Does it ever affect you?

[jim sitton]

UMMMm, where's the link?

[photog3535]

I guess the link would help, wouldn't it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYqnW...e_gdata_player

[Terry E. Toller]

A first class petty officer told me while in combat camera group back in 1966, "NEVER TAKE WHAT YOU SEE HOME WITH YOU!" good advice. I have seen the worst and don't think about it. don't talk about it. left it there...

[Ben Longden]

Not a bad dicipline.... but sometimes stuff does creep in under your own firewall..
A good chat with colleagues after the gig is always a great help.

[code20photog]

In all my time in news, all my time in emergency medicine, for the first time, I had to put down the camera and walk away yesterday.

It was a burial for a baby, found dead in a dumpster. The story is of this woman who claims abandoned baby corpses, gives them a name, a birth certificate, and a proper burial at a local cemetery.

As the workers lowered the tiny casket, about the size of a small cooler, into the grave, she leans down, places a stuffed rabbit, a book, and a flower on top, and sprinkles a handful of dirt.

I shot what I knew I needed, put the camera down, told my reporter I couldn't do it, and walked away.

That image has been haunting me all day.

[Ben Longden]

It would haunt me too.

[Cameradude]

First, everyone handles the stress differently. Some let it roll off, and some dwell on it. Neither is right or wrong.

I spend a dozen years covering spot news as a stringer for two local stations. I've seen it all, shot video of most of it, stepped in a mans brain at a traffic fatality, drownings, traffic fatalities, witnesses and taped a man being shot by a SWAT team, covered 7 hurricanes, and a major airline crash.

In the end I had one take on all of it; "****e happens".

The airline crash was the turning point. At the coroners office I realized that bad stuff happens to good people all the time. Up to that point I thought it was only the "bad people" that died or got killed.

As a jaded sat truck op once said, "nobody gets out alive".

Luckily for me, I have a Christian faith that gives me perspective on all of it.

[cyndygreen]

Then there's the long view. We are mites of dust in a universe we cannot fully comprehend.

What we provide is a service...if it were not for that, our jobs might be banal...meaningless. Some days, some stories...banal might be the best description.

But on those "other" days I hope viewers realize that the accident that was so irritating and held them up an extra fifteen minutes or the flurry of flashing lights they saw out of the corner of their eye destroyed someone's life...and that they pause a moment and are more grateful for their own life and hold more precious the lives of those they love.

I could generally (not always) handle the carnage. What always tore me apart were the survivors and families.

[photog3535]

I hear you Cyndy. Lately it's not been the carnage that's gotten to me, but memories of interviewing survivors and victims' families. Last week here in Shreveport, LA a man was convicted of murdering an 86 year old man and dismembering him. A reporter and I interviewed the family, and all I could think of last week was how that family could cope with such an unspeakable tragedy. I felt like a horrible human being when the man got the death penalty and I was glad. Don't get me wrong, I think he deserves it. But I was more shocked at my own reaction... That I was truly glad that he got the death penalty. Whether right or wrong, just or unjust, that still made me feel... well, dirty... Corrupted... Like I've lost a bit of myself I can never get back.

[cyndygreen]

If we feel this way, imagine how the folks we send off to do battle in our name must feel. We train them to fight...to kill...to witness carnage...and then they come home and we expect them to go back to being normal.

[photog3535]

Originally Posted by cyndygreen

If we feel this way, imagine how the folks we send off to do battle in our name must feel. We train them to fight...to kill...to witness carnage...and then they come home and we expect them to go back to being normal.

I've thought about that many times. I have a friend who is a Marine over in Afghanistan now. He was actually in the battle of Fallujah and told me stories about it. When he came home he was completely misunderstood by some of the very people who supposedly supported the war. When he came home all he wanted to do was spend time with his wife but people expected him to immediately be sociable and reenter society. I can't imagine what he saw... But I felt honored when I talked to him about how I felt about seeing what I saw in the business. When he came back he eventually was a counselor for Marines readjusting to "normal" life. He once told me that he'd personally never considered what photogs see out in the field. I respected him because he didn't pull an attitude like "I've been through worse things than you". Instead, he told me that I could talk to him anytime. That he'd treat me like any of his Marines.

That's an honorable man.

[Mr MoOz]

This is a loooong overdue subject for us to touch on.

As it has been well pointed out, each of us react differently at different times of our lives. There is no shame in how you feel. Images of yesterday may not hit us until 20 yrs from now or tonight. What makes TV so powerful is how we can capture the emotions in sound and movement, it is also how we get impacted. When I started, a boss pointed out with a twist on Capra's quote on TV photojournalism: "If you don't feel it, you aren't close enough with your camera."

