shots, I realized Ivan didn’t really stand out from his teammates-he’d be hard for a reader to identify.
I switched lenses and cropped out his teammates, and had my shot.
I hung around for a little longer to see if I could get another nice photo of him warming up. Although I had a shot that described how he was unique, I didn’t feel I’d captured any of his personality, showed the person, not the disability. And it’s people that I’m interested in. As he was warming up, he was joking with his teammates, and the coach came over to push him in his stretches a bit. He groaned but laughed at how inflexible he was. His face lit up and I had my shot, felt good that I could show him as just another member of the team, gearing up for Saturday’s big race.
After toning the photos back at the office, I had one last task for the day: the press pass. Kris and I headed to the SunDome together, knowing that good conversation might make the wait go faster.
When we got to the front of the line, the folks at the fair office laughed as we took pictures of each other, and of ourselves being photographed. No doubt they’d had a very long day helping impatient people get their credientials, and a little fun to top off all of our days was a good thing.
Smile!
– Sara Gettys
