Wanna feel small? Go stand by the ocean. Wanna feel large? Squeeze into the shotgun seat of a police car with a full-blown fancycam and tell the guy with the badge to ‘just ignore you’. If you can still move your legs when that’s over, hobble on over to your nearest Zumba class and tell the ladies to pretend you (and your camera) aren’t even there. They won’t and you’ll leave there feeling like a leper. But wait – there’s more! Swing by the health department, go straight to the VD clinic and start -ahem-erecting your tripod. You’ll be lucky to get out of there with only a rash.

So what’s my point? I don’t know that I have one. Mostly, I’m just riffing on this totally kick-ass picture of Adam Krolfifer (taken by reporter Kira Klapper, no less!) What with its foreboding horizon and sepia tones, it truly is beautiful. Then again, so is an early morning crime scene, if the light is just right. Honest to God, I once found myself marveling at the way shadows fell over the shattered glass of a violated Stop-n-Rob. But rendering splendor from the glum and the mundane is something we lenslingers pride ourselves in (that, and steering a news van with our knee). Why, it all reminds me of a quote from the master:

That’s truer than it should be be, considering it came from the drug-addled brain of the late great Hunter S. Thompson. The father of Gonzo Journalsim was more of a sports writer than photog, but he had an eye for detail (and nose for blow) that I’ve long admired. Those of us who do carry cameras for a living know it as fact: For every ballerina that preens on your screen, half a dozen body bags must pass through your glass. Remember that next time you’re waiting for the medical examiners to arrive. Just don’t get in their way when they do…

Those guys don’t play.