Rad
Well-known member
I’ve said it many times… No one will screw a photog faster than a phellow photog…
Saturday was a bad night for me. I won’t rehash or reprint the three page email I wrote in the wee hours of Sunday morning. But I will talk about the one point that keeps causing me pain. It all boils down to a phellow photog.
I was called in Saturday night for breaking news, grab a live truck and meet a reporter at the scene. I may be a 40-something photog, but I still get the rush and pay my dues this way.
The live shot location was difficult, lots of trees and overhead power lines, and some steep hills. The only place to park the truck was a long block away, with an uphill climb of at least 50 feet. It would take at least 2 cable reels to make it. Our trucks only carry two reels. I carry the first reel down the hill and start back to the truck, getting as close as I can. I grab the second reel only to find someone had twisted off the pig tail… It’s pretty obvious that they attached the reel to the truck and started pulling the cable. The pigtail is still in the floor of the truck all twisted.
In our shop, if you have a bad cable reel, all you have to do is take it off the truck, place it near the back door of the shop, and grab a good one sitting there… you really don’t even need to ‘fess up. But whoever broke this reel didn’t do that. And left me in a pickle.
The broken cable reel was the first domino to fall, setting off a chain of events that ended in the three page email.
It’s like a knife blade between the second and third rib, it’s a cold stab to the heart. In these times of doing more, these times when photogs carry the bulk of the heavy lifting in news, it just makes me cringe when one of us makes it hard on the others. We need to pull together, help the next guy, give each other a break.
Now I’m left wondering which one of my peers didn’t give a crap about their phellow photog.
Saturday was a bad night for me. I won’t rehash or reprint the three page email I wrote in the wee hours of Sunday morning. But I will talk about the one point that keeps causing me pain. It all boils down to a phellow photog.
I was called in Saturday night for breaking news, grab a live truck and meet a reporter at the scene. I may be a 40-something photog, but I still get the rush and pay my dues this way.
The live shot location was difficult, lots of trees and overhead power lines, and some steep hills. The only place to park the truck was a long block away, with an uphill climb of at least 50 feet. It would take at least 2 cable reels to make it. Our trucks only carry two reels. I carry the first reel down the hill and start back to the truck, getting as close as I can. I grab the second reel only to find someone had twisted off the pig tail… It’s pretty obvious that they attached the reel to the truck and started pulling the cable. The pigtail is still in the floor of the truck all twisted.
In our shop, if you have a bad cable reel, all you have to do is take it off the truck, place it near the back door of the shop, and grab a good one sitting there… you really don’t even need to ‘fess up. But whoever broke this reel didn’t do that. And left me in a pickle.
The broken cable reel was the first domino to fall, setting off a chain of events that ended in the three page email.
It’s like a knife blade between the second and third rib, it’s a cold stab to the heart. In these times of doing more, these times when photogs carry the bulk of the heavy lifting in news, it just makes me cringe when one of us makes it hard on the others. We need to pull together, help the next guy, give each other a break.
Now I’m left wondering which one of my peers didn’t give a crap about their phellow photog.