Keep in mind, that although our cameras only do pixs n sound; we not only see the moment, we smell it, taste it, hear it, and feel the emotions of those involved. I am sure we can all create of list of moments that we have been touched by, good and bad. I have my list, with some great ones both good and bad.
So yeah, it does affect us, each differently than the next. We are after all "News Photographers." What we air is one thing, but we generally don't censor what we cover.

A good friend in the Marines pointed out the following that has been helpful:

"Pain shared, is pain mininized,
Joy shared, is Joy multiplied"

Waiting to talk is the wrong thing to do. Reach out and talk, or better yet reachout to your colleague to share their moment, to just listen without judgement.

[photog3535]

Originally Posted by Mr MoOz

This is a loooong overdue subject for us to touch on.

As it has been well pointed out, each of us react differently at different times of our lives. There is no shame in how you feel. Images of yesterday may not hit us until 20 yrs from now or tonight. What makes TV so powerful is how we can capture the emotions in sound and movement, it is also how we get impacted. When I started, a boss pointed out with a twist on Capra's quote on TV photojournalism: "If you don't feel it, you aren't close enough with your camera."

Keep in mind, that although our cameras only do pixs n sound; we not only see the moment, we smell it, taste it, hear it, and feel the emotions of those involved. I am sure we can all create of list of moments that we have been touched by, good and bad. I have my list, with some great ones both good and bad.
So yeah, it does affect us, each differently than the next. We are after all "News Photographers." What we air is one thing, but we generally don't censor what we cover.

A good friend in the Marines pointed out the following that has been helpful:

"Pain shared, is pain mininized,
Joy shared, is Joy multiplied"

Waiting to talk is the wrong thing to do. Reach out and talk, or better yet reachout to your colleague to share their moment, to just listen without judgement.

Thank you for your comment. When I started this thread awhile back I wasn't sure if it would receive any response. I felt like this subject was completely ignored. It has been great to read all the responses.

It's very true that images can lie dormant for a long time and then suddenly reappear. Anything can trigger... Sights, smells, touches... And sometimes it rarely makes sense why one thing brings out memories of an unrelated subject. For instance, 9/11 reminds me of Katrina. This weekend I was thinking about what it was like to walk through a deserted New Orleans... Seeing an empty Cafe Du Monde... A LA state trooper tank rolling through Jackson Square... The smoke rising from downtown as helicopters put out fires all across town... The endless wave of helicopters that brought rescued refugees or whatever you want to call them to the airport... I wondered why 9/11 brought out these memories and it's simple... I watched 9/11 unfold on TV when I was a green photog and wondered what it would be like to cover such a huge story. Katrina was that experience for me. It was like stepping into a really bad post-apocalyptic movie...

Anyway, might be a good time to remember all the photogs, reporters, and producers who covered 9/11 out in the field. I cannot imagine how you could process images like they saw.

[powens]

People always seem to think that our job is cool until they realize we are the ones shooting all the deaths they see on the news. We covered a story a couple months back were a little girl was abused to death and i put the story idea out to show how police and first responders deal with seeing things like that. I tear up on stories were we have to talk to family members of someone who has died. The stories that really hit home are service members and first reponders. I try to put the best story I can together to honors those whose job it is to put thier lives on the line.

[photog3535]

Originally Posted by powens

People always seem to think that our job is cool until they realize we are the ones shooting all the deaths they see on the news. We covered a story a couple months back were a little girl was abused to death and i put the story idea out to show how police and first responders deal with seeing things like that. I tear up on stories were we have to talk to family members of someone who has died. The stories that really hit home are service members and first reponders. I try to put the best story I can together to honors those whose job it is to put thier lives on the line.

Good stuff... I'm thankful that I never had to encounter any serious physical danger. But the psychological side of what we deal with is very real. Over the last few years it's struck me that in the journalism community there seems to be little discussion about it.

[satpimp]

I am by nature a cynic. Much bounces off, but much doesn't. The ritual of war stories around the water-cooler or live shot has real utility. Talking it out, comparing benchmarks, and the ocassional off color comment can mend a lot and help put perspective on things.

If these are no longer places you find yourself, write out the war stories. Writing, more acutely storytelling, is very cathartic. It often forces one to take a different look.

A Veteran writer once gave me an excercise for writing when stuck. It also works very well for eureka moments.

Take a topic.
Write a letter to someone dear about it. (not to be sent)
Read it back and find the "lead".
You'll always come back with how it makes you feel on some level.

He was an amazing columnist.

Catastophes and conflict leave a mark. I re-tell the good parts but remember more. The stories keep me centered.

Alcohol and drug use were rampant back in the halcyon days of TV. Deadlines unreasonable demands, humanity's lowest common denominator are not new to newsgathering. Nowadays I embrace more constructive pursuits. Write it out. Share it. Make the screenplay. It may help.

Good Luck

Omar